{$title} discussions of grief
juniper
"and this time, she won't be forgiving"
there is a daunting hollowness, one that threatens to swallow every fiber into an unending, vast darkness. it's like walking through tar, hiding a thousand burrs that catch with every tiny movement, gouging hooking into tender flesh. her chest aches, full and empty in perfect juxtaposition; full of a throbbing, bleeding heart... empty of the will to share a single drop more from it.in the shape of bramble-stripes and earthy tones comes a vision of relief. he is as familiar to her as her own reflection, a mimicry of her hopes at his bright age, the crease of her eyes when she'd remembered how it felt to smile and mean it genuinely. the urge to cry stings at the backs of already red-rimmed eyes... but there isn't a drop left that hasn't already carved a new stream through her den.
the energy to draw her tone high, to offer a reassuring lilt of even a feigned joy- there is none. only the hoarse, gravelly sound of a heart dragged across a sharp-stone shore. "Asterpaw..." she raises a single paw, beckoning him closer to the invitation of her chest, where a hollow ribcage pretends at life worth living. "Where... were you," there's an accusation hidden in the sharpness of her question, the breath taken in half-way through to calm electric nerves that dance at the chance to react.
to bite. to grab into something and never let go. her nose wrinkles with frustration, with an impatient need. "I needed you," an unfair burden to put upon a child... but when he is the only kin left that has not actively walked away from her, what else is there to lean on? her gaze tears away from the sharpening planes of his face, ones that admit to his age, to the fact soon he will be too grown to crawl back to her. that his eyes will be searching for someone else. lips draw down into a humiliated frown in spite of herself, fighting against the welling sting of tears as she fixates on a specific spot on the ground.
how are there still more...? would they ever stop?
Asterpaw is all she can really call theirs... isn't he? cared for when Serpentberry's generosity had been a well to easily dip into, nursing him to health so she would not be forced to reckon with the death of another child. he was hers too, wasn't he? more than Sablestar's, who only ever sought out Asterpaw when he was healthy enough to keep himself afloat. star-choked by a duty that binds her here far longer than any single soul she cares for, had always cared for-- "Every last breath you take-" "She was supposed to be here." a protest hardly louder than a mouse's squeak. "Every first gasp of life-" "Two lifetimes I had her... and now? To suffer seven more without her...."
what could a child understand about love? hardly prepared enough to catch his own food, much less prepared to ponder how he might sustain a family, might expand beyond the warmth of his mother's love. when would she become the moon...? when would he find a new sun to bathe beneath? "Don't make my mistake," the spotted tabby implores him, eyes suddenly snapping to his face, "Chase happiness Asterpaw, where-ever you can find it... It's so...."
temporary. fickle. unpredictable. cruel.
"It's worth every moment..."
