- Jan 1, 2023
- 313
- 182
- 43
My father is dead. I feel nothing.
The verse floated in his mind - ungraceful, unkind, like a chunk of undigested meat within his roiling gut. Sorting through all the grit and gristle in himself, the terrible thought seemed not out of place for his usual anathema. Still, it sat heavy and crude, as though it were the unsightly things of the night that beckoned to him, the reminder that misfortune was surely bound to happen to even the pious and righteous. Whatever preluded grief lie barbed in his throat, but he felt no inclination to spit or regurgitate it out. It was simply there, though Chrys couldn't shake the gravity of it being there. If he were to be so grandiose, heartache was much like the sun - it illuminated him whenceforth the darkness of his ignorance, but he could never glean a good look at it. Inexplicable, indescribable, and certainly indelicate.
Grief would likely hit him at once, when he least expected it to rear its ugly head. The tomcat had seen how grief incapacitated cats, convictions and body now fogbound and destitute. He had mourned before - for his fallen leader, for old flames and friends, and even for bygone memories. Like an anthelion that circled hungrily along the light, that woe had remained even as the seasons rolled and the leaves browned and wasted away. A constant thrum, an arrhythmic beat to the heart. Perhaps he lacked the heart that grief so ravenously gorged itself on, but his only method of dealing with loss and mishaps was to simply keep living. Don't think about it, don't dwell on it. Now, he had hit a mountain that seemed much too vast to simply walk along its wayward path.
It happened yesterday, when the old man insisted on going hunting despite his injured leg. He left in the dead of night, when even the morning had not woken yet. The sky had surely still been painted with midnights and slough-colored hue, with even the alabaster snow draped in soft, velvet shade. Wraiths and ghosts of the forests seemed not to haunt him then, with the only noise being that of a wounded cat's off-kilter balancing act. Chrysaliswing could not guess how his father died, or what he was even thinking. Wobbling paws tripped somewhere along a familiar path, to the wayside of a trail he had traveled many times before, and he struck his head against a jutting rock. His foolishness had been his end and his home had been his tomb.
Drawing his final breath, Dragonflywing spent his last moments in isolation. His age and a lack of a healthy body meant that he could not stand up once more. No cat could find him here (nor did they necessarily want to wander off after him). Eyes glazing over and ragged winds hitching in his neck, the unraveling morning sang him a final dirge. 'How stupid that such a great warrior and especially great father died in such a horrible and silly way!' the cicadas and squirrels seemed to trill out. Then, Dragonflywing closed his eyes and lived his final life. The man was deserving of only one life, and he had certainly wasted it by following through with his stubbornness through the end. Fitting, if ironic comedy were a karmic force.
The dawn patrol found him around 10 fox-lengths from the camp. A face that usually contorted in anger or scorn or distrust now lie strangely flat, serene and solemn. The mouth that once spewed venom and hatred now stood placid, like a songbird with no melody or a dog with no howl. Dragonflywing had been quieted, and tattered pelt now seemed dove-like and satin in the dawn's early gaze. Those that did not expect to see the carcass of a fellow Skyclan warrior rushed back with their tails behind their backs, quickly alerting the rest of the clan of the passing of Dragonfly. Soon, tired stares and alert ears surfaced from the lingering darkness of a former night. When the chimaeric tomcat heard of his father's passing, he almost could not believe it. As if his father stoof as an immovable stature among time, as though he always expected those rasping words and harsh voice to accompany his steps.
Chrysaliswing didn't cry out. He didn't lash out or crumple to the floor or feel his insides explode from inside of his ribs. He only offered to bury him in the early morning, when the fog refused to let up from the earth. After all, he was Dragonflywing's favorite son. Termitehum and Earwigtuft also agreed to help, though the mollies were less than talkative on the way there. And it wasn't like there were many other cats important to him, so he would have hated to see the elders lug off his deadbeat (literally and figuratively now) dad. As the cats walked, Chrysaliswing felt his body connect with his father's, for the first time. Coldness - not of the bitter winter but of pallid death - greeted his living warmth. It was not gelid nor jarring, instead dull and looming, almost, like the mellowness of an afternoon shadow. Not that his father's corpse would have somehow been different from another's. He was the same as any other in death, which was a humbling yet frightening idea.
"Well, Dragonflywing is dead." Chrysaliswing said quite plainly after they lie him down with the earth and the worms and the solitude. The elders and Earwigtuft left promptly - his mother had been the quickest that he had ever seen her. He wouldn't blame her for wanting to vacate the area - his father was unpleasant, even after he died. Now, only him and Termitehum were left to witness their father's great ignominy. "Anything you want to say to him?"
@TERMITEHUM
The verse floated in his mind - ungraceful, unkind, like a chunk of undigested meat within his roiling gut. Sorting through all the grit and gristle in himself, the terrible thought seemed not out of place for his usual anathema. Still, it sat heavy and crude, as though it were the unsightly things of the night that beckoned to him, the reminder that misfortune was surely bound to happen to even the pious and righteous. Whatever preluded grief lie barbed in his throat, but he felt no inclination to spit or regurgitate it out. It was simply there, though Chrys couldn't shake the gravity of it being there. If he were to be so grandiose, heartache was much like the sun - it illuminated him whenceforth the darkness of his ignorance, but he could never glean a good look at it. Inexplicable, indescribable, and certainly indelicate.
Grief would likely hit him at once, when he least expected it to rear its ugly head. The tomcat had seen how grief incapacitated cats, convictions and body now fogbound and destitute. He had mourned before - for his fallen leader, for old flames and friends, and even for bygone memories. Like an anthelion that circled hungrily along the light, that woe had remained even as the seasons rolled and the leaves browned and wasted away. A constant thrum, an arrhythmic beat to the heart. Perhaps he lacked the heart that grief so ravenously gorged itself on, but his only method of dealing with loss and mishaps was to simply keep living. Don't think about it, don't dwell on it. Now, he had hit a mountain that seemed much too vast to simply walk along its wayward path.
It happened yesterday, when the old man insisted on going hunting despite his injured leg. He left in the dead of night, when even the morning had not woken yet. The sky had surely still been painted with midnights and slough-colored hue, with even the alabaster snow draped in soft, velvet shade. Wraiths and ghosts of the forests seemed not to haunt him then, with the only noise being that of a wounded cat's off-kilter balancing act. Chrysaliswing could not guess how his father died, or what he was even thinking. Wobbling paws tripped somewhere along a familiar path, to the wayside of a trail he had traveled many times before, and he struck his head against a jutting rock. His foolishness had been his end and his home had been his tomb.
Drawing his final breath, Dragonflywing spent his last moments in isolation. His age and a lack of a healthy body meant that he could not stand up once more. No cat could find him here (nor did they necessarily want to wander off after him). Eyes glazing over and ragged winds hitching in his neck, the unraveling morning sang him a final dirge. 'How stupid that such a great warrior and especially great father died in such a horrible and silly way!' the cicadas and squirrels seemed to trill out. Then, Dragonflywing closed his eyes and lived his final life. The man was deserving of only one life, and he had certainly wasted it by following through with his stubbornness through the end. Fitting, if ironic comedy were a karmic force.
The dawn patrol found him around 10 fox-lengths from the camp. A face that usually contorted in anger or scorn or distrust now lie strangely flat, serene and solemn. The mouth that once spewed venom and hatred now stood placid, like a songbird with no melody or a dog with no howl. Dragonflywing had been quieted, and tattered pelt now seemed dove-like and satin in the dawn's early gaze. Those that did not expect to see the carcass of a fellow Skyclan warrior rushed back with their tails behind their backs, quickly alerting the rest of the clan of the passing of Dragonfly. Soon, tired stares and alert ears surfaced from the lingering darkness of a former night. When the chimaeric tomcat heard of his father's passing, he almost could not believe it. As if his father stoof as an immovable stature among time, as though he always expected those rasping words and harsh voice to accompany his steps.
Chrysaliswing didn't cry out. He didn't lash out or crumple to the floor or feel his insides explode from inside of his ribs. He only offered to bury him in the early morning, when the fog refused to let up from the earth. After all, he was Dragonflywing's favorite son. Termitehum and Earwigtuft also agreed to help, though the mollies were less than talkative on the way there. And it wasn't like there were many other cats important to him, so he would have hated to see the elders lug off his deadbeat (literally and figuratively now) dad. As the cats walked, Chrysaliswing felt his body connect with his father's, for the first time. Coldness - not of the bitter winter but of pallid death - greeted his living warmth. It was not gelid nor jarring, instead dull and looming, almost, like the mellowness of an afternoon shadow. Not that his father's corpse would have somehow been different from another's. He was the same as any other in death, which was a humbling yet frightening idea.
"Well, Dragonflywing is dead." Chrysaliswing said quite plainly after they lie him down with the earth and the worms and the solitude. The elders and Earwigtuft left promptly - his mother had been the quickest that he had ever seen her. He wouldn't blame her for wanting to vacate the area - his father was unpleasant, even after he died. Now, only him and Termitehum were left to witness their father's great ignominy. "Anything you want to say to him?"
@TERMITEHUM
