the world is dreary. a thunderstorm rolls overhead, the stars growling their anger to the ground, a starless sky swirling in mottled shades of black - grey. cicadastar wades in dark water, mist coiling over the unseeing surface, carried sideways by a brisk wind he cannot feel. he cannot see far — cannot the ivory of his fur in this blackness, his body giving away to shadow beneath tremulous water. thunder rolls and the waves shake, little ripples of agitation cascading from around his thin form. he does not remember how he’d gotten here, so far into the waters with no sign of surface at either side. have the rivers been this wide? have the meadowlands always been this dark? his forepaws splay upward to keep him afloat, unmoving ; it is silent
something brushes his paw, and he cannot see, does not mind it until he feels it latch ; he cannot cry out, tongue too thick and slow his heel start to drip warmth into the water around him. long, sucking tendrils creeps up his leg and he can feel the skin beneath it melt away to bone — and then more. rising higher, rising quick ; more latching, he can feel whatever they are shake as he thrashes his limbs, desperate to dislodge whatever eats away at his skin and fur. iron layers his tongue and he still cannot shout, cannot do anything but try and lift his forearms out of the too - dark water — but the blackness pulls, loops over where his arms try and lift from the river. trapped. he was trapped, eaten away by something he cannot see. the man thrashes, violent, and the waves to not move, only meld to him tighter. more teeth sink into him and his head feels light, he has to get out, has to get out —
with a mighty jerk, his arms pull from the sticky waters and there — leeches. the break in water tears open the the shadowed water and when it does, it splits to reveal masses of sheening, writhing bloodsuckers. the cool water around him turns to wet, membranous bodies but he sinks. slow, as if pulled in by something limbless. they slip over his barren lower limbs, wriggle up the line of his throat, latch onto his pulse points, his cheek, his mouth —
a violent gasp wakes him, the choke of a cry, garbled from sleep and half - bitten. his children sleep at his mates belly and he is grateful for once that they had not chosen to drape over him, his long legs whipping back from where they’d been wrapped tight around smokethroat to curl under him, lifting him to a rapid stumble. he is moving before he is even fully upright, leaning into the maw of his den until he breaches cool night air. nightmares, too common for a man whose sleep is rare enough. his head swims and his heart kicks against the brittle bones of his chest, up too fast to let his body settle. his mind whirls, spots at the edge of his vision eating away at the gentle sway of willows in his peripherals ; camp is empty, save for the night guard who casts a curious glance over their shoulder only to immediately avert their eyes upon catching pallid blues. the feline sits down heavily at the waterside — he can see the pebbles just beneath calmly wading waters.
a quiet sigh, a tight close of wild, manic eyes ; he smells him before he sees, stagnant water and faint milk scent. quiet pawsteps, quiet breath.. he is his namesake, for better or worse, ” cicadakit. “ steady rumble of a name, blinding blue flicking back to observe his follower. what was wrong now? never a moment of silence, never time to hunch and shred at the ground his frustration ; too many stare at him with wary eyes while sleeping, eating beyond his borders, how could he do anything else? reactionary emotion would send dovethroat, pikesplash and whoever other nerve - ridden excuse of a warrior into a tizzy. let them sit in his paws — let them witness death after death, let them wish in their nests for a leader not so cruel as he and watch their friends and family waste away into nothing. let him stifle his frustration, his fear ; may starclan cast their steely bright eyes upon them, let them take these battles from his shoulders.
leeches.
the thought spills his heart into his stomach, thunder rolling slow and lazy overhead — taunting. he pretends he can see a sardonic, pitying smile grace the gleaming lights overhead, sloped muzzle casts upward, the breeze through thick chest fur. preparation, perhaps ; a lack of answer. an im sorry, for passing himself down. a curse the boy would learn to handle alongside those deer antler limbs and curly, tangled fur, ” come. “ a flourish of a tail formerly wrapped tight to his paws, tipping his head to offer a brief look back towards him, a smile, tremulous smile dancing along his maw. had smokethroat sent him, while he curls still around beekit and starlightkit? a petulance grows in him, but he merely casts his head back towards the sky, ” .. did i wake your father? “
★ ⋆ CICADASTAR −−−− FOUNDING LEADER OF RIVERCLAN. HOMOSEXUAL, MATED TO SMOKETHROAT. FIFTY MOONS, FATHER TO STARLIGHTKIT, CICADAKIT && BEEKIT. PENNED BY ANTLERS −−−−−⁺₊✧
he / him. tall,elegantlycurledsmoketortoiseshellchimerawithintensesaltblueeyes. his structure sings a feral sort of hymnal, presenting an almost dangerous sort of beauty veiling what monstrosities lie beneath the ivory of his skull. jutting jawline and a squared chin, sunken cheeks drawing a shadow beneath high, sharp cheekbones with tall, angular ears settling high atop the flatter slope of his cranium. he is beautiful ; lucifer in the eyes of an envious god. for all his looks, his expression is lax, void — corpse - eyed and hollow until spoken to, sparking the undead to life. he is tall, lean, cut - glass pretty ; he smiles with too - many teeth, blackened frostbite pulling back his maw to bear canines setn beneath curling whiskers, pantomime skeletal. a predatory gracefulness from the lines that press the image of exhaustion beneath ice water hues to the slow, sure gait in which he walks, nameless strength poorly concealed within the hard lines of his physique. descending from a heritage of overtyped oriental shorthairs, cicadastar stands unnaturally tall amongst his peers, always holding himself with a tragic sort of grace ; poised, prim, and uncannily aware of how he appears.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── smells like wet moss and meadowland thunderstorms. ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── notoriously paranoid and closed off, cicadastar will tend to lie, assume, and jump to conclusions whenever it suits him. any 'suspicious' ic actions he witnesses or hears about will have a strong effect, and will have ic consequences! if you're unsure of an interactions outcome, please feel free to send a dm!
✦₊ ⊹——midnight is a familiar hour. it's a confidante as close as anger, biting at the joint of his jaw and the droop of his ears, moon waxing and waning in dull two-toned eyes. when the moon hangs highest in the sky is a time held close to his chest—a time of his darkest memories, his darkest thoughts, the secret wishes he keeps penned, biting and scratching, between hollow ribs. as soon as the milk-dreams faded the nightmares seeped in, forgotten fragments lining the landscape of his mind; his imagination has dredged up innumerable horrors without names for him. the boy's mind is something that betrays, something that leaves blows raining upon playmates and terrors haunting his nights. he is not quite three moons old and he has drowned more times than he can count.
the faintest memories of empty space in their nest and the sound of motion tells him his father keeps company with the moon too—for better or worse, their waking nights have rarely overlapped. cicadakit has learned to cage screams against his spine, as not to wake his parents or his siblings, to dream his horrors in silence. tonight, though, is different. he has always slept light and now he wakes to the sound of a choked gasp, the brush of rustling curls and a vacancy at his side. an amber eye cracks wide in the darkness, smokethroat's dependable limbs cradling the boy and his siblings, as stout and steadfast as his pa always was. if beekit and starlightkit dream of warped shadows, they've never shown it and they don't now, dozing at his pa's belly.
he extricates himself from the tangle of black and white, pulling himself from the warm comfort of his siblings' curls and the smell of beekit's flowers. large pawsteps trail out of the willow's mouth and he follows them, his own paws small in the face of those huge prints. the camp is a different shape now, masked in darkness and guarded by swaying willows, the river foaming calmly at its pebbly bank. the night guard's steadfast stare away is a confirmation in itself, the spindly shape at the water's edge an unsure thing—a comfort, perhaps, or the ache in his jaw now manifesting itself. his father's soothing scent of moss and thunderstorms is different in the night, twisting darker against his own smell of milk and water left to puddle and grow. perhaps he would twist back, retreat, leave his father to that hereditary darkness - but he is not a creature of stealth yet, not a warrior who dives in midnight rivers. he is a boy whose large paws grate against the pebbles, curls mussed with sleep and eyes dull with his father's anger.
"father," is his clipped and murmured reply, face a mirror image of the river king's as he slinks behind him with a split-eyed glance. smokethroat, fiery and warm, is pa, papa when he was a young thing still nestled at his belly. cicadastar, all glacial ice, was never such a thing—briefly he was dad and now he is father, a mark of a child's mind that ages with every sunrise where apprenticeship looms. his pa is something stout, steadfast as the muscled limbs that curl around them all each night, a strength that never wavers; cicadastar is strong, too, but in a different way. a way that reaches starward and leaps far too high, strong in a way that seems ready to shatter into howls of rage, rage all too familiar to the boy with his dull eyes and aching jaws.
he has never entertained the idea that his father's nights were as haunted as his own—surely the man deemed the river king was kept up not by something as simple bad dreams but by the weight of leadership, the bladed crown of river reeds. strange as he is, he is a child, and his ideas of leadership's stress are as vague as the clouds of foam that sweep the riverbank. but the shaking smile he offers is an echo of the boy's own; tonight he had been haunted by the weakest of shadows, perhaps smiled on by the stars. tonight he had not drowned again, tonight he had not woken screaming—but his father nearly had. whatever beasts rattled in the taller cicada's dreams were unknown to him; his own nightmares are forgotten in the face of that brief smile, the slight warped shadows that had stalked circles around him tonight.
"you didn't. he's - he's tired, i think. from us," his mew is a low rasp, the childish echo of his father's deep accented one, as he pads on stretched limbs to sit at his father's side and curl his bent tail, mirror of an unknown grandmother, about his paws. he does not think - he knows, knows smokethroat is tired from something, something that must be him (and his siblings, surely, but mostly him), the trouble that seems to follow the boy like a shadow. perhaps smokethroat longs for a return to life outside of a willow den and three hungry mouths; either way, his pa sleeps heavier tonight, does not join the two as they sit riverside.
a pause stretches too long in the air before the smaller cicada finally mews hesitantly, "did - did you have a nightmare? i have them a lot."
disclaimer:it's important to note that cicadakit is not always in a stable state of mind. his view of the world may not always be accurate to objective reality, which may include seeing things that are not genuinely there, reading motivations or thoughts from actions that are not actually implied, and making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. this is not an attempt at metagaming, powerplaying, or mischaracterization, and is not legitimately true or correct to reality or what your characters actually think or believe.
it will always be noted in the post if he is seeing something that isn't actually there. all opinions & thoughts are ic only and do not reflect my thoughts and opinions as a writer.
father, phantomime him, a murmur of words too rough for their bladed tongues. life takes his voice and twists it, heightens it into something warbling, staccato of river - corroded gravel. he takes his words and makes them smooth already, harsh as they could be. built in his image, the child was : born unto rot and unto rot he would bring him, bestowing his fishbone crown once he pulls it free from his skull — chrisened in blood of the river king, torn wounds still blushing. he is a shambling pile of limbs threatening to splinter, split at the joints and severe what lies beneath until he splays bare beneath the eyes of his clanmates. they already look. bloodcurdling shrieks across a shadowed camp, whipping heads and wide, blown eyes, an echo of his own rage richoceting off their stone dens. it is just as loud from the willow den as it was atop river rock. at least, for now, fear sounds different in them both.
his mirror approaches and he sees it in the water, watches shadow become one with the star - studded surface and light him in grace — how he is meant to be, illusionist as it is, ” a small price to pay. “ perhaps a flippant response in regards to the boys father, but smokethroat had been dealt worse before than the occasional startle awake. the dark - pelted tom had been flayed, gouged through the face and drug himself blearily through infection from dirt - stinking windclan claws. smokethroat’d lain beneath the bite of death before he’d bowled over that wretched, thorn in his flank tabby — the filthy dirt weasel he’d torn into until another face - battered windclanner held her bloody mit to his throat. a scream would not bother him any more than an ambush in the night had, only moons ago. perhaps he rumbles with irritation at times, eyes worn and tired.
at least he sleeps.
the stars beam at him ; no matter where he shifts, how he may turn his cranelike neck or angles his body, the stars reflect from the water at his front, fish scale, the eyes of night guards slinking through the willow root. taunting, he thinks. goading. thick, white clouds roll overhead and it is dark, light, dark, light, but the shine is still there — somewhere. when his head pivots towards his son he is lit from underneath, shadow cupping the length of his slim jaw and deepening harsh, hollow cheekbones. did you have a nightmare? the boys says, and rarely does he not. something trained and poised, years too - aware of his shadow and the room he takes up ; his mother had shaped him into something able to deal, and the phantom does. cicadakit would be fated to, as well. and what was in his name? something cast down from a molly the child would never hear of — a woman with a kinked tail and hard, misery - ridden eyes. should she have named him foxglovekit, would it have been just as poisonous? he is convinced there is no legacy without ghosts, and for a brief moment, he wonders what it would be like if the cicadas had not been screaming that night at all.
a quiet hum, tremulousness of his mind trained out of that heavy, rolling accent, “ yes. an unfortunate circumstance that happens to us all, at some point or another. “ the tom allows a small smile to grace black lips, the barest twitch upward of a too - sharp maw, barest glimmer of mirth in dead blue eyes. he leans his cranelike neck towards his son, just a bit, ” but perhaps moreso to us than others. die mutter had called it — an overactive imagination. “ imagination was supposed to be fun, was it not? he’d never known otherwise, himself. she had been tired as well, the mottled tom thinks. the stars beam at his peripheries, ” the night is kinder than our nests, at times. “kinder than our mind, surely.
★ ⋆ CICADASTAR −−−− FOUNDING LEADER OF RIVERCLAN. HOMOSEXUAL, MATED TO SMOKETHROAT. FIFTY MOONS, FATHER TO STARLIGHTKIT, CICADAKIT && BEEKIT. PENNED BY ANTLERS −−−−−⁺₊✧
he / him. tall,elegantlycurledsmoketortoiseshellchimerawithintensesaltblueeyes. his structure sings a feral sort of hymnal, presenting an almost dangerous sort of beauty veiling what monstrosities lie beneath the ivory of his skull. jutting jawline and a squared chin, sunken cheeks drawing a shadow beneath high, sharp cheekbones with tall, angular ears settling high atop the flatter slope of his cranium. he is beautiful ; lucifer in the eyes of an envious god. for all his looks, his expression is lax, void — corpse - eyed and hollow until spoken to, sparking the undead to life. he is tall, lean, cut - glass pretty ; he smiles with too - many teeth, blackened frostbite pulling back his maw to bear canines setn beneath curling whiskers, pantomime skeletal. a predatory gracefulness from the lines that press the image of exhaustion beneath ice water hues to the slow, sure gait in which he walks, nameless strength poorly concealed within the hard lines of his physique. descending from a heritage of overtyped oriental shorthairs, cicadastar stands unnaturally tall amongst his peers, always holding himself with a tragic sort of grace ; poised, prim, and uncannily aware of how he appears.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── smells like wet moss and meadowland thunderstorms. ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── notoriously paranoid and closed off, cicadastar will tend to lie, assume, and jump to conclusions whenever it suits him. any 'suspicious' ic actions he witnesses or hears about will have a strong effect, and will have ic consequences! if you're unsure of an interactions outcome, please feel free to send a dm!
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