Red Sun Rising: Chapter Thirty-Three
(AO3 counterpart here.)
It was a long, long day to pretend to sleep through. Firestar wondered if the sun was taunting him, lingering in the summer sky as it did.
When the outside world finally darkened, he struggled to his feet and dragged himself out of the leader’s den and into camp. His paws trailed along the ground, unable to lift any higher than it took to move them in a vague copy of a step. He was sure that, if his eyes weren’t too blurry to see, he was leaving carvings in the sand.
No attempt was made to find breakfast. Firestar simply let his back legs collapse under him once he was at the meeting stump and started grooming himself as well as he could. Dots and rings swirled around in his vision.
It was still a little while before anyone woke up; Dustpelt, of course, was the first to leave the warriors’ den. Firestar blinked hard and rapidly until his eyes cleared enough to see his deputy more clearly—that is, he wasn’t just a blob of brown.
“Evening,” Firestar said, marveling that his voice didn’t sound like he was dead to the world.
Dustpelt blinked in surprise, like he’d just noticed him. “You’re up early.”
“I usually am.” Firestar scrubbed a paw over his ear. “Are you going to RiverClan tonight?”
“Er… yes, but are y—”
Firestar fixed him with a narrow-eyed warning stare.
Dustpelt wisely clamped his mouth shut and nodded quickly. “I’ll have a warrior come with me to the border, just to be safe. I can set up the patrols, too, if you’d…”
“I can do it,” Firestar said, yawning. “I don’t expect to go anywhere tonight. Whoever you want to take, go ahead.”
His deputy’s eyes flickered between spots in Firestar’s face, half-lidded eyes to folded ears to tight mouth. Whatever he wanted to say, he replaced it with, “I’ll wait for the rest of the Clan to wake up.”
Firestar flicked his tail in acknowledgement. His muscles were sore from a day on stone. He ignored the aches and continued grooming.
As Dustpelt padded over to the prey-pile, soft breaths and grumbles warbled out of the various dens. One by one, the Clan stepped into the sandy clearing with stretches and yawns. Firestar had to blink again several times to see his Clanmates clearly, nodding blankly at their uneasy greetings.
Bramblepaw was the first out of the apprentices’ den, his soft amber eyes wide when he caught sight of his brother. Firestar had to look away. His ears lifted as he heard Bramblepaw murmuring something, to which Dustpelt responded with a murmur of his own, before raising his voice and calling for Cloudnose. Firestar focused on picking at a piece of soil on his front leg that was stubbornly clinging to his fur.
“Emar?”
Firestar looked up, not having the energy to jolt at the sight of Bramblepaw standing right in front of him with an anxious face. Those massive paws shuffled nervously.
“Um, sorry…” Bramblepaw lowered his head like he expected to get hit. “Dustpelt told me he’s going to be busy tonight, so I’m allowed to stay in camp, but, um, he wanted me to hang out with you. Is that okay?”
Dimly, affection prodded through the murk of exhaustion in Firestar’s head. He creased his eyes at his brother and said, “That would be nice, thank you.”
Bramblepaw sighed in relief and straightened up. “Okay! Are you hungry? I can get us both food.”
“That would be nice too.” Firestar lifted his tail-tip just as Bramblepaw was about to turn around. “Get whatever you want, but I need to set up patrols before I can eat.”
“Oh– right.” Bramblepaw nodded with a mood somewhere between eagerness and meekness. “I’ll wait for you, then.”
Firestar didn’t pay attention to what he said back; he simply walked past Bramblepaw and through the growing crowd. He picked a few cats at random, requested that they hunt or check the Houses to be sure that Fury wasn’t around, and left them to their business once they agreed. Some of them said something extra. He didn’t pay attention to that, either.
He had the energy to join Bramblepaw at the stump and no more. He almost collapsed onto the sand, pulling his mouse closer to him. At least, he was half-sure it was a mouse. Maybe it was a vole. His eyes were blurring again.
Bramblepaw was kind enough to let the admittedly tense silence linger until Firestar finally took one mouthful of prey he didn’t taste before saying in a low voice, “Mira’s been worried.”
Firestar’s ears flattened. “About me, I’m assuming?”
“Yeah, that, but…” Bramblepaw peeled back some of the skin of his rat. “About Squirrel, too, and her mom. She’s been keeping Squirrel close to her a lot. I tried to talk to her and Mira asked me to go do something else, so I know she’s, um… ‘on edge’.” Bramblepaw’s pine tree of a tail tapped the ground thoughtfully. “I get why, but it’s hard, not having someone to talk to about things.”
Firestar had a faint sense where this was going, but he asked anyway. “What kind of things?”
“You know, just…” Bramblepaw patted the sand with a paw, his blurry face twisting a bit. “About Fury, and the Aulmir cats, and, um, you, and… and…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And Arpam.”
It was at least a blessing that no one else was close enough to hear them. Firestar checked the nearly-bare camp before responding with a quiet, unsteady, “Have you been thinking about Arpam a lot?”
Bramblepaw nodded. Funnily, the rest of his face looked ashamed, but his eyes were bright with curiosity. “I remember you said we could ask you questions, when I was little. I tried with Tawnypaw, but she said she didn’t want to talk about him.” He sighed quietly. “And all this stuff going on, I didn’t think it was the right time to ask, but, well, maybe there isn’t a right time to ask. I’m not even supposed to.”
In a macabre sense, Firestar was almost grateful for the chance to talk about something else that was still painful, but in a different way. He leaned his head in closer. “What do you want to know about?”
Bramblepaw tilted his head thoughtfully. “I guess a lot, but… mostly, what he would’ve been like if I got to meet him. If he really was kind and loving, like you said.”
Firestar gave his thoughts a moment to circle the question and find its answer. At the very least, he was more awake now. He closed his eyes, letting the image of the deputy stand before him, looking down with affection and pride, leaning against Goldenflower as she announced her pregnancy.
“He…” Firestar took in a breath and let it out in a sigh. “I think he would’ve been about as good of a father as someone like him could be.”
Bramblepaw leaned in even closer. “Like, if he hadn’t done all those things?”
Firestar nodded. “He wasn’t well, mentally, and a lot of cats died because of him. But he cared. I know he did.” He lowered his chin onto his paws, melancholy. “He wouldn’t have saved me from being hurt if he didn’t.”
“Oh…um…” Bramblepaw’s eyes darted over to Sandstorm, who was just leaving camp with Tawnypaw. “Sandstorm told me you nearly got caught in his trap, once.”
Firestar blinked. “How’d you get that out of her?”
It was amazing how such a large tom could shrink to kitten-size as he meekly shifted his paws and mumbled, “She heard me talking to Tawnypaw, is all. She, um…she said we almost lost you from ‘that whole debacle’. And that I needed to stop talking about it when I asked for details.”
With a soft sigh, Firestar stared down at his prey, a single bite-mark in its side. “Yeah. I went to find him by the Houses and the rogues that killed Thornclaw were nearby, waiting for Bluestar. Arpam found me and escorted me home so I didn’t get hurt.”
Bramblepaw’s voice was even smaller than usual. “Oh.”
“He did care,” Firestar repeated, more for himself than for Bramblepaw. “It was like he was refusing to kill me, despite everything.”
“‘Everything’?” Bramblepaw tilted his head.
Firestar’s eyes slid to Bramblepaw with grim wryness. “I did a lot of things that he was against. Helping the other Clans and talking to kittypets, specifically. Two deputies and nearly Greystripe died for that. And the amount of times he tried to kill Bluestar indirectly…” Firestar shut his eyes again. “Cinderpelt, too. She just got caught in a trap for Bluestar. But I did– well, in his mind, I did so much worse than them. I guess he just liked me too much to do anything to me, even when I stopped him from choking Bluestar.”
“Um…” Bramblepaw’s voice was a little farther away now. “You sound… bitter about that. You didn’t want him to kill you, did you?”
“I didn’t even want him to die, Bramblepaw.” Firestar’s eyes stayed more forcefully shut. “I don’t want anyone dead. But life out here is… cruel.” Unconsciously, his claws unsheathed. “It seems to find mercy and kindness funny.”
Bramblepaw did not respond to this. But a motherly murmur from across camp made Firestar attempt to retract his claws. He didn’t succeed; instead, he lifted his head, eyelids clenched as tight as they would go, and inhaled slowly to cool his rapid heartbeat.
“I don’t feel much like talking about him anymore, either,” he said to his brother, opening his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Bramblepaw opened his mouth—probably to protest—then closed it again and nodded, looking away shamefully. He did manage to mumble, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Oh, I’m always upset.” Firestar waved an apathetic paw. “You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“…You are upset a lot recently.” Bramblepaw’s next words, infuriatingly, were, “I mean, I know the Scourge issue is—”
Firestar stood up fast enough that his head spun with dizzy exhaustion and he almost tilted and fell onto his side. His voice was quiet, but Bramblepaw flinched away anyways when he said, “I think I’m going to take a walk.”
A voice flittered in his ear. He walked out of camp, not bothering to see who had spoken.
His rapid pulse only did so much to clear his vision. Everything around him wore various shades of green and brown, and he tripped more than once on some root or twig or whatever. He forced himself to slow down just enough so that he could see what was in front of his feet.
Oh. His claws were still out. Huh.
He paused and shook a front paw. Clumps of soil had caught between his toes and the inner curves of his claws, and they seemed reluctant to let go. He shook more angrily, and only succeeded in a few specks dancing through the air away from him.
Caught up in this, ears foggy and vision swimming, he didn’t notice soft, yet heavy footsteps approaching him. He jolted when a voice behind him said, “Honeymouse.”
He looked back like he’d been caught eating prey before bringing it home. Goldenflower loomed over him, her eyes unusually stern and ears slightly turned back. Dread crept up his stomach and into his chest as he tried and failed to meet her gaze.
She must have seen something in his face, because her own expression softened and she nosed his ear, saying, “Take a walk with me.”
Firestar could have protested. He knew exactly where this was going, and everything in him screamed to run to the leader’s den, lay down and refuse to see anyone. Anything to avoid this conversation.
He hung his head and mumbled, “Okay.”
Goldenflower stepped up to his side, her cloud of a tail curled around his back legs, gently guiding him along as they walked. Firestar didn’t look to see where they were going; his eyes were firmly on the ground, jittery ice dancing around his gut and knots fighting to crawl up his throat.
At some point, however long they walked, they stopped. Goldenflower sat down and Firestar followed, silently looking up. They were sitting just below the Great Sycamore, close to where Whitecloud had been buried. The tree’s branches carried an abundance of leaves, and with how grandly spread they were, Firestar had no hope of seeing the stars. He was oddly grateful for that.
It was quiet for a long moment, before Goldenflower turned to Firestar, her voice gentle. “You need to talk about Scourge.”
Firestar shivered. The knots wanted out of his mouth now.
“I know you don’t want to.” Goldenflower touched her nose to his forehead. “I can’t imagine how painful it is. But this is killing you from the inside, and we can all see it.” She pulled back, head tilted as she regarded her son sadly. “When was the last time you properly slept? Or ate?”
He couldn’t even open his mouth to answer. Something near delirium was spinning his head around. Nothing seemed real save his mother’s voice.
“You can get it out here.” Goldenflower rested a huge paw between her son’s shoulders, adding softly, “Please talk to me, honeymouse.”
It was so hard to understand his surroundings now. Everything blurred and spiraled, and for a moment a small white shape stood in front of him, silent and rigid and leaking red. The weight of Goldenflower’s paw and the scent of motherhood were the only things connecting him to reality.
Deep in Firestar’s core, walled in by towers of guilt and anger and regret… something cracked. It started small, but rapidly widened into a fissure, racing through his body in a spiderweb pattern. His eyes began to burn, and his body began to shake.
Self-control broken in half, he leaned hard into his mother, buried his face in her fur, and croaked in a tiny voice, “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Goldenflower’s soothing purr rumbled through his body, and she moved her paw lower onto his side to pull him closer to her, until he was almost completely swallowed by her long fur. Like a newborn kit, he pressed into her as hard as he could, no longer having the strength to keep himself upright.
“He—” Firestar’s voice was pathetically wobbly, pitched up and incredibly difficult to force out of his throat, which was nearly closed up with the flood of emotions. “He had my neck, and– and I remembered the dog– I just– I panicked, I fought back– I didn’t know it was him, I really didn’t, I was just terrified, and…”
Goldenflower began grooming the top of his head, still purring. Firestar’s mouth trembled.
“I can’t do anything,” he whimpered into her fur. “I dream about killing him. I can’t– I can’t focus, I can’t think– everyone’s scared to upset me now– I didn’t want him to die, Mira, I didn’t want anyone to die.”
“I know, love,” Goldenflower murmured.
“And now—” He cut himself off to swallow thickly. “And now everyone in the Aulmir is suffering, and they’re suffering because of me. They’re being taken away, and everyone’s lost without a leader, and… and I ruined all of their lives.” He grit his teeth. “Because I panicked. I killed them, Mira, everyone they’ve lost after the battle—”
“None of that is your fault.”
Firestar didn’t have it in him to meet her eyes. “How can it not be?”
Goldenflower rested her chin on his head. Her words vibrated through his body just like her purr. “Did you tell the humans to catch cats and cut them?”
“N-no, but—”
“Did you tell Scourge to try to kill you?”
“…No…but…”
“And did you look at the Aulmir after everything and say, ‘Well, too bad for them, I guess it’s not my problem anymore’?” She lifted her head.
Firestar dared to look up at her. Her expression was that of a matriarch gently correcting a sullen kitten.
Quietly, reluctantly, he said, “No…”
Goldenflower’s eyes half shut in sympathy. “You couldn’t have possibly predicted how any of this was going to go. The Blood came at us, honeymouse. The humans made their own moves, and they just happened to be after the battle.” Her voice, somehow, went even softer. “And you have spent every waking and sleeping moment since then trying to find a way to help the cats who want you dead more than any other warrior in the territories. It’s been driving you to an early grave. And that terrifies all of us so much more than any attack from Fury and her crew.”
Firestar said nothing. He couldn’t speak. He just stared up at his mother blearily.
“I know it’s in your bones to take on responsibility,” she continued. When he could make himself meet her eyes, they turned fond. “You’ve carried more weight in your two years of life than most of us three times your age have ever been capable of. But that doesn’t mean everything bad that happens is your fault.” Her gaze turned in the vague direction of the Aulmir for a moment. “Nor is it your burden to fix problems you had nothing to do with.”
This, at least, he could respond to, weak though his voice was. “I can’t sit here and let them suffer, Mira.”
“You can’t let it destroy you like this, either,” Goldenflower replied. “How useful can you be to your own Clan, let alone strangers, if you haven’t slept or eaten in days?”
Firestar opened his mouth and shut it again. He looked down at his feet.
A tongue rasped over his left ear, and his mother’s gentle voice came again. “I wish it hadn’t been you that killed Scourge, honeymouse. More than anything, I wish it wasn’t you. But it was going to be someone. If we wanted to win, he would have to die. Brick said it himself, even after the battle.”
“It wasn’t right,” Firestar muttered, “even so.”
“Killing never is.” Oddly, Goldenflower’s voice tightened. “Even with those who deserve to die. It happened, regardless. And it was always going to happen.”
It was silent for a long moment. Firestar’s breathing steadied out, and the knots in his throat slowly settled back into his stomach, dissolving one by one. He still felt like dirt, but at the very least, he could hold himself up again. He still leaned into Goldenflower, absorbing the comforting warmth.
“At the very least,” she said at last, “I want you to understand that none of this is your fault. You did the best you could with what you had. I know you wanted things to resolve peacefully. They just weren’t going to.” Her cheek rubbed against his as she purred soothingly. “But I’m sorry you were the one to resolve it as it went.”
Firestar didn’t respond to this… but, oddly, his muscles slowly relaxed and his stomach calmed, just a bit. He sat up straighter, even with exhaustion sagging his nose to point at the ground.
“I think I need to sleep,” he said eventually.
Goldenflower’s purr strengthened. “Do you want to go home?”
Firestar’s whiskers twitched weakly. “Not… not particularly, no.”
“Then I’ll stay out here with you until you’re ready,” Goldenflower replied.
With this, Firestar’s legs gave up keeping him upright. He slowly sank into a crouching position, which Goldenflower readily followed. He leaned against her again, until he was almost on his side, his legs still tightly tucked into his body.
As Goldenflower began grooming his head and neck, her purr strong but quiet, Firestar’s eyes shut of their own accord. The world dimmed around him, his thoughts wandered away, and, for the first time in nearly two months, a deep and dreamless sleep came to him. Had he been conscious for it, he would’ve been eternally grateful.
