private GOD HAS PLANS FOR THE BLUEGILLS TOO ☆ LICHENSTAR

[CICADAFLIGHT]

Dog's - blood splatters his face, a crowning starburst outwards from his re - split lower jaw, marking the source . . . the place where fangs had met stinking flesh and found a yielding home. He hadn't the time to fully cleanse himself of the remnants of his battle, one living in that hellish limbo between victory and defeat. Victory, where his claws had found sweet purchase, where the discordant chords of his blood had unified in that rare song, purging him of the itch of sin, of the thrumming living cicada - song woven into his veins. Defeat, where Lichenstar had lain bleeding and gutted on the blood - splattered earth, where the dog's teeth had rent her underbelly and the Twoleg's malice had shredded her foreleg.

It's an angel's balancing act, and he is no angel; the world comes to collapse in the face of the grey area, and he finds himself drifting towards familiar places . . . towards the willow den. It smells no longer of breaking storms and distant horizons marred by black clouds, of salt - drenched smoke and heat - warped air; now the air is perfumed with the barest remnants of berries crushed under little paws, and with a scent half - familiar, one he's quick to identify as Lichenstar. So she is in here.

" May I enter? " he calls, and upon the affirmative, makes quick and regretful work of scrubbing most of the blood from his face, though persistent traces of it cling to his expanding porcelain mask. How long has that been there, anyways . . . ? is a question he's fast to deem irrelevant with a slight guilty twinge, as though caught creeping over the border to meet a lover. Even if the den had once housed his father, a formidable phantom himself, he has to duck a little to wedge himself inside, muscled back pressed to the wall so not as to intrude on the healing she - cat's personal space. Technically, he should be in the medicine den; the wounds on his forelegs still burn, and Moonbeam had commanded he stay inside, and yet . . .

. . . he felt drawn here. A siren's song, maybe, but he knows it's not comfort or love he seeks; both long lost to the gorge and to a makeshift grave in the marshes of ShadowClan. He doesn't quite know what he wants, but with the dog's blood still splattering his legs and lingering on his face where he'd not been thorough enough, he has a feverish idea. His words give no indication of these shadowy introspections, simple questions delivered in a gravelly tone, " How are you feeling? Have you been informed of what happened after you . . . ? "

OOC : @lichenstar !!

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[lichenstar]

✦˚.✦˚✦˚✦˚ ✧ ˚✦˚✦˚✦.˚✦

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY ✧

• Roseate skin thrums with the pulsing of hallowed blood, tender flesh stitched by seraphic touch and a spider's delicate weave. Earthy poultice feels cool against burning gouges, winced against with ivory teeth grit tightly. Celestial paws had worked to fix it but it was not a boundless ocean and in between heavy breaths Lichenstar realizes just what torture her predecessors had endured...
  
  What had pushed Cicadastar to rabid fear, to lunge at love-dyed-enemy with terror-spittle and pain-blind eyes. Why Smokestar seemed so unbothered to have had it ended all so quickly... he did not suffer nine agonizing ends, even if it meant trail-heading a path to StarClan alone. Had he been alone...? Who had walked beside him?
  
  Who would walk beside her?
  
  A phantom presses against the willow's roots, casting a dark, jagged shadow across eyes squeezed shut tight. Panic jumps through her bones, seizing her muscles to sit abruptly as an echo begs permission- the smell of salt and ichor still clings to him as he brushes past the fluttering leaves, maw streaked sanguine where a nervous tongue swipes around his blood-drenched lips.
  
  His question tumbles from his lips almost feverishly and yet timid all the same, unwilling to admit what had happened- her throat burns as a crackling voice finishes for him, "Died?"
  
  Bitterness wells in her mouth like chewed dandelion leaves... not because he asked but because it had happened at all. Not even half a season... already a life wasted, left in tatters like the ragged edges of new, pinkish scars.
  
  Exhaling with a chest tight with anxious frustration, the lynx point struggles to settle her sparking nerves, to ignore the hum of dulled pain. "No...." Pale eyes flick up towards Cicadaflight, struck by how much he looks like his fathers as he looms above her, gangly and hound-like in his sharp, jutting features. "What else... happened...? You're hurt..."
  
  
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[CICADAFLIGHT]

It feels wrong, addressing stars - hallowed Lichenstar with the filth of the dog's blood still besmirching his jaw. As though each word that falls unbidden from a split lip might be poisoned by the clinging remnants of the very cat before him's murderer. The invisible touch of the heavy paws upon his sides lingers in unseen bruises and unfelt pains, and he feels the shadow of the mutt looming over them both, the lingering stardust that clings to her fur sharing the den's spare space with slavering breaths. Velveteen ears, white - freckled, swivel and twitch to flick the scarlet - misted thoughts away like flies circling a body newly dead, though he can't seem to wholly dispel the notion.

" Ye—es, " he manages awkwardly, cringing at the brief lull between syllables artificially broken up. Died. The word should be soft as river - worn stone on his tongue, worn smooth and velvet by familiarity, soft enough to nestle in. Conversely, it feels sharp - edged and bladed, as though it might bring his own blood on his tongue to mingle with that of the mutt; twin scarlets, indistinguishable in their mixture. Familiarity has not beaten down the edges of death, a close touch but a painful one . . . cold and hard and well - honed stars - forged blade that it is, he feels sickened in his own warm and blood - flushed living.

Her tightly exhaled reply drags him back to the world of the newly living, two - toned eyes stuttering towards the freshly resurrected lynx point, pausing for just a moment . . . a rare breath of rest for his eyes in the silence, the kind of deep - piercing stare he rarely permits himself. Slit pupils are the barest slices of black amidst copper - beaten amber and beryl ice, boring into Lichenstar's own well - matched crystalline, as though searching her for some indefinable change . . . for a trace of whatever had seized his father in the final moments he'd never seen, the burden of leadership that had ensnared Smokestar with the same ease that the Twoleg wire had seized Lichenstar's paw.

" Nothing serious, " he finally mews, a harried effort to dispel undeserved concern, and the moment blessedly breaks. The burden of leadership is one felt secondpaw and twice over, and he couldn't say he desires the phantom sensation once more. The task, the request, is one he's quick to seize on with grasping claws bared, a hard - lined job that centers his mind and clears the decay - inducing fogs that trap him each day . . . a hereditary disease perhaps. " Moonbeam said my stay ought to be no more than a week— "

" —but I don't think that's what you wanted to hear about, " he rasps, news of his own well - being cleaved off like a phantom limb. Lichenstar has far greater issues to concern herself with than his health, star - blessed as she is, and that's not the news she asked for, he reminds himself. As much as his physical likeness might resemble his father, he lacks both Cicadastar's verbosity and his ease of speech, and his makeshift report is delivered in brief and halting syllables, slightly delayed as he tries to sift through the fog of a familiar blood - haze.

" The rest of the patrol ran and got Moonbeam and the reinforcements. Cricketchirp and I held the dog off until it fled, " he recounts, delivering each statement with the same matter - of - factness; he regards his own actions as neither heroic nor commendable, and his tone makes that evident in its snap - quickness. He might be worthy of praise if Lichenstar still held a ninth star pressed to their brow, but she does not, and so his slowness of motion is, in fact, just short of condemnable. He nearly wishes it had been him broken open between the hound's jaws, a consideration made not in self - loathing but in practicality . . . some might say Lichenstar had more lives to lose, but each of them is likely more important than that of a footsoldier ten times over. " Sandpelt made sure it was gone, over the unclaimed border, I believe. "

" The rest of the patrol is physically unharmed, including Shellpaw and Pebblepaw, " he concludes the actual report with a breath of obvious relief that his little cousins had escaped harm. Physically, that is . . . He falls into a conflicted silence for a smattering of both their hard - won breaths. Far be it from him to grant parenting advice, especially to one chosen to lead not only her family but their Clan as a whole . . . and it's increasingly clear he's no natural paw for such things. And yet . . . He remembers pulling Shellpaw's face to his chest to hide rebirth from rheumy eyes, but still . . . he also recalls how she'd sobbed into his wounds as she clung to his leg. " I say physically, because, if you'll pardon me . . . "

" . . . I would . . . suggest . . . you speak to Pebblepaw and Shellpaw. Console them, I suppose? " He ducks his head under a clear blue stare, feeling regret begin to roil in the pit of his belly, wishing he could hook the words on his fangs and tow them back in. " Nevermind. Ignore me. " Scarcely is he this verbose, but the aftershocks of the day and the memory of a tearful Shellpaw have loosened his tongue, though his words remain clipped and spare as a cat's ribs in leaf - bare. He offers a watery opinion like penance, " Foxtail took good initiative. I can see why you appointed him to your council. "

OOC : —

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[lichenstar]

✦˚.✦˚✦˚✦˚ ✧ ˚✦˚✦˚✦.˚✦

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY ✧

• The needle-sharp grip of death was not a stranger to either of them... But it persisted to sting where its claws dug under the skin and pulled insistently. How many little nicks and bruises could the soul endure before it was beyond repairing? There were things to lessen the burden in the form of new, fond memories, in the strength of friendships- sometimes if you were lucky it could mean love too, beyond just that of family ties (another, equally fickle thing). A tiny, scraggly looking thing had once sat at the riverside croaking of nightmares... of a heavy weight upon his back, in a face that didn't seem like it was his own. She'd wondered how long it'd take her own kits to find their dreams troubled...
  
  Cicadaflight, for all his rigidity, speaks in tones as fine as sand... sprinkling his answers carefully, but easily. Though he's matted with the sticky, red stains of combat, he's largely in good health and Lichenstar takes relief in that. She wouldn't have to visit Smokestar with a quivering lip and wails of apology- another child to be lost for her negligence. "Good," she breathes in a sigh of comfort, "We'll need you..." If not only because he is dutiful but because he is competent... unwaveringly loyal. She could trust that sending him on patrols wouldn't result in unnecessary losses. But he's not so keen to focus on himself and insists that it wasn't her greatest want to hear of his well being.
  
  It's... not entirely true.... Even though she wouldn't dare to argue it. The mottled tom's health is of great personal concern though it's one held tightly to her chest in silence. His report continues on with the sharpness of a soldier informing its commanding officer of the state of affairs in a war. The casualties (which remain limited to herself), the wounded (a small few) and the successes (that bloodthirsty mutt chased from their borders). It's a bluntness to be appreciated for its conciseness. "I'm glad to he-"
  
  He ventures further still... that physical harm is not good enough and persists even more to suggest that her eldest are in dire need of her comforts, that she should seek them out and offer it. The lynx point is stunned, to say the least, to see an emotionality from a boy that had only ever been sharp-tooted and grimacing. When had he started taking notes on the feelings of others? And when had he become so brave as to stand as their protector? She stares, eyes round with surprise and mouth slightly agape in surprise, watching as he doubles back to wave away his suggestion and turn his sights towards Foxtail's capabilities-
  
  "Don't do that..." Ears fold back, disgruntled by the confidence that so quickly became cowardice- she'd agree it is a bit of an overstep, to nag at her on how best to parent when he himself has no experience to recount but...
  
  "You're right." She hadn't really had a proper moment to do so yet... but it had been a more than public display how she'd responded to Hazecloud's disappearance, how her seizing heart had yanked away from her wailing children, uncertain how to navigate their tears when she'd felt so hollowed by loss and responsibility. She was a selfish mother... despite her best efforts... she was still selfish. "Your honesty... is appreciated..."
  
  "However... I don't think... there's much I can... say to calm them..." It'd be a lie to tell them it was alright, that things were going to be okay. It was an inevitability that she'd die several more times in their lives... each likely just as excruciating. It was difficult to come to terms with as the victim of said repeated circumstance, to know the path ahead was coated in her own blood yet un-spilled. "I don't get... to choose."
  
  It's an uncomfortable thing to be confronted with... especially when its rubbed backwards up her spine by one of her youngers. She'd have to find some humility, not just for her own sake but to ensure she didn't drive him away too. He had so little left, it was only fair he clung to what blood he had remaining with possessive claws dug into them to keep them close and protected. It wasn't too unlike Lichenstar... sitting in that field, clinging onto Hazecloud after returning from the Journey when she'd been so so certain she'd died.
  
  "Foxtail is... a good warrior," she agrees, flicking her tail lightly. In her opinion, he had a lot in common with Ferngill... and that made both of them a unique perspective to a council of more... rigid... personalities. There were many young warriors with promise, that might join them once they had a little more experience under their pelts.
• about
  
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