private when doves cry || echolight

[salamander]

Dovekit and Blinding Star died because of her. She released Dovekit from her care the day before StarClan cruelly snatched her from her family. It could have been prevented. If under the care of Honeytwist or Beesong, her underlying issues would have been spotted and proper treatment applied. Unfortunately, they were not around and she, most certainly, couldn't compare to either.

And Blinding Star, his death merely a day ago, rejected her care. She could blame him for his death, scream at him for being so stubborn and setting her up to fail. She'd already done that, though. It didn't help. If StarClan chose any other cat then he would have accepted their aid: he would still be alive. But they chose her. A monster. She knew she deserved their hatred and distrust. She tried and tried but it was all futile.

So, she'd gone for a hunt to clear or thoughts. At least, that had been the originally plan; she'd always been a skilled huntress as shown when she adapted to hunting on the moors. Her body, however, reflected her damaged mental state. The burns on her front paws had lasting effects. Beesong warned that would be the case but she never thought-

Another punishment from StarClan, surely, signaling that saving Emberstar meant little in the grand scheme of things. Her paws were rendered near useless. Pain had become numbing and caused her nerves to frequently spasm. A juicy mouse had slipped right through her paws after she landed her practiced pounce. What once came naturally was now a constant struggle.

Glaring at her disfigured paws, she remained in her failed position. And, of course, to top the night off she'd somehow managed to stumble upon the site of the Great Battle. Her composure slipped and the dam preventing her tears broke. Silently, she sobbed.

She cried for Leaping Toad, for her remaining family, for her actions, for the ones she failed, for Bone, and for her current state. Tears cascaded from the well that'd previously been dried since that day in RiverClan.

Oh, how far she'd fallen. She laughed, expressing a mixture of emotions: at the very least, she'd struggle to harm another ever again. Perhaps, then, this was all for the best. She was tired, so tired, of being the monster. Of never being understood. Of being thought as a one-note maniac who felt nothing towards her crimes. Yes, she justified them but she knew that by doing so she'd morphed until a miserable, pitiful monster.

How stupid and selfish she'd been to appoint herself as the jury, judge, and executioner. The debt she collected- had it even been hers to collect? Ash suggested no. So, she deserved this pain. Maybe then, maybe then she'd return to being Salamander and not the vengeful ghoul stuck in the past.

@Echolight .​

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[Echolight]

She hadn’t been back here since she met Elmbreeze, she had been staying away. Yet, curiosity eventually got to the cat, it had only been a pawful of days since their meeting, Echolight’s own bitter-sweet goodbye and the subtle hint that she would like to see him again soon. It was wrong, the calico knew that, but it had been so… refreshing, so relieving to have a conversation with someone who knew nothing of her besides her name and her clan.
So, she came back, on another aimless adventure with a small voice in the back of her head. She had only just slid past one of the oaks when she hears it- first the sobbing, the owner of the voice did not seem to hold back. Echolight can’t recall the last time she had heard such raw emotion, perhaps the day she had first seen her own reflection after the fire, perhaps the battle that had cost her eye, or maybe when Mallowlark had fallen over that tangle of shrubbery one time (from Echolight, of course, she really thought he had broken something.)
Curiously but silently, she recoils back to the truck of the tree, only poking the unscarred part of her face for a better view at first. By that time, the sobs had turned into choked laughter, spiraling back into heavy silence.
Despite her obstructed vision, the scars that the silver molly bared were obvious enough in the moonlight, burn scars. Subconsciously, Echolight looked to her own scarred paws, uselessly shuffling them against the ground like she used to growing up, checking to see if the nerves in them had returned.
Instinctively, Echolight bit the inside of her cheek, it would be stupid to approach an emotionally distraught stranger, every reasonable part in her brain screamed not to. She should mind her own business…
"Uhm, Hello? Are you alright?" Echolight barely recognizes the voice that leaves her maw, the tone she used to use by default- light, airy, but tinged with empathy. From Cinderfrost’s view, she may only see the seeing side of Echolight’s face, the side unmarred, with a pale blue eye turned silver under the moon.
"Speech."
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[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[salamander]

A quiet, gentle melody snapped the blue mink out of her trance-like state. Ears burned red hot as she realized this stranger could very well be a witness to her incompetence. Eyes rapidly blinked away the tears that blurred her vision.

The light blue eye staring at her captured the moonlight and reflected it. Stars twinkled overhead and painted the scene with a magical tone. For a brief moment, the blue molly thought that a cat from the skies appeared before her. Unfortunately yet also fortunately, that was no the case.

"Hello. I'm fi-" Pain shot through her paws the moment they instictively began to knead the solid earth. She tried to regain her composure with a shaky smile, "I'll be fine. I was just hunting and forgot that I need to relearn how to properly use my paws. I must have looked like a kit mimicking a warrior." she half-heartedly joked.

Suddenly, she felt self-conscious; fully aware of the scars that disrupted her fur and the burn marks forever left behind by the fire. Not to mention her swollen, red eyes. Beneath the eye of the stunning calico, she became acutely aware of her imperfections. She used to wear her scars with honor but now? Now they were just an ugly reminder. ​

 

[Echolight]

Echolight remained quiet, though concern was evident in the slight lift of her cheekbone when the molly fumbles, her shaky smile betraying any false notions from the other that she was “fine.”
She pauses, she shouldn’t move to comfort a stranger- someone who wasn’t from her clan, but why had she been here in the first place, to meet with another non-Windclanner?
Finally, Echolight moves, her strides are long but slow due to her tall stature, and her own disfigurements are revealed.
Echolight had learned to adapt to her missing sight, the numbness in her paws, but it wasn’t without struggle, that would be a fantasy.
"You look like someone who’s just had their life changed." The calico corrects, gingerly taking a seat in front of the stranger.
"My names Echolight, and… I’d really like to help you, if you’d let me" she adds, officially introducing herself before softly placing her own scarred forepaw in between the space before them.
"Speech."
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[ WHAT A TIME ]​