private Something that never died | Smokethroat

[Snakeblink]

MAYBE I'D BE A SAINT IF I WEREN'T ————————————​

As precarious as their current position is, the clan is relatively safe for now. On the verge of going hungry, yes, disheartened and defeated, very much so, but… safe. All thanks to Blazestar’s generosity.

This brief reprieve from the all-consuming anxiety over their new exile allows Snakeblink to worry about other things for a change. Land hunting, figuring out the customs of Skyclan… But most importantly: the matter of the rogues. The matter of Cicadastar. The blood-drenched memory of his leader’s body lying in the middle of a writhing mass of hostile bodies, white fur turned crimson, lingers in his mind like a sickness. It’s not right that his ever-living body should be left behind like this. What if Starclan sends him back again and the rogues tear the life out of him again? No, they cannot allow this to come to pass. Riverclan will need his guidance when they claw their home back from the invasive force.

More importantly: he is Snakeblink’s friend, and he doesn’t want to see him suffer. He wants him safe among his people. The thought of Cicadastar bleeding alone in the mud is unbearable.

But how to save him? It’s not as if he could go alone and steal him in the dead of night. Even if he were not half-blind in the darkness, this would be foolish at best and asking for a swift death at worst. That part, though, he needs not figure out on his own. He’s not the only cat in this clan worried for Cicadastar’s fate — he’s not even the most worried, in fact.

Smokethroat is not very difficult to find: having shouldered the burden of leadership in Cicadastar’s absence, he can often be seen attending to the dozens of tasks required to keep Riverclan together. Finding him alone and unoccupied is another matter entirely, but Snakeblink has his ways. That is to say: he has been tailing Smokethroat every opportunity he got, waiting for a break in the deputy’s busy schedule to talk to him.

The opportunity presents itself one evening, as the paling Leaf-fall sun is dissipating into the hazy purples of dusk. Uncharacteristically, Snakeblink brings no prey: the rumble of his empty stomach is surely echoed by Smokethroat’s own. It's a shame. Knowing the deputy's feelings towards him, he could have used the peace offering.

”Smokethroat, could you grant me a moment?” He hums, inclining his head in greeting as he slinks closer. ”I would like to discuss Cicadastar — I have come up with a few possible avenues for us to… get him back, and your opinion on the matter would prove invaluable.”
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——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely ​

ooc. information.

• 
  
• — Snakeblink • he / him. 45 ☾, riverclan warrior
  — a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
  — gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
  
  
  

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[SMOKESTAR]

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"..alright. Why are you following me?" Of course he noticed, the brown tabby with the green gaze out of the corner of his good eye as he made his rounds, checked in on his clanmates and ensured everyone was settling in and cared for; prey was slim but they had managed to get the queens and kits fed so far today and that was a blessing in itself. The rest of them were hardier, they could manage a day or two without meals but it did pain him to think of his newly apprenticed kits going hungry. If they were still kits, if they still slept in the nest between their fathers they would have full bellies and be content but time was as merciless as the rogues that had driven them from their home. It spared no one, not even a leader with nine lives...
In his head he counts them still, he thinks of each horrid mauling of claws, the way Cicadastar's body still writhed beneath the torture even as he stopped breathing; how many times had he died then-was it once? Twice per instance? He recalls Briarstar being wounded so badly by the monster that pummeled her into the tar strip of the Thunderpath that she didn't come back. Or had she just died nine times consecutively? What a curse. What a burden. A fate he would not wish on his greatest enemies, let alone his mate.

Get him back.
Hope flutters foolishly in his chest. He hears the comment and briefly considers humoring it, wanting to know, wanting to go back and find their leader and save him but deep down he knows the folly of it. Returning was a death sentence, how could he ask any cat to risk their lives in such a suicidal expedition.
"...no..." His voice cracks, he doesn't want to refuse it outright, he should at least even listen to it before being so blunt but if he lets it in, if he lets the idea sink into his head he knows it will stick. He knows he will do something foolish, reckless. He won't risk his clanmates lives, but he'd risk his own. That, in itself, was dangerous. "...he...we can't. We can't. I want to..." Even Snakeblink, naive and nonsensical as he was, surely could see that-they were both lying to themselves in different ways and his was by far the more painful one.

——✘ when does ripple become a tidal wave ———✘ when does a candle become a flame

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokethroat
  —⊰⋅ Deputy of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  —⊰⋅ penned by Rai
  

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[Snakeblink]

MAYBE I'D BE A SAINT IF I WEREN'T ————————————​

Snakeblink has never seen their fearsome deputy so... Defeated. His voice, usually stern and steady, cracks on his refusal: it sounds as if it takes something out of him, some tangible piece of flesh, for him to utter this single word. It sounds like it hurts. And Snakeblink...

He understands, or some part of him does. He knows, intellectually, that going into territory teeming with rogues to tear the body of their leader out of their murderous grasp is a... Bold, if not ill-considered idea; a waste of luck, for that is what they would need to succeed at such an endeavor. But how could they not? How could they bear to leave Cicadastar there, still bleeding upon the dirt perhaps, at the mercy of thieves and assassins? He saved them time and time again; how could they bear to do anything less for him?

They couldn't. They can't: Smokethroat already looks wretched, and his protests are dutiful but tear out of his throat with the jagged edges of a misery he never thought to hear from the stoic warrior.

”I know,” he says quietly, defeated. He remembers the blood better than Cicadastar's face as they escaped the camp. The thought of dragging his unconscious body all the way to Skyclan is... ”But we have to do something . He's– important,” he settles on lamely, instead of saying: family, Riverclan personified, a friend, still alive, waiting for us, waiting for you. ”Perhaps not a full patrol, but surely a few clanmates– our best and most discrete warriors, Cindershade or Petalnose, someone to watch your back– or if you cannot go, someone else, but we can't– we can't leave him there.”

Maybe it's not a plan he's looking for, nor even permission, but for someone with a colder heart to tell him: no, there is no hope.

(Or someone with a blaze of fire to say: yes, yes, anything, even madness, as long as it brings him home)​

——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely ​

ooc. information.

• 
  
• — Snakeblink • he / him. 45 ☾, riverclan warrior
  — a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
  — gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
  
  
  

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