CRACK THE SKYE ↷ [ scalejaw ]

[smogstar]

Smogmaw's pawsteps never grace the soil above his mate's resting place, nor anywhere in its distant vicinity. He doesn't want to, and he cannot muster the resolve to dare to try regardless.

Mourning is a sensation foreign and unwanted. Having gotten to this point in his placid existence with little to disturb or complicate it, he now stands at an impasse, unable to start unraveling those intertwisted knots of emotion inside his throat and skull. There are no words worthy of expressing such profound loss, and even if he could place them, his capacity to commit to them is nonexistent. It's as though he's caught in an inconsolable stasis. Frozen by grief. Yeah, that's a poetic way to put it, howbeit a little pretentious.

In a paradoxical sense, he has come to embrace her absence as truth, and simultaneously rejects her life having reached its due. Death is one of them inevitabilities which cannot be defied, and it's perhaps the most certain outcome for everyone. Still, he can only interpret Halfshade's passing as inherently unfair. An injustice upon him and their family. He shall never know the warmth of her fur inside the leader's den, nor have her velvet timbre serenade his feats and ambitions. Most regrettably, he'd forgone the final opportunity to bid her farewell. That alone is his greatest remorse, and he'll have to bide the rest of his days repenting it.

Sullen eyes cut through the evening mist. They linger on the nursery den, its bristled shield swaying softly, behind which Birdkit lay nestled alone against some no-name queen, not the mother she deserved, not alongside her siblings. Yellowed teeth grit and grind something fierce at the notion. Through a sigh, the tom coaxes his focus towards Starlingheart's cave, and at once does his resolve wilt further. It'd been in that grotto where she breathed her last, under a healer's tending who'd shunned the chance to save her.

"For fuck's sakes," comes a half-snarl, half-huff. A product of an ire untraceable, yet lone oudening all the same. "Pushin' the brink, Smoky, you are." His former name spills naturally past his lips. Without delay, his paws embark across the sodden earth, camp's exit growing closer. He must excuse himself for a while, slip through the gap in the pines and allow his grievances space to stretch. Doing so in others' view should only serve to depress his image more than he already has.

The grumblings persist as he ventures into the greater swamp. Self-deprecation, misguided anger, expletives not worth recording in written form, rattling through his mind's entirety and cracking through the dam meant to hold them.

Only belatedly does he catch onto his lack of privacy; or, rather, his own breach of another's. Floating amongst the reeds are a brace of amber pools, set against dark, battle-scarred strands. Her identity dawns on him at the first glance, and yet, Smogmaw senses no need to stifle himself in her presence. For she, too, walks with a heart broken, a soul sundered from a mate's love. But also, if her gaze conveys the message he believes it does, she'd just beared witness to his crumbling poise, and there were no take-backsies for that.

"I'unno how to fuckin' do this, Scalejaw," he lets loose through a sniffle. Anger, more so than misery, wraps his features into a tense glower. "Got fed so much horrible news when I came home, and it's only now settin' in." It'd been a trifecta of the worst possible kind. A discernable tremor ebbs at any attempt for composure he'd made. "Didn't even tell her goodbye, you know? How do I even get past that, like-"

He cuts off mid-sentence, and instead resorts to an expression of defeat. It's a grimace of sorts, though no less sincere for the sake of theatrics.

// @scalejaw ​

 

[scalejaw]

—————————————————【 she/her | menacing 】————————————————

【◈】 Perhaps this kind of fate interlinking was irony. Someone up high was sitting back with a fat mouse and laughing at the two of them. Tragically walking similar lines, yet so far in personality and personal experience. Scalejaw had been here for the death of Halfshade- she had been here for the birth of tragic kittens, here when the rogues attacked, here when the kits went missing. And the sour nausea in the back of her throat told her everytime that she was partially at fault for loosing them.

Yet, Scalejaw knew a inkling of what Smogmaw was going through. She knew that he wasn't managing, and she knew that he shouldn't be managing. If he was, Scalejaw knew that meant that... well, it meant he never loved Halfshade, it meant he never loved his own brood. So as twigs snapped and reeds bent at the sight of another's blazed path, her head lifted from where it had been tracking the hidden path of a lizard. Perhaps one of the last few for the season, as the lizards were around for the warm season.

Twin pools of molten gold found the deputy of Shadowclan staring directly at her, and she didn't start in surprise- after all, she had known he was approaching- but rather tilted her head in question. She watched emotion display and play over his features, his eyes, before he even bothered to speak, and she stood up in earnest, slowly growing closer to him as he spoke.

Her expression didn't warm or cool based on what he had spouted. What tantrum he threw in the deep pits of the swamp, what breakdown he was withholding. "Smogmaw." Her voice started, calm and... surprisingly neutral, considering everything she had just witnessed in the passing months. "How do you get past it?" She repeated, almost laughing. Her emotions were scrambled and all over the place- for she wanted two or three things suddenly, inexplicably.

One of them might've been to slap his face roughly, tell him to get it together. Another might've been to laugh and cry and hold him, which was not her and she loathed the thought of doing that with anyone still. And the final? Reason. She picked the last. "You don't. If you get past it, you've become some kind of unexplainable monster." Scalejaw slowly settled down, her tail curling around her paws. Chin lifted and vision piercing, she was the perfect image of put together.

"You do what you can now to fix it going forward. Go to her grave. Say your goodbyes. Spend time with Starlingheart, who'll tell you about her last moments." She grimaced briefly now- Scalejaw had been around for all of it. The death, the vigil. Frostbite receiving the kits. Her ears twitched, as if to shake off the emotion that was bearing down against her soul now. "You let the pain come and go. For if you think you'll have regrets later, then take action now." Her voice was solid, convinced that he should do just that- slowly start to make up the time lost.


"yuh"

[penned by dallas].

​

 

[smogstar]

Bitterness rises in his windpipe, constricting it something fierce. Discomfort, too, swells upon his tongue, sitting at the roof of his mouth, lying against his teeth and gums. The seasoned warrior fixes him with a stare that unveils more than he has already shown, and he stands exposed and defenceless, having peeled back his apathetic shell before her. Yet, the distance in her approach grants him respite from feeling wholly on trial for his emotional dissonance; to bare his innermost in front of someone not dear to him, and to receive sensible advice in return, is a mercy he'd not anticipated.

Smogmaw eases himself to relax, haunches mirroring his inkspill counterpart's and perching upon the winter-nipped grass below. Once his ass sinks in, so too do Scalejaw's words, and there's no room for scepticism amongst them for they're laden with firsthand knowledge. Her 'unexplainable monster' notion nudges him towards uncertainty, however. "There's not a single thing to fix. Nothing," he huffs, sniffling again and keeping his nose in its scrunched position. Little purpose lies in moping around whatever patch of dirt that his mate was rotting under. The dead do not speak, and the dead do not listen. "And there's- just, too much goin' on to try."

A crisp exhale escapes him, punctuating the ruin written within his countenance. As much as his frustration presses the tom to rebel against Scalejaw, to condemn her or perhaps even sprint away, Smogmaw cannot. Both denial and self-preservation have dissuaded him from yielding to grief, yet neither are able to dictate his actions now that it's caught up to him. In all the days he's lived, not ever has he felt this powerless.

He can't get a good read of her internal monologue, either. Neutrality in its rawest form exudes from her expression, no empathy or pity lingering in her golden regard. She stands unswayed by his agitated fit, and even now as the deputy settles opposite to her in shameful acceptance, Scalejaw remains an emotional blank page. Good, honestly. He doesn't need the pity.

"I miss her," Smogmaw begins, muzzle twitching. "And I know I'll never stop. Not to be melodramatic, or nothin'—but I'll be kickin' myself over it for the rest of my days. I've no one to keep my nest warm come sundown, and the days're only gonna get colder. I-"

Eyes screw shut with enough force to produce sparks. His throat clears, but he fails to clear away the neglected emotion swollen within it. Frustration now sweeps across his features, whereupon it sits unabated. "Thanks for lettin' me confide," he coaxes, sounding weary. A cautious glance towards the molly has him adding, "you don't need me here bein' a sook. Sincerest apologies for runnin' up on you."​

 

[scalejaw]

—————————————————【 she/her | menacing 】————————————————

【◈】 Critical eyes watched him grow weary in seconds. His moons were showing, a thought that almost made her scoff as they were still young compared to those who seem to have suffered the worst of time. Glowing orbs watch him sink to his haunches, his shoulders weighed down and visit cast upon hers. A soft huff left her muzzle as he spoke as to nothing to fix.

Her head shook slowly. "There is plenty to fix, and yet, you're blind enough to not see it." She responded gruffly, her tone becoming bored- disinterested in the tom who couldn't take a charge for himself. His self-apathy was suffocating her, her thoughts coolly brushed over. "But you are correct about too much going on." His missing kits were, for one, a rather worrying topic. Hopefully they'd find them soon- and the longer the days stretched on, the more Scalejaw had a gut feeling about who took them.

Or at least, where they might be.

And then the grief came in shaken words from him, so her vision returned to him. Scathing and sharp, eyebrows twitching to furrow gently. She had been where he was once- curled up without a care in the world, for her mate had found the Stars without her. Scalejaw used to be a different she-cat, she used to be... far more relaxed and caring. Her kits were the last few to know that love, for it had all but swept out of the world with her mate's death. And so, his grief? It didn't surprise her- thankfully. Scalejaw didn't like losing the advantage anywhere.

"And see- right there? You miss her. There's something to fix." Scalejaw's words were still incredibly neutral, but the message carried a bite. "Things will change, you know. Her memory is going to fade, and now is the only time to cherish it before it dulls further." Scalejaw's ears twitched. "You'll move past your grief, and if you don't, my respect for you will diminish." Now her words carried a small flame of heat, eyes twitching. She ignored the urge to narrow them. "But that doesn't mean forgetting her, either."

"Don't thank me until you do what I've suggested." Scalejaw responded. "And don't worry about apologizing, either." She pushed to her paws, sensing the conversation was coming to an end unless he was to change it's course.

"yuh"

[penned by dallas].

​