- Apr 27, 2023
- 121
- 15
- 18
Please wait for @cottonsprig !//
Just in case, CW for gore described, heavy blood loss, etc!//
He would not know how many days passed. He would not know if his clanmates worried, if they questioned- nothing. The last thing he really remembers-
"M-Milkthorn!... Are ... o-okay? Don't wo... I'm going ... help! ... going to help ... stay here, okay?"
His consciousness had been in and out, fighting. And he had made that clear to the apprentice, with I'm fighting trailing from his lips in a quiver of pain, coughing painful lungs and stomach of blood. The iron scent was all he himself could smell, despite the grass he lay against.
He would've never wished an apprentice to find him. He only wished he could have fought harder. Fought duskclan off harder. He remembered vaguely, cats carrying him- blackness, in and out of consciousness- fighting.
What he was fighting for, he did not know. But was it so bad to say that he was scared of death? Would it be wrong to admit that he feared facing Starclan? Even if it was fields of endless hunting, even if it meant peace from the pain that throbbed, radiated, after a point, when the adrenaline wore off it was just pain.
The night and following day, he heard voices try to speak to him, but mostly murmurs. His mind was lucid, maybe he had spewed words of Duskclan, pants, cries of agonies- milkthorn would not know himself. Suffering from blood loss, the flittering of a single blue eye (he had no knowledge yet, that his other was gone, his bold face marred from forehead down to his neck, ribbons of flesh missing from his face). To slices and rips through his throat.
Why did he fight so hard, to keep claws gripped into life? Fear. Fear to leave his home in which was everything he had. Fear to face the end. No, Milkthorn did not wish for his end. So he fought, he fought till he watched the duskclanners flee with the hare he caught for his clan. While he lay there, pathetic.
A pathetic excuse for a warrior- but he was outnumbered. He could not blame himself. He should've gave up long before his stomach was strewn to pieces, before his throat bled- he did nothing wrong- but subtle insecurities lie in the tom as finally, his one blue eye peeled open.
He was not choking on the blood like he had before.
I should be dead.
He realized that for the first time, as the warrior cast his eye upon the medicine den before him, wincing as she tried to reposition, to only fail. Moving hurt, oh it was the worst pain he had ever felt. This was not the first time he faced death. He nearly drowned. He nearly seen death when facing his mother- no. This was different. This feeling of pain was by far the worst the rosetted tom has ever felt.
"C-co-cottonsp-" oh how it burned to talk, gagging as he clenched his scarred muzzle, wounds fresh upon scruffy neck fur, barely there now against the thick claw marks. A sharp inhale, wincing in a gasp of inhaled pain as he shifted on his unmarred side.
Celandinepaw, you- you guys saved me.
By now, as he glanced around, a paw lifting, and his teeth gritting again, he realized his true loss. His vision hindered in ways he never thought before as his right side webbed and thick with poultices, swollen and numbness tingling-
His eye filled with fear, a frown tugging tightly against his maw. "My... My eye." it was not a voice of questioning, but realization, and voice of pain, of loss. But his eye locked onto Cottonsprig, pupil as small as can be in shock.
"Is it-?" He was hoping for, hoping it wasn't. He was hoping that she would confirm he was fine, everything was fine. That it was scarred over, but that he would have it back. He was hoping he'd be okay. He was hoping that he'd go back, and finish Lakepaws training, go back to hunting for his clan-
He was hoping for what he couldn't have.