pay no mind to the demons || smokethroat

[CLEARSIGHT]

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➵ One single orange eye gazes up from the mass of bandaged black fur that is Smokethroat—piercing, blazing, sharp as ever.

Clearsight has waited for a quiet moment—those were difficult at first—always frantic paws moving, healing, racing and delivering. When they did not know if Smokethroat would make it, when the battle had ended and there was nothing left anymore to fight, they were restless; most restless of all those who'd seen him torn to pieces.

Now the chaos has settled. Smokethroat is stable. It seems Cicadastar has taken up residence among the injured and Clearsight can't blame him; stars, he remembers the weeks he spent here himself, how Clayfur and Gillpaw would hardly leave his side.

But he waited for a moment he'd find Smokethroat well and truly alone. He approaches now, dipping his head in respect for his lead warrior.

"Mind company?" the blue tabby asks, and should Smokethroat oblige he'll settle nearby.

I just wanted to check in, he might say to another clanmate, but Smokethroat is not another clanmate. "Mandatory bed rest," he says instead, commiserates; he gets it. The frustration. The itch in your paws. "Thrilling, isn't it?"

His golden gaze warms with amusement as he adds, "Seems Cicadastar's been doting on you, at least... it's nice to see, you know. He was—"

Wrecked. Devastated. Destroyed. He looked, Clearsight thinks, as though his world had ended and he was being forced to watch the ruins burn.

He clears his throat. Those are not his feelings to share.

"I'm sure you know he's taken this hard."

He pauses, breathes a moment.

How does he say this?

Clearsight has always been earnest, been open in a way that Smokethroat... is not. A way that Smokethroat can't engage with. So he bites off his words, he doesn't dig the way he sometimes does with other clanmates. He doesn't ask for more than the man will give.

But the next admission is one he can't bring himself to curb.

"We've all taken this hard," he says, soft and heavy. "You mean... so much to this clan. You are so loved, Smokethroat—fuck, if we had lost you—" Then what? What would they have done? He doesn't know how to finish that sentence and he doesn't want to. The WindClanners had torn into him, piled on without remorse and left him bleeding out and for a moment he remembers thinking they had lost him—Clearsight will not soon forget that image. He closes his eyes and carefully does not think of it. "—well. Thank StarClan we didn't."

@Smokethroat
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& we've all got battle scars ✗ ​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

The world was still a little disorienting, he was still adjusting and according to Beesong he'd had a close call but strangely enough he didn't feel like it. Outside of the odd dizziness he felt at times and the urge to sleep he wasn't in any real pain; the side of his face and neck had been an almost comforting numbness and when they did hurt it was just a minimal throbbing sensation-what was truly painful was his phantom attempts to open his left eye only to be met with a sharp piercing agony that warned him off trying further and mostly he didn't; but sometimes he just forgot.

Smokethroat is awake and in an empty den for once, quite confused over it because he had not spent a single waking moment without some cat smothering him whether it was Cicadastar or Beesong or any number of apprentices wandering into to chat his ear off until he lapsed off into sleep again without warning. Normally he would take the peace and quiet with stride and enjoy it, but now it made him uneasy and he found his paws kneading the nesting anxiously as he sat there until the ringing silence in his ears was silenced by a greeting. Thank StarClan, someone to fill the endless droning void of loud deafness that buzzed in his skull when he was left to his thoughts.
"Clearsight.." He greeted, his graveling tone even moreson than usual and almost strained; talking was a chore so he shrugged with a roll of his shoulders to the request to stay. He wouldn't say no, but he stubbornly didn't say yes either.
His tattered ear gave a dismissive flick to the comment of their leader's presence continually being in the den and he glanced to the side with that remaining orange eye almost sheepishly; it was really hard to be embarrassed right now, he was too tired and frankly it felt earned. He'd earned his right to indulge in the frivolties of another's company, he'd earned his right to share a nest with the tom that once plagued his thoughts before the horrible static of his injury filled them instead. The dark tom's lips curl as if to snarl but it's just a reflex to an itch on the side of his herb plastered face that he can't scratch or he'd be scolded like a kitten again-the Stars know he'd put Beesong through the ringer as it were; not that he remembered much of it.
But he did have very foggy memories of waking up to the scarred medicine cat and marveling over the irony that they now matched on opposite ends; a reflective of blue and orange eyes lost and mirrored. He remembered waking up to Cicadastar simple there, being as he was and it was enough.
"You're all a bunch of bleeding hearts..." He coughed, chest rattling, "...it will take more than some WindClan currs to kill me and you better remember it. If I'm going down it's to a worthy opponent...not those moorland dogs or that weasel-faced bastard..."
Even as close to death as he'd come, he would never admit to being so warmed by the fire lit by his clan; their fretting and worries took the burden of fear off his own shoulders so he could continue to sit in this den and grumble about not being able to go fish while the river remained unfrozen.
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