camp BLOODY MARY | o, return

[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧
tw . mentions of blood and wounds

she is heavily aware of the blood dripping from her. a gash over her features, the foul scent of copper pooling at the bottom of her chin and dripping into the fertile and gentle earth. the woman elects to use one of her paws to carry most of the weight, desperate to ignore the stinging hotness that encircles the other. there was little outward reaction of the pain that continues to gnaw on her. she knows anything with a sense of smell can track her, smell the blood of her leader on her, stained into a dark buckskin pelt. buck has no clue where cicada ran off to, just that they should split. it's the most free reign she's had in moons, and all it took was that damned shining wire. a sharp pain shoots up her side whenever the gnarled limb takes a step. her teeth sink into the prey she's managed to carry. the men with domestic lightning can shoot her, harm her, skin her and drown her. she risked it just to finish the initial task.

perhaps it is her own filthy pride. they had already marked her for destruction, the gods be damned if she is not able to steal back the life they had stolen. a fat rabbit hangs in her maw, its large feet dragging upon the ground and leaving a trail of disrupted dirt in her wake. the entrance of camp is familiar, but never comforting. the molly makes no attempt to further herself in the area. staying still at the entrance, a heavy hatred upon her. she is far too aware of the split flesh, the warm blood that pools beneath her. she speaks of nothing simply because she holds nothing to say. eyes trained on the spot next to her. as if @CICADASTAR should be there. she is sure that the moonlit-painted tom is not far behind her.

it is still hard for her to believe it. to play the hero to the same man who had stolen everything from her. how easy it could have been to leave him. perhaps she is too tender-hearted to be capable of that cruelty. yet buck cannot forget the shared surprise they both had.

the rabbit drops to the ground. tiredness seeping into her, but she still stands. a heavy breath overtakes her. she hasn't been this tired in a long time.


/ previous threads : campsite raid. caught in the wire "speech"
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[koispots]

Its a scent that Koi could never forget, the scent of metal and agony and she shudders as images of her mother flash inside her head, unwelcomed and cold. Blood pooling from parted lips, oh Stars, she lurches and almost throws up as the scent grows stronger. Shes rushing out of the apprentices den because god dammit it feels so suffocating, so close to falling in on her but the scene before her is anything but pleasant. Immediately, there are tears in the mollys eyes, Buck, Buck, Buck- shes hurt, theres blood, its everywhere, she sees her mothers face on hers, it takes everything she can to not begin screaming.

What in the world had happened? Shes rooted in place. "Buck, Buck-" the other womans name falls from her mouth like a waterfall of grief and for a second Koipaw convinces herself she'd collapse right then and there, die in the way her mother did, but she doesn't. She sways, does not break, does not bend, a statue and Koi hesitates. She doesn't want to approach, shes terrified. "Beesong!" her voice comes out in a guttural wail as she tears from her spot, kicking up grass beneath her as long legs carry her to the medicine den. "It's- It's Buck, shes hurt, please!" it feels as if its the most words she has ever spoken, to so many cats.
// @BEESONG
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"speech"​

 

[willowroot]

( ☾ ) anxiety claws at their throat as they pace, lithe frame stalking from one end of camp to the other. it's only been minutes, but it feels like hours, days even, since the running. the prey scent is strong, fresh-kill pile brimming with food, but the femme cannot eat- will not eat. not until their friends are back. buckgait, brave and stoic, calling all to retreat even as she sets forth to free their leader. cicadastar, trapped, bloodied, fear scent high in the air. it's a sight willowroot hopes to never see again, even as they hope desperately at the same time for the two to appear.

there is, perhaps, an undertone of guilt to the feline's thoughts. some sort of regret for past actions, a reminiscence on easier times flits through their head as they fall victim to their worried mind. this brooding concern is physically painful- more so than the thorns in their paws and the burrs in their fur. it grips at their heart, a barbed root sinking in to the fast beating thing until it hurts to breathe. there are so many could have beens and they turn over and over in their head until up is down and right is left. truly, they are a mess as they pace.

a rustling in the bracken alerts them to the arrival of their kin, and they blink in shock and then horror at the sight of her. earthen fur is darkened with crimson, creating a ruddy mixture of hues, none of them pleasant. her face has a gruesome grimness to it, and even as a rabbit falls from her jaws, there is no movement. koipaw shouts, mottled fur bristling as fear surges through the young cat. willowroot stares, heart clenching, guilt firing up again as they scan the woman for any sign that cicadastar will return. "bucky," the lead warrior whispers, and then bounds over, ignoring their own pain, jaw clenched. "stars, buck, my dear," there is nothing they can do to ease this pain, but they try anyway, pressing into her and attempting to guide her towards the medicine den. ​

( THE LIGHT YOU GAVE ME )

 

[SMOKESTAR]

In the chaos of escaping the two-leg camp he had watched in horror as every cat present scattered like insects beneath a bright life, their confidence in the attempts to take back what was theirs shattered in a near instant. He had been so heavily focused on ensuring their clanmates were accounted for and making their escapes that he did not realize until well into the rush back to camp that they were missing two cats and his blood became ice. The almost immediate impulse to run back was there, but he fought it down, just as he had fought down the urge to rip the skewer from Cicadastar's throat and free the tom from his sacrificial impalement only a few moons past. There is a shred of unease once back in the camp that has his voice strained and almost too forceful once heads were counted to ensure everyone else was alright, but the two missing...
Smokethroat is besides himself, normally when one of them was in such a state the other would be the voice of reason and control but this time both he and Willowroot were both at the edge of the camp pacing frantic circles and silently waiting for the world to come rushing back into clarity. After what felt like an agonizingly long time they were graced with relief followed by instant horror.
Buckgait, bloodied and holding a hare that she dropped carelessly at her paws; it felt exactly like the moment when Cicadastar returned to them, rising from death, clawing his way back, delivering prey moonstruck and adorned in red. He was going to be ill. But she, at least, was alive.
Seeing her form almost unshaking eased his uncertainty but she had returned to them stalwart yet alone.
Eyes burn like wildfires, scorching the forest in the intensity of his gaze as he moves his stare from the emboldened she-cat into the treeline. Where. Where. WHERE. WHERE?!
Willowroot has moved to help the other, he hears Koipaw's voice rising up in a cry for help in the background and then the world is terribly muffled by his own violent hearbeat strumming the staccato of wardrums in his head.



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[CICADASTAR]

− ♱ ABOUT : the man emerges slowly ; phantomlike, constructed of darkness and dappled light. a shadow, interlocking silver painted a dull collar of cooling crimson around his slim throat. curls matt, sticking together in clumps of hardening russet around a clean indent in his thick fur. it was a precarious spot to have been choked, and his chin could not tuck far enough to clear the viscous substance and so he stands now, painted red — a shackle, thick and proud against his silvery pelt. another hurdle. another sacrifice, but this time, not of his own. ivory paws bring him from the rear of buckgait to her side and he lets himself slouch. fully, finally, muscles screaming and each click of his throat sending a small wave of pain through the shallow ring of open flesh he bore. exhaustion rolls off of him in waves and it takes him a moment of standing, listening to koipaw cry out beneath the thrum of tinnitus ringing in too - wide ears. buckgait is still bleeding and icy eyes lift forward, searching for a familiar cinnamon tabby standing roughly shoulder height to the crowd. they’ve not emerged yet. cicadastar almost longs to see him, the too - familiar scent of water and thyme a comfort hes grown to accept over their moons together.

glacial eyes carry over the faces gathering, bleary. on koipaw, on willowroot, who is approaching buckgait with a tone soft as the babble of water over corroded stone. they are pressing against her for support, trying to guide her towards the medicine den and he watches, lingers on where their coats meld in shades of smoke and cedar. his shoulders throb again where he stands propped, joints screaming from outrunning twoleg boomsticks. from taking shelter, unwilling to let them near camp and — he wants to collapse. let his legs give out from under him, to rest under the eye of his warriors but he does not. he merely watches. the woman that had threatened the well-being of his clan, attacked it in its infancy. one who sought control of the river for herself, a refusal to share. she’d saved him. blood mars her stony features, open wounds still dripping, mingling with fresh rabbit and . . his surprise is still palpable. his face numb, lips moving and he murmurs, “ thank you. “ with a voice thoughtfully absent, monotonous in its shock. the man isn’t sure what to think of it yet. this woman, scorned and bitter — who’d left claw marks on the dipping river shores when it was pulled from her grasp. greed, he’d called it, called it still.

then, he turns — finds a coat like nightfall, follows the white - splotches like constellations, wants to set them to memory until he could map them like the stars above.

“ smoke. “ like a prayer ; heather - soft and brittle in its reverence. something spoken amidst the safety of moss and feather lining, against the velveteen shell of an ear, riding on the edge of a breath. instead he speaks it now, just barely heard amidst the symphony of songbird overhead and muttering of concerned clanmates that gather around them now. he doesn’t care, really — finding his fire through the fog that’s settled over his mind, bright eyes of smoldering sunburst. follow the light. at first he knows not know to say. he bites his lip, looks away, winces again at the thin wounds along his throat and . . that’s something, “ would you help me . . clean up? i can’t reach the . . “ the ring, just beneath his jaw where blood gathers. for once, from his own wounds. the man could very well wash it out in the river, but the thought of being alone fills his nerves with ice water, prickling at the pads of his paws. his wounds weren’t as severe, and he just wanted to rest.

out of character information translations

• − CICADASTAR ; he / him. roughly thirty nine months old, riverclan leader
  − handsome, lanky black smoke tortie chimera with curly fur and icy blue eyes
  − gay. speaks with a thick german accent, former marsh cat, penned by antlers
  
  
• none.

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[GLOOMPAW]

*:･ﾟ✧☁ ⋯ She doesn't stay inside when the concern kicks up. Gloomkit swiftly makes her way to the outer circle of camp, eyes wide as she peers at the two injured cats. Crimson pours from Buckgait's face, Cicadastar's throat. It's wounds, serious ones, no simple play-time scrapes or trip-and-fall cuts. She feels nervous around them, heart unreasonably constricted, like being in the presence of cats who could pass away is more than she could handle.

Apparently, leaders have more than one life. Maybe StarClan would give Buckgait another, as a gift, if her wounds turn out worse than they already are. Gloomkit doesn't know how to gauge either of their major injuries right now, only knows they could go.

She doesn't say anything, doesn't remark rudely on the situation. Her pulse quickens as the scene processes for her, no scream escaping her lungs though she wants to. Giving a last shocked, sorrowful look at Cicadastar as he called out to Smokethroat, pointedly avoiding the blood caking his neck, she follows Koipaw, tail and ears low.​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

He wished he could say he was a light that never went out, but he flickered from time to time.If he gained more spots on his pelt for every time he felt himself age through some means or another he would be such a strikingly white cat now. He wondered if he could pluck the white flecks of fur out, would they grow back black to be turned again later or would they forever be white no matter how many times he took them between his teeth to yank free from his hide.
Some days he wished he could just meld himself into the darkness to hide and never be seen.
The shift of tension in the air is palpable.

Relief is an immediate jolt through his system so powerful he almost wants to sit down, like lightning coursing through him, but the soft storm of mottled black and gray seems to calm him in the eye of it and he catches his breath. It’s like a veil was pulled back, he could hear birds chorusing as if echoing the sudden weightlessness he felt at the sight of RiverClan’s blood-matted king rising from the forest once more.
He hears the faintly uttered sound of his name, almost a whisper even, as if the word would dissipate like actual smoke if spoken in too harsh a tone and without hesitation he is moving forward on pure impulse rather than anything rational; the illusion of the phantom emerging has so distracted him it is only once he is a mere whisker away that the scent permeate his thought.
Copper, sharp, bitter; the smell of dying souls, glorious victories, new life and life ending.
The sight of the blood blending into white and black has him reeling, the memory of that previous outing a worn path in his mind he retraced then and there and he half expected the spire of a straightening claw to be protruding out the side of the ruffled black mane of Cicadastar’s neck.

But there is no warped and piercing quill, his sunrise eyes give a quick glance over before locating the proper source of the mess and he almost does not hear the tom’s request above the blood pounding merciless in his head.
“What? OH….” Smokethroat comes back down from the rising panic, feels his limbs grow rigid to keep him upright because the sensory overload that was his relief, his fear, his anger and silent praise that this had ended without a tragic undertone. “....of course…” The black tom moved past the tortie, pausing to turn and then step back alongside him leaning in heavily despite it seeming as though the man was capable of walking just fine; it never hurt to be safe and perhaps some of the sense of security was for himself.
“C’mon, Willowroot has Buckgait…we’ll have Beesong check you after…”




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[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧​

there's a quick flurry of emotions, koipaw is shouting and buck should be feeling guilt. she should be trying to make sure another moves koi away from her. she does not need to see bloodied women any longer. pale blinking eyes watch the children before her, trying to ignore the heavy ache in her gut and the hollowness in her barreled chest. if it had not been for the burning in her narrowed ribcage, the true anger only a heart could feel, she'd be sobbing. but if fills her veins and carries her, makes her unmovable; untouchable. but it does not move the stone in her throat, the one that only comes when emotions are too heavy in the stomach.

her breaths are stuttered and unsure. she is unsure. if she should move forward and reclaim her spot amongst the riverclanners or simply stand and stare. an outsider in their midst. the feeling never goes away, not even when she rests with them. she has never missed the roots of the willow as heavily as she does now. she wants to go home, tend to her wounds and think about the rot inside of her. but there is no home. there's a cruel acceptance in that, and she's the one who murdered any chance of it when she loosened that wire.

caraway, presses against her, and the ever-standing woman refuses the urge to collapse against the proclaimed lead warrior. "i didn't do it for you." it's all she can speak, and it's to the man who damned her. quiet and slow, to make sure he gets the point. eyes upon the man who adores cicada in a way she'll never understand, before they move back to her kin. she'd have left him if it didn't leave a wake of misery. it is with gaining fatigue that buckgait finally leans against willowroot, allowing them to finally get her into the den that beesong has occupied.


//OUT !! ​

 

[LIGHTNINGSTONE]

The camp erupts with shouts and cries of shock, alerting Lightningstone to the arrival of the two cats who had been missing. The rest of the patrol had arrived with jaws full of prey, but panic in their eyes as they had revealed that Cicadastar and Buckgait were not with them. It was then that the warrior's chest was thrown into a flurry of palpitations, throat aching as it tightened and coiled with nerves. The feeling is unfamiliar, and once again he's thrown in that clearing with gnashing fox's teeth. He'd been scared then, too. Scared of what may happen to her, what wounds she would be inflicted with and if she'd make it.

But above all else, above his fear and concern, he is angry. A scowl rests upon his face from where he sits, far from the commotion, because how could she? He'd never cared about any of these RiverClan cats, aside from Brook and a very select few he'd grown up with in Rain's colony. That was it, that had always been the extent of his care. The world is a cruel place and if only a few could make it, he'd make sure it was them. Not RiverClan, not strangers who didn't know him, not Buck. And so he's angry at the pain in his chest upon seeing her bloodied and stumbling onto their island camp, and angry at her for inflicting that unfamiliar sting upon him. With a wrinkle in his silver-blazed snout, he gets to his paws and stalks off, knowing full well she'd be watched over by her friends and by Beesong. A part of him screams to go and sit with her in that den, but his paws leap into the surrounding water anyway, intent on getting away.

// kicks him >:( bad boy​

 

[BEESONG]

Cries echo throughout camp. Before his mind could register the cacophony assaulting his ear, Koipaw bursts through the entrance of the den. Wails of the damned name which signals pain and grief, and to no surprise, the shaken girl reveals that Buck is injured. Beesong exhales slowly through his nose, forcing the familiar tremors of his paws to cease.

"Okay."

They gather their herbs as quickly as they could, yet it is not quite fast enough. Buck stumbles to their den with the assistance of Willowroot, pawsteps heavy with fatigue. The scent of blood, which they never seem to be able to scrub out of the walls of their den, grows strong. Suffocating. A thick haze which settles over them. Without turning from their storage, they flick a paw towards an empty nest. "Make yourself comfortable. I'm sure you're exhausted, yeah?" Beesong hums a broken melody as they gather up cobwebs and moss, the latter of which they nudge in Willowroot's direction. "Willowroot, mind soaking this moss?"​

 

[WOLFSQUALL]

( ♬ ) Within an instance, the camp had become the center of chaos and shouts and bitter remarks. To be expected, Wolfsquall figured. He was all but ready to turn away, go back to his lackluster duties, till he spotted the source of the shouting. Buck at the center of it all. Wolf knew he wasn't an easy man to know at times. Save for the scarce few who knew him best, he was harsh, rough around the edges, a thorn easy to prick oneself on. Even to those he hesitantly referred to as friends could find trouble in him more often than he'd like to think on. Self-reflection was not a strong suit of his. Buck, even if their friendship was something new and underactualized, was one of the few he felt at ease around. Rarely a fear that he'd always be one simple step away from ruining it all. Her current state and centralized role in the commotion was enough to get him to care. Enough to rise a sudden anger deep in his chest that this should happen, an urge to run and fight with all his might at whatever antagonist he could find.

The ashen tom held back from that urge. He allowed it to stir within, yet remain contained. He watched, he listened, he flexed his paws over and over with a rhythmic repetition. He had no part in this, but he couldn't get himself to leave. When Buckgait walked her way out of the scene, he was tempted to follow. Check in, or something. Not that he'd have the words to say, not that his need to find the problem and end it with a swift justice would be much comfort to the pain he could tell was more than physical at the moment. So he did not. Wolfsquall watched as Beesong took over, as the others were left scrambling to figure out what to do next. He'd place himself close enough that should extra paws be needed he could be grabbed, but far enough to be removed from the situation as a whole. He was too clumsy in all aspects of life to be of much help, he figured. He'd check in later. Maybe."speech"​

( SERPENTS IN MY MIND ; LOOKING FOR YOUR CRIMES )