The Promised Hunt {closed}

Raventail had been distant lately, leaving camp at odd times, coming back smelling of moist heather and Greenleaf rye. Finchstar didn't criminalize him for it, feeling as if it would be hypocritical to strive to ensnare a cat when the leader himself wished for the same freedom. But he didn't adore the secrecy. The orange and white tabby remembered first talking with Raventail - then Ravenpaw on Outlook Rock two moons ago. They had spoken freely then, but perhaps maybe Finchstar was asking too much now, to expect he'd do the same. Now having lost his mentor, and a friend. Given, quite some time had passed since Brookclover's death. But the grief never truly went away. A thousand moons could cross the sky, and Finchstar would still think of her, his heart longing. He expected Raventail was no different. The leader had failed to help with the grief, having shut himself away after his mate's death. And the whole clan seemed to take the hit. He had reconciled with Aspenpaw and Barleytuft, both different relationships, both different cats, but both of whom meant so much to Finchstar. But he had never gotten around to giving Raventail a proper apology. They had been together for two deaths now. Brookclover's. And Murkpaw's. Not something to brag about, but a rare feat all the same.

"Two moons ago, on Outlook Rock, I offered to take you on a hunt." Finchstar approached the black tom warily, feeling not quite as hesitant as the last few times. He had gotten good at ripping open his façade and letting the world see his broken soul inside. Again, not quite a thing to be proud off, but a skill nonetheless. "But after a few rain-checks... I'm free today. How about yourself?" Those witty words spoke more than the dry humor they were drenched in. The rain-checks were deaths, and the hunt today would be more of a therapy session. Finchstar didn't know whether Raventail or himself needed it more. Whatever the conclusion, it was time to resolve the wrongs he had made, as he had been doing slowly for the past moon. Finchstar watched the day sun, blinking slowly in its brightness, and then set off towards the territory.

Raventail may have shut down, but he hadn’t managed to separate himself completely. Dappleshine’s words had found a crack in his chest and torn it wide open. It was as she’d said: Grief was the price of love. Proof of how much Brookclover had meant to him; proof of all the hunts with Murkpaw he wished he hadn’t missed. He would carry them forever, alongside his parents (and, StarClan willing, no one else for moons to come), but however much it hurt for however long, to regret meeting them would never cross his mind. He was not made for solitude. His drifting paws hadn’t given him the strength to take that first step forward, nor had they formed a rock for him to fall back on. Instead, the first tentative bonds he was forging with the cats he slept and ate beside served that purpose. He wasn’t ready to face every single day, but he could face most of them. He couldn’t always stomach the taste of rabbit, but he could comfortably call it his favorite again. Some days, recovery was a sprint; others, it was a crawl; the smallest pawstep was still a pawstep.

Making up with Finchstar was more than a pawstep. It was a step too big for Raventail to make on his own. His nerve had a way of abandoning him when he thought about barging into the leader’s nest and starting that particular conversation. Where could he even begin? What was he supposed to say? How could he fix this when part of him was still very much stung by it? But Finchstar had extended a paw for Raventail’s sake once before. Though they were equal, where courage was concerned, Finchstar still had him beat.

He regarded the taller tom quietly from where he lay, surprise flickering in the depths of his eyes. All this time, he’d assumed that promise had been discarded the night of Brookclover’s vigil. Grief left little room for things like that (though between the two of them, there hadn’t been any efforts to make some), so he’d just…given up on it, the same way he’d given up on hearing stories from the mountains or telling Finchstar about his friends from the lake. Yet Finchstar remembered. It was a mouse-brained thought, even more foolish that it meant so much to him, but…maybe there was hope after all.

Raventail almost said as much, then swapped it out at the last moment. ”Free as a hare,” he said, a touch short of careless. ”It’ll be nice to get out again.” That much was true; if he and Finchstar were going to talk things out (stars, no matter how much it scared him, they needed to talk things out), he didn't want half the Clan to overhear. Leaving the grassy ledge upon which he'd been resting with no outward hesitation, he followed Finchstar out of the camp. They had only just passed through the gorse tunnel when he broke the silence: ”You, uh…you don’t mind having me here?” It barely sounded like a question; Raventail, a tail-length behind Finchstar, stared straight ahead.

Grass swept to part way for their paws as they padded through the moor. The scratch of those green stalks were the only thing Finchstar could focus on to subdue the constant ticking in his mind. Every moment that passed, the tension grew even thicker. One would think Finchstar would be good at making reparations, but each and every cat he had torn himself from were all very much different. The apology he gave to Aspenpaw wouldn't work on a cat like Barleytuft. And the apology he gave to Barleytuft wouldn't work on a cat like Raventail. And for Finchstar, it was more than the apologies... with every word cut from his façade, he felt more like himself. It was a strange thing, each and every piece of himself he laid at his friends' feet, and it strengthened him. One would think the leader would degrade to dust with the rate he had been crumbling, confessing. But life was strange indeed.

"You know... she liked this spot." It was time to heal once more. Third stop around the sun. Finchstar caught Raventail's yellow eyes and felt the tension melt into the grass, now being replaced with a clear hesitation. It wasn't heavy, but it was a liquid, wet, dripping between his paws as he tried to cling to some sense of normality. This wouldn't be like Aspenpaw. And this wouldn't be like Barleytuft. This would be new, as it always was. "Stars, I should get it over with. You'd think a cat would be tired of all the heavy conversations. Some days I wish we could skip the formalities and watch as the world became peaceful once more." They stopped atop a larger hill, not quite as tall as the one Outlook Rock sat on, but tall all the same. From here, he could watch the heather sway with the wind, and it felt like his headspace. Lost, clinging for any sense of familiarity. And perhaps Finchstar was stunned that there was none. He had conversed with many cats, and the tom was good at it. If there was one thing fate had blessed him with, it was the ability to play the game. To bluff, and to win. To compliment and croon, and Finchstar loved it. He loved his clan and the cats in it. So why now did he struggle?

"I know it's not that easy..." He continued from his past monologue, eyes catching on Raventail's fur as it was lit with a golden tinge in the light. "I promised you many things that night on that rock. I'm sure you remember... but only a few of them I have managed to fulfill. I said I would be there when you needed me. And I wasn't. Tell me, what did you do then?"

No definitive answer. The camp called to him, but he closed his ears to it, letting the whisper of his paws over the grass sweep it away. Raventail sensed this wasn’t going to be a hunt, at least not wholly, which was fine; honestly, if he and Finchstar parted ways without addressing what had happened, he thought he might combust, or just drag Finchstar back onto the moor. Raventail had been running from this long enough as it was. He was getting closer to Barleytuft, and he needed to be there for Dappleshine, and Mosspaw and Leafpaw would be waiting at the upcoming Gathering—but while they were all friends, none of them were Finchstar. He was tired of missing someone who scaled the same hills he did, took fresh-kill from the same pile, slept mere fox-lengths away every night.

At first, Raventail said nothing. He stopped beside Finchstar, following his eyes to the sea of heather. However his feelings about the moor had changed, it was still at its prettiest when viewed from a height. In his periphery, Finchstar looked toward him again; though his mouth quirked in response, Raventail didn’t turn. He waited for the words to rise and spill forth like waters rushing through the Gorge the way they’d used to. It didn’t matter if they weren’t perfect. This wasn’t about matching wits with a fellow warrior anymore. Either he and Finchstar would walk away friends, or he would push his claws into the rift between them until it was irreparable. He felt he deserved an apology, however kittish it was to believe so, but he felt just as strongly he owed one. This conversation was as treacherous as the moor itself; honesty, despite its pitfalls, was the only way through.

The young warrior set his paws firm against the earth and said, ”I found a friend. She listened to me, even though she didn’t know Brookclover." His mentor's name still had a way of getting caught on things as it left his mouth, but every time he said it, it got easier. Another part of keeping her alive. With his ears angled forward, he stared hard at nothing. "It was like she understood. She didn't show me how to run, but she helped me find my paws so I could start teaching myself. But before that…I left. Like you did.” Hurt bled into his tone unhindered. Raventail hunched his shoulders, tail brushing the hilltop. ”I was alone, and it didn’t help, no matter where I went. Did it help you? Just watching WindClan go by?"

Spitting criticism did nothing to lessen the weight. He may not have forgiven Finchstar, but he understood too well to be properly angry with him anymore. In a quiet voice lacking its previous edge, he said, ”It wasn’t even about the promises. There are hundreds of rabbits, probably as many sunsets. I could've watched them with anyone.” The fight had left him; the ache lingered. ”After Murkpaw, you were my only friend. That's all I wanted.” Whether bestowed by a leader or StarClan themselves, a name changed little within the cat who bore it, and Raventail was not so far from apprenticeship after all.

A friend. Finchstar wished he could've watched how that unfolded. He wondered who Raventail could possibly be referring to, but perhaps that didn't demand as much attention as the open heart in front of him. As the leader had learned, it was only courtesy to respond to the gushing of emotions, with a raging storm of his own. He had become good at breaking down and laying out how he felt, setting each heart string in a row for display. And the tom made a good show of it, secrets were a treasure he no longer possessed, but perhaps those were a luxury only the cold and broken could be privileged with. Finchstar had been the latter for quite a while, and slowly, slowly, he pulled himself from the pit, setting aside his rights as well. No more secrets. His heart was on display.

"She sounds intriguing, your friend. I do perhaps owe her a "thank you," for being there for you when I should have been." Finchstar let out a heavy sigh and found a seat on the grass, their hunt coming to a halting crash. Today, they would be hunting hope, not rabbits. "I was wrong to hide away from WindClan as I did. I've said it before and I will say it again. A thousand times if you ask me, I owe you that much." And he had gone over this so many times, to the point where it was almost routine. Perhaps Finchstar was good at it. It wasn't a thing to be proud of, and Raventail didn't deserve the leftovers of whatever the leader had revealed. If they were to mend the gap, it would be memorable.

The guilt alone was enough to sear the feeling into Finchstar's heart. His actions had been the same, but each matter of guilt he felt for his clanmates, that would always come as a shock. Raventail had been like a third son to Brookclover, one who was living, breathing. She never voiced it, but it was as prominent as the wind. His late mate had made a stunning mentor, and Finchstar imagined she would have raised their kits as such. After her death the tom ignored their pseudo-son. It was cruel and evil, but perhaps for that time, he believed there truly was nothing without her. But now he saw it, much too late. The black tom's form stood out starkly against the white sky. Raventail was very much real, very much present, and like the others, Finchstar hung him out to dry. Alone. "A friend." He echoed the warrior's words, yellow eyes glazing over. How could he have missed something so obvious? And something he excelled at? Finchstar had been a friend before, a loyal, kind, and loving friend to the forest. But never had he been asked. It was unconditional before, a beam of light onto all cats he witnessed. But now as Raventail laid his heart out and asked specifically for the thing Finchstar held in such abundance, the leader realized he had failed. And it hurt. "Forgive me..." He rasped, feeling crushed by the weight of what he had done. "I don't deserve such a thing... I know. And if you wish to pad back to camp and leave me here I wouldn't blame you." He squeezed his yellow eyes shut as he waited for Raventail to reject him, to seal what had taken place. But Finchstar's stubborn optimism wouldn't allow him to fall victim to current events. Raventail would not slip through the cracks so easily. "Grief is a fickle thing. Sometimes it shows its face, and other times it is scarce. But no matter where it hides, it doesn't excuse me from leaving you when you needed me." Barleytuft's words echoed in his head and Finchstar took a shot in the dark. "Some would say you care for me, and as obvious as it must be, I missed it. I apologize, Raventail. If you can find a shred of mercy in your heart that I've broken so, let us watch another sunset once more. And another. And another. And each sunrise I'll be there. You have my word."

When Finchstar sat, Raventail followed suit without a sound. He had no idea what to expect; with Finchstar, he rarely did. That had never made him uneasy before. Though some small, insistent part of him wanted to jump to the topic of Dappleshine and pretend the rest had never happened, he knew it wasn’t possible. Once something was said, it couldn’t be taken back, only talked around until it was repaired. Raventail had learned that lesson well before he’d learned the moor’s borders. So, instead, he listened, gradually lifting his head to look at Finchstar. Despite everything he’d witnessed in the past few moons—Finchstar throwing himself into the dirt; Finchstar drifting through camp like he’d left half of himself behind in StarClan—there was still something strange and uncomfortable about seeing the leader like this, genuine in a way completely different from what Raventail was used to. Then again, if Finchstar didn't think himself above speaking openly with an apprentice, he wasn't above apologizing to an equal.

”You have my word,” Finchstar said. Through his words and tone, the leader had made it clear he understood. Another cat—wiser, colder, less lonely—may have chosen differently, but for the younger tom, there was no question of what his answer would be. As he'd believed Finchstar before, he would once again. The trouble, as ever, was choosing how to express it.

With a quiet sense of purpose, Raventail uncurled to approach Finchstar, navigating the short distance between them as carefully as one might navigate the edges of the Gorge. Then he pressed his head to the taller tom’s shoulder. ”Of course I forgive you.” Just saying so couldn’t magically wash away the last of the hurt. It would fade as time passed, just as his grief had, to be forgotten long before he could even dream of forgetting Brookclover and Murkpaw. What he had cemented was his resolve to let it go. ”I could’ve been a better friend, too,” he continued softly, closing his eyes. ”I do care, and that means…that means I could have found you first. I'm sorry I didn't.” Within every leader beat a heart no more extraordinary than the hearts of their Clanmates. No cat was strong enough to do everything on their own; Raventail had always believed as much, yet he’d been scared enough to keep his distance. He would never let that fear stop him again. ”We both messed up. But I say it’s behind us, if—if you say so, too. There’s still so much I have to tell you.”

His voice crumbled under the strain of keeping it steady. There really were so many things—his friends, his adventures past, present, and future, the results of his first attempts at mentorship. He’d met many cats in his short life, but he saw himself clearest within Finchstar. If anyone could understand a close friendship across Clan boundaries, a need to see the forest they all shared, or a longing for the peace they’d had on the lake’s eastern shore, it would be WindClan’s leader. His friend once and for all.

The moor was still. No interrupting rabbits, no sinkholes; only the breeze, steady as ever, combing through his fur. Raventail reluctantly stepped back and settled on the ground again, surveying Finchstar with bright yellow eyes. ”You know, if we stay out here long enough, we’ll be watching a sunset whether we want to or not.” They could have their hunt after all. Perhaps not today, maybe not even tomorrow—but someday, they would have it.

Again like all the rest, Raventail came and placed his head on Finchstar's shoulder, and the leader found himself overwhelmed once more. All the love in the forest, all the grace and the mercy, and it had found him. Raventail wielded it well, solemnly, like a cat who had captured the wind in his heart. And these wild lives, spinning and bounding over the earth, Aspenpaw, Barleytuft, Raventail. How had they possibly found him in this wild storm that was life? With Brookclover, Finchstar had been astounded, utterly in love with the beautiful soul that seared herself into his heart. And she loved him back, a fiery, fierce thing that drove the leader to stay with his clan and wait. And Finchstar thought her an anomaly, a blip in the stars, a wonderful being to break the mundane. And perhaps that was why he loved her so. But there were more exceptions, more souls that loved just as fiercely, flying into Finchstar's resolve and shocking him with each and every movement. It didn't illegitimate his late mate, nothing would ever be capable of such a thing, instead, it proved to the leader that perhaps love was not lucky. Perhaps it was constant, ever present, and yet something to be cherished. He had thought all was lost when Brookclover died, and slowly, ever so slowly, his eyes opened to the world once more. Naked, lonely in its light, and yet he was subject to his friends' care, he was defenseless to their affection, and as Raventail placed his head over Finchstar's shoulder, the leader let out a long sigh, seemingly releasing all his hesitations, throwing himself into existence again. Forgiveness.

"I do like a good story." Finchstar whispered carefully after Raventail had finished speaking. He was right, they could wait out the day until the sun dipped below the moor, and then could watch a sunset just as the tom had promised. And perhaps it was alright to truly move on, it was the only way they'd heal. And Finchstar wanted to heal. He wanted Raventail to heal. And the leader made a vow he'd be there for it, no matter how the wind changed. Love would never die, and it did not just reside in one cat, but many. The void in the two toms' hearts would never fully heal, but they'd get better at treating it, and when lonely, they'd have each other. "We have today... and there will be more. Tell me about the lake. Tell me about you and tell me about this she-cat." Finchstar's interest was true and noble, he wanted to fly through Raventail's memories like a bird, to listen to the black tom, to hang on every word. There was no accusation in the leader's voice, just a drive to listen. And it wasn't something he could push at, it wasn't like hunting or fighting. Listening required patience, it required acceptance, and Finchstar would use all his assets to do so. "We will heal together, under the sun. And soon time itself will wipe this stain from our memories. Maybe we'll grow old... I know now I'm not alone. And I will never leave you to be lonely, it is my promise." He gave Raventail a wide smile, a wave of affection rushing through Finchstar's heart. And then he turned his gaze to the sky. "Let's watch the sunset then, shall we? We will find our peace someday Raventail, and I will be your friend until that day, and then forever after."