- Dec 17, 2022
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[ all blurred content contains descriptive gore and major physical injury ]
The taste of freedom is a lure greater than any other he might imagine. Sunstar is not so hare-lean as the rest of his clanmates, but he longs to run the moors once more. To take flight across golden grass and through the tangling of gorse and heather; to feel the wind for which their clan is named.
But this fire is strong, and its smoke chokes out all remnants of home. The patrol he leads walks a slow path, low to the ground near roaring flames. The way that they face leaves one side of his body warm as the sun-warmed pool, uncomfortable and tacky. He feels that if they got any closer, it might catch a singe. He guides them carefully away. Do his warriors know more about what this is like? He comes from the mountain. A dangerous place, yes, but only in its own way. He did not worry of these meddling twolegs and their pet flames, which they shadowed the way they did their leashed hounds. Some pass by in observation as WindClan hides from their sight. A few others cluster some distance behind this blazing orange wall and mew amongst themselves like wayward kittens.
Sunstar does not even bother to tell his patrol to quiet. Even Pinkpaw, who he once might have worried about, has seen enough of these strange creatures that she must understand by now. Silence is necessary. They cannot be caught by the ones that destroy their home so carelessly. What would they do? Haul them through the flames? Throw them to their monsters the way they would a kittypet? He had heard tales of SkyClan's escape from the shelter. Those that they had lost behind the wall of twoleg dens. But the longer they walk, the less frequent the sight of them becomes. Along the far border of their land, where the flames begin to peter out untended, with the gorge-water roaring nearby, they are nearly alone again.
He dares to speak, softly, "The river's sound nearly drowns the flames." Briefly, their territory is normal again. Briefly, the cool breeze across his face is enough to offset the heat.
And just briefly, it drowns out the sound of hot, heavy breaths, and paws drumming across the moor.
The beast that parts the flames with a yelp smells of ash, and looks like something from a feverish nightmare. Tall and lanky, looming above Sunstar, whose neck cranes up and fur begins to bristle. Heavy breaths bare ribs that rattle like a snake's tail and reverberate up its spine until the growl is louder than the gorge. It takes a tentative step forward, met with the leader's own backwards. Hissing and growling in tandem, nearly a dance. It lasts a handful of seconds but stretches on to an eternity β the wind gusts across withering grass and carries with it the scent of ash, and something sulfuric. Orange flames dart from the wall that touches the mutt's heels and up along its tail.
It lurches forward. "Back up," Sunstar snaps, urging his patrol to retreat.
A wall-eyed brown gaze, ringed with white like the eclipse, like the snow, draws attention before white fangs. And then neither are fully visible. Blood sprays the withered grass and the creature's muzzle and pearly white fangs, terrified eyes. It closes them against the warm wetness but doesn't let go, even as the flames start to burn an acrid stench from its limbs β the fire dances higher. Once it might have yipped. Instead, there is a pop! and a crunch, and whatever desperate, animal sound that Sunstar cannot contain.
His claws don't even make contact before it lifts its head, and and bites down harder to the leader's helpless pain, and swings its great, bloodied head. A golden pelt is sent through the flames, blood an arc through the air where it seems to linger for a moment, and Sunstar, uncomprehendingβ watches. Wide, glazed blue eyes trace its source to the dog's head. To the stump that remains in its maw, the gruesome red of roadkill and the burning sun and the fire that he is thrown through now.
The world is hazy and distant by the time that he lands, and the patrol is left with the remnants of who had once been there. A dog, slavering, wall-eyed; the flames, creeping closer around them; and the realization that they were now what stood between this creature and its irrational drive to survive.
![EpC61GT.png](https://i.imgur.com/EpC61GT.png)
β ππππ π
πππππ'π πππππ ββ±β±
ππππ ππ ππππ πππππ γ 02.11.2024 γ
π€α¨
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OOC. @SCORCHSTREAK @PINKPAW @gracklestep @Firefang
Uh oh. . . looks like WindClan triggered a boss battle cutscene, and didn't stock up on potions beforehand! Sun's body has been flung past the wall of flames, and now the great beast stands with panicked eyes and slavering jaws between this patrol and the raging fire behind it. -
SUNSTAR. LEADER OF WINDCLAN.β βββββββββββββββββ
βββ HE β HIM β HIS, AMAB β±β± 48+ MOONS OLD.NPC, GONE. MATE TO WOLFSONG; FATHER TO BEARPAW, SINGEDPAW, RIVEPAW, SUNLITPAW AND FEATHERPAW. MENTORING RIVEPAW.
TH β±β± A LARGE, SCARRED CHOCOLATE AND WHITE ROSETTE TABBY TOM WITH SEAGLASS BLUE EYES AND A PERSISTENT THOUGHTFUL YET WARY EXPRESSION -
"speech"