Mercy Come and Wash Away (Open)

His eyelids fluttered open to a familiar landscape, silvered grass blades tickling his nose and whiskers, and pillowed against the side of his head. What, where? An odd sense of disorientation twinged at the back of his mind, some distant sense that wondered at how he'd gotten here and why spinning a dizzy cast over the patchwork of still leaves above.

It came in fragments, glitters of snow, bare branches, and slavering teeth. Leaf-bare, hunting, starving. Dog.

Oh foxdung. Dog!

The feel of crunching agony and abrupt blackness constricted his throat as he shot up into a sitting position, his eyes flicking down to his chest and finding only pristine white fur touched only by the silver light of the stars. He raised a paw to his neck half-disbelievingly, his mind feeling like it was spinning in circles too fast for him to catch up with.

I died. Again.

Stars, he'd lost yet another life? His paw shook slightly as he laid it back down, bracing his forelegs against the soft ground and trying to clear his head of that last, vibrantly horrific yet blurred memory. Just like that, without any fanfare, any opportunity to struggle for his last breath, he'd been callously brought down by a feral monster.

And just like that, his life abruptly felt startlingly fragile.

Scattered Stars.

"Minkstar?"

He twitched, and turned to see Swansong sitting there as if she'd just been patiently waiting for him to get it together, tail wrapped neatly over her paws. Her pelt glowed ethereally in the shadows, stars cascading in slowly shifting swirls through her fur. "This wasn't... why am I here?"

A slight tilt of the head, a mild blink. "You died." She evidently saw the look on his face, because before he could say anything she gently continued, "You didn't have the strength to fight it off, Minkstar."

His mouth closed, a muscle in his cheek twitching as his eyes wandered off to the soothing shadows deeper in the forest. No, he hadn't.

Approaching with her StarClan-silent pawsteps, she lightly touched the tip of her tail to his shoulder, bringing his gaze back again. "You can't keep punishing yourself for something you can't change. Your Clan needs you, more than you know, and they need you with the capacity to make decisions for their future. Important decisions that could change the direction of the entire Clan. For your sake and theirs, you must let go of your past mistakes. You can't keep looking back."

As if it were that easy. It wasn't like that was the reason he'd been driving himself into the ground this time, at least. Not... as much.

"I know it's hard," She continued softly, "but as the Clan's leader it is your duty. Would you expect one of your warriors to hunt on a dangerously empty belly? Especially so soon after a near-death experience?"

He stayed silent, but it appeared she could read the thoughts behind his expression. "Don't expect more from yourself than you do from them. You're only mortal, Minkstar, no matter how many lives we give you."

He finally met her eyes, a gentle encouragement in her gaze - an understanding. "Why me?"

A smile. "There are no Clan bounds, here - not that I ever cared much for lines of separation even in life. We are all cats, are we not? Broken, brittle, joyful; always striving to make it one step further. We all rise, and fall. At the end of the day, we're all muscle and sinew - flesh and blood. So fragile, yet so strong," She murmured, a glimmer of something in her eyes that he found he could understand. "And it is that strength that you shall need in the days ahead, as well as now. Stoatfur needs you in this moment. Return to him and find new strength, Minkstar."

Before he could respond to that, her paw rose and gently shoved him in the chest, the silver world around him abruptly dropping out to black, and then red. His eyelids spasmed open, a hacking cough sending red flecks scattering over the dirty, churned up slush, a shuddering breath groaning back into his lungs as the fiery bands around his neck faded somewhat, knitting back together. Somewhere, garbled sound rushed in, forming into the frustrated snarling of a dog and thud of its feet shivering the ground under his cheek. As his eyes focused, pupils constricting almost painfully from the dilation of death, he saw it, a flash of brown and white clinging to its back. Stoatfur!

Dog is pinned.

Minkstar has used Resurrection, costing 30 stamina and restoring 30 HP. He lives once more!

Minkstar
HP: 30/55 (+30)
SP: 48/100 (-30)

Stoatfur
HP: 60/65
SP: 48/130

Dog
HP: 46/100
SP: 155/200