- Jul 10, 2023
- 68
- 49
- 18
Ashenpaw, then. His father's child through and through; sullen-faced and dreary, sunken-eyed and upsetting, without Smogmaw's improbable charm to match. Sure, he might wear his mother's skin, but they can all see what he is—or at least Ghostpaw can. He was grieving, they would chide her if they knew the reasoning of her vendetta. You can't blame him, her mother might say. But they would be wrong; a moment's lapse is enough for her to make a snap judgement, and Ashenpaw is forever marked in her mind with a swathe of judgemental soot. Not only had he bumped into her, he'd snapped at her—her!—like it was her fault when they could all see it was his.
"I'm very sorry about your little siblings," she mews sweetly, with a saccharine curve of the muzzle to match. Most cats absorb her faux fawning with all the whiny self-importance of excessive ego; Ashenpaw doesn't seem quite so easily swayed. There's something off about him, like he doesn't believe her, and she doesn't like it. They're mucking out the elders' den together, hauling away the old moss and setting it up with the new, and somehow she hadn't managed to weasel her way out of this particular task.
Ghostpaw pauses, the silent sway of a lured snake, and adds in an equally sickly tone, "Such a tragedy." Is she deliberately overexaggerating the faux-dulcet tone to her voice to provoke him? Maybe. Nothing wrong with that. "I'm sure someone will find them soon." Her eyes, blue-black as a dead beetle's shell, slither over Ashenpaw's dull pelt. "At least you and Smogmaw are sticking together."
