COLD WAR ⟿ flicker

[smogstar]

The congestion that had previously plagued his nostrils is gone. At long last, he can smell the swamp's wonderful smells. Oh, how he's missed the musty stench of stagnant water, and who could possibly forget the aroma of rotting wood? But, permeating through the pleasant atmosphere is an offbeat scent. It's tinny, metallic, and its very existence tears him away from the hunt he has embarked on.

Blood. And with every passing moment, it's getting stronger.

Steered by his sniffer, Smogmaw bounds towards the border on ardent paws. A flurry of possibilities flickers through his mind while he runs. Might a deer have been struck by another monster? That has been happening a freakish amount lately, and the odour in fact lingers above ThunderClan's border.

He does not glimpse a body upon arrival. For all intents and purposes, he cannot see anything outside of the ordinary; save for a faint outline, just beyond the fringe.​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

// tw . decently vivid descriptions of death / delusion.

Footsteps, a shadow lurking on the horizon of her vision. Flickerfire cannot move her head to see who it is. Time is a flat circle, meaningless, seconds rounding off and bleeding into another. Flies gather, and she cannot fight them off, attracted by the waterfalls of blood she's shed.

She'd managed to open one dulled, unseeing flame-colored eye, lying on her side near the Thunderpath. Something is there -- the dog, come back to finish her off? At this point, it would have been merciful. Is it a StarClan cat, come to guide her home? Briarstar herself, Moth, Twilightfall?

Or is it -- "E-Emberstar?" She rasps, following it with a cough. The figure draws closer. She cannot scent who it is; she cannot see a pelt, cannot distinguish golden from blue tabby, cannot scent tom from she-cat, ShadowClan from ThunderClan. Her senses do not work anymore. "Ember, you got away? You kept a life..."

She smiles, relief pouring through her like sunlight. Emberstar had lived. Flickerfire is sad to know she cannot be with her in StarClan, for the tortoiseshell is sure she is moments away from joining their ranks, but her sacrifice had not been in vain. Emberstar would go on to lead her Clan. "Ember... remember I... love ya. I love you." She shudders, her body throttling in the throes of death. "Don't... be... stupid..." Wheezing. Her throat is tightening, the muscles constricting, cutting off what little life there was.

Her eyes roll blankly toward the back of her head, and the spirit of a cat mists away from her body, borne aloft on silver paws. Smogmaw would not see this -- he would only see the ravaged corpse of a cat with Emberstar's name on her dying lips.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

​

 

[smogstar]

Smogmaw identifies the lead warrior in wide-eyed terror. She looks to be little more than a corpse, clinging onto the echoes of life while bleeding out on the soil. The tom heaves, and then he lurches as he feels his innards wrench inwards. When he clenches his eyes shut, the gruesome image remains; Flickerfire, the slender tortie whom he'd known for such a rich portion of his days, seconds away from breathing her last.

This cannot be, at least not so out of the blue and without any forewarning. It has to be a phantasm, or a figment of his warped mind. His lids remain shut throughout his scramble to understand it. An effort which, as he would find out moments later, is in vain.

A dreadful croak rips him from his frozen state. It is an abrasive sound, and it takes a second for him to recognise it as her voice. Her real, corporeal voice. And the words she says, the name she beckons, they only add to the distress. Is there any meaning to her anguished ramblings? A reason why she perceives him as ThunderClan's leader, and not a clanmate she knew so well?

Smogmaw remains silent.

What strikes him with the most grief is that, in defiance of her imminent doom, Flickerfire wears a broad smile. Well, as broad a smile as her failing nerves allowed for. And what prompts this smile is not more than delusion, one surely brought on by shock. She is happy to see Emberstar, like a close friend would be. And then—and then comes a profession of love.

And it all makes sense.

The woe he felt mere moments before is all washed away by the realisation. Of why her so-called patrols were longer than the ones her clanmates set out on. Of why she froze up whenever loyalty emerged as a topic of discussion. Of why the notion of ransacking ThunderClan's prey supply - as dismal as her own clan's prospects were - could not appeal to her. They were in love, and by the sounds of it, both of them are now dead. Flickerfire expires in a quick, unsatisfying motion.

Rage swells up in his throat, but it quickly coalesces with offbeat excitement. This is worse than anything Bonejaw ever dreamed of doing, as there's a non-zero chance that sensitive knowledge had been imparted to Emberstar's ears. And yet... if ThunderClan's leader met a fate similar to the lead warrior's, it would be foolish to not treat this as the opportunity it was.

"You always were a numbskull," Smogmaw huffs, looming over her deceased form. Without much restraint, he dips his head and grabs ahold of her nape. "C'mon," he says, words muffled by the still-warm skin of her neck, "let's show ya to Pitch." ​