[following these threads (here and here), sedge has retuned after over two moons of disappearance!! also takes place after the first sunstar meeting :^)
EDIT: for added context, the disappearance thread happened AFTER the rebels were chased out of camp, and as far as anyone knows, sedgepounce attacked snakehiss but fell into the river as they fought < /3]
EDIT: for added context, the disappearance thread happened AFTER the rebels were chased out of camp, and as far as anyone knows, sedgepounce attacked snakehiss but fell into the river as they fought < /3]
He's dragged up from the water like a spirit of vengeance.
He follows the river from the Twolegplace, through the borderlands, and then to WindClan—perches now at its unoccupied border, the distant current a cruel scraping in the depths of his ears.
It's starting to get dark. Sedgepounce has spent one night alone, sleepless and roving, and now the second begins to grow. Hazy shadows are drawn out from beneath the trees stacked along the Horseplace border; the sky festers with dusty clouds of pink and periwinkle. The moor is bathed in a soft, dusk blue as the sun begins to set.
Sedgepounce stares out at the tranquil calm of it and wonders for the first time: What am I going to do?
He's like an ugly wound pierced into the moorland's wintry hide. His eye won't open, and his leg aches something fierce. It's a facsimile of how Sedgepounce once was, moons ago, and it begets a cruel satisfaction through his chest. Good. He's going to find Snakehiss and he's going to be horrifying. An angry corpse risen from the water, disgusting and terrible. There will be no denying his suffering, how plainly it's destroyed him, and he'll haunt Snakehiss with it. He'll have to look right at his ugly face and pay for what he's done.
But...how? His good eye sweeps over the moor, nothing but his own rattling, thin breath to keep him company. He's dragged himself all the way back to WindClan, yet there's no Snakehiss miraculously spawned at the border. He'll have to find him...sneak through the territory, or something.
Fine. Fine. A rough tongue darks from his teeth. He takes a trying step forward—then his leg crumples beneath his weight. The heather around him sighs as he retreats back into its frost cocoon, stretching out the appendage with a pained, begrudged grimace. He can't sneak like this. The awful stiffness in his forelimb restricts everything but cringing, tentative limping, but his choices have dwindled to nothing else, so. He'll just have to be careful.
He'll be careful, and limp through the territory, and find Snakehiss somewhere in the moor, and then...and then. What?
This isn't home like he remembers it. Sedge stills at its threshold, toeing the border with a deep sense of...something in his chest. Longing, maybe, and an encroaching feeling of dread. This is Sootstar's warzone. Somewhere through the meadow, her WindClan is picking apart the bones of cats like him; weak and left-behind. They've been crushed beneath her iron paw and Snakehiss' cruel demeaning. Where does that leave him, when he's done?
Back to the river?
Sedge casts a guilty glance over his shoulder, to where the Horseplace distantly lay, thinking of the cats that hide there. What would they even think of him like this? Beaten, caught by Twolegs and trapped in their cages for however long. It's shameful. Mortifying.
He becomes aware of himself, suddenly. Ttries to straighten his slumped posture with as much success as smoothing out a crumpled ball of paper, casting a nervous look at his tattered, knotted fur. His nose brushes a gnarled piece of fur on his shoulder, and his ears flatten to his head; the stench of the Twolegplace wafts from his pelt.
Maybe...maybe he could find some herbs to roll in. Maybe if he fixes his fur, covers some of the scarring. Maybe—
Rustling. In all his useless pondering, Sedgepounce failed to notice the shifting moorgrass until someone is already stepping into view. His attention snaps to their emerging frame and everything else falls away. He's caught.
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