oneshot opalescent; prompt

Feb 13, 2023
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// musings on family. all mentioned characters except chrys are npcs.

"Your character finds something that reminds them of a Clanmate. What is it? Do they tell the Clanmate?"


( 𓆣 ) There is a dragonfly dying just outside of SkyClan's camp.


Termitepaw watches it, crouched alone in an open clearing. It's a common activity for the cat, watching the various insects which flit through the pine forest she calls home. Yet there is a tightness in her chest now, as she stares wide-eyed at the shiny-shelled creature. Its wings, opalescent and delicately segmented, shake pitifully with the weight of age as it tries in vain to fly one last time. They can live a long time, dragonflies, though most of it is spent in their larval stage. Sometimes the adults, the gorgeous winged ones, will only live for a few days.

Termitepaw doesn't like dragonflies very much. The reason for it is as mundane and as obvious as they come; Termitepaw doesn't like their father very much, either.

Dragonflywing is a cat whose presence has haunted her since she first became aware of her own existence in the world -- and his, by extension. Her father is a callous tom, a cruel and sharp-tongued figure with a honeyed gaze that skips over his children like grains of sand beneath his paws. Like insects.

He is a talented cat, a young yet skillful hunter, with a voice that rings clear as cicada-cry yet holds nothing but bee-sting venom. He always seemed unapproachable, unreachable, a disdain in his eyes and and a sneer on his face, dazzlingly opalescent dragonfly-shine masking fleeting nothingness underneath. Ephemeral and otherworldly and so, so loveless. Termitepaw scarcely could catch glimpses of him when they were younger, and even less so now, the flitting dragonfly-wing tom always just out of reach, always too far up. Termitepaw is scared of heights, scared of climbing, scared of reaching towards the sky -- sitting so high and unreachable, ever-taunting the young molly.

The dragonfly has stopped flapping its wings now. It wasn't able to make it off the ground. Termitepaw keeps staring at it, lost in her own head. It's orange, just like her eyes.

Termitepaw always looked the most like her father, of his three kits. The resemblance is uncanny, truly, the largest difference between the two being the slight shift in hues between their eyes; Dragonflywing's are wasp-shell gold, Termitepaw's are fire-light orange. Termitepaw hates her resemblance to her father just as much as she hates the tom himself. She always got the most attention from him as a kit, for being the eldest, the firstborn son. When he was around, he was always pushing her to do better, to be better, to live up to whatever lofty expectations he held, and more commonly, berating her for her failure to do so. As much as he disliked kits, Dragonflywing did enjoy the idea of his oldest son carrying on his legacy. Hah. Look how well that worked out for him.

She's not really similar to her father at all, is the thing. Perhaps in her avoidance of other cats, though for her it is born of a fear in which her father certainly does not share. Yet the superficial, the similarity in appearance, seems to be all that matters. Her mother, the kindest figure in the kits' young life, was always more attentive to their siblings than to them. She loved Termitepaw, of course she did, and she cared for them as best she could, but their resemblance to the tom she once loved never went unnoticed.

Chrysalispaw is not as forgiving as his mother. His words are sharp like his father's, bearing nothing but contempt for the elder sister who looks too much like the tom who never cared for them. Chrysalispaw always wanted Dragonflywing's attention; Termitepaw found herself liking it better when he wasn't around.

Katydidpaw, though... The two sisters are probably the closest, of the small family. She never seemed to hold a grudge for Termitepaw's unfortunate coloration, the molly herself sharing a similar resemblance with her mother. And besides, she is far too practical to cast judgement over such trivial things. Her affection is a subtle one, reserved and aloof, yet present nonetheless. Termitepaw likes their sister -- they admire her dedication, her confidence and grace, her quiet focus, yet there is envy there as well. Katydidpaw is all the things that they are not.

...The dragonfly is certainly dead by now.

For a moment, Termitepaw indulges in the idea of bringing it back to camp, of showing Dandelionwing, carrying it so carefully as to not tatter its fragile wings. Look, I found this and it made me think of you!

... I watched it die and I did nothing to help because the mere thought of you fills me with dread. She is not saying that. If she could even find her father to present the insect, he would surely have nothing but wasp-venom ire to offer in return. A dead bug? What a freak she is, to think such a thing an appropriate gift for the tom that brought her into this world.

Termitepaw stares at the dead dragonfly for a moment longer, its golden-orange shell glitter-glowing in the sunlight, wings pristine and still.

She stands up, and pads back towards camp.
 
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