I smile more where I belong [Oneshot]

    Home. What constituted as a home? A place to rest your head. Somewhere to hide when the world turned its back on you. A place to retreat when everything became too much. Somewhere to call your own. A place where you belonged. Home could be a lot of things, Starlingfur had learned. Something you sought and feared. Something you could lose, but would never truly be gone from you. A nest for the night or somewhere where everything in your heart just finally fell into place. It could be salvation and it could be a death sentence. Sometimes both at the same time. Home was complex. It was difficult, it was joyous. It was love and sacrifice. Starlingfur had had many homes, and she had lost many homes. The word implied permanence, but Starlingfur had long since realized that there was no such thing.

    Permanence implies that something can be without change- eternally lasting and indestructible. But that in itself was impossible, no matter what the subject. All things changed. The world grew, the world shrunk. Flowers reached for the sun as it rose and set while beetles died in the grass. Nothing was endless, least of all home. Or so she thought. Perhaps Starlingfur had grown cynical as the years passed, but she could barely register the idea of something lasting without end. When she'd been young and foolish, Starlingfur had relished in the idea that she might spend her days relaxing and sleeping alone and in peace until her twilight years. But those days were long gone now, and Starlingfur knew not what her twilight years might have in store. If they came at all. No, she barely knew what the next day would bring, and some mornings she wondered if she would live to see it. The world had changed, and Starlingfur's outlook on life had gone with it. Nothing was certain, and she didn't know whether to be frightened or to accept it.

    Things seemed to be lulling into safety now. She'd reunited with her daughter. Ravenmist, the last surviving of her kits, might have been injured but she was alive. Birchtail had stuck with her through thick and thin. The hardest battles and the brightest dawns of Starlingfur's last year had been spent at the tom's side. She was expecting his kits, but who was she to bring lives into a world such as this? What right had she to subject innocents to the harshness of this world- something what they'd never asked for? Starlingfur dwelt on these thoughts in the place that she and Birchtail had come to call 'home'. And she did not dwell pleasantly.

    It was a beautiful cavern. Just below the sparkling pebble pool in what had once been Dawnclan's territory, they'd begun to fashion a life for themselves anew. Thick tree roots curled into perfect hiding places, akin to what their clan had once called the apprentice's den back in camp. Moss lined the walls and the gentle gurgle of a small waterfall was a constant. It cascaded down one end of the cavern, refracting light throughout the cave like crystals of legends. It was comfortable, safe, and well hidden. If any place could be the ideal home it would be this. And yet as they worked to build upon it- to shape it into something that could truly be called theirs, Starlingfur was filled with an intense apprehension.

    Had it been a mistake, returning to the basin? Perhaps it was beautiful, but surely if these lands had been suited to raising a family- a clan- and living life.. The clans wouldn't have fallen. Though it had been her idea to return in the first place, Starlingfur couldn't help the cold claws of dread that would sink into heart late at night. She couldn't help the nightmares- the visions of her kits and friends faces as they were slaughtered before her eyes. The feelings of helplessness, of despair, of loss. The feelings that had plagued her since joining the clans all these years ago. Not all of her clan life had been terrible- on the contrary. Life with first Duskclan and then Dawnclan may just have been the best thing to ever happen to her. The best, and also the worst. In these late days she often wondered what her life might have been like had she never joined Duskclan. Perhaps she would have lived the peaceful life of her dreams, dozing away in the sun and catching fat mice. But had she never joined, she never would have...

"Starlingfur! Darling, can you help me with this branch?"

    From her place among the twisted roots Starlingfur looked up. Nearest to the waterfall stood Birchtail, wet mud marring his splotched fur and turning him more brown than gray. He looked like he'd gotten into a fight with a rainstorm and lost. Between his paws lay a large tree-branch, poking out in all directions as he tried to wrestle it into the wall of mud and stone that he'd begun to build along the edge of the cascade. Concentration seared in the pudgy tom's green eyes, but he had never been the most graceful.

Starlingfur smiled.

    Towards him she moved, crossing the cavern in just a few strides. "I'm trying to build this wall so that the kits don't fall in- but its not going so well." Smiling exasperation. "Could you tuck this here? Your paws are smaller, and you always were the best at patching up the dens." Hope in his eyes. For a better future, for a better life.

"You don't have to ask."

---

    The sound of the waterfall was their music, and their clumsy paws and misplaced steps were the oddest dance. A mismatched pair- not one made in Starclan by any means. Or at least not the kind of star-crossed lovers that any stories would speak of. But perhaps imperfection was better. Mud under one's eye, pebbles stuck in paws, quiet laughter and the best kinds of messes. Finding fleeting happiness in the small things and turning work into play. Starlingfur had always thought herself too old for such things, but maybe she'd just grown up too fast. Maybe her world outlook had turned sour before she'd ever really seen the dawn. It was impossible to know.

What she did know was that with Birchtail, things didn't hurt as much as they used to.

    When she had nightmares, there would be someone there to roll over and ask her sleepily, quietly, but oh so concerned what was wrong. When she forgot important things, he would remind her. And when she couldn't forget the bad.. He would be there to pull brighter memories forward. When Starlingfur felt that all was lost, Birchtail would talk about how much better tomorrow would be. 'Just you wait and see'. Birchtail cared in both the most innocent and the most serious ways. He... believed in Starlingfur in ways that she couldn't believe in herself. And that was something that Starlingfur had never thought to find. Someone who could... turn an entire day around, just with a well-timed story. Who could laugh even when things were hard, and always. Always tried to make things better than they were. Someone who had enough hope and love overflowing in their heart that at times, Starlingfur felt that she would drown.

    Someone who could jolt her back to reality when she began to fade.

    Someone who- when they were together- made her feel like anywhere could be home. That even if things didn't last forever, at least she would have this moment.

"There. How do you think it looks?"

    He stepped back. Starlingfur had already backed away, mud slicking her tabby stripes a solid brown and pebbles clinging to her pawpads like a second coat. Before them lay a wall. It reached up to Starlingfur's chest- slightly taller on the shorter Birchtail. High enough to keep small kits away from the water (and hopefully any flooding out), but still low enough to wet moss for drinking. It wasn't exactly pretty, with its twigs sticking out the top and stones of all shapes and sizes lining the sides, but it was sturdy and functional. And there would be good memories attached.

    Birchtail looked at her expectantly. Exhaustion in his eyes, but happy exhaustion. Warm exhaustion. Like lying in the sun, or relaxing after a long day. Green as holly with none of the poison. It was an odd combination with the copper ones that they met, but a good one. "I think it looks good. Not pretty by any means," he couldn't help but snort, "..... But good."

    "I should hope so!" he smiled, waving his tail excitedly. looking at him now, you might never tell that Birchtail had once been a bicolor gray and white. "Knowing kits, they'll be getting into everything. Climbing up the moss and tumbling around our paws nonstop. The more things we can do to keep them safe, the better." Birchtail went on, eyes bright. He'd always wanted kits. A family. When Starlingfur was young, she'd never considered the possibility. And when she'd finally gotten one, it had turned out nothing like the even low expectations that she'd had. But Birchtail... "Oh, they'll be just wonderful! Even if they get into every last little thing!" he purred, closing the distance between the two of them and pressing his face to Starlingfur's. She ducked away from the mud, but he just wouldn't relent. "They'll have your beautiful eyes and hunting skills and intelligence and strength and bravery... And they'll have my ah.. uh..."

    "Your kindness." Starlingfur substituted with a half-smile as he continued to do- what she was now certain was just attempting to get as much mud on her as possible- "And optimism. And gentleness. And- And ability to get mud on absolutely everything!" she broke off, swatting at him and hopping to the side. This caused the younger tom to tumble into the dust with a bright laugh. And your ability to make me feel like just maybe not everything I've done in this life has been a mistake.

    "You're too sweet." Birchtail rose to his paws with a smile, before looking away. He was quiet for a moment. Several moments. Thoughtful. So rare was it to see him take on a serious expression that he looked like a completely different cat when it shone through.


    "Everything is... Going to be okay." He finally meowed, breaking the silence. "I... know you've been worrying a lot lately." Birchtail looked back to her, sincerity replacing the laughter in his eyes. "And I know that my reluctance to come back probably hasn't helped with that. I was afraid, I won't lie. But now that we're here..."

    "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that we're happy. That our kits are happy. That you're happy. I swear it to you Starlingfur, we'll make a life for ourselves here again. And it'll be a beautiful one. And we'll be happy. I'm... I'm not gonna leave you, ever. And don't try to tell me that you don't worry. I can see it in your eyes when you think I'm not looking. We're never going to have to run away again, I promise you. Even if we have to leave, or move, or... anything. It'll never be running away. Because from now on, what we do is our choice. We're in this together Starlingfur." he paused for breath, looking down once and up in a heartbeat. "I love you. And I know that you say nothing last forever, but this... Us.. Always will. No matter what comes."

    Always was a hard word. A word that Starlingfur didn't say often, because everything that had promised to last forever to her had faded. Nothing was permanent, and everything had to come to an end. But Birchtail meant every word that he said. The sincerity bloomed in his voice like flowers under the sun, and for a moment Starlingfur felt like those beetles. But instead of casting shadows to die in, through climbing those stalks she'd finally come face to face with the sun.

    Maybe nothing lasted forever. Maybe home was just a concept. Maybe everything was a lie and the moon lived in the ocean, and squirrels were blue. The world had been turned upside down too many times for Starlingfur to care what was true and waht wasn't any more. But if she believed in anything, it was this. Them. And maybe, just maybe, home wasn't a something after all. Maybe it was a someone.

Starlingfur smiled.