private DEATH ON A PALE HORSE — a silly little dream

[RAVENSONG]

The coughs, grunts, and sighs of the cats huddled in Carrionplace slough away as Ravensong feels the weight of the world give underneath his body. In the haze of his sickness, he welcomes the moments where his sleep is pure and uninterrupted. A fitting and content end, to lie transposed in the crossroads of the universe. He knows peace for a precious few moments and then as soon as he moves (somehow not of his volition, no—! He would never disturb such a peace from his own mind) he finds himself surrounded by tall, concrete nests with sloping roofs and clear sheens of material that looks and feels like ice.

Twolegplace is jumbled in his dreams and although he cannot see it and could not tell you how he knew this, it is an undisputable fact in his dream that he knows it has stretched over all of the Clan's territories, contaminating it like the rogues had. And what a Twolegplace it was! The monsters do not roar, they purr, and they run upside down with their paws in the air. He looks to his left and in one of the gardens, there is a pond and fish the size of full-grown cats swim about in it. They look like normal fish but they have front paws that resemble a rabbit's. Then he looks up and the geometry of the Twoleg nests would seem off to an ordinary cat, but in his mind, it all makes sense.

"I believe I am the only cat left." He muses, remaining rooted to the ground. He cannot move his paws, somehow, even if he wanted too.

"In the entire world."

☾₊ ⊹ темная ночь — dark is the night

•  
• 
  RAVENSONG of RIVERCLAN
  — LH BLACK POLYDACTYL MALE (CARRYING CINNAMON, DILUTE) a tall, slender creature with pitch-black feathery fur, large ears, and a sharply angled skull held up in an aloof manner. smells of dried herb, speaks with a low and rumbly accent and walks with an elegant slinking gait.
  
  — born in twolegplace and orphaned at a young age, he joined riverclan at its inception and began training as a drypaw warrior known for a bitter temperment until beesong made him his medicine cat apprentice. after his mentor's untimely death, he had been named ravensong at the moonstone, young heart revitalized with anger and guilt. he is a somber and thorough medicine cat that guards every word spoken in the confines of his den.
  
  — secretly loves "the stars but not so much what inhabits them"
  — openly suffers from chronic migraines
  — single, but "it's complicated"

​

 

[dovethroat.]

Whether this—the being to be represented—is Dovethroat or not is up for debate. Is it physically, truly Dovethroat? Probably not. That is not the likeliest of truths. Is it a representation, an abstraction? Perhaps. The truth is, it is somewhere in between. Could it be Ravensong seeing Dovethroat, using those StarClan-gifted powers to peer into the minds of others? Could it be the delirious, feverish delusions of a sick man? Maybe the most true answer is that it is both, and yet it is neither.

For all purposes, this should represent Dovethroat as he would be, as he would act. To a comfortable extent, anyway. It could be the case that at the edge cases, he would lash out and seem improper—but who knew? That was all up to chance, all up to whether or not such things came to him. "Him" being this Dovethroat. It is Dovethroat—he is Dovethroat. But is he the Dovethroat, or is he this Dovethroat?

He's never been to twolegplace before, which may complicate the answer to that question. He sees it as if he has. And somehow, he can tell that the nests do not look right. To his mind, he perceives as if he was his normal self.

Which he could be. To this extent, we will never know.

"I d-do not think so," Dovethroat says, oddly mechanically in a way that even he dislikes. "I... I disagree." A blade of grass that is a different shade of green on every side—every? do they have more than two?—brushes over his paws.

[⋆]​

​

 

[RAVENSONG]

"You."

He knows it immediately—the voice, the pausing, the silly, polite manner of speaking—his mind has conjured such a real image of Dovethroat. Rarely does the visage of the fawn tabby grace his dreams. Even when Ravensong is at his sickest, he has always managed to keep Dovethroat out of the most fever-wasted of his dreams. He welcomes an odd dream like this one, after nights of blood on mountains and rivers running yellow with bile.

Ravensong turns his eyes toward him. The ground gives underneath his feet and in a blink, he is somehow closer without having moved a paw at all. A blue-winged butterfly flits between them and lands on the multi-bladed grass at Dovethroat's paws. Ravensong inclines his head down and the butterfly closes and reopens its wings, revealing that it has a double set of wings.

"It seems..." He breathes and suddenly the butterfly has turned yellow. "That we are a double—a pair."

Then the insect is gone and Ravensong stares at Dovethroat. His wonderful mind has constructed his face in such a way that he could hardly ever doubt his memory again. Ravensong remembers the last day he saw him and rejoices at the thought of meeting again. And it feels real.

Suddenly the distance between them has increased and no longer are they face to face. Ravensong kicks his paws into the ground—soft and untrod—and races the distance to close it between them once and for all. He lunges to tackle Dovethroat in an embrace to hold and not let go. He knows it is not real so he welcomes it with open paws anyway.

☾₊ ⊹ темная ночь — dark is the night

•  
• 
  RAVENSONG of RIVERCLAN
  — LH BLACK POLYDACTYL MALE (CARRYING CINNAMON, DILUTE) a tall, slender creature with pitch-black feathery fur, large ears, and a sharply angled skull held up in an aloof manner. smells of dried herb, speaks with a low and rumbly accent and walks with an elegant slinking gait.
  
  — born in twolegplace and orphaned at a young age, he joined riverclan at its inception and began training as a drypaw warrior known for a bitter temperment until beesong made him his medicine cat apprentice. after his mentor's untimely death, he had been named ravensong at the moonstone, young heart revitalized with anger and guilt. he is a somber and thorough medicine cat that guards every word spoken in the confines of his den.
  
  — secretly loves "the stars but not so much what inhabits them"
  — openly suffers from chronic migraines
  — single, but "it's complicated"

​

 

[dovethroat.]

The Dovethroat wonders how he is able to conjure such a real image—his consciousness, existing as it does in this dream, should not be able to know many of these things. And yet it feels like he knows everything: everything he needs to, anyway. "Hello," he blinks oddly, feeling like he has another tongue in his mouth. Then the first one goes and he realizes he only has one, after all. Only one now. And now is what matters above anything else, correct? The old tongue is a thing of the past.

And yet he misses that tongue, wants to drag it back out from nonexistence and worship it like an idol. If he even knew what blasphemy was, he would not be sure if that would fall under such a categorization.

"Maybe. M-Maybe, yes." The butterfly closes its wings again, and when it reopens them for the final time, one wing is blue and the other is yellow. Both of them are left wings.

And then it pops out, and he feels reverent toward it all again. "Like—a—a—w-well, I'm—I don't know what words I'm t-trying to say. They... th-they, ah, they hit my mins... my b—mind? And then they feel like they make no sense." He doesn't move. It doesn't feel like he's getting further away, it looks like Ravensong is shrinking. Like he is becoming even smaller than Dovethroat was when they first met. Ravensong begins to work against it, and it is like he is moving without any change at all. It's not entirely clear if his feet are moving or not.

The instant when Ravensong connects with him and tackles him into the ground with an embrace feels like it takes forever to arrive and then it is over in an instant, stuck in this glued, permanent state from then on. "H—Hello," he says again, his voice warmer as he begins to purr. He presses his nose into Raven's fur.

[⋆]​

​

 

[RAVENSONG]

Dovethroat is always so hesitant in his speech. Ravensong does not fault him now. The words blend like honey in his mind and when he blinks, all he can see in that moment are honey emerald eyes framed by a tawny pelt.

They tumble over and over and over again, over themselves and over the bizarre land Ravensong's mind had conjured up. He is right—they are all alone, and they are a pair. There is nothing to answer to and for a moment, Ravensong, who had married his whole life and being to becoming a medicine cat, suddenly feels the pull of something else entirely. The emotion is powerful and it makes him want to forget every vow he took. A dangerous path, to fall so deeply into an embrace. He hardly can think of anything else.

Then they stop and Ravensong breathes out heavily, feeling winded from their perpetual spinning. Dovethroat speaks again—that silly one-worded greeting that is simply so Dovethroat.

"I know you." Ravensong whispers. Dovethroat's nose feels like fire against his ice skin. "I know you more than anyone else." It is so easy to say this in dreamland. Outside his mind is reality that does not bend to his wishes. It could never come as easily as this in the waking world.

He presses his skull to the underside of Dovethroat's chin. "Are you coming home?" He has been away for too long.

☾₊ ⊹ темная ночь — dark is the night

•  
• 
  RAVENSONG of RIVERCLAN
  — LH BLACK POLYDACTYL MALE (CARRYING CINNAMON, DILUTE) a tall, slender creature with pitch-black feathery fur, large ears, and a sharply angled skull held up in an aloof manner. smells of dried herb, speaks with a low and rumbly accent and walks with an elegant slinking gait.
  
  — born in twolegplace and orphaned at a young age, he joined riverclan at its inception and began training as a drypaw warrior known for a bitter temperment until beesong made him his medicine cat apprentice. after his mentor's untimely death, he had been named ravensong at the moonstone, young heart revitalized with anger and guilt. he is a somber and thorough medicine cat that guards every word spoken in the confines of his den.
  
  — secretly loves "the stars but not so much what inhabits them"
  — openly suffers from chronic migraines
  — single, but "it's complicated"

​