- Aug 9, 2022
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The sky was empty-starless, the clan was quiet. At night the tension seemed to ease, at night the briars and bushes were shadowed and looked like monsters scratching outside the camp boundary but unable to get inside. RiverClan felt safe. It was peaceful to an extent, utterly silent aside from the small tell-tale signs of life or the snoring of the occasional cat. The muted noise of another warrior moving, the thump of a large tail idly twitching and the sudden cry of owls shrieking that rocked through the forest before dying off as quickly as they sounded.
Everything is fine.
He had woken up in a cold sweat, a nightmare still clung to the edges of his mind but he couldn't recall what exactly it had been about. The tiny filaments left were flickering in his head, shattered images and sounds from what might have been previously forgotten memories. He tries to hold onto them but they slip away as they always did and he was left grasping at nothingness. The tom heaved a sigh, pushing himself up off the mossy nest of reeds to sit up and glance around the dark den with no real idea of what to do with himself now that he was awake but in a matter of moments he made a decision.
Slowly slipping off the nest he found himself leaving the den. Sleep wasn't happening though he could rarely find comfort in rest much lately anymore, so he would not bother trying again. Strolling forward he kept walking until his face was inches from the wall of reeds around the edge of camp, he paused for only a moment before pushing through. Leaving camp alone was foolish, but he was a black inkspill of a cat at night and the shadows would easily embrace him; he would not be seen by two-legs or predators.
He was going to talk to Moss.
Moving like a silent shadow through the territory he paused once briefly only to pluck the stem of a passing yellow flower to carry with him. He was not one much for sentimentality but he felt strange visiting without something to place on the root she was buried next to. A reminder to her spirit if it lingered that he had been there. But if StarClan was real...perhaps she was there instead? Perhaps not. She had not gotten to see what happened after the battle nor during it. She died moments before.
He remembered so vividly despairing over Moss’s body, how he paced and suffered inwardly for hours before finally conceding and burying her by the old gnarled tree they had made their sleeping area. Smokethroat had stopped sleeping there entirely as a result.
In the darkness he felt his chest heave, labored with the effort not to let his heart just burst as the tree in question came into view. That he missed her was an understatement. He felt so lost.
Coming to a stop at the mound of dirt, the twisted tree roots, he paused to set the flower down atop the crooked wood before sitting slowly and when he began to speak it was as if the old she-cat was there before him.
"...I think Cicadastar would have named you Mossfang, because all you did was chew people out." His dark tail lashed on the ground behind him, it was alarmingly silent. He wondered how many other bodies were buried in this area, how much company the old brown tabby had in her grave.
"...I'm sorry I haven't visited often. I'm..." Even dead he did not want to admit to her he was fretful, "...there's a lot. A lot happening. We're called RiverClan now. There's....other clans, the colonies are no more." It felt as if life had picked a new book entirely than bothering the next chapter. "...there's two-legs...they're dangerous. I'm..."
Even without an audience, talking was difficult. He knew Moss was not listening, yet he felt as if he could imagine her steely green gaze locking onto him as he continued, "I'm a little at a loss...for what to do...I wish you were here."