- Aug 9, 2022
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From the first day he was a shadow, spilled as a reflection of light and left to wander darkness alone and without purpose. What purpose did a shade have? To fall beneath another's paws, cower from the sun. Light felt penetrating, sharp, narrowed his eyes and sent flames pouring over him in a blanket of heat. So he kept to dark corners and under overhangs, crept from his sodden nest made of discarded things in the coolness of the night to hunt, to scavenge but more often than not he would return to his desolate hovel with empty paws and an empty belly. It was the fighting, strangely enough, that kept him going above all other things. There was no divine purpose for him, no goal, no future, he lived in the thrilling moments when his claws would rake down another and his teeth would pierce through fur to the soft vulnerable spots beneath it; in these bllissful and short seconds he felt invinvincible, alive, driven by a compulsion to defend himself and right the wrongs done upon him. Not every problem could be solved with this method, but enough of them did that he earned himself a reputation among the street cats of the two-leg place. Ember never stopped. Other cats would surrender and run, let their opponent flee from the fight to claim their prize, whether it be a scrap of food or the area itself, but not Ember...
You did not fight the fire and expect to be free of burns, his was a scorching madness that enveloped and chased; stalked you crackling and heaving smoke around every corner to turn you to ash. He did not let opponents live, he did not relent and so eventually the cats of the area gave him wide birth, moved when he approached and scurried away when they saw him out of their peripheal. This infuriated him more than anything else, that they would bend and submit rather than continue to give him his fleeting moments of adrenaline and desire; the pulsing urge for combat that made him who he was; there was an emptiness to life as time went on. Scars healed, but he chased the high whenever he could until finally he gave up.
It was a strange thing, giving up, he was such a proud and ruthless cat that just the idea of surrender and failure was enough to make him balk at the prospect but overtime it became apparent in this box of stone and false stars he would exist only as a shade and nothing more.
The teeth that grabbed his scruff to yank him back as he moved to step in front of the monster were not delicate. They were sharp and violent, as vicisious as the she-cat who bore down upon him with moss green eyes and a voice demanding answers he could not hope to give.
What were you doing? Are you stupid? Do you want to die? What did you think that would accomplish? Where are your parents?
He'd not spoken since his mother died, his voice a hoarse gravel scraping up from the depths of his hollow form like a gasp for air, "I'm alone."
Moss was not an affectionate cat, she didn't want him to call her anything but her name, she didn't care for attachments, but there was a way her gaze drifted off into the distance forlornly that made him realize she loved him. Even if she never spoke it, even if he never replied in turn. She was rude, she was a bully, she taught him with the brutality one might reserve for their sworn enemies, when he learned to swim it was by being drowned again and again until he forced himself to the surface at last. She never showed him mercy, he adored her.
When she died the world stopped. Ember died alongside her, his shadow pouring onto the ground and draped across the tree she'd been buried under. Ember was gone, all that rose from the ashes were smoke. RiverClan was like a new life, he felt a new cat. Chosen and named by divinity, offered everything for his worth and no more. Fight for me, hunt for me, defend me, die for me. He swore he would, he always would, the river would run red with blood and heavens shatter, spilling stars down upon them; he would still stand here stalwart and determined. Moss had taught him what it meant to care without words, without touch. It was a familial bond they shared and he found the roots she planted had spread from him now throughout each cat here within the confines of their camp; a connection, a companionship. He didn't need to like a cat to defend them with his life, he didn't need to hate a cat to judge them for their transgressions. There were so many roots now, he could almost feel overwhelmed by them, but none more than the one leading up to him. Twisted, gnarled, but it was the root that paved a path the most unfamiliar. He dreamed of storms often, wondered in vague passing moments what it might feel like to roll beneath a rain cloud and let it shower him in light. It was something he struggled to understand, but it felt too sacred to ask questions of. If he spoke it, it might vanish. If he breathed a word of it, he may loose the way the electricity in the air seemed to bring him surging to life at every liquid sky glance. So in silence he stood there, form dripping from the river and paws uneven as he stared down at them; the weight of the smooth stone between his teeth felt almost unbearably heavy as if it might crush him should he make a wrong move. The leader's den was a gaping maw before him, almost beckoning but he found his limbs growing rigid and he closed his eyes.
Did Icarus ever regret moving so close to the sun that it ended his life? Or were the fleeting moments before he struck the ground the most beautiful ones he ever lived?
The longer he stood, a monolith carved from obsidian and cracked in places where the world wore too heavy, the more eyes were drawn to his form awkwardly rigid within the camp and staring with intense furnace burnt eyes into the depths of the archway of reeds and tall grass. Beneath him shells cracked and pebbles smooth, above him the sky so blue it hurt his eyes to look.
Smokethroat nearly cracked a tooth with how forcefully he gripped the rock between his teeth as he stepped forward and nearly dropped it when he realized the den was empty. Idiot. Fool. Moron. His relief was drowned out by unrighteous fury, a sinner refused a confession, he turned with a sharp pivot and lash of his tail to stalk away in a fit of madness; he was going to go lay in the river until his core cooled and his feelings stopped blazing inside him like an inferno.
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