@ash set before the trial <3 

Kier wandered less than he used to nowadays. Ever since Eris’ miscarriage, he liked to be closer to home, liked to be within reach of an envoy’s message in case she needed him; she did and then she didn’t, clung to him and then bared her teeth at him, and he was devoted through all of it. He didn’t blame her for a moment, didn’t look at her with anything but love and sorrow and the thought that she was still the most beautiful she-cat he’d ever seen. Whatever insecurities she carried within herself and left unsaid were so far from Kier’s reality that he never even imagined she might have felt them — she was exquisite; she was powerful; she had survived losing their kits. If he had worshipped her before, now she was a deity like no other, an earthen goddess on a home altar. The kits they’d lost were nothing to him anymore, buried in a sacred place known only to him within his chest to be grieved in quiet, tender moments, never to grow old or fail. He would have watched them die a thousand times over if it kept Eris with him; he had never loved her — her strength — like he did now. He would wait until the end of time for her to be alright again, and if she never was, he'd love the empty ruins. The Clan had seen the shift as well — he’d always been loyal to his mate, but he’d leered at and made loud, degrading comments about passing she-cats, had taunted and flirted with those ridiculing bedroom eyes and grinned when he knew they couldn’t slap him. It hadn't been hidden from Eris; it had been part of their relationship, something laughed about and teased. Now, in the wake of their shared loss, it was like he’d been tamed. He’d settled down and grown indifferent; he talked business and his gaze drifted over passing she-cats like they weren’t there at all, no reaction lighting in his eyes. To most, it was a tremendous relief.

But on nights like this, he felt so tired it made him angry. All his grieving, all his bottling up his feelings so he could be what Eris needed him to be — he didn’t resent her for a second, and most of the time it was easy, it was real, it was a calmness, a gentle shouldering of their shared burden, that settled in his chest like just another lie. His smiles were real; he coped and it didn’t feel like coping, not most of the time. Kier okayed the trials, the verdicts, the patrols, the meetings, the reports; Kier was up before dusk and after dawn, sometimes for two days straight because every time he thought he could slip away to bed, another thing needed his attention; Kier was always available, at home and in the field, no personal life, no time when he couldn’t be disturbed — he was always there to fix others’ mistakes, to give them his instructions when delegation was supposed to have eased that burden on his own shoulders, to verify that something a nervous Superior had done had been within their jurisdiction. He never frayed; he endured. Because tyranny was ten percent glamour and ninety percent drudgery, paper-pushing, insomnia and hollow eyes. And the smile never slipped, the crown never tilted. Kier was always alright. Kier was always there; he never slept. Kier was competent, reliable, the mathematician who received the papers he’d asked for at three in the morning and then worked till seven redoing it all because the one he’d delegated it to had miscalculated — but never mind that, he’d let it pass without complaint.

But sometimes, it felt like the stitches keeping his chest together were burning at the seams. Sometimes, it was like he was going to burst from all the things he kept contained. Sometimes, he needed to let off steam unworthy of bothering Eris with — not when he loved her; not when she was special in a way no one else was.

Sometimes, he needed to scream.

And this was one of those nights. Kier lounged atop the pillar of stone in the centre of camp, tail-tip flicking with hidden stress, hidden grief, as his tired gaze wandered slowly around the cavern. The fact he was close to an overburdened meltdown wasn’t clear; he simply looked subdued. Such was the power of emotional repression. Pawsteps on the sandy stone made his ears prick tiredly; he looked over without reaction to watch Pantherpaw make her way across the camp. He remembered their encounter after Primrosetuft’s arrest, but he felt nothing at the memory; it was just a dull, distant acknowledgement of what had passed between them. Unpleasant things. But right then, at a time of night that made everything feel like a ceasefire, like a truce, it just felt like a twisted sort of camaraderie — two actors playing out a scene on stage, and now the curtain had fallen and they were back in the wings. The costumes, the props, the makeup; the performance was over until the next one and they were discarded. “She’s doing alright,” he told her without prompting, his eyes hooded and his voice quiet and bleak from where it drifted down from his perch. “Your mother. She didn’t fight back in my coup, not like Moonblight. Not like Sagebristle. I remembered that. There’s no reason to starve her.” That wasn’t to say she was eating well, that they hadn’t hurt her in other ways, but it was some dull comfort. Just this once, he wanted to give good news. Without further comment, Kier slowly turned his head and his weary eyes drifted away.