private A HANDSHAKE OF CARBON MONOXIDE — sedgepounce

[SNAKEHISS]

His hunts are much quieter now that Rivepaw isn't around. Just when Snakehiss thought he was getting somewhere with his newly-appointed trainee, warming up to the idea of molding her into a competent soldier, she had vanished. Half of WindClan was gone now, leaving the remaining faces behind to pick up the pieces and start anew. Some loyalists, however, he did not quite understand.

Speaking of which, Snakehiss happens upon a familiar black and white tom near the edge of the river. Thin sheets of ice float upon the frigid waters, clinging to the bank and eventually breaking off to float down the current. It is much too cold for most cats to frequent the river nowadays; therefore, they are alone.

While the deputy could have easily avoided Sedgepounce, an irritation bubbles in his gut upon seeing the tom. He was close with Cottonpaw, wasn't he? Was he the reason why Cottonpaw had left him? Did he put ideas into her head, perhaps? He doesn't care—he shouldn't care—since he's already gotten what he wanted. Still, the damage to his pride and the humiliation still stung like a fresh wound. Why not take this as an opportunity for some "distraction"? "So, are you going to just pretend that you're one of us now? That you actually support Sootstar?" The thin-legged feline announced his presence with a snort, holding his head high in a pompous manner as always.

Irises narrowed, viridian gaze locking onto his rival. "Why are you still even here? We both know that you're too soft to live under her rule. You've always been." He's angry. He's hurt. The only thing that makes Snakehiss feel the slightest bit better about himself is taking his frustrations out on others. It seems that the dark-pelted male has truly never evolved from his tendency to bully; the only difference now is that he is no longer a bratty apprentice but a cruel and venomous warrior... with power, to boot.

₊ ⋆ * ⊹ ₊ ☾ —— 𝙞𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝

• @SEDGEPOUNCE

• 

• 

  ✰ SNAKEHISS
  —— he/him; deputy of windclan
  —— bisexual; single; not looking
  —— long-limbed black tom with green eyes, a small white chest patch, and a notable bite mark on his right foreleg
  —— "speech", thoughts, attack
  —— link to full tags; @ on discord for plots.
  —— penned by beatles

​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

[errr for reference sake, this is set like a week or two after the initial rebel battle lol...in case anyone was wondering < 3]

Cold wind buffets the frosty shore. Sedgepounce stalks across the flank of it, eyes cast across the tumultuous expanse. Looking for...something. He's not sure.

The days have grown so short that it feels like he never gets to see the sun anymore—his gray tone mornings and evenings are spent muddling the borders, searching for the ghosts of those that are never there. There's been neither hide nor whisker in the few days since the scuffle. The camp is still bloodstained, his siblings scornful, and Sedgepounce was off doing StarClan knows what when it happened.

Slacking. As always.

He peers into the writhing gray waters as they bluster across the bank. Furious waves clash with each other this way and that, the angry current carrying threads of ice downstream. He doesn't dare venture too close to the Twoleg Bridge, but here the distance between solid moorland and water is still pretty steep; he would have to shuffle closer to get a better look at it, and maybe he would if he were actually insane. For now, Sedge's paws merely idle across the territory, liberated from the tense, paranoid beasts which have taken over camp.

Almost.

At Snakehiss' nasally voice, Sedgepounce turns from his distracted dawdling toward a pair of angry eyes and expectedly sour frown. It's nearly the same look he had when Cottonpaw dumped him—a few things keep him from pointing that out. Cottonpaw hasn't exactly spared him from her purging of relationships either. And Snakehiss' elevated status triumphs over everything else.

The last he saw of Sootstar, she was still bleeding—twitching and deranged. His parents blame Sunstride. Say that if he never provoked her, none of this wouldn't have happened. All those cats wouldn't have had to leave their clan. Their home. Snakehiss wouldn't be needling him again. But, more importantly, this antagonism wouldn't matter in the first place.

Now it matters. Now everything matters. He's scrutinized, judged, questioned. Sedgepounce doesn't know how long this can last.

"Back off, Snakehiss," he says lowly. A cold gust of air shoots past them, pushing at his fur. Sedgepounce casts a wide glance across the dusk-dark grasses and thinks them, naively, alone. "You came here to exile me or something?" he ventures. It's a dangerous move. Snakehiss holds all the power in the world, now. But before all the warring, before Badgermoon and Sunstride abandoned them to the vultures, Snakehiss has always just been a childhood bully.

"Forget it," he hisses, claws digging anxiously into the dirt. "Go lick your wounds about Cottonpaw somewhere else and leave me alone."​

 

[SNAKEHISS]

There is no taunting scoff at the other tom's snarky greeting, only a flat, "If it were up to me, you would already be gone." His eyes narrow. Actually, that is a very curious question — why hadn't Sedgepounce left? The others had, such as Cottonpaw and Foxglare. Why not him? There was no way in StarClan that he was a devout Sootstar loyalist — then again, he couldn't truthfully admit he was, either...

Not that it mattered. Snakehiss had already gotten what he wanted; he had taken the oath before Sootstar, been branded as her soldier for all of eternity. There was no need to doubt his loyalty, and now it was his task to parade around as if there wasn't any question about it. It was difficult, like swallowing a bone, but he'd learn to stomach it for the sake of his own survival.

Snakehiss had always been bark and no bite. Everyone knew it, especially Sedgepounce. Only on rare occasions did he decide to throw claws as opposed to whipping others with his sharp tongue, only when his feathers really got ruffled. His ego, ever so fragile and loosely strung together by mere threads, could not handle another blow. Bringing up Cottonpaw was low, even for Sedgepounce. He needed to shut his mouth and learn to respect him! As long as he was still living on WindClan territory, he was his superior!

"You...!" Rash and reckless, his pride teetering on the edge and desperate for some sort of validation, Snakehiss jumped into action. The deputy lunged for Sedgepounce, aiming to wrap his arms around the other tom's shoulders and pull him onto the ground.

₊ ⋆ * ⊹ ₊ ☾ —— 𝙞𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝

• 

• 

  ✰ SNAKEHISS
  —— he/him; deputy of windclan
  —— bisexual; single; not looking
  —— long-limbed black tom with green eyes, a small white chest patch, and a notable bite mark on his right foreleg
  —— "speech", thoughts, attack
  —— link to full tags; @ on discord for plots.
  —— penned by beatles

​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

Snakehiss leaps. Sedgepounce tries to dodge. A gut reaction within the first second of movement, a shock of reaction, muscle memory and nothing more. Snakehiss would never go so far as to hurt anyone. All he's good for is a couple harsh words and some veiled attempts at blackmail. He'd never push Sedgepounce to the ground in the middle of camp. He'd never...

Sedgepounce is caught like a bird mid-flight; a flurry of feathers as Snakehiss grabs him by the middle, meeting the ground with a harsh oof!

His mentor should be ashamed—warrior training has done him no good. Sedgepounce flails, paws pushing and thwacking at Snakehiss with no real purpose. Claws tear, catching on fur and whiskers. Frost bites into his fur and he wheezes through his teeth: "You...you jerk!"

He kicks out a foot and attempts to launch Snakehiss off of him, scrambling backward regardless of how he gets free. Cold scrapes at his paws and whips at his cheeks, the icy, hallowed wind howling past. "What is wrong with you?!" Segdepounce shouts. A sting of red weeps from his brow, pooling into his eye. His chest heaves.

Snakehiss stands in a looming, frozen darkness that surrounds him like a shroud. There is nothing of him to catch the light besides the noxious green of his eyes and the jagged locket of white burnished into his chest like a wound. Sedgepounce tries to dodge away from any oncoming blows, as though distance will spare him from the desperate anger barely keeping Snakehiss afloat.

"Everything we know is falling apart and you—you want to attack me?" he shouts. He swings out a paw to try and catch Snakehiss across the ear, skittering away from any retaliation. He doesn't want to fight! This reality dulls his claws and curbs his bloodlust—draws him further and further away from Snakehiss.

The further back he lurches, the more his throat closes, his breathing thins. Uneven bursts of misty clouds explode across his face and he slips across the icy ground with fear-numbed paws. At the precipice, he makes a decision.

"Fine. Fine! I'll go!" Sedgepounce pleads, battling against Snake's warring frame. It's anger, and denial, and fear. He spits red-tinged at Snakehiss' face through a toothy grimace, but his heart tremors as the cold seeps across his body, dragging him somewhere he fears that he won't be able to return.

He can see Snakehiss' prone from in the flashes of moonlight rising across the moor; body cold, blood weeping and coagulating across Sedgepounce's fur. Eyes open and glassy and unseeing. Is the earth too frozen for bodies to be buried? Would Snakehiss be thrown into the gorge?

He wants Foxglare. He wants Rattleheart and Sunstride and whatever hideout they've managed to find for themselves, away from all this.

He tries to push Snakehiss back, away from him.

"I'll—" he starts. And stops. And—

The blistery shoreline crumbles beneath him. There's a moment when Sedgepounce feels suspended in midair, a disgusting facsimile of free-falling across the moor, as the ice-cold claws of the river below reach up to tangle in his fur and pull. His arm flails out unthinkingly—reaching for purchase, catching on nothing. "Snake—" is all he has time to say before he falls into the river, disappearing beneath crumbling sheets of ice as though never there at all.​

 

[SNAKEHISS]

At first, it seems like nothing but a petty brawl between two toms who had historically bickered with one another. Claws swiping every which way, hoping to land a hit and tear and hurt, no particular aim in mind. Snakehiss doesn't think he intends to seriously maim Sedgepounce; just leave him bruised and battered so that he knows to back off and shut his mouth. It had merely been an act spurred by a sudden onset of adrenaline and bitter anger, not anything that had been premeditated. A strange display from the calculated deputy, though any sense of restraint had vacated his brain after the situation with Cottonpaw.

Sedgepounce—that slippery weasel—manages to wriggle out from his hold and weave around Snakehiss' attacks. He shouts a few things though the infuriated deputy is deaf to them as far as he's concerned. His sight is practically red as he propels from lithe legs, launching his limbs forward to try and grab ahold of Sedgepounce again. Everything that has been building up until this moment — Badgermoon's betrayal, the death of his mother, the civil war and the departure of his father, Cottonpaw's rejection, the immense pressure he felt as Sootstar's deputy... it was Sedgepounce's fault! Why? It... just was! Snakehiss needed something to blame, if only for the sake of his own sanity.

The midnight-colored tom persists and persists, even as Sedgepounce cries out. It isn't until the ground crumbles that Snakehiss breaks out of his trance, the poisonous adder that had coiled around his head and taken his mind hostage. With a sharp gasp, Snakehiss sprung backward just in time, though he could not say the same for his opponent.

His chest cramps tightly, heart kicking, irises narrowing in realization. Sedgepounce had fallen into the river! The tom scrambled forward, jaws drawn agape as he desperately raked his gaze across the icy currents. There was no sign of the warrior anywhere. Murderer, murderer, murderer, He can practically hear the damnation of StarClan already ringing in his ears. Breath catches in his throat, nearly suffocatingly so. I... I didn't mean to...! Snakehiss urges to exclaim, though his tongue cannot manage the words. He is frozen in place, as still as snow, utterly horrified at what he has done.

Maybe he would show up downstream, the deputy clings to the reassurance as he breaks into a run and treks down the riverbank. Snakehiss did not even think of the consequences that could befall him should Sedgepounce still live; he just wanted to know if he had survived the plunge. He couldn't be a murderer. He hadn't wanted to murder Sedgepounce!

₊ ⋆ * ⊹ ₊ ☾ —— 𝙞𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝

• 

• 

  ✰ SNAKEHISS
  —— he/him; deputy of windclan
  —— bisexual; mates with berrysnap
  —— long-limbed black tom with green eyes, a small white chest patch, and a notable bite mark on his right foreleg
  —— "speech", thoughts, attack
  —— link to full tags; @ on discord for plots.
  —— penned by beatles

​