Currents Convulsive [tagged]

[Glorilyss]

CURRENTS CONVULSIVE

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Another wave has turned its back on me,
Crashed back on the eyes of the first I see.


[OOC: OKAY SO I ALREADY MADE THIS POST AND MY TAB GOT CLOSED JUST BEFORE I POSTED. Also, this post is assuming it is after the Briarclaw meeting, and after Rowanpaw has moved into the medicine den. @starling]

It was a pretty day, the sort with an arching sky filled with puffy clouds that crafted silly shapes and fanciful images. The shade of blue was a lovely cross between the deeper glory of a mid-summer sky and the paler, pearlier hue of the firmament in the firm grasp of winter. Everything about the world was vivid; the faint chill on top of the mountain, the playful breeze that sent whispering breaths into the mouth of the cave, bringing the scents of ripening plants and herbs, of quickening coolness and vitality. It was not speaking of the freshness of spring, but rather of the maturation of the season poised on the cusp of falling into the rest and hibernation of leafbare. In short, it was a glorious leaf-fall day. And she was allowed none of it.

Oh, to be sure, she was allowed outside - with a shadow - to collect the herbs that she would need to cure her Clan. but apart from that, she wasn't allowed out into the sunshine. Confined to a dark cave with only a half-hearted breeze was no way to live, but it was, in fact, the only way for Duskflame. She could have left, fled her Clan and condemned them all to the fate of being without a single cat who could cure them - but she wouldn't do that. So, instead, she held to her warrior's spirit and dealt with the pain of betrayal. The closest thing that she would ever get to freedom was her visits to the mouth of the cave - once at evening, when the world around began to darken and the stars came out to dance, and once at dawn, when the sun began its daily ascent and headed toward the horizon, casting a pearly, pale-gray light upon the world, sending the stars back to sleep. She sat at the end and the beginning of each day, amber eyes keen as they searched for signs - signs that TalonClan should give up Pebblestar for dead, that she should be cast away as a tyrant, that Duskflame should come out of her leader's imposed sense of shame and back into the light and the hearts of her Clanmates. 

While no heavenly movements ever marked her nightly vigils, she had to believe the fact that Pebblestar had been taken in the first place was sign enough that StarClan was done with the she-cat. She had to believe that her life would no longer be shadowed by a cat consumed with hate and jealousy. She truly believed that Pebblestar was simply furious, jealous that Mossthorn had been more loyal to his sister, his family, his bone and blood and childhood, than he had been to his leader. That had to be it. If Starclan had been genuinely angry with Duskflame having kits - which, though the rest of the Clan might have speculated, they would never know for sure - they would have deposed her. They would have cast her out or killed her off, and she would not be medicine cat, as she was now. but she was, and Pebblestar was currently the cat that was missing, cast down, sent off. So clearly, StarClan favored their medicine cat, and not their leader.

Frankly, Duskflame thought that they should leave Pebblestar to her fate. The medicine cat couldn't sanction any battle that would jeopardize lives for such a mediocre creature. And, frankly, she thought it a waste to go against any Clan for such a halfwit. Why couldn't her Clan see that Pebblestar's kidnap was a sign that she was a false ruler, a usurper? There was a better leader out there for TalonClan, and it was not the she-cat that had often stepped down from her duties for the momentary joy of the touch of a tom and the purr of kits. StarClan had given a title and lives to a cat who would rather curl up with a litter of kittens than fight righteously for her Clan. Even Duskflame in her pregnancy had never given up her duties; she had never indulged in the pleasure of a cuddle with her litter. She had given them up to be raised properly, she had given them up so that she could take care of her Clan - and what thanks did she get for it? None! Just backward glances and suspicious, judgemental remarks. It was enough to make a cat sick. And anyways, she couldn't stop the thought that by fighting for the return of Pebblestar, TalonClan was risking her son's life. She would never forgive the older she-cat if her beloved boy Brackenheart was killed in the fight to reclaim a faithless leader. She herself would do everything in her power to kill their leader if such a thing happened. She would claw each of Pebblestar's remaining lives from the slender body, she would watch the light die from those eyes again and again and again if Brackenheart's own life was forfeited for such a ruler as Pebblestar. After all, was she not the daughter of a violently loyal warrior? Wasn't murder in her blood?

With a gritting of her teeth and a deep breath, the tortoiseshell forced herself to stop thinking of such troubling things. If StarClan prevailed, Pebblestar would be killed in the battle, or perhaps some forward-thinking cat would do it afterwards. Today was not the day to be thinking about such things. Today was the day that she laid down a legacy, that she placed pawprints in the sands of time that every cat after her would follow. Today she had to ensure that her Clan would never be left without someone to care for them. To become medicine cat was to love one's entire Clan as though they had come from one's own body; it was this deep love that burned in Duskflame as she pushed herself to her paws. It was such a love that caused their betrayal of her to be all the more fierce, all the more painful. 

Her amber eyes flicked over the piles of gathered herbs around her, then pierced the semi-darkness toward the exit to her den as she moved forward. "Rowanpaw?" Her voice was quiet but firm as she moved into the larger space dedicated to seeing patients. Her eyes burned through the lessening shadows, looking for the shape of the tom that she would begin to train. Today was the day if she found out if she had made the right choice - for herself, for her ancestors, and for her Clan.