*+:｡.｡ Wrathpaw's breath catches in his throat when his hind paw, unbalanced from pushing, almost slips beneath him.
Oh no, I almost fell in he thinks, a burst of fear expected of one so close to a sheer drop. It's the most normal, innocent thought he's had in moons.
A laugh gurgles from his throat, putrid and tasting of bile. It rakes at his chest like claws extending from his mouth and deep past his chest cavity. The hole only grows wider. He must sound like a madman, giggling at his leader's demise like tears aren't filling his eyes with river water he swears he can taste. He wishes he could slip into madness - deny his place in all this blood-shed and hatred, claw out his ears, sob like a kitten he can no longer claim to be, kick and claw at trees until these useless claws of his tear off!
But he cannot hide behind the blamelessness of insanity - he's here, after all. The earth beneath his paws, the roar of river water, the pounding of blood in his ears ground him so painfully to the scene. His breath, though, comes out in wheezing gasps. Surprise, befuddlement, confusion, the look in Howlingstar's kind green eyes, stretched wide with shock - but not hatred. No rage had coated those wise old hues of hers, just plain old
"oh". Did the hatred come after she fell over the edge? Or did she di...drown still wondering what she did wrong, what had possessed her clanmates, what was even going on?
His paws move him forth without much thought behind him. He's too preoccupied with watching the river, noting every sliver of copper and wash of green within its depth as he follows the aquatic serpent along its tumultuous path. Did it hurt? Did she go quickly? Was Starclan watching them through the water, the clouds, glaring at them as fiercely as the sun's glare upon the shimmering surface?
His stomach ached and twisted, lurching like it had joined Howlingstar in the fall, crashing now against rocks, and eaten by pikes. "
What did we do " he whimpers as he searches for brown fur among biting and hissing waters. His paws burn where water spray touches them, where his paw pads had shoved against soft maternal fur so similar to his mother's. "
I can't, I don't...how could we..." More mewls escape him as he shoves past underbrush, imagining a world where he'll never see the woman climb atop the high rock again, never greet her clanmates with a warm smile, never nuzzle her kits or play with her grandkids -
"
She had a family, th-they're waiting for her" he doesn't know who he's talking to anymore, but the reminder makes him want to hurl again. Throw away the contents in his belly, or leap into the water - both options sound equally useless. He did this so that he could see his family...but could could he ever look any of them in the eye again?
And then, all at once, his pity party came to an end.
Wrathpaw's eyes fall upon a trail. Dots of sodden earth confetti from the river, like a single raincloud, had been given life by the river's water and floated away into the forest, into the grass and bushes where its path couldn't be trailed. What are the chances that it was actually a cloud and not a leader desperate to live?
Breathe escapes him, rapid and hot against the roof of his mouth, deep blue eyes the color of a drowning man's permanent residence snap from the river to the mud and back again, he can see nothing else. She's alive. She's
alive.
If he were a good person, he'd rejoice.
Instead, panic seizes him like nothing else.
My family is all he can think - as if Howlingstar hadn't thought the same when pushed over the edge...oh the irony.
Whirling around, Wrathpaw faces his clanmates, his co-murderers, and wails, "
We failed! FUCK - Skyclaw said th-this was foolproof! Skyclaw said that we didn't need to even draw blood we- we-" he fumbles with his words as badly as the leader he
chose to follow fumbled his truth. Was that why Skyclaw wasn't the one who offered to kill Howlingstar? Is that why he sent two stupid apprentices and an idiot of a warrior - because he knew that if they fucked it up, it'd be no loss to Thunderclan's great future?
Finally, a statement no one could argue with.
Wrathpaw clawed furiously at the sodden spot where an undeniable paw-print faded into the grass, the sunlight trapped in his stream of tears the only light left in wild dark eyes. "
Skyclaw promised that if I did this, my family would never know, he promised! He promised me!" he rages to no one in particular, because there
wasn't anyone to blame, not really. To realize only now that everything he'd done and said and
believed was nonsense was no excuse. Pebblestep
died. Wrathpaw
killed. His place in his clan, with his siblings, was abandoned by
Wrathpaw and wrathpaw alone.
Wrathpaw's fate was set in stone and Howlingstar would surely ensure he felt every pebble shoved down his gullet.
Maybe he deserved it. Maybe it was the
least he could do. Maybe...just maybe...he'll finally feel full only after the weight of his sins have been returned to him...?
Fuck that,, Wrathpaw was petrified!
All of this had begun with a coward, it would surely end with one, too.
"
S-surely Skyclaw c-can think of something" Wrathpaw stutters, lanky body wrecked with trembles as he finished his impulsive clawing of the dirt, perhaps an unconscious head-start to his own grave? Backing away from the small hole, the metaphor that yawns for him like slavering jaws, he turns back to his clanmates, desperate for answers.
That's when, finally, he notices Fallowbite.
"
Tell me you saw her" Wrathpaw begs, taking a trembling step closer to his friend, raising a paw as if to grab her, as if Fallowbite could somehow be a piece of floating driftwood for him to latch onto. Instead, he stares at its cold, amber eyes, two shades brighter than copper, but it's enough. He yanks his paw back, as if fearing its mangy brown fur might set him ablaze. Might it? He searches her expression, longing for comfort, for punishment, for a confirmation that Howlingstar was dead - for confirmation that she was okay.
Pulled between one extreme and another, Wrathpaw can only weep between shallow intakes of air.
Then finally, smaller than a bug, he whispers the only question that truly matters, "
is...is it too late?"
Too late to stop Howlingstar, too late to fix things...too late for forgiveness...too late for Wrathpaw in every sense of the word.
He fears he already knows the answer.
-
-
GENERAL:
♡ Wrathpaw
♡ DMAB— He/Him
♡ 10 moons — Ages 1 moon every month real-time
♡ Brother to Lovelight, Joywing, Laughblossom || Pridepaw, Merrypaw
♡ Thunderclan — apprentice
♡ Mentored by Wildheart
COMBAT:
♡Physically mediocre | mentally very easy
♡ Attack in bold #4a59ff
injuries: None currently , mentally unwell
"SPEECH"
