chamber of reflection [C]

Heavy gray clouds rolled in from Highstones, casting a blanket over what stars would have shone that night. The moon, partially obscured as it was, still provided enough light that Cloverheart didn't feel like she was crawling into a tunnel when she stepped outside her den. It's light even made the world glitter, almost, bringing a shimmer to the snowy earth around her; had she come out here just to enjoy the cool, quiet air, she might have marveled at it. But the snap of bitter cold against her pads brought her out of any kit-like wonder at the sight, grounding her in the harsh reality of why she'd ventured from her nest.

The molly pushed forward with a shudder, tail lashing through the drifts as she stalked towards Jaystar's den. Her shoulders felt heavy, like a log had been laid across her spine– and the thought of that made her wince. With a sigh, Cloverheart gathered any strentth of will and shoved herself through the tangle of reeds.

"Jaystar?" She called hesitantly, cowering in the shadow of his den's entrance. "Jaystar, I'm sorry. I know it's late, but–" Cloverheart flinched back from her own words. And this is terrible timing, and I'm so sorry. Sighing, the medicine cat caught her breath and pressed on. "It's important. I need to talk to you."

The late evening sky, a watery wreath of rain-swollen clouds creeping across the stiflingly still horizon with tattered wisps of belligerent fingers, was suddenly disrupted under the resounding recourse of unwarranted noise- a singular voice treading the precariously thin lines of consciousness and dreamland with all the tentative familiarity of a stranger. Sharp, poignant rivulets of lingering exhaustion hung heavily atop the sharp, skeletal outline of Jaystar, the gradually strengthening disruption vengefully bleeding through the rapidly dissipating hues of ginger and gold, external sensory input roaring to life within his sleepy neurons. Full consciousness blossomed suddenly within his bones, a violent jarring slipping down the tensed length of his spine and washing away the sticky remnants of a cherished dream with all the grace and serenity of a seasonal flood, the dark-furred tom silently jerking to alertness at the slight sighting of a shadow-cloaked figure standing before his den.

"Cloverheart," the rasp of Jaystar's low voice was made all the more prominent by his grogginess, the name of his healer untried and untested upon his tongue, "is something wrong?"

"I leave soon. To go to Twolegplace."

Cloverheart winced a little. The response came immediately, thoughtlessly. It wasn't how she planned to start their conversation, but she could work with that. "Two sunrises, I think. That's when we're supposed to meet at Fourtrees." The medicine cat shifted her weight, scuffing the earth beneath her paws. "So, uhm– I won't be around for a while. I hope we come back sooner than I think, and we come back safely." She bowed her head, like she was ending things there. A large part of her wanted to– it would be much easier to just back out of Jaystar's den and leave it at that. There would be no talk of their former leader, no talk of troubling signs from StarClan. He would be annoyed with her for waking him up just for that, probably, but that temporary sort of anger would be more manageable than however he chose to respond. Unbidden, her paws carried her forward, settling a fox-length away from the tom.

Gathering her will, she said, "Something... something is wrong, Jaystar. It's about Ivystar." Cloverheart paused to breathe, then suddenly everything came out all at once. "When she disappeared, Dewlight sent a patrol out to find her. We did, pretty far down the river, and she was pinned by a log and Turtlefur tried to get her out, but– well, we... We couldn't. She might still be there. And there was fur there, I– uhm. I think, at least. Pale fur? I don't know. But uh– when we were out there, right before we saw her." She paused. Even if she was hovered over the shape of him still curled in his nest, Jaystar's presence alone made her want to shrink away. She felt small and kit-like, coming to him with this.

He's your leader. That was his mother. You're supposed to tell him things like this. The silent affirmation didn't help her to feel any steadier. Shakily, she persisted.

"Just before we saw her, under the log, a bird landed in front of me. A... a jay bird. And it looked at me, like it recognized me, and then it just– it started screaming. The worst noise I've ever heard. Just looked right at us, and–" Cloverheart looked at Jaystar with dark eyes. "and it shrieked at us. Then it took off, circling above us and crying the whole time. I wanted to say something, but you came back with your lives the next day, so I kept quiet...

I've had dreams, too. I try to ignore them, and most of the time I... I forget them. I barely remember them now. I feel them, though. I know I had them– terrible dreams. I feel like I'm drowning in them. I taste my own blood in them." It was too much, all at once. Cloverheart felt like her head was spinning. It was too much, to wake Jaystar up for this– she should have waited. She shouldn't have ever said anything.

"I think it might be worth it, to go back there. Anything that would've been there will probably be gone, or stale, but it might still be worth our time. Maybe we can find her still. Maybe we can find out what happened to her."

Twin puddles of wide darkness, beguiling like a ghosting of thin ice atop treacherous rapids meant to conceal and lure one out to the depths of a watery grave, remained fixed upon Cloverheart for the duration of her halting explanation; the only emotion reflective in their simmering depths that which graced the young Medicine Cat's features.

Jaystar remained silent and still as though he was made entirely of cool stone, soft brushes of discomfort wreathing through his constricting veins at the obvious distress on the scarred molly's behalf as the one-sided conversation seemed to cycle through different mediums. The herb-journey, birds and dreams, his mother- a living presence in his life even in death, somehow fixed onto every aspect of his life. Though he was wary of the unfounded belief that something as normal as a startled bird, potential resemblance aside, could somehow bear meaning to the fog-shrouded mystery that had circled high above the Clan, stranger things had occurred in true fashion of existence. Was it not him who chased an unseen voice, willing to take guidance from something intangible and unknowable? Shifting slightly, tense joints cracking softly under the weight of the idly-lurching movements, the dark-furred Leader remained quiet for a few liminal heartbeats as he took in the request to return.

"Perhaps it was an ill-advised avenue to hold the belief that my mother, a seasoned warrior of RiverClan, had drowned... but when we saw one-another during my ceremony," Jaystar eventually began, raspy voice dry and clinging to his sharp teeth with insistence, "she said nothing. It was as though nothing was out of the ordinary, not a singular indicator to what could've happened. So I just.. took the entire incident at face value, seeing as there was nothing else to be done." There was a prickle of tension wreathing faintly against the hard length of his neatly poised spine, remembrance gracing the sleep-fogged depths of his brain as he recalled the bloated, water-logged figure of his mother; ever the far cry from how she stood before him in their final conversation, doused in starlight and judgement.

The last thing he felt entitled to tackling was perusing the riverside, the unfortunate heraldry of seemingly all of his misery in life, but what else was to be done? It sounded like their ancestors were perfectly content in a distinctive lack of care or assistance being offered, and other searches had turned little in their favor. "We could go back," Jaystar conceded after a wayward silence, bones in his jaw aching with the seedings of a blossoming tension headache, "but the weather has not been in our favor in recent times- if we dredged up so little with a full patrol the first time, what difference could be made in a second encounter? It could very well take the entire Clan scouring the riverside for a single indicator of anything that could've happened."

Jaystar's silence echoed across his den, and the weight of it was almost enough to drive Cloverheart back to hers. He stared at her, stoic and still, and didn't make a sound while she spoke. Heavily, she considered just ducking her head and hurrying away with a small prayer that he would leave it go and not chase her across camp demanding more from her. Restless, the medicine cat moved awkwardly between paws, made no effort to stop her tail from its waving. Where the dark tom remained curled in his nest, Cloverheart couldn't find it in her to keep herself still. Or silent, as her jaw parted to try and speak again.

Jaystar shifted. Slight. The thought of speaking was dismissed, Cloverheart stepped back as if she was expecting the worst in response. It hardly felt like she was attempting to give council to her Clan leader; she would have been more comfortable trying to negotiate with a fox.

In the dark light, Jaystar's eyes seemed to glow. The pale molly shrank back further.

Slowly, he started to speak, and she eased into something closer to comfort. Every part of her twitched with nervous agitation still, but her shoulders relaxed, no longer tensed to turn and run at the slightest sign of disagreement. She snorted, more to herself than anything; it was a bit funny, that she felt the need to shake and cower before her own leader. Hadn't she split the skies at a Gathering before, railing against cats that would have taken her pelt just for opening her mouth? Yet Jaystar, wicked tempest that he had been felt imposing like no other. There was something distant and unearthly about him that struck a greater sense of nerves than any other cat had.

Another snort. Then her ears lowered, and she looked confused and briefly ashamed. It was probably bad form to be stifling laughter during talk of dead parents. "Sorry," she mumbled in-between passing descriptions of his own ceremony. Cloverheart offered him a nod, though she wasn't sure if it was to entreat him to go further or to offer her sympathy. The silence rose again, and she ducked her head, unwilling to meet his eyes. Another apology had settled on her tongue, and she very nearly dismissed herself when Jaystar's rough voice broke the brief quiet.

Immediately, the medicine cat's posture changed. She half-lurched forward, then seemed to think better of it and caught herself mid-step; wincing against the sudden halt, she staggered, stumbling two too many pawsteps closer than she wanted to. Reluctantly, he saw her point, but that was all that mattered: he saw her point.

"I know," she mewed softly, whiskers twitching. "I know we've had no luck. I know this leaf-bare has been especially harsh, and we're more likely to spend days wading through the snow with nothing to show for it. I don't even know if anything will be left there, with the time that's passed. But, Jaystar," her voice broke, and Cloverheart swallowed around it, "what if there is something? Something that we missed the first time. Something... new, or maybe a different set of eyes would see something we hadn't before. I know the seasons have been against us, and I know our odds of actually finding something are... abysmal. But–" She stopped herself short. She doubted whining I want these dreams to stop! was the plea she thought it was. Instead: "You're right, it's hard to believe that our leader had let herself drown. If we can't find her, what if we can find a reason? If you couldn't find answers talking to her directly, then it's on us, isn't it? Something happened there, I know it did. Experienced warriors don't just drown for nothing. We could take a patrol, good warriors and maybe a few apprentices, too– they're curious and all trouble that age, I'm sure they'll stick their nose somewhere they didn't know was important." She barked a rough laugh, then wilted just as quickly as the sound came.

She paused to gather her breath, and her thoughts with it. Sighing, Cloverheart bowed her head deeply, ears flat against her skull. She felt incoherent like this, rattling on about what could very well be a deathwish for any more patrols. But she was exhausted–

And selfish. More important than her own unease and lack of sleep, the Clan deserved to know. The sudden disappearance of their leader and the rise of her unruly son...

Carefully, Cloverheart angled her head to look at him. Fractious and capricious when he was around– had Jaystar been like this always? She felt she had hardly known him, making sudden disappearances and just as dramatic returns. Any image of him she might have gathered from her younger days was lost to her now. Still, despite every part of him screaming rough unpredictability to her, he cared. Something in him had to; he had taken up the mantle of leadership with no prior expectation, had gathered himself to take his mother's place as the head of their Clan without being asked. Something in him cared.

And here he sat, listening to her chase what may as well have been a ghost.

"It isn't perfect, I know. But please, Jaystar, we have to go back. I'll even gather a patrol myself, if you want."