So they are friends now. Of some sort- she's not sure what kinds of lines Starclan has strung between them, but they are there. Sometimes she thinks she can see them if she looks just right, like cobwebs glimmering under dew.
But whatever they have is tenuous, and Sandstorm has always been clumsy.
"I see the prey's been running well," Fireheart comments as Sandstorm steps into camp. "Though that doesn't look like it's running anywhere soon."
Sandstorm gives an internal groan. In her mouth she drags a pigeon- or most of one. "Caught mid flight." She mutters. "Lost a wing." Longtail hasn't stopped giving her shit for it the whole way back.
"And prey is prey," Sandstorm says, as she drops the pigeon into the fresh-kill pile and spits out a mouthful of feathers. Birds are delicious, but she'd take a fat squirrel any day- more of it in her stomach, less in her teeth.
"I'm sure someone will eat it," Fireheart meows. "Maybe you can convince the kits that pigeons are meant to look like that."
"Is that what you tell them about kittypet fur?" She starts off, a quiet grin on her lips.
"Hey!" Fireheart scrambles after. "What's wrong with my fur?"
"Nothing, of course." She pauses. "It's just that a cat couldn't be blamed for mistaking you for a squirrel-" She pauses again to look him up and down. -not much bigger than one, either." Her voice trails into a purr at the look of Fireheart's face. "But maybe you're right about the pigeon. I'll eat it and save the nice prey for someone else."
"Oh!" Fireheart brightens at this. "I'll get something too. Wait here."
They're only a few paces away from the fresh-kill pile. Nonetheless, Sandstorm waits, and Fireheart comes trotting gallantly back with Sandstorm's pigeon and a brown mouse clutched in his jaw.
They're sharing a meal. Of course they are. This is what clanmates do.
Sandstorm cannot help the part of her that twitches away as Fireheart comes near. It says that this is wrong, that Fireheart is an inexplicable enemy. The instinct leaves her stomach roiling.
The two of them stand there for a moment, eyes locked and limbs frozen like they await some warm wind to send them back to life. Sandstorm is the first to look away, and Fireheart does the same, giving an awkward laugh around the prey in his mouth.
Fireheart places the fresh-kill down and lowers himself after. "Not a bad chance to catch your breath, this little spot of sun. These bones need it."
"You sound like a cranky elder," Sandstorm meows.
"And maybe I have a right!" He turns to lick his shoulder, but a quiet light glows in his eyes. "Do you know what it's like trying to keep Cloudkit alive? I look away for a second and the kit is two steps from impaling himself on a bush because he wants so badly to eat a death berry. They're called Death berries, Sandstorm."
"Ah, correction," Sandstorm says. "You don't sound like an elder. You sound like a cranky queen ."
"That kit is half fluff, but the other half is pure evil, you mark my words-"
"No respect for authority? In Fireheart's kin?" Sandstorm turns her head towards an invisible audience, tail flicking in amusement. "Call the clans! We must let them know!" She meets his eyes. "I can only imagine what you got into as a kit. I'm sure the twolegs had their paws full as well."
Fireheart takes a polite bite of his mouse instead of answering- which tells Sandstorm all she needs to know.
This- it's all easy.
It's all hard.
Sandstorm can't stop to think about it, because we she does, she finds herself plummeting into the hollow that she has carved below her ribs. It is a place, she has decided, where she is no longer allowed to go. When she keeps it hollow and cold, she can bear it.
But every now and again it brushes up against her and reminds her that though she is no longer a creature fanged with grief, the venom is never far from the heart. She takes a bite of her bird. She's not hungry.
"In all honesty, though, I am tired," Fireheart murmurs. He eats thoughtfully now, his gaze elsewhere as he stares across the clearing. "And I can't just sleep it off."
"Why not?" Sandstorm asks. "I'm sure Bluestar would let you take a morning to yourself if you explained the situation with Cloudkit-"
"It's not just Cloudkit, though." Fireheart turns his eyes down.
"Oh," Sandstorm says. "Well, a good night's sleep can't hurt. You should still talk to Bluestar."
"Bluestar's had enough of talking to me lately."
Sandstorm can't read his expression but she gets plenty from his tone.
She changes tack. "Maybe we could go hunting together later- you and me. It'd be a nice break from all the patrols lately."
Fireheart sighs and lays his head down on his paws. "I don't think I have it in me- I just-" he cuts himself off. "There's too many secrets. I'm so tired."
"Maybe you should stop poking your nose into foxholes if you don't want to get bit," she snaps. Then blinks at herself, because she doesn't know why she's done it.
"Thanks for that."
Fireheart stands, stretches, his tail low and his eyes clouded with worry. What for, Sandstorm desperately wants to know. And cannot bring herself to ask.
Casual friendship she can do. No more than clanmates should be. But confession, trusting in one another, sorting through the thoughts that they can barely speak aloud? Sandstorm takes a step away before she can stop herself. She doesn't even trust Dustpelt with that, let alone some over-friendly kittypet.
"I'm-"
"It's okay," Fireheart says, quickly.
Foolish, Sandstorm chides herself. For thinking this would be easy- they had felt like friends in the snow and the warmer moons since, but it's not unreasonable that Fireheart would want to push their simple friendship into something more.
Well, he's learned his lesson.
"I don't mean to unload on you- it's just that Graystripe has been gone more lately, and I'm…" he stops, his eyes finding a spot on the horizon again. "I need to talk things through to get them, I guess. Not everyone's like that."
Sandstorm's heart moves into her throat. "I'm not," she says. The idea of it burns on the way down.
"I know." Defeated- "I know you."
Fireheart's words linger in the air for a long moment as Sandstorm tastes them. The idea of Fireheart seeing her- she can't quite figure out how it feels. Tangible and tugging, like a burr stuck in her fur, like paws digging in soft earth, like the last feather stuck between her teeth- it's uncomfortable, almost, but she can feel a hint of something just beyond, fresh and clear as relief.
"I'm not sure you do," she says. A paw in the water. "No offense, I mean-"
"Huh," Fireheart says.
"What?"
"Just surprised. I feel like I do- I mean, we were apprentices together, and lately we've been talking more. I've felt like we understand each other."
The fur starts to rise on Sandstorm's pelt. She flattens it, hastily and tries to look disinterested. "We get along. That's not the same thing."
"I'm sorry," Fireheart purrs. "I didn't realize we were talking about plunging into the depths of our souls here."
Sandstorm meets his eyes. "Who do you think I am, then?" She doesn't let her thoughts linger on the enormity of her words. "If you're such an expert."
"Well," Fireheart says. He sits back down to think about it, turns his head to the side and watches a squirrel scuttle from one branch to the next. "I think you're complicated, for starts."
"Acute."
"And quick to speak. Let me be a little ponderous with this- I want to get it right."
Sandstorm inclines her head, but doesn't interrupt.
"You're a lot of things, Sandstorm- and not all of them at once. I remember how you were when I arrived, when I thought you had the personality of a pricklebush-" Sandstorm opens her mouth to object but a look from Fireheart quiets her. "But your anger never felt rash. It felt clearly judged, like you were choosing it over something else- that you were choosing me to be angry at." He shakes his head. "I don't hold it against you. I hope you know that."
She doesn't trust herself to respond. "You're too smart for your own good, too rational about the world to figure out what your place is in it when things are chaos. You care about right and wrong- and you'll beat yourself up about it until you get it perfect, even if things never are. You can be uptight, and sarcastic, and absolute in your judgement." Fireheart pauses to take a breath. He doesn't meet Sandstorm's eyes- she couldn't bear it if he did. "But you're a light in the dark when you let yourself go, and in the end you turn your sharp tongue to prodding people in the right direction- and when you're sure of the right thing, Starclan help the cat that stands in your path."
A heat crawls up Sandstorms fur, uncomfortable pricking as his eyes linger on her. "And," he says.
"I think I've heard enough-"
"And I think you're brilliant. I think you're bold. And I think you care- about me, about the clan, about everything- more than you want to."
Sandstorm stands abruptly, as if she can shake off the weight of his gaze. "I think you're reading too far into things," she meows.
"Oh?"
"I'm not- I'm just a warrior." She draws her shoulders higher. "I'm not...anything like that. I'm just a warrior," she repeats.
Fireheart shrugs. "Then maybe I'm not as good at reading character as I want to believe. But," he says softly. "I do think you're something more." He touches her shoulder with his tail and goes, winding off towards the medicine cat's den.
Sandstorm's pelt feels raw, somehow, like her fur has fallen out and any moment the clan will turn and realize what she's lost.
The cat Fireheart described was not her- that cat was too much. Brilliant, he had called her, and that was the least of it.
Sandstorm wolfs down the last few bites of her bird and walks towards the warriors' den. It is only after several minutes and many rough licks to her pelt that it will lie down flat again. The things that cat said- Fireheart, she realizes, is paying more attention than Sandstorm had ever thought. Maybe more than she's comfortable with.
No one should spend so much time puzzling her, let alone Fireheart, whom she has only just started to think of as a friend. No one should pick out the edges where things don't quite fit and mining through until the true ore of the her is out, iron jutting into the wind. And that's the other problem of it- she is, in the end, too much of iron to be the golden warrior of Fireheart's words. She is too hard, too rusted. She is not so foolish as to think of herself as kind.
Maybe one day.
Fireheart is good- she realizes. In a way that she isn't. He is too smart to really see her as gold- but he is smart, and good enough to speak to the side of Sandstorm that wants.
When she closes her eyes, she hears his voice. A light in the dark.
Someone has seen her and told her that she is good- someone has seen her and told her that they believe she can be better. And it is Fireheart, of all cats. The apprentice in her yowls at the idea but a firmer, fuller voice tamps down her caterwauling heart. A light in the dark, she thinks. That's what I will be.
And when she is, Fireheart will see it.