Quote:
Originally Posted by chiaki
Their eyes had both dulled, hadn't they? Perhaps a symbol of how much Moonpaw's death had affected the clan. She'd been Tawnypaw's closest friend, and her passing away had surely not opened that spot to anyone else- it had turned her to close herself off from the rest of the clan, to give up on the idea of ever finding somebody else she'd think about in the same way. She could never replace Moonpaw, and perhaps never even feel so strongly about a single cat, ever again. Sniffling to a few seconds as her tail flicked back-and forth in dread, her ears suddenly perked at the sound of a familiar voice, a familiar whisper. Slowly raising her head in order to meet the fellow apprentice's gaze, she couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness, of guilt run through her heart, because Aspenpaw had known her, too. "...Aspenpaw." She murmured, paws pushing into the ground awkwardly as the she-cat attempted to keep her voice from cracking, from expressing the grief she'd been feeling for quite so long. It was harder to keep herself 'emotionless' when there was a living reminder of Moonpaw right there, after all- perhaps now she understood why some other cats couldn't handle the children of those who had wronged them, even their friends. It hurt so much more than she'd expected. "...I haven't seen you around here in a long while." She whispered, shaking her head with a small, shaky sigh.
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Just the sound of Tawnypaw’s voice was painful to the apprentice. He hadn’t heard it in such a long time… except now, it was dull. Just like the rest of her - dull and lifeless-looking, like Moonpaw’s death had drained all the happiness out of her. It hurt to see his friend like this. But Aspenpaw didn’t know what to do. He had always been good at helping other cats… it was definitely a talent of his… but now, he wasn’t able to help a close friend of his? Was that how this was going to go? ”Tawnypaw…” The tom’s voice trailed off and he looked down at the ground, keeping his green-gold gaze fixed there for a little while, swallowing before he said anything else. ”I’m sorry.” He knew he didn’t really have a reason to say anything like that. After all, apologies should mainly be for if you had done something wrong, not if something had happened out of your control. But Aspenpaw didn’t know what else to say, or do. He stayed where he was, his eyes fixed down at the ground until she spoke again. ”I know. I’ve been worried about you, you know… I haven’t seen you out in the territory, or in the apprentices’ den, or even training. I thought something had happened, I thought you were gone…” Just talking about those agonizing nights when Aspenpaw had stayed awake, looking up at silverpelt and wondering if Tawnypaw had gone to join their ancestors in StarClan too, or thinking about what might have happened to her, was torture for the tom. He had missed Tawnypaw so much - but things weren’t going to be the same now. Obviously there would be some change, and it was a long road back from what had happened to being close friends again - maybe it would never happen. But the two had their entire lives to fix their friendship, and maybe at some point… it would be close to the same again.