no one's ever gonna love me like that again ⁀➷ doepath

[FALLOWBITE]

ˏˋ*⁀➷　Once the moon has risen, Fallowbite seeks out Doepath. Her sisters have always been her rock, and yet... She cannot bear to face Antlerbreeze again. Not so soon. And so, in the quiet of the night, she finds her sister just before the molly can retire to the warrior's den. "Doe." The word tears from her throat, ragged and hoarse. It has kept itself controlled - as much as it can, snarling as it is supposed to - for the duration of the evening. The part of the monster is a far too easy one to play.

It stops just before reaching her, hesitant to touch for fear of her flinching. But it keeps close, lowers its voice to a whisper. Fallowbite is not monitored as closely as its clanmates are, and that almost makes this deception feel worth it. "I'm sorry," it breathes softly, words resting unfamilar upon its maw. She is not the one it should be apologizing to. "I... I messed up, Doe. I messed up real bad."

‎‎┌── GOD KNOWS I❜M ONLY HUMAN ⁀➷ I GET SO INHUMANE ──┐‎

• @doepath ࿔
  
• 
  
  

  "SPEECH"

• 
  FALLOWBITE ⁀➷ she / it, warrior of thunderclan, twelve moons.
  ➳ a scarred, pointed brown and white molly with shaggy fur and golden eyes.
  ➳ standoffish and solitary, always seems to have a dark cloud hanging over its head.
  ➳ baying hound xx npc, littermate to antlerbreeze & doepath.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

​

 

[doepath ࿔]

Nettle-sting pricks at her ears in a grumbling tone, a ghostly growl through snappish teeth- Her chest squeezes, aches where fissures have formed. Saffron stare fixates towards the briar-bite warrior with an uncharacteristic frown, "Sister..." That's still what they are right...? Even after all of this they're still kin and kin is meant to rely on one another. Her voice warbles with trepidation, as if the voice that murmurs at her will disappear, the tenderness in such low volume will warp into an unrecognizable maliciousness.

Fallowbite isn't cruel. Antlerbreeze's incredulous retort feels seared to her mind, the certainty with which she'd decided blame.

For all her tenderness, it isn't a virtue equally harnessed in her siblings and most especially not by the dappled cat that whimpers a quiet apology. It strikes like she's been physically struck to hear it, followed by a feeble admission.

Her ears swivel to listen, to pry for encroaching paw-steps. Her silence draws on longer than she means it to, contemplating how she might respond. Gently, the fawn she-cat leans forward to butt her head under Fallowbite's chin, "Tell me what happened... What did you do...?"​

 

[FALLOWBITE]

ˏˋ*⁀➷　Fallowbite rests her head upon her sister's chin, shuts her eye tight and focuses on nothing but the feeling. Her muzzle brushes ashest her sister's ear, speaks in the quietes whisper she can manage. "I... I tried -" Her voice breaks. It is a weakness she allows herself only here, only with the soft brush of Doepath's fur against her own. Her bones have long since hardened into steel, the piercing points of her ribs trapping her heart within her chest. Only here can she let that soft and aching organ whisper its elegy from her tongue.

"I tried to save her. He told us all to kill her and I..." She swallows hard. The words feel like they're choking her. "I couldn't - I told her to hide... But it didn't even matter. I failed." She bites out the word, dripping with bitterness. Useless. She's worked so hard to keep herself safe, and now she's ruined it for nothing.

Her breaths are shaky, her eye shut tight. Claws scrape at the ground below. "He's gonna kill me. He's gonna kill me, I know it." He can't find out. None of them can - but she's never been very good at keeping secrets. She's never been good at hiding her hatred, and it is all she feels for Skyclaw right now. It is only a matter of time before someone calls her bluff.

‎‎┌── GOD KNOWS I❜M ONLY HUMAN ⁀➷ I GET SO INHUMANE ──┐‎

• 
  
• 
  
  

  "SPEECH"

• 
  FALLOWBITE ⁀➷ she / it, warrior of thunderclan, twelve moons.
  ➳ a scarred, pointed brown and white molly with shaggy fur and golden eyes.
  ➳ standoffish and solitary, always seems to have a dark cloud hanging over its head.
  ➳ baying hound xx npc, littermate to antlerbreeze & doepath.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

​

 

[doepath ࿔]

Nervousness demands occupancy, paws twitching with anticipation as Fallowbite all but curls up into her and whines like a bleeding hound. Tried.... Images of stubborn fear and failure flicker like a movie, reminded of all the times she'd tried things. All the times she'd failed. It felt like a miracle to have success when she did, to taste it so sweetly, intoxicating like honey- the smell of sunshine. Ripped away... in constant cycles. Her lip quivers, blinking back tears as the closer press of scar-roughed fur reminds her of where they're at.

There are eyes here... so many eyes and they all work much better than hers. Had Fallowbite's deceit earned them invisibility...? Could it be easily passed off as sharing tongues before their nightly rest? The knotted curls on top of its head find itself victim to an idle body, trying to untangle them while she unwinds the story from the steel-cage of its head and heart. Skyclaw's disappointment from before becomes even more transparent, a facade for his grief but this had always been the goal. Howlingstar was slated for death the moment he'd been born.... because fate was predestined and there was no escaping the rot of your blood.

The fluttering of her flank against Doepath traces like a mirror to her own lungs, breath caught in her throat as fears compound. He already had a vitriol for the fawn sepia since she'd arrived and now, with this revelation, it seemed all the more likely that he wouldn't be forgetting it. She'd be dead too. It didn't have to be this way... it could've just been her if Fallowbite had stayed blind to it. Had kept quiet and uninvolved. It would've just been another sad story for her sisters to muscle through. But instead...

"He can't," she protests under her breath, as if she has any power to change his mind. "Howlingstar didn't... didn't tell us it was you. He won't find out." So that made it a secret for the two of them and a star in the sky... She feels herself wilting already, belayed with the effort to keep her family stitched together as the seams fray apart. "It's gonna be okay," she murmurs, a reassurance plucked from the voices of others who'd parroted it to her time and again.

Howlingstar.... You kept it secret. Thank you.... thank you for keeping it safe....

She might've been the closest thing to a mother that Antlerbreeze could've asked for. It seemed she'd adopted Fallowbite just the same. That left her then.. right? To pick up the pieces and keep them together?​