Gorseheart and Smalljump story moments ig
Smalljump noticed Gorseheart approach, and knew what was to come. He had gotten used to being the scratching post for the Dark Forest warriors when they didn't feel like going after an opponent that could hold their own.
No doubt, Gorseheart, with a kill count so high his pupils were a deep red, would't want anything different. Smalljump couldn't help but shiver, seeing his body criss-crossed over and over in scars.
Sparktail, his friend and, although he hated to admit he needed one, his protector, blocked his path, ears flattened.
Gorseheart glanced at her, then looked directly to Smalljump. "Twin Oaks. Tomorrow, same time if you can tell it. Don't keep me waiting."
Sparktail and Smalljump shared a glance. "Is this so you can bring him to some twisted game and beat him up in front of a giant crowd?" Smalljump shrank at the thought. "Well don't think he's going!"
Gorseheart flashed a grin. "No fun for me in that. I will give you this offer once and once only."
"What offer?" Smalljump asked from behind Sparktail.
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Smalljump fell. His heart quickened, knowing that the impact would come, before the breath was knocked out of him and mud sucked at his fur.
"Hey!" Sparktail was over him in a flash, claws out, fur bristling as a snarl rumbling from deep within her throat. "I knew it! You just wanted to knock him around!"
Gorseheart stood calmly atop the oak, which bent in the middle so that the trunk became a log half-way up in the air. "Training comes with wins and losses," he replied. "Smalljump, tell me what you did wrong."
"Are you not going to see if he's okay?" Sparktail demanded. Smalljump gently pushed her off of him. "I'm okay," he assured them. He shook out his fur, now sticking out in multiple places. "I tripped."
"Uh huh," Gorseheart responded in a tone that indicated he wanted to hear more.
"You drove me back--" Smalljump began, then stopped as Gorseheart narrowed his eyes at him. "I was driven back. I wasn't watching where my paws were going."
"No, you weren't," Gorseheart agreed. Sparktail growled. "Tell me what you should have done."
"Uh...." Smalljump wondered. He thought back to when he was an actual apprentice, but he had spent most of that time hiding from his bullies, or being bullied, or worrying about being bullied. Stars, how had he ever become a warrior in the first place? Pity?
Sparktail leaned over to his ear. "Firm backpaw placement. Fight with your fronts. Don't be driven back."
"Do you want to try again with what she told you?" Gorseheart suggested. He was out of earshot of her whisper, but he must have guessed from the obvious that she had given Smalljump tips.
Smalljump flipped over his offer in his head. The training was tough, but nowhere near as tough or humiliating as he had expected it to be. And what Gorseheart was offering him was huge, at least in terms of everything else everyone did for him. He thought of all the times he was shoved to the ground, laughed at, beaten in life and in death.
Besides, he already knew what falling to the ground would feel like. His muscles ached, but he was otherwise fine. He heaved a breath. "I can keep going."
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Smalljump flattened his ears in defeat. Sparktail laid a paw on his shoulder, while glaring death at Gorseheart.
Gorseheart leaped from the tree, landing neatly as though the ground were firm and not slippery mud. He padded over to Smalljump, who shrank back, expecting ridicule for being thrown to the ground five times. "Good work today."
Smalljump blinked at him. "What?"
"Did you get mud clogged in your ears?" Gorseheart asked, causing Sparktail to lash a paw at him. "You did well."
"But.." Smalljump was confused. Why was Gorseheart being so nice? "I didn't win."
"No, but it took longer for you to lose. We can meet again if you want to, or we can finish here."
This time, Smalljump leaped at the offer. "Again. Uh, tomorrow." He paused as Gorseheart lifted a brow. "if you're able to."
"I am not," Gorseheart replied. "Next day works. Meet here again. Got it?"
Smalljump dipped his head. "Got it."
Gorseheart nodded, then turned and padded away. Smalljump waited until he was out of sight, then collapsed onto the ground.
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Gorseheart leaped forward the second he heard the yowl. Zigzagging through the trees with the speed of a falcon, he was at Emberdawn's side within a few heartbeats. He licked at her fur quickly before looking over her pelt. "What is it?" he asked urgently.
"I don't know!" she gasped out. "My stomach feels like it's been twisted inside out!" she let out a wail of pain.
Gorseheart hopped from one foot to the other, unsure what to do. Emberdawn couldn't be disappearing, they were both very much solid. Maybe.... He pushed the idea away, but seeing his mate writhe, her spine sweat, it only kept returning.
This couldn't be happening. So long, he had prayed to one day become a father, but he already had kits to take care of now, and further than that, he didn't want to have kits here, born in the Dark Forest, where they were weak and fragile and doomed to suffer forever.
He took in Emberdawn's trembling form as he curled around her, and wondered, heart sinking, if this process was more painful than anything a living mother would have to endure.
A twig snapped on Gorseheart's side, and instantly he whirled his head around to hiss at it. Seeing Smalljump staring at them in shock, he snapped, "get Fadingstar, or Fleathistle! Any medicine cat you can find! Go!"
Smalljump did so quickly, hurrying away into the blackness.
Emberdawn's eyes squeezed shut, her wails of agony mixing with cries. Gorseheart pressed as close as he could without hurting her, grooming the space between her ears over and over. He prayed Smalljump would make it back soon.
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Smalljump had no idea how to act in such a horrible situation, or any situation, really. But he wouldn't feel right not acting, or worse, avoiding. Gorseheart was a good, if not unexpected close friend of his since the more experienced tom had offered to train Smalljump, who was much weaker than him. It didn't matter to Smalljump nearly as much as it did Sparktail that the lessons weren't particularly gentle. Gorseheart still did them for him, for no other reason than to help him.
Smalljump had to return the favour somehow, no matter that those sessions had ended moons ago, and a time as dark as this seemed like the best place to start. The only question was how to start. What do you say to someone who has just lost two kits?
He found Gorseheart easily. He was wandering aimlessly beneath some pines, distant enough from his den to hear and see his remaining kits or Emberdawn if they needed him. His fur was a mess, sticking up in many places and matted with dirt. Smalljump wondered how long it had been since he groomed himself.
"Hey Gorseheart!" Smalljump called. He was several tail-lengths away, yet the words made Gorseheart jump. Seeing his gaze, Smalljump could see how red his eyes were, and the several bags sitting snug beneath them. He didn't respond, stopped his walking and nodded a greeting.
"I...I wanted to..." Smalljump wasn't sure where to begin. Should he explain right out that he wanted to check up on Gorseheart because both his son and daughter had died? That seemed rude, and an unnecessarily painful thing to bring up. His shoulders slumped. Just out with it. "How are you holding up?"
Gorseheart sighed. "Word spreads quickly." His voice was hoarse from misuse. "I'll manage."
Smalljump couldn't meet the hurt shimmering all over his face, so he looked to the ground. There, he noticed dried blood on Gorseheart's paws. "Are you okay?" he asked, pointing to them.
Gorseheart looked down too. "Huh." He was apparently surprised to see that he was injured at all. "I guess I've been walking a lot lately. Getting out of the den. You'd think it would feel less stuffy now, huh?"
Smalljump frowned. "What were their names?" That detail he hadn't heard.
Gorseheart smiled faintly, but it dropped as quickly as it had appeared. "Fressiakit was our little daughter. Jaykit was her brother. He had his first word, you know? He called me dad for the first time. Uh, 'da.'" He let out a strangled laugh. "Hardly two moons old and he already knew that I was his father, that I was his protector." He snorted. "Didn't do much to protect them, did I? Still faded. Still nothing now."
"You can't be sure of that!"
"Can't I?" Gorseheart bared his fangs, making Smalljump shrink into the ground. "You think they would have gone to a second afterlife? Think! They're gone! They're dead and gone and nothing will ever bring them back!"
The effort of the snarling had a toll on the already exhausted Gorseheart, and he collapsed to the ground with a thump. Smalljump wasn't sure what to say, or if he should leave, so he just stood there, frozen, while his mind raced and his heart ached for the pain his friend had to endure.
He didn't know everything about Gorseheart's past, but he knew enough that it was horrible, something no one should ever have to endure all while his closest friends turned their backs on him when he needed them the most. Now, Gorseheart was going through a whole different kind of horrible pain, and Smalljump was not about to abandon him too.
"When did you last sleep?" Smalljump asked when he noticed Gorseheart stifle a yawn.
"I think you should now," Smalljump suggested tentatively. It was what his mother would have told him if he were in the same–or at least similar–situation.
"I think you're wrong." Smalljump lifted a paw, prepared to step back in case Gorseheart snapped again.
Instead, Gorseheart whimpered. "I can't," he said brokingly, then huffed a laugh. "Maybe you can tell Sparktail to set me afire. Then I'll fade too, and can either find them or disappear and never have to feel any of this again. He shuddered. "But I can't leave. I have to stay strong for them. Emberdawn feels just as bad as I do. The kits...Stars, they have no idea what's going on, but they cry just the same. I can't...I can't handle them breaking just like me."
Smalljump held back a gasp. "If..." He didn't like the question, but his stomach had dropped when the sentence was said, so he had to know. "If they weren't an issue....?"
"I'd have jumped into a Fool's Puddle the second I lost them," Gorseheart finished. Then, glancing at Smalljump and spotting his frown, narrowed his eyes. "Don't feel sorry for me! I taught you to be strong. Being strong here means caring for yourself. Maybe that would have saved me all this heartache."
Smalljump shook his head slowly. "You taught me because you cared for someone else. I...." He paused for a long time, searching for words. "I don't know what to say other than that. I'm so sorry for your loss, Gorseheart. If....If there's anything I can do, anything at all, let me know and I'll do it!" He cracked a smile, hoping to lighten the mood, or make Gorseheart feel even a little bit better. "Maybe I can watch your kits for you. I can probably fend off all those teeth, right? You taught me."
Gorseheart smiled, a brief, but certainly real moment of genuine happiness in the midst of his suffocating grief. "Thank you," he sobbed.
Smalljump dipped his head, relieved that he had said the right thing. "What can I do now?"
Gorseheart thought for a moment, then asked, "stay with me?"
"Of course," Smalljump replied. Settling onto the muddy ground, he laid with his side pressed to Gorseheart's in silent comfort
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Honestly they probably see each other as brothers at this point, and Sparktail a very protective sister.
@elementaldeityoffood since you're Smalljump's #1 supporter and Sparktail's rightful owner