- Feb 16, 2024
- 62
- 9
- 8
[ TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic description of murder/death. Read at your own risk! ]
It started as an urge, as simple as an itch beneath the fur, a spur or a thorn exhorting gentle into his skin.
Privetpaw knew how to do one thing for certain, and it was how to starve. Weaned from the scarcity of the scrublands, the apprentice had hardly even eaten a full meal, as meager mice and lizards could not sustain a growing cat for long. Still, it had been the only state of being that he had known, even as he yearned for a better existence that seemed to lie upon the tips of his whiskers. The boy starved for knowledge too, as the want burgeoned within his very body, like thermal winds inflaming the walls that beheld it. He wished to feel full, more than anything. Privetpaw hadn't a concept of what that was like, to feel sustained. He felt it to be a fruitless effort, for even after a grand banquet of all the prey one could have, one would always starve again. Therefore, wasn't it better just to always be upon the verge of hunger, so that a falsification of happiness could not occupy oneself? Perhaps it was a boon to always seek out the unknown, drowning out all else like a resolvent sense of rubor, a harsh throbbing that marred the very flesh it was borne of. It kept him sharp, honed, however ugly and unbecoming it had created him. As though a stray dog, Privetpaw had only accustomed himself to the agonies of his circumstance - for it made him all the better than those cushioned within the clans. More than anything, Privetpaw felt the death-knell of dissatisfaction within him, though it had never sparked any sort of inanition within him. In fact, it had only incensed him, however dreadful it might have been. If he wanted something, he would surely get it, no matter how. It was the matter of all being, to be besieged by unending hunger. To starve was to live.
Restless as his white-tipped feet always seemed to be, Privetpaw slipped out of the camp without a sound, seeking something like a starveling macerated by the very pain of existence. He ducked through the mouth of the entrance, the same motions that he had done for quite some time, and swam through the nightfall's cover. Glancing backwards, he reasoned that if he had calculated the time that the moon would take to fall downwards from its apex, then he should surely be back before any Duskclan cat noticed. Waxing gibbous moon stared longingly upon him, its approaching halo of shadow almost attenuating the light, as it crept and it seeped into the freckles of the celestial. Moonlight still sunk itself into each and every surface that he could, including the back of the sable-hued tomcat. He did not mind it, for the imitation of light proved almost a comfort to him. Privetpaw had a mission to complete, something that compelled to him as the apocryphal called to the heretic, a tolling of some unknowable, immeasurable bell. He had listened to that saccharine nothingness, allowed it to guide him from his nest, and into a desperation for an answer.
It began to swell, bug bite that peeked through the fur, like the sickly heat of sweet summer.
Privetpaw had long wondered what it was like to kill. The warriors of his clan, those that had lived moons and moons more than he, had spoken of it quite fondly. Killing was an act of conquest, of total domination, of complete and utter victory. After all, a dead man could not fight back against the living, so it was the only assured win to obtain. He had gotten somewhat close once, when he slashed his claws against the calico apprentice of Windclan, feeling the soft flesh below his pads as blood became bereft of it. Seeing them bleed had roused some sort of emotion within him, but it would sooner bow its head than rise to meet him. Not to mention the briefness of it all, how he hadn't been able to encapsulate the beauty of new colors brought to the surface of skin. But that had been nowhere close to what it must feel like to sink one's fangs into velvet, gaze upon the warmth of life slowly exit through haggard breaths, as though the ailing body would sooner drink from the earth than gasp again. When close to death, he had noticed that the body dared not fight against what was to come, and instead would bring itself closer to its burial site. He had only glazed his eyes upon an assuredly dead body once, when Granitepelt had been left for the Carrionplace's whims... but he had been long dead before he and Ghostmask happened upon him. No matter how much he had imagined it vividly, it would have never come close to the real thing, a false mimicry avowing itself as simply fanciful wonderings. And it frustrated him, made him want to claw at himself for missing such an opportune moment for himself.
The wine-dark apprentice stopped where the overwhelming stench of Windclan's borders hit his nose, blackish figure remaining within the darkness of twilight, though jagged as though thorny barbs of the hollybush's splendor. He had been more careful not to be detected as he had been before, peeling his ears back to his skull, and waiting for any stray sound to alert him to an unwanted presence. Like his very rhythm had allayed into the quiescent, he only resumed his methodical motions once he knew that no cat accompanied the space with him. He slipped through the weaving wildgrasses, his heart as stilled as the breezes that pulled at his purls and swayed along the sedges, though his composure threatened to leak through his maw as if it had only been fastened to him with a basting. The fact that this whole trip was merely upon a fleeting impulse was quite apparent to him, and yet he still followed through with it. He was not the kind to give up just because of a silly qualm, dismissing it as one would swat away a gnat or flick away a dust-speck. He waded through the sea of verdancy until the scent of a living thing then wafted through his nose. Fern-green eyes glittered as he caught upon his target: an adolescent feline with a pelt that stuck out among the gloominess, white as the snow that beaded upon trailing boughs and roots. He barely remembered snow, as he had still been suckling upon his mother's belly when winter had loosened itself from the world. Reared upon the harshest season, the ice of bygone leafbares seemed to have clambered within his bones and tendons, molding him into its image.
It echoed louder, open wound that marred the fur, pain laid naked for the world.
Privetpaw wandered closer and closer, awaiting for the right moment to strike, when the blusters would blow a certain way and the moon would bedaub itself upon the covers of the clouds. He felt as though he were hunting his prey, and he felt for this stranger as he would for a rat. Windclan might as well have been prey to him, with the same beaded eyes and hollow heads as his food. Perhaps he thought of them as even less than that, not even deserving to sustain nor permeate his pride with. His heart felt like it now beat within his paws, as though it would sink straight into the graves, his own heartbeat blooded with the skeletons of prey and predator alike. Aim for the neck or the eyes. Those are the weak spots of a cat. The quickest ways to incapacitate a cat. Rumblerain's words hung heavy upon his head, and now they stood evergreen within his mind. He did not feel nervousness (not that he could readily identift that sensation), simply the want for everything to align just right with his perfect plan, as the Windclan apprentice had not bothered to even look beyond their shoulder. He waited, and waited, and waited - was everything a waiting game to him? No, he would not let this out be. Privetpaw had grown tired of being deprived, just this once.
Privetpaw lunged for Blizzardpaw, immediately attempting to dig his teeth into whatever purchase of flesh he could find, like he would find some weak spot within the nape or the shoulder. A screech of unadulterated pain escaped Blizzardpaw's maw, as if the cry for help rattled through their feebler framework, racking them as the whole foundation began to fall apart. They flailed below him, trying to shake him off like they didn't even want to fight. They only wanted to escape, just like prey would when it knew itself to be in the clutches of peril. Privetpaw's caprice had cost him the efficacy of the kill, he had realized seconds too late. As he leapt off to recalibrate himself, he caught upon the scarlet that sidled upon the albino apprentice's neck, and the metallic taste upon his own lips. Cat's ichor did have a distinct taste to it, and yet there lie that iron-fraught flavor that seemed to cling to his entire tongue. Just like a prey animal, almost, he surmised. But why did he feel nothing? Nothing stirred within his soul, no sort of kindling triumph of inconsolable sadness to alter him, as though the stillness of his composition could not be alloyed by such a mere act as killing. Had he done something wrong? He should have killed the other faster, or should have taken his time with them...
It became him now, sanguine dripping down his bird-bone body, flushing through his veins as though it vindicated him of all else.
Fury blazed through him now, not upon the fact that he inflicted such a grievous wound, but that he gained nothing of it. Brushing through his facial features, that fury twisted at his maw and darkened at his eyes. It had been the only thing that had arisen from him, but it was not what he sought. More out of pure, unreserved madness than any sort of anger misplaced upon Blizzardpaw's kin, he leapt again for the alabaster feline. He would make sure to finish the job. This time, nettle-sharp claws pierced into the papery tissue of the underside of the throat, as if Privetpaw aimed to rip out whatever he sought from the very dwellings within Blizzardpaw's body. Again, he struck at the same area, as if it would bring about the other's unbecoming in a more timely manner if he simply did it once more. Again, and again, and again, with flurries of claws not even piercing at the flesh at some swipes. Give me something! I'm supposed to feel something! Give it to me! I worked for it! I want it! Wild motions seemed to communicate such despair with each hit, each blow against an opponent who would not attack back. And then, Privetpaw stopped and took a few steps backwards, as if to marvel at what he had done - or, rather, out of pure exhaustion.
The adolescent tottered upon their feet before falling ingracefully to the cold ground, as though their fate had been damned as soon as they had stepped foot outside of their camp, as though there existed no time for them to beg to spin the wheels of fate another way. Their throat, or whatever remained of it, now ribboned outwards in a grotesque sort of spool. Reddish hue stained everything around the apprentice's body, from the coat of chaste white to the ground that it loached into. They were still alive, but they would not be for very long. No sort of medicine cat's magic would be able to repair them once they had arrived upon the grisly scene. Even as he watched Blizzardpaw's life slowly ebb out of heaving flanks and widened eyes, Privetpaw still felt nothing, not even the childish anger that once presided within a scrawled countenance. What a pointless existence. You died and you gave me nothing to show for it. The disdainful thought curdled within his mind, and one end of his mouth curled downwards, in a display of utter disgust at how terribly pitiful Blizzardpaw was. As the first inklings of the sun became to cusp upon the sky, Privetpaw made sure to leave as quickly as he could, as unnoticed as a shallow breath passing through and out of the mouth.
He had been foolish to believe that that would fill any sort of emptiness within his vessel. He would starve, but at least he would live.
It started as an urge, as simple as an itch beneath the fur, a spur or a thorn exhorting gentle into his skin.
Privetpaw knew how to do one thing for certain, and it was how to starve. Weaned from the scarcity of the scrublands, the apprentice had hardly even eaten a full meal, as meager mice and lizards could not sustain a growing cat for long. Still, it had been the only state of being that he had known, even as he yearned for a better existence that seemed to lie upon the tips of his whiskers. The boy starved for knowledge too, as the want burgeoned within his very body, like thermal winds inflaming the walls that beheld it. He wished to feel full, more than anything. Privetpaw hadn't a concept of what that was like, to feel sustained. He felt it to be a fruitless effort, for even after a grand banquet of all the prey one could have, one would always starve again. Therefore, wasn't it better just to always be upon the verge of hunger, so that a falsification of happiness could not occupy oneself? Perhaps it was a boon to always seek out the unknown, drowning out all else like a resolvent sense of rubor, a harsh throbbing that marred the very flesh it was borne of. It kept him sharp, honed, however ugly and unbecoming it had created him. As though a stray dog, Privetpaw had only accustomed himself to the agonies of his circumstance - for it made him all the better than those cushioned within the clans. More than anything, Privetpaw felt the death-knell of dissatisfaction within him, though it had never sparked any sort of inanition within him. In fact, it had only incensed him, however dreadful it might have been. If he wanted something, he would surely get it, no matter how. It was the matter of all being, to be besieged by unending hunger. To starve was to live.
Restless as his white-tipped feet always seemed to be, Privetpaw slipped out of the camp without a sound, seeking something like a starveling macerated by the very pain of existence. He ducked through the mouth of the entrance, the same motions that he had done for quite some time, and swam through the nightfall's cover. Glancing backwards, he reasoned that if he had calculated the time that the moon would take to fall downwards from its apex, then he should surely be back before any Duskclan cat noticed. Waxing gibbous moon stared longingly upon him, its approaching halo of shadow almost attenuating the light, as it crept and it seeped into the freckles of the celestial. Moonlight still sunk itself into each and every surface that he could, including the back of the sable-hued tomcat. He did not mind it, for the imitation of light proved almost a comfort to him. Privetpaw had a mission to complete, something that compelled to him as the apocryphal called to the heretic, a tolling of some unknowable, immeasurable bell. He had listened to that saccharine nothingness, allowed it to guide him from his nest, and into a desperation for an answer.
It began to swell, bug bite that peeked through the fur, like the sickly heat of sweet summer.
Privetpaw had long wondered what it was like to kill. The warriors of his clan, those that had lived moons and moons more than he, had spoken of it quite fondly. Killing was an act of conquest, of total domination, of complete and utter victory. After all, a dead man could not fight back against the living, so it was the only assured win to obtain. He had gotten somewhat close once, when he slashed his claws against the calico apprentice of Windclan, feeling the soft flesh below his pads as blood became bereft of it. Seeing them bleed had roused some sort of emotion within him, but it would sooner bow its head than rise to meet him. Not to mention the briefness of it all, how he hadn't been able to encapsulate the beauty of new colors brought to the surface of skin. But that had been nowhere close to what it must feel like to sink one's fangs into velvet, gaze upon the warmth of life slowly exit through haggard breaths, as though the ailing body would sooner drink from the earth than gasp again. When close to death, he had noticed that the body dared not fight against what was to come, and instead would bring itself closer to its burial site. He had only glazed his eyes upon an assuredly dead body once, when Granitepelt had been left for the Carrionplace's whims... but he had been long dead before he and Ghostmask happened upon him. No matter how much he had imagined it vividly, it would have never come close to the real thing, a false mimicry avowing itself as simply fanciful wonderings. And it frustrated him, made him want to claw at himself for missing such an opportune moment for himself.
The wine-dark apprentice stopped where the overwhelming stench of Windclan's borders hit his nose, blackish figure remaining within the darkness of twilight, though jagged as though thorny barbs of the hollybush's splendor. He had been more careful not to be detected as he had been before, peeling his ears back to his skull, and waiting for any stray sound to alert him to an unwanted presence. Like his very rhythm had allayed into the quiescent, he only resumed his methodical motions once he knew that no cat accompanied the space with him. He slipped through the weaving wildgrasses, his heart as stilled as the breezes that pulled at his purls and swayed along the sedges, though his composure threatened to leak through his maw as if it had only been fastened to him with a basting. The fact that this whole trip was merely upon a fleeting impulse was quite apparent to him, and yet he still followed through with it. He was not the kind to give up just because of a silly qualm, dismissing it as one would swat away a gnat or flick away a dust-speck. He waded through the sea of verdancy until the scent of a living thing then wafted through his nose. Fern-green eyes glittered as he caught upon his target: an adolescent feline with a pelt that stuck out among the gloominess, white as the snow that beaded upon trailing boughs and roots. He barely remembered snow, as he had still been suckling upon his mother's belly when winter had loosened itself from the world. Reared upon the harshest season, the ice of bygone leafbares seemed to have clambered within his bones and tendons, molding him into its image.
It echoed louder, open wound that marred the fur, pain laid naked for the world.
Privetpaw wandered closer and closer, awaiting for the right moment to strike, when the blusters would blow a certain way and the moon would bedaub itself upon the covers of the clouds. He felt as though he were hunting his prey, and he felt for this stranger as he would for a rat. Windclan might as well have been prey to him, with the same beaded eyes and hollow heads as his food. Perhaps he thought of them as even less than that, not even deserving to sustain nor permeate his pride with. His heart felt like it now beat within his paws, as though it would sink straight into the graves, his own heartbeat blooded with the skeletons of prey and predator alike. Aim for the neck or the eyes. Those are the weak spots of a cat. The quickest ways to incapacitate a cat. Rumblerain's words hung heavy upon his head, and now they stood evergreen within his mind. He did not feel nervousness (not that he could readily identift that sensation), simply the want for everything to align just right with his perfect plan, as the Windclan apprentice had not bothered to even look beyond their shoulder. He waited, and waited, and waited - was everything a waiting game to him? No, he would not let this out be. Privetpaw had grown tired of being deprived, just this once.
Privetpaw lunged for Blizzardpaw, immediately attempting to dig his teeth into whatever purchase of flesh he could find, like he would find some weak spot within the nape or the shoulder. A screech of unadulterated pain escaped Blizzardpaw's maw, as if the cry for help rattled through their feebler framework, racking them as the whole foundation began to fall apart. They flailed below him, trying to shake him off like they didn't even want to fight. They only wanted to escape, just like prey would when it knew itself to be in the clutches of peril. Privetpaw's caprice had cost him the efficacy of the kill, he had realized seconds too late. As he leapt off to recalibrate himself, he caught upon the scarlet that sidled upon the albino apprentice's neck, and the metallic taste upon his own lips. Cat's ichor did have a distinct taste to it, and yet there lie that iron-fraught flavor that seemed to cling to his entire tongue. Just like a prey animal, almost, he surmised. But why did he feel nothing? Nothing stirred within his soul, no sort of kindling triumph of inconsolable sadness to alter him, as though the stillness of his composition could not be alloyed by such a mere act as killing. Had he done something wrong? He should have killed the other faster, or should have taken his time with them...
It became him now, sanguine dripping down his bird-bone body, flushing through his veins as though it vindicated him of all else.
Fury blazed through him now, not upon the fact that he inflicted such a grievous wound, but that he gained nothing of it. Brushing through his facial features, that fury twisted at his maw and darkened at his eyes. It had been the only thing that had arisen from him, but it was not what he sought. More out of pure, unreserved madness than any sort of anger misplaced upon Blizzardpaw's kin, he leapt again for the alabaster feline. He would make sure to finish the job. This time, nettle-sharp claws pierced into the papery tissue of the underside of the throat, as if Privetpaw aimed to rip out whatever he sought from the very dwellings within Blizzardpaw's body. Again, he struck at the same area, as if it would bring about the other's unbecoming in a more timely manner if he simply did it once more. Again, and again, and again, with flurries of claws not even piercing at the flesh at some swipes. Give me something! I'm supposed to feel something! Give it to me! I worked for it! I want it! Wild motions seemed to communicate such despair with each hit, each blow against an opponent who would not attack back. And then, Privetpaw stopped and took a few steps backwards, as if to marvel at what he had done - or, rather, out of pure exhaustion.
The adolescent tottered upon their feet before falling ingracefully to the cold ground, as though their fate had been damned as soon as they had stepped foot outside of their camp, as though there existed no time for them to beg to spin the wheels of fate another way. Their throat, or whatever remained of it, now ribboned outwards in a grotesque sort of spool. Reddish hue stained everything around the apprentice's body, from the coat of chaste white to the ground that it loached into. They were still alive, but they would not be for very long. No sort of medicine cat's magic would be able to repair them once they had arrived upon the grisly scene. Even as he watched Blizzardpaw's life slowly ebb out of heaving flanks and widened eyes, Privetpaw still felt nothing, not even the childish anger that once presided within a scrawled countenance. What a pointless existence. You died and you gave me nothing to show for it. The disdainful thought curdled within his mind, and one end of his mouth curled downwards, in a display of utter disgust at how terribly pitiful Blizzardpaw was. As the first inklings of the sun became to cusp upon the sky, Privetpaw made sure to leave as quickly as he could, as unnoticed as a shallow breath passing through and out of the mouth.
He had been foolish to believe that that would fill any sort of emptiness within his vessel. He would starve, but at least he would live.
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Please wait for @BLIZZARDPAW to post! Privetpaw is already long gone and will not be caught at the moment. Duskclan scent, as well as scraps/strands of black and white fur, may be detected.
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