Picking Up the Pieces [Ashstorm]

Smokefeather curled her lip in annoyance at cracking one eye open to find bright sunlight and an uncomfortable warmth filling the elder's den, and with a sigh she pulled herself to her paws. She limped outside of the den, eyeing the sunhigh, cloudless sky for a moment disdainfully before limping her way towards the nearest patch of shade.

It seemed like most of her clanmates had the good sense to try keeping in the shadows, and Smokefeather's mouth twitched up into a brief smile at seeing Ashstorm sitting beneath a tree. Her daughter had inherited that long fur from someone, and it hadn't been Bloodstrike. Smokefeather was half-tempted to apologize for the inconvenience of it in the greenleaf heat.

"Hey, Ashstorm," She mewed softly, "How are you?" It was a loaded question for just about anyone in Skyclan, she figured... But Ashstorm was still her daughter, even if they hadn't interacted as much recently.

Greenleaf was nice in a lot of ways, such as how much prey there is, but one thing that was completely hated by Ashstorm was the heat.  In Skyclan especially, because of just how many long furred cats lived there.  She repeatedly would take walks to the stream to get some water, but it was always a huge debate in her mind because she knew that walking wouldn't help with the heat.  So, she stuck to the shade.

The shade was a little helpful at least, but it didn't stop the feeling of pain and exhaustion that was brought because of the sun.  She prayed to Starclan that a cloud would go over the sun for at least a moment.  It didn't happen.  The sky remained it's normal bright blue color, with no cloud in site.  Ashstorm wanted water, but didn't want to go get it.  She got up from her stretched out laying down position and went to go walk.  Soon, however, she realized the attempt was useless and sank back to the ground.

The sounds of pawsteps and a voice alerted the fluffy grey she-cat that someone was approaching.  She lifted her head to see her mother coming by.  She debated whether to sit up or not, but ultimately decided not to.  "Hello," she responded.  She had how she really felt about everything happening now in the back of her head, but just decided to say how she was right at that moment.  "I'm... fine, I guess.  Mostly just really hot and uncomfortable.  What about you?"

"I'm envying our short-furred clanmates." Smokefeather huffed out a tired laugh, leaning down to nuzzle the top of Ashstorm's head, "Sorry you had to inherit the long fur. And this greenleaf has still been mild compared to last year." She sat beside her daughter, grateful for the patch of shade they could hide under for the moment. Even so she was careful their fur didn't brush. They both had long, thick fur, and Smokefeather figured that Ashstorm would welcome the contact as much as Smokefeather herself would, which was to say not at all with this humidity.

"Can't say I miss hunting in this." Smokefeather missed hunting, she missed having things to do, but not when it was in this miserable heat. Ashstorm seemed like she didn't want to do much of anything right now, and Smokefeather sympathized completely.

Still, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask how Ashstorm was really doing with... everything that had happened recently. Between the battle and the consequences of leaving the camp undefended, clanmates disappearing... The gathering and what had happened to Beechface... Smokefeather eyed her daughter for a moment, then forced herself to ask, albeit hesitantly. "Really though... Are you alright, Ashstorm?"

Ashstorm smirked when Smokefeather apologized for the inconvenience of the long fur.  "It's fine," she replied.  "It's not like you were trying to give me the long fur just so that greenleaf would be hard."

As far as her mothers next question, Ashstorm didn't exactly know how to respond.  "I'm okay I guess, probably more so than some of the other clanmates."  She sighed.  "I wasn't there for the worst of things.  I wasn't at camp when Dawnhawk attacked or at the Gathering when the lighting struck.  In that way I consider myself lucky."

She was almost about to bring up her meeting with Dawnhawk to tell Smokefeather that he didn't mean to kill Blossomstep.  But she didn't think that would give her mother to much comfort.  She also didn't think Smokefeather would like the part about where she let him go free and not bring him back to camp or kill him when he was vulnerable.  So she just kept quiet about that later experience.  "Now how are you really feeling?"

"Fighting at a gathering... What were they thinking?" Smokefeather shook her head with a sigh. "She'll recover, at least." I hope. Beechface was alive and slowly recovering... physically, that was something to be grateful for... Though Smokefeather was almost certain that the medicine cat was the least grateful of them all for that fact. It was worrying, and Smokefeather had to wonder if she wasn't just as angry as Dawnhawk was.

"Wrenspring and Foxfire didn't do a thing to deserve their injuries. Maplepaw was an innocent apprentice, Dawnfeather too. And the only thing Blossomstep ever did was be supportive and lend an ear to listen." Guilt still tore at her, but beneath it was a thread of anger, too, impossible to ignore. "All that destruction for what? Just because of the sheer dumb foxing luck that I'd gone for a walk to clear my head?" Smokefeather didn't consider herself lucky at all. The rest of Skyclan wasn't, that was for sure.

Ashstorm swallowed when Wrenspring, Foxfire and Maplepaw were mentioned and she put her head down when Smokefeather said her grandmother's name.  "I can't believe he did that..."  She paused for a moment, thinking.  She wondered if she did make the right choice in letting Dawnhawk leave without a scratch.  However, her mind quickly went back to the conversation and her eyes went up to meet Smokefeather's.  "But in no way was any of this your fault.  You literally just went on a walk, you couldn't have known what was going to happen."

Her eyes went back to her paws.  "I don't think he meant to kill Blossomstep," she said, almost as if she was trying to comfort herself with that idea.  She shook her head.  "But that doesn't make anything better, right?"

"I don't know, Ashstorm... Something tells me he won't stop." He'd threatened to kill her and Beechface and the rest of the clan more than once, and he was following through on that threat. "Every time our warriors go after him, he's a step ahead." If she'd just kept her mouth shut that night he'd approached her in the nursery, maybe things would've turned out differently. But she hadn't, and now Skyclan paid in blood every time they got close to him.

"Either he knew before our warriors even left camp, or he'd been planning on going to our camp deliberately." And the entrance had been left wide open for him, practically an invitation with no defense. If anything came of this, it was that Skyclan would never make the mistake of leaving their camp unguarded and defenseless again. Smokefeather was confident in that much, at least. However... complicated... things between her and Bloodstrike were, she knew how the tom thought, how he reacted to failure. And what had happened with Dawnhawk had been a failure.

"Intentional or not it won't change what happened." He'd gone to Skyclan's camp looking for something. Regardless of whatever he'd originally intended (nothing good, Smokefeather knew) cats had died. Innocents had died. And she couldn't forgive that, ever.

Ashstorm's eyes were now completely on the dark green grass below them.  Her claws dug into the dirt.  She knew what her mother said was probably true but... she really didn't want to admit it.  Because if there were any more lives lost later, it would be on Ashstorm.  No one but her would know, but that would be okay because she would torcher herself enough over it.  She really didn't know what to believe.  She always had seen whatever good was left in Dawnhawk, but now she didn't know if there was any good left to see.  This internal struggle of what she should do or think tore her up inside, but no one knew.

"You're right," she responded.  "No matter what his intentions were there is no denying what actually happened."  She sighed.

She really wanted to change the subject, but she couldn't really think of much besides one thing.  "Don't you think it's strange that Wolfstar sent most of Skyclan to fight Windclan just because they were probably hiding Dawnhawk?  I mean, I get why in a way, but I don't think that the Windclan cats knew much even.  It seems like we were trying to catch someone for the pain that they caused while causing pain of our own, right?"  She knew that probably wasn't that great of a topic to bring up, but maybe it could get them a little bit away from the sorrow of remembering the memory of those that had died.

"They were warned about him, repeatedly. They chose to hide him anyways, even after finding out who they'd let into their clan." And then they'd let him go. And Dawnhawk had been free to cause more problems. "Doesn't exactly scream that Windclan is trustworthy, though I'm not sure I would have attacked their camp directly, either. Surely not all of them supported their leader's idiocy... I hope not." It was Windclan, after all, so who could really say? But then, their medicine cat had defended Riverclan's lying to Beechface about Mountainheart and Sneezingpaw, so it wasn't like Windclan had a track record of being trustworthy or innocent, either.

"Yes, I don't think that they all supported there leader in that way."  Ashstorm agreed.  "I mean, at least one of them told us that he was there, most likely because they didn't agree with what their leader said."  Ashstorm thought a moment.  She didn't actually blame Windclan as a whole.  Was it wrong of them to not tell Skyclan at first?  Yes, in her opinion.  But she didn't really think that Skyclan handled the matter well either.

Smokefeather said nothing, simply nodded in agreement at Ashstorm's words. For a few moments she remained quiet, unsure of what else there was to say on the subject. Every conversation seemed to revolve around Dawnhawk, or Windclan, or any other number of problems and it was draining, to say the least. Of course, everyone had good reasons to discuss those things, but after a while it simply became exhausting.

"Dawnfeather made it back in one piece, at least... She reminds me of Primroselight when she was a kit. Relentlessly cheerful and optimistic."

Ashstorm nodded.  Her niece seemed to be very kind, definitely like Primroselight.  She enjoyed the company of Dawnfeather on the day that they went hunting.  It was nice to have good, optimistic, and company in a time where so few had the pleasure of optimism.  "Yes.  Her optimism is exactly what Skyclan needs.  I wish I could say differently, but I think most everyone in Skyclan is forgetting the days that they once had hope.  But I do hope that whatever optimism anyone has left they still use.  I don't think it's good to go through life expecting the worst."

"I think you're right." Smokefeather answered. "I understand the pessimism and expecting the worst, especially after everything that's happened. But it's exhausting, isn't it?" Her mind drifted to Beechface once more, and the bitterness that surrounded the medicine cat like a dark cloud. Smokefeather had been trying to drag herself out of that pit of misery, meanwhile it seemed as though Beechface and plenty others in the clan were wallowing in it.

"The younger cats will help, I think. Most of them haven't lived through those horrors. But I don't think it's wise to forget entirely about the past, either, even if I could... We can't afford to repeat the same mistakes."

Ashstorm agreed to what Smokefeather said.  "Yeah.  Memories are lessons more than anything."  She thought for a minute about any good things that happened recently.  There were few, but they were still there and if there was anything that could maybe help cheer Smokefeather up she would want to try that.  She sighed, thinking.  "At least Mountainheart decided to come back to Skyclan.  I didn't know if that was ever going to happen."

"After that gathering, I didn't think she ever would come back." Smokefeather admitted. "I'm glad I was wrong." A tired smile flickered across her face. Despite her genuine happiness at having Mountainheart back, it was fragile, brittle around the edges. Sneezingpaw hadn't returned, and Mountainheart had been with Riverclan, allied against Skyclan during that battle. It was a position that the young she-cat should have never been in to begin with... Though it seemed that she was often put into situations she didn't deserve to be in.

"Have you spoken with her at all?" Ashstorm and Mounatinheart were siblings, but Smokefeather didn't know how close they would be. Mountainheart had spent so much time away, would the two even view each other as sisters after all this time? And Mountainheart was Ashstorm's only remaining link to Sneezingpaw. It must have been bittersweet for her, to have one back without the other.