washing machine heart [ buck ]

[koispots]

Her routine is mindless and mind-numbing. Get up, do a patrol or two with Lightning, hunt, train, return to camp and sleep. It doesn't help that she's been distancing herself from almost all her friends, not that she had many in the first-place. Koi doesn't even find herself missing them, other than Crappie, who often found themselves in the medicine den. She finds herself getting along with the warriors more rather than the ones her age, and its a realization that she had been forced to grow up too fast.

...

Oh well. Nothing she could do about that.

Today is no different, but it would be unbeknownst to her. She had risen early, barely ate, only to be told Lightning would be busy for the day. Her ears twitch irritably, because now shes left alone to her thoughts, left alone in camp where every little splash reminds her of Peachpaw's face. She doesn't like remaining stationary for too long, but she doesn't have anything to do today anymore, and while she's learned to deal with her nightmares by herself, her thoughts are much harder to wrangle in to place. She huffs, a choked growl rumbling in her throat as she makes her way to the edge of camp, where water laps the surface, and sits.

Her reflection remains the same. The same exhausted daughter that she once was, that she still is, that she can't escape. She had thrown her mother flowers in to the river, as a tribute, but if it were up to her now she'd shred each and every last petal, scorn her mother from wherever she resides in the after life. Her nub tail thumps against the ground, her breathing picking up as she turns her head, rising to her paws with a roll of her eyes. Whatever, whatever, off and on relationship with her mother like always. Unconsciously she begins to search for Buckgait, the last semblance of a comforting presence she had.
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"speech"​

 

[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧​

she's felt powerless before. when the world was taken from her. and when it was taken from her again. and again. and again. sacrificing everything for a taste of freedom, to hold what she holds dear in her claws and not let anything escape. to be powerful enough that she can keep her world safe from thieves. she watches as koi goes through the same thing. the girl had already lost her mother, and now a dear friend. and buck is powerless to stop it. she pursued peach's attacker, she did all she could. she worked herself ragged. turned her warriors out and kept the area surveyed at all times. and it wasn't enough. even now, as she assigns guards to keep the apprentices' fears at bay, it still isn't enough. but buck cannot accept the taste of defeat, she spits it back in their face and continues.

she misses the sound of koi in camp. whether it was her chatter, never quite mindless but comforting. even if she wasn't speaking to buck in particular. her curiosities and her excitement. she's always been more on the quiet side, but this was too much. she wishes she could pry koi open, tear away at the infection that silences her companion, and let her run loose. instead, she finds koi with the child's eyes already upon her. her search coming to fruition. a brow quirks at the attention, inviting the girl further into interaction. but it's not that simple now. so buck approaches her instead.

she hopes that koi can not see the sorrow, can't see the begging for the girl she had loved so dearly. she knows how grief takes hold of a cat, and how it never really goes away. how koi will awake in a panicked state and cry thick tears and choke on her breath, in the same way buck still does. she's gonna have to live with this, and learn to live with it. buck just wishes it didn't have to happen to a girl so young. she wished she never saw the body.

the deputy's eye contact breaks, attention upon her own paws. tracing the scarred limb and remembering the tear of flesh. the things that haunt the body. the things that haunt the mind. her eyes return to koi. she wants to tell her to get a grip, that she still has to live. she can't remain half-alive and half-dead. can't be a ghost in her own life. instead, buck simply says "i miss you, koi.", as if koi will have any clue as to what the molly is mourning about. she only hopes that the other does. know that her actions are hurting more than herself. that there are still cats in this clan that care about koi. care so much that they'd move heaven and earth for her.
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[koispots]

Speak of the devil and she shall appear, coat of brown and white, scarred and yet she still looks so heavenly in the light. Her stomach twists and turns with jealousy before she has to remind herself that Buck is on her side, she is not fighting against her. Buck is someone she can confide in, unlike her strictly business related relation with her mentor. He's gruff and even though she knows he will probably listen, if even out of pity, she does not want that.

But Koipaw is not weak. She is an amalgamation of many different things. She is a daughter, she is a fighter, she is a killer of her emotions, she is a caretaker. She is a survivor, she had used to be happy, she wants her mother back-

It's only then she realizes that there are tears coming from her eyes. She had been staring at Buck, so lost in thought that she had begun crying. It's not sadness she feels, no, its bitter anger with herself for coming undone. She had been so good at masking her emotions and now shes unraveling in front of one of the five cats in camp she truly cares about. Her movements feel sluggish as she flinches under the deputies eyes, shame burning a crater in to her chest and nestling in to her heart. It chokes her and now shes shaking just like the night she pressed against Crappiepaw, curled up so close to them because she could not lose another.

Stars, she is selfish. Selfishly hopeless she is, with a bleeding heart too big for her body, she cares too much. And thats why shes bitter. And its never going to change because even when her mother was alive she felt the same burning jealousy to be craved so deeply, to have the same proud eyes on her as they landed on Bass and Carp.

"... I miss you, too." she blinks once, twice. Did she hear her right? Her legs nearly buckle under her weight, she nearly grovels for the deputy to say it just one more time. She'd beg so much that Buck would sound like a broken record and yet she'd still push, she'd cry. She'd push Buck over the edge with her mourning and she wouldn't stop. And then theres laughter that rises to the surface and it sounds anything but sane because its full of hiccups because shes losing it and shes finally breaking.

She wonders if she'd be chased if she fled in the middle of the night. She squeezes her eyes shut to drown out the thoughts but the laughter keeps bubbling from her lips like blood and its so fucking loud now. Shes so different from when she had first come here, so vastly different from that timid, stuttering, bumbling cat she once was. Her chest is heaving and shes finally losing, she really is, and Bucks gonna look at her with the same sad eyes that her mother looked at her with, something she knew all too well.

She does not want comfort, she wants to be told shes a horrible being, she wants her thoughts to be confirmed but her legs are moving by themselves and it feels like an eternity until she reaches Buck. Despite how tall Koi was, Buck was taller, she goes to press her face in to Buck's fur, trying to stop the stream of tears that come on like an onslaught. She fears she may die with how much her eyes hurt, how much her heads pounding.

I'm scared, its on the tip of her tongue but she cannot say it and so all she can do is hope that Buck gets it. Hope that Buck can understand the grievances because she sure as hell cannot voice them. Not right now.
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"speech"​