Early Patrol (short story)
Aldereyes blinked open his eyes, yawning. Then he felt the chill air, and gazed out of the den to see that the sun was still very low in the sky. The dawn patrol wouldn’t be sent out for a while yet. What had woken him up?
A kick to the side told him the answer. He shifted away from the pressure and looked over to see Fallendust in the nest beside him. She was twitching in her sleep, mumbling and furrowing and un-furrowing her brows.
Aldereyes turned so that his back was to her, and tried to go back to sleep. He was drifting away, nearly back to the pine trees and water voles when he was kicked again. Grumbling, he stood up and padded the few steps over, then gently nudged Fallendust awake.
“I don’t have patrol,” she mumbled, burrowing her face into the moss.
Neither do I, Aldereyes thought. He nudged her again, this time whispering her name. She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, staring up at Aldereyes with a glaze. “Wha?”
“You were kicking in your sleep.”
“Oh..sorry.” She moved to place her legs beneath her. Her eyes barely looked at him, staring off into the distance. Something told Aldereyes that it wasn’t simply due to exhaustion.
“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the den entrance. When she looked confused, he nodded again and began to walk out. Outside, he waited still for a few heartbeats, beginning to feel like she would ignore him. Then he heard soft pawsteps, and a moment later she was standing beside him. Her fur stuck out in random places. Aldereyes guessed he looked the same, only with more flat fur on one side as he hadn’t been moving.
“Too early for pa–” Fallendust began to say when a massive yawn interrupted her.
“Yeah,” Aldereyes agreed. “But I figured you needed to move your legs. They were restless.”
Fallendust looked down at her paws. “Maybe.”
“I’ll go with you,” Aldereyes offered, and began to walk away toward the camp entrance. Fallendust followed more slowly, but that slowness quickly dissipated as the chilly air woke them up.
“Now what?” she asked when they were outside.
Aldereyes shrugged. “We can hunt, run. Whatever you want to do. Or talk.” He didn’t care that much about Fallendust. He wasn’t indifferent toward her, and did care about her as a Clanmate and fellow warrior, but as friends they weren’t close, and that made it easier for Aldereyes to offer comfort when he didn’t worry every second that he was saying the wrong thing. Besides, his new relationship with Myrtlewing was making him feel admittedly giddy, and because of that more willing to help others.
“Talk to stretch my legs?” Fallendust huffed a singular laugh.
“Or soothe your mind.” He himself had kicked enough times in his sleep, particularly in his apprentice days, to know that it’s not always the body that is restless.
Fallendust didn’t respond for a long time, standing incredibly still, staring again at her paws. Then she sat down heavily and sighed. “I miss Fleetsong.”
Oh. Her brother. Aldereyes suddenly felt uncomfortable, but it would be rude to back out now. He sat down too. Wondering if he should, he wrapped his tail lightly around her. “We..” he wondered what to say. “We shouldn’t have lost him the way we did.”
Fallendust’s face screwed up. “It’s not fair,” she gasped. Her throat visibility tightened, it was clear how much she struggled not to wail out right there and then. “It was always so important to him that everyone was happy and having a good time. And then for him to die like that. I–I just–I feel like Starclan has abandoned me, sometimes.”
Aldereyes's heart sank. Back when Fleetsong’s body was found, mauled by a dog, he had been too preoccupied worried about Myrtlewing, who had been with him, to notice much of anyone’s grief for Fleetsong. He knew it was there, of course, and had witnessed them sit vigil, but until now it hadn’t set in for him how much pain the death had caused. Was that selfish?
“What was he like?” Aldereyes asked, though unsure why. It was the only thing he could think to say.
Thankfully, Fallendust grinned. “I always thought of him as the life of the Clan, but…maybe that was because he was my best friend. He was the only one I ever really had. Wolfburn has Maplefall, Ivytooth is dead, and my parents are, well, my parents. But Fleetsong was always there, always wanting me to be happy. He was my best friend,” she repeated through a lump. “And he was ripped apart by a dog.”
Aldereyes wasn’t sure how to respond to that, or if he should say anything at all. He decided the answer to the latter was a negative, and instead pressed closer against Fallendust. She leaned into the touch, and they stayed like that for a few long heartbeats before she straightened and shook herself. “All this sadness,” she said, attempting a smile. “Fleetsong would hate it. What do you say we hunt, huh?”
Aldereyes padded toward the underbrush, glad in the change of topic. “If we hunt now, maybe we’ll get to sleep in.”
“Exactly!” Fallendust agreed. “Early patrol!” With that, she walked past him, leading the way into the trees.
remember what happens to her?
--Btw Alder finds it easier to comfort those he’s not too close to, but it can still be uncomfortable, which he is finding out now.
