Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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He lay on his side in the corner of the camp, watching the cats going about their lives around him through an impenetrable gaze and casting the occasional sullen look at Ratstar's den. His den. The den he'd created after deciding against moving into the one Ravenstar and countless leaders before him had always occupied as leader. The den he'd decorated with dried flowers and mandarin trees in twoleg terracotta pots. He still couldn't get used to sleeping in the warrior's den. The squeal of a kit came from the garden; Doe pressed his ears back against his head, eyes narrowing. The garden he'd created. The rank he'd created.
He felt sick - with bitterness, with insecurity, with hunger. With insignificance. It was times like this that he wondered why he'd ever come back to SummerClan. Really, it hadn't been a choice - he'd woken up after two years, not stopping to think that life would naturally have moved on without him like a complete idiot, and then been so dumbfounded by meeting Ratstar in the meadows that he'd just... gone back to camp. Like it was assumed. Because it was - where else was he supposed to go?
Right now, anywhere seemed preferable.
It was so unlike Doe to be jealous. It was an emotion he'd never felt when he was alive for the first time; he was the gentle one, the kind one, the ray of sunshine that played with kits and made flower crowns in the wildflower meadow and chattered about butterflies and nursery tales and the idea of true happiness. Now, though, he felt like his head was going to explode. There were too many sounds. Too many scents - some familiar, some new. Too much was new, and what was old was nothing but a reminder of what he'd lost. What were leaders supposed to do when they stopped being leaders? He'd admired Ravenstar when she'd abdicated the throne; now he was in complete awe of her - how must it have felt to watch him standing in her rightful place? What did she do with herself? He'd been too self-consumed to even notice. But that was different, anyway. She'd had a choice. She'd wanted this. He hadn't had time to come to terms with it; it was just 'here, let's take the -star from your name and put you on the midday patrol. Do try to cope. Welcome back, Doefreckle.'
Doefreckle.
Letting out a quiet growl, Doe rolled over to his other side and batted grudgingly at a dried stalk of wheat that must have floated over from DayClan. He thought of Chim. Thought momentarily of getting out of here and visiting Hywel - maybe he'd be able to convince him to drop the nice routine and hit him just that once.
This wasn't his place. It so wasn't his place to intrude in someone else's misery, to settle down next to anyone who was clearly removing themself from the clan affairs, watching with miserable eyes and a miserable grimace, and insert his own two cents in where he wasn't asked to. And yet...
Something about Doefreckle's tangible disdain and misery felt familiar, more honest than the untested cheeriness their SummerClan-born clanmates radiated, as if they were crafted right out of sun beams and floral crowns woven out of love and a tender touch and who were inherently happy, as if they never knew strife or turmoil. Devotedcrow struggled to replicate that, and if he were honest with himself, he wasn't sure why he was trying to. He couldn't justify the reason he felt inclined to paste that too-bright smile on his too-dark face and assure everyone that everything was just dandy. Like he didn't have deeply repressed childhood trauma that he never spoke about. Like he didn't have crippling self-doubt that chased him, that he couldn't outrun, and that lived on in the disapproval some still showed over his appointment to deputy. Like he hadn't lived in hell and escaped from it, only to realize after that hell wasn't something one could just escape from. It lived within: a personal prison, with bars crafted out of nightmares and gilded by misery.
That wasn't something he could erase, but it also wasn't something he let be illuminated by SummerClan's light.
So he found something familiar and honest in Doefreckle's misery because, deep down, it reflected his own, and when he settled down beside him at the fringes of camp, it wasn't to pour out some uplifting dribble about second chances and being positive about change. It was to crouch beside him, bad leg tucked in close, smirk, and wink one hellfire eye at him. "So when everyone talked to me about past leaders and mentioned Doestar, they talked about a really good-looking guy with an unrivaled ability to make the best flower crowns. Right about now, with how you're treating that poor wheat stalk, I'm having trouble seeing it," humor colored the snark, an earnest laugh escaping him. He flicked an ear. "We haven't had a chance to officially meet yet, but I'm Devotedcrow. You can call me Crow, though. Would you like me to call you Doefreckle or Doestar?" Adjusting to his new warrior name had been a challenge at first, and still Crow felt like the more honest version of himself, so he was careful to make sure others could present their honest selves to him too.
When he felt someone sit down behind him and recognised the scent of the deputy, Doe let out a quiet, peevish breath, flicking his tail in closer to his own body. He didn't look over his shoulder, didn't turn to greet him, didn't do any of the polite things one really ought to do when greeted by someone higher-ranking; he just continued to lie there on his side, tail-tip twitching irritably on the sun-warmed soil. He expected some mild-mannered reproof, or, worse, some empty platitudes; so when Crow instead met him with some snark that was both flattering and cynical, Doe's good paw stilled on the wheat stalk, his ears straightening slightly and his breathing quietening as he listened. Complimenting his looks in passing; praising his ability to make flower crowns - which, really, considering how bad they'd always been made Doe guess the Clan hadn't mentioned that part; a tone that was both easy and, in an odd way, the most deferential he'd heard from anyone since returning to SummerClan - that was all he'd really wanted, some acknowledgement of who he'd been...
Doe rolled over, eyeing the tom in front of him with vague distrust. At the question about his name, a pang of pain sparked through his chest, chased quickly by the paranoid idea that the deputy was mocking him - that it was a way to put him in his place. What cat in their right mind, especially one so devoted to the current leader, would allow him to keep his old name? Doe studied him for a moment longer, silent. Then, finally, despite conscious effort to remain bitter and churlish and believe the worst possibilities his mind supplied, he admitted Crow sounded sincere.
Doe's face softened and he let out a quiet breath, offering a small, disheartened smile. He resisted the urge to take the chance Crow was offering; it had been enough, in a way, just to hear it said out loud one last time. Something in his chest lightened, like a flower freed to the wind. Doestar, released and put to rest before his time. Or maybe precisely when it was supposed to have happened, he thought sadly. "Doefreckle is fine," he replied quietly, blinking gently at the other tom. "Thank you." Thank you for asking. Thank you for letting me have that one little thing. Call me Doefreckle - Doestar still doesn't quite fit. He clamped down on a wince as he remembered saying those exact words when he first became leader; now it was his warrior name that didn't quite fit. Nothing fit. He seemed doomed to be eternally thrown between things that didn't fit at the time and that he longed for later; always too late, always too stupid to realise it when it mattered and when he had it. "But, really, you can just cut the suffix entirely. Freckle. It's a stupid name anyway. No one has only one freckle." He slumped his chin against the sandy earth, staring ahead moodily. His ears flattened against his head, like he was too tired to bother keeping them up. Crow had a she-cat mate, he knew that much; and while it wouldn't be the first time he'd enticed a married tom away, he was pretty sure he had no reason to keep up the pretty look. He could just be glum.
"You're not from here either, are you?" he continued, voice losing its grumpiness; it was just soft now. "SummerClan seems to be developing an aversion to Clan-born leadership." He smiled, letting out a quiet hum that vibrated against the earth.
He watched the distrust (and maybe fleeting aggravation) color and then fade from Doe's visage, and he felt consideration weigh heavy like pollen in the air, a slow but creeping suffocation strangling the sunshine out from between them---and then it returned, as if clouds had settled over the sun and passed, and the former leader was now smiling softly at him. Gratitude sparkled in his eyes, and Crow didn't need to ask or to guess where it stemmed from, nor did he offer something in return. The thanks would rest between them; so would his understanding of it.
He laughed as Doe criticized his own name. It surprised him; genuine shock registered in his gaze, intrigued by the notion that others could vehemently reject portions of their own identity as he'd once done, scorned and shunned into believing himself evil for nothing other than his name. Again, it was a gaping difference between his past and what he experienced in SummerClan. Everyone around him as he was growing up had been proud and delighted with the names they were growing into, and even here there was the vanity and a unique gentleness twined into how cats were named, while he'd always stalked alone, a lone wolf separated from his pack. Even in his travels after escaping SunClan, rogues chose their own monikers. It was unlikely to come across someone who spoke like him or monologued like Doe. It was refreshing.
"Maybe you should have been called Doespot," he suggested idly. "You can have one spot." Although, considering the patches and variegations dappling through Doe's prismatic fur, that wouldn't have fit either. "Or maybe you have one very special freckle, one that's perfectly round and not too light to never be noticed but it isn't one of those dark, mole-looking ones that medicine cats would mistake for a terminal illness. Or maybe it is one of those dark ones and you shouldn't have been named Doe anyway, you should have been Mole, but it's too late anyway because it's terminal." Sheepishly, he realized this train of thought wasn't helpful for anyone, let alone someone with their chin dug three inches into the earth (which almost looked like Doe was digging himself a second grave, one chin slump at a time), and he grinned. "Sorry. I had a stint of being around Twolegplace. The two-legs have...very interesting lives, and these magic little boxes that tell stories that my daughters would dream up."
Crow smiled as Doe posed his question and at his ensuing remark. It came as no surprise that others discerned he wasn't from SummerClan originally; frankly, it was more likely to run into a cat that wasn't born into it, now that so many from the neighborhood upended their lives to follow Ratstar to the clan, but he carried that faint inkling of his mother's heritage in his voice. He couldn't speak her native language like she and his half-brother but the accent he carried was unmistakable to those who ran across Igziq or Agonywail. "No, I'm not," he confirmed. "I was born in the desert but I grew up in SunClan. Like most of everyone else, I guess I just ended up here." It was more than that---so much more, so many events and trials that led up to his arrival here---but he omitted that for now. "I take it that means you weren't clanborn either?"
Doefreckle looked up at Crow out of the corner of his eye, strangely smug when he saw the shock on his face at his criticism of his own name; lately he’d been feeling more like a visiting dignitary that had simply settled in SummerClan, intimately familiar with its customs but distanced by similar bitter familiarity with the outside world, and he liked knowing he was still a little different to the sweet, forgiving cats he’d surrounded himself with. He’d been like them once. He wondered if he’d ever feel like that again.
As Crow started to babble about his name, in an endearingly unexpected way that contrasted so sharply with the tom’s frankly intimidating appearance, Doe shifted in the sand to turn his head towards him, watching him with a bemused little smile. “Yes, that’s very comforting,” he purred, flicking Crow against his side with the tip of his tail. His eyes were a little warmer, a little friendlier. He looked vaguely more like the care-free tom he’d been before. “If the Clan ever needs a counsellor, I think it’d be in everyone’s best interests for you to politely decline.” His eyes crinkled up in a little smile, his cheek dimpling. He rolled onto his back, arching his back in a small stretch before kneading softly at the air with his good paw and looking up at the deputy upside down; his broken one rested against his chest. His voice was more cheerful now, softened only by drowsiness. “Oh, Twolegplace? I spent some time around there when I was younger. One time a twoleg put a little sweater on me, very soft. I looked good in pink.” He grinned, letting out a little self-deprecating giggle. It wasn’t very warrior-ly to admit he’d dabbled in such things, but then he wasn’t particularly warrior-ly at all.
“The desert?” Doe breathed, rolling over fully onto his other side and gazing up at Crow with wide eyes. First a tom born on far-off moors, now a tom born in a desert, both with accents unlike anyone he’d ever heard in these too-small territories - where were all these adventurers when he was younger? “I didn’t know anyone could even live out there.” His voice was full of wonder, of disbelief, of intoxication. He gazed up at Crow for a few moments longer before catching himself and giving his head a frustrated little shake. I take it that means you weren’t clanborn either? “Uh - no,” he replied, a little more respectable. He frowned down at his own paws for a moment before meeting Crow’s gaze again. “No, I was born in NightClan.” The irony wasn’t lost on him - a cat born and raised in darkness, finding home in the sunshine. “I was there until a moon or two after my warrior ceremony. Sometimes my eyes still hurt, being out in the day so much. Especially now, during summer.” He smiled, ducking his head to gently brush his eyes against the soft fur of his bad forepaw; they got a little watery and strained around sunhigh. He usually slunk away into the shadows of a tree or the cool gloom of the Deep Lands around this time. “Then I wandered around for a little while, tried on some cute sweaters.” He beamed a smile.
He bobbed his head from side to side as he continued, punctuating each change in his life. It was the PG13 version of the story, but it was true none the less. “Moved to BrookClan, since mercifully gone to dust, moved on from there, found SummerClan, became deputy in a whirlwind, got stood up by StarClan at the Moon Creek, the usual.” He smiled again, looking up at Crow. He was going to say they were probably in the Forest Clans at the same time, Crow in SunClan and he in NightClan, but then he remembered his maths was a bit off; though he hadn’t aged physically, he was two years older than he seemed. So he just smiled through his almost slip-up. “I’m glad you ended up here. It’s hard, I admit, not being leader anymore, but if I have to have any usurpers, I’m not completely opposed to it being you and Ratstar.” His smile sharpened into something teasing and faux-acidic - light on the faux. It was a round-about compliment, and a slightly back-handed one, but it was a compliment all the same, and as much of one as either of them was likely to get any time soon. “You have a kind heart. SummerClan needs that. It would be wasted in SunClan.”
That wonder was something the former leader and current deputy had in common--a wonder for how to fit in, how to mold their curves into sharp lines and blend into a crowd they were so directly opposite of. Doe clearly did a better job of presenting himself that way; all radiant smiles and the occasional catty remark, and it was so, so obvious that he, even in his detachment, couldn't shake off the presence of a true SummerClan cat. Crow still troubled himself with trying to mimic those qualities. He was small, awkward, hidden grins. He was firelight eyes, so bright and blistering they could burn. He was kindness, but the kind that was immediately obvious, shrouded in darkness and brooding and apprehension, worry that he will make one misstep and be cast out of another home..
"Oh," his lips formed the shape of the word, then melted into a cheeky grin. "I just accepted the new position from Ratstar. Turns out, being deputy is so last season. Being counselor is the new black," he teased, comfortably laying right-side up but noting the way one leg stayed cradled against Doe's chest, and suddenly Crow recalled seeing the tom walk with a familiar limp. They were similar. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened to your leg? Mine's bad too, picked one too many fights back in SunClan. I should have learned my lesson after that, but..." He paused and then his grin grew more mischievous, more pained. "You can't help a fool with nothing to lose. That's what it felt like anyway. --But you've led an interesting life," he noted after the other finished feeding him the abridged version of his life. "I've been to NightClan. Once. My sister was held prisoner there, so I marched right in and demanded the new leader, Aspenstar, release her or I was going to fight my way through the entirety of NightClan myself. Me." His head threw back, and Crow released a great big bark of a laugh, the memory crisping up and reminding him how close he'd been to getting his ass handed back to him--and that would have been the good ending. It was right after he joined SummerClan, too. A great first impression, his inner voice snarked.
"I've heard of BrookClan, but they were long before my time," he admitted. "My mother used to tell us the stories of the elder Clans, the ones that didn't survive. I believe my father's family dates back to WaterClan, but The Huntress--my mother--led Toxicity once, right before it fell. She's always been good with adverse situations, I suppose, so maybe that's how we ended up in the desert. SummerClan's heat feels familiar to that, but it's more..." He fought for a word, "suffocating. The air here is so much more humid. It's hard to breathe sometimes." He was thankful, not for the first time, that his fur was thin, but its pitch didn't do him any favors for keeping the harsh sunlight from finding him and soaking right into it, like it did to the forbidding surface of the Thunderpath.
...got stood up by StarClan... It was impossible to miss the way Crow's eyes widened, within them toiling a mixture of surprise and...was that fear? Doe said it more casually than if they'd been discussing the weather or the way the prey ran, as if it wasn't something of greater magnitude. So lofty, and with that same needling grin. But the remark unearthed a concern he'd been swallowing since Ratstar chose him. A wonder of if he, a nonbeliever, would be accepted by the ancestors that his clan upheld. Would the stars be able to shine against the sun's blaze? "How'd... What's it like to be without their favor? He asked, hesitantly, his eyes saying that Doe could refuse to share this--it felt almost too personal to share--but begged him not to at the same time, begged to know, begged to be comforted.
He was almost to drawn into this information that he nearly missed the backhanded compliment and the genuine one, and he smiled, genuine and gracious. A kind heart. "Thank you. It's always good to hear. I know I wasn't here for your leadership--I wasn't even born yet--but I believe you'd be a leader worth following," he added. It wasn't something to be taken lightly, though Doe had yet to know why that was so impactful for his company to say. There was only one leader--now two--that Crow respected; Bloodystar hadn't left a good impression on that.
(are you KIDDING, rambly replies are my bread and butter <3333)
Being deputy is so last season. Doe snorted, a sound so unlike the dainty image he tried to cultivate. Ordinarily he might have flushed and covered his muzzle with a soft little paw, skipping the conversation away from it; now, the corner of his his mouth just curled up in a lazy, hooded half-grin, untroubled by how pretty or ugly it looked. There was something about Crow that made him feel genuine and honest, whatever that meant; he found that he liked him, truly and completely. That was proven by how he reacted to the question about his paw. If it had been anyone else, he would have closed up and drawn it closer, hiding it from sight and glowering until they got the message they hadn’t unlocked level 20 of personal connection yet. If it had been someone like Chim or another tom he was trying to soften up, he would have put on the Doefreckle voice - the one with all the gentle edges, breathy and warm - and cast his eyes down and made a great song and dance about how sad it was. But as it was, with the knowledge that Crow sported a similar injury, Doe just let out an unfussed little hum low in his throat and looked down at his paw, twisting it this way and that like it was an old thing he forgot to look at properly nowadays. You can’t help a fool with nothing to lose. Doe looked up at Crow from under his lashes, humming a low laugh. “Romance gone wrong,” he replied simply, looking back down at his paw with a gaze that was bitter, half fond from the sheer length of time he’d lived with it. “I started a string of affairs when I was an apprentice. Good thing I left when I did, now that I think of it. Half the she-cats in the Clan had it out for me for turning their mate’s heads. Creepy if you think about it now, I guess, but back then I was just a cocky little thing all fluffed up about holding sway over so many toms. If I’d have stayed much past my warrior ceremony, their wives wouldn’t have been so squeamish about finally beating up an apprentice.” He tittered a little laugh.
“Anyway, three moons before I got my warrior name I started up with a loner. Young love, you know.” It was said in a bleak drawl, with a hooded, knowing look up at Crow. “The night of my vigil, I was so excited about finally being promoted - I was sick as an apprentice so everyone said I’d never earn my name at the same time as my brother, but I wanted to be the best warrior in the Clan,” best was said with a mocking little shiver of his shoulders, “so I did - that I left him to cover for me and snuck out to tell the loner all about it. I was all swept up in how happy I was that I told him I loved him and he… well, he had mixed feelings about how he felt about toms in general. The sort of feelings a bad dad gives you. So he lashed out.” Doe tilted his head, still looking down at his paw; he tried to flex his toes but all he managed was a little shudder, the claws that were always slightly unsheathed trembling a little further out before drawing back in. He left out the details about how he’d broken it again, over and over and over in the medicine den every time it was set, because he was filled with such grief and anger and self-hatred that he never wanted to let it heal, wanted to give himself this eternal reminder of how sick he was. He left out the detail of Funk breaking it again, worse than before, before the bengal tom joined the League, back when he was just a travelling loner with a flair for sadism and herbs. They were stories too dark for him to ever say out loud.
When Crow started on about NightClan, Doe raised his head, stretching his wounded paw out on the sunny earth, and tilted his head, watching him with a smile as he listened. It was good to hear about what NightClan was like nowadays, for better or worse. He’d spent so long ashamed of his heritage, so devoid of pedigree or adventure, but recently, he’d been thinking of his birth Clan with increasing fondness. Nostalgia. Not quite homesickness, but just… a gladness that it was still out there. His mother was still there, he assumed. His tail-tip twitched uneasily at the thought of her. He hadn’t seen her since he abandoned NightClan without saying goodbye; anything she’d heard about him - his leadership, his death - was all second-hand, and for that he felt faintly guilty. Crow’s bark of laughter startled him out of his thoughts and back into the present and he found himself grinning crookedly just at the sound of it, letting out a little huff of laughter through his nose despite the fact he hardly knew what he was laughing at. “How gallant of you,” Doe purred silkily, rolling onto his back and looking up at him upside down.
I believe my father’s family dates back to WaterClan. Doe’s smile softened at the mention of it, watching Crow with a gentle gaze as he continued. He could almost imagine he smelled the familiar scent of WaterClan on the breeze, the scent that, while now only a memory, still made his heart ache with longing. The Huntress… What sort of name was that. It’s hard to breathe sometimes. “Mm, I think that’s called asthma.” It was an incredible relief to know there was someone else who struggled in SummerClan. Doe was better suited to pretending that he fit in outwardly, perhaps, but the way Crow looked around at the camp, like he was unworthy, like he would never stop being thankful they’d opened their arms to him and taken a chance on him, like he was bewildered and in love and overwhelmed by all of it… Doe had felt like that, the first time round, and even if finding a home in SummerClan the second time round would leave him with a quieter, and perhaps healthier, love for it, like this time he truly did fit in, he was indescribably relieved to have this sense of camaraderie, of companionship, of understanding, with Crow. Crow struggled to breathe in anything but desert air; Doe struggled to see in daylight when his eyes were so used to night; to have that together, to be able to lean on someone… It made him feel strangely secure. Safe.
And then the black tom’s eyes were widening at Doe’s mention of StarClan and he remembered other cats didn’t have his flippant, bitter attitude towards their gods. Some didn’t believe in them at all, like, he suspected, Crow - but even he was looking startled by such open dismissal of them. How’d… What’s it like to be without their favour? Lying on his stomach again like playtime was over, Doe’s expression had been growing more distant, head drawing back and ears flattening ever so slightly; but at the question, worded so insensitively but asked with such anxious gentleness, he softened again, fixing Crow with a small, dimpled smile. He was suddenly aware that he was counselling a future leader, offering advice and guidance. It felt sacred, important, quiet. So unlike anything Doe had spent his life doing. He inclined his head a little closer to Crow, his smile growing into something comforting, if a little melancholy. “You don’t need their guidance to be a good leader,” he answered quietly, blinking gently at Crow. “Kindness, fairness - StarClan doesn’t give you that. You find it in yourself. A caring heart, that’s all a Clan needs in their leader. And disbelief has nothing to do with whether or not StarClan sees fit to give you your lives and your name. I don’t know why they didn’t want me, but it had nothing to do with me not believing in them. They measure your love for your Clan, and your willingness to do what’s right for them - whether you use their name to thank a rabbit’s life for is nothing to do with it. If it was, we wouldn’t have gotten leaders who led their Clans to wonderful eras. And if it was the sole distinction needed to be a leader, then we’d have leaders unworthy of the position - faith is not enough to lead a Clan with.” He grew silent for a moment, just gazing at Crow with gentle eyes. “And if they do turn their backs on you - and they’d be fools to - then you’ll still be a leader worthy of SummerClan. One life is all you need to be kind.” After a moment, his smile grew again, and then turned into a laugh bubbling past a grin. His voice was warm with self-deprecating laughter as he continued. “It was lonely, I won’t lie about that. I was afraid, more afraid than I’d ever been, because this was a fear that seemed to validate everything horrible I’d ever thought about myself. But I know now that it wasn’t me. Everything that happened, there must have been a reason, I have to believe that. And now that I’ve been a leader without their favour, I can tell you firsthand that you’d survive it.” His grin grew wider, making fun of his own death. It settled a moment later. He reached out his good paw and touched it lightly to Crow’s, tilting his head and offering a smile as sad as it was comforting; it felt like he was letting go of his final scrap of leadership, but, lying there with Crow, he found himself at peace with letting it go. If all he could be was an advisor to a leader, he felt, for the first time, like it would be enough. A different kind of happiness, of fulfilment. “But there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t favour you.”
I know I wasn’t here for your leadership - I wasn’t even born yet. “You just had to ruin the moment,” he purred, flopping onto his side and resting his cheek against the sand. It still felt impossible that he was older than half the cats in camp. But because he hadn’t physically aged past two while a ghost and looked as boyish as ever, and because those two years hadn’t exactly been living, he chose to discount them entirely. “But thank you.” For all his vanity, Doe was still awfully quick to deflect any sort of compliment and move the conversation swiftly away; but he did appreciate it, an incredible amount. More than he could ever say. Though his leadership had been a hasty thing he’d been unprepared for, the crown suddenly thrust upon his head and the lives of an entire Clan given to him to take care of when he’d had practically no training, all he’d felt in those final weeks before his death was a deep warmth in his heart, like he was finally on the right track, like he could be a leader SummerClan could be proud of. To hear that said now, to have those wishes of two years past spoken aloud, made his heart swell with desperate gratitude and far-off, aching grief, like a flower being swept further and further away on a quiet breeze until soon it would be out of sight, impossible to draw back.
“You have a wife, right?” Doe suddenly laughed. “Just so I know I don’t have to start flirting. Because I totally would. You’re a catch.”
The smile he gave Doe as he listened was sympathetic and kind. "Young love," he repeated, and he shared that tiny, knowing smirk, like they were a pair of giggling girls at a sleepover sharing secrets in the dark, illuminated only a ray of moonlight through the windowpanes. "It can certainly suck sometimes." That he knew, even though he had far less experience in that department than Doe did. His and his mate's love affair hadn't always been rainbows and pretty butterflies; they'd had their share of misery, distance, and deceit. "Is he why you left NightClan in the end? Or was that another romance gone wrong? Or did it have anything to do with love at all?" Crow couldn't deny he was drawn into the way Doe wove his reverie, stringing his memories together with the same silk he strung to his lovers to connect them to him. Love was something Crow had stumbled into purely by chance; but love seemed to stumble intentionally into Doe, and he found himself enjoying the vicarious experience of living in the whirlwind of want the other tom maintained. It wasn't a life he'd ever wanted for himself, but he was like a kitten, fascinated by stories of big monsters of fantastical proportions and great adventures like none other your average Joe would ever get to see for himself. It was exhilarating. But around the time he registered his stupor, he also realized he was being a bit too nosy about this cat's very real, very personal life. "You don't have to tell me all that if you don't want to," he added afterwards, smiling shyly. "It isn't my business. I guess all the hubbub and gossip is rubbing off on me after all." Humor lilted into his tone, Crow at his core always finding some room for humor, but it fell away as Doe continued, quieting into full, attentive alertness, listening more intently now than he was moments before, every word Doe spoke full of the honesty and insightfulness he had been so painfully hungry for.
That's when he knew: Doe was undeniably, accidentally the very thing Crow needed. It went deeper than just a friendship he'd been searching for, deeper still than the reverence he felt towards Ratstar, manifesting in the unmistakable want for someone who could intimately understand the fears he didn't dare speak aloud to anyone else--other than, of course, to his mother and his mate, but there were separate reasons why neither of them could understand the full depth of his feelings. Igziq was powerful and imposing, fearless, and she taught her son to fight through fear and tried to teach him to have confidence in himself no matter the tribulations ahead of (or behind) him; and Orchiddrop was tender and supportive, listened to the things that plagued him and advised solutions, but couldn't wade much further than the shallow pools before they plunged down, down, down, too far down into the trenches he was drowning in--and he felt, for the first time in a long time, like he could catch his breath.
You don't need their guidance to be a good leader. SummerClan, at its core, was traditional but still challenged some outdated aspects of the warrior code. Forbidden love wasn't so forbidden anymore. Borders were more like outlines these days: loosely followed, rearranged as necessary, sometimes entirely abandoned. Ratstar had indeed cultivated a place more accepting, less judgmental than Crow had ever imagined a clan being in his wildest dreams, but… Ratstar deferred to the ancestors. They plucked him out of one life and into a new one, and when he needed guidance, he found solace in knowing StarClan would guide him forward. He found relief in knowing SummerClan's past--those preeminent pinholes in the sky--would light its future. Faith is not enough to lead a clan with. Crow felt the weight fall from his shoulders, released the breath he didn't realize he'd sucked in. "Thank you," he said simply. He didn't speak again for several minutes, only stray leaves snagged on a hapless breeze passing between the pair of toms in that time, as he fully absorbed and digested Doe's words. When he did, his voice was softer than it had been, like some heaviness had drained from it. "I don't know what the future holds for me. I know I want it to be in SummerClan. This is...the first home I've ever had, the first place I wanted to be and stay. I'm…" he was choosing his words more carefully this time as he moved to reference Doe's before, "...not sure how it was before, but the SunClan I was raised in isn't kind. I was born in godless lands, but they--the cats in SunClan--their reverence is taught from the second you're one of them. Just… I never was. There are some old legends of the Crows, some cats long before me that were murdered--or something like that I guess. The details are a little hazy now--" he laughed, a touch too bitterly but his tone stayed even, "and ever since, crows themselves are bad omens, the word is a curse, and to bear the name is the height of dishonor. My mother chose it on purpose. She wanted both to mock SunClan's beliefs and to give her son something to overcome. It wasn't easy. It wasn't ever easy. All I had was my dad and my siblings. No one else wanted to play or be friends with me." Well, that wasn't entirely true. There'd been one, someone equally as misunderstood and outcasted. His singular friend, but they came out as very different cats in the end, and ultimately their bond was fractured beyond repair. "Then we all got older, and my father got assigned the death sentence for a crime he didn't commit, and it was all discord and dire situations and a lot of running after that. I was a rogue for a while, nothing to my name but I found some like-minded individuals and we traveled together for a while, until SummerClan. The rest is history," he smiled, sly and fleeting. There were so many things still unsaid, so many intricate details omitted, but he'd done far more talking today than he had in a while and could feel his throat beginning to itch, Crow turning away so he could clear it, then turned back to Doe and he was suddenly bashful again, shy, tender smile in place. "Sorry. You didn't ask to hear all that."
Doe's ensuing question caught him hopelessly off guard, a flush of warm surprise coloring the skin beneath his cheeks. "I--uh--Yes, I do," he laughed in return. "Thank you, but yes, I do have a wife." His eyes scoured the camp for a sign of her, and as they settled onto Orchiddrop, the she-cat in question being bombarded with an obviously engaging conversation between Firepaw and Cinderpaw, his gaze softened entirely, the sharpness of the flames within them curling back to a gentle glow. "I'm a one gal kinda guy. She's it for me. Don't worry though; I'm sure there are others out there somewhere, not quite as dashing as me but maybe they'll do," he quipped.
You don't have to tell me all that if you don't want to. It isn't my business. I guess all the hubbub and gossip is rubbing off on me after all. Doe had listened to his questions about NightClan and love with a languid sort of amusement, eyes hooded and brows slightly raised, tail-tip twitching lazily; now, he let out a breath of laughter through his nose and offered a small, crooked smile. "Everything in SummerClan is everyone's business, haven't you noticed? For all his good points," and Doe didn't think he had many, "that's one of Ratstar's questionable additions. It never used to be like this in my time. I still had to hide my affairs, not have them invited in for brunch in Ratstar's den. You've all taken Clan of sunshine to a new level." The last was said in a low, drawled aside, his eyes wandering off to the side. He didn't necessarily dislike the new vibe SummerClan had - actually, he had to try harder to stop himself from loving it it. The Doefreckle he had been was miffed about missing out on the scandal of forbidden romances now that everything was so peaceable here; but the Doefreckle he was currently felt, strangely, more at home in this new SummerClan than he ever had in the old one. But he was a brat - no amount of healing and self-betterment could completely drive that out - so he couldn't admit that.
"But it's alright," he continued, voice switching back to that soft murmur and warm brown eyes finding Crow's once more. "Usually when I tell these stories it's to someone tryna..." How did you say 'get in my pants' politely? Doe looked momentarily bewildered. "Uh, woo me," he let out a little titter, his pink nose growing pinker. "So it's nice, y'know, to see what I'll say when that's not the case. It's never happened before. You've thrown me." He laughed, genuinely flustered for a second; he swept his good paw over the sand in front of him, the insides of his ears reddening. "But no, I left NightClan because otherwise they would have thrown me out. After my accident, I was... I wasn't fun to live with. I was so angry - at the whole world. I think part of me was terrified of having to cross the hurdle of learning how to be a warrior with my injury, so I made sure I couldn't be a warrior at all. I was just the worst. Moody. Lazy. Mean. If you could find me, out breaking the code however I could beyond the borders, you had to drag me on patrol because I'd make such a big song and dance about," here, Doe flicked his ears back and leaned in, head sunk low, affecting the sort of sneer he hadn't worn since that time, patronising and nasty, all teeth and hurt and bubbling rage, self-hatred, self-destruction, "'oh, I'm sorry, are you the one with the broken paw?'" He raised his head and his normal self melted back in; it was a tell-tale sign of what a disconcertingly good actor Doe was. "I drifted away from my family. I spent more time on punishment duty than I did anything else, but of course I just disobeyed that as well. I was just seeing how far I could push it until my Clan snapped. And when I finally sensed they were going to, I left when everyone was asleep. My mother and father didn't know until I was gone. I haven't spoken to her since."
Doe gazed down at his paws for a moment, lost in memory, a faint little frown on his face. Finally, he looked back up at Crow, that soft smile drifting back and giving him that same old sadness he always had in his eyes. Strange, how warmth in a smile was weighed by sorrow. "Congratulations, you made my story depressing because I didn't have to worry about trying to bed you," he purred, and a little of the sorrow warmed to something more alive. Crow felt comforting to be around. Like for the first time, it wouldn't be a matter of him leaning on someone else to chase away the need to find strength in himself, nor would it be a matter of someone else leaning on him and crushing him under their own hurt; they could lean on each other and both find themselves stronger for it, independently and together.
Doe listened to Crow's story in kind silence, eyes earnest and brows pushed slightly together; his head was ducked slightly, leaned in a little closer to watch him as he spoke, until finally he let his chin rest on his bad forepaw, wincing inwardly when the bone crunched beneath him and turning it this way and that until he found a position that didn't hurt, or that hurt less. The only smile he offered, small and fleeting and accompanied by a small breath of soft laughter, was at Crow's 'thank you', a smile that said of course. You don't have to thank me.
"I've heard of the prejudice surrounding crows," he replied quietly. Gently. "I saw SunClan a few times, at Gatherings. Foxstar was Priestess back then. I think they're the only Clan that's ever frightened me." He smiled, small and fleeting. "If they could see you now - if all of SunClan were struck dumb, their God silenced and all their crimes laid at their paws - they would see just how fine a Crow can be. It's a terrible thing, to be burdened with something you didn't choose, before you're even born. But you've borne it better than anyone could have. Your kindness is proof of that. A lesser cat would have been turned cruel by all that suffering. Even Ratstar," his eyes flicked up to Crow teasingly; he'd picked up on his pseudo-worship of the tom, though God knew why. He sobered a moment later. "When the Sun God dies and stays dead one day, he'll be asking for forgiveness at the paws of his gentlest warrior." He smiled softly; it lit up playfully a heartbeat later. "And look at how many cats want to play with you now." Doe rolled onto his back and stuck his good forepaw in Crow's face upside down like an annoying kitten, pressing his pads against his cheek and pushing him slightly away, a dorky little grin on his face.
Thank you, but yes, I do have a wife. I'm a one gal kinda guy. Still on his back, Doe's eyes followed Crow's gaze to the white she-cat, forehead tipping back against the sand. The love on Crow's face both made his romantic heart swell and melt, and his chest ache with longing to be looked at like that. He had been, once. He'd thrown it back in Shadedsun's face. "She's very pretty," he replied past the momentary pain, voice gentle and polite despite Orchiddrop's looks doing very little for him. She was very... She had very nice fur, he supposed. And a face with everything where it should be. And a scar. They looked better on toms, he thought a little haughtily, but then most things did. But she looked kind, and he felt a rush of affection for her if she made Crow this happy. "Shame, but very pretty."
Everything in SummerClan is everyone's business, haven't you noticed? Crow offered a wry smile at that. He wasn't unused to it; hell, SunClan was so arrogant about itself it had its members spreading the gospel in other clans at this point. Even during his days as a rogue, you tended to hear things through the grapevine, gossiping kittypets on the edge of their twoleg nests serving as the focal point of all things juicy or important. Not like their definition of important actually means important, he thought to himself, with that same knowing glow in his eyes. "Privacy always did have a price," he mused instead. There weren't many things in his own life that were especially compromising - six loud-mouthed children with no concept of when to shut up didn't lend itself to secrets - but he knew the ones that were, well, those were best not exposed. He was sure, for all its southern charm and hospitality, that SummerClan wouldn't look kindly upon a deputy with a debt to another leader.
He pulled his tail in closer, the tip of it flicking against his shoulder, and corralled his thoughts back to normal as Doe began to speak again. "Woo you," he echoed, the edge of a delightedly surprised laugh surrounding the words, but that's all he did. There was a soft, inviting relatability in Doe's story, that same familiarity of before at how they'd shared an experience that was somehow unique to them at the very same time. "I understand," he said, and he did. Crow understood anger; he understood it perhaps more than he understood anything else, and he certainly understood self-isolation on behalf of that anger. "I did the same - except my line was 'Is your dad an exiled accused murderer?'" Crow's attempt at spitting fire, at dredging up those embers and letting them reignite in the present, was much less effective than Doe's: A curl of the right side of his lip, his face scrunched up in something meant to be menacing and bitter and wrathful but actually only made him look as if he needed to sneeze. He did. Rubbing his nose, he said, "I never wanted to be in camp. I don't think anyone even noticed I was gone, barring my siblings. But when I was out there, stalking around, righteously enraged, I thought the world knew it. I thought I could make it tremble. Turns out little apprentices with a chip on their shoulder are never as intimidating as they make themselves out to be."
He was happy to just exist in this moment, this shared moment. This understanding they had of each other's pasts. Knowing that there was, at least, one more person than there had been before that knew of it.
But he was tempted to ruin it, and he found himself, quietly, kindly, asking into the air, "Do you think of your mother often? Do you ever consider seeing her again?" He did. He thought of Ghostcrown every day. One of the greatest, most undeniable heartaches of Crow's life was not due to an absence of love; it was borne of too much love, of loving his father and just wanting to know why he'd left him. Maybe one day he would finally ask. Maybe one day he wouldn't be too afraid to. He also, unable to stop himself, found himself asking, "What was she like? Was she worth leaving?" Was I worth leaving? He wanted to ask, but Doe wouldn't have that answer for him. He longed to know if Ghostcrown regretted that day in the fire - but Crow was scared to know the answer.
You've borne it better than anyone could have. His eyes closed, letting the words hover in the air, and when they opened again, Doe would be able to see the faintest shimmer of tears in them. Crow blinked. They were gone. "I don't need him to beg from me anymore," he smiled. It was somber, somehow reminiscent. "I don't want to see the world tremble. I'm the okayest I've ever been." One day, he would need to leave his hurt by SunClan behind and, in allowing himself to admit that, he felt that inexplicable weight lift off his chest. He'd had the opportunity to turn dark with his anger; he could have gone a different path, stayed the course with that friend of his, and together maybe they would have torn down the mortal gods and the sun. Or maybe their anger would have blinded them, and they would have been killed themselves, their stomachs ripped open and entrails laid out beneath the Sun God's claws. He knew then that it wasn't his suffering that made him kind. He'd chosen to be. He wouldn't give the gods credit for that any longer. "I'll get to have all the friends now," Crow grinned against Doe's paw, "We'll play tag and mossball and the Sun God will just have to sit by himself and watch. C'mon, Doey, let's find a mossball!" He was suddenly on his paws, pulling Doefreckle along, and bounding away to find where the kits kept their finest stashes of moss, that kind that was perfectly damp and pliable, that wouldn't fall apart after one kick.
The rest of the clan would get to watch that evening as two toms with bad paws tried to chase a ball.
