private don't need anything or anyone ❀༉˖° sootspot

[PEONYBREEZE]

❀༉˖° Peonypaw was tired.

It was odd. This was not the kind of tired that he felt after a long day, and not even the kind he got whenever he stayed up way too late into the night because his thoughts were eating him up. No, this made him feel exhausted from the inside out, like his bones were hardly sticking together and holding him up. He ached all over and he thought the source was his heart, as dumb as it sounded. Hurt and hopeless.

They'd need to tidy up. They'd need to hunt, although the tiny fresh-kill pile was not as alarming with such alarmingly smaller set of Clanmates. They'd need to patrol the territories and watch out for danger, for the other Clans, for badgers and hawks and foxes, for- their own friends, in case they decided to come back with vengeance. Peonypaw let himself get carried away with the long list of to-do's, and busied his paws with getting rid of all the excess fur that came from the fighting. Any of the feathers or otherwise useful materials lining the beds of those who would probably not use them again.

His claws tore into one of the feathers- an accident, but he found he didn't mind. Very little mattered right now in the aftermath of such betrayal.

The low growl rising from the back of his throat was cut short, startled by the approach of Sootspot. Peonypaw stared up at him - crouching meant he was smaller than in reality, and Sootspot always carried himself like he was the tallest one among them - like he would have the answers to all his questions.

He wanted to ask Sootspot why this had to happen, how they could do something like this, how could the deputy do something like this, but instead he just said- "What will happen now?"

It sounded weak, and for once, Peonypaw felt weak too. Embarrassing to want to hold onto someone who had more of a clear mind, but Peonypaw just wanted to hear it from a confident mouth - that WindClan would stay strong even if their enemies consisted of friends and family.

"Do you think Sootstar will go to the Horseplace and see if any of them changed their minds?" Of course she wouldn't. Peonypaw thought she would never wish to see their sorry faces again, with the sole exception of at the end of the tips of her claws.

°
@SOOTSPOT​

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[SOOTSPOT]

He had been a boy when war had first broken out between WindClanners. One day; the imprisonment of a false prophet, the next; the rivers ran red with the blood of friends. Sootspot thought the next war would not hurt, he did not have friends the same way he did in his youth, but seeing in-fighting had brought him back to a time when he was vulnerable. The staccato beating of his heart had scarcely settled since it began and the chimera found himself running on instinct as he surveyed the near-empty camp. Each movement was deliberate, each smile was rehearsed, and each word was spoken with a certainty that made him seem like a StarClan seer, all because the truth was too terrifying to admit - he did not know what came next. Wars could be won or lost based on whoever had seen the most four-leaf clovers and, unlike battles with the other clans, death was the only option at the end of it. He didn't want to die, life had too much to offer, and the afterlife was a vice that would not be granted with his frequent admonishments of those who oversaw it.

He barely recognised Peonypaw as he walked forwards, he was a shadow in his vision, a conglomerate of shapes that made up a cat somewhere in the tom's brain. However, the noise he made was real, guttural and angry even, and it brought Sootspot back to reality as he cocked his head towards the apprentice. What will happen now? Sootspot shuffled his shoulders to straighten them. "They had moons to change their mind." And his family had had moons to remove the poison before it spread its rot to the rest of them. He remembered his warnings to his siblings, how they had been laughed off or dismissed as paranoia, they only had themselves to blame for not listening to him - they only had themselves to blame for what was to come now that they had given Deputyship to a social climber just like Sunstride had been. Envy made him bristle more than the rebels did, but it was a quiet thing, unspoken from the very first day his siblings were born.

He loved them, but more and more he hated them, he'd always expected Sunstride to turn tail, he had never expected his own family to betray him - but that was exactly what a lack of anything felt like. "Yet... they saw an opportunity for power and they took it, not caring how much they hurt WindClan in the process. For that, there is no mercy but StarClan's." Knowing their ancestors, the traitors would be rewarded for their insolence - it left sickness creeping into his belly and grasping at the inside of his throat like fingers of a branch. 'But what about the other traitors? The ones who have sinned against me?' The list was endless, growing day by day, including names he never thought he would put upon it. 'The crimes against me are worse than the crimes against WindClan'. His assured smile, grim as death itself, suddenly fell into a worried look. "I heard a troubling rumour about our new Deputy, about how he ran away instead of fighting Smokestar at highstones. I admit, I was there and I did not see him once fighting began." He would know, he had a front row seat, a spectator to the very demand he had made of the loyalists. "Someone with cowardice in their hearts can often find forgiveness for misgivings... should he wish to make amends with his friends, well... one might wonder what happens to Sootstar in that scenario."
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