#He's... nuanced isn't the right word. But deep. He has interesting thoughts and watching his mental gymnastics is compelling.

[bonefall]

Clear Sky threw his son in front of a fox?!

YES!! He SHOVED him in front of a fox! It's in fury from the fact Thunder refused to kill Frost. This entire section is VERY poorly paced and glances over it in two paragraphs, so most people don't fully register it.

Clear Sky dragged Thunder down off the stump and shoves him at it, blaming him for bringing the fox to camp with his loud disobedience.

He then leaves Thunder to fight this fox on his own. Leaf and Falling Feather jump in to help him of their own accord. Clear Sky then tries to praise him for being strong and Thunder tells him to shove off for the first and last time.

It's not the last baby of his he knowingly and consciously endangers to prove a point. In Moth Flight's Vision, he refuses to allow Acorn Fur to get medical help for Tiny Branch's fox-inflicted injuries until his condition worsened, bellowing, "SkyClan does NOT ask for help unless there's no choice." AND didn't allow her to complete her training after he caused Micah's death.

Clear Sky is a serial child abuser. He is willfully neglectful, emotionally abusive, and physically violent.

[romance-rambles]

au - hogwarts+same age!cael | what if she's written mine on my upper thigh

A sixth year at Hogwarts, Cael and his classmates have just recently been exposed to the qualities of Amortentia, the potion of deep obsession. Somehow, it helps him win a kiss from his crush.

1.9k, alternate universe - hogwarts (ft. young cael), fluff + getting together, slight jealousy, reader is mc, series: none

THOSE WALKING INTO THE SLYTHERIN'S common room have long since grown accustomed to the sight of you sprawled across the carpet, with a hefty textbook protecting your pretty face from the light that shoddily illuminates the area. They spare you no more than a glance before they disperse, readily seeking refuge in the comforts of their dorm room.

Certainly, despite wearing a Gryffindor's robe, most would consider you an honorary Slytherin. And no one in the history of Hogwarts has ever transferred houses, but that has not stopped some from their cohort from attempting to make you the first to do so.

Cael has, on occasion, been one of them.

Neatly, he folds the corner of the page, his gaze lingering briefly on the ingredients for Amortentia—the potion that had spurred most of his classmates into a frenzy. Every year, when the sixth years soon approached this particular subject, the result was the same.

Though ingesting the potion is quite dangerous, what most have a tendency to seek out is, instead, one of its unique characteristics. The scent reflects that which the person smelling it finds most attractive, and for a class consisting of mostly seventeen year olds, the prospect of being the lucky few who could find themselves a partner in this way is exciting.

That, or watching a relationship crash and burn, when the scents inevitably do not match.

Cael, for one, has no interest in the drama. Yet, for all his aloofness, even he isn't above such curiosity. The day the Potions Professor quizzed the class on the characteristics of potions they'd need to know for their NEWTs, you simply said:

"It smells nice."

Try as he might, he can't shake the image of your flushed cheeks and the pleased smile tugging at your lips. He was certain his own cheeks did not fare much better in that moment. It was a matter confirmed by your teasing, another unsubtle push to force him to confess first.

In yet another moment of pettiness, he responded in kind, leaving the both of them at a stalemate once again.

When did their habit begin? When had they come to notice the ways in which they could not live without the other person? When had they decided, quietly, that they would not be the first to take the fall?

There are times when Cael wonders if it would be worth it to lose. Then, you make his heart race faster than it has any right to on a Tuesday afternoon with only a smug grin—and he realizes, no, it would not be worth the lifetime of teasing.

Putting his Potions textbook atop the coffee table, he glances at his study partner for this evening—and for every evening after.

From the moment the two of you were introduced—by your mother, no less—you seemed to have decided he was the greatest setback you would ever face. So, he too had returned the favor. But had either of those second years ever considered a different nuance to the word "adversary"?

Cael nudges your shoulder gently with his foot. "I think that's enough of a break."

You roll over with a groan. The textbook in your hands slams shut, narrowly missing the chance to trap the tip of your nose in. Already, he's bribed you with food. With a trip into the nearby town, a denial of something more couched into his words. With a bet designed to stoke your competitive spirit, and more.

Nothing has stuck.

As his lips purse and a sigh threatens to escape from his lips, a thought strikes the young prefect. He bends over, one hand pushing up his bangs before the back of his hand gauges his temperature. The other repeats the same gesture on you.

"You're not sick," he says, the blandness of his tone masking his relief.

You hum. "No, just lazy."

In the absence of something to hold, your fingers take to doodling patterns on the stiff carpet. Each stroke disappears into the dark green surface and leaves nothing behind. Dimly lit as the carpet beneath is, Cael can still make out your words—written in cursive, the looping letters reconstructing your previous response.

With his hands clasped in front of him, he watches more of your doodles disappear into the green. NEWTs. Amortentia. The shape of a heart. The beginning of a phrase, starting with a cursive I. Its seamless stroke twists into an ever running spiral, up until you slice it cleanly through the middle.

"Move over," he soon finds himself saying.

Your hand stills. Then, as soon as you process his words, you erase your already blank canvas before pulling your hands closer to yourself. Cael settles down beside you, drawing his knees to his chest.

The edge of the coffee table sits dangerously close to his forehead. He pushes it away, back to its original position, before he moved it closer for his convenience. His other hand comes to rest on the ground.

Your fingers find a new canvas in it. As he curls his hand into a fist, the space afforded to you by the back of his hand shrinks. But it does not deter you from resuming your doodles.

A star. A flower. A bundle of leaves.

"Not going to study?" you ask absent-mindedly.

Cael snorts, combing through his hair with his free hand. "Hard to study when my partner is slacking off."

You ignore his words entirely. Years of hearing his snark has granted you a layer of immunity to it—on what amounts to a good day for him, he can tear it down with ease, leaving you to huff and puff your way through conversations. Today is not one of those days.

"Guess what I'm writing," you say instead.

An L follows an E, which follows an A, which follows a C. He's written the name enough times over the years to recognize the strokes blindfolded.

"My name."

The next is one that's haunted him over the years.

It's on the corners of his notebooks' pages. It sits interchangeably with his own, between the first and second places, whenever their grades are posted. In the forest when he visits their pet dragon, it's the name that slips out of his mouth with a sigh—whether Beanie is well-behaved or not.

"…Yours." He leans back comfortably, eyes closed as he waits for his next trial. The next one is a drawing, in two parts. You've only finished your haphazardly-drawn strawberry when he asks, "Hungry?"

Humming, you sit up. "Not yet."

Sitting shoulder to shoulder like this, he can discern the faint, sweet scent of your shampoo from the smell of fresh paint that has a tendency to follow you wherever you go. Those were two of the scents that the Amortentia potion had adopted for his sake.

The third took the form of a freshly-baked vanilla cake, overlapping with a lavender-scented candle. A memory from two years prior, the first year neither of them returned home—to your home—for the holidays.

Cael could've gone away on his own. Your mother would've been happy to have at least one of them at home. But it was his own choice to stay.

For Beanie, he said out loud.

For you, he said, in the quiet of his mind, where his childish secrets resided.

He opens his eyes, craning his neck ever so slightly to watch you. You're gazing into the distance with a blank look in your pretty eyes. At some point in the silence, you had copied most parts of his sitting position—the difference lays in where your hands rest. They clasp tightly in front of your drawn-up legs, as if to keep them in place.

"I give up," you whisper, turning your head to look at him.

"That's been the state of affairs for a while," the young prefect says wryly.

In your eyes, he counts a multitude of shades of purple. Hidden among them, he realizes too late, is a vulnerable sort of honesty he's only seen once before. Annoyance replaces it briefly. You sigh and tuck the loose strands of your hair behind your ear.

"I'm not talking about studying."

Cael stares blankly in response. He's no better off when you close the distance between them and pull back just as quickly. What lingers on his lips is the taste of your lip balm—and when he wipes the sticky residue away, a pinky nude stains his thumb.

By now, a few of the Slytherins who had escaped to their dorm rooms earlier have started taking space up in the common room. Most hover at the edges, finding their seats on the sofas that line the walls. It is usually only Ambrum, from his fellow housemates, who sits in as their third wheel, but he has errands to run today.

Your lips twitch into a faint smile, oddly smug for having become the loser in their little war.

"You win," you say, but he thinks the flush creeping up his cheeks might tell a different story.

extra: a few hours ago - the reason why you confessed

FRESHLY-MADE STRAWBERRY TOAST, THE scent of broomstick handles, and lavender—those were the three aromas that the Amortentia potion presented you with in class. As it turns out, Natalie, one of the many admirers that Cael somehow has garnered over the years, happened to land two of the three herself.

You learn this while hiding in the bathroom stall, waiting for her and her friends to leave so you can too.

On an ordinary day, you wouldn't be so cowardly. But when her conversation with her friends begins with what is essentially a declaration of war, you think it might be just a little awkward to walk past her on your way out.

This is the story of why you decide to give in, a secret that stays with you until a random late night years later, when it slips out in the middle of a play argument.

"I can't believe you're going to confess," one of her friends repeats for the nth time. Frankly, you can't blame her. You'd be doing the same thing in her position. "Doesn't he have a thing with that Gryffindor girl?"

Your ears perk up at the mention of yourself. For the past few years, most of Cael's admirers have left him alone for that very reason. You have a claim, however implicit—one that rivals the kind a girlfriend might have.

For the reason that you will, one day, be his girlfriend, just as soon as he gives in and asks you out.

"It isn't official, though." Natalie digs through her pockets for something. From the crack in the stall, you realize it's lipgloss. "I've never seen them kiss or go on a date."

"Still…" Her other friend says, in a hushed tone. "What if he turns you down?"

"What if he doesn't?"

It isn't until Natalie speaks up again that you realize how fervently you hoped the question would deter her. Realistically, you have nothing to fear. Even so, the messy emotion known as jealousy burns away at your rationality, leaving you to gnaw at your lip in silence.

"Well, good luck then." This time, it's the first friend who comments. She seems to adjust her hair before clasping her hands together. "We should get going. Lunch should be almost over."

They leave just as loudly as they came, the conversation easily shifting to the hows of Natalie's plan. You sit there in the bathroom stall, for longer than you should. Your knuckles turn pale; your long nails dig into the palms of your hand.

You wonder—if the only thing spurring her to confess is that the two of you haven't officially defined your relationship, then would doing so lead her to change her mind?

— happy birthday to my very awesome birthday twin, @xcerizex!