SHOULD’VE WORSHIPPED HIM SOONER [post-battle + grieving]

[Cloudpaw .]

✵ ღ ☾ I'LL LET YOU DOWN - The trek home had been a lonesome one. Refusing to come close to Twilight as she had mourned the body that used to be her son, her Ash.
Now, she was frozen at the entrance, usually round eyes now narrowed and dull, drained from energy.
She didn’t want to go back, not without him. From an outsiders perceptive, they may have been no more than acquaintances, but to Cloudy… they had been so much more. A comforting pelt under the blanket that was night, a hunting partner, her Lavender. Now, he was gone, any blossoming feelings had been crushed by a bloody paw.
A shoulder-check from a disgruntled cat behind her shoves her forward, but her paws do not forget their grace and she is walking forward once again.
She’d be a sight to behold if her return was under different circumstances. Vermillion weaved it’s way between ruffled tufts of white fur, dirt clogged her still un-sheathed claws. A snow-freckled blood bath. She found a sliver of selfish relief that she blended in with the rest of her mangled, mourning group mates.
Cloudy didn’t realize she was inside a den until she looked down. Two hastily made nests formed by unskilled paws were brushing against her toes, pressed together, and a wave of unbridled pain seized once again at her heart.
The angora did not crumble under her own weight this time, instead she fumbled at the nest closest to her, destroying it as she clutched it to her, letting the familiar scent ride over the smell of metal that clogged her nose.
Now, she resigned to her haunches, a soft noise leaving her lips.
A sob, though not visceral and passionate as hers has been on the battle field, a cry it was all the same.
❝ Dammit Ash… how could you? ❞ She whispered into the meaningless moss. He had saved her, and only in her wildest dreams could she believe it was because he, too, was beginning to love her as she did him.
What a fool, a careless, compassionate, heroic fool.
❝ Speech. ❞

IF YOU LET ME TOO CLOSE​

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[HOWLINGSTAR]

One couldn't even voice how lucky Howling Wind had walked away from the battle. With how many kits she had, one was bound to be picked off in the bloodshed. But no, every single one of her loves ones had walked away alive. Every kit, every grandchild. They were all safe, and the tabby wouldn't stop thanking the stars for all of her fortune that night.

Others were not so lucky.

A sob, a mourning cry, sounded from a small den. Howling Wind paused on her way to her own family's den, her head turning. Grief. It was unmistakable. The same she had felt all those moons ago with her own mate's death, but this felt raw. Cloudy and Ash...they hadn't been mates, at least not obvious ones. But it was love, that much was obvious now.

Her heart twisted with sympathy and she found herself padding closer until she was sitting at the den entrance. A hesitant paw reached out, a gentle prod at the she-cat's tail to warn that she was there. "Shhh," She cooed, scooching forward if Cloudy allowed her to get closer. "I know.....I know...." Her voice remained gentle, soft, just like she used to talk to her kits after they awoke from a nightmare. Her kits were grown, but she was still a mother.
​

"speech"​

 

[BERRYHEART]

Where Berry lay, before him sat a mouse. Lifted from the freshkill pile as quickly as a falcon snagged its meal, Berry's ears lay flat against his head as his jostled jaw parted in a yawn. The camp buzzed with the dull drumbeat of sadness, everyone's lamenting heartbeats thumping in unison- and from Nimbus that grief surged nearby, tearful words crackling from her throat... though he could not hear her as precisely as he wished. Ah- thinking back to those spangled spirits, the souls that matched bodies now underground, there had been one that he had seen speak to the young white molly on a smattering of occasions.

Had they been close?

Berry knew not the intricacies of romance, nor did he care for them. By his age most had gotten first crushes, had at least thought a pelt-pattern pretty or eyes enchanting. No such feeling had ever sparked in the dappled tom, however- he figured it must eventually, though he was rather unable to imagine it. Big Mama made her way over to the crying cloud, her tone low with honeyed comfort. He recognised that tone, and askew eyes flickered to the meal that lay before him.

The loss had dragged the mood down for many a cat. And though there was whispering sadness within him for all those he would never come to know, he could not say there was one particular cat whose loss had torn his heart from his chest and taken it to the stars with them. Everyone close to him had survived, and he wept not for lost kin. But so many did mourn deeply and absolutely, wails given to the sky that came from the very core of their being. Everyone who had died had been family for someone, by blood or bond. How sad.

So between crooked teeth did Berry hold his mouse, presence announced by his uneven, thumping pawsteps. Gently he placed the meal before Nimbus and backed away, eyes lingering upon her, urging her to eat with only the perseverance of his expression. ​

[ PENNED BY PIN ]​

 

[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

( ᴛᴀɢs. )  ❝  Perhaps it was a thing of foolish luck, that Hound himself came back with only the wounds that he did. As many claw marks marred his heart, he's only a few more notches on his fur to add to it. Those that he'd fought were good matches, drawing until exhaustion pulled both halves away from the other. Never so pained that the other'd get that fatal upper hand. Would he have done it, if it came to such things? Would his teeth've been stained that ruddy crimson so many of the others here were plagued with now? He'd not found himself tested, and Hound is more than some parts grateful for that, but the question weighs heavy 'cross his shoulders. A burden he'd bear for many moons to come.

Adrenaline's a hell of a drug, ain't it just? What they do or think or feel in the heat of battle, but'd never think to do without the blood-gush engine of war driving them on. Maybe that'd been the thought behind Ash's sacrifice. Or maybe he'd've done it any other day. There was no saying what went through that boy's mind as he made his choice, but he'd made it. And here they were, all of 'em left by his sacrifice. Hound himself had been fond of the boy, though not nearly so close as Cloudy seemed. Her bloodied form retreats to the den and he thinks he might do best by leaving her well enough alone in this moment, but others pad closer and he finds himself following regardless of his thoughts. "C'mere," he murmurs, voice nearly as soft as Howling's despite the inherent rasp. "Let's get all that grime off'f you 'fore it makes a bigger mess. You eat, or talk, or anything you need. We're here to listen."

†  ooc notes information †

• 
  ooc: —
• ──── hound. trans male, he/him pronouns only.
  ──── approximately 30 moons old, or 2.5 years.
  ──── bisexual with firm male preference; single.
  
  ──── a chocolate tabby with ( stylized ) low white and intense lime eyes. lean and lanky,  with whiplike musculature and a long, quick stride. hound's notable features include his impressive height, the long scar across the left side of his face from nose to jaw, his very deep, dense fur, and the confident manner with which he conducts himself.
• "speech"

  [b][color=#c5c897]"speech"[/color][/b][/tab][/tabs][/color][/justify][/box]

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