Run Away Bravely (Stormwind)

Cinderheart turned her head towards the tom when she felt him stiffen, frowning a little in bemusement. That lasted only until she remembered that his mother had been killed by the infected. She didn’t know if Nightcloud had become an infected herself, though.

Breezepelt stiffened a little bit beside Cinderheart. While he thought he’d already come to terms with this, the words of the former Thunderclan she-cat struck something within him that threatened to have his vulnerable, emotional side burst through like water through the dams twoleg kits had once made in the streams around the lake.

Mother.

Cinderheart shivered slightly at the thought. “I heard that too. The medicine cats tried to keep a hold of it but they couldn’t. It’s terrifying, knowing that if you turn into an infected you’ll never go to StarClan.” She was silent for a moment. “And that if it happens to your kin, you’ll never see them again.”

After a moment of staring up at their ancestors, Breezpelt Mewed something softly. “I heard that the only way to ensure you join your ancestors if you’re bitten is to die of another cause before the infection takes hold.”

Cinderheart caught his movements out of the corner of her eye. Glancing at him in mild surprise, she shrugged after a moment and copied him. The two dark-furred warriors lay side by side, gazing up at the stars.

In a rare show of himself without his grouchy shell, Breezepelt rolled onto his back to better watch the sky, glancing over at Cinderheart as if expecting her to follow suit.

Cinderheart finally looked away from the younger tom, directing her gaze up to the starry sky. She was mildly surprised to note how much time had gone by while they were talking.

Breezepelt flicked his ears, happy to see that the she-cat was just as well as truthful, and had a fair and balanced opinion on things. That was refreshing, too.

"Ah." Cinderheart blinked a few times in surprise, as if she hadn't realized that some cats would have ignored Leafpool's and Hollyleaf's actions. Ah, the joys of honest cats.

“Exactly,” Replied Breezepelt. “Most cats would have focused almost exclusively on the actions of the one that hurt them most personally. You also acknowledged that the other two did wrong.”

Cinderheart blinked at him in bemusement. “I did,” she said mildly, “I just also said that the she-cats’ actions weren’t really excusable either.”

Breezpelt scoffed along with Cinderheart as she berated Lionblaze, not having put too much thought into the timeline until now. That didn’t take long, thought the former Windclan tom to himself in relation to how soon after dumping Cinderheart Lionblaze must have mate’s with the other she-cat.

“You surprised me,” Breezpelt Mewed softly. “I was expecting you to rank Lionblaze’s offense as worst of them all because it affected you personally.”

(Oh my God, I had this nice long post (that thankfully was only halfway finished but still) and then, of fucking course, the page fucking refreshes and I lose it all.

Dovekit is mine, then!)

Cinderheart frowned deeply in thought. While the she-cat could come off as judgmental at times, she really wasn’t. While she doubted she had enough information on their reasons to judge them for their actions, if the only friendly cat she’d spoken to in moons was asking, she’d try and answer him. “I think Hollyleaf has the best reasons for what she did. The Warrior Code was her everything, and finding out that her parents were from different Clans and her mother was a medicine cat, on top of being lied to her entire life... well, anyone would have gone a little mad after that. I’m not surprised she fled rather than attempt to reconstruct her life surrounded by cats who knew nothing of what she was going through.” She tilted her head to the side, contemplating her former best friend for a moment. “She likely would have spilled the secret before long if she stayed, though. The pressure would probably have been too much for her.”

Moving on from Hollyleaf, the smoky-gray tabby fought to keep the sneer off of her face as she moved on to her former mate. “Lionblaze has no excuse. He led me on for moons, insisting that he loved me, and all the time he was thinking about Heathertail. And as soon as she would take him back, he dropped me like a pile of fox dung and took off after her. Two and a half moons later, their kits were born,” she spat out viciously.

Struggling briefly to get a control on her anger, Cinderheart left the topic of Lionblaze behind lest she explode. “Now, Leafpool... She’d have just gotten back to ThunderClan when she would have discovered that she was expecting kits. Keep in mind that she’d chosen her Clan over Crowfeather and that her mentor had just died, leaving her the only medicine cat of ThunderClan. If she’d revealed the truth, she likely would have been kicked out of the position in short order. I’m not saying this excuses her, she should have at least told her kits, parents, and Brambleclaw- and Crowfeather, too, I suppose- but she did have relatively good reasons to give them up.”

Taking a deep breath after her long rant, she concluded with, “Honestly, I’m never going to forgive Lionblaze, and even if Hollyleaf’s and Leafpool’s reasons were good (and in Leafpool’s case, her intentions), that doesn’t make their actions all that excusable either. Lying to those you love and who love you is worse than almost anything else.”

(Whew. Took me over ten minutes to write this, even with mostly remembering the Hollyleaf part from my previous attempt.)

(I’ll have Ivykit!)

“For simplicity’s sake,” Replied Breezpelt. “Lionblaze hurt you. Hollyleaf faked her death and hurt everyone she loved. And Leafpool kept a lie from every single cat in the clan. I want to know which you think is least forgivable.”

Cinderheart paused, thinking that over. “That’s a tough one... Why aren’t you adding all the others that knew about it before it was revealed?”

(D'you want Dovekit or Ivykit? Because Dovekit is one of the Three so she can't be left alone and Ivykit is just too awesome to be left alone)

Breezpelt decided to pose a question to Cinderheart. “Who do you think is a worse liar: Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, or Leafpool?”

Cinderheart settles herself on the shore and wrapped her tail around her paws, slowly blinking her dark blue eyes.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Replied Breezepelt with a shrug, the tom glancing away from Cinderheart and out towards the water.

Cinderheart shrugged. “Not really. I just wanted to get away from the rest of the Clan.”

Breezepelt glanced Cinderheart up and down, able to make her out slightly better with his eyes adjusting to the darkness now. “Have any ideas for while we’re here?”

Cinderheart nodded in agreement. “Yes, it is.” She looked back at the water, which was so much lower than it had been a moon ago. It was starting to get very hot but it wasn’t hot enough that the lake should be shrinking like that.

“I should come back here more often,” said the tom to nobody in particular, though he glanced out at the shore with disdain. Typically, the water would only be a taillength or so from their paws. But with the drought in full effect, it was many more taillengths away than that. “It’s nice.”

(That would make sense to me. They have needs and can trust one another to satisfy them, but it’d take a while for either of them to really open up enough for a romantic relationship after being burned the way they were!)

Cinderheart glanced back at the tom, who could hardly be seen in the shadows with his dark pelt, much like her.  "Hey, Breezepelt."

(*ponders if they should have a sexual relationship long before they have a romantic relationship*

Also, the previous Run Away Bravely is now locked, so I'm reposting the Clan list here so I can keep updating it :3 Just FYI. I'm gonna put it on my first post on this new topic.)

Breezepelt flicked his ear. “Hi, Cinderheart,” The tom Mewed simply in greeting. At this spot there was a cliff of sorts where the terrain of the island dropped away before it became the pebbly shore they were sitting on, offering them privacy from anybody in the camp.

Cinderheart was already waiting for the tom, standing at the edge of the shore and looking out over the lake.