- May 14, 2023
- 201
- 33
- 28
⋆⁺₊ ☾ ⁺₊⋆ She is in a field of flowers.
Periwinkle and pink, far as the eye can see. Pastel shades spilling over hillsides. It looks... like how she might have imagined WindClan as a kit, before she could peer across to wheatgrass fields. Fantastic, beautiful, colors like she could never imagine. It looks nothing like home.
It feels like home.
The flowers are soft, climbing slowly up her legs. She is swimming in them. Periwinkle and pink, lavender and white. Blue like her eyes. Tiny blooms growing, higher, higher. Endless flowers. They'll cover her face soon.
She cannot move her body. There is no ground beneath her feet, but she is not afraid. The flowers would look lovely in her fur, she thinks absently. They would bring out her eyes. It is too bad she cannot grasp them, but - ah, here they crawl, closer and closer to her nose. How kind. There are so many of them, all blue as the sky. In fact, she cannot quite tell where they end, and the horizon begins. Were there not more colors, a moment ago? Should there not be green for their stems?
...Are the flowers growing or is she sinking? She cannot tell. It's all eaten away by fields of soft blue, like lovers' eyes and forget-me-nots.
She is buried by them, the flowers. Absently, a thought comes: lavender is used to hide the smell of corpses. Dressing them up for their goodbyes. It's a nice ritual.
Blue bleeds to lavender, and lavender bleeds to black. Hues change like a sunset, like a bruise. She hardly exists in those bleeding-color moments, if time even passes at all. Her body still does not move, and she begins to wonder if she ever had one. She finds that she does not particularly care; there is peace in the stillness of nothing. She does not breathe, and she does not hurt. Everything is quiet, and time slips away.
She blinks.
She is standing in a field again.
She had walked here, from somewhere. Swansong cannot quite remember, but that's not unusual. Ther paws take them where they need to be, and they do not think on it too much. They take tally: they are outside of camp, and it is dusk. They do not know where they are. There is marsh beneath their paws, which they note that they do have. The soil has been disturbed by some digging, but not recently. Flowers now bloom where earth once was disturbed, periwinkle and pink. Am old gravesite. They turn their eyes from the soft earth. The sun is nowhere in sight, and the trees are lined with birds.
"Oh," she murmurs. Every single branch is lined with them, pitch feathers and peering blue eyes. Crowding, cawing, cacophanous. The sound does not bother her. She knew they would be here.
"Have you come to take me?" she asks politely. It feels like the right thing to say. The corvids only scream at her, their words indecipherable. She waits, patiently, but she knows not for how long - and eventually they quiet. Millions of crows, magpies, ravens. Millions of eyes upon them. "Thank you," they say simply, and offer the legions a nod.
When they turn away to leave, there is someone waiting. Pitch and feathers, eyes of flowers. It is shaped like a cat, yet the downy fluff where its fur should be shifts like water.
Oh, right, they remember now. That is who they were looking for, wasn't it?
They open their mouth for a greeting, and all that comes out is a twisted caw-cawing sound.
They blink.
They are in camp, and the feather-cat peers at her with twirling periwinkle blossoms. She smiles, because it feels like the right thing to do. She supposes she must have followed it here.
She glances back. It trails feathers, and she trails flowers. Periwinkle and pink. Petals leading the way back to whatever corvid's court she came from, just like when she had died. Nearly died. She gets them confused, quite often. She tastes the memory of honey on her tongue, watches the petals scatter away upon the wind.
She blinks.
She is in front of the medicine den. It is dark, and her memory is spooling away. She had followed someone here, she thinks.
It doesn't really matter. Her paws take her where she needs to be, and they have lead her here.
Here, where the medicine cat sleeps, alone. There are no patients to treat, and no one to help her treat them. They remember - feathers and blue flowers. An offering to Starlingheart, a lone token upon the monster's path with petals of soft periwinkle. An offering to the birds, the starlings and magpies. Soft downy feathers, drifted down from the stretch of blue sky.
Her paws have brought her here, to this place she knows so well. Sweet honey and bitter herbs.
Was she not here just a moment ago? With her mother, with Poppypaw, with Flintkit and Chervilkit? Was she not here with flower petals lodged in her throat and honey on her tongue? Was she not here bring food and reassurance to the patients? It all blends together in her mind. She is here now, and she does not know why. Something about feathers or flowers, she cannot remember which.
It's funny, almost. Sometimes it feels like she never left this den.
She laughs.
She laughs until she cannot laugh anymore - if the action could even be called such a thing in the first place. It is shaky, wheezing, a terrible choking for air. She laughs like she has never laughed before, and it is ugly and it is freeing. Quiet, gasping, mirthful and strangled. Gulping air like it is her last, crooked smile tilting her maw in all the wrong ways. Her chest feels tight. She nearly doubles over from the force of it.
And then she is quiet.
The night is still.
Swansong has been learning how to want, lately. They have never been very good at acknowledging it, that ache in their chest. They think back to the sight of little Marblekit rolling herbs with clumsy paws, and they know now the name of the feeling. Further, to hazy dreams of starry pelts and a feeling like they could sleep forever. Further still, to a kithood spent hiding, to claws far too gentle to tear.
She wants, and she is sick with it. She had felt the wanting just before the car came, trailing along behind Magpiepaw as he snapped venom-dipped words at her.
Everything happens for a reason. That is the comfort they have found, in knowing that all who died did so that others may live. Knowing that her life was spared for a greater purpose; the stars keep a keen eye on her, whispering sweet nothings in her dreams.
It's all so simple, isn't it? Hasn't she been so blind?
Ghostly paws creep closer to the mouth of the medicine den. Here is where the stars' sight is strongest. Here, she can almost feel the whispering voices of the dead who sleep beneath the earth. Here is where dozens of ghosts have breathed their last breath, here is where Swansong should jave breathed hers.
It all comes back to this den. The ache in her chest pulls her closer, and she does not want - she needs.
She blinks - and the image of it does not fade
.
She is awake now, has been for some time - yet her body still feels as though it is floating. She still feels as though she is dreaming.
They still cannot cross the threshold. Not so late, not so unprepared. Starlingheart should know that the stars want her, that she longs for closeness to them. Even through her grief, she must feel the pull too. Surely the dead have already begun their whispering. Swansong lingers, but she does not move. She is learning how to want, but she does not know how to take.
The moon is beginning to set. How long have they been here? How long were they wandering, lost in a dream?
...It doesn't matter. Their heart is strangely light as they pad back to a den that was never truly meant for them.
Periwinkle and pink, far as the eye can see. Pastel shades spilling over hillsides. It looks... like how she might have imagined WindClan as a kit, before she could peer across to wheatgrass fields. Fantastic, beautiful, colors like she could never imagine. It looks nothing like home.
It feels like home.
The flowers are soft, climbing slowly up her legs. She is swimming in them. Periwinkle and pink, lavender and white. Blue like her eyes. Tiny blooms growing, higher, higher. Endless flowers. They'll cover her face soon.
She cannot move her body. There is no ground beneath her feet, but she is not afraid. The flowers would look lovely in her fur, she thinks absently. They would bring out her eyes. It is too bad she cannot grasp them, but - ah, here they crawl, closer and closer to her nose. How kind. There are so many of them, all blue as the sky. In fact, she cannot quite tell where they end, and the horizon begins. Were there not more colors, a moment ago? Should there not be green for their stems?
...Are the flowers growing or is she sinking? She cannot tell. It's all eaten away by fields of soft blue, like lovers' eyes and forget-me-nots.
She is buried by them, the flowers. Absently, a thought comes: lavender is used to hide the smell of corpses. Dressing them up for their goodbyes. It's a nice ritual.
Blue bleeds to lavender, and lavender bleeds to black. Hues change like a sunset, like a bruise. She hardly exists in those bleeding-color moments, if time even passes at all. Her body still does not move, and she begins to wonder if she ever had one. She finds that she does not particularly care; there is peace in the stillness of nothing. She does not breathe, and she does not hurt. Everything is quiet, and time slips away.
She blinks.
She is standing in a field again.
She had walked here, from somewhere. Swansong cannot quite remember, but that's not unusual. Ther paws take them where they need to be, and they do not think on it too much. They take tally: they are outside of camp, and it is dusk. They do not know where they are. There is marsh beneath their paws, which they note that they do have. The soil has been disturbed by some digging, but not recently. Flowers now bloom where earth once was disturbed, periwinkle and pink. Am old gravesite. They turn their eyes from the soft earth. The sun is nowhere in sight, and the trees are lined with birds.
"Oh," she murmurs. Every single branch is lined with them, pitch feathers and peering blue eyes. Crowding, cawing, cacophanous. The sound does not bother her. She knew they would be here.
"Have you come to take me?" she asks politely. It feels like the right thing to say. The corvids only scream at her, their words indecipherable. She waits, patiently, but she knows not for how long - and eventually they quiet. Millions of crows, magpies, ravens. Millions of eyes upon them. "Thank you," they say simply, and offer the legions a nod.
When they turn away to leave, there is someone waiting. Pitch and feathers, eyes of flowers. It is shaped like a cat, yet the downy fluff where its fur should be shifts like water.
Oh, right, they remember now. That is who they were looking for, wasn't it?
They open their mouth for a greeting, and all that comes out is a twisted caw-cawing sound.
They blink.
They are in camp, and the feather-cat peers at her with twirling periwinkle blossoms. She smiles, because it feels like the right thing to do. She supposes she must have followed it here.
She glances back. It trails feathers, and she trails flowers. Periwinkle and pink. Petals leading the way back to whatever corvid's court she came from, just like when she had died. Nearly died. She gets them confused, quite often. She tastes the memory of honey on her tongue, watches the petals scatter away upon the wind.
She blinks.
She is in front of the medicine den. It is dark, and her memory is spooling away. She had followed someone here, she thinks.
It doesn't really matter. Her paws take her where she needs to be, and they have lead her here.
Here, where the medicine cat sleeps, alone. There are no patients to treat, and no one to help her treat them. They remember - feathers and blue flowers. An offering to Starlingheart, a lone token upon the monster's path with petals of soft periwinkle. An offering to the birds, the starlings and magpies. Soft downy feathers, drifted down from the stretch of blue sky.
Her paws have brought her here, to this place she knows so well. Sweet honey and bitter herbs.
Was she not here just a moment ago? With her mother, with Poppypaw, with Flintkit and Chervilkit? Was she not here with flower petals lodged in her throat and honey on her tongue? Was she not here bring food and reassurance to the patients? It all blends together in her mind. She is here now, and she does not know why. Something about feathers or flowers, she cannot remember which.
It's funny, almost. Sometimes it feels like she never left this den.
She laughs.
She laughs until she cannot laugh anymore - if the action could even be called such a thing in the first place. It is shaky, wheezing, a terrible choking for air. She laughs like she has never laughed before, and it is ugly and it is freeing. Quiet, gasping, mirthful and strangled. Gulping air like it is her last, crooked smile tilting her maw in all the wrong ways. Her chest feels tight. She nearly doubles over from the force of it.
And then she is quiet.
The night is still.
Swansong has been learning how to want, lately. They have never been very good at acknowledging it, that ache in their chest. They think back to the sight of little Marblekit rolling herbs with clumsy paws, and they know now the name of the feeling. Further, to hazy dreams of starry pelts and a feeling like they could sleep forever. Further still, to a kithood spent hiding, to claws far too gentle to tear.
She wants, and she is sick with it. She had felt the wanting just before the car came, trailing along behind Magpiepaw as he snapped venom-dipped words at her.
Everything happens for a reason. That is the comfort they have found, in knowing that all who died did so that others may live. Knowing that her life was spared for a greater purpose; the stars keep a keen eye on her, whispering sweet nothings in her dreams.
It's all so simple, isn't it? Hasn't she been so blind?
Ghostly paws creep closer to the mouth of the medicine den. Here is where the stars' sight is strongest. Here, she can almost feel the whispering voices of the dead who sleep beneath the earth. Here is where dozens of ghosts have breathed their last breath, here is where Swansong should jave breathed hers.
It all comes back to this den. The ache in her chest pulls her closer, and she does not want - she needs.
She blinks - and the image of it does not fade
.
She is awake now, has been for some time - yet her body still feels as though it is floating. She still feels as though she is dreaming.
They still cannot cross the threshold. Not so late, not so unprepared. Starlingheart should know that the stars want her, that she longs for closeness to them. Even through her grief, she must feel the pull too. Surely the dead have already begun their whispering. Swansong lingers, but she does not move. She is learning how to want, but she does not know how to take.
The moon is beginning to set. How long have they been here? How long were they wandering, lost in a dream?
...It doesn't matter. Their heart is strangely light as they pad back to a den that was never truly meant for them.
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SWANSONG ⋆⁺₊ ☾ ⁺₊⋆ she / they, warrior of shadowclan, fourteen moons.
➳ a pale, silky-furred cream tabby with tired blue eyes.
➳ dreamy and detached, known for her perpetual sleepiness.
➳halfshadex smogmaw, littermate to applejaw, garlicheart, & ashenfall.
➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.