L
Lionsnarl
Guest
"LIFE DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE SINNERS AND THE SAINTS"
Dreams were not something that Tugger liked to put a lot of stock into. They were merely extensions of one’s own subconscious, a trick of the mind into experiencing the more inane thoughts that any sane person pushed to the back of their brain during the waking hours. It was madness to sit and ruminate on the dreams that came and went while a cat was sleeping, and in Tugger’s mind, it was stupid to be scared of your own blabbering thoughts. Nightmares were merely illusions and escaping one was as simple as waking up. He could always fall back asleep once the inanity had passed.
… Usually.
Since the Great Battle, his dreams had become more… aggressive. The normal thoughts and illusions he had once dismissed as stupid and ignorable had twisted. Gone were the nights of rolling through carpeted halls or chasing after stuffed mice, his paws silent against leaf-strewn forest floors and seemingly crunchy grass. Now the forests he dreamt of were dark and gloomy. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of blood and mold. He could feel the blackness against his fur, could sense it curling around him - deadly as a snake he could hear but could not see. The trees curled in on themselves in the twisted forest, their ebony branches reaching towards the grounds instead of the sky, towards dirt and decay, towards him. He was no king in this forest, he was prey. A fly caught in a spider’s web.
It was the same nightmare now, every night. He was alone - physically, totally alone. Beyond him in all directions, surrounding him, were those awful trees with their blood-red leaves and their creeping branches. The ground was sticky, a type of sticky that made it difficult to move too far in any direction lest he risk sinking into the mire. He had never seen the marsh that Briar’s cats called home but he had always imagined that it looked something like this, a stinking hovel of a place with an atmosphere that threatened rather than provided.
Alone. Alone was an oversimplification of what occurred here. He wished he were totally alone. But from the gloom, there were always those damn voices. The same every single time. Every single fucking time.
Everest. He could picture him so clearly, though he could only hear his yowl, his sweet meow curdled with agony. The first time, he jolted forward - towards the sound, towards his brother - only to find that his paws were tangled in a mess of thorns and brambles he hadn’t seen before. Then it was Rain. Rain calling out to him, begging him to keep his sons safe. Pleading for him to take them, to shelter them, to protect them. Rain’s voice was always cut off in the same gurgling way, as if his last words were torn from his throat before he could finish.
The voices continued like this, growing louder and louder in the gloom until they echoed off of each other in a hellish cacophony, each scream of his fallen clan-mates becoming another refrain in his ears, both bouncing off the ebony trees that engulfed him and burrowing in his brain like audial parasites. He could recite them now: every scream, every yowl, every pitiful mew that he could not reach - that he would never reach. Because every time he took a step to save them, he was pulled deeper into the stinking earth beneath his paws.
He listened to them now, again, the thorns tangled around his legs and the sludge of the forest between his toes. He listened. And he wept. Silent, silvery tears slipped down his face as he listened to his brother’s death. To Rain’s death. To every single blow that had fallen upon his clan-mates that he didn’t even try to prevent. That he could not prevent because he was too busy focusing on that damned she-cat. On her, on -
The voices ceased.
The forest stilled.
Tugger looked up.
A shadow of a cat stood before him, regal. Silent. Despite being made of the same inky blackness that Tugger felt had consumed him, the cat seemed to glow against the gloom of the mire. Tugger blinks once, twice. The cat shimmers vaguely as it stands before him, almost like a mirage. Tugger takes in a breath.
“Are you stuck in here, too?” He asks after a moment.
The cat turns to face him. It has no eyes, no face, it is nothing but an outline, but he knows that it turns and is looking at him. Its faceless regard is cold, and Tugger feels his blood turn to ice in his veins as it sets its freezing attention on him. Impossibly, the image shudders and a mouth opens, though its gaping maw does not move in tandem with its words:
“He didn’t mean to. Please. He didn’t mean it.” The words are high and mocking, a cruel facsimile of the words the cinnamon tabby uttered to his mate, the last words he had ever spoken after Tugger had killed him without a care. Tugger’s eyes widen as the demonic refrain resumes, echoing off the trees again in rounds with the cinnamon tabby’s words. It is a chorus now, some hellish song that spirals up and up, as toxic as forest fire smoke, enveloping him completely and -
His eyes snap open.
The warm scent of milk and sweet-grass greets him, Fritter’s scent. Fritter’s beautiful, tempting scent. He allows himself three counts to unwind. It’s still dark, but he revels in the unfettered dimness of the warrior’s den. The late hours of the night in the waking world had nothing on the creeping black that made up the forest of his nightmares.
He stretches, reaching out his paws to pull his newly-named mate closer to him. He would allow himself a moment to groom her, to calm himself with the mundanity of the action. He would twist her fur around his paws and feel her heartbeat under his pads. He’d graze a paw against her belly, trying to feel for the life that she held inside her. His kits. Their kits. Their children. And then he could drift back to sleep with a mumble of an “I love you” on his lips.
But when he reaches for her, she isn’t there.
Tugger jolts up, shuffling his paws in their shared nest. She isn’t next to him. He stands and sniffs at his sleeping clan-mates, as if she had gotten up at some point and accidentally curled next to the wrong cat. One cat rolls over with a groan. He lets out a small growl and stumbles out into the greater camp.
It was early morning, though the sky was barely more than a shade or two lighter than the midnight darkness he had drifted off to. A figure is sat at the edge of camp, quiet, guarding. “Fritter?” He meows, his voice low. The cat turns and blinks at him sympathetically.
“Ah, no, sir. I did see her leave earlier, though. Seemed pretty insistent that she wanted to be alone. I… uh… I don’t think she’s coming back.” He replies meekly.
A wave of nausea passes over the ginger tom. Alone. Flashes of their earlier conversation dance across his mind. ‘Je’taime’ she had said in her native tongue, in that beautiful language that they had shared. ‘Je’taime’ she had claimed. And yet, she was gone without a word. He had spilled his guts to and for her. All the things that he - that she - and now -
The messenger is disregarded. Without a response, Tugger dives into the forest, breaking into a sprint. Into a gallop. Into a run. Faster and faster until he can feel dirt and leaves kicking up behind him as he barrels through the pine forest. Gone. She couldn’t be gone, she wouldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t take his family from him, not now. She couldn’t.
His lungs feel as if they are on fire, but he doesn’t stop until he reaches the river. It gurgles beneath him, the current churning into itself as it babbles along. He coughs and splutters, trying to catch his breath. The cool morning air does nothing to quell the fire in his chest or the painful stitch that has sprung up in his side.
She’s gone.
Fuck.
Tugger lets out a yowl - no - a roar that rattles his own ears. That snake, a two-faced seductress that had lured him into a false sense of security. Who had once asked him if he had ever considered leaving the forest and nearly cried when hesitated a beat too long. She had sunk her claws into him and pulled secrets out of his heart that he knew were better left unsaid but it was her so it was safe.
And she left.
A new sort of fire bubbles in his belly - an anger, a hatred that churns as fiercely as the river below. She lied and left with his children in tow, not only betraying his trust but stealing a legacy from him without so much as an explanation. A sneer twists his muzzle now, an ugly snarl replacing a once soft expression. She had better have run far away from the forest, from the clans, from the star-cats in their cold heaven and all that came with them because if he ever caught her after this, he would be the last thing she would regret leaving.
✦ ★ ✦
