sensitive topics I'M ONLY AS GOOD AS MY GOD

[TRUFFLEPELT]

TRIGGER WARNING; this thread contains themes of abuse and violent imagery.

Rattling breath, like shards of ice on hard rock. Trufflepelt does not know when his body had begun to fail him, but every nudge of his limbs flares with pain, skin made of nettles. He watches the world flitter before him, and he barely feels a part of it anymore ... even though his purpose still sits unfulfilled. Oh, flesh made of ants ... his wayward daughter, a pale replacement of him. Would that he could craft his destiny himself, but he must settle for her- his Thundergleam, his perfect creation. Again, he is here to see her. Golden eyes blur shapes, now- but he picks her out well enough, blankness on the border... she is nothing like them, stuffed with notion upon notion that they knew better ...

He would not be suffering in this form if it was not for something.

Muscles twitch, tail whipping wildly. "My Starlight," he rasps, seeing her. He picks her bleeding eyes out, upon her form ... her jaw hangs open, and he feels the gentle scolding coming before she gives it, a hurried whisper that he is not meant to be here. Eerie greeting, the same last time. Trufflepelt's temper already begins to curdle, feeling the familiarity of it all. This cyclical, poisonous thing ... no, he was not meant to die with a burdened soul. There was still destiny to evoke, still suffering to purge, he felt it in the prickle of the air.

"Tell me, have you done your duty?" She must have, she must have. Suffering lives perpetual within the Clans, and the kindest thing is to use her claws quickly. She looks as unburdened as ever, though ... as if this is a game, some entertaining make-believe. Except for her face ... as he nears his Thundergleam, she looks strangely hardened. He thinks, for a moment, he sees anger in those angelic eyes.

"... I have." she says, and he brightens. His fury toward her trickles away like an oozing wound, into nothing... he nears her with his fading strength, and with a rasping voice murmurs his approval into her neck. Well done, well done. Against him, she feels as cold and solitary as an icicle, though ... she does not lean into him, does not purr. Cruel thing. This is a moment to revel in, his fate, his mission finally fulfilled!

He draws away, blinks up at her with elderly, swimming eyes. "Who?" Perhaps he knew them- perhaps it was Howlingstar herself, his Thundergleam finally having finished what he had started! His wonderful Thundergleam, she had done it! Not just a wound in her, but split, spilled...

"Her name is Stormywing." Still, his Thundergleam's voice is frigid. Hardly does she even look at him as she continues. "I- I found another way, Father. I did not..."

"You did not free her?" Appalled, he spits.

"I did not kill her," Thundergleam says, and her eyes widen. Her pupils look like scabs, and burn upon him- he has never resented her more, this ghostly foundling and her wretched will. Always too many questions, and her mother had wailed far too much... perhaps she had never been the one! Oh, and has he wasted what little he had left of his life on this ridiculous creature, who thought she was beyond the Stars simply because she was made of them? "It is not the way, Father. I am sure of it now. StarClan sent me a dream where I drank the tears of a suffering cat ..." Oh, she rambles- "I am to help shoulder the burden to stop the tears. A cat will only drown if left alone... and to raise my claws against my Clanmates, it will only cause more suffering. I will be a lonely murderer, do you not see?"

His feeble limbs tremble, and his lip curls back. Through encircling blur and blindness, his focus keyholes upon her face and shoots a hole between her miasmic eyes. "I have heard nothing of it!" he roars, and the force of it has him swaying. Her Truth is a false one- she had been fooled by this suffocating place, its will to blind its subjects... she is too easily enslaved, and he hates her for it.

"And why would they have spoken to you, Father? It is my destiny." She is trying to soothe him, but he could wrench out her tongue- temper broils over, spilling like magma from golden eyes.

His claws leap free. Foolish, stupid thing- she looks so ghostly, it is nearly a surprise when he strikes her and it meets the bone of her skull, sending her reeling away from him. "It is my destiny! You are my project, my creation! You are my proxy and nothing more! Have you forgotten?" He looms above her, mad eyes wide, pupils slitting, daring her to do anything but bow beneath him. ​

( PENNED BY PIN )​

 

[THUNDERGLEAM]

There was something in Father's eyes Thundergleam had never seen before- arrogance.

Or perhaps she had seen it, and merely blinded herself to it in the past, knowing him as the wise arbiter of all things. Her saviour from a life of pointlessness, was he. And it would be ungrateful to look upon him with scorn after all this time, would it not? It was he who had given her everything- the vitality and wisdom within her, implanted by Father. But if it was all in the interest of death... how could she be glad for it?

She spun away from him, cried out. He had never hit her with claws, before. Every strike for unbecoming behaviour, for reluctance, had never been sharpened. Rosy eyes looked up to him, rounded as the moon with pallid fear. "Father, please," she choked out, heart thumping with such fervence it brought bile boiling up her throat. Never had she cowered beneath him... only bowed with respect, with reverence.

How desperately she wished to shuffle to his feet, to press kisses upon his paws, to bruise her lips with apology. Anything that would heal them again, that would bring them together... for moons, he had been all she had ever known. Thundergleam felt tears needling into her brain, felt them simmering behind her eyes. An avalanche of shame rested upon her back- her lungs heaved with the effort of resisting it.

"Stop crying."

Another voice rang in her memory. Don't cry. Her eyes fluttered closed, pushing a tear down her cheek. She feared blinding herself before him, lest he strike her again... but in the nothingness, she felt Stormywing's gentle touch against her face, wiping away a fallen star. Her voice was so much different than his... Father's love he had always given her, it was not soothing, did nothing to halt the flow.

With trembling lips but steady countenance, Thundergleam stood. Swimming eyes locked with rhuemy. "I tell you, Father. You are wrong. It cannot be StarClan that speaks to you, for they would never want this."

Father was motionless for what felt like an era. She could not tell if he was squinting against the light or wishing a thousand deaths upon her. The uncertainty threatened to topple her again, but she kept herself rooted, pupils unmoving upon him.

"Waste of time!" He screamed it, screamed like she had never heard him before- and her dear Father, he pounced upon her. His weight slammed into her, and Thundergleam met the ground as violently as torrential rain- her maw hung open in a yowl of her own, whipping through her, a gale escaping before she had a moment to think about it. She knew, she knew where his strike would roam- and he had taught her so well, taught her every intricacy, every intuition. He would want to split her in twain. As his daughter, he would want to kill her quickly- he would not make her suffer.

Her own claws leapt out in a flash. Father was lighter than she remembered him in their spars together- he acted slower now, could not find purchase as quickly, and he carved his own end in that madness-hazed hesitation. "No!" she shrieked, a banshee blooming from agape fangs. Her limbs kicked, her claws sank into tender drum. Along the spine, as if reaching within, she tore.

His blood blanketed her. Never had she been so scarlet-soaked, never had so much been amiss. Father slumped on top of her- his head, heavy as a boulder, bludgeoned her throat. With that weight there, Thundergleam could not scream.​

penned by pin ☾​