How to explain what we don't understand? [skyy/pinestar]

His den was like a looming thought, the idea of a presence which was somehow greater than the cat within; than any cat that had ever been within. She couldn’t help it, she hesitated. At the precipice of entry, the split second before her nose could part the hanging shroud which separated leader from clan. Throughout the meeting she had sat in silence with baited breath and pounding heart; now was her chance to break that silence and sooth her inhibitions on the topic at paw, but still she hesitated. The ginger crested brow furrowed and her auds tipped back in an expression that was becoming familiar; she knew what he would ask, but how could she explain? Pinestar had merely asked a question, polling his clan of their opinion, but so many had leapt upon a single proposed idea as if the suggestion had come from his own mouth. They had seemed willing – no, eager – to sink their claws into the river territory and rip it away from its sovereign clan. Tawnygaze could not deny that the river was prime hunting grounds, and the constant supply of fresh prey it offered was a tantalizing prospect, but just as alluring as the crystalline depths were they were just as useless to Skyclan. What cat could fish? What cat could competently swim when the waters were cool and docile much less when they swollen with angry current? So many questions, so many concerns…

The medicine cat took a breath and pushed the angular point of her nose forward, slipping through the veil of leaf and rock into the leader’s den. The cool smell of soil and moss hung like brief whisperings of the forest they had come from, but the most generous assailant to her senses was the low musk of Pinestar himself. Within the den there was a general odor of ‘male,’ though, not in any way unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact, this place put her at ease by a surreal sort of comfort. The space they now occupied was not only full of themselves, but it was filled and bloated with the lives and memories of leaders long passed. In the span of a heartbeat Tawnygaze felt herself joined not only with her leader but those that had come before him, and she was somewhat calmed by that company.

Slipping from her tongue like a question, the murmured breath of insecurity, came his name, and with that small utterance his attention was hers. His eyes were focused and steady in their calmness, an ancient wisdom swimming in their depths like memories of something long and worn. For a moment neither of them spoke, there was merely the shuffled silence of his gaze on her and the fae struggling to posture herself in a comfortable seat. Pinestar drug his tongue across his lips as Tawnygaze finally lowered her haunches in a splayed position of awkward angles and twisted joints. She expected him to push immediately for her thoughts, or maybe to ask of Starclan, but instead he began in the forest when Specklestar was a plague of selfish desire beneath Thunderclan’s banner. As he spoke of territory, the matters of needing and wanting, the glowing ambers never left the medicine cat. She searched his gaze for disappointment, for demand, looking for any displeasure in her, but there was nothing save the soothing reminiscence of his narrative.

”We fought hard, to regain the Dense Oaks, to reclaim what has always been ours, and should always remain ours.” A pause as he looked down, and when his found hers again his voice was soft and gentle without losing the authority it normally held. ”I do not intend for Skyclan to become Thunderclan in such a circumstance.”

Now it became Tawnygaze’s turn to avert her sunset hued spheres. She would never accuse her leader of the greed Specklestar had shown, and she trusted in his judgment on every level. However, the idea of expansion still left her uneasy and off balance, her head whipping from one thought to other so quickly it made her neck sore to look in so many directions. The river, the forest, the dingy streets of twoleg place; they were surrounded on all sides by land that all belonged to somebody else. To step against Thunderclan would destroy their political relations, but to step against Riverclan was as useless as the river would be to them. ’Starclan I am lost…’ Pinestar continued to express his want for the clan’s security throughout the seasons, and Tawnygaze closed her eyes against the rebellion of her own emotions. What was she doing here? What did she want? ’Peace…’

’But you cannot have peace on an empty stomach, and without more territory to feed the clan there will be more than one mouth open and crying in hunger.’

’How is it right to take what isn’t ours?’

’It is right to survive.’

She wished she were as certain as the darker voices in the back of her mind.

When Tawnygaze opened her eyes again, Pinestar had finally taken his own seat and his tail was raising in a gesture of beckoning. The medicine cat lurched forward and limped closer, further into the damp shadows of his den. She stopped when they were only separated by a short breath and the twitch of a whisker, the bi-colored fae again easing her rear onto the cool soil. ”You have understandable hesitations, I assume? Unless my ability to read others has completely evaporated.” Tawnygaze shared in his amusement and offered the grudging beginnings to a smile. ”Oh it has indeed.” It was a small tease, but that she had spoken it all was a weighty thing. She was not one of the confidence to joke, but his levity had released her somehow. Then, in the moment of mirth reality returned and with it a hard level of seriousness.

”Speak to me, you have my undivided attention.”

’Speak… It isn’t hard. Speak.’ She opened her mouth, and closed it again; thinking too hard on what she would say and how she would say it. Finally, ”I agree we need to expand,” her voice was soft and wavered with uncertainty, each word spoke in slow precision as if she turned every syllable over to check for proper taste before spitting out where it could not be taken back. ”Perhaps my worry does not come from that alone, so much as the clan’s readiness to leap upon a single idea like Starclan came down and said it themselves.” Her thoughts flashed upon Spiderfang’s calling of their ancestors, his proclamation that this was their destiny, and a shadow crossed upon her eyes with bitter irritation. ”I am concerned at their eagerness.” She finally decided her troubles as she spoke that sentence, the words sounding more and more like truth as they slipped from her tongue. ”What will happen if that ambition turns to action before the time is right? This is a delicate matter, and there are cats who would treat it as a game.” A sigh split her lips, and she tried fruitlessly to push the image of Spiderfang’s maw gaping in a vicious laugh from her thoughts. ”You know I trust your judgment implicitly, and I know you would never send our warriors to war on a whim. But the clan has outgrown itself, and to expand in any direction will mean a battle of some form or another. I realize you never explicitly stated a plan to immediately claim territory or expand our borders, but the idea was set today and I saw more than one cat leap on it.”

Tawnygaze had never experienced the brutality of a true battle during her short time as a warrior, but the idea of it had left her timid and frightened even then. To think of it now, watching her friends and family return with wounds that she might not be able to heal, it terrified her. She was young and still prone to emotion, but in that moment her spirit felt heavy and tired with age. She felt worn, and old. Her eyes searched her leader, studying the play of youth and experience across his visage, and a thought struck her. How often did he council the cats of his clan, yet how few of them offered the same courtesy? ”Tell me your thoughts, Pinestar. So many cats come to you for guidance, but you are left with only your own opinion. I can’t as easily read another like you can, I cannot guess what you're feeling; what you're thinking. Tell me.” She needed to understand, to hear his plans expressed by his own mouth, and so her voice was soft and coaxing as she encouraged the information out of him.

The medicine cat had spoken truthfully when confessing to her inability to assume another’s muse; the ginger tabby had never been one for reading another cat. She would need his explanation to perceive the profound imaginings he might concoct, and without it he was as foreign to her as the dark side of a star. ’How many words, Pinestar..?’ How many words until they could understand each other?