where are we going from here?

[x]

"It's over, we're free..."

With her fox pelt draped loosely over her shoulders as a familiar comfort, Thalia stood before all the family she had left. Knowing that this would very likely be the last time they stood together like this, she wasn't sure what to say, and she was sure that uncertainty was reflected in her expression. When she finally managed to speak again, it came out soft and almost desperate, a plea for someone else to answer. "So what do we do now? Where are you planning to go?"

(What do I do, she didn't dare to say. It wouldn't be fair, wouldn't be right - this ending wasn't just her own; they'd all lived this story, each bloody chapter leaving them with scars they would carry for the rest of their lives.)

Where were they going, the family she'd stood with - side by side, shoulder to shoulder - to the last? What was she meant to do, lost for a purpose as she was?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that they were reunited with families long since lost as she was made to part ways with her own, the one she was born to and the one she had chosen. Roe was leaving them, was leaving her - she couldn't follow, bid as she was to stay, couldn't bear herself to stray from his one parting request - and now the cats she had grown up with, the only ones who could ever hope to understand all that she'd lived through, were set to start new chapters of their lives.

(Where did that leave her?)

The ThunderClan cat she'd spoken to had turned away when they learned she couldn't recall the kit she had once been, and she thought it was safe to say that they wouldn't want the one she'd grown into. She couldn't live her life like that, crushed by the weight of expectations she would never be able to fulfill. She would never be the Laurelkit they lost, and she was starting to think they would never be able to accept that.

(The forest wasn't home. Not in any way that mattered.)

That their paths were set to split was something she couldn't bring herself to accept, though she knew it was true. She knew it in the way her paws still ached to follow after Roe, to chase after the remains of everything she thought she knew, that she was not enough to keep her family together. She would never want to be, if it meant holding them down when they were meant to fly.

(They were bound to the clans as she was bound to what had once been Asylum, but their legacies were not tinted with the same disgrace.)

After Roe’s speech had finished, the crowd dispersed throughout the camp and the lands beyond. In one direction, Oasis and a new beginning; in the other, the cats who refused to be anything but Asylum; and, sitting in their own tiny group, a single generation of trainees. Pyrik’s gaze swept across them, hesitance bare in his expression. While there were some faces (all right, one face) he could live quite happily without, every single one of them had at the very least been a reliable foothold in a world he couldn’t trust. They might not have liked Pyrik, but they knew him.

“During the battle, um—” Though he felt the rumble in his throat, he didn’t recognize his own voice at first. It came out half hopeful, half dull and tired. Older than he’d ever heard himself sound. Pyrik braced his paws against the soil. “Someone recognized me. Two someones, actually. From ShadowClan. I don’t know how long it’ll be or what’ll happen after I talk to them more, but that’s…that’s where I’m going.”

Come with me. You’re my family, too, even more than they are. Pyrik opened his mouth again, swallowed, closed it. If Thalia hadn’t been from the Clans, too, she wouldn’t have been the first one to uncover the truth; she had her own place to go back to. The most he could hope was that she’d stay in the forest, when as far back as he remembered, she’d been less than half a day’s walk away. He swallowed again, pushed his nose up from where it had drifted toward the ground. ”...Thalia? What about you?”

"We're free..." echoed Katana as she stood up and looked around. The she-cat breathed in deeply as she she felt the weight that had once burdened her shoulders fall away. She was no longer being slowed by the Asylum. She was free. It felt... it felt good. Great, even. It was finally over. A very small part of her felt a bit down that the one constant of her life was breaking away. Despite everything, the Asylum had been a huge part of her life and now that it was gone, it left a significant hole in her being that she desperately needed to fill. It made her uncomfortable. She desired something else to take it's place.

"I'm going to go wherever you go, Thal. Wherever you are feels like home. I can't leave you. Not with everything that happened. Whatever you decide to do, I won't be far behind. We're a duo. You're my other half. I'd be crazy if I let you go." she said with finality, head high. Her posture faltered as a previously archived thought innocently passed by the forefront of her mind. "However," she continued slowly, "I need to do something first. Something before I settle down with you Thal." The she-cat looked down nervously before continuing again, "I need to know where I came from. I need to know which clan I had been taken from. I... I just can't move forward without knowing. I-I guess it's just me wanting some closure... and wanting to give my parents and clan closure. I know I said that we're a duo but this is the last thing I need to do by myself. Just like you all found out by yourselves, I want that for me too. After I get my closure, I'll make my way back to you Thal... I... I hope that's okay..."

As she awaited her best friend's response, she took some time to scan the other missing kits. They all had changed so much. They all had grown so much. She knew she had as well. She felt herself much more mature than before. Before she had her eyes opened. She wanted to be a better cat. Someone that truly deserved to be by Thalia's side.

"I haven't - I haven't decided where I'm going, yet," Thalia admitted, when Pyrik had finished speaking. "I need to take some time to think it over. I had thought maybe ThunderClan, but... I went there, to see if I could remember anything, and when I said that I couldn't the warrior I'd run into left. I guess the hurt goes both ways... I'm not sure. But I don't - I won't just disappear, I swear. You'll always know where to find me, once I find myself."

Katana spoke next, and Thalia's heart soared for her. "We'll always be a duo, it doesn't matter where we are," she assured her, nudging her partner playfully. They had all the time in the world to find themselves, now. "I understand. We'll always be a team, but... We need to be able to stand on our own four paws, too. And it doesn't matter where I decide to go - I'll be waiting for you, when you're ready."