SWEET AS ROT 𓆦 CHRYSALISWING

[TERMITEHUM]

⁺₊ ⋆✩ If there is one emotion that defines Termitehum, it is fear.

Fear, coursing its way through their shaky form. Fear, trapping its stupid and stuttering words behind its teeth. Fear, like a cacophanous hum inside her mind.

She is afraid when she digs her claws into a tree trunk. She is afraid when her teeth tear into prey-flesh and something in her stomach curdles. She is afraid when she faces her father, and she is afraid when she faces her brother.

It is hard to tell the two apart, some days.

It shouldn't be. Termitehum carries more of their father's face than Chrysaliswing. It is the curse they bear, a terrible reflection always stating back at them. He was let off easy, spared the shame - but oh, he should be ashamed. She got the face, he got the tongue. Venom and rage, razing all in his path. Fire in his throat, choking bile in theirs.

He has Dragonflywing's eye - one of them, at least. Golden as honey, golden as fire. Dripping sickly sweet and bitter, just like their father.

It hasn't seen his face in moons. It will never see his face again. Termitehum might be relieved, if only the thought didn't feel so vile. Her shame is her own, at least.

Chrysaliswing has never known guilt. He is alike their father too, in that way. Burning, blazing ahead, never hesitating, never caring for those he hurts along the way. She has always been one to lie down, to bite her tongue. She keeps all her feelings trapped in her chest, and it chokes her. Her ears hum with deafening static. She does not mourn, because there is nothing to mourn. He lives, he haunts her, and it's not fair. She sees him still, hears him still.

Chrysaliswing's words are not unusual. Some insult or the other, tossed so callously while the two if them share a rare moment of closeness in camp. She hardly even hears them past the humming. What she does hear is -

Dragonflywing. Biting, criticizing, never good enough for him. Looking at it with those horrible, disdainful eyes. Always a disappointment to him, never good enough -

"You sss-sound -" The words bubble out, and her teeth click together. Termitehum is a coward, and she does not want to say it. It's true, has been true. He's always been more like their father than it has. It's not fair that she has to constantly be reminded of how similar she is to him, and Chrysaliswing is too blazing-fire blinded to see it. It makes her sick, it makes her sick.

She can't let it fester much longer. She'll rot with it.

The words spill out unbidden, and she does not meet her eyes. Bitter bile coats her stuttering syllables, angrier than she ever lets herself be. "You sound ju-u-ust - just like -" Nothing but criticism, nothing but hate hate hate. She does not feel relieved, but she does not grieve either. "Hh- him. Dad." She'd know, wouldn't she? She knew him better than anyone. Better than Katydidcry, better than Chrysaliswing. She'd always tried to impress him, like the cowardly idiot firstborn she was. A disappointment then and a disappointment now.

She wears his face like a pitiful rotting corse. Her thoughts are a cacophany of flies.

Her words hum in the air. Chrysaliswing should be the to feel shame for once - though she knows with a rotten sort of conviction that he won't.

At least she's said it now, though. There is no lightness to it, just bitter guilt. She hates being a coward.

‎‎┌── TALK TO ME BABY, GET TO KNOW ME 𓆦 YOU CAN TAKE IT RIGHT BACK! ──┐‎

• @CHRYSALISWING
  

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  "SPEECH"
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  TERMITEHUM 𓆣 she / they / it, warrior of skyclan, 25 moons.
  ➳ a willowy black molly with white patches and intense.
  ➳ superstitious and cowardly, yet quietly kind despite their fear.
  ➳ dragonflywing xx earwigtuft, littermate to chrysaliswing.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[CHRYSALISWING]

Chrysaliswing had a strange relationship with his father, the kind that poisoned the very mind and tangled the very word from his tongue.

The chimaeric tomcat hated everything about Dragonflywing, as vitriolic verse spewed out as verbatim, a prayer that hope could never fester inside. Every word from his bitter progenitor felt like another lash to the flank, branded and bruised in sweltering wound. No amount of good deed could even make a tomcat so rotten turn the other cheek, like he had been embittered as his birthright. It was a trenchant irony that Chrysaliswing did not see how truly similar the two were, as though the pure derivation of he who begot a beast, intoxicated and infused with the hatred of the previous kin. After all, harsh hisses for words mimicked his father, a mawkish sentiment of debasing flattery. He did not see how he held his father's enmity tight, tight in the palm of his paws. He only saw how Termitehum resembled Dragonflywing in appearance, chalice of false aureate held high as an effigy of a trophy, though their father would never honor his brood the same way one would don their laurels. It was never enough for their father, if such a cat could ever seize that honor. He had forsaken it the moment that he laid eyes on Earwigtuft.

Something wretched bubbled out of his sibling's maw, moreso anathema to be spat out as bile rather than any grace or solace granted in genteel hand - not that he often received praises. The brother knew of his sibling's cowardice, how it wrapped upon her throat and choked out spluttering chord. They had not talked since they had visited Dragonflywing's burial site, an eerie quietude crawling along the purls of fur. Chrys' claws dug into pliable dirt below him, like the earth moved and glossed around his wrath. Rather, he had only made his stake upon the ground, and it would soon clean itself up and rid itself of impurity. Impatience would surely be the death of Chrysaliswing, if it were not his ire that immolated him alive first. Spit it out. Heterochromatic gaze narrowed dimly, pupils sharp as hornet's sting and discerning as hawk's judgment.

I sound just like Dad...? The thought seemed truly incredulous to the warrior, as if the idea had never crossed through the tumultuous sea of his mind, that he were a paronym to the man he despised the most. It settled within him, leaf resting upon stagnant waters, of which any movement would send the surface into an ictus. There was silence, for a brief moment. Any inklings of skepticism soon roiled inwards to reveal acerbic anger, like curses reverberating and echoing outwards from bird-bone prison, though his curse was one he had become acutely familiar with. After all, his anger had remained with him even after all left. If anything, he could rely upon a brandished blade of iron, never cleaned nor polished yet always quick to slice at the winds. He had never been good at hiding his words, with any dit of understanding soon ablating into a yawning abyss of his own turmoil. How dare you compare me to my father! Don't you see how much of a monster he is? (Don't you see how much of a monster I am?)

"Take it back. Now. Or I will make you regret it." The threat rumbled low, almost uncharacteristic for the man of thunderous tone, like it whistled out of him instead of rasping and rolling out in heat waves. How mordant, for the feline who looked so much like their father to be criticizing him now.

𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 ⚠︎ 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘦

• OOC:
  
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  —— CHRYSALISWING / He/They / 26 Moons
  —— Warrior of Skyclan / Mentoring n/a
  —— A long-haired tomcat with chimaeric patterning. His left side is fully black and his right side is black splotched with sunset-orange. He has complete heterochromia, with his right eye being a bright green and his left eye being a glowering yellow.
  —— Abrasive, temperamental, and critical. Approach at your own risk and engage at your own cost. Despite this, he is a hard worker and quick to call out what he finds wrong.
  —— Penned by Tempest. Contact on Discord (naruk4mi) for plots and threads.

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