and now it's time to live and turn to dust [C]

Twilightkit
Kit | RiverClan | he/him

Much of Twilightkit’s life had been spent in the medicine den. The walls there became more familiar to him than those of the nursery; Littlesplash’s face a more familiar one than that of the other queens. Twilightkit did not mind. He minded the sickness, and the way his siblings ached with it, but he never minded the den. It smelled very strongly and occasionally felt very crowded between himself, his littermates, and visitors, but it was an alright space. Stained with malaise, but alright. His family was there, after all. It could not be bad. But now…

Twilightkit’s eyes drifted towards the nursery’s exit. Oleander and Sage had gone outside, but he hadn’t the energy today. His heart twisted over being apart from them. What if they, too, were stolen from him suddenly and without warning? What if neither of them returned to the den? What if they did but simply never woke again? He was plagued with worry. Only worry; his grief had outgrown and swallowed him after the first day, too big for his body to process, and so, set aside. But concern was pervasive.

He was about to rise, readying himself to leave the den in search of his only remaining family, when a shadow passed over the mouth of the den. Twilightkit blinked and sank to the ground for a moment of fear, but when the figure stepped inside and was no longer haloed by the sun, he realized who it was: Cindersky. They saw her often enough. She was… Twilightkit’s ears drooped. She was close with Littlesplash; his mother, maybe…? All that he was trying not to feel grew tight in his chest. Cindersky looked faraway and haggard with grief.

”Hello,” Twilightkit said, voice small and wobbily. He swallowed thickly. Should he have said anything at all? How useless was a greeting in the wake of so much loss? His stomach turned and he ducked his head. His jaw worked up and down for a beat before he weakly murmured, ”I’m sorry.”

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Cindersky's throat and eyes felt raw. A sting at the back of her nose and a pounding headache at the fore of her mind from probably dehydration. Her jaws quivered with exhaustion around the small daisy she was holding. Most went to the burial site. She brought fresh ones when she could. The others went to the medicine den, if naught but to try and keep the memory of him alive for as long as she could.

Her ears twitched when a soft, quiet and kittish voice met her ears. Meek, if anything, and when she looked down for a moment she was in the past again. A tiny, sad looking kitten of brown and lighter colours, of whom she stumbled upon by mere accident. This was one of Weepingwillows, was it not? Her stomach churned in a horrible way. Her jaw tightened around the daisy stem, piercing into it, the bitter tang grounding her only for a moment, and then she settled it down. Take a breath.

"It's alright, my dear," She said softly, her voice hoarse and she hated how strained it sounded. The aftermath of the battle was easier, she believed. She was confronted with the thought of losing him and it did not happen. Now it had, and it had caught her without warning.

"What are you doing in here by yourself?" It felt so seamless, the little questions despite how much her eyes burned with the ghost that shrouded the room. StarClan was a cruel mistress. Her ears moved back for a moment and she drew in closer, lowering herself to speak clearer to the kit. "Are you hungry, at all? Thirsty? I can stay in here with you, if you do not wish to go outside."

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Twilightkit
Kit | RiverClan | he/him

Twilightkit watched his small paws shuffle against the floor. He was trying not to look at Cindersky, afraid that examining her grief too closely would cause his own to resurface, but the sound of her creaking voice tempted his head up. He watched the flower tremble between her teeth until she set it down. Twilightkit had heard some of the bigger cats—those allowed to visit the grave sites—talk about leaving flowers with the dead. Cindersky had come by a few times since the day of burial to leave them here, too. Twilightkit’s eyes lingered on the white petals radiating out from the golden head. It was pretty, even though it looked fragile. It was a good gift for the ghosts.

His ears twitched to acknowledge her questions. Something in Twilightkit hated this, all of this. The simplicity of what she asked, informed by their mutual losses but not addressing it. He’d started this with his ridiculous hello, but now he hated it. He felt suddenly fitful, a rare emotion for him; he wanted to stamp his paws on the ground in defiance of being asked if he was hungry. Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t remember when he’d ate last, but of course he wasn’t. His mother was gone. His brothers were gone. How was he supposed to acknowledge something as trivial as hunger, thirst?

But then he turned to seek her eyes again, finding Cindersky much closer now, and the frustration leaked out of him. Twilightkit didn’t have it in him to face the red tinge to her eyes with anything resembling anger. His shoulders slumped forward. His chest hurt, but then, it always did. He’d been in pain for as long as his little memory extended. Was this hurt any different to the illness born with his bones? The quiet voice of his mind wondered if he and his siblings were a curse to RiverClan—born ill, and leaving bodies in their wake. A shudder passed through him and Twilightkit quickly shook his head against it.

”Sage and Oleander are outside. I just… didn’t want to go with them today, I guess.” He explained softly. Mentioning them made nerves tingle in his paws, which he raised in turn to shake out, trying to dispel the itch. Sage was still so small and she was not mending as well as her brothers. Her heart could fail with no warning; she could be taken by eagles seeing her as easy, sickly prey; she could get dizzy near the river skirting camp and fall in, washed away forever. Twilightkit grimaced, but his worries remained private. Cindersky… had enough of her own griefs to choke down. She didn’t need his own or his burgeoning anxiety as well. He suddenly didn’t feel so torn up about circling the obvious. Perhaps she felt the same toward him, especially because he was still young.

So young, and already he had this sorry heartbreak to carry forever.

Twilightkit’s teeth grit hard for a second before he pushed a breath out of his nose and forced himself to continue. ”No, I’m… okay. Thank you, though,” he murmured. His tail swished once before he slowly sank onto his haunches. The words waiting on his tongue felt a bit pathetic and sorry, but he allowed them anyway: ”Can you, though? Stay, I mean.” A sniffle left him and Twilightkit’s voice sank into a barely audible whisper. ”I don’t like being alone in here.”

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