Please Keep Standing Tall[C]

Tallshadow blinked the sleep gunk from his eyes, sluggishly lifting his head despite the lack of focus. His eyes were dulled and clouded as he looked around for a moment as if confused. The thick scent of herbs washed over him and panic sunk its ice-cold claws into his chest. His whole pelt burned, like he’d been forced onto the white-hot surface of a rock at sun-high. The lanky tom struggled to heave himself to his paws, horrified at the weakness in his limbs. Trembling from ears to tail, he stumbled out of his nest, and made it a couple steps before the coughing started. His legs splayed awkwardly to keep his balance as the spasm rocked through his chest, each awful hacking cough feeling like a strike to the gut.

Finally, the fit eased, and the golden tom panted harshly, any adrenaline left from the confusion spent. His throat felt like he’d swallowed ants, and his ribs ached. Frothy pink foam stained the soft cream fur of his paws. He lifted his head to look right at Sootstorm, one ear twitching back in uncertainty.  “Am… am I sick?” He wheezed, looking around at the strange pelts curled up in the other nests. “Where’s Goldenpetal? What happened to Sparrowthorn?” He glanced around wildly, before focusing back on Sootstorm, strangely familiar in the blur of tangling scents and light that made his head throb. Is.. is this the medicine den?”

The skinny tom leaned into Sootstorm’s warmth, unapologetically pressing all his sharp edges into his father’s soft pelt. He tried to cling to anything that made sense in the thick fever haze. His memories slammed together like the too-quick throb of a rabbit’s heart beating against it’s ribs. Maybe if he could just have a moment to catch his breath things would come easier, but even that task was futile as another fit of coughs wracked his rail-thin frame. Right, his mother had been long dead. He’d forgotten again, and the fresh grief threatened to drag him right back down into the clinging confusion. Sootstorm’s pinched face made his ribs ache, and he felt that choking feeling of helplessness closing in. “Right.” He wheezed, nearly gasping with the effort of forcing his voice out loud enough to be heard. “Sorry, I got mixed up again.” He blinked back the hot sting of tears, trying to rearrange the broken pieces of what was now and what was then.

He reached around and gave Sootstorm’s ear a comforting lick. The purr he mustered was thready against the close press of his bones. “Have you talked to Morningmoon’s kits yet?” He asked, laying his head on his paws as he sucked in quick labored breaths. Half the time it felt like he was drowning without even getting his paws wet. “They’re bright, I told them the story you told me. A big hit, as usual.” He shivered violently despite the warmth of the medicine den. He gave Sootstorm a weak nudge, falling just short of playful. “I felt like an elder talking to them, they’re just so small.” The golden tom squeezed his eyes shut suddenly against the tightness of his chest. His flanks heaved as he fought to catch his breath against another coughing fit that snapped its iron teeth into his lungs.
The prickling sting of sickness wafting off his pelt made his heart race, a constant fear buried deep under his ribs that even time could not dull. Finally the fit relented, and he lay pressed against Sootstorm, chest rising and falling shakily as he gulped down lungfuls of air like he might never get another full breath in.

He let his head drop against the coolness of the ground, exhausted from the constant coughing. And maybe in the early days, when the lung-splitting coughs and the fever haze felt like something apart from him entirely, the fear that stalked from the recess of his mind was that of death. Now that fear that morphed from something primal, something fierce and desperate with hunger, to something more patient. A fear that clung to him like a shadow, constant but quiet, lying in wait with teeth unseen. He was not afraid of death, not when his body fought him for every stars-forsaken breath. Not when he passed the days lying in his nest, unable to hunt and fight and run. He did not fear death when the wind was absent from his fur, when unfamiliar stars glittered in a foreign sky. Death now might be something expected, something of a mercy. The new fear, the raw, claw-sharp fear was not death, but the space he left. The emptiness he would be responsible for. He was afraid for Sootstorm and Goldengale, for the grief that would chase them long after his bones returned to the earth. He couldn’t bear to hurt them like that, to leave wounds that would never heal, to take the shape of everything that kept them lying awake when the darkness pressed so close you could hear it breathing.

Tallshadow flicked his long golden tail up so that it rested on Sootstorm’s flank, too drained to offer a purr of reassurance or even lift his head. “I won’t let it have me.” He wheezed raggedly, firm despite his showing bones and dull pelt. He wasn’t in the habit of breaking promises, and he didn’t intend to start now.