Move Onward, Not There Yet (Solo)

Honeytongue hesitated as she stepped from the camp, ears slicked back as she spared a glance over her shoulder. There was a budding seed of guilt in her stomach as her eyes lingered toward the warrior’s den, swallowing as she recalled her promise to Stormbringer - to not leave the camp by herself without telling the warrior. She stood there, one paw raised as she tried to decide whether to take the step away from the camp...Before her eyes darkened slightly.

...Where had promises gotten her so far?

A soft growl escaped the golden she-cat as she turned, paws slamming into the ground as she threw herself forward into a run. Torrentstar was dead - he had been buried with honor. No matter how angry RiverClan had been at him for his actions, not one of them wanted him gone - not like this. But now...Now it was time to come to terms with what this meant for RiverClan. For her. He was dead. Killed. Murdered.

And she was alone.

She came to a clumsy stop, kicking up snow as she glanced around the territory. Where...Where were she to go? Ivystar had declared that cats weren’t to leave the camp by themselves - she had managed to get a...Twisting of that rule for her, to give her space to mourn. If she was alone, she was to stay as far away from borders as she could. Stay well within the safety of the territory until they understood what had happened. That only left her a couple of places to go.

So she turned, deciding upon the Broken Pools as she started her walk. But quickly she found herself picking up speed, paws kicking up snow behind her as she tried to out race her own thoughts. She...She didn’t really want to think about things, of the reality of her situation. And so she focused on everything else - the pounding of her paws, the sight of her breath curling around her muzzle with every gasp of effort, the sound of her heart beating in her own ears. Her mind remained focused on the efforts of her run - of the landscape shifting around her until she realized that she had hit the Broken Pools.

At her destination, she attempted to come to another clumsy stop but this was far from graceful. She blinked as her paw pads brushed against something beneath the snow - just as cold but smooth. Ice. Her paws slipped from beneath her as she realized that she had apparently attempted to stop on one of the pools which had frozen over in the recent cold snap. The snow flew as she was sent tumbling into a snowbank, everything going white until she managed to rub and shake the snow from her face.

Blinking against the biting cold of the snow that lingered, she stared at the gray skies ahead of her as she struggled to catch her breath. Her lungs heaved and after a few seconds, she realized she was gasping just to recover...But that she was actually sobbing, tears running down her face. She had not managed to out run her own thoughts after all. At all once, the heaviness of her reality came crashing down as a true, heartrending cry left her throat and she threw her paws over her face.

Pebblestreak. Leafkit. Tigerpaw. Redmask….And now Torrentstar. Her family - her blood family - was gone. She was all that was left in RiverClan, of what remained of the ‘proud’ Torrentstar line. She rolled to the side, pressing her face into the snow as tears rolling down her face as she dimly wondered if they would freeze in the coldness. ...What was she to do now? So long ago she had made a promise to her siblings that she wouldn’t leave them. She had made a promise to her father that she would always be by his side.

And what good was that now? They had left her. Every promise she had said, meant with her whole being… Void. Useless.

...Of course, it was bound to happen. She had been stupid - so stupid. Think that her stupid promises would somehow keep them here - everybody left her. Everybody was going to die, she was a fool to think otherwise. That...That it was worth making a promise to always be at their side. She had lost so much and she was only going to lose more...If she wasn’t going to be the one to die first.

Her sobs slowly died as a bitterness and anger rose in her chest, direction only towards herself. She should have seen this coming - ever since Leafkit had died, never making it to being an apprentice with them… Life was unfair, it was cruel. What was the point of anything? Promises meant nothing, you couldn’t count on them. It was stupid...She was stupid. She was alone, she was…

…

...Her mind slowly drifted back to how blissful the morning had been, before she had...Remembered the events of the day before. She...She hadn’t been alone. No, she had awoken bathed in the scent of Stormbringer and the newly named Ivystar, feeling her friends’ warmth next to her as they all stirred awake - having shared in each other’s presence the night before to ease the pain of Torrentstar’s sudden demise. But to open up her eyes and to see Stormbringer’s stunning pelt, to be greeted with such a beautiful sight as her two friends laying intertwined with her. It was...Lovely. She could feel her cheeks warm a little as she curled up tighter, reminiscing in the many memories she had from every morning since the two had agreed to share a nest.

Why...It was exactly why she had asked to share a nest with Stormbringer in the first place - to see that sight. ...Er, so that she could wake up in the company of another, she quickly amended that thought in her mind. Ever since Mudfrost’s death, she had been terrified of the idea of waking up alone to find another friend dead. But now she couldn’t be left in her stew in her thoughts, to have somebody worth climbing out of their nest for. And now they had the unexpected presence of Ivystar, who apparently sought after the same thing. Unexpected...But welcomed. Oh so welcomed.

Maybe that was the point of it all.

She blinked, raising her head a little as she looked at her paws. She had friends, lovely friends. Friends who cared about her. Death...Death was going to happen. There was no point denying it, she had already seen so much. But… She felt so happy when she would awaken and see Stormbringer - Ivystar -, enough to forget all the pain, all the sadness. It would hurt if she ever lost Stormbringer or the others but… If she got to greet every day until then with a sight like that? Then just maybe it was worth it.

She smiled softly at the thought, but she couldn’t ignore the aching pain that still flashed through her. It hurt. Losing Torrentstar. She had been angry but he was still family. She had wanted to forgive him one day, to try to make right for the both of them but… Stormbringer would make things easier but it didn’t solve the problem. Getting back to being...Normal wasn’t going to happen even with the revelation that maybe the briefest moments of happiness made all the pain worth it.

It was still pain. It still hurt like she could never imagine.

But…

Ivystar, Stormbringer, Driftingpaw, Spiderpaw, Egretstorm...Dappleshine, Dacedream. She wasn’t as alone as she had thought - they might not have been blood family to her but they still meant the world. They were worth trying for. To be...Happy for. She couldn’t always promise that she would be happy...Promises were useless. You could never truly keep them. But she could do her best and maybe that would be enough. Her ears twitched as she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath as she pushed herself to her paws.

She shivered, shaking the snow from her pelt as she glanced back toward the camp. She had come out here to find herself, to come to terms with everything. She had expected to be back at the bottom - to feel the same emptiness she had felt when Mudfrost had died. When she had questioned why people kept leaving her. But...They weren’t. She had Stormbringer and maybe now Ivystar - at least for a little while - to remind her of that every morning.

Despite the sorrow she had felt when she stumbled across Torrentstar’s body, of how defeated she had felt when she had snuck from the camp just a short time ago… Slowly, Honeytongue started to trot her way back to the camp. There was a strange calmness that fell over the golden she-cat as a soft smile worked its way across her muzzle. Despite everything…

She oddly felt like she was going to be okay in the end.