—— FLAXENGLARE ——
Soon to be King
The change in Flaxenglare hadn't happened overnight. Similarly to how you don't notice an old wound has finally healed. Sure, there's some phantom pains, some wincing memories of the events that caused such a gruesome wound, but the true pain is gone. The chance of infection is finally relieved. The worst is over and all that's left is to wait to forget there had been a wound there at all. All the while, you don't notice this milestones of relief - the day the bleeding stopped; the day you can bend the ripped appendage again; the day it scabs; the day it stops itching; until they've long passed.
Over the past week or so, the arrogant, hard-headed and sharp-tongued male became less and less...that. It started first with being kind to Diamondkit. Then, apologizing to Springhawk. Then it become attempting to mend old broken bridges, giving advice to cats who needed it. Then Flaxenglare was sleeping better, getting angrier less. He still rolled his eyes on occasion, or made a petty comment, but such events were becoming less normal for him. The fact of the matter was...Flaxenglare simply wasn't angry with the world anymore.
To deny Firedawn as the cure to Flaxen's age-long sickness would be untrue in every sense imaginable, but it was a little bit more than that. For all his life, Flaxen's rage had stemed from a deep feeling of having been cheated, having something precious to him stolen. To have lost his mom - or at least, think he had - and treated like a incorrigible brat for feeling the way he did was not something the self-centered boy could get over. Not on his own, and unfortunately not with any of the people he assumed to be enemies around him.
Who would have guessed the solution was for him to learn a bit of empathy?
Being the arrogant kit he was, such a solution would've been impossible...yet here he was.
He knew now what it was like to love someone so deeply losing them would mean immediate death. He kne now why sorrelstar refused to let Nightfire go - whether cheating was involved or not. He also understood Hornetsting, which was truly a shocker, and how love wasn't as simple as owning something. You cant just stop loving someone, and giving them up when you do is almost impossible.
Of course, a part of him wouldn't allow him to truly forgive Hornet or his mom...but being angry about it - over them - felt wrong now. They were all in love, and such a powerful emotion sometimes just cant be denied.
And suddenly, Hornet's kit became brothers and sisters.
Suddenly, Hornetsting was more than just a clan-mate
Suddenly, Flaxenglare truly knew that loving his mom had always outweighed the anger - he'd just been too ignorant to realize it until now.
So he wasn't angry anymore. No,.,,no, it was more than that. He was happy. Truly and completely - finally - he was happy.
Sure, not everything could be cured right away, and some things would forever echo; his arrogance, his belief in his destiny and competence as leader wasn't gone...but that came second to him now. All he could think about six moons from now wasn't surpassing Briarthorn - it was his kit's ceremony, and wondering if he'd be able to let them go then. It was what sorts of adventures he and Firedawn would go through over that time, and long after. It was wondering about fixing the bonds between him and his baby siblings, spending time with Hornetsting and Sorrelstar.
What Flaxenglare had always wanted was a family he could call his own. People who loved him as savagely as he loved them. And that's exactly what he had now. That's what he finally realized he'd always had.
So it shouldn't be a shock that Flaxenglare, despite his name may suggest, woke up smiling that morning.
He was healed.
"Speech"