CAN YOU NOT LOVE YOURSELF | vulturepaw

[SOOTSPOT]

Don't hurt him.

The words had been clear as day from Vulturepaw, as if there was a universe in which the damage Sootspot could've done would be permanent unless aided by Thriftfeather's compliance. Though his teeth had spilled blood before, yet he'd always found his tongue to be the real weapon, carving a picture of a cat larger and more dangerous than he could ever hope to be without leadership. He'd grown frustrated for a time that it had not been effective, but then he saw the way Cricketcry avoided speaking to him and the way Vulturepaw seemed scared of his threats and everything seemed right again. It was how it should be, a tom threatening not because of what he had done, but because of what he could do if he didn't get what he want. He only wished Sunstar felt the same way, that the little twinge of doubt he'd seen within the tabby's heart when he offered him prey had come with the promise of power and not the abdication of it. It was as if he wanted to die.

But someone who did not share such a deathwish was Vulturepaw. Seeing the other alone in camp was not a new phenomenon, so often did the child lament not being at Periwinkle's side and being fearful of the outdoors that it was a miracle he even still had a place in WindClan. He didn't think his own children would be so needy... so weak, nor did he think his own children would comply in any ploy to make him look bad. Wordlessly, he reached the other's side and reclined upon his haunches, smiling, but the friendly gesture did not meet the tom's yellow-green eyes. The apprentice themselves also did not reach his gaze, instead, Sootspot looked outwards, admiring the tall heathers peaking over the brush. It was only when he mewed did Sootspot make it obvious that he wanted something from Vulturepaw. With Sunstar on his mind, he tried to replicate what he thought the leader would say, something paternal yet something... untrue.

"I do not blame you for what your superiors put you through. I suspect you had little choice but to conform to their lie, you a victim, though you may not recognise it." Maybe the seed would be sown for Vulturepaw to rebel against his mentor, maybe he would consider Sootspot's words to be false. Regardless, he knew it would keep the other awake pondering about it, and for the chimera, that idea was enough. He tilted his head downwards and to the right, ears shooting forward, posture tensing. "But at the first sign of freedom, you still defended a monster. Why?" For the first time, a serpentine stare aimed to find Vulturepaw's eyes, unblinking.

@Vulturepaw
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[Vulturepaw]

˖⁺‧₊ ☽◯☾ ₊‧⁺˖ 　Sootspot has always been a serpentine creature, a scheming cat with a too-satisfied grin. He wields words like claws, each one worming its way in between the hollows of their ribs to strike right at the heart. They don't know what they've done to earn his ire, nor do they know how to handle it. Unlike their own bristling, bubbling frustration, his venom drips out in carefully crafted words. Always driven by some unplaceable ulterior motive. Harmless, until he isn't - until he's promising to tear Thriftfeather's throat out in front of the whole clan, with a glint in his eye that says he means it.

They try not to shudder as the warrior approaches. His posture is relaxed, smile courteous. They hunch over, letting the spiky fur that drapes across their spine stand up like a weapon. There is something about Sootspot that makes them feel small, even though they themself are nearly as tall. He has the demeanor of a predator, a stalking beast lazily scoping out its prey. Hungry, scheming, with teeth as sharp as his tongue. They fluff up their feathers in prey-animal fear, keep their eyes trained upon the ground. With any luck he'll leave them be, but Vulturepaw is not a lucky cat.

Sootspot's words are almost kind - until they aren't. "He's not a monster," he snaps, eyes flickering up to glare at the noxious tom for only a moment.

He swallows, lets his paw scrape idly against the ground. "I mean, yeah, I d-d-d-didn't wanna lie, b-but..." He nearly finds himself yielding to Sootspot's faux-understanding, but he catches himself quickly. He protested, he hated it, but he thinks he's beginning to truly understand why he was forced to lie. "B-Buh-Bluefrost was right. She said no one would ever - she said WindClan would never accept him, even if I t-tuh-told the t-t-t... the t-t-truth." He emphasizes the word. The lie was omitting Thriftfeather, not defending him. "He's good. He helped me."

His head turns finally, to meet the warrior's gaze. He can't quite muster up the courage to keep his voice from breaking. "See?" Their words feel small, pitiful, but they push through. "You d-d... d-d-don't believe me. You think I'm just a stupid k-k-kit."

THERE ARE FLOWERS GROWING ALL AROUND ⛧ A MASSIVE ANIMAL INSIDE OF ME‎

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  "SPEECH"
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  VULTUREPAW ⛧ he / they / she, apprentice of windclan, seven moons.
  ⭃ a spiky-furred dark tabby with amber eyes.
  ⭃ skittish and dour, with a superstitious sort of pessimism.
  ⭃ micheal x npc, adopted by periwinklebreeze. sibling to dustpaw and bilberrypaw.
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

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[SOOTSPOT]

Sootspot's tufted ears twitched. First, he had hooked the fish, next, he had let it go. It was almost a game, waiting to see how often the bait would be taken. Yet there was too much to lose by letting every little creature go, there would come a day where Vulturepaw had grown, and he would rather not remind sharks of how often he'd taunted them. The chimera blinked fervently, his pupils growing wide and guilty at the tabby's protests. "Ah... you do not know."

His tail swayed around his own paws like a fluffy worm. He's good, Vulturepaw mewed in their defiance, and the faux-sympathy offered by the tom only seemed to grow twice as saccharine. 'There's no good on these moors and no evil. Only those who win, and those who lose.' And Sootspot had a lot to gain if Thriftfeather lost. You think I'm just a stupid kid. "I do not think you are a kit," he admitted. "But your mouth moves and Peri's voice comes out. " It wasn't always a negative thing, Periwinklebreeze wasn't a negative thing. The other was as malleable as wet mud, but when they weren't being shaped by him, then they were useless.

Vulturepaw was impressionable, too impressionable. He would rather they be clay. Unmoving. Tough. But only after they had finished sharing stories.

A noticeable lump bobbed down his throat, as if the tom felt fear for admitting what he was about to admit, as if it were a great secret come to life. "You could have been home sooner." That was what Vulturepaw didn't know, what Sootspot truly believed. But for anyone else to believe it, he would have to lie. The tom leaned down, hoping to make himself seem like an equal to Vulturepaw. His limbs burned, demanding that he sit up straight and stop reaching a paw out beneath him. "Myself and a few others had picked up your scent, but Bluefrost told us to give up the search. We did not know why, but we cannot disobey a Lead Warrior. A sunhigh later, you were returned. Why would a good cat demand that we wait? Unless it benefited someone... perhaps, someone who had just become promoted and needed to prove themselves." Someone like Bluefrost. "I doubt your father knew." It would be far less believable if he said the point did.

Sootspot didn't wait to see whether Vulturepaw believed it or not. Words stuck longer than scars - he did not need Vulturepaw to believe him today for such a story to be relevant several moons down the line. "With that in mind, Thriftfeather could have returned you before he gave you to his mate. Why do you think he waited?"

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[Vulturepaw]

˖⁺‧₊ ☽◯☾ ₊‧⁺˖ 　Sootspot's gaze turns sympathetic, and it makes her stomach curdle. Something about it feels condescending, still. He wrenches his eyes away from the other's face as his dad's name drips like snake-venom from his maw. "Is... Is that a b-bad thing?" He asks pitifully, more rhetorical than anything. He doesn't know that he would trust Sootspot's judgement on the matter.

Their head snaps up as the warrior continues, narrowed and panicked eyes searching his face. "B-Bluefrost wouldn't..." The protest is instinctive, ill-advised. His voice rises in a querelous warble, petering out quickly. She wouldn't what, exactly? She wouldn't be so selfish? His throat feels dry. She's never done anything but look down upon them, her chin raised. She's kept him at an arms length, cold as her name. It seems all too plausible that she would be motivated by her own benefit... But - Thriftfeather was worried, if nothing else. They saw it in his eyes, didn't they? The memories feel so distant now, but he was never anything but kind in the short few days that they knew him. He must have been, to risk his life for them. And yet, the revelation that the two seemingly opposite cats are mates puts a wrinkle in things. Did Thriftfeather return him to make Bluefrost a hero? They hardly know the golden tom, going off of childish and quickly-fading memory alone -

He swallows thickly. He doesn't know any of these cats very well, does he? What were they like, in the endless gaping maw of before? Before, when Sootstar was here. Did they kill for her? He cannot see blood between Thriftfeather's jaws, but neither could he imagine it staining Periwinklebreeze's teeth. The bloodlust of Sootstar's reign lingers, haunts every cat she touched. Is it her ghost that stands before him now, sowing doubt and distrust within his mind? "You're lying," he blurts, shaky and unconfident. He cringes at the sound of it. "Um, sorry, I d-didn't mean that." They want him to be lying.

Their tail lashes. "Even if - even if he c-c-could have..." Sootspot had asked his question with a piteous glint in his eye; it feels like a trick somehow. "It wasn't... safe." For who? "Someone c-c... c-c-could have gotten hurt. Him or - um. If - if the rest of d-d-d... If the rest of the rogues were there, it - it would have b-been buh-b-bad." A repeat of the battle in camp, blood staining the ground once again. He trains his eyes upon the dirt below, and is quiet again.

I PRAY TO BLADES OF GRASS ⛧ TO FIND FORGIVENESS IN THE WEEDS

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  "SPEECH"
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• 
  VULTUREPAW ⛧ he / they / she, apprentice of windclan, seven moons.
  ⭃ a spiky-furred dark tabby with amber eyes.
  ⭃ skittish and dour, with a superstitious sort of pessimism.
  ⭃ micheal x npc, adopted by periwinklebreeze. sibling to dustpaw and bilberrypaw.
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

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[SOOTSPOT]

"One's parents can cast a very long shadow." Sootspot's sorrow was often a performative thing, too similar to other cats and too unlike his own, for he did not know how it was supposed to feel. Yet, beneath the stolen expressions, something real stabbed his heart like a thorn. He doubted anyone's parent had a larger shadow than his own, impossible to run away from, impossible to catch. All Sootspot could do was embrace it and be better than it - and cast a larger shadow, if need be. "Be mindful that you do not wallow in that shade forever." The brief life lesson ended on a sour note within him as he hardened his heart once more to Vulturepaw's struggle. 'You would lose so much of yourself confined to the space Periwinklebreeze takes up.'

The other's nervousness became as energising as a lapine meal. Their consideration became validation, and Sootspot was glad the fur upon his chest was fluffy enough to hide the way it welled up in pride. An accusation of deceit caused him to angle his skull downwards, his snakelike pupils thinning ever so slightly... before Vulturepaw apologised and the brief wave of anger became nothing more than a distant memory. "The warrior code tells us to defend our clanmates, even at the cost of our own lives. You were a kitten in danger of being killed, instead, your saviours waited until them and them alone could be praised for your safe return. For all we know, saving you was to be Thriftfeather's attempt at rejoining WindClan." 'You were used.'

Sootspot was envious he had not thought of it himself. Perhaps then, he would have been Lead Warrior, and not his sister. But fate had played a different game with him, an encounter with his half-brother, a looming understanding that should DuskClan ever succeed, Sootspot would be the first to die. Yet he thought of Privetpaw too, how easy it had been to convince the young apprentice of Granitepelt's faux lineage and inheritance. They were useful. They would kill him, but they were useful. They couldn't be wiped out, but they couldn't succeed either.

They could've helped him be what he was destined to be if only they weren't so stuck in the past.

He blinked and was prompt reminded of Vulturepaw's presence, taking the moment of quiet from the other as a means to quell his ambitions, to remember the face the dark tabby needed to see. Sootspot's cranium tilted once more. "You defend their inaction. Do you not think yourself worthy of being fought for?" He refused to believe it, seeing how the apprentice talked to him and the rest of the clan as if his opinions truly mattered, as if his voice alone would be enough to stop Thriftfeather from becoming a martyr for imbeciles across the forest. Yet, there had to be some reason for his hesitance other than trust.

He just needed to dig a little deeper to find it.



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