just butting in <3

Eshek had been overcoming her anxiety about her kits, had been starting to loosen her clingy, fearful grip on them — and then Laertes had run away. She’d let him and Nour go off by themselves, and the most stupid accident had happened, and she’d lost her son because of it — all because of something so utterly preventable. All because she had let them pretend to be grown-ups. Now, ever since then, she had become even more anxious than before; sometimes it felt like she couldn’t breathe past the wet, choking panic in her throat making it close up. She’d wake up in the middle of the night, convinced they were somehow gone, and she couldn’t sleep again until she’d reached out with a trembling paw and quiet, panicked sobs, trying not to wake them, and touched each of them — till she’d counted and recounted. And recounted. And recounted. Laertes was gone, and he was somewhere she couldn’t get him back — because worse than anything, he’d made a choice. He’d made a choice, and if there was anything she’d taught him when he was a kit, it was that she’d respect it. Bermondsey might want to storm in there with an army and drag him back, might want to turn a hurt feud between father and son into a war, no matter how many lives were lost in the path of his wounded stubbornness — but Laertes had made his choice, and she clung to that desperately. They had done wrong by him. They had hurt him. And now their son needed time to heal. And if he never came back, her heart would never heal, and she would spend the rest of her life yearning and longing in a way no one could for a lost mate — but she would leave him there.

She’d seen him, the night NightClan had come to the League, so recent cats were still walking around with fresh scars. So recent that the edges of Matilde’s mouth were still burned by the poison; Eshek hadn’t stopped wailing for hours, bent over her daughter in bed even though she was alright, she was alive, she was okay. But she’d seen him there, just as they were slipping out of the Mansion, and something motherly had snapped inside of her. Laertes, she’d wailed, running down the steps, past all the goons and lackeys, past Kier hissing to Bermondsey, trying to push through to him; NightClan guards had barred her way but she’d hardly felt them, just staring pleadingly at her son as Kier left Bermondsey and waved his paw towards her impatiently, wanting the disgusting, sobbing mother making everyone uncomfortable to be ripped away so they could leave. And she was — she was ripped away, and NightClan vanished into the black woods, and still she screamed, begged, wept. Please. Come home. But he hadn’t. He’d left. And she’d sat out there for hours, on the moon-silver flagstones of the courtyard as rain began to dust over her, staring vacantly into the dark he’d disappeared into.

And now, she couldn’t find her daughters. She was still a fraught mess from that night, she needed her kits where she could see them more than ever, like someone was going to come and take them away — and now she couldn’t find them. She barrelled through the Mansion’s rooms, slow at first, trying to calm herself down, but soon frantically. Hysterically. Something was happening, she could feel it. All her anger with Bermondsey had completely faded — all she was now was trembling, and paranoid, and terrified. “Nour?” she called into an old, dusty room, her voice shaking; stinking, crusted blood still blackened the bottom of walls and the edges of rugs. “Tilly? Delia?” By the time she’d called the last name for the third time, her heart was choking in her throat; she couldn’t see straight. She was sprinting down the Mansion halls, colliding with doorframes as she slipped to a stop on the floorboards and peered wide-eyed and trembling into empty rooms. They were nowhere.

How do you know Laertes? The voice was so faint, drifting up through an open window from the next room over. She raced to the grimy window and peered out, eyes widening in fear as she saw who Nour was talking to; there was no time for relief, for joy — the fear just flooded. Him. She flew down the main stairs, barrelling around the corner and shoving herself between Moonblight and her kits. She’d had no time to find Bermondsey, to tell him. With all her heart, like it was bursting from her chest, she wished he were here; but this wasn't a fairytale, and heroes didn't come to save the day. Not in her story. Not in theirs. This love story was a tragedy. “Get away from her,” she hissed, and she at least managed to force some terror into her voice — it was gurgling, rabid, vicious, a raw mess of protectiveness. She was just taller than Moonblight, albeit far lither; he had thick fur to protect his throat, she just had her own claws. “You get away from her,” she snarled again, taking a defensive step closer and leaving Nour unprotected behind her; with all the hate in it, all the frothing rage, fear managed to slip in too, and it left her sounding close to tears. Her glaring eyes never left his, her legs stiff and straight and her claws trembling against the flagstones from their sockets, and the meaning was clear — she would kill him.

But with all the sleepless nights; with the way her fear was so taut it made her legs tremble like she’d been running for hours, weak with lactic acid; with the near-hysteria — she wasn’t the fighter she usually was. She was running on pure, exhausted, wide-eyed fear — and she was a liability. Ordinarily, she’d be a match well-suited to two toms, especially because she’d already bested the lithe, spotted one. Now, though. Now, even she was flooded by doubt. Her self-confidence had been utterly shattered. Her belief in herself, in her abilities — it was gone. She was a shell who’d lost her kits. She hadn't been able to stop it, either time. She was never in the right place; she was never enough. And someone could only take so much before they began to believe it was some fundamental failing in themselves. Before they began to believe there was never going to be any hope.

There were no jokes, no amusement; when she looked at Bumblebeepaw, it was with desperate, frightening pleading, like they were a looming monster and not a diminutive kit. The whole world was a looming monster — the trees, the Mansion spires, the NightClan cats who’d slunk in while they were sleeping. And she’d done nothing. She’d failed on every count. And she'd die for them; she could kill one before the other got her, and the two of them would bleed out on the stones, torn apart — but she knew she couldn't take them both. And if they saw that too — if they saw that she hadn't fully recovered from the raid; if they saw how her legs shook from lack of sleep and lack of care; if they saw the fearful acceptance, the grief, the certainty in her eyes — it was over for her kits. She'd lose them all. Her head darted from Moonblight to Bumblebeepaw, a rattling growl rising in her throat, trying to keep her eyes on both of them; if they separated, if they circled like predators, hope was gone. She looked manic, desperate, a lioness with her shoulder fur rising like thorns.