ONE MORE HOUR && cicadastar

[pumpkin]

Perhaps her judgement at the meeting was harsher than he deserved. Betrayal, she had screamed in her mind as she stared up with wide eyes. He had told them to secure the borders so as soon as meeting was dismissed she hurried out of the camp fighting back tears. Her mind raced with thousands of thoughts, none of them at all pleasant.

Here she was, at the river again and she finds herself catching her reflection in the water for the first time in forever. The bright wounds that covered her face and her neck were now just pink scarring and she blinks. Ugly. The word screams at her above all else and she huffs, unsheathing a paw and slamming it in to the water, disrupting the terrible cat that stared back at her. She’s grumbling as she turns to leave before she sighs, staring up at the clouded sky. It was hard to believe their ancestors, friends, family were up there. She wonders what the hell they could have done to Cicada to drive him out of his mind. Perhaps she could ask, get an open mind and just… ask. He was all of the home she had left and she realizes with a heavy heart that she’d be abandoning him if she turned a blind eye to his current state.

Would she ever be able to help?

She swallows hard. Pumpkin felt far from useful, she was still adjusting to being more than half blind in one eye. She finally decides what she wanted to do, she picks herself back up, abandons securing the border and begins to trek slowly towards the camp. She had to see her dad.

 

[CICADASTAR]

− ♱ ABOUT : he was hurting. muscles ached, exhaustion still lining the underside of electric blue eyes despite the sleep he'd managed to catch at bone's side. his mind was a cacophony of noise and blackened memory, thoughts struggling to keep up with the events unfolding around him. he seemed to be losing his grip on the world as it rushes by him, leaving clawmarks on everything he loves as it slips through the ivory tips of his forepaws. he was a leader, now . . riverclan's founder, and the weight was crushing. his wounds scream where he's lying supine in his moss nest, lined with duck feather that catches in the ringlet curls of his coat with each restless toss. after his meeting and subsequent sentence to bedrest by their medicine cat. he still wasn't sure what to think of the cinnamon tabby, aside from the fact that his height was almost laughably minuscule in comparison to the phantomlike tom − he treated him kindly. the man didn't know whether the kindness was born of bee's own personality or their newfound duty, bound in stardust.

he gets bored quickly. fidgety, fire lighting under his paws that forces him upward in his nest. he couldn't sit here, letting his warriors roam the borders. it was possible that the loners could attack, as put out as some were. there were predators along the river, there was danger . . and pumpkin had disappeared early on in his ramblings, slinking from camp in a hurry. the newly named cicadastar does just the same, keeping his head low as he pushes past the sea of bodies that make up riverclan, eyes lingering and maws moving in a symphony of whispers. there were more of them, now − each bearing the mark of the river, their names forever changed in the eye of starclan. he knew not what would come of this ; he know only that he was to provide protection, something he'd so devastatingly failed at in the marshlands. the smoke is emerging from a pillar of reed when he bumps into her − literally. he collides with her only slightly, his body jolting back to avoid toppling her over regardless of the way his eyes begin to roam her for injury.

" pumpkin! are you okay, is there − " is there anything out there. was she coming back already? had it been to tell him something, something bad? bad news seemed rampant in his orbital ears and despite it, frantic worry ticks the furrow of his brow upward, " is everything alright? "

out of character information translations

• − CICADA ; he / him, roughly thirty seven months old, riverclan leader
  − tall black smoke tortie chimera with icecap eyes and curly fur, homosexual
  − speaks with a german accent, former marshlander, penned by antlers
  
  
• none.

​

​

 

[pumpkin]

She’s lost in thought as she walks, all of the things that slipped through her paws screaming at her. She finds herself regretting not speaking up more at the meeting, not asking if he was okay, and speak of the devil and he shall answer. She collides with him and despite the bump not being hard at all her head is spinning. She reels back, with slightly flattened ears, shaking her head to clear her vision from being crosseyed. She blinks, once, twice, and finally looks up to him. “Hello.” she meows, hesitant, shying her bad side of the face with the ugly scar away from him. She does not want to remind him of the war, though for her it was a constant reminder.

“I wanted to see you.” she speaks finally, a sigh exhaling. “Are you okay, Cicada?” her voice is softer than it had been in the meeting, no ugly sneer on her face. She breathes to steady her heart, eyes closing for just a heartbeat. “I…” she hesitates in speaking, the words caught in her throat and she swallows hard. “I’m worried about you. You’re like, a dad to me.” she lets it go, fully vulnerable, scared, she cannot lose him. He may have nine lives now but there was no guarantee that it didn’t come with a price. She fights back tears, turning her head away once more. “I- I’m sorry. I wish I was there.” I could have protected you.