private TRAMPLED FLOWER — cicadapaw

[iciclefang]

“I killed a rogue,” the apprentice had said, and how strange his voice had been, like a riverstone flattened and smoothed over years. Iciclefang had not had time to consider what her apprentice had said—the news of both her leader’s death and her littermate’s had rocked her to her core, had left her defenseless—but now she steals toward the apprentice’s den to rouse her protégé. The sun is barely over the horizon, and dawn is gray and cold. There’s frost on the reeds when she parts through them, heading for the river which is quickly becoming too cold to swim in for long.

“Tell me about the rogue you killed,” she prompts, sitting beside the river’s edge. Her pale eyes are trained fastidiously on Cicadapaw, expression blank. She shows no disbelief, no disapproval, no disappointment—only a kind of flat curiosity. “I want to know how you did it. So tell me what happened.”

Did he have so much potential for combat already? She studies him openly, critically. He’s thin, too thin, and lanky, still so far from growing completely into the shell he’d inherited from Cicadastar. He’s a vivid reminder of the leader who’d guided RiverClan since before she was kitted, and sadness tugs at her heart, sadness she quickly shoves away with a blunt paw. The soft part of her wants to offer condolences to him, but another part knows it will only detract from their lesson today.

, ”​

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[CICADAFLIGHT]

iciclefang unsettles him. her mottled pelt, her icy blue eyes—though her fur is too ginger and her eyes not so pale—it all reminds him of what he'd lost. of what now haunts him, lingering around every corner and crevice. under the cool waves of the river, hovering by the entrance to the apprentices' den, in the face of his mentor—his father is everywhere. when she rouses him in the frozen gray dawn, fur rises along his spine, afraid cicadastar has clawed free of his son's dreams and bled ever further into the waking world.

"it was beepaw and i," cicadapaw rasps quiely. her cold words come fast, flat and hard to read. "when we were taking back camp. she was—she was fighting a rogue, and she called for me to help." he pauses, limbs trembling and sweat popping on his pawpads at the memory. "i hit them. shoved them into the river. she and i, we went over and held them down until they stopped moving." his mismatched eyes are nearly consumed by the empty crevasses of his dilated pupils. "until they stopped breathing."

"that's it," he concludes, digging his paws into the sandy soil beneath them. a headache flares in his temples and he nearly thinks he sees mottled fur in the grayish water instead of the reflected sky.

appearing unsightly ✦ ( with devils inside me )

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  cicadapaw ; apprentice of riverclan
  x. he/him ; 4 moons ; tags
  x. unsightly black-and-white tom with heterochromatic amber and blue eyes
  x. played by dejavu
  x. son of smokethroat and cicadastar ; brother to beepaw and starlightpaw. apprenticed to iciclefang.

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[iciclefang]

Cicadapaw’s voice is low and quiet. It was Beepaw and I, he tells her, and Iciclefang nods an encouragement to continue. And he does. I hit them. Shoved them into the river. She and I, we went over and held them down until they stopped moving. “You drowned them,” Iciclefang prompts. She notices the slightest tremor in his limbs. Distress, excitement at the memory? She cannot tell. “Well, congratulations on your first victory. How did it feel?” She eyes his expression carefully. Was he the type to relish in this killing? If so, how will she handle such a thing? Is a thirst for blood in one so young something to encourage, or something to curb?

She exhales softly. She must have more confidence in her abilities, and she must not waver when she chooses a path to walk down. “You have learned something quite valuable, either way. We are cats of the water, and it’s in the water we fight best. The other Clans—” she pauses, then adds, “—and now, as you know, cats from outside of the Clans, they do not swim like we do. They fear the river that gives us life. If I knocked you into the water right here, right now, you would not die.” She stands and moves closer to the rippling surface in question, pressing a paw into it and shivering with delight at its cold bite.

“…But if you push a rogue, or a WindClan cat, or anyone else in—well. Whether you hold them down or not, things will look quite different.” She licks the water that runs down her forelimb with an idle tongue. “What do you know about fighting now, Cicadapaw?” She turns to study him again, gaze sharp.

, ”​

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[CICADAFLIGHT]

"I felt—it felt.....good, I guess." He shrugs. His father had always fostered Cicadapaw's hunger for kit-fights, but his father isn't here anymore. He doesn't know how Iciclefang will handle his reaction, and he eyes her carefully. "It felt like I was finally getting to decide what happened. Like I was finally in control." He doesn't tell her how he feels, now that the blood had run away into the river, and the feeling with it. Cicadapaw had tasted that, and he wants it, wants that feeling. That high. Instead he's left behind, hollow-eyed and shaky-pawed, dreaming of bloody water and gurgling screams.

Cicadapaw turns glassy two-toned eyes on his mentor, listening dutifully to her instruction. He nods, remembering how the rogues had shied from the water and flailed into nothingness once they'd been forced in. Perhaps their rotting bodies rest in the river's basin, waiting for an opportune diver. When she turns back to study him with sharp eyes of splintered ice, he feels the pressure of her gaze like that of the river's deepest caverns and crevasses, where milky-eyed eels dwell. Silence stretches long as he remembers the invasion. How different he's become, grown up too fast.

"It's not fair," he finally rasps. When the rogue had shoved him down and knocked out his fang, it hadn't matter whose son he was or how he cried for Cicadastar. When his shoulder had been cut, it'd bled the same as the highest royalty or the lowest rogue. Looking back, he finds himself stupid. Stupid for thinking that the battlefield was a place where it mattered what was fair. That it was like a kitten-game, where he could use his name like a weapon. "When the rogues invaded our camp, it didn't matter what was fair. They just hit me."

something holy wants to get out ✦ ( but you can't let it )

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  cicadapaw ; apprentice of riverclan
  x. he/him ; 5 moons ; tags
  x. unsightly black-and-white tom with heterochromatic amber and blue eyes
  x. played by dejavu
  x. son of smokestar and cicadastar ; brother to beepaw and starlightpaw. apprenticed to iciclefang.

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[iciclefang]

“I felt—it felt…good, I guess,” he says, and his narrow shoulders move together nonchalantly. “It felt like I was finally getting to decide what happened. Like I was finally in control.” Iciclefang’s eyes narrow at this. “You want to control others, or things that happen?” Her tone is carefully neutral. Blank. She does not want to influence his response. This is the most she’s heard from her apprentice’s mouth ever, and every utterance is a revelation. “But not every fight is like that.” She flicks an ear, acknowledging his response to her question. It’s not fair. “In my first battle, I lost control very quickly. My recklessness almost killed me. Do you know why?”

Of course he doesn’t. She leans forward, whiskers twitching. “My opponent was better than me.” Wolfsong. She remembers the feeling of his teeth crunching at the nape of her neck, the points driven into her flesh so deep she thought he’d puncture through. She had been completely locked into place.

An idea sparks through her mind. Iciclefang moves toward Cicadapaw quite suddenly, parting her jaws and aiming to grip Cicadapaw by his scruff; if successful, she will use her body weight to pin him to the ground. “If you want control,” she’ll say, either through a mouthful of fur or through whistling air, “You have to be the best warrior on the battlefield.”

, ”​

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