Lost Creek Hollow I know you need words

Keeping this slightly vague. Crowfeather is looking for Shadowpup after the group thread.

The dark figure searched for the girl frantically. He could hear her paws scurrying away. He could hear her fleeing from what she had heard angrily spoken in the hollow. Guilt was a storm on the sea and it sloshed inside him, making him mad with worry.

Crowfeather followed his daughter's trail, calling out to her several times as he pushed on. It was not until he had nearly reached the edge of their land that he realized he hadn't smelled Stormpup anywhere within Riverclan. Fear spiked in his chest.

@Shadowpup, he howled again. Tears sprung to his eyes.

The dark star pressed on.

Shadowpup ran across Riverclan as fast and as far as her small body could take. A fire burned in her muscles and her lungs became winded. Tears rolled from her eyes as passing leaves and sticks tangled in her fur. One crooked root managed to snag a paw and Shadowpup fell into the loam, exhausted and distraught.

Her world had been turned upside down. Shadowpup hadn’t even fully digested the words she had heard - some things she probably wouldn’t understand until she was grown - but the emotions clung to her like a bad dream.

The dark girl scurried towards the base of a tree and curled up pathetically in plain sight. “Starclan save me,” she begged with a whisper. Shadowpup squeezed her eyes shut as if she could will her ancestors to whisk her away.

She heard her Papa’s call out her name but, at that moment, he sounded no different than a stranger.

The dark figure couldn’t fathom how heavy his chest had become. He only wished to see his daughter. He needed to know that she was alright. 

Everything that had been said - all of those angry words still clung to his mind. The hollow had shifted into gold-red stone. The trees had become hallways that he had walked in Akashingo. He could see the familiarity. He knew the course he took by heart, but it didn’t feel the way Riverclan was meant to feel. 

Shadowpup’s soft shape appeared before him. She was hiding. 

Tears burned his eyes. Crowfeather stepped to her with a breathless release of air. At least she was safe. At least she was home. 

The tripod pressed his nose to her smaller frame. 

Shadowpup, he whispered to his sweet girl.

Crunching grass and leaves telegraphed Papa’s approach, but Shadowpup kept her eyes closed. It wasn’t until she felt his gentle, wet nose against her shoulder that she dared to crack one lid open. From there, her reluctant gaze followed his thin legs until she was looking up at him.

Her oversized ears dropped back and cupped her skull. She didn’t know what to say or how to communicate. Inside, her mind still reeled from the words she had heard, like advanced math processing on a primitive computer.

She didn’t understand why her father solicited a man who had done such horrible things to Tia Plata. And then, the thought of her silver aunt brought new tears to her eyes. For if what Crowfeather had said was true, then she wasn’t really her aunt at all.

Trust in her family and in the world began to corrode – for everything she knew had been revealed to be false.

Mistake after mistake, Crowfeather had unraveled his life again. Now his daughter was impacted. She looked up at him with a reluctant gaze. The bright white star upon her head brought tears to the shadow’s eyes. 

I’m sorry, he told her. 

I’m sorry that you could not have had a better father. I’m sorry that I could not love Silvertongue the way she wanted. 

That he still lived felt like a mistake. Crowfeather did not believe that the wolves around him deserved such torment. He felt as though he carried it upon his back until it had sagged his spine and calloused his feet - a burden. But how could he fix it? 

I’m sorry, he whispered to his daughter again.

Her father’s face was full of emotion, but it did little to stave all of the bad feelings gushing out of her at that moment. Even his heartfelt apologies could not patch the wound in her heart. Her head ached as if she had been concussed, blindsided by the strange man’s ugly truths.

Shadowpaw reached out and hugged one of her dad’s legs. “Papa,” she moaned feebly, trying to hold onto him as their family, as she knew it, burnt up into little pieces.

The shadow slumped to the ground where he gathered his daughter in his arms and buried his nose into the plush of her fur. 

Crowfeather had tried so hard to avoid becoming like his father. He did not think that there were other ways he might hurt his beloved babies. As Shadowpaw spoke feebly, the dark man kissed the top of her head. Tears tumbled from his eyes, sparkling as they found her inky hairs. 

I will tell you- I will tell you everything you want to know. 

No more hiding. No more secrets. He would not make himself a liar to Shadowpaw. And even if she was too young to ask the questions that needed answers, Crowfeather would wait. 

You know you are loved, don’t you? His heart ached.

Father and daughter, nearly identical twins, cried together. Trails of tears on their black fur made dark rivers that glistened in the night. She buried her face into Crowfeather’s chest, wanting so badly to shrink down to the size of a pebble and be forgotten forever.

I will tell you- I will tell you everything you want to know.

There were no questions yet, only raw emotion. But surely, they would come.

You know you are loved. Don’t you?

“Yes,” she croaked like an ugly toad, but the words felt like lies. Though she was cradled by her father, Shadowpup didn’t feel love in that moment. Rather, she felt abandoned. But how could that be when she was in her father’s farms? When he was so near?

Nonsensical feelings made the girl sob anew. The world was a strange place and Shadowpup didn’t quite know how to cope.