- Oct 22, 2022
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As the final announcement lingers in the moonlit air, the gathering exhales into the silence of departure. Soon will the cats disperse to their respective territories and resume their nondescript and morally ambiguous activities. Soon, what was said atop the Great Rock tonight shall wisp away, evaporate from working memory, as if none had spoke at all. The fact hardly ruffles Smogmaw's allegorical feathers. As nice as it would be to permanently brand their minds with his rhetoric, these gatherings are but a transitory outlet for each clans' grievances. Ceremonious meetings, if anything, to placate the masses, giving some false semblance of integrity or legitimacy.
Real power, real legitimacy, lies in the shadows. In the spaces in-between public discourse and its political posturing. Places where the narratives are written, invisible influence seeps out, and events are primed for fruition. Smogmaw is intimately familiar with this space; it is his territory as surely as ShadowClan's bogs and mires are.
Tonight, standing in as his clan's representative, he has been given greater liberty to stretch his paws.
Hale limbs unfurl into a leap, carrying the tom from the boulder down to the damp earth below. He continues onward without pause, and sleek steps push him past strewn-about cats. Should their gazes extend him recognition, Smogmaw has neither care to perceive or return it. Tunnel-visioned concentration trains solely on a particular tom's rear flank—speech emerges only when golden strands become individually distinguishable. "Sunstar, care for a heart-to-heart?"
Before a crowd, a figure of authority must posture and raise their voice with unresolved grandiose. Such pretences have no foundation when the audience dissipates. Consequently, his tone quiets, all grandstanding melts away, and as he looks upon the other tom, there is an expression almost... imploring.
// @SUNSTAR
Real power, real legitimacy, lies in the shadows. In the spaces in-between public discourse and its political posturing. Places where the narratives are written, invisible influence seeps out, and events are primed for fruition. Smogmaw is intimately familiar with this space; it is his territory as surely as ShadowClan's bogs and mires are.
Tonight, standing in as his clan's representative, he has been given greater liberty to stretch his paws.
Hale limbs unfurl into a leap, carrying the tom from the boulder down to the damp earth below. He continues onward without pause, and sleek steps push him past strewn-about cats. Should their gazes extend him recognition, Smogmaw has neither care to perceive or return it. Tunnel-visioned concentration trains solely on a particular tom's rear flank—speech emerges only when golden strands become individually distinguishable. "Sunstar, care for a heart-to-heart?"
Before a crowd, a figure of authority must posture and raise their voice with unresolved grandiose. Such pretences have no foundation when the audience dissipates. Consequently, his tone quiets, all grandstanding melts away, and as he looks upon the other tom, there is an expression almost... imploring.
// @SUNSTAR