live in the shadow of a shadow (c)

Routine was a lifesaver. If Perchstar simply turned off her mind and focused instead on waking up with the dawn, assisting in the organization of patrols, checking in with apprentices, going on patrol, step by step by wordless step, then she had no time to grieve. No time to allow the emotions to close in and encroach on her senses. Moments of weakness were for solitude. On the heels of one such hunting patrol, the leader padded back into camp, bearing a carp in her jaws. After years of practice, her neutral face had become second nature, so even when she thrust every possible thought from her mind it still remained. She appeared as simply a silent bastion of responsibility--or so she hoped. It was possible that the circles beneath her eyes or the slightly ragged ends of her fur could be visible to those who paid close attention. But that didn't matter. Either way, she did her duty. She kept her responsibilities. She looked after her Clan. Unthinkingly, she made her way to the fresh-kill pile and released the fish she'd caught. Her body was beginning to run low on energy, but she didn't want to eat just yet. She wouldn't starve herself--she'd done that enough. But she didn't need to eat until she truly needed it. Maybe one more conversation or patrol would get her to that threshhold.

Looking at the pile of fish on the ground reminded her of a piece of prey left in the middle of Sunningrocks, a message to a leader who would instinctually understand. The memory brought with it a sharp pang of grief. Perchstar swallowed it down, ignoring the bitter taste, and tried to replace it instead with other thoughts. I need to speak with Murkyriver about Scarletpaw's training. I need to check up on Wrenpaw and see if she is finally recovering. I need to discuss the newest batch of incoming apprentices with Poppyshine. I need to--

Unfortunately, her thoughts were soon derailed when she turned in an attempt to act on them, since a figure caught her eye and immediately all sense fled. Cindersky, standing half-asleep by the mouth of the medicine den with a blank look on her face. Her scratches and wounds were beginning to heal over, it appeared, due to Littlesplash's expert care. But Perchstar knew better than any how many wounds were concealed beneath a cat's pelt in the deepest reaches of their soul. One such injury of her own twinged even now with a prick of guilt. My fault. There was no victory. She did not regret her choices, but that only made it worse. The weight of being leader, the weight of so many lives she cared for, pressed down heavily on her shoulders. Any more of it and she might collapse onto the ground. It would be easy to turn and go back to patrolling. But as always, the softer part of her heart--no matter how carefully she tried to keep it encased in ice--rebelled with a mind of its own. Fish forgotten, she walked quietly up to her former apprentice. Cindersky looked even worse up close--eyes glassy, shoulders slumped. My fault. It took a deliberate moment of closing her eyes and breathing to clear the intrusive thought. Then she sat down a few mouse-lengths away. "Cindersky." Her voice was still masked in neutrality, though it remained at a low volume so as to not startle the anxious she-cat. "Are you all right?" A question easy to ask, but hard to answer. It was useless when she already knew the response, but stars-curse it all, she had never known any other way to start a conversation. If there was one, it had skipped over her at birth. Doomed forever to have exponentially less prowess conversing with those who she truly cared about. But so be it. She had no other option.

Perchstar had not expected a warm welcome--she had simply wanted a response, any response, to ascertain just how bad Cindersky's state was. And yet, she could not deny that the lowering of her former apprentice's ears and the coldness of her tone felt like a strike of claws. Did you think she would be happy to see you? You, who caused her pain? Who nearly got Littlesplash killed? If only she could walk away; if only she did not care so much. Instead though, Perchstar took a single step closer--only to hear better. She still would not approach close enough to make the hurt she-cat uncomfortable. "I am glad that you are alive," she said quietly. "I... I am sorry that it is all you can be, right now. But I hope that with the help of those you love, that you may feel better. That the happiness comes again."

How uninterested Cindersky must be in this conversation. How unhappy, how upset to ask such curt and polite sentences. Perchstar felt once again the flight instinct urging her to leave, to back out before she hurt her beloved former apprentice further. My fault. She could not. Her paws remained rooted to the ground. If she could help at all... even in the slightest... "I am doing my best," the leader said. It was true--better than divulging her unending pain, better than lying that she was all right when she was not. "There is a lot to do, so I have been focusing on that. But I have also been thinking, and sometimes going on walks. It's... beginning to get warmer outside." It would not be good to explain her worries, or to make Cindersky feel bad for inevitably hating her. She had to be strong. Maybe even just a little bit, she could attempt to help... like the many conversations they'd had when Cindersky had looked for guidance, or given it. "Rookflight told me of something you said, once, when I was struggling. They said something like... even though the plants die, they will grow again. Greenleaf will come again." Perhaps it was not a good idea to quote Cindersky's words back at her, but stars knew that Perchstar would not be able to come up with anything better on her own. "It is almost newleaf. Though things are hard now, I am hoping that some new growth will give our Clan some much-needed respite... and recovery." Perhaps she was talking too much. Perhaps she shouldn't have initiated the conversation at all. Perchstar tried to still herself inwardly... to prepare herself for any response, or even no response. If Cindersky so wished, she would leave.

Finally. It had been too long since someone told Perchstar what they really thought.

The words coming from Cindersky were sharp, vile, full of a bitter tang and anger that Perchstar had never seen before. They started almost hesitant, but then they overflowed like a regurgitation of all her inner pain, and they were covered in blame. You, you, you. Each word, a physical blow striking at her, but she did not flinch. She stood and took it because she deserved it. Because finally, someone could tell her what she had always told herself. The already-raw sting of her grief and wrath were ripped back open by this... cat. Who was this cat?... It was not Cindersky. Not the young apprentice who had put so much faith in her undeserved, whose fear she had never been able to still. Or perhaps this was the true Cindersky, and everything else had been a lie. This was what Cindersky had always thought of her. This was what all of her Clanmates thought of her. They reviled her secretly. Well, despite the soul-thrumming agony of her worst fears confirmed, it felt freeing to know for sure. At least now the wound could bleed openly, no longer infected in secret.

And despite it all, her face never moved. As it always did in times of crisis, it locked into a neutral expression, hiding the grimace of the pure torture that now ran down the sides of her stomach, the sourness that erupted from the back of her throat. Emotion. She had already shown emotion, and this was her reward.

Silence hung in the air, interminably long. Then finally, Perchstar spoke again. "Beechfang." Her voice was low, hoarse from nights of holding back the desire to scream, no longer masked in its foreign calmness but not raised in pure feeling either. Just rough, just low. "Beechfang. That is her name. She took Cloverheart, a RiverClan medicine cat. Drowned her, held her head under until she was forced to breathe water. I believe I was only a few moons older than your current age when I had the power of a leader thrust upon me and found the corpse of my friend floating down the river. I did not fight SkyClan when it happened because I thought that exile would be enough. I believed the promises. I was naive, like you, and you see now where it got me. Where it got RiverClan." It was a good thing she had chosen to sit farther away, because if she were any closer to the expression of pure heartbroken rage then what little of her sanity remained might snap. As it was, her own words broke free from their prison and began to flow--but not in the high-pitched suppressed wail of Cindersky. Quiet and somehow all the more forceful for it. Her ice-blue eyes were piercing as they looked at her former apprentice's wild countenance. "It is your war. It is all of your war. If you cared even slightly about Littlesplash, it was your war."

The edges of her vision began to fuzz to a strange gray-black color, but Perchstar ignored them. She had not eaten yet; she hardly had the energy to free the tide of suppressed anguish that had been locked up inside her, but it came spilling forth anyway. Her words were not meant to justify; she had done that enough. She simply spoke. "Someone who kills once will kill again. Beechfang could have taken Littlesplash. Her kind almost did. I did not want to bring him, but he insisted upon coming. I did not want to bring you, but you insisted upon coming, and now you blame me. That is fine. As leader, it is my fault." She would not cry. She had not cried, not openly, not in front of other cats for moons. Only ever secluded in her own den. And so she blinked hard, willing the heat rising in the corners of her eyes to back away and wait its turn. It was just as she had explained to everyone, and they had all pretended not to understand, but they all knew it was her fault. That was why they avoided her. That was why they blamed her. "This is a choice I made, I knew the repercussions. As much as they tear me open, I knew them. I would rather lead those that I loved into a war, where we know that it will hurt, where we can stop ourselves from being hurt in the future, instead of having any more ripped away from us before their time. And you lived. And Littlesplash lived. And if you hate me forever then that is okay, but at least you lived. If Beechfang had taken either of you at the river again then it would have destroyed this Clan. It is better to tear out a thorn than to leave it in your paw and step on it, day by day, feeling it tear deeper and deeper into your flesh, and lose the paw entirely." She shook her head. "And yet, if all that it took was one lost paw, and it could be mine, then I would have. You do not know this, but I tried every other avenue before resorting to war. My entire leadership I avoided it because I knew this is what would result, but they would not let me be the only one to suffer."

For a moment, her breath hitched in her throat. She stopped and swallowed it back. For all her weakness, she would not appear pitiful. Not in front of the only cat who apparently had the ability to truly blame her for everything. Once her composure--what little of it remained--returned, Perchstar spoke again. "If there was a way... if there was a way that I could be the only one who hurt, then I would take it. If I could die every time, if I could take every wound, if I could be cut open and bleed and take every single wound then I would do it. But I cannot. I have tried." And that was the crux of the matter, as always--they hated her for not doing more. She did all she could and they hated her for not doing more. But she wanted to do more, wanted it, needed it desperately with the same pain that now stabbed into her chest. Her voice was still low and was never raised, had never been raised except for her shriek of agony when Mottlestar took a blow that she should have taken, that she wanted to take and had been denied. And yet, despite the lowness of her voice, it bore pain like an open sore exposed to the elements. Speaking words like this, she could no longer hide it. Her desire to die. "Right now, the only thing keeping me here is that I can still take as many wounds as possible. I leapt into the jaws of death for you and Littlesplash. I saved your life from the wolves. And if you hate me for it, that is okay. I killed Beechfang, I did it, I killed Birdstar and I have suffered deeply for it--" her voice cracked, the only time it had done so--"and now neither of them will kill anyone that I care about ever again. And if you hate me for it, that is okay. None of you can ever hate me more than I already hate myself."

What was the point in saying any of this? For her own satisfaction? Cindersky did not care. Cindersky needed help, but it was something Perchstar was incapable of giving. Even her best efforts had led to this, and she did not begrudge the anger one bit because it was the same feeling that she had borne with her every waking day of her life in this position. The pain that Jaystar had doomed her to, that she had never been able to relinquish because if she took it then no one else had to. It was pathetic. She sat here and complained about her agony but she could end it, at any moment, and for some reason she lacked the courage. The RiverClan leader felt her fangs grinding into each other, and forced them to stop. This entire time her eyes had been locked on Cindersky, but she tore them away. When she spoke again, her voice was even quieter. "I am sorry for imposing. I hope that you can find your comfort in someone else... and I hope, for both your sake and mine, that you no longer have to deal with me very soon."

If she stayed any longer, she would only make things worse. Her head pounded, her heart bled so openly that she could no longer bear letting anyone see it. So Perchstar dipped her head and walked away, ignoring the fresh-kill pile to which she had intended to return. She did not deserve to eat. She would simply lie down in her den until the pain ebbed to a manageable level... and then she would resume her duties.