This couple of days hadn't been easy on anyone and with the new threat roaming in the forest more powerful then all of them fear was deeply infested in many of them. Fear was an powerful emotion that was easily to act out on in all the wrong ways. Blame was one of them. Smokethroat seemed to have fallen victim to that this time around. Maybe that was why he had found them down at the river wrestling in there with the fish like they where the true enemy. Or...this could be a new method on how to fish. In truth Ravendusk had yet not succeeded to capture anything in the blue so who was he to judged someone's fishing technique.
Everyone had thier own ways of dealing with emotions and fighting the fish might be Smokethroat's way of copy everything that had happen lately. It was never easy to have the whole world on ones shoulders even less so if thier decisions would get judged so mercilessly. Anyone who never had been in power to have lives in thier paws to look out and care for...did they really have any right to complain?. It was easy to tell that thier lead warrior was not going through a easy time right now and with thier emotions so shattered and all over the place...someone needed to get thier head back into the game again. Willowroot couldn't do it alone like losing thier apprentice not had been enough stressful for them. Now they dealed with he biggest threat on this earth. Twolegs. The most brutal and savage sort.
Ravendusk had taken himself down by the river to seat down with tail wrapped around thier paws and the raven would watch the lead warrior taking thier frustration out there in the water. Tables had got turned, it was not him out there this time after all fighting an invinsible enemy. " How is the fishing going?." Seemed like the most logical thing to ask in this situation to break the silence, to let them know about his presence. Ravendusk would not say they where good at this. Emotions was not something they often fall victim too. They had never been allowed to openly show stress like Smokethroat had done back then, to vomit out of anxiety like Smogbreath....even less show great pain over the fear of having lost someone dear to them like Willowroot. Or cried so openly in the public like Clearsight. Showing emotions had strictly against the way of life, like a forbidden law everyone had to commit themself to. Something to be ashamed of to show. Sometimes they envied cats like them for having such freedom to express themselves. Maybe if things had been different and he hadn't been so disconnected to his own emotions life would have been different, and that nightmarish day would never have happend.
What if, what if, what if.
Aha, there was no point looking back. All he could do was to live with this regret for the rest of his life. It was different for Somethroat though. Thier decision had been nothing close to selfish. Sometimes doing the hard thing was the right one even if everyone else would end up hating you for it. Sometimes, that was even better...
He had hoped fishing would be a good distraction while also being productive but his thoughts were too muddled and he kept losing focus, the fish continued to allude him and in his frustration he tried lunging for a silver dart of a trout as he passed by with his teeth. The result was just a clumsy display that any apprentice could outdo and he stood there in the water, the fish having escaped him, and slapped a paw down onto the surface in irritation. He'd heard pawsteps approaching but did not lift his head to greet who approached, instead staring at his rippling and broken reflection in the water with a scowl. The splashing about had at least gotten the remainder of the blood off his pelt and he shook his head to send droplets scattering across the river before finally looking up at the question. "Poorly." The dark tom responded, tone sharp and brittle and his hackles were raised in preparation to for a fight but Ravendusk's tone had not been judgemental or hinted to any other feelings; it was just a question and he was bristling for no reason. Smokethroat huffed, letting the tension go from his shoulders to slouch where he still stood in the water where it did not quite reach his chest or underbelly.
He could fall in love with RiverClan, he had already faced the logical matter of where his loyalty lie and where he wished his paws to rest, but right now it was just duty. Right now it was a sense of resposibility. The clan was not looked on fondly as a mother would her kits, instead it was in the eyes of a mentor too tired of youthful antics to care. He was a poor teacher, what lesson had he just given Iciclepaw? That it was okay to abandon your leader? He shook his head once, no. No, he wasn't regretting any of it. One cat died. One cat. It could've been more. It could've been another second and Clayfur would be pinned to the ground, another moment and the apprentices present might've given their last dying cries for help... "...what do you want?"
Poorly, came the reply with a displeased tone and musclers all tensed like they where just waiting for a fight to break out until they seemed to realise thier own foolishness. That was wise. Ravendusk by no means would ever amuse someone by playing along with thier unecessery violence. Provoking someone like them was not impossible but to get an actual reaction from them by such meaningless aggression was nothing but a waste of breath. Ravendusk remained in thier composure there they sat, unresponsive towards thier short lived bitterness. There was not hard to see this one had a rough edge to thier tongue though.
" Why don't you take a break for now and come seat down beside me?." Ravendusk sounded wise with thier words, calm and collected by there was this underlaying tone of demand for them to stop with what they where doing, like a mother telling thier child to stop playing and come back to thier side. In the end it would be up to Smokethroat if he decided to accompany by thier side or not by the shore. Whatever the lead warrior would decide he would contunie to speak anyway.
" I used to live with a group of cats when i was younger. There was this tom i knew who one day took out a patrol to investigate a unkown threat in the territory. Prey was disappearing and he was in charge to figure out why. The leaders son had been told to follow with this patrol so he did. The tom took the patrol out and at first everything seemed to be going well...until it wasn't. Suddenly the patrol got ambushed by a group of stray hungry dogs. The tom in charge retreated the whole patrol...unfortunately the son had got captured by one of the dogs. " Ravendusk paused and he closed his eyes, momently thinking back on that time before his eyes reopend themselves and settled on the dark pelted warrior. " He had a choice to make. To leave the leaders son behind and let them get killed while saving himself and the rest of the patrol or turn the whole patrol back to try and save the son....What do you think the tom in charge decided to do?." he paused with the story there, waiting to hear Smokethroat's answer. Maybe he already knew where this story was going or why he even told it to begin with. Still he was going to make that point anyway.
His is a song of war and blood, triumph and terror and the means to an end.
Being alive should not have been the inconvenience it felt like, but it had certainly become such. He couldn’t stand being stationary, despised languishing in camp and not being productive, so eventually he fought his way out but it was a tiring affair. He would get nothing done with his senses so scattered, his mind so unfocused. A soldier who dropped their sword.
Smokethroat's orange gaze locked onto the other dark cat, a forest fire raging and setting signal fires. He lashed his tail and made no attempt to leave the water even when pressed to do so. He might have considered, may have been tempted, but the tone set his hackles raising and he would not be coddled and spoken to like a misbehaving kitten. "I'm fine here." The water was a comfort, he sat down in it and let it swill around him up to his midsection before raising a paw to hover just over the surface, watching the ripples form of droplets tossed carelessly from his waving limb.
The last thing he wanted or cared to indulge in was being preached to and it was where this story was going. He'd not begrudge the other the openess of speaking of their past, it was a difficult subject matter and he would keep his words curt. Far be it from him to insult the cats of a past life.
"I am...I am not sorry for the choice I made. I would do it again. I would do it each and every time." Emotions were tricky to handle, his years of solititude were unraveling him into pieces because he could not understand; he could not adjust. It was frustrating.
Cicadastar had nine lives, his clanmates did not and he hated himself for the almost impassive way his mind worked, but regardless he would save the life of a cat who might not come back first and foremost. Not that he would wish such a fate on any soul, to be split apart nine times; to feel the agony of death more than once only to be pulled back down from the stars to the cold earth each and every instance. It was not a gift, it was a curse.
He wouldn't wish it on any cat and certainly not one he admired so much as their leader. It was horrific. "...I am only sorry it happened." He obeyed orders, he had been ordered to go. It was as simply put as that.
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