If we could just pretend [Training]

[Pigeonsong]

Pigeonsong roused early that morning, rolling over in his nest and facing the wall of the den. Bananasplash had been missing for days at this point and he was wracked with guilt. He knew it was because she had brought him into her home. If he'd just said no, she'd be here still. A cold chill passes through him and he curls tighter into himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe he'd wake up and this would be an all too vivid nightmare.

He lays like that for a few more minutes, trying not to cry that his only friend had gone. Worried now that he might disturb the other warriors if he did cry, he'd shuffle to his paws. With a sniffle, he'd push the pain inward, trying to pretend it wasn't there. An apprentice who wanted to be a good warrior might wonder why he'd not come to collect them for training yet but he doubted Spiderpaw would care. She hardly bothered to try anyway. His face scrunches up again and he has to force back tears. He should be feeling excitement at the prospect of training but instead all he feels is a taut weight in his belly.

Reigning himself in, he'd exit the den at last, blinking at the harsh morning sun. The tabby makes a beeline for the apprentice's den, hoping to catch Spiderpaw before she can sneak off like she usually does.

To his surprise, he spots her lanky frame amongst the nests. Breathing in a deep breath, he'd nudge his head in. "Spiderpaw," He'd begin, trying and failing to sound more chipper than he felt. "It's time for some hunting practice." If he had to do this when he didn't want to than so did she, he thinks indignantly, completely prepared to drag her from the nest if he has to.

"Let's go."

@spiderpaw

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
Unaware Pigeonsong was doing essentially the same thing across camp, Spiderpaw was laying curled in her nest with her eyes shut, but not sleeping. This is what she usually does in the mornings for as long as she thinks she can get away with, and generally she's able to maximize her time just lying there but still slip out to dodge training. Sometimes she'd stick around, just enough to claw her way onto the lowest standard for apprentices, usually not—Spiderpaw plays a dangerous game with skipping. She tells everyone she just doesn't feel like doing it, it's a waste of her very important time. The 'too cool for training' is implied in her tone and her words, and even if the other apprentices don't usually seem to give much of a shit—they don't like her anyways and she knows it, except maybe Briarpaw—everyone knows Spiderpaw's too good for training; she's the problematic one, after all.

If she's honest with herself, she doesn't really know why she skips training. If she's honest with herself, she doesn't know why she does much of anything that she does. She wishes she wasn't so mean sometimes, late at night when she can't sleep, looking out at the stars; she says that tomorrow she'll start being nicer, and she never does. It doesn't matter anyways, does it? Nobody likes her anyways, and they never have, so does it really matter what she says? She may as well be mean before they can. What was she thinking about, anyways? Spiderpaw's mind is always foggy in the mornings—right, training. She doesn't know why she skips it; her thoughts are running in a well-worn groove. Spiderpaw figures it doesn't matter; it's too late for her to change at this point, why should she make an effort when Pigeonsong has clearly, finally, given up on her, and she doesn't blame him?

Sometimes she feels bad about skipping training all the time. It's not like she does anything cool, or crazy, or even interesting when she sneaks off. Usually she just goes and finds any small spot to cram herself into and just goes to sleep; she wonders if all the naps are what makes her feel so foggy all the time. That's all she does; that's why she's skipping what's supposed to be the most important thing in her life all the time. Most of the other apprentices, even the more rude ones, always seem so eager to train; she wishes she could feel like that. Spiderpaw never wants to do anything. She doesn't even want to lay here in the nest, she just wants to go back to sleep, but she can't. And now she definitely can't, because she missed her window, and she hears telltale pawsteps. "Spiderpaw, it's time for some hunting practice. Let's go."

Pigeonsong's voice is ringing out and it takes her a second to process exactly what he's saying as she's suddenly yanked out of her thoughts. She thinks about pretending to be asleep, but it doesn't feel like there's a point to that; clearly he's going to drag her to training since she's actually here for once. She was distracted thinking; usually she's asleep or she's so busy thinking about her next rude remark or how great she is that she doesn't have time to burrow into these things, and she doesn't want to keep doing it. Maybe hunting training will help bat away these introspective thoughts, even if she's bad at hunting. She wishes they were sparring, since she's only marginally better at that, but whatever—Pigeonsong's expectations for her seem so abysmal that it doesn't matter if she tries or not.

Speaking of, the tom sounds less indignant or disappointed than she's used to; actually, her mentor sounds openly miserable. That makes two of them; Spiderpaw usually feels ambivalent at best, cruel on a usual day, and then occasionally she has days like this. Where just peeling herself off her unkempt nest feels like it takes every ounce of energy she has. Where the sunny, fun-filled day of clumsy hunting with Briarpaw of yesterday feels like something another cat lived. She gathers herself and yanks herself upright, plodding over to Pigeonsong without an ounce of chest-puffing, but somewhere in her brain fires off the fact that he expects her to be nasty and she may as well be. He's clearly already unhappy with having to train her anyways. She still doesn't blame him, but he doesn't sound disappointed, rather holding back tears—she glances over. Sure enough, his eyes are pink with barely-restrained tears, his face downcast, and another neuron fires; Bananasplash. She's been gone for days, and if Spiderpaw's memory serves her correctly, that was the stupid cat he kept talking to. She takes a deep breath, firing off a mew loaded with false venom, "I'm up, your highness," the apprentice spits tiredly, muttering under her breath, "Don't get all aggro on me because your girlfriend's missing."

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

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[Pigeonsong]

Pigeonsong's frown inverts as she rises to her paws and pads over to him wordlessly. Never in a million moons would he have expected her to agree without some snippy comment and he actually smiles a little bit. Maybe today things could be different and they'd have fun together. The prospect is enough that his mood completely flips and hopefulness sparks in his gaze as she comes to stand beside him.

"It'll be fu-" What were going to be words of genuine excitement die in his throat as she begins.
"I'm up, your highness," Tears well in his eyes for a moment. He thought just this once, that maybe they were going to turn a corner, become the best mentor/apprentice duo the clan had ever seen. That's what he kept imagining, even as she took every day he spent with her as an opportunity to try and tear him down. It was true that maybe she couldn't see her own gleaming potential, but he saw it in her. If only he could get her to open up, explain why she was so angry.

He wasn't mad at her, he understood what it was like to be so burdened that you lash out just to keep the expectations low and others from bothering oneself. It didn't have to be like this. They could be friends, working together for a clan that would respect them both. Pigeonsong wouldn't have to get hazed or embarrassed by other mentors and she'd make so many friends and maybe find a cat who'd help her understand and make peace with herself.

"Don't get all aggro on me because your girlfriend's missing."

For a couple breathless seconds, he wants to laugh, he wants to cry, but something else stirs deep within him. An emotion he'd ignored since he was apprentice aged.
Really?
The tom would scowl at her, eyes failing to fill with tears as they probably should have. For the briefest of moments his eyes are filled with fury, pure uncontrolled rage but that quickly disappears to be replaced by pure ice.

"What?" The tom snarls at her, never having snapped at her he isn't sure what to expect but he really doesn't care now. The tom is so devastated by the fact that even she would make light of something so serious. It wasn't just Bananasplash who was missing either.

The tom is shaking with anger, his pelt standing on end.
"Bananasplash is your clanmate, and I don't care that you don't respect me. You will not make light of what is happening to our clan in my presence." His tone is harsh, harsher perhaps than needed but all of this building has lead to the proverbial dam breaking.

"If you honestly think that everyone around you, is so beneath you, if you honestly don't care that I think you have amazing potential and that everyone just wants you to succeed then I don't know why you even bother staying here."
Pigeonsong flinches as such cruel words leave his muzzle. Never in his entire life has he let his anger get the better of him. In fact, he doesn't think he's ever felt such disdain in his life and he suddenly feels sick to his stomach.

"I-I'm sorry, Spiderpaw. I didn't mean it." The tom stammers, voice cracking with emotion. His eyes once again glistening as he pleads to her, having a sickeningly certain feeling of what would come next.

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

// i feel like i should add this so uhh tw for self hatred and some generally unhappy internal dialogue from spider

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
When she first pads over to him, he's smiling at her, like he always seems to be. No matter how much she tears him down, or how much the other mentors rag on him, or whatever cruel words she unleashes, Pigeonsong is always so nice. So implacably nice, smiley, motivated, regardless of how much she fails on accident or fails on purpose or doesn't even bother to show up. It's why she was so surprised to wake up today and see the tom looking as ragged as she feels; it's probably part of why she says the things she does a second later, if she's honest; if Pigeonsong can seem so chipper(ish) even with the most important cat he knows missing, why is she so incapable of being just decent on a day-to-day basis, with really no responsibilities; she could've gotten a much meaner mentor, after all.

He's smiling at her, and his mew starts all excited, and Spiderpaw hates him for it, for a reason she simply can't understand. But it's because, why? Why does he keep trying? Trying so hard, every day, every missed practice, every mean remark. All Pigeonsong ever seems to do is try, and persist, and the world lauds him for it in Spiderpaw's eyes; after all, he has ... had Bananasplash as a mate, probably, in the sure future, friends in the Clan, he's respected. What has she every amounted to? This is supposed to be the most promising time of her life, when she trains to become a warrior, and trying feels impossible. Just getting out of her nest feels impossible, just cleaning her overlong fur seems impossible. Every day saps every ounce of her energy some weeks, even if she never does anything but hole up in tree-stumps and nap. And here he is, still trying. For a second.

And then the smile drops, the words die before they can spill over his tongue, because her own have leaked out of her barbed maw. She doesn't even think that! She doesn't even think these things, is the worst part; she doesn't think he's being cruel because Bananasplash is gone, certainly not any more cruel than she is every day; she doesn't think he's asking a lot of her, in fact he asks very little. Spiderpaw doesn't know why she says these things when she doesn't even think them. She doesn't even think she's the best, not anymore. She hasn't thought that since she became an apprentice and she realized that she doesn't even want to get out of her nest most days, that her denmates don't even like her, much less her Clan. Maybe when she was a kit fighting to be leader of SpiderClan she thought that, but she hasn't thought it since then. If she thinks of herself at all, ghost that she is in her own consciousness, it's not egotistically, not even kindly; it's with hatred, hatred that she spins into a web of poison spat tiredly into Pigeonsong's face.

First, there's tears, new on their own; she's certainly made cats cry before, but not Pigeonsong. For just a moment, there's tears beading in the corner of his big sad green eyes until they're swimming in it, and in that miniature ocean of emotion is it all. Every practice she's snubbed, every compliment crushed, every hope she's clawed to shreds; every vision he's surely had of his first mentorship, every time the idea of her actually trying has been dangled in front of him like a tempting piece of prey turned to crowfood. Every single goddamned time she's said something she doesn't mean, something she doesn't even think, for a reason she doesn't know. Encapsulated in those tears, clear for her to see, laid bare like a watery damnation, is exactly how she has ground this cat's hopes and dreams and heart into the earth like so much dust. And she doesn't know why.

She regrets the second remark the minute it spills past her lips; if Briarpaw, or .... or ... she can't think of anyone else. Well, if Briarpaw was missing, Spiderpaw would feel even worse than she already does every single day. Except she doesn't even feel bad, she feels tired. If she felt bad there'd be a reason for her being mean, but she doesn't. Just tired, foggy, her head a landscape of mist she can't claw through, all she wants to do is sleep. She wishes she was a kit again. And in the second it takes her to think these things, his face contorts, twists into a mirror of her own every day; and Spiderpaw realizes that this is serious. This is beyond the light scoldings for her everyday cruelty from other warriors.

Second, there it is. The tears are gone, and here it is; Spiderpaw feels the blaze of the type of words she dishes out every minute of every day, and they don't burn her like hers do to other cats, because, and here is the thing. Here is the why. Because, as much as Spiderpaw bullies other cats, as rude as she is, as justifiably mean as Pigeonsong is being to her, there is no possible way her sad, perserverant mentor could ever, ever, ever hate Spiderpaw any more than she already hates herself. His words pull forth from her chest the dark fish that's been swimming in her consciousness for moons now; not motivation, not a need for fame, not any other shadowy ideal she ever thought it was, and its teeth are needle-sharp and they pull salty at her flesh. He spits out harsh words, but Spiderpaw has already told them to herself; not consciously, never consciously.

"If you honestly think that everyone around you, is so beneath you, if you honestly don't care that I think you have amazing potential and that everyone just wants you to succeed then I don't know why you even bother staying here."

The words spill past her mentor's muzzle with as much venom as her own do every day, but what really hurts is the intent, confirming her thoughts. That everyone in the Clan believes all the stupid shit she's said every day eternally; that everyone really thinks she's that ego monster she's spent moons building herself up to be. She barely even hears the second part, but the third rings clear in her ears. And he's right. Why does she stay here, in a Clan where he's all but confirmed that everyone really does hate her? Where every StarClan-forsaken thought she's had about herself is true? Why doesn't she just leave? Spare everyone the misery of her presence, the destructive force of her consciousness, the dark fish with the crooked cruel teeth?

And then it's worse somehow when it withers, when he's flinching and stammering and staring at her with those big fat tears in his eyes. Those tears that are the judge, jury, and executioner to her, that show every wrong thing she's done. Because now Pigeonsong is pleading with tears in his eyes. He is her mentor, her mentor who has done nothing but try to uplift and motivate and guide her the best way he knows how. And he is pleading with her, his apprentice who has done nothing but lie and skip and speak cruel words, to forgive him. For telling her what she deserves to hear, what any other mentor would have told her long ago, for telling her something she tells herself every day.

And then instead of screaming, instead of icy tones, cruel insults .. instead of reaming him out as she has any other cat for much lesser slights, as he surely expects her to, instead of spilling out those poison words she doesn't even believe, Spiderpaw just stands there. Her usually silky fur is thick and ragged and her bangs hang in her eyes as her head lowers. Her vision is blurry even though there's nothing wrong with her that she knows of, and it's because there's big fat tears of her own threatening to spill. Because she believes, entirely, that she deserves this and more. He's only telling her what everyone thinks, what she surely deserves to hear, what she tears through herself every day and then rips through other cats. What keeps her stuck to her nest, to a hollow, to a blurry day repeated over and over forever, living a waking haze, the potential he's always talking about a long-forgotten dream. All Spiderpaw can manage to choke out is that stereotypical phrase, "Just leave me alone, Pigeonsong."

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

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// all opinions purely ic ofc <3

 

[Pigeonsong]

Spiderpaw's head lowers and he knows he's said something terrible, words he shouldn't have spoken and cannot take back. Words that he knows she's taken to heart as for once she refuses to stubbornly glare into his gaze and devastation rocks him like the waves upon RiverClan's shore. So many steps he'd taken trying to build trust, to get her to open up fall away from him and he is frozen.

"Just leave me alone, Pigeonsong."

Words he's heard before but never so pointedly, never deservedly in his own opinion. He can't bring himself to look at the already wounded child that he's just struck so harshly. He was her mentor, ordained by Blazestar to guide her into warriorhood and now how perfectly he's demonstrated just how incapable of the task he is to her.

There would never be enough words to express how sorry he was for what he had just done and even if he had them, was able to collect them all into a coherent dialogue... It wouldn't be enough and he's sorry not just for what he's said, but the fact that he'd failed her, just like everyone else had surely done. The one cat in the clan who should never have failed her and he's gone and done it in the most hurtful way he could.
"I will, I'm so sorry I failed you like this." The words rake across his heart just to speak. He had no right to treat her like this, he sounded just like his father. He managed to try and meet her gaze again.

"You deserve a better mentor, I'll talk to Blazestar as soon as I can to try and find a better cat for you. I'm so sorry, I-I"
You didn't deserve that. He wants to say it but words fail him and he ducks his head, preparing to go."I know you can do great things. Spiderpaw. I never lied when I said that."
All those times.
His heart feels as though it's breaking into a million pieces and tears well in his eyes again. Pigeonsong feels more crushed than he's ever felt in his entire life. The only thing that he hoped was that what he has done won't prevent her from living the life that he knows she can. A good one.
"I'm sorry I ruined everything."

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

// tw -> self hatred, general unhappiness, some extremely brief/vague suicidal ideation. stay safe out there ppl of tabbytales

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
"I will, I'm so sorry I failed you like this."

A fresh wave of hurt batters itself across Spiderpaw's mind like hail; her head feels foggy, clouded, stuffed with cotton, like a late-summer thunderstorm, pain welling up warm in her mind like blood. She welcomes it, almost—anything but the numbness that renders every day a pointless duplicate of the one before, of the one after, of every one forever after this. She welcomes it for all of five seconds before what Pigeonsong is saying truly resounds. He's sorry he failed her like this. As though her destruction isn't entirely self-rendered, the earth scorched from the lightning words that spill out of her mouth every day, clarifying the storm for all of a second. As though the pale tom hasn't done everything in his power to make Spiderpaw's future brighter, despite her own efforts to tear it down like she tears down everything in her life. Her family, her friends, her apprenticeship. All she does is hurt things. As though the apocalyptic hellscape her mind became at somepoint between kithood and now is his fault, and not her own, because clearly there's something wrong with her, Because clearly the other apprentices don't feel like this. Because even cats like Chrysalispaw still have friends. But before she can find the words in her cracked voice to say any of this, he's speaking again.

"You deserve a better mentor, I'll talk to Blazestar as soon as I can to try and find a better cat for you. I'm so sorry, I-I ..."

If Spiderpaw's head is a storm, this is the final decisive thunderclap. He's going to leave her behind, and she doesn't know why it makes her sad, because she doesn't blame him. She knew this was coming. A better cat for her. Right. Spiderpaw wishes he'd just say what he means: That he can't be around her anymore. That she's finally gnawed stubbornly through his hopes and dreams like a rat in a fresh-kill pile. That he wants to leave her behind, just like everyone always has. Like everyone always will. It was only a matter of time. Any other mentor would have passed her off the minute she skipped her first training, hell, the minute they first met her. Because look at her. Look at what she's like, what she's become and can't leave, like a butterfly locked into the chrysalis. And now she is too terrible for even Pigeonsong to tolerate, for anyone to, because he's going to talk to Blazestar. Because he's leaving her behind, to wallow in the oilslick pool of her own mind until she drowns in the tar. She wouldn't mind.

He continues about her potential again, some poor dead animal long drowned and desiccated and left to moulder, a pile of oil-streaked bones. Potential. She doesn't believe him, can't believe him, because if Pigeonsong really thinks she can be as great as she is apparently capable of, why is he leaving her? She knows why. It's because she's a monstrosity, not one created by claws or fangs or murder. Like the kits who are born occasionally, where they're alive but there's nothing the medicine cats can do and they die. Spiderpaw feels like that, but only in her head, where nobody can see, and this outward body she inhabits has been warped and twisted by her own paws into a cloven effigy of herself. She barely knows who she is, anymore.

"I'm sorry I ruined everything."

This last phrase, this last gasp as Pigeonsong bows his head and turns to leave; to leave her behind forever, to find another apprentice who won't crush his dreams like this, pulls her cracked voice from her chest. The throatily sarcastic drawl is reduced to a withdrawn mew, but Spiderpaw has to say something, right? Before she's left to founder in the crevasse of her thoughts. The tears welling thick in her eyes begin to fall.

"You're gonna leave me," it's flat, wispy, but she continues, "You're leaving me here, aren't you? Because .... " it pulls at her throat, rendering her speechless for a moment, but then the torrent of words spills out, faster than she can stop them, but they can't even convey the misery that seizes her mind, "Because there's something wrong with me, isn't there? Because ... because why else am I like this, why else do ... do I treat you like this? Treat everyone like this. Why else can't I be a good apprentice like you deserve? There's something wrong with me, and I can tell, and you can tell, and everyone can tell, and that's why you're leaving."

The words start to degenerate into wracking sobs that leave Spiderpaw's thin chest shuddering, but she claws the last of it out. Words almost nobody in the Clan would ever expect to hear her say, "It's okay. I deserve it."

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

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// all opinions purely ic ofc <3

 

[Pigeonsong]

"You're gonna leave me, You're leaving me here, aren't you? Because ...."

The sandy tom freezes, his heart hammering in his chest. "Be-" Because it's what's best for you. I don't deserve to have you as an apprentice. The words are stuck in his mind and he's completely unwilling to speak them, he's already said too much. The pain he's inflicted is unforgivable. There was never a way he'd forgive himself for saying things so heinous that even thinking of them now causes him to cringe, his body to stiffen.

The phrases that spill from her after make his heart break so hard for her that he begins to quiver. It sounded like she didn't want him to leave and a small sad smile slips onto his face.

Sobs rack her body and at once he is moving towards her, lowering his gaze in shame and wanting desperately to reach out and hold onto her as though she were a branch in a storm.
"I don't want to leave you, I-" The tom tries to stifle his shivering body as he tries to give her some comfort even in this darkest of moments. This was way harder than he ever had imagined it to be but he is not deterred by her attitude, her scathing disdain for herself and this unfair world. He had thought that she wanted someone else, that he wasn't good enough, that his dad was right and that he would never be good enough.


The tom begins to cry with her.
"You're my apprentice and I'll never stop believing in you. I thought you didn't want me because I'm a bad mentor." The tom mews, straining to speak as he shakes against her, quivering with fear and despair.
"I just thought, maybe, just maybe I was doing this wrong. I thought you wanted someone else." The tom would mew through choking gasps, "Am I not the reason you're so unhappy?" Pidgeonsong would ask tearfully, lifting his head to gaze into her eyes desperately, pleadingly, searchingly.

"I won't abandon you, I promise. I just thought you wanted me gone. Your happiness and success is more important to me than anything, Spiderpaw."

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

// continuing tw for self hatred and general unhappiness ... stay safe tabbytalians

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
Her claws dig into the moss of someone's nest beneath her tensed paws, teeth clenching in an ivory barrier until there's an ache in her gums, because this is what it takes to hold herself together. And Spiderpaw is successful for a beat; held together but shivering, pieces stretched and warped and barely strung until her head aches with it, until her fangs are held together so hard she thinks they'll splinter instead of her thoughts. But then Pigeonsong is braced against her, tears running down his own face, and Spiderpaw stands rigid. Because she knows what she has to do, what she must let loose from between her clenched teeth—something cruel, as she always has. Something that will make Pigeonsong leave her alone, because she doesn't deserve this. Doesn't deserve his pity, his tears. Because he will be better off without her in his life.

"I don't want to leave you, I-"

But try as she might, she can't get anything out between her jaws, because she's being selfish, as she's always been. Tears slide down Spiderpaw's face, clotting on her chin and dripping to the floor, her skinny body shaking with the sobs, and still she can't move. Can't speak. It's as though that dark abyssal fish weighs her down, pulls her muscles taut and jaws shut, just as it does when she can't pull herself from her nest or a hollow or the doom she spirals towards like a minnow pulled down by the currents. She feels its teeth locked in her flesh, its voice dredged from the deepest waters close to her ear; that she doesn't believe him; she can't believe him. That there is no reason to tell him how she feels, because she could never atone in a thousand lifetimes enough to earn that right. Its eel body curled around her limbs, her eyes, her heart; its scales shining, covering her eyes like that of the unloved dead buried in a lean-to church graveyard.

"Am I not the reason you're so unhappy?"

Pigeonsong is still clinging to her as Spiderpaw is battered and haunted by the thrashing fins breaking over the torrent her mind has become, and she sees as if from far away his tearful pleading eyes, her mentor's voice raw with the despair of her presence. Clearly, because why else would he think that he's the reason she's like this, and suddenly it becomes all too clear to Spiderpaw. That the hellish beastly leviathan is not the battered pet of another cat, that the silver-coin scales are not the eyes of her lost father or unknown mother or poor, sad mentor—that every cruel spilled word is the torn, choked gasps of a fish foundering out of the water, because it is just her. It is not any other reason, any other glittering monster, that keeps her up nights and sleeping days, it's her. She is that fish, the dark skeletal shape haunting the cave-pools, a biblical monster of her own construction, or she was, because clearly it is not something she can control anymore. It's a behemoth grown too massive for her to defeat, a destructive force ripping every good thing she thinks to shreds, and she swings helpless between its grotesque teeth, unable to lift her paws to stop it because they are one and the same.

And Pigeonsong, poor sad Pigeonsong who is crying and shaking because of her, thinks it is his fault that she's like this. The idea of it forces her maw open, and those poisonous words ooze out, in their basest form, not anything set to the ragged tune of self-importance or exaggerated ego or outward cruelty that only shoves the fish away for a moment like oil on its slick obsidian back. Standing frozen, the words ooze forth, conviction framed in their venom because it feels as though she's finally seen why, "No. No. I-It's me, I'm the reason, because something is wrong with me. It's like—"

She struggles to frame it, the misery that weighs down her limbs and her eyes and her heart, until it bursts forth like an unchecked flood, "...I-It's like ... like I don't know who I am anymore. I don't mean anything I say, I d-don't even think it, and I don't know why. All, all I do is make cats sad and I don't even mean it, and I don't want to be like this, I don't want to skip training, but I don't know why I feel like this. I-I don't know why, because everyone else can be fine, but I just feel tired, every day. Nothing makes sense, I don't w-want to be like this, but it feels impossible to do anything, it's like I'm drowning."

"I won't abandon you, I promise. I just thought you wanted me gone. Your happiness and success is more important to me than anything, Spiderpaw."

That dark abyss-fish is holding tight in her flesh, fins scraping her already-raw skin, crooked stained teeth pulling at her face, urging her not to say anything. Because surely he doesn't want her to be happy, really, because why would he? Its scales grate on her scraped skin, its garbled hellish voice loud and pounding in her ears and her blood and her eyes, but ... but Spiderpaw wants, so badly, more than anything, to say something, to plead with him. To please help her, to make her better, because she's not strong enough to do it on her own. And with the beast thrashing against her, Spiderpaw wrenches it from her lungs, harder to say than every cruel word she ever has.

"I don't wanna be like this. I ... I need help."

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

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// all opinions purely ic ofc <3

 

[Pigeonsong]

"No. No. I-It's me, I'm the reason, because something is wrong with me."

With these words come a profound understanding from him and it strikes him enough to cease his shaking. He thinks he understands the reason behind what is happening to her. What is happening is not her and although he doesn't know her that truth shines brighter than the sun as it rises on the horizon.

She's lost herself too, it is not just himself who has not yet been gifted the chance to know her as she is and not be known for what is happening to her. The tom can feel the battle going on inside of her from his position, leaning on her lanky frame. Determination steadies him and he rises, resting his head atop hers protectively, as though he can shield her from her own thoughts with his own.

"We'll get you that help, together, Spiderpaw." He promises, managing to keep his voice steady as his own tears begin to dry. If he doesn't help her, he knows that nobody else will. For all of her tendencies, all of her harsh words, he sees his younger self in her. He'd never been as ascerbic but he understands to some small degree what it is that she is feeling and he won't let her face it alone.

An NPC apprentices brushes awkwardly past them and Pigeonsong wraps his tail around her protectively.
"Let's go just outside camp, get some fresh air." StarClan knew how humiliated, how vulnerable, how scared she must feel in this moment.

And it's then that he realizes just how vulnerable he feels as well. He'd never shared such a tearful moment with anyone, not even Bananasplash.

"We'll get through this, together." He mews earnestly.

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
Spiderpaw regrets the confession, the plea, the minute it leaves her mouth; who is she, to beg Pigeonsong to go beyond the requirements of training her in skills, trainings she shirks daily? Who does she think she is to plead with him to help her? She can't be helped; this is who she's become and she has to live with it. This is what she thinks, what she expects to leave her mentor's mouth; that he will leave her regardless, that she will never atone enough to deserve his listening ear, his help, that now that he's dragged this humiliating overspill from her he's leaving.

What Spiderpaw expects is not what she receives; Pigeonsong leans protectively around her, and since the end of kithood Spiderpaw has reviled physical contact, but she doesn't shove him off. With the fear, the embarassment, washing over her in slow-lapping waves, touch comforts her for once, though shame at the vulnerability accompanies the short star-burst of comfort. She's never told anyone about how she feels, hardly knew of it herself until she realized not everyone felt like this; a reliance on cruel words to keep her distance meant she didn't think anyone wanted to hear how she felt.

But no. Pigeonsong has listened, attentive, sympathetic; matching her tears, and now her mentor wraps his tail around her, somewhat concealing her tear-pinked eyes from the awkward, question-filled gaze as Npcpaw wanders past. He's guiding her outside of camp, voice stronger and more earnest than she feels:

"We'll get through this, together."

Promising that he'll help her, that she's not alone against her own beast, her own head for once. A mixture of emotions floods over Spiderpaw; her ears burn with the humiliation, the shame at how vulnerable she's been, at how she'd sobbed in front of him. But at the same time, for the first time in moons, it feels as though a spark of hope glimmers on the horizon; a bubble of air above the surface under which she thrashes, a flake of rust on the ball-and-chain of her thoughts she's dutifully towed about her entire life.

As Spiderpaw follows him silently, albeit the occasional sniffle, out of camp, it feels as though for once, her paws might be able to turn from that dimly lit path.

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

​

 

[Pigeonsong]

Once they're outside camp, he takes a deep breath. With a cursory glance around to make sure that nobody is eavesdropping with the intent to spread unkind rumors about his apprentice. Even though he didn't know many of the young of their clans, he had the inclination that Spiderpaw was not well liked by the others. Having any of them around to make this harder for her wasn't going to happen while he was around.

"Walk with me?" The tom would offer, craning his neck to give her a small smile. There are a few spots he thinks that she might find relaxing but as they walk his paws find their way towards twolegplace. As they come to a small hill, overlooking a thunderpath, he sits down. A fluffy tabby tail folds over his paws and he watches as the monsters fly along. Their black and silver paws are loud but they are far enough away that the acrid stench doesn't reach them.

"I always wondered where they're going in such a hurry." The tom would muse, watching as a rainbow of colors fly by, seemingly directionless but he is certain that they have destinations of their own.

"We have all the time in the world to see our problems through and go anywhere we want, but they can never venture from the trail they're on."

 

[spiderpaw ✧]

❝ DARLIN', DARLIN' ♱°.✦ ————————————
The last sniffles drain from Spiderpaw, leaving behind dregs of weight that sit heavy in her stomach: guilt. At how she's treated her Clanmates this long in her life, mostly; how her wildly flailing ego and words have pushed away nearly every opportunity for friendship. At how she's shoved this huge weight, one she can't even carry on her own (That she's not strong enough to, her thoughts whisper) onto Pigeonsong. She's interrupted by Pigeonsong's smile, small but present, and request. Walk with him, her mentor asks, as though she'd say no; the cream cat holds her biggest secret, heaviest weight, thorniest problem, in his larger paws; has listened to her voice her thoughts, dark as they can be, and cried with her. How could she say no? She wouldn't even if it was an option, not now, and Spiderpaw nods mutely; not yet trusting of her voice not to crack into more sobs.

Just as the final traces of her vocalized sadness have left her maw, so have any venom-tinged words ... for now, leaving the apprentice feeling drained; her eyes are pink with tears and sore from it. Still, she takes her seat by Pigeonsong, watches the huge monsters whizzing by, draping her heavy tail about her skinny ankles. Spiderpaw zones out a bit, the emptiness in her head as blissful as it is temporary, seeing the massive stinking beasts eat up the cracked, hot black ground of their paths. Pigeonsong's voice stirs her.

"I always wondered where they're going in such a hurry. We have all the time in the world to see our problems through and go anywhere we want, but they can never venture from the trail they're on."

How relevant a thought, she thinks. Spiderpaw thought that this would be like the stories she'd been told and gossip she'd heard: now that she'd had her big argument and told someone how she felt, everything would be over. She would feel better now that she had Pigeonsong there, and her problem'd be fixed, this weight gone. It's not like that, she discovers, feeling into the space of her head and still finding an endless darkness in which a barbed fin circles; it makes her want to cry all over again. She thought having someone helping her would make it go away now, but the weight is still there, the damp heavy thoughts. Abruptly, she realizes Pigeonsong is probably awaiting a response.

Spiderpaw tries her voice and finds it functional, if a touch rasped by the sobs, "Y..Yeah," She musters; another realization follows her first, that she ... doesn't know what to say. The smoky cat has no idea how to make conversation, that doesn't involve dressing down her compatriot or gossiping anyhow. It's awkward and she tries again, "Maybe they have a monster Clan and that's where they're going," She muses, feeling stupid once the words leave her mouth; they feel like the words of a child. The apprentice's ears lower slightly: why doesn't she feel better?

[penned by dejavu - ♱]

———————————— ✦.°♱ DOESN'T HAVE A PROBLEM ❞ ​

​

 

[Pigeonsong]

Pigeonsong agrees with her response, giving a soft nod in her direction.
"Even when they hurt us, it's not out of malice. They are just acting with what knowledge they have." He adds, watching as a rather large and loud monster hurdles past, causing the ground to tremble, even at the distance from which they observe. It's long, it's face is flat like a persian's but he does not flinch as it flies by below them.
They are a force of nature just as much as the pair of them are, unstoppable and yet fragile. Their speed is their weakness, while their own weakness is size.

"Bananasplash told me that they only move when they have twolegs inside them." The tom would mew quietly, as the beast disappears into the distance, trailed by ominous red lights.
"Sometimes, we're so afraid of what we can't comprehend that our will to understand is lost." He'd add, taking in the sour stench of the thunderpath.

"You shouldn't be afraid of what we can't understand, you have to be familiar with what scares you, in order to defeat it."
She'd probably think he was just completely full of fox-dung but he hopes that maybe he'll understand what he's getting at. Even if his own negative tendencies are not as loud as her own, he understands what she's facing.

"Everyday, they plow through here, and everyday we rise to face the morning. Even as different as we are from them, they too face the same challenges."