- Jun 7, 2022
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tw for descriptions of cold drowning ( shock, hypothermia, etc ) in the last paragraph!
the crowd was milling on and the man had watched, hollow - eyed, bitten lipped as they traversed the ice. it had groaned with each agonizing pawstep, a low, screeching whine echoing amidst the fog - ridden river. it was freezing, and he could see it in pinched expressions, watched them pry their pawpads from the surface and knew the bite of it, a raw snap of release from the frozen surface. their camp — woven by paw, patched from the very beginning but its structure the same. nothing but rubble remains, snapped twine and reed, scatterings of stone and shell that had once been dotted about their nests or woven into den walls. their camp was made upon memories and the task ahead seemed.. monumental. his body hurts, despair a physical ache pulsing low within his bones. he wants to stay here, in this stasis. he wanted the ground to erupt, to root him to this spot until the rivers receded and gives them back their home.
home. he’d lived beyond the marshes at one point, but that place.. had not been home. his place was here — his place was amidst the waves, amidst his warriors, strong and hearty and cunning as they were.
they’re moving towards the camp now, and the man still sits, ruins of his home lapping idly at his paws. it taunts him, mimicks the gentle sounds of a corroded shore, waves that had lapped tenderly at the base of his willow now pooling over it’s arching roots and into the place he rested against warm, white - speckled fur — his throat clicks. he nearly wished he had asked the dark tom cat to stay behind with him, if only for just a moment. bony paws curl into the damp remnants of slush and mud underfoot, long claws slipping through sodden, clumping sand and dirt. across the ice ahead, sablekit was likely walking alongside him, head high and curious — her first time from camp. houndsnarl will joke aloud despite their circumstance, laugh as heartily as he had the first time they’d crossed this river, the ray of light he’s always been in the stormy leader’s life. mudpelt will be with his children, ashpaw would be trotting after willowroot’s little ones, wrangling antlerkit, hazekit, poolkit and.. he would cross this river as well, chastise the tabby molly for crowding the nursery, and life would go on. they would build a home — wherever they were.
he would go home, to him.
cicadastar sucks in a breath, ignores the gust of fog that befalls his mouth and floats up into his bleary vision, resolute. he has survived worse than this. the tom stands, stretches too long limbs and after one more glance back, places a single paw upon the ice. it growls just as it had before, caves just slightly beneath the firm weight and.. it was fine, surely. the surface was scuffed, but it had been when they’d come across it — had it always looked so white? he unsticks his paw with the slightest snarl, stepping further onto the ice and its just as uncomfortable as he’d imagined, a slow pull - stick - pry of his damp pads on ice. they would need to send hunting patrols out as soon as they could, what little they had the waters had washed away, leaving nothing but crowfood and rot. with hope, there were already a couple warriors out, his stomach growls and the bite keeps him going. the cold keeps him going, the thought of a nest beyond this frozen landscape. busy, busy, pallid eyes flit down, catches his own gaze and —
a crack.
its abrupt. the ground gives beneath him and he is submerged quicker than he could yowl for help, feels the jagged edges of ice scrape along his flanks as he submerges into a pitch dark as the ground opens beneath him. curls splay to every side of him, swimming miasma of black - white and he cannot see, cannot think past the sudden burning cold that sets every nerve off, singing pain throughout his slim body. king of the water, conquerer of riverlands — one would assume his time upon this pebbled shore would teach him to prepare for this. one would expect him to push up with his hind limbs as he has many times before, twist his body and lift bony, webbed paws to breech the surface that had engulfed him.
instead, he does the worst thing he could have done —
he gasps.
a sudden inward flood of water forces his jaws further open, begins to fill his throat brittle and shockingly cold, freezing his insides and he swallows wildly as if it could help, pushes, but he cant see, cant feel, cant breathe. his throat clicks, tightening to a pinpoint — it feels like the twolegs sharp stick, shoved beneath the plate of his chest instead of spearing his throat as it once had, and hurts just as much. at least the stick had been quicker ; his lung burn in this purgatory, raging fire in his chest igniting by the millisecond and by some grace, he finds which way is up.. but paws hit something heavy, something solid above him. a single paw splays wide from the bottom of the ice and with one last bubble of air from tinted blue, slackening lips, the tortoiseshell begins to float towards the murky river floor.
it had likely lasted seconds, but to the chimera, it may as well have lasted a lifetime.
seven.
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˖ ⁺ 。 ˚ ⠀ CICADASTAR⠀⠀
−−−c−−−⠀⠀king of the rivers.
m. he / him. black smoke & tortoiseshell chimera with intense salt - blue eyes. a handsome, looming tom bearing patchwork black - silver curls that fall over his slim figure in loose, shining rivulets, broken with white and glossy from his fish diet. descending from a heritage of overtyped oriental shorthairs, cicadastar stands unusually tall amongst his peers, and holds himself with a tragic grace, poised and prim and ever - aware of how he is being perceived.
ᨒ gay, courting smokethroat. smells like wet stone & moss.
ᨒ speaks with a german accent. 40 moons, ages on the eighth.
penned by antlers
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- none.