DRIVING WITH ONE EYE CLOSED ⋆⁺₊ ☾ ⁺₊⋆ SHARPSHADOW

[Swansong]

Looking at Sharpshadow now, she cannot find that memory of Smogstar. Her father fit the role of deputy with an easy kind of cunning, a level head and a narrowed gaze. His apprentice seems more fit without it, among the panicked and gnashing ranks of the rabble. And still, there is no peace on that wild-eyed face. She doubts he will ever find it. "Is it a relief...? A burden lifted...?" They ask softly, closing in upon the once-deputy where he sits alone. Their steps are slow, their head bowed. Their face is blank.

Another careful step, and they come a foxlength from his side. Settling slowly, their tail curls to rest upon their paws. They look at her from the corner of their eye, and their tone is level. "I do not... resent you, for calling that retreat... No matter what you may think..." Their anger is not an explosive one, like Ternstar's. He has been punished enough, with cold words spat under cruel moonlight and the stripping of the honor he never seemed to want. They are merciful. They are forgiving. "But... that responsibility is a difficult thing to bear." They know that he was not meant for this role, and with that they can sympathize. Pressure leads to rash decisions - and Sharpshadow, cornered and starving beast that she is, is nothing if not rash. Not all can wear misfortune delicately so carefully as their family has.

"You are fortunate," they whisper. He is not shackled to the beyond. He is alive, he is present. This too they can sympathize. It was that mortal fear which lead him to defy his leader. "...to be spared. Perhaps it is a mercy..." She will not succumb to the curse, as her predecessors have. She is here, alive and present. That is as much as anyone can ask in times like this.

// @SHARPSHADOW

⋆⁺₊ ☾ ⁺₊⋆

SWANSONGㅤ BIOGRAPHY ㅤ/ ㅤTOYHOU.SE
★ demigirl ( she / they ) ㅤ& lesbian, mate to poppyglow (npc'd)
★ㅤ 23 moons old & ages realistically, every 17th of the month
★ㅤ warrior of shadowclan for 11 moons
★ ㅤhalfshade x smogstar ㅤ& littermate to applejaw, ashenfall, garlicheart
★ㅤ ㅤmentored agaterain, swallowflutter & mentored by skunktail, sabletuft
★ㅤ penned by saturnid & ㅤmessage saturnids on discord for plots!

"SPEECH"

 

[SHARPSHADOW]

Swansong is not here to comfort him. Her face is dark in a way that makes it obvious. The softness of their voice is nothing special, offered just for him... it trickles into the ears of all she meets, moth-tones probably made that way so you felt stupid when it annoyed you. How much of an idiot did you look, raising your voice in reply to what's barely a whisper? Bristling across the way from someone so clearly unbothered. Always unbothered. Even fresh from battle, maw glazed with blood. It looked like it was made to coat her pretty teeth— or that's what she'd like her Clanmates to believe, anyways.

...He's making a lot of assumptions, he realizes. Sharpshadow glimpses her, sidelong. He doesn't care to give her a real answer, and really, he's not obligated to. His forced amicability has gotten him nothing, so far. Ternstar spat on him anyways. Swansong believes her, anyways. A burden. She never thought it was a burden.

( Hadn't she, though? To know her own demise was imminent, no doubt once Ternstar was gone. She'd hated knowing that. )

But it was entirely different, this. To say he does not even try. Isn't it insulting? The idea that he would crumble beneath the weight of a rank that doesn't matter; a gap at the base of Great Rock that no doubt, would be filled by another only a moon or so later? He wouldn't kill himself worrying about his nonexistent authority, or the long line of infamous predecessors. He spent his time worrying about real problems, like sickness, like hunger, like... hanging about in a corner of camp, being publicly disgraced.

Oh. A self-fulfilling prophecy is what this is. Had Mapletuft more or less of a spine than she did, to bail beneath the scrutiny?

She can't give Swansong that— the idea that they occupy her brain space. "I don't think about you," she tells her plainly. It isn't really the truth. Nausea roils in his stomach. Not the plague, he hopes. Hasn't she borne plenty of hardship? She saw the yellowcough. She saw the mountains. She say Chilledstar die again and again... He'd wanted to be good at it. but he knows no one will believe him.

"I wasn't spared of anything," she grits her teeth, manages to say something that isn't hateful, garbled nonsense, though it isn't far from it... "The curse— The- the pattern..." she stops herself, fumbles her words— because how mad has she gone, to speak of some curse as if it was provable, common sense... "It isn't just to disappear." It's to be scorned.

But stars, wouldn't that be melodramatic to say? Sharpshadow breathes in. "...Mapletuft got the same thing from being left behind that Mirestar and Smogstar had gotten by disappearing." ...Disappointment. Shame. "I'm just a number at this point."