sensitive topics TIDES OF MISERY - death

Oct 15, 2023
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☾ TW: Graphic imagery, blood, mental break, mention of kitten death, and grief.

Sins upon sins seemed to weigh along his back like stones sinking him beneath waves. There was no place here or amongst the dead Harbingermoon belonged and in his wild-eyed state their fractured mind can only think to move forward. Mere hours ago he'd given birth to the one thing in this world that mattered and he'd left them to die. To die alongside their other siblings buried in the unforgiving snow. He believed if they were left to the will of the stars maybe each kit would earn their way. His children were still innocent and from what the clans spoke of every kit was granted safe passage. This was the last good thing he could do for them even if it meant destroying the only cats that had ever loved him back. Now he was left aimless and numb, head heavy with the reality of his atrocities piling up one by one.

Moonlight waned as the sun broke across the sky in bloodied strips, shimmering against snowy backdrops. His body is worn beyond repair and blood trickles from his belly and stains the littered patches of white across him. There is no consciousness left behind his sickly orange gaze only a broken husk of what remained. Ambition had died the moment he first met the few living breaths of soft bodies and petal pink pads. His ebony frame swayed and paws ruggedly toppled over hillsides. Harbingermoon does not know where he has travelled only that his legs have carried him on a familiar path in the pale morning light. Inching him closer and closer til he hauls himself over the scent markers of Windclan once more. His nose twitches with recognition and fear spikes up his back in wavelets. "NO!" He screams to the skies and collapses on to their side, blood splattering against the pale earth as his body thrashes.

Slatetooth's stinging words sing haunting melodies within him and Harbingermoon is frenzied with terror. Shakily, he uselessly attempts to stand, but falls with each push. Jaws clicking from impact as paw steps sound off behind him. They'll kill me! They'll kill my kits! Mirages of dark depths and howling wails drag at Harbingermoon's frail psyche and the thought of their fate leaves them petrified. All sense of reality has begun to evade him as the blood loss from a messy birth takes its hold. A sob crackles from deep within and his desperation intensifies, half dragging himself through mud, snow, and decayed grasses.

OOC
It's that time folks! Please wait for @SUNSTRIDE and @BRIGHTSHINE! to post first then feel free to post in any order.

patrol members included; @RABBITCLAW , @RATTLEHEART , @Azaleafrost , @slatetooth
 
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Brightshine staggers backwards in shock as the scent of blood hits her. It's accompanied by a strangled cry, one that sends her fur bristling along her spine. "Sunstride?" She squeaks to the tom, pointing with her muzzle towards the bloodied heap of fur. It's Harbingermoon, she realizes after a short moment. Fear courses through her - what is he doing here? He shouldn't be here, he shouldn't!

But she's been scared for too long. She can't bring herself to stay back now. So the calico wanders forward on unsure paws, brows tenting with worry. "Harbingermoon...? Calm down! You're- stars, you're covered in blood. But you shouldn't be here. Why are you here?" Her words come too quickly, stumbling over themselves as she tries to get closer. She leans forward and stretches out a paw to try and place it on the tom's shoulder as he tries his best to crawl away from her, clearly too weak to do much.

// apprentice tag @Bearpaw
 
Faded murmurs surround him in every which way, and his heartbeat soars to new heights, fear as fresh as the moment he realized Sootstar was defeated, overtook him in waves. Scrambling for purchase as newfound adrenaline courses through him, a foggy face swirls into view as their mews filter through the roaring of blood. Concerned eyes turn cold, and soft calico patches muddy into layers of black. A snarl rips from his bated breaths as he grinds out a name with hatred. "Venomstrike!" His pupils turn to slits in a backdrop of sickly orange, all sense of reality warped as he bows up at the approaching cat.

Their paw feels like fire, and he slaps it away with a shriek of fury. "DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ME!" His head sways back and forth as spittle froths at the corner of his black lips, eyes darting between each cat only to make out faint ghostly apparitions of their hidden faces. "Why should I calm down? You want me dead!" The whites of Harbingermoon's eyes bug from their sockets as cold terror drenches his prickled back. They're going to kill me, but I won't go down! Not like they want! Jumping forward, he aims to bowl his assailant over, hoping to tangle their limbs as he snaps at their neck, ignoring the horrific pain searing up his insides as he rolls across the snow.
 
His own hear beats in tandem with Harbingermoon's desperate race. It is a plea for life and a plummet to death, and he knows in an instant that there is a decision to be made. The grave that surrounds them cannot be this one's. How terrible a thought, how awful of a decision to make. Sunstride is faced with the reality of what they have done. Not the simple battle of those opposed by nature, but the shattering of a clan in its entirety. This was, once, a clanmate. Now a deranged, screeching ghost, lashing out with blood and agony and what he knows to be the poorly placed bloodlust of a cat dying in battle. Whatever the truth of it is, he acts without logical thought.

"Harbingermoon!" he bellows, though he does not charge to Brightshine's defense. The wily moor runner can stand her ground against a cat such as this, gore-touched as they are. And he has every hope that his voice is enough to snap him out of it. That this one, at the very least, might be saved. Whatever scars are left between them might one day heal. The loyalists could be trusted again. They could come home.

Naive, he knows. Even when the thought occurs to him that word bites back. Naive, innocent, pathetic, to think that you could ever have held your ground as a leader when your heart goes to this in the aftermath. Not a celebration of what they had won, but a grief-filled mourning of all that they had lost. And all that they would still lose with time. "Enough! Come to your senses; Wolfsong will tend to your wounds." The clan will judge you fairly, for I know in this moment that I will not. "Your death would serve no purpose now." Revenge, perhaps, but he cannot think what for in this heartbeat.
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  • OOC. please pretend this is not literal months late,,, @RABBITCLAW @RATTLEHEART @Azaleafrost @slateheart
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    SUNSTAR. LEADER OF WINDCLAN.  
    ——– HE – HIM – HIS ╱╱ 48+ MOONS OLD, ADULT.
    NPC x NPC, MOUNTAIN CATS. MATE TO WOLFSONG; FATHER TO BEARPAW, SINGEDPAW, RIVEPAW, SUNLITPAW AND FEATHERPAW. MENTORING RIVEPAW.

    TH ╱╱ A LARGE, FRESHLY SCARRED CHOCOLATE AND WHITE ROSETTE TABBY TOM WITH SEAGLASS BLUE EYES
 
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Bearpaw did not expect to stumble across this when they went out, leaning around his mentor where his limbs locked rigid behind her to peer at the streaks of red upon the ground leading to the crumpled black and white form; his blue eyes widen gradually when familiarity floods his senses moments before Brightshine herself speaks the name. Harbringermoon. He had been stumbling out of camp when he caught sight of the tom nearly ripping Mintshade's back open as she tore off after her sister, when he'd nearly tripped over the dark molly later he can remember the stench of festering wounds and the other cat's scent faintly lingering on torn flesh. She'd nearly died. Wolfsong had performed a miracle on keeping that loudmouthed she-cat going. He remembers the way his father had growled in her face with a harsh tone underlined with the lightest affection.

As the calico raises a paw to pin the struggling tom he raises his head and looks around as if trying to determine if any of the other DuskClan cats were lingering around but saw no one. In the seconds he had looked away the other was fighting back and he stiffened as if considering bolting to his mentor's aid only for Sunstar to snap out a demand for peace. His ears flattened and he lingered back as he watched the scene unfold in silence. Mercy? Thank the stars, he didn't think he could stomach the sight of the wounded cat being slaughtered.

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  • 75204791_pMEBRLaFNue5FJp.png
    Bearpaw
    —⊰⋅ Apprentice of WindClan
    —⊰⋅ He/Him
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    —⊰⋅ SH Chocolate Rosette Tabby w/blue eyes.