Piece by Piece (Closed for Tara)

Ashstorm walked around camp, looking for Bloodstrike.  It had been sort of weird after the Asylum got taken down.  It felt like he had missed much of her life, especially as an apprentice it was had for her that he was gone.  For a while when the Asylum was there and he wasn't in Skyclan, she hated it and felt so sad.  But eventually she let go of much of the hope she had, so when her father came back to the clan everything felt weird.

Even after he was back, they never were really close.  Or, at least, not to the point were he felt like a father to her.  Every now and again she would talk to him, but not that much.  Especially after he had kits with a different cat then Smokefeather, in even a different clan.  Ashstorm didn't really care about the different clans, but she did think that a deputy should think about how it would reflect on there clan a little bit more... and that he should have thought about how his family would feel.

But she wasn't trying to find him to tell him that he was wrong or anything.  Instead, she was going to see if he wanted to go hunting with her, it hopes that they could talk and that it would help make them feel more like family again.  Once she spotted Bloodstrike, she went up to him.  She was sort of debating not to, but decided to anyway.  "Um, dad?"  She said.  "If your busy, that's fine, but I was wondering if you might was to go for a walk or hunting or something?"

Bloodstrike had been busy. Taking on the duties of leader and medicine cat as well as keeping up with his own duties as deputy had worn him down. That being said, once Ashstorm approached him and used the tone that she had... a wave of guilt hit him and put even more weight on his shoulders. "I'm not busy," He lied. "We can certainly walk... or hunt. I'll leave it up to you." Bloodstrike was determined to carry his clan forward through this rough time. That also meant maintaining the relationships of his family too. He waited for Ashstorm to lead the way, because at this moment, he didn't want to be making any decisions right now.

"How have you been Ashstorm?" Such a simple question... yet it carried so much meaning. He didn't mean just recently. He meant since he had been imprisoned... and how had she fared through recent events as well? He didn't want to push the question though, as he wasn't sure how comfortable she actually was talking with him. He would be accepting of whatever information she was willing to share.

Ashstorm smiled happily at her father when he said that he was not busy.  She knew things had been... weird in Skyclan the past few months and she was worried that he might have been busy and it would just end up being an awkward interaction that she would be hoping to forget.  Thankfully, that was not the case.  The thought that he may have been lying about how much he was doing had not occurred to the she-cat.

She started off to the edge of the Skyclan camp after realizing that he was waiting for her to lead.  The question he asked she was not very prepared to answer, mostly because she didn't know how much he wanted to know.  "I guess not too great," she said honestly.  "When you were taken away I didn't know what to think as an apprentice.  I didn't even really know what to think of the Asylum.  I hadn't even been to my first Gathering yet.  It was hard to know exactly what was going on, all I knew was that it was bad."

She paused for a minute.  She wondered if Bloodstrike meant just in general for a second, but upon realizing that she had already given him part of the story, so she may as well finish it.  "Then, after a while of the Asylum being there, I sort of got used to them.  I realized that I couldn't really do anything to stop it and because they became so much of my life for when I was an apprentice and early warrior, I began to stop fighting and except that they were there.  Actually, my mate was a member of the Asylum, which I think a lot of our family wasn't happy about.  Then I had Quietstep and two other kits.  One of my kits got carried off by a hawk at a young age, which you might already know because Mountainheart got carried off by the same hawk.  Only Sneezingpaw never came back..."

She thought about her lost daughter, wondering what happened to her.  But she quickly went back on the subject she was originally talking about.  "And then the Asylum left and my mate died.  But I was very happy to see that you were still alive.  I wondered about that for a while, even though Dawnhawk said that you were alive, I didn't know exactly what words that came out of his mouth that I could believe."

Ashstorm was pretty sure that was all the big things that happened while her father was imprisoned.  She was fine sharing everything that happened, because she thought he might want to know, but because she wasn't sure it felt sort of weird.  Now, the only things she could talk about was what was happening in the clan then.  "And now we're here.  Honestly, I can't believe that Blossomstep is dead."  Her ears went back and her eyes went down.  "I never should have gone to that stupid fight," she quietly muttered to herself, unsure if Bloodstrike could hear her or not.  She sighed and then looked back at him with an expression of empathy on her face and clear in her eyes.  "I'm sorry.  It must be really hard on you too.  I-I wished that things could have ended differently.  I wish that almost everything could have ended differently."

Another pause, as she changed the topic slightly back to what it was originally.  "How about you?  How have you been through everything?"

As Ashstorm talked, Bloodstrike listened. There was a heavy guilt in his chest that sank down to his stomach and burned like a hot coal the longer she continued. He should have been there. He shouldn't have fought the Asylum when they came. He had been so interested in his own personal beliefs that he'd abandoned his family to their fates. What kind of a father was he? What kind of a leader did he intend to be?

"I wish I had made different choices myself." He admitted, his head sinking lower than he usually held it and his eyes on the forest floor. "All we can do is learn from it, and sometimes the lessons we learn are taught in the most painful ways." How had he been through everything? A train wreck, to put it lightly. Ashstorm probably wanted more of a conversation than that however, and he intended to give her what she wanted.

"I haven't fully recovered, to tell you the truth. While I was imprisoned, I thought I had died and gone to the Dark Forest. I didn't think I'd ever see my family again, so I let all of you slip away from my thoughts and acted like the feral animal that I needed to be to survive there. I killed several of my captors, I'm sure. They barely fed me, barely gave me enough water to live and they stormed my cell every so often to hold me down and inflict pain on me. They even made me flinch at my own name, expecting pain any time I heard it. I still managed to break free sometimes and hit a few of them. I know for sure I mauled at least three and they had to drag them out. I think it became a game to them, to see who could harass me the most without getting killed."

He tried desperately to remember some specific details, but he just couldn't. His mind had been so fuzzy back then in that cell. Bloodstrike was fairly convinced they had done something to him... something that had a similar effect to poppy seeds. His pain would dull sometimes inexplicably and a feeling of content would wash over him for no reason. But once those feelings went away, he was always immediately sick, with rapid heart beat, diarrhea, nausea and wave after wave of physical pain.

But even poppy seeds began to have little to no effect while he lie in Beechface's medicine den. So Bloodstrike would lay in the nest and suffer. He felt like his bones were breaking with every muscle movement no matter how small. He could see his ribcage at one point and yet had no appetite. It wasn't an experience that he ever wanted to go through again.

"I still have nightmares sometimes. That's why it's best to always wake me from a distance. The worst part is that I feel guilty for not being there for my clan. I feel terrible that some of my kits don't know who I am all because I chose to try to fight an army of cats rather than just swallow my pride and surrender. I hope I never make that mistake again." Even still Bloodstrike had a hard time surrendering or retreating from a fight. The fight against Windclan and Riverclan was evidence of that. He didn't stop fighting until he lost consciousness... and it had been the best he had felt in a long time. Why was he like this?

"You seem like you have a better head on your shoulders than me, Ashstorm. Try not to change." He gave her a chuckle, though it was partly in pain. A silence followed, and Bloodstrike couldn't think of anything else to really say. The conversation had gotten heavier than he expected it to. Was this what she wanted? She could change the subject if she wanted to. He wouldn't object.

Ashstorm hated hearing how badly the Asylum had treated Bloodstrike.  A guilty feeling washed over her.  She had been too happy to hear her father was alive that she had never asked what was happening to him.  If she had known when she was an apprentice she would have tried to do something to get him out.  If she had even just known where he was, she would have told Wolfstar immediately and maybe something could have changed.  Maybe everything would have been better than it was.  But she didn't do anything.  She was too weak to do anything.

"You shouldn't blame yourself," she said back to his comment about what a mistake it was for him to fight them.  "You couldn't have looked into the future to see what was going to happen.  You were just fighting for your clan and if all of us were free and did the same maybe they wouldn't have taken over Skyclan in the first place."

After Bloodstrike complimented her, she didn't know what to think or say for that matter.  She hoped that she had a good head on her shoulders, but she had looked up to Bloodstrike for much of her life.  Not just because that's what most cats do to there fathers, but also because her father was the deputy.  Her father would one day lead the entire clan.  As far as looking up to him went, she had done it less for some time, but she still did.  Ashstorm did not know what to say back, so she just held her eyes to the ground.

A bit of silence followed and she didn't know exactly what she could or should say to anything.  Would it be good to change the conversation at this point?  She wondered.  She determined that it would be best, considering it would be pretty strange to go back to it after the silence.

"And what about now?"  She finally asked.  "With everything happening, not about the Asylum, I mean... How are you doing?"

"Well I'm glad you've forgiven me so easily. It seems like some cats haven't." Some cats being Beechface. At her next question he had to think for a moment. "I miss my mom. I feel awful that I wasn't here to protect Maplepaw and the others. Honestly Ashstorm, I feel like a failure. Just for a moment during that battle I finally felt like I belonged again. Is that wrong?" He'd noticed the change in how he felt and how he acted. Bloodstrike actually felt less angry after fighting with Windclan. Battle was good for him... and how he felt about that realization, he didn't know.

"While I will try to never just rush into war for my clan's sake again, I feel at home in the midst of violence. Maybe my sanity is gone. Maybe I never had it. I'm sorry for putting all of this on you. I shouldn't be." He absently rolled a small stone around under his paw before eventually rolling it away from him. "What would you have done in my position Ashstorm? You're entrusted with the safety of the clan and invaders come with claws on the throats of your clanmates. Maybe I need to see things from a different perspective once in awhile."

Ashstorm also felt like a failure, making her unable to respond to Bloodstrike after he said that about himself.  She knew what he was feeling, even though she had a very different thought about the battle.  But, she knew that if she said anything like that to anyone, she wouldn't want to be told that she wasn't one.  She would not want other cats to try to make her feel better, especially because everyone seemed to like to try to do that.  So she kept silent, not even answering his first question.

"It's fine," she said when he apologized.  She sighed at his last question.  "It would have been really, really hard.  But I think that I would try to see who was pinned down and see if there was enough of us that could fight them off.  Clearly though, there wasn't.  So, I would have probably tried to talk them out of it.  But because that definitely wouldn't work, I'd give in."  She made a face that showed that she was unsatisfied with her own answer.

"That's just because I'm afraid of the fight," she continued.  "I think sometimes it's good to fight, but not all the time, you know?"  She often viewed herself as weak.  She wasn't able to stand up to the smallest of things.  And now Dawnhawk had gotten in her head about if she was just doing what everyone told her to.  She wanted to be braver and not be afraid of the fight, but she also just wanted to be herself, so why did those two things have to be so contradictory?

"I'd give in." It was what everyone else had done. Bloodstrike had been more than just foolish, he'd been selfish. How he was still the deputy, he didn't know. Maybe Wolfstar saw something in him that he didn't see himself. Bloodstrike passed no judgement on Ashstorm, but a mere quiet acceptance of her answer.

"I was so worried about being seen as a coward like my grandfather that I couldn't think of anything else to do except charge forward." His eyes went to the forest floor, ashamed. "I won't do that again, though I hope the day never comes where I will be in that situation again." Now however, Skyclan's reputation had changed. Where Windclan once sneered their names as cowards, Windclan now feared them. And they should.

Bloodstrike had done what he set out to do, and that was to have Skyclan's ferocity and fearlessness never questioned for as long as he and his father were in power. But what about after? He had made mistakes. Wolfstar too. They were necessary to recover from Spottedstar refusing to fight the Righteous Few for the entire forest to witness, but now they were monsters.

Bloodstrike would find a deputy that would balance Skyclan, but he knew that he himself would not be the leader to do it. "So why haven't you taken another mate?"

Ashstorm shrugged at her fathers question.  "It's not something I think about a lot," she responded.  She could have left it there, but thought she should add something more.  "I've never really had a plan to have another mate after mine died.  If the right cat comes along then I guess I'll have another one.  Until then, or if that ever happens, I'm perfectly fine without one."

She began thinking about if she had ever felt that same way about a cat after Himbo Bob's death.  She realized that she never did. She did not know if that was bad or not, but, although she hated losing him and was sad at the thought of his death, she was fine now.

"And you thought Briarthorn was the right cat for you?"  Her question was more concerned than angry.  She liked her little siblings and everything.  However, she was a little mad at him for not considering how it would effect his clan and the others in his family.  So, either that could help her understand better or it could have her hate what he did more.

His heart broke when she said she couldn't imagine seeing herself with someone else, in so many words. He'd never talked with her mate, him being an Asylum cat and all, but he wasn't sure he ever could have accepted him. Ashstorm brought up another question and without hesitation, Bloodstrike shook his head.

"Briarthorn and I actually have a long history. We met as apprentices, with claws and teeth and resentment from a war before my time. She hated Skyclan still from the Shadowclan and Skyclan war and took it out on me. She's the reason I even began my journey to being who I am today. Well I got bigger and honed my fighting skills and we met at Fourtrees. I recognized her, we fought, and a fox interrupted us. We killed it together. I wasn't mentally right still, I'm still not. So I think we made a rash decision together. Adrenaline and a less-than-ideal state of mind doesn't bode well for sound decision making. She mentioned something about feeling like an outsider in her clan... and me being fairly fresh from the Asylum prison I felt very out of place myself.

So I am sorry things turned out the way they did. We're trying to make the best decisions for the both of us now. As far as loving each other I don't think so. I don't mind her, she doesn't mind me, but I have yet to feel the same way about her as I did Smokefeather."

An honest answer was exactly all Ashstorm deserved. It was the least he could do, even. He hoped that it would be enough.

OOC: Crappy but work is picking up. Sorry!

Ashstorm shook her head at his answer.  What he did without thinking was bad enough, but having kits with a cat he did not love?  It was horrible in Ashstorm's eyes.  She had always so loyal, too loyal at times, it was hard for her to imagine those that were not.  In her opinion, not being in a state of good decision making was no excuse for what others had to go through because of it.  Not that she would really ever tell him exactly that.  She never liked to exactly get into fights.

"You don't need to apologize to me," she told him.  I know many other cats that yours and Briarthorn's decision to be mates effected more than me.  But at the end of the day you can't go back in time to change anything, so you'll just need to live with the consequences."  She hoped that he knew that the kits were not the consequences she was talking about.  She meant the torn relationships with those he loved.  She was not as angry as surely others were, but her tone did convey the slight anger and disappointment that she had.