- Oct 17, 2022
- 458
- 78
- 28
MAYBE I'D BE A SAINT IF I WEREN'T ————————————
Some lessons stick with you forever, and some you learn over and over your entire life. Snakeblink has the rare ability to do both at once. His natural pessimism bars him from truly holding on to hope, leaving him constantly bracing for the worse, for the storm surge after the rain. Yet a part of him always whispers: what if this time, it was different?
Naive as it is, he hasn’t found a way to kill that wishful voice in the back of his mind. It is doomed to be disappointed; nothing he can do but bear the pain of it.
Today shall not be an exception. He is uneasy from the moment he steps out of camp — the weather, he assumes, or his own baggage of stress that he lugs around from day to day. Everything leaves him uneasy nowadays. But it’s too warm out, the air heavy with tension that has yet to break into a thunderstorm. It must be the weather, he rationalizes. Nothing more. But the uncomfortable feeling of something hanging over his head, waiting to drop, lingers. The usual litany of concerns and half-thought plans bouncing around his skull as he slithers down to the river hums with a more urgent sort of aimless anxiety. Underneath it, an old voice — half forgotten; his mother’s — repeats: the river gives and takes. Nothing from it is ever free.
I recall, he thinks back, irritated by his own maudlinness. Losses both recent and ancients have done the work of carving that particular lesson into his brain already. But he wants to believe it has taken enough, lately. That it’ll have mercy.
He should have known better. The river is rarely merciful, and this is a lesson he’ll never be done learning.
He nearly doesn’t see the body, at first, half-submerged between river stones. He mistakes the pale waterlogged fur for the reflection of light off the surface. But then his eyes catch the line of a paw, the angle of an ear, the slope of a muzzle. His brain pieces it all together like a cat trying to find their way through thick fog, blindly groping around. The realization, when it comes, feels like a physical blow.
Frostdrop.
A clanmate, dead. Killed? No, unless one counts misfortune as the perpetrator: he can already picture her last moments, eyes darting away from the body as he [lets himself do] to the exercise to escape the scene. She slipped on the slick stones, fell into the river, wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to free herself from the strong current; or perhaps she was hurt, knocked herself out on her way down. This might have been what killed her, that or the lack of air as the river dragged her into its dark and breathless embrace. Either way, the result is the same: there’s no light in the molly’s glassy eyes, no movement in her chest.
Snakeblink reluctantly makes himself focus back on Frostdrop’s body, padding closer until he’s perched on the rock . She has a kit, doesn’t she? Family, at least, he thinks. Someone will have to tell them— someone will have to tell the clan. Another one of them lost. More orphans and heartbroken relatives.
But— stars, first he should see to getting her body out of the water. Grimly, Snakeblink leans over the water and closes his jaws around her neck, scruffing her as one would a kit before he tries to hoist her back on solid ground. His mind is quiet for once: whatever fears he had were just confirmed, and the tragedy brings a certain, exhausted relief to his expectant mind. At least he doesn’t have to wait to wait for anything to go wrong anymore: it already has.
Naive as it is, he hasn’t found a way to kill that wishful voice in the back of his mind. It is doomed to be disappointed; nothing he can do but bear the pain of it.
Today shall not be an exception. He is uneasy from the moment he steps out of camp — the weather, he assumes, or his own baggage of stress that he lugs around from day to day. Everything leaves him uneasy nowadays. But it’s too warm out, the air heavy with tension that has yet to break into a thunderstorm. It must be the weather, he rationalizes. Nothing more. But the uncomfortable feeling of something hanging over his head, waiting to drop, lingers. The usual litany of concerns and half-thought plans bouncing around his skull as he slithers down to the river hums with a more urgent sort of aimless anxiety. Underneath it, an old voice — half forgotten; his mother’s — repeats: the river gives and takes. Nothing from it is ever free.
I recall, he thinks back, irritated by his own maudlinness. Losses both recent and ancients have done the work of carving that particular lesson into his brain already. But he wants to believe it has taken enough, lately. That it’ll have mercy.
He should have known better. The river is rarely merciful, and this is a lesson he’ll never be done learning.
He nearly doesn’t see the body, at first, half-submerged between river stones. He mistakes the pale waterlogged fur for the reflection of light off the surface. But then his eyes catch the line of a paw, the angle of an ear, the slope of a muzzle. His brain pieces it all together like a cat trying to find their way through thick fog, blindly groping around. The realization, when it comes, feels like a physical blow.
Frostdrop.
A clanmate, dead. Killed? No, unless one counts misfortune as the perpetrator: he can already picture her last moments, eyes darting away from the body as he [lets himself do] to the exercise to escape the scene. She slipped on the slick stones, fell into the river, wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to free herself from the strong current; or perhaps she was hurt, knocked herself out on her way down. This might have been what killed her, that or the lack of air as the river dragged her into its dark and breathless embrace. Either way, the result is the same: there’s no light in the molly’s glassy eyes, no movement in her chest.
Snakeblink reluctantly makes himself focus back on Frostdrop’s body, padding closer until he’s perched on the rock . She has a kit, doesn’t she? Family, at least, he thinks. Someone will have to tell them— someone will have to tell the clan. Another one of them lost. More orphans and heartbroken relatives.
But— stars, first he should see to getting her body out of the water. Grimly, Snakeblink leans over the water and closes his jaws around her neck, scruffing her as one would a kit before he tries to hoist her back on solid ground. His mind is quiet for once: whatever fears he had were just confirmed, and the tragedy brings a certain, exhausted relief to his expectant mind. At least he doesn’t have to wait to wait for anything to go wrong anymore: it already has.
——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely
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ooc: rip @Frostdrop. ):
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— Snakeblink • he / him. 40 ☾, riverclan warrior
— a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
— gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
