private TRAGEDY'S PAGE ♥︎ TWITCHBOLT

[DOEBLAZE]

Late summer's wind whips languidly past her muzzle, setting the shaggy lilac of her fur alight to whip about her face in liquid ripples. A dying sun stutters towards the horizon, painting the sky in fading dayglow, cascading gold bleeding down to the crimson pulse of the setting sun. Blazing ember reflects back in a hollow seaglass pit, marbling the droop of her narrowed pupil in white - gold; Doeblaze stares bleakly into the sun, for once unwilling to cast her eyes skyward to the emerging stars. She wonders, would he be disappointed?

Probably, her mind answers. The delicate spice of pine that wreathes her is little consolation; her retreat is far above the earth, draped over a branch's crook against the tree, the slow trickle of blood from her forelimb dribbling onto greenleaf - bursting needles beneath.

Her temper is a vicious animal on an ever - thinning leash, held tenuous by threads in the momentary eclipse of her anger; the moon rolling over her iris, the world had been painted in stark red - white. She'd fled camp in fear of striking a Clanmate, and ended up adrift—trailing river - water clumsily to this tree, and coming wearily to rest in its branches with sunset staining her cheeks. It is a small consolation that she has not cried.

" @TWITCHBOLT , " she says when a rain - stained scent winds up through the needles, her voice sunk abyssal low in the exhaustion, the weight of her guilt that pulls her shoulders downwards and the stress that knots them taut. Muscle is a ribbon in her jaw, winding and unwinding, an ever - present twitch as of late. She had caught the tail end of his chastisement on her way out, driving a needle between her ribs, where guilt comes to rest.

She inhales pine air, the flint exhaustion of her eye set on the horizon, muzzle drawn in a grim line. Words unspool from her chest like thornbrush. " I made a mistake. "

OOC : —

♥︎

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[TWITCHBOLT]

Twitchbolt never sat on anger for long. His temper came and went quickly, but was an easily riled thing - jaws agape, and it was often easy to stick your leg into them and get it ripped off. Even friends had earned his ire, historically- and StarClan knew Quillstrike had been barked at more than a couple times. Every time, it subsided- the inferno faded into an ember of regret, and caught easily onto flammable forgiveness, warming a relationship through once more.

So, he didn't regard Doeblaze with any ounce of irritation or disappointment when she approached ... he'd said his piece earlier, and fury for him usually only lasted as long as he directly expressed it. Trapezing through trees, you often met a wandering face, and he was glad to see her; a light flickered in wide-set eyes, his gaunt face flickering with a friendliness that melded into sympathy. The fastening of her jaw, he saw the twitch against thin face-fur. And wasn't that a familiar sight? That iron grip of guilt, of shame, of anxiety ... and it wouldn't be the same for both of them, but he could recognise the disturbance well enough.

I made a mistake. Twitchbolt came to settle beside her ... from the sinking sun, a golden grown of light spilled across the sky, pinkening the blue. He couldn't tell her she hadn't. But guilt was obvious in her face, her demeanour, and wasn't that enough? It was not something she would have to carry alone- not a feeling he would let her bear singlehandedly. "If... if it means anything ... you certainly weren't the only one."

Clans were often lost without a leader, without clear guidance ... and Slate's closeness to Orangestar was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen when it came to reasonable discussion. Quillstrike couldn't be on my council for the same reason, Twitchbolt thought idly. ​

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[DOEBLAZE]

" I suppose so, " she concedes after a sprawling silence, glancing sidelong at Twitchbolt's split - tufted form. A cracked - jade eye roams over his ever -jittering face, searching for—what? Accusation, anger, disappointment? It's almost more shocking to find none of them; in a chestnut - flecked eye there lies only sympathy, understanding even, or perhaps she's just thinking wishfully—with her head rather than her heart, and how long had it been since she'd last had that problem? Once it'd plagued her, and now she's nearly grateful for the possibility of such a transgression.

" I should've held my temper, though, " she sighs, settling her chin between her white paws where they drape over the stout branch. It's easy to speak freely around Twitchbolt, sometimes easier than she'd like—it's alarming, really. To let someone else bear a little of the weight that pulls her shoulders earthwards is a privilege she rarely permits herself. Even just speaking with the Lead Warrior, she feels a bit of guilt slough from them, as callouses fall away to reveal new skin, as soot blows away to show off new growth.

" I was doing fine until he mentioned, you know . . . " she trails off, flicking one paw to finish the sentence. It's a marked reluctance to speak his name, as if it's a curse, a dark and unmentionable thing. Even when it's the opposite—when she fears she oversteps to say she acts in his name, that it's too hallowed to grace her tongue any longer. Another bone - deep sigh rattles out from between her ribs. " Sorry. "

OOC : —

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[TWITCHBOLT]

I suppose so. Twitchbolt's tail tip flicked, as if swatting something away- a reflex uncontrollable. Regret soaked her words- a lament fluttered from her lips, that she should have held her temper. His throat tightened a little, lungs seizing a little at the memory. At a whirlwind of memories, really. Times he himself had not held his temper, had not suffocated it well enough. It had always felt like static electricity, skittering beneath his fur until it jolted outward into hedgehog-spines and impaled anyone standing close.

And it still did, really. If everyone hadn't shut up after he'd told them to, he would've surely gone ballistic. A storm had bubbled in his throat, had gathered and blackened like a bruising cloud. One wrong look, and it would've been over for them all, and a few shreds of his dignity too...

But that didn't make him a bad cat. Nor had Doeblaze suffered that fate, either. Blazestar- he finished the sentence internally... and an apolody shed from her lips, floating to the earth like a swaying feather. "And he shouldn't have said it," Twitchbolt told her, urging her to face that truth even if she already knew it- or had, at least, already considered it.

"There's- there's always gonna be things you could have done better ... c-could have handled better ... reactions you shouldn't have had, or wished you didn't. Trust me." His tail swung idly- he looked into the distance, finding a spot of light leaking through the blue-tinted clouds of sunset. "B-But you ... you can't let your bad moments live for longer than a day. D-Don't go to bed feeling badly about it, Doeblaze. Please."

He'd have given anything to find the strength to speak to his mother, truly, before the day she had died.​

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