hello hello hello! posting this as a standalone one-shot because i can plus u require no context to read this.
alright: prompts used for this was battle/guilt, took a slight spin on it, really dislike this but HEYHO
as always, feel free to review and pm me :)
Honeysting's attitude towards battle was simple.
It was needed.
This battle certainly had been. It'd been brewing for moons, every jab aimed at Crowstar at the gathering escalating, every Thunderclan border patrol skirting ever-closer to the Shadowclan territory lines. They'd started catching prey practically on the scent markings, a clear mockery of the rules Shadowclan had tried so hard to impose.
It made Honeysting's blood boil. That was their land! Her land. They were stealing prey, Shadowclan prey.
So when Crowstar gave the order to attack, Honeysting had been expecting them to be prepared.
Shadowclan wasn't prepared. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of cats that had come at them from every angle. Crowstar had barked out an order, a shrill cry of 'Get help!' before Flintstar had thrown himself at her, and all hell broke loose.
Honeysting had leapt for the first cat she could see, a stocky ginger tom she recognised as Robinjump, and had sunk her teeth into his scruff, tossing him away. She'd prowled forward, trying to bristle her fur, trying to bulk out her slender form as much as she could.
It was pointless. It was hopeless. Yet she did it anyway. Because what else could she do? Give in? It was what Thunderclan wanted. What Thunderclan expected of the now-meek, hasbeen Shadowclan.
She'd never been one for living up to expectations.
She had been crowded up against a tree, alongside another warrior - one of her old friends when she was an apprentice, Softflash - claws unsheathed, and teeth bared. Ready to fight, to do anything to get out of the situation she'd found herself in.
She'd moved to protect Softflash, she remembered that, now. That tiny pawstep forward had distracted the tom hemming them in. He'd grinned, his fangs glinting, and had struck, before Honeysting could even move.
Softflash had died before she'd hit the ground.
Even in the aftermath of the battle, as Honeysting sat beside Softflash's cold form, she couldn't understand why that had been the thing to make the Thunderclan warrior move. He'd whispered something to her, leaning in while Softflash bled out on the floor, but she didn't hear what he'd said.
Starclan, she felt like she should have cared more. That cat was her denmate for so many moons, her clanmate. Yet the only thing she could summon was a kind of vague disgust at the blood smattering her paws, and the stench of death that hung in the air.
She felt no ties with Softflash. Just ties with how she'd died. Just ties with how she'd fell to that dusty, blood smeared ground, the light in her eyes dying.
And… the battle had continued much the same. Every now and then, she'd hear a cold, piercing cry of pain, and she'd just wince. Another clanmate to mourn.
She couldn't mourn them. As the battle went on, and on, she realised with mounting dread that she didn't… she didn't care.
It wasn't that she hadn't dealt with death before. One of her littermates had died when they were both apprentices, and at the time, she'd been devastated. She could remember sitting with her parents as Mothpaw had flickered out, watching the she-cat curl in on herself, growing limp. She'd been torn up about it.
Or had she?
Now that she thought about it, when Mothpaw had died, she'd just been… been mirroring what she'd seen. Copying what her parents had done. The facial expressions, the tears that had stained their fur like dew in the early morning grass, the hunched over shoulders. She hadn't felt any of it. She'd felt little more than an echo of what she was supposed to feel, only present in her by her parent's reactions. She just… hadn't cared. Hadn't cared about anything beyond how her training was going to slow down now her sparring partner was missing, how she wasn't going to be as warm in the apprentice's den now her nest was empty. She just hadn't cared for the life she'd lost.
She never had.
It was a hard realization to come to when your side was stinging with the blow of a Thunderclan warrior, and half your clan was dying around you. To realise how truly selfish, how self-absorbed, how unempathetic she was.
She tensed, watching as her ex-mentor, a grizzly old she-cat named Amberslip, sunk to the floor, her neck muddied with crimson. She watched as the leader whirled in battle, trying to protect the tiny corpse of a brand-new apprentice, a tom named Shatterpaw. She watched as Crowstar realised there was no saving Shatterpaw, and the sleek black she-cat gave up, turning away, her shoulders sagging, and her tail drooping.
She still didn't care. Shatteredpaw was her sister's kit, and she didn't feel a thing.
How had she kidded herself for so long? The sinking feeling in her stomach dipped into something more intense, and she tasted bile on her tongue. She… she just… she could let this happen. Watch her clan crumble around her, apprentices, warriors, the leader, all die. She could watch it, and not feel a thing.
The guilt hit her like a twoleg monster. It wasn't guilt at the way she'd let Softflash's body curled up on the floor, amber eyes still wide, clouded with death. It wasn't guilt at the way she'd been able to step in, huddle over Shatterpaw's body with her own, but she hadn't. It was guilt at the fact that she'd had no inclination to.
She held more ties with the feathers she kept in her nest than she did with her clan. With her kin. With her loved ones, with the ones she was supposed to hold near and dear to her heart.
She didn't know what was wrong with her.
She glanced back up at Crowstar, seeing the green-eyed leader engaging in a fight with another she-cat. Crowstar looked spent, her eyes haunted.
Honeysting swallowed, and lashed her tail, just wanting to get this over with, now. Just wanting the retreat to be called so she could cry, not for her fallen clanmates, but for how utterly hopeless she felt. How callous, how cold-hearted she was.
Crowstar looked back, once, desperately, at her fallen warriors, before opening her jaws. "Retreat." She called hollowly, and Honeysting just ran.
As she ran, her paws thudding dully against the ground, she had only one thought flashing through her mind. And that was how little she cared.
She didn't care that they'd lost, didn't care how brutal the loss had been. Didn't care that they'd lost a senior warrior, a capable young she-cat, and worst of all, a young apprentice.
Indeed, if she could bring herself to care about something, it'd be the land Thunderclan had taken from them. The prey that they'd catch from there, the prey that should have been hers. Not her clans, hers.
And that utterly terrified her. She forced herself to think about Softflash's body, lying limp on the ground, blood trailing out of her mouth like a spider's cobweb in the wind. And… she couldn't summon anything but a vague disgust at the gruesome imagery. Amberslip… the way her throat had been torn out… Starclan, she didn't care.
Shatterpaw was her sister's son. He was her nephew, and his body had been left in a clearing, where he'd fallen, and she hadn't shed a tear.
The patrol arrived back in camp, limping, bleeding, no cat unscathed. The medicine cat converged on Honeysting - she'd been injured and hadn't even noticed it - and she waited as herbs were pressed to her side. Waited, her expression stoic, and her body tensed. How was she supposed to do this? Go to her sister, and tell her that her son was dead, whilst not feeling anything? It'd been hard enough to act when Mothpaw had died. This… well, she'd been there.
She pulled away from Cowsplotch, leaving the old black-and-white tom to make a muffled groan of annoyance. She stepped away from them all, from where Crowstar was addressing the trembling remnants of the clan, from where her sister was sobbing with her parents, from where Softflash's mate sat on her own, staring into space.
She snuck out of camp.
There was no place here for a cat who had no ties. There was no place here for her.
Somehow, deep down, she'd always felt it. That deep sense of unbelonging, even though she could never pinpoint why. She'd guessed at the reasoning behind the deep unease in her heart, but she'd never quite been able to find out the answer.
And here it was, staring her straight in the face.
She didn't care. She'd never cared.
And as she slipped over the border lines, pawsteps hardly heard in the soft grass, she realised that this was the best way for her. To keep away from those she felt nothing for, because she'd show herself for who she was soon enough. She couldn't hide forever.
You could never hide forever. Soon enough, she'd be found out, and they'd know who she was.
She'd better be safe than sorry.
yeahhhhh i don't really know what this either just,,, take it ig and thanks for reading