private can i skip this part? // gravelsnap

[Periwinklebreeze.]

HE COULD NOT BREAK SURFACE TENSION
HE LOOKED IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR REDEMPTION ​

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periwinklebreeze ❀ 18 moons ❀ demi-boy ❀ he/they ❀ windclan moor runner​

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It's a conversation Peri would rather left unspoken, problems he'd rather leave unsaid - but in the end, he knows that it isn't something he an avoid, that he can turn tail and run from. Gravelsnap had lost thriftfeather - and, in part, it'd been his fault. The what ifs that run through is mind like a mantra whenever his paws still and he isn't busy with tasks - if he'd never spoken up, begged, pleaded... would grvelsnap have chosen this himself? Would he be like bluefrost, picking the right side? Would he have turned tail and ran, like thriftfeather?

Would he have been able to convince the golden furred boy, if only they'd had more time?

Teeth dig into tender cheek anxiously as he trots over, tail low and shoulders slumped. " G-g-gravelsnap, " he starts, paws tucking beneath frail frame as he struggles to find the right words to say. What, exactly is he supposed to say? What had he wanted to say? The world they'd once known has ended, becoming something altogether new and strange. " W-will you... are you alright? " 'Will we be alright,' he almost asks.

Neither is the question he truly wants to pose. No, he wants to ask the same thing he'd voice to bluepool days ago - Do you regret it?

Choosing him. Choosing Sunstride. Abandoning their home, even if it was only temporary, just for a little while until they could over throw sootstar and end her blood reign. Bluepool did not regret - he does but would pick the same path anyways. Would throw himself upon sootstars frothing mad frame again and again, a million times over, if only because he knew the end. He is free.

━ actions & " speech, " & 'thoughts/quotes' ━

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D O N ' T ━ L O O K ━ A T ━ M E ━ W I T H ━ T H O S E ━ E Y E S

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@GRAVELSNAP

 

[GRAVELSNAP]

➴➴ Watching Periwinklebreeze lash out at Sootstar, striking the first blow after so long of remaining passive, had been immeasurably gratifying to watch. They can't even remember the last time they'd seen the other so angry, but at least this time it was directed at Sootstar rather than themself or Firefang. But still, despite the newfound admiration they have for their friend, they cannot bring themself to fully appreciate his actions. Everything has felt faraway, locked beneath sheets of ice, since they'd first been driven from WindClan's territory.

Now, hazel eyes shift to stare at the other warrior when he approaches, asking if they're alright. "No," they respond, a quick reaction to the other tom's words. There is no reason to lie; not to Peri. "Thriftfeather is gone. And it's…" Your fault. If Periwinklebreeze didn't beg them to come with him, then they would still be with Thriftfeather. They would still be able to talk to the warrior they'd trained up from kithood. If the other tom hadn't distracted them, Gravelsnap could have… could have…

"I don't… I don't know what to do." They look to Peri, searching for—for something, they don't know what. "I still have you, and Slatetooth and Bluefrost. That should be good enough. I left because of you. But I keep thinking… what if I hadn't?" If they had stayed, would they have still felt a clanmate's life bleed out beneath their claws? Would they still lose Thriftfeather, in the end? Would they still even be here at all?​

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[Periwinklebreeze.]

HE COULD NOT BREAK SURFACE TENSION
HE LOOKED IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR REDEMPTION ​

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periwinklebreeze ❀ 18 moons ❀ demi-boy ❀ he/they ❀ windclan moor runner​

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The words stab through him - hot and sharp like an open wound. Because gravelsnap is right - his words speak only the truth, heavy and bitter as it is. He asks the same thing the boy has asked himself over and over again, and still he has no answer. " I'm s-sorry, " he says simply, because he is. Apologies will do nothing for the pain, for the hurt and betrayal - stars, he of all cats knows. But it is all he can offer.

Eyes shut tight for a moment, figure hunching in on itself. " D-do you... regret it? " he finally voices, taking a deep breath and at last blue eyes meet hazel dead on. He cannot keep avoiding this - cannot stand the sense of not knowing. Things between hem are precarious enough as it is, and gravelsnap has never been one to mince words. Not with him anyways. And... he's never been wrong either, had he? It'd been his advice peri had listened to, had followed - and despite how much it'd hurt at the time, look where it'd led him? He was a true windclanner now - or part of sunstride's version of it, at least. He'd held sootstar down with his own two paws only because he'd become the cat gravelsnap had thought he should be.

━ actions & " speech, " & 'thoughts/quotes' ━

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D O N ' T ━ L O O K ━ A T ━ M E ━ W I T H ━ T H O S E ━ E Y E S

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[GRAVELSNAP]

➴➴ The black-pointed warrior apologizes, like that can even begin to fix it. It does nothing for him. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, and his lip curls around it. "I don't want your apologies," he snaps, though his voice lacks any true bite. He can understand—he can understand—why the other moor runner wanted him to come along. Gravelsnap had been frozen in horror, doing the exact thing that Sootstar had warned against. If he hadn't run, he'd have been attacked by her warriors, maybe even Thriftfeather and Bluefrost, anyway.

Then Periwinklebreeze asks whether he regrets it, and Gravelsnap's claws sink into the dirt below him. He meets the other tom's eyes—clear blue, a cloudless sky that he could get lost in—and his breath catches, just for a heartbeat. Dark brows furrow, drawing down to frame his eyes as they narrow to slits. What can he say in response to that? His tone shifts to something rough, halting. It feels as though he's swallowing around shards of ice, claws slicing into his throat just as his own had ripped open Gooseberry's. "Regret what? Leaving my apprentice behind? Coming with you?" He stays up some nights tossing and turning, wondering the same thing. If he could go back and do it again, he isn't sure whether he would make the same choice. But the choice that he made… does he regret it?

He thinks back to those same blue eyes, wide and pleading. It had been in the midst of a retreat from battle, bloodied and clearly risky to stay behind for even a heartbeat—and yet Peri had paused. Had called out for him. Periwinklebreeze, who had once promised to come back from a deadly trip into the mountains, had not left without him again.

His voice is steady and earnest when he responds. "No. I don't regret it. I don't regret choosing you. I…" He looks away, ears tilting back against his skull. His eel-black tail lashes uncomfortably, teeth gritting together. This is all feeling too… vulnerable. Change the subject. Change the subject. "Do you regret attacking her?"​

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[Periwinklebreeze.]

OH, WHAT IT MEANS TO BE SOMEONE ━
THAT EVERYBODY HAS TO TALK TO━​

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periwinklebreeze ❀ 19 moons ❀ demi-boy ❀ windclan lead warrior ​

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The words he fears never come - instead the boy only lets out a stuttering, shaky breath. Gravelsnap doesn't regret t - doesn't regret leaving, choosing him... doesn't regret them. Blue eyes glitter in relief, and it's all he can d to bite back the smile that wants to paint itself across his maw. It's selfish of him, he knows, but he feels happy - warmth burning so bright he almost thinks newleaf has come early.

His friend seems reluctant to ling on the topic though, head turning and tail flicking anxiously. He can't blame him - both their stagnant relationship and thriftfeathers betrayal are a painful topic to the both of them. Eyes blink as he answers - words so swift and clear he almost speaks over gravelsnap. " No, " he doesn't. how could he, when he's thought about doing that very things for moons] - was only over stopped by his own fear, his own incompetency. He'd wished her gone since the day he'd watched her rake claws across his newfound mothers chest - since she'd ran dandelionwish for the hills.

But he cannot admit any of that - gravelsnap is not snailstride, would not understand the disloyalty towards the moorland queen that has waged war against his loyalty to windclan as a whole. Instead he focuses on the whys instead of the when's. ] " S-sootstar was ins-sane - without st-starclan, there w-would be n-no Windclan. W-we'd still be th-the colonies, or w-worse, we w-would've all died to y-yellowcough. But.... th-they warned the clans, s-sent us t-to the mountains... they g-gave her nine lives, and sh-she wasted them, " he says. It's a reasonable enough excuse - one of the many that had finally pushed his clanmates to see reason, to see the light.

Sootstar had once stood out among the rest for her trust in the stars, and for their backing of her. And when she'd no longer held their power in her bloodstained paws? Well, nobody could argue against her death if it was starclans wish, now could they?

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━H E━H AD━N O━O N E━T H A T━H E━C O U L D━T A L K━T O━

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[GRAVELSNAP]

➴➴ The confirmation that the other warrior doesn't regret his own actions draws a grim smile across Gravelsnap's maw. Sootstar's blood is on Peri's paws—of course, it is also on Sunstar's paws, on nearly every cat in WindClan's paws, but Periwinklebreeze had begun the attack. He had launched the others into violence, though Gravelsnap had found themself unable to join in on the action. They may not have liked the way Sootstar ran the clan at the end, the way she reigned a bloodstained ruler over each and every cat, but they had never held anything in particular against her. They had never been a victim of her misdeeds. Still, Lynxtooth had followed her example in teaching Gravelsnap and their brother. Lynxtooth had been a powerful warrior at her side, a soldier seeking only to please his queen. Slateheart had been forced to kill their father or be killed himself.

Their eyes narrow as Periwinklebreeze continues to speak. So much talk of StarClan—they do not worship the stars as some cats do, they do not look to StarClan as the sole guiding force in their life. No, that honor is reserved for… well. They don't need to think too deeply to know where such a train of thought is headed. They cut themself off, asking a question instead. "Where do you think she is? Now that she has no more lives." The other leaders are in StarClan, tugging on the strings of the clans down below. Is Sootstar there, too? No, certainly not. The stars attempted to strike her down once, with that lightning bolt; they would not allow her to join them now. "Not StarClan, surely."​

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