sign of the times [c]

Kitespring couldn't stop thinking about the war.

It wasn't normal, how much the war stuck to her brain. She wasn't part of the patrol that came back from the war. But it also wasn't normal for Perchstar, Littlesplash, Cindersky, and especially Poppyshine to have entered camp without a part of themselves, like if none of them really returned after the war with SkyClan. It ate at her, taking pesky bites out of her like she was a piece of fresh-kill. She didn't have the trauma that her clanmates had from the war, but eventually it felt like Kitespring would end up the same way. I know we can't turn back time, but... I wish that everyone was like how they were before this all happened.

Feeling a pelt brush past her, Kitespring turned to see Poppyshine picking out a fish from the fresh-kill pile. After the war, she had lost a piece of her ear, as well as getting massive scars all on her pelt. More subtly, though, her calico pelt was more unkempt than it usually was, slowly getting more and more ragged as the days passed. Now that she thought about it, Kitespring hadn't remembered to groom herself in the past few days - she had spent so much time worrying about everyone affected from the war and trying to help them when she could.

"Hey," she said, pushing a smile for the RiverClan deputy. Kitespring felt the furthest from her than she had ever been before. Just a few moons ago, Poppyshine wore her heart out on her pelt while alongside her clanmates, but now it felt like it was poking a sleeping badger even thinking about talking with her. She hated it.

You should check on her, she told herself. If she pressed too hard and too fast, though, Poppyshine could snap and break off their friendship, and Kitespring really didn't want to risk that.

A friend checks on their friends. Go check on her.

...Well, that was true, but she still felt so distant from her to the point that she didn't even feel like they were friends anymore, so it still felt like she didn't have the ability to-

JUST GO CHECK ON HER, MOUSEBRAIN!

Shifting her attention to Poppyshine - who had just picked a fish for herself - Kitespring leaned towards her. "Want to... go out for a walk?" she whispered. "Just the two of us." That was... a start. Probably. It was at least an invitation for privacy, and she knew that Poppyshine would want privacy if they were to discuss something this serious. Stars, she still worried that Poppyshine would hate her, that she had changed so much from the war that they couldn't even talk with each other anymore.

As Poppyshine suggested a walk to the Beech Copse, Kitespring nodded quickly. "Yes, that sounds... wonderful," she said, trying to make sure that the thoughts rushing through her mind weren't too obvious to Poppyshine. Stars, she didn't want to put more pressure on Poppyshine and make whatever she was going through worse. At the same time, she felt like just ignoring the problem entirely would also make the problem worse, so she couldn't really be doing that, either. So she was left in no-cat's-land, just thinking about what she could say to Poppyshine in a moon or so. And Kitespring hated it.

After the two of them were far enough away from camp as so nobody could hear, Kitespring turned to Poppyshine. "Um... Poppyshine, I..." she started. It was wrong, all wrong. She couldn't say it yet. "...It's a beautiful day outside."

She felt like a coward for not saying it. She couldn't keep on avoiding it like greencough, for stars' sake! She needed to actually muster up the courage to speak up, to try and help Poppyshine when she was hurting. But perhaps she worried that whatever she said would make things worse, would tear everything that they had to dust and hurt Poppyshine in a way Kitespring could never predict.

As they got closer to the Beech Copse, Kitespring felt her courage start to come back.

"I..." she started again. "You- uh, I, um..." Why could she not just say it? It's not like she was confessing her love to Poppyshine or anything. This should be easy in comparison.

"I'm... I'm worried about you, Poppyshine," she finally said. "You've been... off recently. Ever since..." The war. Why was she dancing around that word in particular? Poppyshine knew exactly what Kitespring was talking about. Was it really that hard just to say those two words to her?

Kitespring hated how the answer to that was 'yes'.

When Kitespring spoke, Poppyshine stopped in her tracks, and it felt like the world froze over.

At first, the russet she-cat thought that she had done it - broken their friendship, or whatever they were at now - but Poppyshine was... remorseful, like she broke the code just by having emotions. "No, no, don't be-" she started, but Poppyshine continued to apologize. It made her feel worse and worse, with Poppyshine.

"I don't want to worry you, Kitespring."

A lapse of guilt rushed through the russet she-cat. She knew it was going to be ugly, that it was going to make her upset, and she still brought it up. This wasn't going to make Poppyshine better; if anything it made more ripples in the lake and only made things worse.

"D-don't apologize for m-my own emotions, Poppyshine," she stammered. "O-or yours. I-it's... okay for you to... n-not be... okay? I don't know if I'm making any sense, but..." She couldn't describe it that well. "Like, um, w-when I... lost my A-Adi and my brothers and s-sisters... I wasn't o-okay back then. A-and you... helped me." That might give Poppyshine the wrong idea. "And I-" Kitespring added quickly, "I... I didn't- well, it... it hurt, for a long time after e-everything. B-but... y-you helped m-me when I... I needed it m-most. A-and... I just want to be here for you in the same way."

Stars, she wanted Poppyshine to heal. She wanted her to be happy - not necessarily bubbly or cheerful, just happy. She wanted the cat she fell in love with all those moons ago back. Not like she didn't recognize Poppyshine anymore but... she changed, and not for the better. She wanted all of her clanmates back, honestly - Littlesplash, Cindersky, Perchstar, all of them were impacted by that war with SkyClan. The one over a dead medicine cat and an exiled SkyClan warrior, a feud that should have been long-dead.

She wanted things to go back to the way it was before that stupid war.

She took a deep sigh. They couldn't go back in time, no matter how long Kitespring wished for it. What happened, happened, and now she had to live with the consequences. She hated it, she hated it all. She wanted to be there for all of her clanmates - whether she really knew them or not. She wished she could stand up for them, share her experiences with loss and hold them tightly while she comforted them. She wished she could at least hold Poppyshine like that, for stars' sake.

"I..." Kitespring started. "I lo-"

Kitespring couldn't confess. Not now. Poppyshine was in emotional duress, and Kitespring's fox heart led her to confess her own love to her. She felt manipulative, taking advantage of Poppyshine's emotions to satisfy herself. It didn't feel right to do that to her. She deserved better than a confession while at her lowest.

"Well, I- um- I... will always, always worry about you. I... I care about you, and... I..." The russet she-cat gently placed her tail on Poppyshine's. "If you n-need to take a break, to just... p-process what happened back th-then... please do. I-I don't think a-anyone c-could f-fault you f-for doing so, a-and I could be d-deputy while you rest- not trying to usurp you, or anything, b-but... I could j-just be the one... d-doing... deputy stuff s-so you d-don't have to worry about the c-clan?" Stars, she didn't know if that was the right thing to say.

It stung so hard seeing Poppyshine like this, even if Kitespring knew that was the case. It had been the case ever since the war, honestly, and this was just the end.

When Poppyshine leaned on Kitespring, the russet she-cat instinctively curled her tail around her. She needed a shoulder to cry on, and Kitespring could at least be that for her. She wished that she could do so much more, that she could help Poppyshine in other ways, but this could be enough. She was more than willing to be that stability, the anchor that Poppyshine needed.

Then Poppyshine spoke, and Kitespring wasn't as stable anymore.

From Poppyshine wishing that this war never happened, to her desire for everyone to be okay after it, to the self-doubt that seemed to creep up from almost nowhere. Every single emotion that Poppyshine shared... was something the russet she-cat had been feeling forever. The self-doubt especially hit home, since Kitespring had her own flavor of that for as long as she could remember, which had turned into her being isolated from her clanmates and unwilling to socialize much.

Poppyshine shouldn't be like this. She... she shouldn't have been like her, repeating the doubts and anxieties that her mind said. She hated how Poppyshine seemed to be in that mindset, thinking the same things as her. Perhaps, in a selfish way, she always thought of Poppyshine as 'better' than her, as the 'perfect cat' without any of Kitespring's imperfections. She was the cat Kitespring always wanted to be - warm, bubbly, compassionate to everyone, never doubting herself or her actions. Whether that was ever true, Kitespring didn't know, but she knew that it wasn't true now.

At the very least, it broke the invisible barrier that Kitespring had built up with Poppyshine, letting her empathize with her friend more - and most importantly let her know that she wasn't the only cat with that.

"I... I think I understand exactly how you feel," Kitespring said. "I've... I- I don't know, really, but I feel like I'm... like I understand the..." She didn't want to say that she felt like she wanted everyone to be better, right? That would put too much pressure on Poppyshine, and that was the last thing Kitespring wanted. It doesn't work like that, anyways. "The- mmm... the self-doubt, the anxiety, the... well, everything. I've, uh... felt what you've felt. A lot." Stars, she wished she could say 'And it gets better' with complete confidence, but she couldn't.

"It... it's hard," she continued. "Like... it's like... like swimming at th- against the rapids at the bottom of the Gorge, using so much effort, but... but you've gone nowhere. You're just done enough to not get swept away." She'd never swum in the Gorge before, but she saw the water rushing so fast that the color seeped out of it, and that was obviously the most dangerous place for a RiverClan cat to swim. "I've... I've struggled with this for... stars, as long as I can remember." Maybe when she was an apprentice she wasn't like that, but she wasn't really sure. The memories were so hazy now.

Kitespring nuzzled Poppyshine's forehead. "I... I wish I had all of the answers, or that we could just... magically turn back time so the war never happened, but... we both know... th-that..." She trailed off.