WRITING- The Night Before, The Morning After
The Night Before…
The air felt tense after Doecall made the announcement.
The silence stretched for what felt like hours, and Doecall was very aware of the pounding in her heart. She shifted, staring at Wolfstep, taking in his rigid posture, his slightly narrowed eyes, and his…Well, his everything.
Nobody spoke. After a pause that felt far too long for both of them, Wolfstep exhaled through his nose.
He shook his head. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m serious.” Doecall insisted. She laughed, using her front paw to lightly bat at Wolfstep’s shoulder. “I’m gonna be having kits in…What, two moons? Is that how long it takes?”
“Yeah, it is.” Wolfstep rumbled in reply. He responded to the shoulder batting with a huff, though it didn’t seem to be of annoyance. “But…You’re being so, so incredibly stupid, Doecall.”
“How? A lot of cats in this clan have outsider mates!” Doecall chirped.
Wolfstep’s eyes narrowed. “And those cats don’t come home nearly in tears in the middle of the night. Those cats don’t tell me that their mates treat them like…Like dung!”
Doecall flinched, feeling a jolt of hurt at the older tom’s tone. Her ears laid flat against her head, and she felt the fur on her back start to bristle. The smile on her face faltered, despite her struggle to keep it.
“Wolfstep, you’re my best friend,” she said, voice low. “I thought…I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“It’s not that I’m not happy for you! I am!” Wolfstep insisted, holding up his front paws in a gesture of defense. “I’m just…I’m more worried about you than I am happy. Can’t exactly give congratulations when there’s a little voice in the back of your head going, ‘hey, Wolfstep, your best friend, who you care about so much, is being taken advantage of and won’t listen to you’!”
Doecall fell silent. Wolfstep took that as invitation to continue his rant.
“He’s mistreating you,” the gray tabby grumbled, ears flattening. His claws unsheathed and sheathed over and over, subtly clawing into the ground where they were sitting. “I’ve seen it. I’ve heard about it. Mates aren’t supposed to make you cry the way he does, Doecall. He’s going to kill you one day, you know. Those kinds of relationships never end well.”
Doecall looked away. Shame burned through her, but she forced it down, instead replacing it with defiance. “...I wanted someone to love me.”
“I love you, Doecall!” Wolfstep exclaimed. “Your littermates love you! Stars, your FATHER loves you!”
“I don’t want that kind of love!” Doecall snapped back, standing. Her tail was lashing violently behind her, her pupils narrowed into slits of black. “I want the kind of love that everyone else has! I want to be cuddled and have a family and…I want someone to look at me as if I put the stars in the sky myself.”
Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath, looking away so Wolfstep didn’t see her tears. She took a second to compose herself, then looked at Wolfstep. “I wanted you, Wolfstep, and you didn’t want me.”
“I did- No, I do want you, Doecall.” Wolfstep confessed. “I just…What would the clan think? I don’t want anyone to think I’m a monster.”
Doecall stared at him. “They don’t judge Burnetgoose and Glintshade. Or…Any of those other cats.”
Another stretch of silence, this one heavier. Doecall waited, watching Wolfstep’s expression. The gray tabby tom finally let out a sound that was both an exasperated groan and a sob, his shoulders slumped.
“Dammit, Doecall…” He muttered. “...This is hard for me, you know.”
Doecall waited. Wolfstep closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them.
“Tell you what,” he grumbled. “You leave that tom. Don’t go talk to him, don’t go looking for him, don’t even think about him. And I…I will consider being your mate officially, but in the meantime I’ll step up. I’ll be a father for your kits. Raise them the way my dad didn’t get to raise me. Does that sound fair?”
“...I want him to know.” Doecall said.
“No.”
“He deserves to know. What if I disappear and he comes looking for me?”
Wolfstep ran a paw over his face as if to symbolize his agony. “Fine. Fine! You go tell him, but you better be careful. Take Lionfoot with you. He’ll protect you.”
“Okay.” Doecall sat next to Wolfstep again, their pelts brushing, and leaned against him. Wolfstep leaned down and gently licked the top of her head.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The Morning After.
It was cold. Too cold.
Wolfstep’s mind had been racing with thoughts since he heard the news.
Doecall was dead. She was gone, her wound too infected to fully recover.
He’d already yelled at Lionfoot. He blamed his brother for what happened ever since he saw that gash in her throat and the way she had forced herself to smile about it. Lionfoot had insisted it wasn’t his fault- He was too fast, too strong, he had said, but everything just sounded like an excuse.
Now Wolfstep would never see Doecall again.
His best friend was buried. The vigil last night had been somber. Wolfstep didn’t like thinking about it, repressing the thought until it was a blurred image in the back of his mind.
He didn’t want to remember Doecall like that.
“Stars damn it…” He hissed, as an ache began to settle deep in his joints. His condition was manageable most days, but on days when he was stressed it always seemed to heighten. Today was absolutely one of those days.
He’d been pacing since he woke up, his paws burning a hole into the camp grounds at this point. He was restless, and agitated, and trying so hard to suppress the feelings…But he couldn’t anymore.
Taking a deep breath, Wolfstep turned and stalked out of camp. He was blank, his mind forcing all of the thoughts away until he reached his destination. The burial grounds.
He stalked around, looking at all of the mounds of dirt, until he found hers. The dirt was still fresh and slightly damp, his paws sinking into it a little as he approached.
Someone had placed white flowers on her grave. Wolfstep swatted them away, hissing. “She likes blue. Not white.” He growled, though he didn’t know who he was talking to.
Then, he looked at the grave itself- No, not the grave. He was staring through it, at wherever Doecall was buried.
“I told you,” he scolded, taking a step closer. Then another step. Then he was in front of the grave. His legs were shaking. “I fucking told you not to go, Doecall. Why couldn’t you just listen to me? Why do you have to see the good in fucking everything? Now you’re dead. Look at you…Maybe it’s my fault. I should’ve went. I should’ve protected you. I’m sorry.”
He sighed heavily, sinking down until he was lying on the grave. The tears he’d been trying to hold back started to fall, and all he could let out was one final sentence before breaking off into a fit of sobs.
“I was going to say yes.”