Baby

From the moment she was born, Jackal was just more than her brother. Louder, stronger, angrier. She was just more in every way her quiet, easy brother wasn't. She flourished as she grew. She loved playing with her brother, Crusader, though she was often too rough. Unlike her parents, she knew her brother's true strength. He once rallied himself and beat her in a game they were playing, and their father, Volcano, drew her to the side with hard eyes and told her she needed to be better. Volcano already favored his daughter over his son, claiming Crusader to be too soft. He was cold and distant to Jackal's brother, believing that Crusader needed it to 'toughen up'. 

Jackal noticed that after she had been scolded that Crusader never again went on the offensive and stuck to defensive. While her father taught her theory and tactics during the day, she whispered her lessons to her brother at night. Crusader was smart, and he cared about her. That was enough to earn her loyalty. She knew he wasn't weak, like their father claimed. She grew colder towards their father, though Volcano noticed no difference. Jackal's mother had one told her to look after her brother, because he wasn't as strong as she was. She took that to heart. She couldn't stand to hear her father dismiss Crusader.

Her mother on the other hand, Jackal loved. Flicker adored both her children with the fiery passion only a Fireclan mother could muster. She taught her children lessons she thought every young Fireclanner should know. She taught her daughter to respect power, and above all to respect the Firelord who was rightful leader of the clan. Jackal accepted this without question, for her father had told her very much the same thing. Both adults in her life believed this, and who was she to contradict them?

Jackal was proud and strong, and she looked after her brother. Even if it meant spitting sparks at him sometimes to get him to work harder.

Apprentice

It took a lot of working and pleading and whittling away at her mother and father, but Jackal managed to get an apprentice-day gift for her brother. It was more the Earthclan way to give gifts at times of celebration, but Jackal didn't care. Her brother deserved something nice, because she knew that he was nervous about advancing in rank finally. So she got her mother to bargain for a piece of cloth found in some ruins. It was soft and red and perfect.

She helped him tie the fabric around his neck - and oh she just knew it was going to catch on fire one of these days - and he refused to take it off. Jackal was touched that he loved her gift so much, and more than a little smug.

Their apprentice ceremony was a simple affair. Crusader was assigned to a warrior named Dawn, and Jackal internally rolled her eyes at how soft the cat was. Commander Opal was to be her mentor. The Commander. She just about had a heart attack then and there. She snapped out of it quickly enough when Crusader nudged her, smiling proudly. 

Not even a few days later Crusader came up to her bubbling with happiness and presented hey a tangled pile of... something. However, Crusader his explain and together they untangled the harness. Jackal couldn't help but love it, and it did the dual purpose of showing off her loyalty to the Firelord with the collar and all. It was a little big, but thankfully somewhat adjustable by way of the rings and looping the fabric.

Like everything else in her life, Jackal took to bending like a duck to water. She was terrifyingly competent at learning new forms and ruthless in her execution of them. If a few of her peers got a little seared, well, it wasn't exactly lasting damage and her mother had only told her no lasting damage. She threw herself into learning bending and fighting with reckless abandon, and found herself still cuddled up at night with her brother whispering today's lessons and tips into his ear. The only difference was that this time he was whispering his own lessons back.

About a week into her apprenticeship, Jackal noticed a change. Crusader stopped talking so much about what Dawn was teaching him and more about what Tinder was teaching him. With the weather turning downright foul as it was, it wasn't uncommon for mentors to try teaching their apprentices theory and history rather than braving the icy winds. Jackal and Opal had still been going out though, someone had to hunt for the clan after all. Jackal supposed it was logical enough, that with the residual wounds from the war still needing check-ups Tinder would need a helping hand. Her brother was intelligent, no matter what his philosophical views were and learned quickly. Still. It unnerved her.

So, it didn't surprise her when Tinder officially stole Crusader to be a Healer's apprentice rather than a regular one. Like she'd said, her brother was smart and picked things up quickly. He was a dedicated worker and loyal. One would have to be a fool not to see the potential in him, even if his pesky pacifistic ways often set things back a bit. In fact, Healer was perfect for him considering how Healer's are rarely on the front lines of battles and whatnot. 

She figured out just why she'd been feeling unnerved when her father came over to congratulate Crusader. Her father had never deigned to notice his son before now, or when he did it was only to correct him. It made her bristle protectively. Crusader wasn't different because he was a Healer's apprentice. It was ridiculous to only seek your son out when he 'made something of himself' or whatever was going through Volcano's mind. That, and the fact that her father's attention obviously made Crusader, who was used to being ignored, rather uncomfortable. Either way she stuck by Crusader and subtly put herself between him and their dad.

The blizzard worked over the land and made her training even tougher. It was difficult to master one's inner fire enough to keep relatively warm, or to set fires when the material was sadly buried under mounds of white bullshit. Every night she fell into the apprentice's den exhausted. Crusader, too. Still, the tradition of sharing their knowledge from kithood persisted and no matter how tired she was, Jackal found it in herself to whisper what she'd learned to her brother. Likewise, he whispered back to her. She spoke of fire and control and hunting and stances, while he in turn told her of herbs and medicines, wounds and meditation. It was a good system.

Until Tinder left to go and gather herbs, and since Opal had already let her off from training (the Commander had other important duties to attend to after all) she checked around to see if Crusader had gone with or not. Especially since the weather actually looked to be getting worse if that was possible. Fortunately she found her brother waiting in the Healer's den for his mentor to return, and likely quiz him over whatever he'd managed to scrounge up. He looked nervous, very nervous. 

She awoke in the morning to Crusader repeatedly prodding at her. Apparently Tinder hadn't come back. Crusader, of course, was having a minor freak out and so Jackal had to suggest going to the Commander with the concern. After all, Fireclan couldn't afford to lose a Healer and Opal was Jackal's mentor, she was at least somewhat more likely to listen to her own apprentice's concerns.

Fortunately the Commander listened to them, which of course she would these were legitimate concerns and Opal was the best, and quickly informed the Firelord. Said Firelord immediately sent Opal out to look and of course Jackal was to tag along as well. She was Opal's apprentice after all and needed experience somehow. Together they scoured what seemed like every inch of the territory with no luck, though realistically they couldn't have covered it all. It certainly didn't help that everyone was weaker and practically starving, with many cats sacrificing food to give to the Avatar who carried the Firelord's heirs. Jackal hated that she could see Crusader's ribs, even when she tried to feed him bits of her own meals claiming that she was smaller and needed to eat less.

The third day of searching bore fruit, though it was not news anybody wanted to hear. Tinder had been found. At least, his body had been found. They burned the body solemnly, knowing that it was only luck that they at least still had a Healer with a month of experience. It was better than having no healer at all. Crusader knew his herbs at least, and their purpose even if he wasn't positive where to find them or what he could trade for them. It was still going to be a brutal winter though, made even worse by not having Tinder.

That night Crusader tried to stumble into the apprentice's den to go to sleep like he had every night for a month. Jackal immediately rounded on him hissing that he was the Healer now and there was a Healer's den. It wouldn't do anything good for moral if everyone was slapped in the face by just how young and inexperienced their new Healer was every night and every morning after all. The puppy-dog eyes Crusader proceeded to give her over Jackal staying in the Healer's den with him. She fell into a fitful sleep, worried beyond measure on how Crusader was going to deal with this. She would help him, as much as she was able. She'd be there for him every step of the way.

A lot of things happened during the blizzard - principle among them being the fact that there was someone to blame for it. A waterbending tribe. Jackal got her first taste of battle, and it was almost too much.

She’d gone out on a patrol with Azurite, the Commander’s sister. Opal was busy - far too busy in the face of a clan in crisis to dedicate more time than she already was to training her apprentice. So she outsourced, and asked her sister to take Jackal on a patrol. Jackal quickly fell in step behind another apprentice on the patrol - a scarred and skinny (though who wasn’t skinny in the face of the harsh winter) tom by the name of Scorpion.

The unthinkable happened when the patrol was ambushed. Jackal had never been in a real fight before - she was barely apprenticed as it was. She had little practical battle experience, being as confined to camp as she was. So she teamed up with Scorpion against a brutal foe, while the rest of the patrol held off the others. They were outmatched - two apprentices against a full blown and very experienced warrior? It should have been a no brainer. Jackal fought to the best of her ability, but it was Scorpion who had to step up and save her life.

It was Scorpion who sliced through the tom with burning claws, filling the air with the stench of cooked flesh and the metallic twang of blood. Jackal had never seen anyone die violently before. She had watched cats waste away under the blizzard - but this? This was something else entirely.

She found herself in the unfamiliar position of having to offer comfort to the white apprentice, and Jackal was actual garbage at comfort. But he had saved her life, and he had killed someone for her, so she figured that probably made him an exception to her self imposed rules. He almost reminded her of Crusader - just a little. The hesitance, the careful way he held himself. It made Jackal want to protect him. But Scorpion wasn’t her brother, and she had to remember that.

She went back to camp with blood on her fur and a face carved from ice. She allowed her brother to fuss over her.

Jackal continued training, with anyone who would accompany her. The blizzard ended, Fireclan had a new heir in Princess Mesa, and Jackal found herself dragging Crusader out of the Healer’s den every day when he got into one of his funks of his inability to save the other three Fireclan princes and princesses.

Under the conditions, chief among them being the blizzard and severe food shortage, Jackal thought he’d done rather well with just the one child alive. It was the Avatar’s fault for allowing the pregnancy to progress despite the ill omens, those deaths were not on her brother. But she knew better than to be saying that out loud.

So, she threw herself into training. Scorpion became a warrior, and officially counted as adult supervision, so she dragged him out as well. The older tom wasn’t doing particularly great, emotionally. Even Jackal could see that, but she wasn’t about to trick herself into caring about the white tom so she figured dragging him out was good enough. It sure beat sulking in his den all day. And if that was very similar to what she did with her actual brother - well, who besides him knew her well enough to call her out on it?

Jackal listened carefully to her mentor, soaking in every moment that Commander Opal could possibly spare for her. Even if that time was to do with tea. Well, at least Crusader absolutely delighted in the tea lessons that Jackal relayed to him. He quickly became far better at brewing tea that she’d ever been, which was fine. At least he shared.

Crusader headed out to further his own training as Healer, and studied under Shiver and Cecily from the other clans. Jackal found herself relying on Scorpion being free to drag him out to spar with her. He was such a pushover - could never really say no to her. Jackal ruthlessly used that to her own advantage. She told herself, and him, that she was just there because she had a life debt to repay at some point. But more and more that was becoming less true.

She was becoming - ugh - genuinely fond of the white tom.

Life went on, and time seemed to fly until Jackal stood before the Firelord performing her very own dance. Flames curled around her, in and out like a heartbeat. She had the raw power beaten into her by Opal, she had the careful control hammered into her by her brother and father. She was ready. She was announced as a warrior and she had never felt more victorious.

Warrior

As Jackal grew older, she grew even further apart from her parents and even closer to her brother. Along with her brother came her brother’s friends. Colleagues? It seemed as though he was on friendly terms with just about every reckless young cat in the clan - such as Widow, Match, and the unfortunate rest of the gang that made up Fireclan’s old ‘apprentice squad’. But they made her brother happy, so she accepted it with grace.

Her brother wasn’t just hers anymore - a large piece of him belonged to the entire clan. Most days, she still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Overall, not much changed from her apprentice days. She could leave camp by herself. But it was more fun to have a sparring partner anyway, so Crusader and Scorpion were dragged out just as much if not more than they had been when she was an apprentice. She spent so much of her time training. From an early age she’d always had to be perfect, and no matter how quickly she could pick things up - practice was what made perfect.

She would work herself into the ground, only to be forced to rest by Crusader. Her days took on a regular flow of patrols, hunting, training, sparring, and Crusader. Crusader time could be anything from sorting herbs or having a ‘tea and bitch’ session. It helped her relax after long days.

By that point in her life, she’d just accepted that she had moved into the Healer’s den. Towards the very early days of her warriorhood she had tried to sleep alone but Crusader had just given her such wounded looks. Besides, he needed some extra paws on hand just in case an emergency came up, and despite herself Jackal was probably the second best qualified cat in the clan to help out. Curse her memory and learning by sheer exposure.

Or maybe it was because Crusader carefully explained everything he’d learned to her with a kind of single minded determination. They both knew that he was essentially making her into a backup hard drive of information, just in case something happened to him. He wouldn’t let the clan have to rely on another half-trained an inexperienced Healer should the worst happen, but neither would be choose an apprentice when he was barely older than the current apprentices himself.

It was something they didn’t talk about.

Mesa grew into her own, and ended up visiting frequently. Crusader doted on the little princess, but Jackal could see the anxiety in his frame when he raked his eyes over her form - making sure she wasn’t sick or weak. 

Mesa would never get better if everyone treated her like a piece of glass. So Jackal bowed her head and greeted her as “Princess,” even when Mesa frowned and requested Jackal call her by name. But Jackal wouldn’t let her forget that she wasn’t just any ordinary cat. Jackal would give her the respect her rank deserved - but no more.

Eventually, Mesa grew older and fierce in her ability, and Jackal inclined her head and greeted her in low tones, “My Princess.” It was the sort of subtle claiming, the quiet acknowledgement of respect, that Jackal thrived upon. Mesa had always been a Princess, she was afforded that by birthright. But she hadn’t been Jackal’s princess. Not until she proved herself. In her own way, Jackal was proud of the younger she-cat. She was strange, and foreign, but Jackal really believed the could do it.

By the time Jackal had comfortably been a warrior for almost a year and a half, she’d almost forgotten she had a mother. She hadn’t forgotten-forgotten, but Flicker was just so far out of her mind that Jackal wouldn’t have been able to name the last time she had thought of the she-cat if she tried.

But Flicker got sick, and suddenly she was back in her life. Back in Crusader’s life. She had a bed in the Healer’s den, in her den no matter how much she often protested calling it that. Jackal suddenly had to tiptoe around in her own home, mindful of the sharp looks that Flicker would shoot at her whenever she came and went. 

Crusader got smiles and warmth, but it had been a very long time since Jackal had received the same. Maybe in someone else, it would have made her resent her brother. But Crusader went out with her and scowled and frowned and cursed over it, despite his tight lipped smiles and absent nods in their mother’s presence. Volcano came to visit as well, and even though he had never been a smiles guy he was noticeably warmer to Jackal. It all balanced out in the end.

Despite everything Crusader tried, Flicker just kept getting sicker. Soon enough Jackal had to cut back training time to help her brother cart and boil water to try and clean the den at all hours of the most recent vomit stain. Crusader tried everything, but Flicker was slipping away between his fingers. They kept her quarantined, consulted other medicine cats, but nothing worked.

Then one fateful day, Flicker was having some fit. Hallucinations that only she could see. Crusader was mashing paste in a corner desperately, so he was busy. Jackal went over to try and soothe their mother.

For her trouble, Jackal got the word “Monster!” spat in her face, a tumble of insults and venom dripping from her mother’s tongue. Jackal was numb inside when she ran from the den, ignoring Crusader’s cries after her.

She ran out into the territory until she was far enough away she couldn’t hear the echoes of monster quite so strongly. She curled up in a way and she wept angry, furious tears. On some level, even if she had never wanted to admit it to herself, Jackal had always longed for her mother’s approval, the approval she had somehow lost along the way. Something she had always worked towards, part of the reason she worked herself to the bone day in and day out.

Jackal just wanted her mother to be proud of her again, was that too much to ask? She had stopped crying by the time Scorpion found her. He curled up next to her quietly, and didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t say anything either. They stayed like that until the sun set, watching the vibrant colors play across the sky.

When Agni’s celestial body had finally dipped beneath the horizon, then and only then did Jackal level herself up. She and Scorpion went back to camp, and Jackal slipped in with him instead of going back to the Healer’s den. She couldn’t confront Flicker - not now.

She woke up several hours later when Crusader climbed in between then, a darkly furious look still furrowing his brow. She sighed sleepily, “Y’r gonna get wrinkles.” She told him. His face smoothed out, blank. She hated that even more that the wrinkles. He curled up by her side, the other one already claimed by Scorpion, and together they all fell asleep.

It went like that for a while. Crusader departing early in the morning to tend to Flicker, Jackal sticking with Scorpion as well as she could, and Crusader joining them again late at night. He didn’t talk to Jackal about Flicker, he didn’t talk to anyone about Flicker besides perhaps Volcano. But Jackal could tell by the slope of his shoulders that it wasn’t going well.

A few weeks later, Flicker died. They hosted the funeral, burned the body, and Jackal felt so very guilty for being relieved. But as much as she’d appreciated Scorpion’s hospitality and the cuddle piles, Jackal missed her home. It had been rough, not being able to sleep in her own bed. Jackal, who had never backed down a day in her life, had run when confronted with her own mother.

Crusader burned the materials of the bed Flicker had been sleeping on, and recruited some of his friends to help him scrub the den from top to bottom with boiling water. Every inch of Flicker’s presence was erased, and by the time Jackal got back from training the den was filled with the aroma of lavender tea.

They didn’t talk about Flicker, even though she knew Crusader was mourning in his own way. She was, too. Now she would never get the chance to make her mother proud. To make peace with her. Jackal had run away and stayed away, so the last words her mother had ever spoken to her were calling her monster.

Slowly, but surely, life went back to normal. As normal as it got for them, at least.

The days kept coming, and Jackal kept breathing. She woke up, she trained, and patrolled, she did everything she was supposed to do. She existed in this time of great peace (as if her childhood hadn’t been filled with so much violence - as if these years of peace meant anything when they came too late) as well as she could. It was different but... welcome, in its own way. She just hoped it would last.