private and i'll feel the sickness ➺ sunshinespot

[doepath ࿔]

If I just wrap myself tightly enough around him, he can't leave.

Eyes squeeze shut against the trickling of morning light that filters through the den. No, not yet, please not yet, fearful and insistent, a tear-soaked nose buries itself into diluted curls. The rise and fall of a sweet-scented flank feels like it's fading, as if tethered to a ghost and begging it not to drift away. Tender paws grip tightly, shivering from withheld sobs in an effort not to wake the entire warrior's den. Not to wake him... if he'd even slept.

Any chance at delaying this ruinous day, she'd take it hungrily... though she knows well enough that it won't be nearly long enough. Just a little more time, she pleads, unsure who she's asking. StarClan, who'd witnessed such devastation and done nothing to face it? Skyclaw, who had taken them down this path and kept his clan-mates as unwilling peons to his will? Sunshinespot, as if he might shed his blood and be free of the heritage that sees him chased away from her?

A muffled whine goes bitten into the crook of her arm, opening daffodil eyes to stare at the blurring, colorful horizon. It doesn't suit this day... the vibrant pinks and bright oranges. Doepath thinks the sky should reflect ThunderClan's great suffering, so that the entire forest might know they hurt. Might know what they're losing. There should be clouds and rain and thunder... The stars should burn furiously into the dawn, angry and mournful.

It isn't fair...

Her nose scrunches with a miserable sniffle in desperate attempt to draw in as much of his scent as possible. To make notes of the details of how the flowers she'd brought had changed it. She turns to rest her chin on dappled paws and rub her cheek into the spot under his chin, lip quivering as a tiny whisper shares, "I love you... so... so much," because this feels like goodbye... it feels like the last chance to say it. This on the day of his unwilling funeral... the death of his presence in ThunderClan. The death of his company in her nest.

@sunshinespot
haha.. im not crying you're crying !!!​

 

[sunshinespot]

There will be no world where Sunshinespot could begrudge Doepath for anything. And whilst she sobs into his chest, muffled only by the curled fur of his pelt, and wakes him from his restless sleep - that statement does not change. The sun filters in and paints the sky beyond them, but the warrior cannot feel his usual ease with opening his eyes. He feels on edge, he feels tense. His body aches from hyper vigilance most of the night. But above all... he feels something else.

His fear and terror does not escape him, but each are flattened by overwhelming and unnamed emotions. He stirs with a start, murmuring too many too quick, 'hey, hey, hey,'s to the she-cat. Sunshinespot cares not that his freshly cleaned fur is stained with tears, cares even less so that his personal space is so invaded that it feels as if Doepath is trying to fuse their pelts together. She is of the utmost importance to him, even with his impending doom looming over the both of them. It harms him more that she's hurting rather than the threat that his title as a ThunderClanner will be inevitably stripped from him.

She whimpers, her voice hardly more than a whisper and her words obscured by sobs and tears - but with a steady voice, Sunshinespot does not wait to respond.

"I love you, Doepath."

This is what his parents had, isn't it? Was this feeling - this horrible pit in his gut, feeling as if he's doing something wrong by protecting his own life - somehow akin to Sunfreckle and Rabbitnose? Does Doepath even understand that feeling, her mother being the way she was? Sunshinespot does not dwell too long on the questions he has, for many of them he will never get answers for. For he fears that should Skyclaw continue to have his way, he will no longer have a reason to ask.

He draws his tongue over her fur, his tail swinging around her form. They couldn't get closer, it was physically impossible to. Sunshinespot tries, still, his ears folding to his head.

"I love you," he murmurs in continued softness. There's an underlying caveat, unspoken as he doesn't know what it entails. It hurts, for he knows he would bleed himself dry for her happiness - just as well as he knows that his pain would only drive her further into grief. He tenses his jaw and tries not to cry, though the tears fall regardless of his efforts. "I'll miss you," he says somehow quieter. "I'll think of you every day, I promise..." He swallows the lump in his throat and tries his usual, unsightly smile for her. "Let Braveheart share the nest with you, alright? I... I wouldn't want you alone, after all this work," could this be any harder?
​

 

[doepath ࿔]

Whispers to soothe flutter against the sparse furs of her ear and it is so tender it feels as if it may be carried away on the wind before it can be truly heard. Her admission feels hungry and selfish and consuming, a demand for companionship that can't be kept now more than ever. It is possessive and begs for her to dig her claws into it the same way her mother's had, turning to hot-blooded anger the moment that love is torn from her reach. His answer echoes her own and it just sits like a burn, festering on the tender flesh of her heart and searing so painfully it feels like dying. Then why? comes as a fury-burnt question, knowing that it isn't a choice he can make. "I'm sorry," becomes a compulsory answer, frightened by the girl that yearns to sink her teeth into him if it might mean keeping him near.

What good does missing me do, she asks a tiny vision of him in her head, one that can answer and shrug sadly and say, "I'm sorry... I don't really know."

I'll think of you. Please think of me. Every day. Every hour. I promise. You promise.

"Sunshinespot," the deer-like cat murmurs, but leaves a silence behind that lasts far too long. Stalling... stalling for what to say... what kind of words she can give in exchange to make him feel remembered. "We'll see each other again..." Because that feels worth clinging to, even if they both know it might be a lie. They can pretend. Can cling to it in the fitful hours of night, can imagine it in daydreams. Where would he even go? Was it a place she could follow some day?

I'll see you in the morning fog.... In the pale dust of pollen.... You can see me in daffodils and honeycombs.

His suggestion to let Braveheart keep her company earns him a small headshake, frustrated by the suggestion. As much as she adores him, it isn't the same and she can't risk him diluting what tiny pieces of Sunshine may be left when he goes. She would just have to survive... that was all that she had to do. This could be waited out. It could be won. "Braveheart snores," she protests, trying to joke though her words clip painfully.

"I don't want you to go...." Pointless. It can be said to wrench the beating hearts of both of them and only to that end. There is no freedom to say he won't then. "Will you be safe...?" It's the first time she's bothered to ask about him, about his feelings and fears, so absorbed in her own dark to notice the way his light had dimmed... even as the patter of tears land on top of her head. When had he started crying too...?​