#i headcanon that a rising -star is someone everyone expects as a leader candidate | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kudossi · 2 years

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all the evidence of your vacant life

“Sometimes I feel like I’m living on borrowed time.”

Hollyleaf’s words shatter the warm silence, and the siblings are left cold and drifting, as if they’ve been swept out into the lake in the depths of leaf-bare. Neither brother speaks. Hollyleaf laughs, the sound grim and certain. “I can—I can claw myself, you know, and it doesn’t feel like anything.” There’s a shuffling of paws, a sense of satisfaction from his sister that hums like lightning in his teeth.

“Nothing feels real,” the black she-cat admits. She’s bleeding from somewhere — Jayfeather is sure she’s done it herself, in some sort of wordless example — but he’s also sure her black fur disguises most of it, just as it had disguised any wounds Ashfur had given her in self-defense. The only reason he knows is by the tang of copper in the air, by Lionblaze’s sharp inhale.

“Hollyleaf,” Lionblaze says, and he can hear the rasp of Lionblaze’s tongue against Hollyleaf’s fur, the way his sister moves deftly out of the way, her paws crunching on dried-out leaf-mold.

“Don’t you understand?” Hollyleaf asks. “Nothing I do matters anymore. You and Dovewing — you’ll save the Clans, whether I’m here or not. I’m only even here because…” she trails off. Shame radiates from her pelt.

“Because I saw you,” Lionblaze finishes bitterly. “Because I made you come back.”

A hard swallow. “Yes.”

“Didn’t you want to see us again?” Lionblaze’s words are harsh, but there’s an undercurrent of hurt to them, an old wound torn open, one that had never quite healed. “Didn’t you want to… live?”

Hollyleaf gives a shuddering exhale. Jayfeather can almost picture her, hesitant and aching and nervous and grief-filled, standing so close to where she had once disappeared. “I never wanted to leave you,” she says. “Or you, Jayfeather.” Her tone is sincere, pleading. “But you have to understand — you have to, please, you must understand — all I bring is bad luck.” She laughs. It’s a cold sound. “Don’t you remember that old elders’ tale? Turns out that it’s true,” she says, and her voice is wild now, filled with so many tangled emotions that Jayfeather can’t begin to pull them apart. “Black cats are bad luck. They always have been.”

“You know that’s not true,” Lionblaze says. “You were always the rising -star. Everyone thought so highly of you. You were better than any of us as 'paws. Don't you remember?"

“And what am I now?” Hollyleaf asks. “Nothing. No one. Brought back to a Clan that hates me with a purpose that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been like this for all of ThunderClan’s black cats. You know it as well as I do.”

“Leopardfoot was a young cat in a bad situation,” Jayfeather whispers. “Ravenpaw was a hero.”

Hollyleaf scoffs. “A hero who had to leave,” she says. “Don’t you see? You’re proving my point. By bringing me back here—” she cuts herself off. Jayfeather can feel the shudder that wracks her body. “By bringing me back here, haven’t you doomed us all?”

“You never used to believe the elders’ tales,” Jayfeather accuses.

“Yeah, well,” she laughs. “That’s before I started living them.”

#warriors #warrior cats #warrior cats writing #wc #waca #hollyleaf #jayfeather #lionblaze #dovewing #tw self harm #tw self-harm #tw self-hate #tw self-hatred #tw depression #black cats bring bad luck #i headcanon that a rising -star is someone everyone expects as a leader candidate #hollyleaf really didn't have enough issues when she came back to thunderclan imo #let's give her some #self-worth #tw self-worth #tw dissociation #tw feelings of worthlessness #sibling dynamics #kudo writes #my writing #tw blood #tw suicidal thoughts #ravenpaw #leopardfoot

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