CHLORINE & WINE ↷ [ ASHEN ]

[smogstar]

From ugly skies fall frigid droplets, which collect in a frozen sheen over boulders and tree trunks alike. Even the snowy terrain is given a slippery crust. Paws sink unevenly through it. With each step forward comes a wet crack, the crust bursting apart. Step again, and icy debris clings to matted fur.

A soft-hummed sigh escapes Smogmaw, ears pricking atop the dampened, cowlicked silhouette of his head. He is not an all-too-terribly religious cat, yet he mouthes a silent prayer for him and his apprentice to not find a muddy splashback under the fragile layer. "Only prey you'll catch in this are sleeping frogs," he murmurs, saffron eyes rolling sidelong. They linger upon Ashenpaw for a tick longer than necessary. "Assuming you step on one, that is. What a fun surprise that'd be, eh?"

Seeing as the plans to work on Ashenpaw's form have hit a snag, Smogmaw is left without a mental barricade to hide behind. Menial tasks make for a reliable distraction most days—throwing patrols together, fending off the seasonal starvation, maintaining interpersonal relationships—but today spites him. The tom can feel his son's gaze affix to him, anticipating some forthcoming sentiment. Smogmaw glances away pointedly.

A conspicuous void surrounds the mention of his late mate. His young ones attended her vigil, grieved for her in tune with the rest of the clan. Smogmaw, having learned her fate a moon afterwards, did not share in this privilege. He had not answered questions his offspring raised regarding their mother, if any were raised at all. Smothered in a non-linear procession of emotion, of guilt, of grieving, he simply could not bring himself to relive the terrible fact in the spoken tongue. As though verbal acknowledgement made it irrevocably real. As though it wasn't already.

Avertive silence is as damning as words could ever be, however.

Smogmaw watches his son shift unsteadily upon that slick precipice. Something buds within him then, and in that moment, he supposes there is something worth vocalizing. "Ashenpaw, hey," he prompts, tail brushing snow. "Y'know that... that I..." —stars help him— "...do care about you and your siblings, right? I don't believe I've shown it much in the last moons. Haven't said... as much... and such."

He coughs shortly, squinting aside in a futile endeavor to locate where the fumbled sentiment fell from his lips and hit the ground. Words were more difficult to retrieve than pine needles. "But it's genuine. Care about each of you like no other cat. Always have." Always have. Smogmaw nods solidly, affirming it to both his son and himself. "Yeah." He concludes the spiel in a decisive yet shaky chirp, unable to stomach the solemnity any longer. "That's all."

//@ASHENPAW ​

 

[ASHENFALL]

˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 Their uneventful hunt took on a somber tone. Hunting in the throes of leafbare rarely gifted them with any cause for celebration generally, but it seemed today that the prey was even more absent, and his pelt was more sopping and drenched by the elements. Ashenpaw hums along at Smogmaw's witless joking, perhaps twitching his whiskers upward at a shared acknowledgment of their dreary fortune. He smiles dryly, "Oh, I've been walking all over frogs this entire time, actually... Was I supposed to be doing something about that?"

His stare remains affixed on his mentor's as the silence bloated, at first waiting for him to call off their outing entirely and return to camp or some other piece of further instruction. Eventually, the waiting turned into some uneasy concoction of apprehension and anticipation as Smogmaw journeys through the recesses of his mind. Ashenpaw found that—when he could stomach such a thing—there were often fun little morsels to be found when peering into another's face. The straightening of his maw, the pointed aversion of eyes away from his own made it almost seem like he was causing some discomfort in the other... Fun.

Ashenpaw didn't know what his father—or anyone—saw when he looked at him, unfortunately. As much as he felt the itching sting of eyes upon him and the piercing whisper of judgment at all times from those surrounding him, he especially couldn't place the thoughts that lingered behind the orangeish eyes of Smogmaw. He was frustratingly blank in his judgment toward Smogmaw for his conspicuous lack of grieving for the cat he had called his mate, even after raising it with Applepaw—though one could argue that a boulder would have more to say about matters of complex emotion and expressions thereof. Was he supposed to hate his father for it? Did Smogmaw feel like Ashenpaw hated him, was that why he avoided Halfshade's mention like it was the plague? Was there some manifestation of contempt his eyes betrayed that he himself was not yet privy to?

There were plenty of things one could call Ashenpaw: annoying, irreverent, mousebrained, slackerish, and so on and so forth. He would make a big show of protest at any and all of them depending on who the deliverer was but none of these labels would internally cause him to do more than bat an eye.

It was another thing entirely for one to call into question Ashenpaw's filial devotion.

Sometimes he was convinced that he was cursed with a job that no one else wanted. Perhaps Ashenpaw was destined to carry the burden of all the emotional pain that the likes of Smogmaw and Applepaw were unable—or unwilling?—to carry. They were free to avoid all of their feelings as long as he was there to feel them for them. He lugged along their grief with him to and from the graveyard, and let it slouch upon his narrow shoulders. Of course he did, because he loved them. Perhaps it was unsightly, but someone had to remember. He would. Besides, there was something noble about being a dead mother's most loyal offspring. (One imagines Sisyphus feeling fulfilled.)

Smogmaw speaks, at last, and Ashenpaw can finally blink away from him. The downpour of sleet continues to assail upon their furry little heads as Smogmaw stumbles through his words to dig up genuine sentiment. He nudges his forehead into the tabby's shoulder in an attempt to scoot them toward the shelter of a nearby pine and searches to meet his eyes once more once the man has gotten through his emotional spiel.

"Of course I know... Who's told you otherwise?" The first thing out of Ashenpaw's mouth is a rapidly dispersed question. Was there someone out there spreading rumors that he was whining about his father not caring about them...? It was relational sabotage he should have seen coming, but Smogmaw surely would have looked right through as well, right?

Perhaps a twinge of awkwardness lingers midair—or the fact that he just keeps going—that clues in the young tom to hear the guilt in his father's confession.

"Oh, uhm, don't worry..." Ashenpaw placates him awkwardly, shifting on his paws once more. His eyes flit back and forth between saffron eyes and the ever-falling bits of snowfall past his form, "I don't forget so easily, Dad, I know you care." There were perhaps multiple things he was referring to. Ashenpaw could not comprehend the thing which prevented Smogmaw from acknowledging the black hole in their lives where his late mate used to reside, but he could assure him that he knew—did he?—that it did not mean he didn't care.

"I care about you, too. Er, very much." Ashenpaw delivered his own uncomfortable bit of sentiment. He would not make promises on the feelings of any of his siblings, but he did know that he cared. Somewhat obviously, he adds, "There's no one else I trust beside you."

There was no one else to be trusted. Well, there was something akin to trust in the relationships between he and his littermates, but the matter of foolishness kept him from walking in the full confidence of their respective words. Smogmaw, however, so far had been a beacon of righteousness in the face of the many atrocities revealed within their clan as of late. If there was anyone he would follow with his eyes closed, like a mindless dog, it would only be Smogmaw.

YOU'LL ASK, 'WHAT CAN I DO?' ˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 AND THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — ashenkit . ashenpaw
  — ftm transmasc. he/him. 10mo apprentice of shadowclan. mentored by smogmaw
  — muted blue torbie w/ pale blue and amber eyes
  — smells of rainsoaked fern and swamp milkweed
  — all ic opinions!
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — sig by nya, fullbody by antiigone, sticker by saturnid
  — penned by eezy
  

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