Baby

Crusader was an easy baby. Where Crusader was gentle and sweet, Jackal personified fire. She blazed so brightly, she was angry and passionate and vicious all at once. She was cunning and ruthless, even as a kit. Her parents encouraged and praised this behavior.

Flicker initially loved both of her kits and was almost blind to their flaws. She loved her gentle son, she adored her ruthless daughter. Volcano on the other hand had his doubts about his son's kind nature. The clan needed warriors, not pushovers in his eyes. He believed he had to toughen the child up. It sparked many an argument between Volcano and Flicker, which Crusader hated more than anything else. Jackal, on the other hand, was Volcano's ideal child. She was quick to pick things up, intelligent even at her young age. 

Instead of wilting under his father's silence and disapproval, Crusader sought other role modals and found one in Lazuli. Smoke, as Firelord, acknowledged Lazuli as right which meant that not wanting to fight wasn't wrong. 

Crusader and Jackal grew through their kithood in the throes of war. It should have been difficult to hold onto his philosophy through the war with the Purists, but somehow it only strengthened it. When being evacuated to Airclan as a kitten, Purists ambushed them and Crusader cowered behind Jackal and his mother. All he and Jackal could do is spit pitiful sparks at the cats. The skirmish was resolved and they made it to Airclan, only to be faced with the Purist's boldest attack yet: Airclan's camp itself.

Crusader didn't see much of the fighting, with him and Jackal crouched at the back of the nursery with other kits from different clans, but they could hear it.

Apprentice

When they all went back to Fireclan, Crusader pretty was nervous about becoming an apprentice, unlike his sister who laughed and told him not to worry. Instead of telling him to toughen up though, she presented him with a large, soft piece of fabric that she'd obviously gone through some trouble to get him. It wasn't even singed yet. He loved the gift, he loved how soft it was, and how red it was, and it was just perfect. After much eye-rolling she helped him tie the fabric around his neck to form some sort of rough cape. Crusader refused to take it off.

The ceremony was relatively simple, everyone was still pretty exhausted even weeks after the way was officially over. To Crusader's delight, Jackal was given to Commander Opal as an apprentice. Jackal had always idolized the graceful she-cat - and her sister Azurite to some extent - and was practically starstruck. Crusader was given to Dawn, a kind she-cat with a more gentle disposition. 

At the next opportunity he ran off to get Jackal a gift in return, and after a lot of bargaining and puppy-dog-eyes, he managed to secure a collar-harness thing that Crusader was sure she would love. 

Jackal was terrifying competent at bending, just as much as she'd been at theory as a kit. Crusader had some natural talent, but it was held back by the fact that he never wanted to hurt anyone. He preferred defensive moves only. 

A couple of weeks into his apprenticeship though, everything changed. This was because he was no longer to be Dawn's apprentice any longer, though the she-cat had been an excellent mentor so far. She's showed him around the territory a little, though it was buried under certifiable mountains of snow. He should have been suspicious when Tinder, the clan Healer, cheerfully asked Dawn if he could borrow Crusader to help him with things like checkups of wounds. He hadn't thought anything of it at the time, cats were still injured after all and Tinder had no apprentice of his own to fetch things or chat to the patients to get them to stay still. 

Then it became permanent and Tinder stole Crusader from right under Dawn's nose to whisk him into a world of Healing and helping. Crusader honestly couldn't decide whether he was in heaven or if he wanted to curl up into a ball of anxiety and scream for a few hours. Healer's apprentice was a huge responsibility after all.

His parents were suitably thrilled that their child was chosen to help the clan in such a way and suddenly Volcano was paying attention to his previously more unworthy child. His new position was taking his parents attention away from Jackal, who despite her stoic face was more than a little heartbroken.

He and Jackal fell into the Apprentice's den each night exhausted. The blizzard raged on and in retaliation Opal was trying to teach Jackal to control her fire enough to keep warm while they trained which was a difficult skill indeed. Meanwhile Crusader was quizzed ruthlessly over the different herbs and their uses, which shouldn't be used together and which were deadly. He was kept busy with follow-ups of wounds from the battle as well as new sicknesses that were common in the cold months. Stuffy noses, sore throats, coughs, the works. Like they had as kits, Crusader and Jackal shared everything. She whispered advice that Opal gave her, on her stance, on hunting, on firebending, everything. In return Crusader spoke of herbs and healing, how Tinder could sense chi and promised to teach him one day, and of ways to soothe wounds and encourage healing.

Unlike Jackal, most of what Crusader was learning could be learned inside the relative warmth of the Healer's Den. Though Tinder promised to teach him more about fighting once the weather let up and still made him practice basic stances and moves. Control of one's inner flame was always important, and Crusader was almost always meditating when Tinder had nothing left for him to do, which was not very often.

Tinder encouraged Crusader to be independent, though the Healer watched Crusader like a hawk whenever he took care of cats 'alone'. Cats frequently came into the den complaining of stiff joints, or even sprained limbs from slipping around and twisting things in the snow. Crusader alternated between concentrating fiercely on bringing heat to the surface without outright flames that soothed stiff joints and muscle pain or apologetically informing clumsy cats that the best thing to do with a sprain was, well, ice it for a while before giving the limb a break and then icing it again. 

Though Crusader was forced to memorize herbs until he could almost recite them in his sleep, Tinder treated them like the most precious of gold and rarely gave them out to the patients that came in. A lot of their supply of herbs like goldenrod, broom, comfrey, chervil, and even cobwebs were depleted from the war the clans fought before the vicious winter. Demand just was too much for the supply, though Tinder confided that he hoped Crusader would be helpful gathering more than what just Tinder could on his own.

What he didn't expect, and really no one expected, was that a couple of months into his apprenticeship, Tinder vanished. He'd been fretting over their supplies of herbs for almost the entire time that Crusader had been his apprentice. He explained that he was going out to try and find some plants, perhaps in the bit of forest that Waterclan gave them, that the winter had not killed. Or barring that at least more willow bark to replenish the dwindling supply that had been used up by warriors in pain from wounds the Purists had given them. Crusader offered to accompany the tom, after all it was good practical experience. He hadn't really gotten out there to identify where each plant could be found or what their bushes looked like or whatnot, but despite that Tinder insisted on going alone. It would be faster, without an apprentice tagging along behind him to teach. Tinder didn't want to be out in the cold longer than necessary.

That was all well and good except for one problem: Tinder didn't come back.

Not long after Tinder left the weather picked up. Crusader camped out in the Healer's den waiting for Tinder to return. Jackal soon joined him after hearing about Tinder leaving camp, concerned that her brother had gone with him. It wasn't too long before Crusader's eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep curled up into his sister on one of the nest areas they generally used for patients.

When he woke up it was still the same situation. Jackal was still there, and Tinder was not. The storm still howled outside and the two apprentices knew they would have to forego food once more. It worried him, he could count Jackal's ribs at this point, and his own if he craned his neck far enough. Still, it was more important that Avatar Lazuli get food right now, for she was carrying the heirs to the throne, the Firelord's kits. The week prior Crusader had watched Tinder perform a checkup and explain the procedure to him. But Tinder wasn't there right now.

So after prodding Jackal awake the two apprentices went to seek out Commander Opal. Opal didn't dismiss their concerns. In fact, she immediately turned to the Firelord who sent out a search party. Jackal was quickly swept away by her mentor to search the territory herself, leaving Crusader alone again. 

With the weather it took three days to find Tinder. Or at least Tinder's body. The funeral was a solemn affair, Crusader adding his own flames to the pyre almost on auto-pilot. He was numb. He'd liked Tinder. Even the best of mentors couldn't have taught an apprentice everything they needed to know a couple of months though, and that was especially true for a Healer's apprentice. But now he was the clan's first line of defense against sickness, and in a winter like this there was plenty of sickness to go around.

The Avatar was pregnant and he would have to be the one to help her deliver the kits. He wasn't ready. Tinder hadn't even taught him about pregnancies outside of some of the terminology. He was so young - he'd never even attended a birth outside of his own.

That night, after the body of his mentor had finished burning, he went to the apprentice's den on auto-pilot, only to be guided back out again with Jackal hissing in her ear about how he was the healer now and that there was a den specifically for Healers right over there. Crusader looked at the empty den which still smelled of Tinder despite being relatively desolate. Several minutes later, Jackal grudgingly agreed to spend the night in the Healer's den with him, though it was on Crusader's head if Commander Opal tried to wake her up for training early and couldn't find her.

And just like that, Crusader became the sole Healer of Fireclan.

Healer

Crusader's debut as Healer didn't exactly go smoothly. He was barely trained and painfully young. Tinder was dead, and more cats were dying around him, whether from cold or lack of food or sickness. It was a brutal few months until the blizzard's end.

And of course, there was the matter of the Fire Lord and the Avatar's kits. The birth - it didn't go well. Even with half the clan sacrificing meals in order to feed their Fire Lady, the kittens were so very weak. The birth wasn't easy either, and by the end everyone was exhausted. Both physically and emotionally. Two of the kittens didn't make it past their first night. Crusader couldn't help but feel that if Tinder had been alive, the outcome might have been different.

The third kit, Hickory, didn't make it past a week. He'd been sickly and small and Spirits, if Crusader could have traded their lives he would have done it in a heartbeat. Hickory had just been so young and with a whole life ahead of him. And Smoke and Lazuli were crushed, he could see it in their eyes. A better healer might have been able to save the litter, but all they'd had was Crusader.

It was fortunate indeed that little Mesa survived, nurtured by her parents and the desperate clan healer. He couldn't take another death, he just couldn't. Crusader lost so many patients that winter - it would have been rough on a veteran Healer let alone a beginner. Mesa was a shining star of hope for him, and he couldn't help but check on her more frequently than was perhaps called for. No one said anything though. She was the princess, everything must be done to ensure she survived to greet the sun of the summer solstice at the very least.

The deaths didn't stop despite Mesa's miracle. Many died over the course of the winter. Crusader lost Evening's entire litter to the bitter cold and starving conditions - a fact made all the more bitter due to the fact that their father had died previously in the war. 

Finally the cause of the brutal blizzard was discovered in the form of a group of Waterbenders. Crusader, well known for his almost pacifistic ways, wanted to set them on fire. He wanted to bind them and rub their noses in the tiny corpses and bones that made up the two litters Fireclan had lost as well as the bodies of those that were older still. Fireclan was honorable beyond reproach - but Crusader counted his poisons carefully and grimly. Even the youngest child knew that High War wasn't used when defending your home - you used Low War. Crusader believed in peace and the goodness inside of everyone, but these cats had attacked his clan and killed his clanmates without daring to show their faces. No, they'd sent a blizzard to thin out the forces for them. Agni would understand if the Children of Fire lay ambushes instead of meeting their enemy head on. After all, they hadn't started this fight. His sister was attacked by those frostbitten scumsuckers and only by the grace of Scorpion, an older apprentice, had she made it through relatively unscathed.

Relatively, that is. She'd been bruised and sore beyond belief, and Crusader had fussed over the entire Fireclan patrol. When Opal had turned up the next day to take Jackal training Crusader came this close to throwing a tantrum worthy of a dragon-child. 

It was unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate indeed, that no methods of Low War were needed in the end. The clans converged to strike at the rogue waterbenders once and for all. Crusader, who was usually kind and understanding, could find no sympathy for them. They had chosen to follow a dishonorable Lord. 

In quieter moment Crusader felt almost sick, that he was so glad when others had died. But mostly he felt sick because he wasn't sorry that they were dead. He was sorry that they had forced the clans into action against them, but it was their own fault. And that felt bad.  

Crusader was just thankful it was all over, and that the soul chilling cold let up and allowed spring to shine through. It was Crusader's first spring. It reminded him just how painfully young he and Jackal were compared to their clanmates. Some of the youngest in the clan next to little Mesa.

After the waterbenders were taken care of, Crusader was allowed to train under Shiver and Cecily, Waterclan and Airclan's respective healers, when he was able. He was thankful beyond measures for the opportunity - he'd been muddling along on basis of mostly memorized herbal knowledge until that point. He'd only been a Healer's apprentice a scant few months after all, Tinder hadn't had the time to teach him so much of what was necessary to know. It was difficult in the beginning - he didn't know what he didn't know.

Still, while the training was brutal it was a good kind of brutal. Jackal reveled in winter's end and took the opportunity to train herself almost until she dropped. She ended up being the subject of a lot of bruise and minor burn treatments despite his many irritated scoldings.

Even so, the day Jackal became a full fledged warrior of the clan was one of the proudest days of Crusader's life. Crusader had had no such ceremony, not a warriors ceremony that had been promised to him all his life. A chance to show off to the Firelord all he'd learned in a brutal and vicious dance of bending and fire. Crusader's promotion wasn't like that at all, it was quiet and instant in the wake of Tinder's death. Sometimes he missed the simplicity of those first few months of apprenticeship when it hadn't been Tinder teaching him but Dawn. 

It was bittersweet, but he was proud of his sister, and he didn't let on his own feelings during her night. He might be a poor liar, but Crusader had well learned the value of staying silent when necessary. It was like his sister had confided in him many times, late at night when they spoke truthfully. The best lies were the ones that were true, but often letting them fill your silence with their own conclusions was just as good.

He continued his work, both in Healing and in dragging Jackal away from her increasingly harsh training sessions. They got into a rhythm, the two of them. Crusader helped whoever came to his den, usually with burns and the like but sometimes other things. He’s brew tea and take time to just be Jackal and Crusader in the evenings, and together they would curl up at night.

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 and 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 Crusader doted on her in his own way. He always made sure to make the Healer’s den available to her if she ever needed to escape and relax somewhere out from under the prying eyes of the clan. Crusader could understand that - what with his being the Healer - at least a little bit. Not to mention that getting Mesa in the Healer’s den allowed him to give her plenty of checkups, making sure that she stayed healthy. The memory of how he failed her siblings still haunted him.

Everything was perfect, Crusader’s life was busy but it was the good kind of busy. He had Jackal, he had his friends, and life was good.

And then their mother got sick.

She got a bed in the Healer’s den, away from anyone she might spread the sickness to. Crusader found himself wishing that she would be anywhere but there though. He wasn’t an idiot. He saw how Jackal tiptoed around and had to sneak from her own home lest she incur the gaze of their mother. Flicker’s eyes were always sharp when directed at Jackal, and Crusader resented her for it.

She was all smiled and warmth when directed at him, and he had to smile back with a plastic smile that she never noticed. His father came to visit, and the smiles turned just a bit faker. Volcano was almost as frosty with Crusader as Flicker was with Jackal - he had been ever since Crusader failed to save more than one of the Firelord's kits. 

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 ran from the den, ignoring Crusader’s cries after her. Crusader couldn’t leave, not when Flicker was already heaving again. He had a duty to his clan, but it tore at him. He also had a duty to his family. And so as soon as he could he snagged Scorpion and pulled him aside when he spotted him walking across camp. Crusader probably looked a mess, and more likely than not he smelled worse than he looked.

Crusader could hardly form the words to beg. But Scorpion was patient, and eventually the story spilled out. Crusader couldn’t go after his sister - but Scorpion could go in his place. Crusader knew his sister’s soft spot for the albino tom. It would have to be enough. Scorpion understood, and went out to find her. Crusader almost wished it had been him that got to run out though, because now he had to deal with Flicker by himself. But he wouldn’t allow Flicker anywhere near Jackal - she wasn’t allowed to hurt his sister anymore than she already had.

It was night by the time he got Flicker to go into a fitful sleep, time to rest. Instead of going to his own bed, in reach of his patient at a moment’s notice, Crusader picked his way through the camp to Scorpion’s den. Jackal was curled up against the white tom, and Crusader scowled at the thought that Jackal had been run out of her own home. Not that he wasn’t grateful for Scorpion’s intervention - but it shouldn’t have been necessary.

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. 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 Crusader should have felt guilty about how sad he wasn’t. Flicker had loved him, and once upon a time she had been the world to him. But Flicker had never been there for him in the way Jackal was. Flicker hadn’t taught him what he needed to know when Volcano spurned him, that had been Jackal. Flicker hadn’t been the one to soothe and comfort him when the stress grew too great, that was Jackal. If Flicker had expected him to pick a side, there was never a choice for him. It would always be Jackal.

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 and fire. 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.

He was still furious. He didn’t mourn Flicker’s passing, but he did mourn how she used to be. He remembered a time when they were very small, before they had been split between their parents like a bad divorce, when Flicker had smiled at them both with love.

They didn’t talk about Flicker.

Slowly, but surely, life went back to normal. As normal as it got for them, at least. Crusader got up at the crack of dawn, cleaned his den, prepared his materials, counted his herbs, went out to retrieve more, sparred with Jackal, healed the idiots he called clanmates, and made tea.
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