pafp GLORIOUS ROME | graveyard

[SOOTSPOT]

The shadow on his back was a burden that needed to be carried by the tom with an insistence that he could not leave the camp alone. Though his journey did not take him far, deliberately slow paw steps dragged it out, a deliberate powerplay against one who could not be so monstrous as to deny someone their chance to mourn. Drawing ever closer and closer, Sootspot was acutely aware of the taste of flower stems within his mouth, the earthy texture of misplaced soil combined with a smell that did not seem as fresh as it could've been had they went to the graveyard some moons earlier.

There was an empty feeling to the disturbed plain as he entered, as if the souls of all those buried had not just ascended to StarClan but disappeared entirely. Hollow was how he would describe the place, a forlorn feeling that he may never see those he'd lost again, that if they'd truly loved him (or their souls had truly existed to begin with), they would not allow something as petty as the ancestors to stop them from talking to him. On a patch where he knew no one was buried, the Queen reclined upon his haunches, a singular eye falling upon Scorchstorm. "Do you hope your mother will get a grave?" He smiled sourly. "I wonder if I would get tempted to dig up my sister's bones if I knew where she was, to make sure was truly dead. But they say it is a cursed thing to disturb one's eternal rest."

He looked away from the Lead Warrior before he got an answer - truthfully, he didn't know if he cared about the philosophical question he'd posed or if he just wanted her to think about her mother dying. They said that pain shared was pain halved, but with few willing to take that burden for the bitter tom, he had few issues picking at random who to place it upon. Regardless, there was a melancholy to him, a lack of poison or bite and the slither of a chance it could be a sincere question. Before where he would place a dead littermate, the one who had died too early to become a failure, he did not have the heart to scheme.

The flowers slipped from his maw, carried by the wind a mere tail-length before scattering to the soil. Sootspot let them stay there. "It should have been someone else..." he murmured his prayer to Shrikethorn, head bowed low.

@SCORCHSTORM


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[SCORCHSTORM]

He smiles like curdled milk. Scorchstorm's eyes narrow instinctively as Sootspot poses his question, as her heart falls into its quarte guard position. The perfume of flowers and rot do not make it easier to weather the queen's shrapnel-like grief. Does she hope her mother will get a grave? Of course — Scorchstreak will get a grave — but to answer the question feels like a misstep in itself. The lead warrior's ears twitch as she considers him, eyes burning, mouth a stoic line.

In the end, she falls for the feint. "She will have one when the time comes," Scorchstorm answers, "and I will make sure of it." No ifs, no maybes. The mirrored daughter will outlive her mother, and her mother will get a true and proper grave — right next to Rattleheart and the plot they have marked for Bluepool. But Sootspot had not only spoken about graves. He describes Shrikethorn's bones as if they were still alive, vibrating somewhere with hatred, held together by a thin sinew of promises not kept.

When Rumblerain dies, will they be buried on WindClan soil? It isn't likely. They might not even want it. But Scorchstorm thinks of them in the ground, shaking hatefully, eyes lit with a force she could never hope to name. If she buried them here, would their body crawl away from its grave? If she didn't, would their corpse find her anyway? It is this comparison that haunts her; it is this projection that frightens her. The projection of her own face over hateful eyes, an oath in her muscles, bloodthirsty. One day she herself would die — and her justice seeking might animate her after the fact.

She is grateful to break his gaze. When Sootspot regards the dirt, some plots fresher than others, Scorchstorm allows him the peace of grieving (and only partially because she is too shaken to do much else). His whisper to the dirt chills her spine. Grief has become so familiar a thing, it is hard to imagine Sootspot — caustic, prideful, sneaking Sootspot — and herself could bear any resemblance. But she has said the same to Rattleheart. Has promised in his name that Beefang and Roepaw will suffer for her own loss. Has bid the same to StarClan for them to weave fate as they see fit: It should have been someone else.

When the moment has passed, Scorchstorm turns her attention back to the queen she accompanies, a harrowed gleam in her eye. "I am sorry," she murmurs. "About your sister."

She remembers Shrikethorn in fleeting glimpses, from the hurricane of time between the journey's end and WindClan's baptism by fire. She had attacked them in Horseplace, and when they had returned, she was not there, and she was not a DuskClanner, either. She was a wisp of smoke curling into the gray sky, and that was the last Scorchstorm had heard until now. She would not reanimate, no matter where her bones were buried, no matter what grudges she once held — but if they cannot have that miracle, then perhaps this one will do: empathy for Sootspot. Scorchstorm knows the pain of losing a sibling. She had simply not imagined Sootspot capable of such pain until now.

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• ooc.
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— lead warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 18 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

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