{$title} cw // contemplation of violence
Viscerapaw balances on the low-hanging branch like something misplaced, a shape that does not quite belong to tree or sky. The bark is slick beneath its pads, glazed with old frost, and the cold seeps up through bone and sinew alike. Below, the border lies quiet—ThunderClan's scent thinned and brittle in leaf-bare air, ShadowClan's darker traces clinging closer to the ground. The branch creaks faintly when it shifts its weight, a sound swallowed by the hush of winter. Icicles hang from the branch's underside like teeth. Long ones, short ones, some cloudy with trapped air, others clear enough to see the warped world inside them. Viscerapaw studies them with idle focus, head tilted, breath fogging. They are delicate things, it thinks. Fragile. It lifts one paw and nudges the nearest icicle.
It snaps free with a sharp crack and falls, shattering against the frozen earth below. The sound is clean. Final. Viscerapaw watches the fragments scatter, small spears reduced to harmless glitter. A slow, pleased pulse moves through its chest. Again, it reaches out—this time striking two at once. They fall in uneven rhythm, one breaking midair from the hit, the other surviving long enough to embed itself point-first into the sparse snow near the border with a dull thunk. It pauses.
Its gaze drifts downward, following the imagined arc of falling ice, and something coils in its thoughts. What if a cat walked beneath this branch? What if the border were not empty, not quiet, but occupied by a patrol or a lone warrior slipping through the trees? The image forms uninvited—a body passing below, unaware, breath steady, eyes forward. An icicle loosening at the wrong moment. Gravity doing the rest. Viscerapaw does not recoil from the thought. It turns it over instead, examining it from all sides. Ice is not malicious, it thinks. It does not choose where it falls. If it strikes flesh, if it splits skin or cracks bone, that is not cruelty, just physics. Chance. Timing. No different from a dead branch breaking loose in a storm.
It taps another icicle free, watching how it falls, calculating distance without meaning to. Height matters. Angle matters. A longer one could do real damage. The idea settles into it like a stone dropped into dark water, sending slow ripples outward. It imagines the sound it might make if it struck something softer than frozen ground. The way a cat might react—startled, injured, furious. Or worse, silent. A shiver runs through Viscerapaw, though whether from cold or thought, it cannot tell. It shifts along the branch, careful, methodical, peering down through the lattice of bare twigs. No movement. No pawsteps. The border remains empty, indifferent. Still, it lingers there, claws flexing, as if waiting for the world to offer it a test. Another icicle breaks loose under its touch and falls, harmless again, bursting into shards that catch what little light there is. Viscerapaw watches until the last fragment settles.
It snaps free with a sharp crack and falls, shattering against the frozen earth below. The sound is clean. Final. Viscerapaw watches the fragments scatter, small spears reduced to harmless glitter. A slow, pleased pulse moves through its chest. Again, it reaches out—this time striking two at once. They fall in uneven rhythm, one breaking midair from the hit, the other surviving long enough to embed itself point-first into the sparse snow near the border with a dull thunk. It pauses.
Its gaze drifts downward, following the imagined arc of falling ice, and something coils in its thoughts. What if a cat walked beneath this branch? What if the border were not empty, not quiet, but occupied by a patrol or a lone warrior slipping through the trees? The image forms uninvited—a body passing below, unaware, breath steady, eyes forward. An icicle loosening at the wrong moment. Gravity doing the rest. Viscerapaw does not recoil from the thought. It turns it over instead, examining it from all sides. Ice is not malicious, it thinks. It does not choose where it falls. If it strikes flesh, if it splits skin or cracks bone, that is not cruelty, just physics. Chance. Timing. No different from a dead branch breaking loose in a storm.
It taps another icicle free, watching how it falls, calculating distance without meaning to. Height matters. Angle matters. A longer one could do real damage. The idea settles into it like a stone dropped into dark water, sending slow ripples outward. It imagines the sound it might make if it struck something softer than frozen ground. The way a cat might react—startled, injured, furious. Or worse, silent. A shiver runs through Viscerapaw, though whether from cold or thought, it cannot tell. It shifts along the branch, careful, methodical, peering down through the lattice of bare twigs. No movement. No pawsteps. The border remains empty, indifferent. Still, it lingers there, claws flexing, as if waiting for the world to offer it a test. Another icicle breaks loose under its touch and falls, harmless again, bursting into shards that catch what little light there is. Viscerapaw watches until the last fragment settles.
