UNLUCKIEST MAN ╱ SMOKESTAR

[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

He's sunning just outside of camp when Hound ambushes him. The last of the day's heat is starting to fade with the sunset, but each step is still blessedly warm. Satisfying as Sunningrocks had been, back when they'd still had it. Now that he's here, he thinks about how rarely he'd gone there. And just how much he regretted it, now that it was gone. Like most things in his life it seems that he'd taken advantage. Took it for granted that it'd be there always. That if he didn't change, nothing around him would either.

Now he's missing half his face and half of his life, too. And a whole lot of fuckin' answers.

For a moment he's silent. A little noise to signify his presence as he comes to sit near him (not so close that their pelts brush; touch still stings in a way that's not just his scars) and then nothing but the lapping of water and the breeze through tall grass. Downright peaceful. Wholly undeserved. Hooded eyes stare out across the river into the far off distance. The sky holds some sort of answer he can't pluck at, but the sharp scrunch of his jaw sure show's he's tryin'. No– they only cat around here who knows what he wants is Smokestar. So he says, slowly, "Been askin' around a bit." Never a good thing to hear, but Houndstride lets it linger anyway. "Not one'f 'em can tell me the full story of what happened." Either that, or they wouldn't. No grudge over them for that, though. Loyalty to a leader's hardly the worst reason to refuse him an answer.

"Think I missed a whole lot more'n rogues," he prods again.

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. —
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ————— mauled by a fox moons ago and has plenty of scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

—————————————————————⊰★⊱————————————————————

Smokestar raises his head, frowns as he locks his single amber hue onto the other. Was it not enough to be told rogues attacked their camp and sent them running, that his mate's refusal to retreat had lead to him pinned and split apart by cruel claws? That Smokestar had been forced to make the decision to leave him to evacuate the clan? He knew what Houndstride was asking and he hated it, he hated having to rehash it all again when it felt as if the wound was finally stitching closed, that he could sleep easier at night knowing StarClan did not condemn him, that his clan supported him, that everything he had done was for them - for them all, even the then missing tom, he should be GRATEFUL, not QUESTIONING-the brief surge of anger that spiraled up in his throat died as he clenched his jaw and smothered it. Fire doused, smoking in his chest and swilling with heat.
No. It was okay, it was fine.
Of all cats the brown tabby had a right to know did he not? He and Cicadastar had been close friends, perhaps maybe something even more before he had made a claim to that storm brewed heart instead, he could never really tell but back then it had left him somewhat jealous. Angry even. Now he felt nothing but a quiet acceptance.
"I'm sure you were already told he was left behind when we fled." He swallows hard, head tilted up and eye closed thoughtfully, "We went to SkyClan before being driven to ShadowClan and it was only then I could risk going back to find him." The clan had to be secured first, safe, he had not been able to otherwise, "I found him by the waterfall by the bend at the river." Alive, mad, muttering incoherent gibberish to figments of his mind. "And then I-" Ripped his throat out, bled him into the water in self-defense as claws sought to tear him apart in a fit of insanity, "-I tried to get him home, but..." Teeth stripped a white throat, the pebbles spotted crimson under his paws, "...the rogues." Were nowhere. No one had asked for details, they had all assumed and who would blame them for not thinking the most rational reason without question? He had not corrected them.
It was easier this way. For who? Him? The clan? Houndstride. Smokestar didn't know.

✘ I've got a reputation and a name to uphold. ✘ Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokestar
  —⊰⋅ Leader of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  

​

 

[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

Even if he doesn't answer that starting surge of anger, He can see it in the way his body tenses, the heat of his eye. It's a lot of him to come here asking, but — maybe he's asking to kill off the guilt in him. The idea that he could've. . . done something. Changed something. Stars know he couldn't have convinced Cicadastar to leave too, but between the two'f them maybe they could drag him. Or maybe if he'd never brought him here to begin with they wouldn't've been in this spot to start. He heard of Sootstar and all the cruel shit she'd done. Another one he'd thought himself knowing. What was it about those marshes that poisoned everyone who stepped foot inside 'em? How many others had their head half in madness?

Whatever he'd thought he was doing, the guilt doesn't leave when Smokestar starts talking. He can see it in his mind's eye. The waterfall. Crystal clear dancing across the moss-slick stones. A curtain of frothy white half-obscuring the river wraith. Why's the cat he sees enter the fray crouched in wariness? Suppose he would be too, seeing a cat like him after so long gone. Even on his best of days, he was. Strange. Nothing more to it than that.

For a moment, that's all he'd needed to hear. A place, perhaps, or some sort'f reason it'd taken him so long to go looking. Nobody'd been all that specific as far as the days went. How long had they hidden in SkyClan? How many nights did that worry start to build, that there'd never be anything to bury? He knows he's pushing it. Pressing too hard onto a healing bruise, maybe even making it anew once it'd already faded. "He'd managed to live 'til then?" For some reason, he'd expected — a stench of rot from the body Smokestar carried back, a long-gone memory of who'd once been. Instead, his loss was fresh. The image in his mind rewrites itself, eyes closed to picture that tree. Hadn't been burnt back then, so he still sees it lush, with mottled bark.

Houndstride makes a noise, considering and wounded at the same time, and opens his eyes. "Couldn't've been easy to get out yourself, if they'd–" Even so many moons later, he can't quite say it. "Especially with you carrying him. May've been thin as twigs but he's– he'd been tall enough to make up for it."

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. —
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ————— mauled by a fox moons ago and has the scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

"..he was always stubborn." Tenacious, foolhardy to his last breath - it had been what caused him to be seperated from the to begin with, his refusal to yield, his pride that would not bend even marginally; he wishes things had been different but understands that this was what fate had deemed necessary. That final push to send Cicadastar over the edge left him a mess of a cat, trembling and violent in his paranoia; that it had been his trusted deputy and mate who put him down was a bitter irony, but any cat would have done. Sometimes he wonders if the stars laid it as a test for him, to try and warp him or train him in a way he couldn't understand. You see this, they would whisper, this is not the path to follow.

It couldn't have been easy to get out-carrying him...
Smokestar's nose wrinkles and he looks away sharply, single eye narrowing as he remembers the ordeal once again with vivid recollection and he feels his stomach twist into a knot all over. "It wasn't. I don't want to discuss it anymore."
He hadn't wanted to discuss it much then, but he'd done so for his clan and kits and so he pushed the topic away and instead offered Houndstride a newer one, "He left behind a legacy to remember...and a strong bloodline." His brow arched, knowing the brown tom knew of his kits but he was unsure if he had ever properly sat and spoke to them, "...you've see them then, I assume? My kits." Who could not notice them, star spotted and dark pelted like himself but with the long limbs and curled pelts of his former mate; and then there was Cicadapaw, his namesake child - a curse and a blessing rolled into one awkward spider-limbed youth. It had been hard to miss Houndstride's idle but non-malicious avoidance.
​

 

[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

He snorts, something meant to be friendly in the noise with the curl of his lip, but it won't quite reach his eyes. He looks tired even with his smile. "The two'f you were a pair, that's true enough." Smokestar was no better than Smokethroat'd been, and even when the deputy was dutifully following orders it was only 'cause he allowed himself it. Looking at them felt like watching two boulders run down a mountainside. Together, sure, but only 'til one crashed. But they were still made of the same stone; they were still bound together by substance and choice. He'd expected them to make it to the bottom, he thinks. Settle down all covered in moss. Live long and slow. Or maybe that's just what he'd hoped for Cicada after the battle, and Smokethroat was lucky enough to win it alongside. Lucky enough. Hardly seems so now.

Love isn't something he's wholly familiar with. Took him too long to see the way Flint loved him, rough-edged but just enough to polish him up. The way a father loved a son. The way that Smokestar seemed to love his kits. Romance? Not his thing. But in a way he understands the kits. The black tom looks away, but his own gaze flicks over to follow and to stare. Drinking in whatever this was meant to be about. His own avoidance of them? The way he could hardly look at Cicadapaw without thinking of the marsh he'd rather leave buried?

"Eyes like those? Be harder to ignore 'em than a fish flopping on a riverbank." Beepaw and Cicadapaw seemed to've traded them off. One blue and one blazing amber. Cricketpaw's the least troublesome of the lot. Even if they'd taken their father's curls. "You had 'em after Beesong?" A light glance back Smokestar's way, not realizing the territory he'd stepped back into. "Beepaw an' all." The timing of Cicadastar's death didn't line up quite right with that name, though, and he laughs before his question is even answered. "He name one after himself? 'Course it's the one that may 's'well be his heart all over."

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. —
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ————— mauled by a fox moons ago and has the scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

—————————————————————⊰★⊱————————————————————

A pair. Two pieces. What did that make him now? He still felt as if he was missing a limb, a part of him, something that made life harder.
"...yeah, it was after Beesong died. Ravensong was newly named, I'm afraid we didn't make his first attempt at handling a kitting easy." He remembers being so startled, Mudpelt's bloody face, three kits born screaming like their loudmouthed father. Chaotic and uncertain but a moment he treasures all the same.
He stares, sees Houndstride slowly putting together the timeline and he can not help the wry smile of amusement that flickers across his face, "The arrogant fool did name one after himself, of course. He named Cricketpaw Starlightpaw as well...but I changed it. I didn't want-" Smokestar winces, catches himself before he speaks what he never wants to breath into existence, "...it's a heavy name for a cat." To carry a star was a burden, one he carried with dedication to the clan and determination to keep them safe but he won't deny how much it fills him with dread, how much the ache settles into his bones from the weight of it. He often worries that he may lay down to sleep and never get back up from the exhaustion and how much it took its toll.
"Beepaw is the only one I named." He changed the topic, tail flicking idly. He thinks of the one name Cicadastar had suggested when they first realized they would be parents, discussing the possibilities, the future, 'Flutterkit' for Butterfly he thought, but now he knew it was for the feeling in his chest instead...

✘ I've got a reputation and a name to uphold. ✘ Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokestar
  —⊰⋅ Leader of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  

​