Kier hadn’t seen Laertes since taking over NightClan, and a lot had happened since then. Executions. His growing power-madness. The miscarriage. It felt to him that it ought to be a title of its own: The Miscarriage. A before and an after. His time with the kit seemed a distant memory, some childish folly. He thought about him often, but he’d made no move to go and see him. It seemed that for all the training he’d given him, all the ways he’d stripped him of his childhood and fostered an utter dependency within him, he’d simply abandoned him — and to a kit whose sense of self now hinged on him, that was a cruel thing indeed. But Kier was cruel. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for Laertes, wasn’t that he wouldn’t have wanted him with him in a perfect world; it was just that he didn’t have time. That NightClan was not the pinnacle he’d imagined it would be. That being a tyrant hadn’t perfectly plugged the hole in his heart; it had just opened it up to more criticism, more contempt, and in the process created a Kier both more confident and more desperate than ever for the faintest idea that he was doing a good job. And now, since the miscarriage, with Eris still not talking, he was just beginning to move through the fog and into violent, bulging-eyed laughter. The only thought he’d given to Laertes was a vague question in his mind of how he’d slaughter the League and simultaneously keep him safe, get him out, keep him out of harm’s way.

Truthfully, he was lonelier than ever.

While Eris lay unmoving in their nest, her snapped mind not yet known to him; while Kier’s healthy kits played deep underground, unaware of what their childhoods would become; while their mother rotted in a shallow grave, her blood long since grown cold and congealed around bite marks in her throat; while his Clan continued their starved, shuffling life, Kier was out in the forest alone. The wounds inflicted by his sister still ached; his movements were less fluid than usual, more laborious. He was in pain. As he padded into a clearing, League scent touched his nose. Lifting his chin to taste it on his tongue, he turned his head towards the vague direction of it, a low, quiet growl rumbling in his throat. Head thrust forward and sharp shoulders rippling, Kier slipped round the tree trunks towards it, black pelt lost to the night. Claws prickling from their sheathes, he rounded the mossy log—

And immediately halted. “Laertes?” he asked, raising his head straighter and slipping his claws back in.

Kier leaned backwards, alarmed and startled, when Laertes suddenly rushed him, one of his paws picking up like he was going to physically step back or brush him off if he tried to hug him; he was unused to his presence, had fallen out of practice with him, with being so casually close to someone else. And yet, he had the strange urge to pull him closer, to let him cry on his shoulder, to murmur quiet comfort, quiet hushes, quiet assurances that nothing was wrong, in his ear and hold his paw on his back. When Laertes’ expression softened into helplessness, into fear, Kier frowned at him with the closest thing to gentle, confused worry he’d ever shown, blinking carefully as he listened. Then they widened. “Why should you not belong in the League anymore?” he asked soothingly, as if he hadn’t been the one to put that very idea in his head.

When Laertes finally looked up at him, Kier saw the clarity resurface in his eyes for the first time and quickly grew uneasy, self-conscious. He straightened. “Me?” he echoed, trying to sound unconcerned and upbeat, powerful, if only so Laertes didn’t worry. But he still sounded so drained, and for the first time his lie fell short. “Oh, yes, I’m fine — just… a small thing gone wrong. I’m handling it.” He was eager to brush it off; he never liked to talk about his weaknesses.

Growing sombre once more, Kier touched his tail to the kit’s flank and led him slightly away, to dryer ground. He sat down close beside him, his voice quietening and his tail curling softly around Laertes’ lower back. “Listen,” he began, and his voice was an odd blend of comforting gentleness and Kier’s natural instinct to pull back, to stay uninvolved and grander-than, to not make himself uncomfortable with shows of emotion and intimacy. “The things I said, you mustn’t pay them any mind — the League is your home.”

With other kits and apprentices to take Laertes’ place, Kier’s attitude to his protégé had softened; he would always be his best and brightest, but he didn’t need him in the same way anymore — he cared for him, loved him, even, though Kier wouldn’t quite recognise the feeling, but there was that guilt, and with other devotees like Lilacpaw to take his place, devotees he didn’t care for in the same tender, confusing way, Kier wanted to let Laertes go, to give him back his life. But as the tom who had taken it from him, that was easier said than done; he’d created a dependency, and cutting Laertes loose would be leaving him to flounder and drown. Kier didn’t quite see that — he saw the loosening of his grip on Laertes as a kindness, not as the callous, jealousy-inducing abandonment it was, a child taught to come to him for everything and then told to fend for himself. This was Kier taking accountability, being selfless — but it looked very much like cruelty. Like Laertes was just a first experiment that Kier had grown disillusioned with and discarded in search of better, fuller rewards. Like there was someone else.

As Laertes continued, Kier let out a breath and silently drew him closer, resting his chin between the kit’s ears with his claws tapping on the muscle of Laertes’ upper foreleg as he listened. As he thought. He was silent for a long time, just taking in everything he said without comment. I came to be here, with … you. Something in Kier’s chest squeezed, with uncomfortable guilt as well as fondness. Tragic gratitude, that at least he had one cat on earth who cared if he lived or died. Despite the reverse size difference between them, he was suddenly aware of how very young Laertes was, of the true extent to which his shadow had leeched into every part of the kit’s life. If he couldn’t go home, then it was his responsibility to look after him. To make sure that, at the very least, he ate. Slept somewhere safe. Didn’t shiver all night in the rain. I can help you out around the clan. Kier would have smiled, resting there atop the kit’s head, if he hadn’t been so tired. The last thing he needed was Laertes hanging around — and yet, part of him yearned for it, for the familiar, easy comfort of having someone from the old days. Someone who didn’t see him as the figure he’d carved out for himself, but as a brazen, self-important trainee, ambitious and free, even if he’d never felt so at the time. He wasn’t safe in NightClan, but he would at least be safer than he was in the League. He said nothing about his plans to kill Laertes’ father; he felt both strangely connected to the older tom he’d never truly met, the two of them so intricately woven into Laertes’ life, and thus guilty at the impact the loss would have on the kit, and irrationally hateful of him. Before the miscarriage, he had wanted to rid himself of Bermondsey just so he could be the dominant influence in Laertes’ life. Now, all he felt was a tired, mournful ache at the inevitability of it. Everything was inevitable. He was so weary.

And so, at last, Kier let out a whisper of a sigh, heavy and defeated, gentle and tired. “Come on,” he told him quietly, and felt he would regret it. Drawing back, he jerked his head faintly in the vague direction of the camp, his voice quieter than the cold, damp breeze through the pine needles. “You must be tired. You’ve had a long night.”

Looping his tail around Laertes’ flank to guide him, he set of slowly through the dark trees, padding leadenly for Laertes’ fragile state. He didn’t hurry him, just padded along with quiet, distant comfort close at his side, silent in the dark. He didn’t ask how Laertes’ had almost killed his sister; in the past Kier would have been delightedly curious, but now he let it fade between them for a later time. How inexplicably their lives were linked, both their points of no return coming in the form of a sister. The last of their innocence might have wafted away into the air on the same night. Finally, in that same quiet voice, he spoke. “NightClan has proven a difficult, painful thing. At first I found their antipathy terribly delightful… Imposing myself, you know. It was a terrific thing — I loved the way they looked at me…” He trailed off, voice fading into the damp chill. Since Eris’ miscarriage, when all he’d had the energy to do was think, the glee of tyranny hadn’t held the same power. He had truly started to assimilate into this Clan, had started to change himself for it, and all they saw, while he felt one of them, was an outsider inflicting his cruelty. And he was, he supposed… This sort of painful, unsolvable thinking was all he’d done, alone in his nest. Even when he was beside Eris he might as well have been alone. He didn’t blame her — didn’t blame her for a second — but all he wanted was to hold her and feel her feel him. “They frustrate me — much of the time, they want me dead. And yet lately, I’ve caught myself feeling a kinship with them. I don’t feel League anymore, I don’t feel like anything I was with my father. I wake up and I feel truly NightClan. Their life… I threw myself in willingly. It makes it hard, sometimes, to hurt them. I can’t make sense of it. They were just a Clan. But nights like this, I feel I see it for the first time. I never cared before — it was a forest. But it’s rather beautiful, isn’t it? The moonlight in the trees…”

He trailed off once more, and when he spoke again his voice was barely audible, just a faint, hollow thing in the dark. If it wasn’t hollow, it would be tearful. And he had cried enough; he wouldn’t do so in front of Laertes. It felt like a quiet explanation, a reason. A confession. Not a whisper; just a muted admission, vulnerability trying so hard to be resilient. Grief wondering why it wasn’t uncaring, a devil wondering why its callousness had been worn down and bled open. “My mate miscarried our kits,” he murmured quietly, numbed eyes on the fallen needles. There was no emotion in his voice, nothing left to feel emotion with, and yet there was the sepulchral echo of everything in it. Every bit of sorrow on earth.

Kier twitched his ear dismissively like he didn’t know why Laertes was offering his sympathies, despite being the one to have brought it up. He glanced away, looking out at the forest in silence. If he thought on it anymore, even with this quiet companionship that made him feel like he could breathe out for the first time since that night, he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do. And right now, Laertes needed him functional.

At his sudden panic, he looked over at him again. “What are they going to tell?” he asked, and though there was a hint of the familiar disapproval that had once filled his voice when Laertes had gotten an answer wrong, his tone was far more efficiently comforting than condemnatory. He couldn’t keep up his gentleness all the time, but that dedication to solving Laertes’ problems, to fixing his situation, was a love of its own. Whatever could be said about him, Kier was an asset to have on your side. And if Laertes wanted to run away, then he was going to help him. No questions asked. “A grey trainee — are you a trainee yet? I should say congratulations — has been hanging about NightClan; they don’t know about our relationship, do they? And if they do…” He seemed to make a decision, to commit to Laertes fully. “I’ll lie for you. If you don’t wish to go home, then you shan’t be going. You can stay with me for as long as you need. In any case,” and now his mind was doing what it did best: thinking up solutions. For the first time in days, the fog was lifting, the cobwebs snapping, and the cogs were whirring back to life. His pupils darted more sharply, “maybe we ought to put a little divide between you and Nemesis’ son. Laertes is quite distinctive, and three cats with League names are going to begin to attract a bit of attention.” He turned his attention to him once more. “Is there any other name you could use?”

Just before they reached the camp, NightClan scent flooding from the entrance receding into the damp earth and hidden by the dark shadows, Kier suddenly veered to the side and led Laertes down a steep, tree root-laden slope. His steps were quick and sure; having a task, something to do, something to think about, had filled him with life, quiet and resolutely steadfast. At the bottom of the slope wound a thin bubbling stream, cold and silver in the dark. “Come,” he told Laertes, and the familiar command held none of its usual arrogance. It was a reassurance, a promise that Kier had this under control. That Laertes could stop thinking and hand it all over to him. “You’ll raise far fewer questions if you don’t wander into camp reeking of the League.” He glanced back to Laertes from where he’d been eyeing the water absently, lost in his thoughts. Then, remembering with a faint nag of guilt the last time he’d ordered him into water, Kier quickly reevaluated and and padded out into the stream himself. The water was cold and slow, and he stopped when it reached his belly, turning back to face Laertes. There was no ice in it this time. This time, washing off the last remnants of Laertes’ old life, the water would be gentle. A baptism and a reinvention. A sacred act of care, not of cruel ambition. He didn’t speak, just waited with calm blinks for Laertes to join him. This time, it would be his choice.

Kier nodded once, sharp and silent — a ’good.’ Left with him to mull it over in the back of his mind, he fell quiet. Without a word, standing stomach-deep in the cold, pale stream, he stepped closer and began to groom the water over Laertes’ ears, through the fur behind it that always stuck up, across the back of his neck. All the parts nature couldn’t reach on its own. Until finally, he was clean. Drawing back, the water breaking around his legs, he looked at Laertes for a moment, eyes unblinking, before nodding and sloshing back to the bank, leading the kit to his new home.

“It’ll be dark,” he warned Laertes as they padded towards the slope leading down into the camp, preparing him for the first few moments in his new life. It still felt like something temporary, more safe house than permanent residence. But Kier would make it comfortable for him in the meantime. “But your eyes adjust quickly enough — just don’t fall off the side, and mind your paws. Now, cats will be awake, and they’ll stare — I haven’t been able to cure them of that yet — but they won’t say anything. They’re obedient enough.” He stopped at the entrance, turning towards Laertes for final reassurance. “Really,” he told him, and despite the efficiency of it, there was quiet softness in his eyes as he looked up at him. “There’s no need to worry.” He was silent for a moment, just looking up at him, and then he added, “you really have grown. How annoying.” It was a dry, flippant joke as he turned away. And then he disappeared into the clinging, liquid darkness; his tail snaked in the air, and then it was gone.

Kier had been right: as they descended the slope and the dark opened up around them, cats around the cavern raised their heads and stared, eerily unblinking. It felt much like it had when he’d first brought Eris in, but hungrier and without the naïve joy; they had felt like children then, and Kier’s chest twisted with grief at the memory. It swallowed him, and then it was gone. Ignoring them with newfound, yielding quietness and none of his former cocky grandeur, eyes on the ground as his paws slipped into grooves in the stone, he led Laertes down to the ground and then slipped away into a small cave, little more than a crevice, in the wall. He reappeared a few moments later, still silent, carrying a thick wad of dry moss in his jaws. It was so full and he so small that he tottered strangely as he carried it towards his den, having to march slightly to keep the trailing tendrils from tripping him up. At the entrance to his den, he suddenly stopped and, dropping the moss at his paws, glanced at Laertes with a look of faint fear. “Wait here a moment,” he breathed, and then bounded into the den. He was gone for half a minute, and when he returned there was a hollow, lonely sort of ache in his eyes, almost disappointment. He tried his best to cover it up, gaze flicking up from where it had briefly hitched on the ground. “I think she’s spending the night in the medicine den,” he told Laertes slightly distractedly, as if he needed an explanation; the way he said it was like he had to prove there was nothing wrong — he and his mate were fine. Really, he wanted to go to her now, wanted to curl up with her and make sure the medicine cat was feeding her, but Laertes was a guest and good breeding dictated that guests had to be cared for first. Even if his heart reached out of the den. “Eris, I mean,” he added, still distracted; he turned, and then glanced back at Laertes, not really seeing him, “have you met Eris?” It wasn’t a question he expected to be answered, wasn’t one he’d really recall asking — it was just politeness.

Picking the moss back up, he led the way up the slope to the rise where his nest lay. Setting it down a little way from his own, he spoke as he patted it into place, head tilted slightly. “I realise this isn’t ideal, but there’s really no where else to put you. Obviously we’ll find somewhere else — tomorrow, maybe — but for now, it isn’t very kind to throw you in with the warriors or the Guards in the middle of the night. My deputy might go snooping and I wouldn’t wish an encounter with her unprepared on my very worst enemy.” Who also, coincidentally, happened to be locked in the dungeons. He laughed, slightly manic. Finally, looking up at Laertes with an oddly nervous sort of smile, like he was uncertain about his acceptance of the arrangement, he stepped back deferentially and, giving a quick, anxious little gesture towards the new nest, retreated to his own. He settled down, staring openly at Laertes like he was unused to someone else being in his den other than his mate, or like he had a thousand questions to ask. The air felt muggy, his pelt soaked through and just beginning to dampen from his body heat and the warmth of his nest; Eris’ scent mingled with his own, one now impossible to discern from the other. The walls of his den towered over them, reaching up to the hole in the roof through which moonlight filtered down. But eventually, cold distance settled over Kier once more. He leaned back in his nest. “How did you almost kill your sister?” he asked, and his voice was its familiar tone. “Which one was it? The cute one, the tall one, or the ugly one?”

And then I was practicing my tree climbing. Kier looked down as Laertes looked up, picking a tendril of moss from his nest so he didn’t have to look at him; feigning ignorance, or pretending he hadn’t heard him at all. He stayed like that the whole time the kit spoke, picking at his nest with slow, languid movements. To anyone else, it was arrogant disinterest in a story that didn't concern him; to Kier, listening to every word, it was guilt. It only strengthened, feeling to him like discomfort, as the pool was brought up. He knew precisely which one. He shifted slightly in his nest; his leg was going numb. Bermondsey. Not father. His ears twitched slightly at the change in form of address, but he said nothing, just filed it away.

"But you did save her," he replied, finally looking up. It was comfort, or meant as it. He wanted to say more, wanted to say oh, Laertes, there is no curse — you saved your sister, you’re so achingly kind. Would a curse run away for fear of hurting its family? He knew curses, and this family turmoil wasn’t one. But the words died on his tongue; he couldn’t choke them out. The guilty part of him that loved Laertes battled with the part that still had use for him, and the latter won. Maybe one day he’d say that all the fear he’d fed Laertes had been lies, had been for his own ends — let him hate him, let him rage and weep at his lost childhood. And so, maybe Kier wasn’t afraid of confessing because the anger would foil his plans for the kit. Maybe he was afraid of confessing because he would lose him. A companion kept by dishonesty was still a companion, and he could help Laertes… Even if he used him in return. He bowed his head. It was the closest Kier had ever come to feeling ashamed. To feeling sorrow and regret. "Your parents were wrong to be mad with you. You did nothing but act with utter bravery and compassion. I'm sorry they couldn't see that." After a moment of quiet, he added in a softer voice, "you have nothing to be sorry for." In the past, Laertes' shame had served him. Now, injustice would serve him more. At least, that was how he reasoned his kindness. He didn't want to admit, didn't want to even acknowledge, that perhaps his love was just love.

Kier rested his chin on the edge of his nest, blinking at his protégé. Was that even the right word anymore? The atmosphere in the dark, warm den felt close, quiet, unspoken; they’d never slept in the same space before, and the intimacy felt both inevitable and strange, disjointed. “Druzyprince,” he said at last, like he had come to a decision, voice both authoritative and little more than a mumble, chin unable to move against the softness of his nest and eyes hooded, sombre. Like it was the most obvious next step in the world. “Your name will be Druzyprince.” His daughter was a king; Laertes would be a prince. He had been born to nothing, but he could give out titles now. Could make cats more than they had been. And here he was, a self-made royal bestowing favour on one born to a crown and meaning it as a kindness. As a promise. As devotion; protection. "You'll be something finer than your father." There was faint, tired bitterness in his words, but a promise again. He would make it so. He would nurture him now, guide him. The cruelty had outgrown them both.

"Good," Kier replied with a sharp little nod, and it was final. The ink was drying and the deal was struck. With that, he stood, turned, and lay back down with his back to… Laertes? He didn’t know what to think of him as. “Now get some sleep.” Since losing his kits, Kier’s sleep schedule had become a random, exhaustive thing — where before he’d thrived in the nocturnal dark, now he slept fitfully, or for great periods of time, or not at all, in the day and in the night, with no rhyme nor reason. But as he lay there, as the hours slipped by and the night deepened and blackened and drew colder, as the shadows shifted and warped across his stone wall, he didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. He was tired; he was awake; he felt sick; he felt nothing. At one point he began to shiver from the cold, curled up tight. Every so often he’d hear Laertes behind him, hear him shuffle in his nest or rearrange himself, and Kier’s ears would sharpen instinctively to listen, growing alert even as he lay with his chin on the moss and his back to the kit. Laertes’ breathing was a constant companion. He couldn’t switch off his attention — he wasn’t used to anyone else but Eris being with him nowadays and as soon as his mind began to wander or drift, as soon as his body began to relax, Laertes would make some sound and back up his ears would go. Kier’s eyes never fully closed; he just stared at the opposite wall. Sometime in the night, the tip of his tail began to twitch, tapping quietly against the edge of his nest in pointed, passive aggressive annoyance. It wasn’t Laertes’ fault — it wasn’t even that Kier was particularly uncomfortable. It was more… Well, the longer he lay there, the more he began to think he’d grown unused to being alone in his nest, to not having Eris’ warmth and the rasp of her breath. When he realised it, Laertes’ presence behind him became a faint comfort. And finally, as dawn began to broach the forest and the first of the birds began to sing, the twitching of his tail faded to safe, quiet stillness and Kier drifted into sleep.

---

The next morning, Kier was up first and all efficiency. He cleaned himself in the pool of water, shouted a few things at a few incompetent guards, had a meeting with Snowblister for the first time in weeks, gently checked in on Eris and ignored the medicine cat, and still had time to bring Laertes breakfast — he felt more alive than he had since the miscarriage. Laertes’ arrival had reinvigorated him, or snapped him back to himself — if he couldn’t run his Clan for himself, then he would run it for Laertes. He’d come seeking refuge; it wouldn’t do if that refuge was ungoverned and confused.

He was far more soldierly, far more imperturbable and put together than he had been the previous night; in fact, he was rather embarrassed about his conduct. It had been a poor impression. “Breakfast,” he greeted Laertes, dropping a finch by his nose and padding briskly around to sit beside the younger tom’s nest. “No time for sleeping — we have things to do.” He reached forward and smacked one of the newly christened Druzyprince’s ears back and forth, more insistently annoying than painful. “Up, up, up. Eat, eat, eat.” He leaned over him and drew the finch closer to him. “Fresh from the sky. Your ratty little League diet won’t hold a candle to food for royalty here — we’ll have some meat on those bones in no time. Come, come. Eat. It’s good.” Kier pushed it closer again and sat back with something like an eager little wiggle, in conflict with the no-nonsense, impatient sternness of his expression; he liked taking care of others, liked fussing. And he’d missed him. He fought back the smile, the excitement, the tenderness threatening to creep into his strict, irritated eyes.

“I’m not some trainee in the League anymore, Laertes, and you’re not some Warden’s kit — ‘what will we be doing’ is no longer the question of the day.” It was said fondly. Kier found great stability and comfort in Laertes looking to him for every direction — whatever else changed, that would stay the same. That blind loyalty, the fact that he had come to him when he had nowhere else to go, the thought that he would sit silent at the foot of his throne and help him build or tear down whatever Empire he wanted to build or tear down… He was everything no one in NightClan would ever be. The brightest kit, the most devoted apprentice… They would never be what Laertes was. But if he were going to become what Kier wanted him to be, what he had had time to think about that morning when everything seemed that much clearer, then they had to find that balance of blind, mindless obedience and independent thought. Kier gave the orders, Laertes followed them — it was a comfort to him, that lack of autonomy; Laertes wouldn’t betray him, wouldn’t do anything without asking permission, wouldn’t go behind his back. He was his to instruct, to order, to guide. He didn’t want another Moonblight, didn’t want a dead-eyed veneer atop all the inner turmoil — he wanted Laertes; silent compliance in public and his stubborn snark in private: a mind when it was needed and none when it wasn’t. Kier had come to rely on it; it was the only challenge to his authority that felt like reassurance, because he knew it was just idle backtalk. He knew who it came from, and he trusted him. Laertes didn’t need to think, didn’t need to have a mind of his own in public — he just needed to be a machine. A machine very good at listening. At watching. The protégé would have to become the villain as the mentor had become the king. A villain of proximity, of circumstance, but a villain no less. Maybe Laertes wouldn’t notice what they were, wouldn’t see what role he had unwittingly stumbled into, would think they were the good guys, but all the Clan would eye him as the one closest to the throne, as the silent interloper with the nervous green eyes who’d wandered in and been granted privilege. Their relationship would need to grow into king and adviser, both ready to throw incriminating papers into a fire under siege and flee into the night. Whatever happened, they would be in it together; there was no way out now — they were entangled, and if Kier fell, so did Druzyprince.

“Clean yourself up,” Kier told him when he was finished, rising to his paws. “Druzyprince must make a perfectly solemn first impression — no curly kit fluff.” Flicking him over the ear with his tail tip, he padded past and made his way down to the entrance of his den to wait. When he joined him, Kier strode out. The cavern looked different in the daylight — lighter, prettier, filled with history and culture and traditions. No matter their subjugation, everyone still knew their role, still held bonds in a way the League never had. The Clan was just beginning to mill about on the way to bed; he had kept them up later than usual, well into the morning. He wove between them, needing to say nothing for them to move aside for him but for once unbothered by having to pause briefly for someone to pass in front of him or wind his way between preoccupied warriors; he just chatted away to Druzyprince as he did so, sounding calmer and more inspired than he had in weeks. He paid no notice to the stares and whispers directed at his new companion; but his blindness to them was entirely fake — he was making a point of parading Laertes about, of letting him be seen. Of showing NightClan that where they had failed, a League cat had been brought into fix their mistakes; that he was the new favourite, the new inadvertent traitor to their cause.

“I was thinking that a position on the Loyal Guard might be a perfect fit for you. I know you’re very young, but really, you’re no younger than I was when I first came to the League, and my traineeship taught me nothing I hadn’t learned from experience already. A waste of time. You’d be unfairly overqualified with the other apprentices — and besides, they learn…” He tried to pick the right word. “Different skills. All you’ve learned on our outings, it’s a whole other kettle of fish.” Plus, for whatever reason, he didn’t want Laertes to be exposed to the trials and sermons and punishments, to have that inflicted on him to steal the innocence that still softened his eyes. He’d partake in them, of course, later — but he didn’t need Snowblister crushing him. “You have practical skills, you know, something these little idiots will never have. Plus, I need you — I trust you.” He glanced at him. “The other Guards — they’re remnants of the past. Outdated. Disloyal, rather ironically.” Kier stopped and turned to face him. His eyes were earnest. “As the first of my new Guards, and as my most trusted, we’d be making a statement — that this is the beginning.” His eyes were bright with fervour, with passion for the idea, and he leaned forward slightly. “Really, it would be little more than a symbolic position — sitting tall, silent, proud, making an example of yourself,” he turned away to continue on, eyes wandering casually to the airy roof, and as he did, his voice lowered, like he was hoping he could say it and so have no accusations of dishonesty, while also not actually being heard, “the odd bit of spying.”

Kier didn't know whether he'd been hoping Laertes would catch the words and they could have it out in the open, or whether he'd been hoping he wouldn't and, when it came down to it, he could say 'oh, but I did tell you.' Looking at him, he shrugged one pointy shoulder innocently. "Whomsoever happens to need spying on," he replied calmly, like it were the most harmless thing in the world. Letting out a sigh, he forced the instinct to immediately lie to melt away and padded closer to his protégé. "I'm sorry, you're owed honesty. It's a necessary evil, really. I already have cats to..." He chose his words, eyes darting up, "report on the Clan — rumours, whispers of discontent, you know; they can kill — but I don't trust anyone enough to send them out to other Clans. Stay in the shadows, mostly, or live among them for a little while — you always liked that sort of thing, didn't you? Right now, it isn't necessary. But in the future..." He trailed off and shrugged again, a slow, little thing. He padded on. Kier didn't mention that the primary Clan he wanted spied on was the League; he couldn't send Laertes to do that, not when one word from his father or mother might send him running home. Until NightClan became familiar to him, he couldn't have him tempted, not when the homesickness would be settling in any day. Speaking of which.

He glanced at the younger tom. "Any pangs yet? I know that for me, what with leaving the League being a necessity, I forgot it as soon as I was gone. But I imagine it'll be quite different for you." Though he was prying, his voice, beyond the usual distance, was sympathetic, and it wasn't all pretend. Really, it was more real than anything. "On that note." Kier stopped in front of a cave, smaller than you'd expect — the discomfort got them prepared. "The Loyal Guard den — name pending," he added to Laertes in a low, dissatisfied voice; Loyal Guard sounded so... democratic. It didn't occur to him that, being little more than a kit, Laertes might want to stay with him for the time being, in his den; Kier had always been made to grow up too soon, too fast, sent mixed signals and expected to cope, babied on the moors and then thrown into the trainees' den without any parting words from his father. It had left him both tragically mature and, in matters like this, emotionally stunted; all trainee-aged cats were thrown out in the cold. All their parents didn't let them stay in their room. It was what Laertes surely wanted — it was normal. There was no reason why he should be lonely or afraid; it happened to all kits. Something in his chest ached slightly; he didn't know why. It felt like loneliness. But why should he feel lonely? It made no sense. He didn't want Laertes to stay with him; it wasn't the done thing.