no angst FLOWER FIELDS ♡ INCIDENT

[DAWNGLARE]

The object of his desires; just there. Not so far.

He cannot recall entirely. Not completely, but he knows that he wants it. Buds dancing at the edge of the river. The relinquishing of the cold has coaxed out those bright sun blooms. The leaves present around it resemble something he could not quite place. The gears are half-turned, his mind is half-fogged; but creeping along the outskirts of the river, he sees, and he wants.

The river itself, is frosted over. A substance turned suddenly thick. Experimental, he sets a paw upon it. The chill pricks suddenly; harsh reminder that leaf-bare was not in fact over, even if the war has begun to wade away. If he strains, there's a splinter. If he listens, there's a creek. But– fine enough to walk on, he assumes, he supposes. And if it weren't, would he simply abandon this possibility? Would he simply gaze longingly at that wretched things, give eyes to a parasite that did not deserve him? Hardly. Certainly not.

So he picks away across the eyes. The cracking is barely there, when he's waning in on something else. The grass on the other side of the river is spongey. Gross, to put it less aptly. His face scrunches with the press of mud between his toes. But his prize is here, waiting for him. He stares for a moment. Honey disposition, wasn't it? Good for coughs, wasn't it? "Do you have a name?" He asks it. Strangely, he cared more for the name of this plant than the names of most others. The reply, he can hardly understand. Riverspeak. Something or other.

Dawnglare cocks a brow. "Yes, well..." Bored gaze, his eyes trail to the wetlands, blue as the water itself. "Our neighbors are certainly lucky to have you..." A lie. Or perhaps it was true for some other reason entirely. Come with me, is left unspoken. And, sundrops like these were easy to coax. Not so stubborn as the low-hanging vines that crept through the forest. No resistance, he knows. Well, he plucks it without issue.

The earth groans with another presence– nearby patrol. He would not offer much of a greeting. Acknowledgment, in this gaze maybe. He does not wish to avoid them, per say, but he does not wish to speak much, either. Not in the mood. Spotting Honeybee, he would gesture with his tail. I will be having this.

Though he drifts back from wence he came, he hesitates on his return, for whatever reason. A question forms at his lips. Though– "M–"

Half of his body plunges beneath the ice, and he crashes into the waters with a high-pitched squeal. Grating sound, as his claws incessantly scrape at the ice ahead of him, trying to heave himself upward. It hardly does anything but make him whine louder as the frost scratches its way beneath his claws. The air of apathy is quickly shed, replaced by wide-eyed and frantic panic. He cries and he cries, not for help mind you, but his wails pitch across both sides of the river nontheless.

The water drags; substance of life, he had never realized how dreadful it was. Another parasite. He should have known. Why else would She lock it away as she did each and every year? Why else did they avoid it as they did, only lapping in small, nonlethal doses? So insistent to tug him down. The brunt of his fur is waterlogged. In this moment, his beauty is only a dreadful disadvantage. What is the world coming to? Every curse imaginable is frenzied through his skull. What to forsake, if it had no family, no kin? All there is were the devils that crawled within it, and– suddenly remembering this– he cries harder as mind grants him a terrifying image of some puckering beast coming to swallow his tail and drag the rest of him down along with it.

[ local medicine cat screams bloody murder while kicking around in the river (after taking random flowers without permission) @BEESONG ; not pafp! ]​

 

[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧​

the river territory had a way of letting buck know who had come upon the land. newcomers that the river may not be particularly happy with. usually, buck would let the waters be; let them claim the soul of its chosen and swallow them whole. yet, she is a part of a colony now. and, still, a deputy. the expectations for her are larger than they have ever been.

she halts the patrol, ears swiveling and eyes wide. the familiar sounds of the water's anger. the crying of a victim. wailing and splashing. the water draws out the true self; returns someone into a state of simplicity. to live or die, what to sound like when you truly begin to fear. a flick of her bobbed tail tells her following to trace her steps, following the sound of crying.

the ice had broken, and while it is obvious to the rest of the riverclanners, she knows the secret of contained water is not known to outsiders. the patience is so gentle and thin, one wrong move can send you into the icy depths. perhaps the victim hadn't tested the thickness, or grew too cocky.

a breath leaves the earthen molly, crossing the ice in light steps and listening to each and every word the ice may say to her. where it may not want to be touched, where it's okay to land. she'd like to avoid...dawnglare? she thinks it is. she'd like to avoid his fate. "stop screaming. stop moving." its a harsh command as the deputy looks to find a solid place to sink her teeth into.

its all so familiar. the water, and her teeth. she had saved otter out of the waters, it is nothing new to her. and with quickness, buck aims to sink her teeth, perhaps a bit too harshly, into the medicine cat's scruff. if she lands, she'll begin to pull him from the water. they can interrogate him later, before he drowns.
​

 

[BEESONG]

he frequents the skyclan border more than he'd like to admit. a far too sentimental gaze roaming over the distant pine trees, recalling the time he'd served underneath rain with a fondness he fears borders on disloyalty. he's the medicine cat of riverclan, he shouldn't hold onto his devotion to the pine group. beesong knows this, he pushes those sentiments as deep down as he can to continue with his work, so why do his traitorous paws linger on this side of the border more than anywhere else in riverclan?

they find themselves here again today, walking the path they've become too acquainted with along the riverbank. beesong says that they are searching for herbs and are comfortable enough with that lie.

they don't expect to find dawnglare on their side of the river, coltsfoot gathered at his paws. blue eyes meet aqua, a flick of a dawn-frosted tail tip is given to sunburst petals, and beesong thinks they understand. dawnglare has come across the river for the coltsfoot... it's worrying to think that dawnglare crossed the frozen river, a shivering apparition of cicadastar reflecting behind their skull, recalling frostbitten flesh along the river king's eyelid and lip rotting away. to think of dawnglare in cicadastar's position is more of a concern to the healer than the other stealing coltsfoot. (beesong has enough coltsfoot in stock, anyway, and they don't recall the flowering herb growing in the pine forest. if skyclan needs it, they wouldn't deny dawnglare a couple of stalks.)

he's about to call out to dawnglare as he approaches, a small smile dancing on scarred lips at the chance to talk with dawnglare no matter the worries of hypothermia and frostbite. but the taller pauses on the ice a second too long, and within heartbeats, his hindquarters are submerged in frigid waters as the ice splinters beneath him. the river is trying to swallow another, and beesong should've been shameful at how much louder his heart pounds in his ear to think of dawnglare succumbing to its depths than it did when cicadastar had. (dawnglare only has one life, and that's why fear grips him harder than last time, he tells himself. he is loyal to riverclan.)

beesong lurches forward. "shit!" buckgait reaches him before they can, coming from another direction at the head of a patrol. a fortunate turn of events... beesong doesn't know if they would be able to drag the larger tom out by themself. they come to buckgait's side, attempting to help her pull dawnglare out.​

 

[hyacinthbreath]

"Oh look, a drowning duck." Hyacinthbreath huffs softly as she rushes over, the call from Buckgait having caught her attention from not too far away. If she wasn't with Lightningstone, she was following around Buckgait herself to really delve into how things worked here. She glances down then, waiting for a moment where she might need to help them. However, she kept her eyes moreso on the bundle of .. something he holds.

"Seems a bit redundant to drown yourself.. isn't it?" She mutters, glancing away from the SkyClan medicine cat.​

❝ there are wounds inside me, gaping holes of disconnect.
can you drown inside your own body? can you suffocate within this mind? ❞

 

[DAWNGLARE]

Right when his life is flashing past his eyes– And oh, it does, as ever impossible as that may seem. He is forever blessed, forever cherished, he knows that She would never allow the thread of his life to be cut. Not here, not now, not ever, oh, especially, by the likes of this. But he is frantic. The tug of the sea against his fur makes his spine crawl, crawl, crawl. He could rip his own eyeballs out, rip his own flesh into shreds, shed skin for the bottom-feeders to feast on while he prevailed, alive

In his horror, he can only assume the mew from above is that of an angel, unpleasant as it was. Half-heartedly, he obeys. Quiet as a mouse, they say. He's able to hush into a warbling mew of distress. Still as a corpse, they say. He's able to tone down his thrashing, but it does not so completely abate. The part of him that had slowly been slipping into the river's depths is growing thinner, now. Two pairs of teeth aid in his narrow escape. Eventually... eventually... Oh, the lamb is saved.

He's shivering, shuddering; so formerly willowy– downy to the touch, he was reduced to a waterlogged mess. Mother's tears drip from the tips of his ears. Freezing, they practically threaten to harden into daggers on the spot. (Drowned rat. Overgrown thing). His legs shake with the extent of his cold, and the extent of his shock. Gasping, still, he musses his fur away from his face, blinks the water from his eyes.

It was not an angel.

The face he makes shows that he is completely and purely offended. Horrid, horrific, the air of this woman. Her voice was only grit and her face smattered with the strangest of speckling. Bad air– bad air about her–

What stops him from something immediately and instantaneously brash if Honeybee beside her, puny as Dawnglare remembers. Every heavy breath reveals the form of his body. Up-and-down, in-and-out; heavy heaving, he twitches. Honeybee's appearance goads him into closing his jaw, at least. Shock and appall mellows into a gaze of stilted suspicion, though, for him, it was still wide eyes and a ticking jaw. "H-h-h-h-hhnnn," The cold of Her core consumes him. He doesn't even know what he wishes to say. But the chittering of teeth turns his mew into something strange.

The plant-prey in his jaws is now held in a death-grip, though, all but one seems to have been lost and drowned in the process. One single prize, one single dowry, Dawnglare looks upon it as if all of the gods' mistakes gathered within this single plant. That same gaze fixes itself upon another wretch of theirs. The tom is chittering. "U-uunn..." His lips are wet and dry. Twitch of the eye, his tail lies depressed upon the ground, sodden. "U-unre-rem-markable yourself. I sh– I–" He does not quite know where to look. His gaze never lingers long. Frantic blue mimics the very depths he'd slipped into. "H-hmmm.. I–I'll kill you..."

He belatedly comes to the conclusion that Honeybee should be greeted themself. He steadies himself just long enough to mutter a rough "Hello," Staring, still.

Without speaking further, he would turn on his paws to return home, only to look despairingly at the water again, with the realization that this river of bile so blocked his path. He stares, and he is silent.​