sensitive topics my name is brutus and my name means heavy | one-shot/pafp

[slateheart]

-ˋˏ ༻☽༺ ˎˊ- content warning: mentions of abuse, trauma, grave sabotage + implied body mutilation

"It's over."

Two figures sat on the outer hills of WindClan's camp, gold and green eyes scanning the horizon of their territory. The silence between them remains unbroken for quite some time as they embrace a strange moment of calm and peace. The two had never known peace in their life, until now - and to Slatetooth, it was unsettling.

Sootstar wasn't dead, he'd seen her closely guarded, but her hounds have gone and her dignity with it. The black-furred tom was adorned with wounds to prove it, and Gravelsnap was hardly untouched himself. He'd been given a break for fresh air from the medicine den, and asked his brother to join him outside.

He was finally breaking the silence. He spoke low and gentle, in fear of disturbing that delicate peace with his own voice. "I never knew what you thought of Lynxtooth," he begins, casting a sideways glance towards his sibling. "How do you feel now that he's gone? How do you feel about.. everything?" Without Periwinklebreeze, would you and I have met in the battlefield?

His gaze turns against the moors once more, its' coat of snow giving way under the sun to reveal dull swaying grasses that thirst for air. His father was dead, he'd seen to it himself, but he never seemed to escape from his grasp. He felt Lynxtooth's presence in everything, from the insecurities he felt in day-to-day actions, to the awkwardness he encountered when talking to others. It was in his lack of lense and belonging, his lack of purpose without his father, in every little gap between his thoughts that he couldn't yet fill. It was in the natural drawl of his voice that sounded so akin to the man he spent his life chained to. It was in his brother, Gravelsnap, who had once looked up to their father like an extension of Sootstar, like a extensions of gods themselves, and it was in their broken bond that he had only just begun to repair.

"It feels like he's still here," he muttered after Gravelsnap's response. "I can't stop thinking about him." Slatetooth thinks about the day he was brought to WindClan, the fear in his eyes when he was announced as one of the Clan's newest pair of apprentices. The fear that never left. He recalls the trainings, every day under his mentor, Lynxtooth, leaving him battered and bruised - only as far as WindClan's norm allowed it. He recalled all the words of venom spat at him, the humiliation and pain of it all. The nightly beatings he endured when nobody was watching, for as Lynxtooth's property he was also his outlet for anger and disappointment. Slatepaw, then, was a public display of a failure set up by his father, a cat made an example of what happens if you are meek and afraid.

Slatetooth feels his heart start to race. His toes tap against the ground underneath him, one by one. "They buried him, like an honorable warrior. I wonder what they thought about the two sons that got away." His lip curls for just a moment as he imagines himself, outlined by a dim moonlight, kicking up the dirt and snow over his father's grave, throwing whatever remained into the gorge with his headstone. A mere fantasy. Would he ever do such a thing?

Slatetooth relieves a deep exhale, lowering his lips and allowing himself to calm. "Ever since we got to Horseplace, I've thought about him. All those moons spent in his shadow, and I never amounted to what he wanted me to be. He believed it until his last breath." He returns his green gaze to Gravelsnap again, distant and glossy, as if seeing his bloodied father right infront of him. Lynxtooth's hatred carried him to the grave. And then Slatetooth shakes his head, continuing. "I wonder if it was pride or embarassment that he felt the day his failed son inherited his name."

"My warrior ceremony was.. wasted. Something every apprentice could look forward to- something even I was excited about that day. Tarnished, by this StarClan-forsaken name." His last sentence comes out in a spat, as if ridding poison from his tongue. "Slate'tooth'. Sootstar thought it would make me strong. It symbolized something I should have been, a 'loyal and courageous' warrior just like my father. Perhaps they were right, but for the wrong reasons."

"I thought about removing my suffix, taking a rogue's name before I decided to help fight back. Then I thought about changing it, and that is my conclusion. Gravelsnap, I do not want to resemble our father any longer." He takes in a sharp breath, calculating his options. Heart, fur, branch, feather, storm. He needed a name that truly fit him. With a cheesy smile, he finally decides. "I think it's time I walk my own path."

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎┌── WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG ⋅❁⋅ YOU'RE A LOADED GUN ──┐‎

• ooc: can be treated as either a one shot or a pafp depending on if fox wants to reply! if you intend on replying, please wait for @GRAVELSNAP

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  SLATETOOTH ✩ he/him, moor-runner of windclan, 19 moons. ⭃ a reclusive short-haired black tom with low white and green eyes. ⭃ mate to no one. son of lynxtooth x adelaide. brother to gravelsnap and ashpaw. ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking ⭃ penned by ixora ↛ @.ixora on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

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[GRAVELSNAP]

➴➴ The fight is over, and yet Gravelsnap cannot settle down. The skin around their eye itches and tugs each time they blink, making it difficult to do anything comfortably. They suppose that they should be thankful that they hadn’t lost anyone important to them in the battle—but that simply wouldn’t be true. Thriftfeather may still be alive, but he is gone all the same. Bluefrost is still here, but the distance between them has grown wider than the gorge. And, technically, they’ve lost their father, though they have yet to feel any real grief over Lynxtooth’s death. It feels like so long ago that his brother had told him that their father was dead, but in reality, it’s only been a month, maybe two. Slatetooth asks what they thought of their father, and Gravelsnap cannot answer immediately.

They think back to the way they used to look up to their father, starry-eyed even as the larger tom had brushed off their concerns and their identity. Gravelsnap still winces at the memory, even though they’ve long since grown much more comfortable in their own skin. They’d spent so long doing everything that they could to please him, brushing off Lynxtooth’s horrible treatment of their brother and treating Periwinklebreeze like an outsider. They had watched their brother suffer under Lynxtooth, while Gravelsnap themself had clearly been their father’s favored child. No, they think, settling on their answer. "I don’t miss him," they say, feeling as though they don’t need to elaborate upon their statement. If anyone were to understand their viewpoint without an explanation, it would be their brother. They tip their head, shifting to peer at the dark-furred tom through their better eye. "I’m glad that I followed you. I’m glad that we’re both… still here." He doesn’t know what he would have done if, when the dust settled, his brother wasn’t there to greet him.

Gravelsnap can agree with his brother’s statement—despite everything, he still feels Lynxtooth’s presence lingering, festering like an old wound. He sees his father’s face in Slatetooth sometimes, a passing shadow in the other warrior’s eyes… as much as he wishes otherwise, he has to admit that he’s thought of Lynxtooth often as well. What would their father say, if he saw the two of them now? Nothing kind, he can imagine.

He doesn’t have to linger on such a thought for long, because Slatetooth continues speaking. He’s content to listen as his brother rambles on, spitting his distaste for their father. Then, at last, the other tom says that he wants to change his name. He doesn’t want his very name to be a reminder of Lynxtooth. "I agree," they say, with a definite nod. "What will your new name be?"​

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