- May 5, 2023
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CW : Heavy themes of self - loathing, vaguely implied/mentioned self - harm, vaguely implied/mentioned suicidal ideation. Nothing is discussed in detail, but this is a oneshot with heavy content and dark themes. Please take care of yourselves!
♥︎
Once, her days had passed each other by as birds on the wing, an indistinguishable flock. There'd been a sameness to each glowing day, marked by the soft bejeweled pink greeting of the dawn—awaken wrapped around her mate, rise with that rosy sun, a day whiled away with patrols and training and spending time with the cats she loved, with her mate, every passing face marked with a mrrow of greeting. Aspects, each a chiming note, that came together to form a pleasant chirping melody, a birdsong that was the same each day, yes, but beautifully so . . . a sweet sound she'd never fully heard until it was gone.
Now, each day is different. Birds are scattered and wings are de - feathered, small bodies plunging Icarian towards a roiling sea; notes are discordant, chords jarring and thread - snapping screeches. Each night she watches the world darken, dreading what the next sunrise will bring, and each dawn she rises feeling like a different cat. She might wake and, helplessly, feel tears spring to her eyes in the silence of the morning, a sob catching in her throat; or with them already drying on her cheeks in the dark of the den, half - remembered dreams sinking into her mind; or with leaden limbs and broken wings, unable to rise; or feeling almost herself, a fake - out, until she wants to break down in tears mid - patrol. Days so bad they choke her, so good they remind her of what had once been, many mindless grey days in between.
Nothing is the same anymore. She isn't even the same anymore and, stars, shouldn't she be glad? When she thinks of the cat she still mourns, gone to grave with her mate, she feels hate like a trapped bird in her belly, like the burn of talons on the back of her neck. She feels hate like she'd never felt, not for Duke's receding back, not for Kyungmin dead with Yukio's blood drying on his muzzle, not for Harrierstripe dripping her mate's life between his teeth. She feels hate for that innocent, naive, stupid cat with red buckled around her throat and a future that couldn't exist glittering in two green eyes.
She should be glad, she should be happy that that cat is five moons mouldering in the earth . . . but whether she's staring down the her of twelve moons ago or the her of today, she can't find anything under her skin but hate like she'd never thought she'd feel. Does it matter who looks back at her from cut - glass pools of rainwater? When it was both of these mirror - images who'd been a bad mother, a dead weight, a useless warrior, a murderer by proxy? Does anything really matter?
Needless to say, it isn't a good day that greets her lone eye today. She wakes feathered with grief, quills digging into her skin, hatred throbbing beneath her scars like a second pulse, a heat burning so viciously it chills, rime that splits her face; unbending ice breaking the fall of a tattered body, today's bird crashing to earth. Hoarfrost around the edges of her vision, tinged red, dangerous and bladed, the color that has defined her life, the color that ended with Harrierstripe's life spilled out of his belly.
Dawn's just begun when she breaks from the silent camp, afraid of what her own paws might do—afraid of laying bared claws on her children, her Clanmates, herself. She's a lone spot of tawny in the dewy world of dawn, white and lilac against verdant green, a withering spot in a lush landscape. Her limbs are chilled with fury, chest spreading cold with hatred, breath comng short—when she dares a weary sage glance over her shoulder, she's shocked not to find frost eating up her pawsteps, a blackened lifeless trail. Shocked that she hasn't destroyed this path like she's destroyed everything else, like she's destroyed her mate, her children, her life.
" Stars, " she rasps when she reaches the scrubby trees near the unclaimed border, the place that has so often damned her. Wet - eyed and furious, her instinct can't seem to decide whether to crumple in tears and render her trek void or not, so she makes the decision for it. Blinking salt from her eyes, she slams angry claws into a wastrel trunk, feeling pain reverbate up corded foreleg and shoot fresh hurt through her sore shoulders. Not enough. It's not enough to shatter the burning ice tangling around her white - dipped forepaws, spreading outwards from the split in her face.
Slam. Slam. Slam. Slam.
" Damn it— " she bites out, the little scrawny tree shuddering under the rhythmic slams of her unsheathed claws against it, uninhibited by the pain climbing her forelegs. Tears seep from the corners of her eyes, unbidden and unwanted, just another sign of the weakness she'd sworn to hold at bay the night she'd named her children. Just another sign of how she hadn't been able to—how she'd held off dog and eagle, rogue and murderer, but she can't fight her own weakness. She chokes on them, repeating, " Stars— "
" What's wrong with me? " Slam, and she crumples, barely sitting and one tenuous snap from falling into a heap at the base of the tree. She turns a pleading eye towards the last of the stars burning up in the sun's light, clinging to glittering life at the edges of the horizon, towards the dawn - streaked place where she knows a golden one goes to rest. Ice chokes her chest, clogs her throat, frosts her long - torn wings; cold and careless and stinging, everything warm golden light had never claimed to be. Her voice is raw with pleading, with strangling hoarfrost, and she begs the sky, " Why won't you just take me? Why make me go on? "
She folds then, collapses in on herself, burying her face in her paws, hating herself for wanting it.
Today isn't a good day.
