death by golden boy

[spade]

It felt surreal still, to be, well, dead and not alive. Each paw step she took away from her old life in ThunderClan, Applepaw started to feel lighter though. Grief that had clawed at her heart felt less and less, and though she was certain it would never fully go away, at least she wasn't alone.

Looking to her side, she watched as her companion trotted next to her. What was going on in his mind? What after life questions swirled around for him? For Applepaw, she had quite a few, but no answers seemed to magically come now that she was one of the starry cats she'd looked up to.

No grand epiphany of wisdom, no 'aha!' moment that provided peace and clarity to an otherwise messy outlook. Just a path alit by stars over, under, and all around.

"Do you think more will follow us?" the young molly asked, her voice cautious and a tad quiet as she glanced over her shoulder, an endless grassy field replacing the living earth they had arrived from.

// @implimm @Slushie [if ya want Buck to be like "well hi there!" ^^]

[plum]

There wasn't any happiness or gladness in his heart as he padded along with Applepaw. He hadn't had any intense realizations either. Actually, in life, Rainywhisker felt far more stable, mature, absolute. Now, he stared at his starry paws feeling unsettled. They'd been killed needlessly. Lionstorm was crazy, nothing like the tom he used to be when he led RiverClan. And there were cats dying for his nonexistent cause.

"I hope not," he replies coolly, looking up finally at Applepaw. "But if they do, I suppose we should wait somewhere open and easy to see." This territory was new and strange, yet somehow held traces of distant familiarity at the same time. Gazing around, Rainywhisker begins to get a warm sensation in his chest. He didn't want it, but it was there.

"Do you suppose Buckstar will be here?" he asks, blinking. He'd forgotten that their leader also perished. Lionstorm must have ravaged him until all of his lives were tattered. "He shouldn't be too far, I'm sure he has a feeling at least that some of his Clanmates would join him soon."
[ @spade, @Slushie ]

[dino.]

// @spade, @implimm

Buckstar had watched from the ground beside the border as Lionstorm had turned away from his battered, mutilated body for the last time, the agony from being torn open life after life not there physically but remaining as a phantom pain, even in death. It had faded as he followed the tom to the camp, but his horror had only grown from that point on. He had felt StarClan tugging at him, telling him that it was his time to go, but he couldn't. He hadn't wanted to. He wanted to help them!

He'd shut his eyes as the first of his Clan had launched themselves at his killer - not that he blamed Lionstorm, the tom had been upset and confused and angry and he couldn't fault him for that - but when he opened them he was in an unfamiliar starry landscape. And he was smaller, he knew, devoid of the later anxiety that had creased his living features. He'd found a puddle and stared at himself, now scarless with a face of his moons-younger self, back when Snakeheart was still alive and with him. He wondered if she was here.

The voices behind him did not go unnoticed as they approached, and they pierced claws through his heart as he turned around slowly to face them - StarClan, not them, anyone but them - his ears flat against his head and his eyes brimming with sorrow and regret. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I tried."

[spade]

That was right. In the confusion and chaos in her death, Applepaw had briefly forgotten the cat who had an indirect hand in it. Buckstar. Her mentor, her idol... Agony from losing him seared through her skin again, hot like a burning knife. The pain from it all caused her to shut her eyes tight, fighting against the inevitable wave of tears that were beginning to brim. It would take awhile to repair that whole in her heart, even now as she was suppose to be living in a peaceful afterlife...

Or maybe it wouldn't take long at all...

A familiar voice danced through the air, weaving its way to her pinned ears and slowly opening them up. It came right after Rainywhiskers posed question, and Applepaw knew there was no need in answering it.

The answer was already in front of them.

"Buckstar!" A cry of joy echoed through the endless serenity that surrounded them as Applepaw crashed forward, outstretched paws reaching familiar white and brown fluff as she tackled him, sending both cats tumbling backwards. He was smaller, making them about the same size now with him being just a big bigger.

But he was still Buckstar. He was everything she wanted to be and move.

From their roll, Applepaw let herself roll sideways onto the ground next to him, but quickly turned to nuzzle against his side. "You're here!"

// @implimm @Slushie

[plum]

It was as though he predicted the future moments. They come upon him, young and full of something long lost. Rainywhisker stares at Buckstar, who mourned to see them approach. It hurts, but something in the warrior feels unmoving.

"There was much ThunderClan could have done to avoid this catastrophe," he meows. After a heartbeat, he sighs and turns away. He doesn't watch Applepaw careen into Buckstar. Instead, he steps closer to the sheet of water behind the other cat. Peering into it, he stares into the eyes of his younger self, too. Strange, he hadn't quite noticed the others and how different they both were.
He was in his youth again, with a mean face and a scowl to boot. Was that why he felt so unnaturally displeased? Surely death didn't change more than just his appearance.

"The Clan is trying to clean up now, are we sitting here to welcome them all? Lionstorm will tire but how many are following us? Dogspirit only just kitted and she's down there trying to avenge you."

He turns to face Buckstar, his ears flattening back. "Dusk tried too hard to please Lionstorm, you tried too hard to do nothing! All this time, all of our efforts, in vain for your sake. Now that we're dead what are we going to do- Sit by and sigh, say 'oh well, we're in a better place now...'?!"

Whatever had washed over Rainywhisker was unexpected by far. As he became increasingly angry, pent up feelings came spilling out. He had no more reason to be just, to be forgiving and mature. Who was watching him now, at the finish line?

"You carried how many lives with you to make things right, how many of your Clanmates riding their hopes and their very lives on your shoulders! Dusk abandoned ThunderClan when RiverClan helped us out of that fire. She left us with you, the only cat she wanted to be around anymore- You had so much promise, you swore up and down you'd do right-" By now, Rainywhisker's voice echoed through the glade.

He angrily gestures to the vast, open field full of nothing but stars and grass for as far as any of them could see. "Congratulations, this is what became of us for it all."
[ @spade, @Slushie ]

[dino.]

// @implimm, @spade

Applepaw's excited greeting took him by surprise, and he grunted as she bowled him over into a somersault in which she broke out of and left him momentarily dazed on his back in the grass. Her affection was no less than shocking - after what had happened, he would have expected her to blame him. This... was the polar opposite. A brief smiled cracked through his sorrow and he turned to touch his nose to her ear briefly. "Yeah, it's... it's me." And it's you, dammit, it's YOU. "Hi, Applepaw."

He rolled back to his paws as Rainywhisker moved past the both of them, and his own ears pinned against his head as the tom turned on him. He waited as the former medicine cat tore into him, instinctively stepping in front of Applepaw as if he needed to protect her. (But that had been his job before, hadn't it? He hadn't been able to before. What was the point in starting now, in starting far too late?)

He squeezed his eyes shut, mentally formulating a reply, before he opened them again and parted his jaws. Of course the response he'd tried to plan went out the metaphorical window as his frustration took over.

"Do you think I want to be here?" he snapped, but even under his anger, his anguish could be identified. "Do you think I wanted this to happen? Any of it? Do you really think I would rather be STUCK here, as my Clanmates suffer at the claws of that cat? Stars dammit, Rainywhisker, I did try! I tried at the Gathering, and I would have KEPT ON TRYING, but I never got the chance! You have no idea what it feels like to have life after life torn from your grasp as you try to reason with the cat spilling your lifeblood out onto the grass for something you took no part in, and for your sake I hope you never do. 'A better place' my ass. This is the single worst place to be right now. Those cats are like family to me, they have always been like family to me, and if I could carve my way back down to the living, then by all the stars in the world and with every last drop of strength left in me I would."

Hot, angry tears stung the corners of his eyes, blurred his vision, and he tried to blink them away. The lump in his throat threatened to suffocate him if he didn't swallow it soon. Dogspirit, StarClan, not Dogspirit. Not any of them. "You make it sound as if I wanted this to happen. As if I wanted to fail them all!" He swung a paw through the air, claws flashing, before he slammed it back down, grass ripping. "I was supposed to be their leader, the one meant to protect them all, and look where that landed me. Dead and helpless." He paused to let out a bark of wry laughter, his voice coarse. "Isn't that ironic? I'm as helpless now as I was my whole life. I guess some things are bound to stay the same. But you act as if I wouldn't have laid down every single one of the lives I was given for those cats down there. I'd have shouldered every single one of their hopes, their dreams - their troubles, their problems. And at least I stuck around! Duskfeather left ThunderClan in shambles and I had to build it from the ground up again." His tail lashed as he grew angry once again, his teeth bared. "Maybe I should have left with her, if this is the end result of moons of worthless effort." Effort that had been chucked away like Twoleg garbage, effort that had been all for naught.

His eyes followed Rainywhisker's gesture, and once more, though slower this time, his fury faded back into his original regret - his hackles falling and his tail stilling. He drew his paws close, as if just now realizing how alone they were here. "And, well, if you have any ideas on how to get back and fix this mess, I'd love nothing more than to hear them. I can think of no worse way to spend this time than waiting for the rest of my Clanmates to die."

If he could have willed himself back to life, gone back down, and put Lionstorm out of his misery himself, he would have in a heartbeat.

[spade]

So many emotions had cascaded through her from the moment her back hit the Thunderwillow until now, laying right by Buckstar. It was weird, still thinking of him as Buckstar when he was in reality the size of an apprentice. A smile graced her face at the thought. Perhaps that meant they would be on an even playing field with play fighting. Endless amounts of getting to do the mentor-apprentice bonding that she had been denied back when she was living.

All seemed peaceful and right in the world, and Applepaw barely felt the grief at her death. It didn't matter now, she wasn't alone.

But at the sound of Rainywhisker's voice, and in return Buckstar's rebuttal, the fragile moment she thought they all were having was quickly shattered. Scrambling to her paws, her pelt fluffed up as her eyes went wide. Ears folding back against her head, she stared at the two toms. They were... fighting? About things in the past?? They were all dead! Did it really matter who was responsible or how it happened? At least they were all together!

Clan politics weren't her strong suit. Applepaw had really only been focused on training to be the best warrior ThunderClan had ever seen, and after that the best leader. Her hopes had included one day following in Buckstar's and Eveningmist's pawsteps; taking the reigns of ThunderClan and continuing the legacy left behind. Sure, it had been derailed, but did she blame any of that on anything other than just simple bad luck? Absolutely not.

Her fur grew hot with anger, spilling over into her normally upbeat and happy green eyes. This was ridiculous. Two idiot toms arguing over something that could not be changed now, no matter how hard either of them tried.

"Will you two just... shut up???"

Wow. Was that... her? Fur spiked up and standing out from behind Buckstar to where both toms could see her. Rage boiled in her gaze as she glared at them both. Were they unruly kits? "You two were Clanmates! You relied on each other. You fought for each other. Rainywhisker, Buckstar did the best he could with what he was left with, and if you ask me he did a good job. No cat is perfect, and no cat can ever see what the future will hold. And Buckstar," she gulped, turning to her mentor, "Rainywhisker stepped up into a position that he was not required to, in order to help you." She was trembling from all the yelling, and quite frankly exhausting, but wouldn't stop until this was resolved.

Sucking in a breath, Applepaw fought to lie her fur flat, trying to regain her composure. "Both of you have made mistakes. Both of you have let the other down, sure. But why... out of all times now fight about it? Stars, you two sound like squabbling kits!" Her throat felt raw. Never in her life had she yelled liked that. It exhausted her.

Staggering away to the stream behind them, the young molly collapsed down by it to lap up a few droplets. Her muscles still trembled a bit. She didn't know what else to say or do and for now, she rested her head on the ground.

// @implimm @Papaya