- Oct 22, 2022
- 714
- 261
- 63
[cw; death, cruelty]
Flakes the size of moss balls tumble down from the heavens in ample amounts. The wintry weather remains unchanged since the previous night’s moonhigh, and consequently, a thick, clumpy layer of snow overlays the forest floor. This stuff is harder, firmer to push through than the powder he’d become acquainted with in recent times. There’s not a doubt in his mind that hunting will prove all the more difficult under these conditions; more difficult than it already is in this StarClan-forsaken wasteland, anyhow.
A footpath ploughs through the snow, leading out from camp in the trajectory of Carrionplace. The frosted blanket is chest-high, at least in the outer reaches of ShadowClan’s territory. Tufts on his chest twist up into frozen wads, and a numbness takes hold of his lower facilities as he persists in his trek.
It isn’t until he leaps across the frozen stream that he realises he bleeds.
Rouge stains the white which clings to his front paw. He cranes his head low, raising the arm in question so as to investigate the wound. When he catches a glimpse of the cause, the tom’s brows would knit together. Not from pain, nor out of concern, for he felt neither of those things. The look on his face is one of dumbstruck wonder—a chunk of the twolegs’ barbed wire had become embedded between two digits, jutting out from his fur like a swamp reed, and he wondered how in the hell he hadn’t felt it happen.
Ah, well. It’s not as though he can remove it without further hurting himself. Tearing apart the tissue in his mouth isn’t something he fancies, and he would much rather have just one injured paw over a pair of them. Life’s a bitch sometimes. C’est la vie, or however the expression went.
He sets the paw down back into the snow, wavering for but a brief moment before resuming his passage. Even through the plump flurries can he spot the dump’s chain-link fencing looming over the horizon. If his nose were functional instead of congested, it’s safe to assume Carrionplace’s endearing odour would have saturated his system by now.
Being this close to his objective, turning tail over injuries he cannot feel would only be unethical. Keeping his clan fed is as much his responsibility as it is in his best interest. While Smogmaw is not personally bothered over his clanmates’ individual wellbeing, a little bit of his own security drains away every time one succumbs to their own mortality. For each ShadowClan life lost this season, more power is put in the paws of the other groups. And thus it isn’t by reason of allegiance that he presses onwards, but the interest of his own continued existence. Damn him and everything he stands for if he cannot emerge from Leaf-bare alive and breathing.
Half-submerged in the snow is an opening torn through the bottom of the fencing, which he usually used as an entrance into the twoleg dumping grounds. With the gap partially covered, however, it looked to be an uncomfortably tight fit. There’s no way his ass is getting through there unscratched. And granted that he already cut himself on metal wiring once today, the notion of possibly doing so again does not strike him as appealing.
Then again, what other options does he have? There’s enough barbed wire skewering through his skin already, so scaling the thing is out of the picture. Checking to see if the twolegs’ entrance was left open would unnecessarily take up time and potentially throw him in the way of monsters. It goes without saying that both of his alternatives were futile.
Smogmaw sighs frustratedly, glaring daggers at the mesh barrier. How dare it stand between him and the only spot where prey is guaranteed in this age. Even if rancid, the rats living in Carrionplace carried enough meat on them to keep the weakest cats alive. His eyes, begrudging, drift down towards the hole once again.
His ass did in fact fit, though barely. A good amount of snow that had been fastened to his pelt became brushed off by frayed cables, and the ground - albeit equally as snowy - felt softer once inside. Within moments, he is immersed in the ordinary sights and sounds of the scrapheap.
Being here always gave him a peculiar sense of comfort, perhaps because he can empathise with the waste material strewn about the place. It's discarded when its use runs out, to rot away in a secluded spot so the world can move on without it, forgetting it ever existed.
At least, that’s what he made of the place. It’s impossible to truly understand the twolegs and why they did the things they do.
Thank the stars, it’s much easier to prowl through the snow inside the junkyard than outside. There’s less of it, and the snow which does exist takes minimal effort to push through. It’s less compact, and more disturbed.
Recently disturbed too, by the looks of it. There’s a smattering of different tracks and trails within a fox-length’s radius. The tiny pawprints of mice and rats can be picked out amongst the larger outlines of birds’ feet, but a different set of footmarks sticks out like a sore tail. They were leagues larger than the other ones, and upon closer inspection, Smogmaw sees that they bear a staggering resemblance to a fellow feline’s feet. Distinguishing these paws from his own are elongated heels, along with fingers instead of digits.
Muddy eyes, each depicting a blend of bewilderment and befuddlement, linger on the abnormal trail through narrowed lids. A path through the snow, akin to the one he’d left from camp, accompanies them, yet the span between the ridges looks wider than the one etched in by the tabby’s chest. Never before in his time in the marsh has he espied tracks of this sort—but whatever left them looked to be one-and-a-half times his size, as per rough estimates.
Having become engulfed in his own perplexity, it has completely evaded Smogmaw just how dark the sky’s gotten by this point. His focus is solely affixed to the tracks, exclusively towards the bizarre ones and not those obviously belonging to rodents. It would seem as though his goal has changed, and gratifying his own curiosity is now a higher priority than what he’d initially set out for.
His gaze unmoving, the tom pursues the trail on wary pawsteps. It leads towards the central patch of Carrionplace, weaving in, out, atop and underneath pieces of material in what looked to be a desperate search for shelter. How puzzling that a creature of such bulk so wretchedly sought repose from this weather. How puzzling indeed.
Watching the tracks pass underneath his paws grows to become a hypnotic pattern. In his stupor, all he cares about are these tracks, and following them too. Where they might lead, who can say? But he’ll follow them all day (or night, it’s hard to tell right now), even if it results in him returning to camp empty-pawed.
Smogmaw’s forehead collides with a snowy mound. “Ah, fuck me,” he grumbles through an unpleasant grimace, before shaking his noggin and reopening his eyes.
He is taken aback by the sight before him.
A raccoon. A breathing, in-the-throes-of-death, face-locked-into-its-final-snarl raccoon. The beast is covered by a thin film of snow, hinting towards the fact that she must have been lying like this for quite a bit. Her tail, coiled up unpleasantly, mimics his in terms of colour.
On no prior occasion has he seen a raccoon, let alone be this near to one. He’s shocked, pure and simple, to see such a… well, weird entity in such an immediate proximity. A dangerous one, too. He surmises that she would very well have maimed or murdered him at her healthiest.
Her form slowly rises in falls, in a pattern of revolutions indicative of breathing. But they are shaky breaths, uneven and frail. She will not survive the night.
“Got a lot of fat on you,” he muses, wind whirring loudly overhead. “What’s wrong, then? Not enjoying Leaf-bare, are you?”
A paw stretches outwards to nudge her in the rear. A low hiss rings out from the creature in response, but she cannot muster the strength to look at him, or even so much as move. She remains broken, defeated by the elements, directing her dying gaze into the great beyond.
This situation spontaneously becomes too much for him to handle.
Excitement. Delight. Stimulation. Hunger. Euphoria. All saturate his system simultaneously in an unrestrained upheaval of emotion. A flurry of scenarios shoot through his mind, hypothesising what will occur once he drags this beast’s body back to camp. The expressions plastered across everyone’s ugly mugs are absurd. He is heralded as a hero, a saviour of those who starve - everyone likes him, respects him, values him, loves him. And as everyone he knows prays at his paws in profound reverence, he becomes imbued with indomitable power. He has the capacity to do everything he has ever wanted.
Moons ago, Hemlocksight proclaimed that he will make a discovery of interest, and bring great change to ShadowClan. This is that change. THIS IS THE PROPHECY.
Driven by a doubled heart rate and groundswells of hysteria, Smogmaw spreads his jaws apart and propels his teeth into the side of the raccoon’s neck. She chitters frantically. There’s a morbid satisfaction to be found in her anguish, fulfilling him even further. Her death is now a necessity in the pursuit of his own continued existence. Landing the final blow is so energising, so completing, so climactic.
Unfortunately, her suffering is finite, and she expires shortly thereafter.
He elevates his head from her vitals mere eyeblinks afterwards. Weighted inhales and exhales ventilate him into a calmer frame of mind. Delusions are washed away with familiar sights and sounds, and as he enters a slower cycle of breathing, his heart declines in turn. A final respire concludes the drastic reversal of emotion, and the tabby reaches an almost zen frame of mind.
Oh, the silliness he got up to when there wasn’t anyone around to mould himself for. The lack of expectations, etiquettes, all that bullshit. He loves it. It’s like an extremely gratifying release from the repressive clan lifestyle. The rigid systems and rules that he has to follow, they suck the literal life out of him.
Another sigh parts from his maw, and at last, he returns to a state of normalcy. The livelihood in his features diminishes, as his archetypal dullness takes hold of him once more.
He best be getting back to camp soon.
The warrior lowers his mouth to the Raccoon’s nape and grabs ahold of the skin there. Paws dig into the snowy ground whilst he tugs with all the strength provided by his body. She really does have a lot of fat on her! What a heavy girl, even for a dead one. Dragging her back home will take all night at the shortest.
A minute amount of progress is made by Smogmaw, who has pulled her at least a frog’s-leap away when chittering erupts from nearby. In a moment of sheer terror does he drop the creature, for fear of her returning to the realm of the living and unleashing her revenge. Unsurprisingly, she does not stir.
At this time, almost all of the sunlight has waned away from the atmosphere, and with a cloud cover as thick as Flickerfire’s skull looming overhead, no moonlight seeps through the heavens either. Smogmaw cannot see more than fox-length in front of him. He is terrified by the noise initially, but intrigued thenceforward once he composes himself.
He moseys towards the chittering on wary paws, and through the dark can he spot the reflective retinae of six eyes, huddled together in a stony tunnel. Six eyes, three pairs—there’s three more of the damn things in there! Spine arching upwards in a defensive stance, the silvery fur along it standing rigid, the tom ventures ever nearer with bated breaths. Seeing how they haven’t attacked him yet, there’s a gut feeling that-
These are her children. Her kits. Her pups- whatever the hell baby raccoons are called. Their outlines are far too puny to be anything else.
The tabby creeps closer until he stands in the mouth of the tunnel (which looked like one of the passageways beneath the thunderpath). The little ones remain motionless, gawking up at him through crestfallen eyes.
He wonders what they see in him.
-
“Green house, down by the campsite,” she had told him.
“Thank goodness I’m colourblind,” he would lie in return.
She laughed, but the glint of worry in her eyes was as plain as daylight. “Please, Smokey, please vow to me,” she begged of him. “Promise that you'll visit us.”
He trudges through the snow, retracing his steps through the path he had left earlier on in the day. Spots of crimson litter the ground around the stream near Carrionplace—that damn wire was still caught in his foot, too. With his catch in his maw, he has no choice but to walk at a sluggish pace. Hence, in his boredom, his thoughts wander.
He did not answer her. A lot had come to pass since that night how many moons ago. The Great Battle changed a lot of things. It changed him, too. He didn't expect a kittypet to understand.
The smile evaporated from her pretty face. “Say something,” she pleaded. Her swollen belly appeared to be bursting at the seams. “Please! I need you! Your family needs you!”
This is how he is. Arbitrary. Erratic. The action that will benefit him the most is the action he shall abide by. When one loses their worth to him, he will not hesitate to cast them away. Even if it is his own kin.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “What will happen is your kits will be born, and your masters will take them away from you after a moon or two.” His demeanour darkened significantly since he'd last spoke.
A hollow sob nearly escaped from her throat, but she managed to remain composed. “So, that's it?” she asked. Never could one muster a look more caustic than the one she gave him on that day. “This was your goal the whole time, then. Ruin me, run off into the woods to live out your little fantasies, and pretend that nothing happened.”
His manner of treating people is similar to how twolegs treat their waste; discarding them when their use ran out, to rot away in a secluded spot so the world can move on without them, forgetting they ever existed.
He typically refrains from addressing his clanmates in this way. To act towards people he lives with so callously would only be detrimental to himself, after all. Only time will tell if this remains, though. If he is given a chance to sacrifice one of his peers in his own pursuit of power, StarClan knows it's a chance that he will take.
“You're mistaken. I'm not the one with fantasies here.”
-
He returns to camp by the time the next morning comes.
His gait is haughty, and his steps are eager.
The tabby heads straight towards the fresh-kill pile, depositing the three young raccoon kits he'd caught last night.
Flakes the size of moss balls tumble down from the heavens in ample amounts. The wintry weather remains unchanged since the previous night’s moonhigh, and consequently, a thick, clumpy layer of snow overlays the forest floor. This stuff is harder, firmer to push through than the powder he’d become acquainted with in recent times. There’s not a doubt in his mind that hunting will prove all the more difficult under these conditions; more difficult than it already is in this StarClan-forsaken wasteland, anyhow.
A footpath ploughs through the snow, leading out from camp in the trajectory of Carrionplace. The frosted blanket is chest-high, at least in the outer reaches of ShadowClan’s territory. Tufts on his chest twist up into frozen wads, and a numbness takes hold of his lower facilities as he persists in his trek.
It isn’t until he leaps across the frozen stream that he realises he bleeds.
Rouge stains the white which clings to his front paw. He cranes his head low, raising the arm in question so as to investigate the wound. When he catches a glimpse of the cause, the tom’s brows would knit together. Not from pain, nor out of concern, for he felt neither of those things. The look on his face is one of dumbstruck wonder—a chunk of the twolegs’ barbed wire had become embedded between two digits, jutting out from his fur like a swamp reed, and he wondered how in the hell he hadn’t felt it happen.
Ah, well. It’s not as though he can remove it without further hurting himself. Tearing apart the tissue in his mouth isn’t something he fancies, and he would much rather have just one injured paw over a pair of them. Life’s a bitch sometimes. C’est la vie, or however the expression went.
He sets the paw down back into the snow, wavering for but a brief moment before resuming his passage. Even through the plump flurries can he spot the dump’s chain-link fencing looming over the horizon. If his nose were functional instead of congested, it’s safe to assume Carrionplace’s endearing odour would have saturated his system by now.
Being this close to his objective, turning tail over injuries he cannot feel would only be unethical. Keeping his clan fed is as much his responsibility as it is in his best interest. While Smogmaw is not personally bothered over his clanmates’ individual wellbeing, a little bit of his own security drains away every time one succumbs to their own mortality. For each ShadowClan life lost this season, more power is put in the paws of the other groups. And thus it isn’t by reason of allegiance that he presses onwards, but the interest of his own continued existence. Damn him and everything he stands for if he cannot emerge from Leaf-bare alive and breathing.
Half-submerged in the snow is an opening torn through the bottom of the fencing, which he usually used as an entrance into the twoleg dumping grounds. With the gap partially covered, however, it looked to be an uncomfortably tight fit. There’s no way his ass is getting through there unscratched. And granted that he already cut himself on metal wiring once today, the notion of possibly doing so again does not strike him as appealing.
Then again, what other options does he have? There’s enough barbed wire skewering through his skin already, so scaling the thing is out of the picture. Checking to see if the twolegs’ entrance was left open would unnecessarily take up time and potentially throw him in the way of monsters. It goes without saying that both of his alternatives were futile.
Smogmaw sighs frustratedly, glaring daggers at the mesh barrier. How dare it stand between him and the only spot where prey is guaranteed in this age. Even if rancid, the rats living in Carrionplace carried enough meat on them to keep the weakest cats alive. His eyes, begrudging, drift down towards the hole once again.
His ass did in fact fit, though barely. A good amount of snow that had been fastened to his pelt became brushed off by frayed cables, and the ground - albeit equally as snowy - felt softer once inside. Within moments, he is immersed in the ordinary sights and sounds of the scrapheap.
Being here always gave him a peculiar sense of comfort, perhaps because he can empathise with the waste material strewn about the place. It's discarded when its use runs out, to rot away in a secluded spot so the world can move on without it, forgetting it ever existed.
At least, that’s what he made of the place. It’s impossible to truly understand the twolegs and why they did the things they do.
Thank the stars, it’s much easier to prowl through the snow inside the junkyard than outside. There’s less of it, and the snow which does exist takes minimal effort to push through. It’s less compact, and more disturbed.
Recently disturbed too, by the looks of it. There’s a smattering of different tracks and trails within a fox-length’s radius. The tiny pawprints of mice and rats can be picked out amongst the larger outlines of birds’ feet, but a different set of footmarks sticks out like a sore tail. They were leagues larger than the other ones, and upon closer inspection, Smogmaw sees that they bear a staggering resemblance to a fellow feline’s feet. Distinguishing these paws from his own are elongated heels, along with fingers instead of digits.
Muddy eyes, each depicting a blend of bewilderment and befuddlement, linger on the abnormal trail through narrowed lids. A path through the snow, akin to the one he’d left from camp, accompanies them, yet the span between the ridges looks wider than the one etched in by the tabby’s chest. Never before in his time in the marsh has he espied tracks of this sort—but whatever left them looked to be one-and-a-half times his size, as per rough estimates.
Having become engulfed in his own perplexity, it has completely evaded Smogmaw just how dark the sky’s gotten by this point. His focus is solely affixed to the tracks, exclusively towards the bizarre ones and not those obviously belonging to rodents. It would seem as though his goal has changed, and gratifying his own curiosity is now a higher priority than what he’d initially set out for.
His gaze unmoving, the tom pursues the trail on wary pawsteps. It leads towards the central patch of Carrionplace, weaving in, out, atop and underneath pieces of material in what looked to be a desperate search for shelter. How puzzling that a creature of such bulk so wretchedly sought repose from this weather. How puzzling indeed.
Watching the tracks pass underneath his paws grows to become a hypnotic pattern. In his stupor, all he cares about are these tracks, and following them too. Where they might lead, who can say? But he’ll follow them all day (or night, it’s hard to tell right now), even if it results in him returning to camp empty-pawed.
Smogmaw’s forehead collides with a snowy mound. “Ah, fuck me,” he grumbles through an unpleasant grimace, before shaking his noggin and reopening his eyes.
He is taken aback by the sight before him.
A raccoon. A breathing, in-the-throes-of-death, face-locked-into-its-final-snarl raccoon. The beast is covered by a thin film of snow, hinting towards the fact that she must have been lying like this for quite a bit. Her tail, coiled up unpleasantly, mimics his in terms of colour.
On no prior occasion has he seen a raccoon, let alone be this near to one. He’s shocked, pure and simple, to see such a… well, weird entity in such an immediate proximity. A dangerous one, too. He surmises that she would very well have maimed or murdered him at her healthiest.
Her form slowly rises in falls, in a pattern of revolutions indicative of breathing. But they are shaky breaths, uneven and frail. She will not survive the night.
“Got a lot of fat on you,” he muses, wind whirring loudly overhead. “What’s wrong, then? Not enjoying Leaf-bare, are you?”
A paw stretches outwards to nudge her in the rear. A low hiss rings out from the creature in response, but she cannot muster the strength to look at him, or even so much as move. She remains broken, defeated by the elements, directing her dying gaze into the great beyond.
This situation spontaneously becomes too much for him to handle.
Excitement. Delight. Stimulation. Hunger. Euphoria. All saturate his system simultaneously in an unrestrained upheaval of emotion. A flurry of scenarios shoot through his mind, hypothesising what will occur once he drags this beast’s body back to camp. The expressions plastered across everyone’s ugly mugs are absurd. He is heralded as a hero, a saviour of those who starve - everyone likes him, respects him, values him, loves him. And as everyone he knows prays at his paws in profound reverence, he becomes imbued with indomitable power. He has the capacity to do everything he has ever wanted.
Moons ago, Hemlocksight proclaimed that he will make a discovery of interest, and bring great change to ShadowClan. This is that change. THIS IS THE PROPHECY.
Driven by a doubled heart rate and groundswells of hysteria, Smogmaw spreads his jaws apart and propels his teeth into the side of the raccoon’s neck. She chitters frantically. There’s a morbid satisfaction to be found in her anguish, fulfilling him even further. Her death is now a necessity in the pursuit of his own continued existence. Landing the final blow is so energising, so completing, so climactic.
Unfortunately, her suffering is finite, and she expires shortly thereafter.
He elevates his head from her vitals mere eyeblinks afterwards. Weighted inhales and exhales ventilate him into a calmer frame of mind. Delusions are washed away with familiar sights and sounds, and as he enters a slower cycle of breathing, his heart declines in turn. A final respire concludes the drastic reversal of emotion, and the tabby reaches an almost zen frame of mind.
Oh, the silliness he got up to when there wasn’t anyone around to mould himself for. The lack of expectations, etiquettes, all that bullshit. He loves it. It’s like an extremely gratifying release from the repressive clan lifestyle. The rigid systems and rules that he has to follow, they suck the literal life out of him.
Another sigh parts from his maw, and at last, he returns to a state of normalcy. The livelihood in his features diminishes, as his archetypal dullness takes hold of him once more.
He best be getting back to camp soon.
The warrior lowers his mouth to the Raccoon’s nape and grabs ahold of the skin there. Paws dig into the snowy ground whilst he tugs with all the strength provided by his body. She really does have a lot of fat on her! What a heavy girl, even for a dead one. Dragging her back home will take all night at the shortest.
A minute amount of progress is made by Smogmaw, who has pulled her at least a frog’s-leap away when chittering erupts from nearby. In a moment of sheer terror does he drop the creature, for fear of her returning to the realm of the living and unleashing her revenge. Unsurprisingly, she does not stir.
At this time, almost all of the sunlight has waned away from the atmosphere, and with a cloud cover as thick as Flickerfire’s skull looming overhead, no moonlight seeps through the heavens either. Smogmaw cannot see more than fox-length in front of him. He is terrified by the noise initially, but intrigued thenceforward once he composes himself.
He moseys towards the chittering on wary paws, and through the dark can he spot the reflective retinae of six eyes, huddled together in a stony tunnel. Six eyes, three pairs—there’s three more of the damn things in there! Spine arching upwards in a defensive stance, the silvery fur along it standing rigid, the tom ventures ever nearer with bated breaths. Seeing how they haven’t attacked him yet, there’s a gut feeling that-
These are her children. Her kits. Her pups- whatever the hell baby raccoons are called. Their outlines are far too puny to be anything else.
The tabby creeps closer until he stands in the mouth of the tunnel (which looked like one of the passageways beneath the thunderpath). The little ones remain motionless, gawking up at him through crestfallen eyes.
He wonders what they see in him.
-
“Green house, down by the campsite,” she had told him.
“Thank goodness I’m colourblind,” he would lie in return.
She laughed, but the glint of worry in her eyes was as plain as daylight. “Please, Smokey, please vow to me,” she begged of him. “Promise that you'll visit us.”
He trudges through the snow, retracing his steps through the path he had left earlier on in the day. Spots of crimson litter the ground around the stream near Carrionplace—that damn wire was still caught in his foot, too. With his catch in his maw, he has no choice but to walk at a sluggish pace. Hence, in his boredom, his thoughts wander.
He did not answer her. A lot had come to pass since that night how many moons ago. The Great Battle changed a lot of things. It changed him, too. He didn't expect a kittypet to understand.
The smile evaporated from her pretty face. “Say something,” she pleaded. Her swollen belly appeared to be bursting at the seams. “Please! I need you! Your family needs you!”
This is how he is. Arbitrary. Erratic. The action that will benefit him the most is the action he shall abide by. When one loses their worth to him, he will not hesitate to cast them away. Even if it is his own kin.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “What will happen is your kits will be born, and your masters will take them away from you after a moon or two.” His demeanour darkened significantly since he'd last spoke.
A hollow sob nearly escaped from her throat, but she managed to remain composed. “So, that's it?” she asked. Never could one muster a look more caustic than the one she gave him on that day. “This was your goal the whole time, then. Ruin me, run off into the woods to live out your little fantasies, and pretend that nothing happened.”
His manner of treating people is similar to how twolegs treat their waste; discarding them when their use ran out, to rot away in a secluded spot so the world can move on without them, forgetting they ever existed.
He typically refrains from addressing his clanmates in this way. To act towards people he lives with so callously would only be detrimental to himself, after all. Only time will tell if this remains, though. If he is given a chance to sacrifice one of his peers in his own pursuit of power, StarClan knows it's a chance that he will take.
“You're mistaken. I'm not the one with fantasies here.”
-
He returns to camp by the time the next morning comes.
His gait is haughty, and his steps are eager.
The tabby heads straight towards the fresh-kill pile, depositing the three young raccoon kits he'd caught last night.
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