TW: Sensitive Content Private Backwritten Dark Forest But I won't forget your name, and I won't forget your face || Deadwood

[Froststorm]

{$title} Following the meeting of the Dark Forest cats, Froststorm realises the absence of his apprentice and seeks to unearth him once more.

———— I awaken with the thunder, a bold statement to end my slumber. ✦

CW// Blood, Mentions and depictions of being buried "alive".
​

---

To admit how he had kept himself steady during the meeting was a feat of itself; he knew within moments of reawakening at the bank of the dried river, lungs aching, that the clans had been born anew. The destruction of the clan, momentarily, had succeeded. He'd gotten to rest, though it felt as if it were the blink of an eye; it always was like this. Every last cycle of slipping away to that second slumber and being disturbed again to take form. Rich and thick viscera, blood still crimson as if he was still capable of breathing, leaking from his lips. Rotted flesh clung to exhausted, aching bones that reminded him he was still here. Still existent. Still fighting.

A wheezing sigh rattled from his chest, an awful crackling noise as the ice-cold water roared to life with every laboured heave, leaving the meeting. He wasn't as bloodied, as gored and gouged like some of his fellow cats; his death was quiet. Suffocating. Just as lonely as the fate his children had suffered. His children.

Something wild crossed his eyes. Akin to the frenzy that once gripped him while he lived, the revenge and rage he fought for the ignorant slaughter of his children, his kittens, his family. But instead, the tom, even despite the roaring ache in his form, veered for one of the grand trees not far from where the other cats had gathered. For the cruelty of the forest, he knew his kin was suffering. Though his kittens and mate had been given some supposed mercy of being permitted to Starclan, his kin were more than those in life.

Finally, with a heaving chest and icy cold water leaking from his lips and nose, Froststorm stood at the twisted, tangled roots of that all too familiar tree. Without a word, no sign or warning, he began to dig.

Dig with a fury, a fervor, something relentless that gripped him like a disease.
Decaying paws roaring in pain with every heaved lump of dirt torn away.

He knew where his apprentice, his son would be buried with the return of the clans.
Here beneath a visage of the tree he died beneath.

His body was never buried in death, instead overtaken by that tree.

How cruel for the forest to bury his son alive.

​

- I want sacred, I want final.

I'm seeking it wherever I go. -

• 
  Froststorm
  ✦— Dark forest warrior
  ✦— He/Him
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦— A skinny, grey speckled cat with amber eyes and various frostbitten wounds.
  
  #CD807A

 

[Deadwood]

——————————————— Skin and bones, and brains and blood ☾

It had been so long since that body had taken a breath. Since he had thought his last thought, since he had felt his last feeling, he couldn't remember how long it had been. All he remembered was the weary feeling in his bones, the almost gentle calling of something, something that wanted him to give in. Something that wanted him to give up... he couldn't tell if it was someone calling for him to rest, or his soul giving up. He didn't remember what giving up was supposed to feel like. 'Was he being forgotten?' He remembered thinking, though there was no fear there. Was this what death was meant to be, a dull sleep? He almost welcomed it, like the embrace of a mother he never knew. It wasn't warm, it wasn't comforting, but at least he was held. At least the earth would welcome him, envelop his bones when there was nobody else to bury him. At least the earth would care.

Until he woke up, and the weight against his chest struck a long-frayed nerve deep within him. This forest didn't care, it just wanted another victim, and the fear that suddenly roared through his veins refused to let it claim him again. He could only do so much, the mud filling his lungs made him choke, but he had no way to cough it out. He was drowning, suffocating in that awful muck, and he couldn't find the strength in his legs to kick himself free. Deadwood had no idea how long he was pinned under the dirt, memories of a familiar, swirling weight disorienting him until he felt sharp teeth sinking into the tangled fur of his scruff. With a painful tug, the roots that had long grown around his body broke free, and he was hoisted from his forgotten grave.

He didn't know what was going on, he just knew that he couldn't breathe. An awful hacking overtook his feeble body, gagging on the awful combination of blood, dirt and gnarled roots that had found a resting place in his chest falling from his lips in an awful mixture. The tom's eyes were screwed shut, blinded by suddenly emerging from total darkness they had grown so accustomed to—it was cruel how pale his eyes had become in death, as though death itself wanted him to forever be unable to see the sun. The same bloody, mucus-y muck streamed from his nose and eyes, and the tom rubbed at his eyes helplessly as the dirt continued to fall. Finally, eyes that had not seen for many, many moons were finally able to see a bleary, but familiar shape. He could hear, just ever so faintly, a familiar voice calling out to him. He wasn't alone, thank the stars, he wasn't left to die alone, he just—he just didn't want to be alone—

"F- Frost-s-storm-" The tom choked out, a painful sob tearing through his chest. "I- I can't-" He whispered, reaching shaking paws out to the familiar cold, a sensation that many feared so much. He felt his paws collide into something solid, something real, and his claws burrowed into the familiar damp fur as he pulled himself closer to the closest thing he had to a family. The smell of rot emanating from the gray tom was so familiar to him, so much sharper than the dull mud that had held him down for so long, and he clung to the sensation desperately. The tom swore he could feel a heart, something that he had assumed rotted away so long ago, hammering away desperately in his weak chest. For a moment, Deadwood almost felt alive, and the sensation overwhelmed him as much as he grasped it desperately. He didn't know what to feel, he didn't know how to feel it.

He didn't know what else to do but cry, so the fragile tom buried his face into his father's gray chest and wept helplessly.

They followed us into the trees

Wearing crowns of twigs and leaves

• 
  Deadwood
  ☾—Dark Forest Warrior | 19 Moons
  ☾—He/Him
  ☾—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ☾—A thin, dark brown tabby tom with pale eyes
  #A68040 #ACAB9C

 

[Froststorm]

———— I awaken with the thunder, a bold statement to end my slumber. ✦

The forest knew him as a cruel cat, a deceptivve monster with claws stained in the blood of innocent cats from generations long past. Though these cats are long dead, they had been forgotten, but the forest would not allow Froststorm to rest, nor would it allow his kin to.

Memories ingrained in wood and stained in blood, laced with betrayal and the tears of cats let down again and again by the stars who promised them sanctity. He would never forgive nor forget that betrayal that coursed through his own veins even after having existed longer than some trees that lay their roots around the bones that he now haphazardly unearthed the spirit of with unsheathed claws.

Deadwood was the only cat to have been witness to Froststorm's claws and did not find his blood pooling beneath him. Instead, as the lanky cat gasped with a sob that crackled through the air as if branches had snapped from surrounding trees, the younger tom was pulled close. Forever barely a warrior, it's something Froststorm would never forgive himself for, the fact that Deadwood barely got to live before ending up in their domain forever.

He was proud of his son, who would never change. For the strength he showed, the growth from the terrified little apprentice. So as Deadwood gasped and sobbed, never would Froststorm look down on his own son for his fear. The mud-mottled tom tucked his sobbing form beneath his father's chin and cried to his chest like a kitten in his first lightning storm. The warrior did not hesitate to wrap frostbitten paws around his son, holding him as if some cruel fate would once again tear his family from his paws.

Froststorm had lost two of his kittens so long ago now, he could barely remember the face of his son Stormkit and had never given the chance to witness his daughter Pollenkit, names he gifted them himself before his family was torn apart for good. And it was why, for all the cruelty that coated Froststorm's path, his greatest weakness would always be his only remaining son, not by blood, but by devotion.

For a moment, he did not speak, not a word nor utterance. Deadwood's were muffled in Froststorm's matted fur, but still the sobs broke the silence that had fallen on the forest for moons, more than just moons, more than years. Even the warrior did not know, but that wasn't his worry for now. A gentle paw dusted the dirt and soil from the others' matted mane, and delicately did he begin to clean the mud that had soaked all over Deadwood's face, now mixing with his own tears.

Finally, he spoke. "Breathe with me, Deadwood." In a place of cats with trails of blood and destruction in their wake, the rare moment of tenderness was the slightest glimmer of the sun on a day caught in the midst of a thunderous storm. He raised his apprentice's gaze to meet his own, voice level yet kind. "You are okay, feel your paws are on solid ground." He assured, outwardly he seemed clinical, but his gentleness was betrayed in his tone.

The warrior pressed a nose against the forehead of the other, a reminder he was present and okay. Though he had to look to his son with the slighest pity, the mud cloaking his form wouldnt help ease his panic, but it was something the both of them could correct, Deadwood needed time to regroup after a frankly jarring and cruel return to existance after the restless slumber following the fall of the clans.

He had hoped his son could finally rest like he deserved, but there was work to be done. The clans were alive once more and it was Froststorm's duty to correct that.

- I want sacred, I want final.

I'm seeking it wherever I go. -

• 
  Froststorm
  ✦— Dark forest warrior
  ✦— He/Him
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦— A skinny, grey speckled cat with amber eyes and various frostbitten wounds.
  
  #CD807A