I Can't Believe I Left This [O]

Hemlockfox had been quiet on the trip back toward camp, nerves perhaps, after being away for so long. "A lot's happened lately... Graywind mentioned she spoke to you at the recent gathering." She mewed quietly, "She-" The words stuck in Wolfstar's throat. Torn apart by the beasts that had antagonized Skyclan for so long. Her and young Blazepaw. Her only solace was that the filthy mongrels had not long outlived those they had slain.

The leader gave her head a shake, and unable to find the words, silently pressed against Hemlockfox for a brief moment. They had come upon the camp entrance, though, and steeling herself, Wolfstar led her grandson into the camp he hadn't seen in moons.

The camp was calm, with cats sharing fresh kill and relaxing after a patrol, or killing time until their scheduled duties. It wasn't long before heads began to turn in their direction however, with a mix of recognition, curiosity and wariness on the faces of her clanmates. Many of the younger ones would not know Hemlockfox at all, Wolfstar realized. He'd only been gone for a few moons, but so much had changed even in such a short time...

"Who's that, grandma?" Honeypaw was the first to approach, bright blue eyes blinking up at the cat who stood beside the Skyclan leader with more curiosity than wariness. Grandma seemed too relaxed for him to be a threat, and she would never allow such into Skyclan's camp anyways. But there was something else in her gaze too that Honeypaw couldn't place. Regret or grief, she couldn't say.

Wolfstar couldn't help a soft purr as her granddaughter approached, she was always curious, and didn't seem to have a suspicious bone in her when faced with the intrusion into their camp. "This is Hemlockfox. He... was our medicine cat, but had been helping Windclan the past few moons." She replied, "Honeypaw, do you think you could find Sorrelmist, Ploverwing or Bubblebeam? I think they'd like to catch up with their brother." The apprentice nodded and turned, intent on following the request. Bubblebeam was her cousin, she knew, and if Hemlockfox was her brother... Maybe seeing him again would cheer up some of their clanmates.

Bubblebeam spent as little time in camp as possible these days, so it was either pure luck or some kind of belated fate that found her taking a brief moment of rest at the very moment that Honeypaw came running out-of-breath to find her. She'd done her best to put any thoughts and worries out of her mind for a few minutes while she laid down in a beam of sun to eat a squirrel that she couldn't taste. There was too much to think about, so... she didn't want to think about any of it. Hemlockfox, Silverbird, Hawkmist, Wolfstar, Thymelight and her other siblings, dogs, foxes, the uncountable recent losses, all got her mind swirling anytime she tried to make sense of them. There wasn't any point in attempting to single out any specific thread as the one causing trouble, because any one of them would lead inevitably to the others. So she lay in camp, trying to enjoy the warmth of greenleaf that she'd spent so much time longing for. She'd begged for greenleaf, and... now it was here, and for what? It had brought her nothing but grief and further indecision. It felt strange to say, but... late leaf-bare was the last time things had really been making sense to her. She found herself hiding from the sun more than welcoming its heat. Today had been like any other day, and she'd been planning to go out hunting again--until Honeypaw said something about Wolfstar and Hemlockfox.

"Hemlockfox?"

The name left her mouth on an almost-automatic echo. How many moons--how many moons had it been? Two? Three? She'd lost count. She'd lost hope. She'd thought he had forgotten about her, or had abandoned her on purpose, or had just been too busy, or hadn't meant to keep his promise after all. What had kept him? Why couldn't he have sent her word or anything? All these questions and more flooded through her mind, but none of them left her mouth as she stared at Honeypaw. Bubblebeam could only nod wordlessly, then set off at a half-walk, half-run in the direction the apprentice had come from. Shaking paws hardly felt the ground beneath them, eyes glanced wildly around in search of a familiar pelt. The scent hit her first, before anything else. The sharp scent of peaty soil and moor grass. WindClan scent. Then... she saw him. Her brother.

Her brother. Stars, her brother.

All anger and betrayal and loneliness and disappointment fled in wake of the sheer, overwhelming emotion that shook the gray she-cat's frame. What was this emotion called again? Not quite loss, nor happiness, nor longing, but... oh. Love. She loved her brother. "Hemlockfox?" she said again, like a question, as if she couldn't believe what she saw. "Hemlock..." A few more steps, and suddenly she hurtled into his side. They weren't kits anymore. Her lunge packed far more impact than it had when they were only the size of their aunt's paws. Barely she restrained herself from tackling him to the ground, but within a few moments she was pressing her face into his fur, breathing in his scent because beneath the grasses and rabbits and soil there was him, there was her brother, and she hadn't even known for sure whether he was alive unless she saw him at Gatherings and-- "Hemlockfox!" Somewhere between a sob and a sigh and a laugh. "You left--you just left and I couldn't follow. And I didn't know where you were or if you were okay, and I worried about you so much and everything has been horrible and I don't want to do this anymore and I missed you. I missed you, Hemlock..." Bubblebeam wasn't even conscious of what she was saying anymore. Whatever half-sentences were babbling themselves out of her mouth wasn't important. All that was important was her brother.