TW: Sensitive Content Private Medicine Cat's Den haunt the cartoon heart // cicadabuzz

[SABLESTAR]

tw: descriptions of blood and injuries n hell n shit

"I know what happens, now."

His nocturnal habits were not uncommon in ShadowClan, he noticed. Cold nights that started in solitude had begun to grow more crowded as time went on, emerging from the shadows as the temperatures rose. It made for his bloodied return home to require a bit more tact than usual. Entertaining questions to spin lies wasn't something he was quite in the mood for, and he shuffled into Cicadabuzz's den from the passageway tucked behind the stones.

Paws still shook, covered in his own blood and ick. Sablestar held no appetite to taste it again and wash it away, having grown used to it's overwhelming scent while it clogged his nose and poured from his throat. His tail thudded rhythmically against the ground in vain attempts to keep himself in control and his mind from straying. It felt like his heart hadn't stopped thudding since Wolfpack tore his flesh apart, a bird rapidly trying to break free from behind his ribcage as blood pooled within.

"It's... It's eating me. From the inside." Sablestar hissed as he tilted his head back at the medicine cat's direction. The clotted blood broke and itched with a sting as the skin pulled, but he remained dutifully still for bug to work on his wounds. "What waits for me, I know it would not be without sacrifice. But... it consumes. It is never satisfied, even in blood." Sablestar coughed as the tension pushed down on his vocal chords and grimaced. "You've seen it? Haven't you?"

this heart beats cold like the devil his own

• @CICADABUZZ
  "mew"
• 

  SABLESTAR— he/him ･sixty moons ･leader; shadowclan ･penned by gonkpilled

  a black and white tuxedo with dark amber eyes

 

[CICADABUZZ]

CICADABUZZ, 34 moons / shc + med. cat
a SH cinnamon tabby/chocolate tortie chimera w/ black eyes
parent to cloudberrypaw, hemlockpaw, mistletoepaw ; mentor to magpiepaw
a reserved, pragmatic healer driven by duty rather than sentiment

Cicadabuzz does not immediately answer. Their paws move with quiet precision, sorting through herbs, picking out what they will need for his care. The den smells of blood and bitter plants, a thick mixture that seeps into the stones like memory. Their tail flicks once, scattering a small clump of dried moss, before they finally lift their gaze to Sablestar. "I have," Cicadabuzz murmurs, voice low, calm, but edged with something that feels more like inevitability than comfort. Their eyes, sharp in the dim, hold his as though pinning him to the earth itself. "I felt what waits. Teeth and fire and nothing soft to catch you. It strips you bare. That hunger you speak of—it is not of the body alone. It gnaws deeper. It leaves you knowing the shape of your end."

They smooth poultice over the torn flesh, gentle but unflinching, their touch steady against the tremor in his frame. "I've walked there before my time. I saw what comes when the last tether frays. There is no rest in it. But it will allow us to continue our work even when our time has come; to reach out to those who follow us and guide them." Their words are not cruel; yet they cut clean as claws. Cicadabuzz leans back, studying the thick clotting around Sablestar's wounds, the slow, stubborn pulse beneath the ragged skin. "You already know it. Your heart beats like a creature trying to flee. It knows the shape of death's teeth as I do. That place—it remembers us. It waits when we falter. It is our duty not to falter." They lower their voice, as if the den itself might be listening. "It consumes because that is all it knows. I see it still. In my dreams. In the silence between breaths. It is with that in mind that I tell you that you were unwise to go seeking it before your time. You are wasting what you have been given, Sablestar. What worth do these gifts have if you throw them away so callously?"

 

[SABLESTAR]

SABLESTAR
he/him
sixty-two moons
shadowclan leader

PENNED BY gonkpilled

They are quiet. The stillness in the air is more suffocating then the scent of wet moss and blood as all he can anticipate is the soothe of Cicadabuzz's voice. Say something. Anything! He wanted to demand just as he had for Wolfpack to tear and shred. Cicadabuzz is not an easy dog waiting for it's next command, though. His impatience may cost him more time spent alone with the little shadows hanging above his head. When bug does speak, in their tone so matter-of-fact, he can almost feel... relief.

"You died. That day, by the border." Sablestar rasped out loud in a harsh whisper as the details clicked together. Like folding leaves into one another, the way bugs gaze seemed so vacant. Their body unsteady, as if just learning how to walk. To a degree, they were. Their body had died, lost the memory of being alive, even just briefly. The way Cicadabuzz spoke of it sounded so comforting, though. There was nothing to be unsure of, he wasn't alone in knowing it, either. No matter where this life, this journey, took them they would be together for it. As leader and medicine cat, as the brave champion and his wise healer.

Sablestar swallowed awkwardly after the poultice was spread over his gnarly wound. Though he had told Wolfpack to do it, he felt his deputy could have preserved some decency in the severity it would leave him with. He knew he was not in any place to complain, either.

"This one was not a waste." Sablestar grumbled, placing a pad against the wet smeared fur of his neck and sprawling to his side. How it could just be one astounded him, still. The time he spent floating in the Nothing felt like an age and more. To believe he must do it eight times more? Feeling death's teeth carve away his lives and leave behind its rugged claim in scarred tissue and barren fur. "I had to know, for all my self preservation, I had to know what it would mean if I slip." All it took was a lucky strike, a push, a bite. His body already endured plenty in the name of pain and agony as his own kin and enemy alike brought him to the brink of death. But to be driven over it, knowing it wouldn't last forever, was an fear so strong he couldn't overcome it any other way.

Marred eyes can't decide whether to remain open are attempt some form of rest. His vision flickered just the same, imagines of Fleecefur's glinting claws cutting through his- someone's- demise. Sablestar hadn't yet told the healer on his curious discovery of a scar beneath his belly that did not belong to him. It had seared and sliced at his core while he dragged himself home until finally cooled into something more tame. It was easily hidden beneath his thick belly fur, at least.

"Was it really just one? Something within, yet, outside of myself tells me it's wrong." He quickly followed his words with a dismissive scoff. He was tired of diving into the workings of whatever sustained his gifts for now.

Sablestar braved in bracing his paws against the earth to rise. Unsteady at first, but he fought to still his swaying. "Whatever feeds from me will have to be satisfied for now. I have a legion of warriors around me, I won't find myself thrown into anything else's jaws any time soon." It would be genuine reassurance if they didn't both know poor stakes and Sablestar mixed like sap and leaves.

​

OOC:

 

[CICADABUZZ]

Cicadabuzz watches him quietly, the soft murmur of his voice breaking against the low hum of rain outside. Water beads and drips from the top of the den, gathering into a shallow puddle by the entrance that glints faintly in the half-light. The scent of iron and herbs coils through the air like smoke. Their paws move still, deliberate and patient, as if Sablestar's words are another wound to tend—one they must clean before it festers. When they finally speak, their tone is even, but something unspoken flickers beneath it. "Yes," they say simply. "I died." The words settle heavily, matter-of-fact yet vast enough to fill the small den. "Serpentberry's fangs tore through my throat. It was… quick. Clean. But not painless. It was a type of pain sharp enough to split the world in two. I felt the heat of my own blood, and heard it, a rushing water in my ears. Then—nothing."

Their gaze drifts past Sablestar's shoulder, fixed on something unseen. "But there was more after," Cicadabuzz murmurs, voice thinning into something half-remembered. "I fell through the dark and into something that wasn't the stars. It showed me things—moments that have not yet come." They blink slowly, as though the sight of it still lingers behind their eyes, and perhaps it may. "I saw the medicine cats gathered beneath the moon. Their pelts touched, but none of them spoke. I saw you, speaking to me, though I could not parse the words. A storm was brewing, and we watched. I saw Magpiepaw beside me, his paws small and busy with work. I saw a single deathberry beneath my paw, red and waiting." A pause. "I saw two cats, standing by the thunderpath. One looked at me." It pauses, its gaze distant for a moment. "Those eyes of yours, Sablestar—like violets in honey. That is what looked on me."

They sit back again, tail curling around their paws, eyes tracing the tremor in Sablestar's legs as he steadies himself. Sablestar's words of reassurance stir a faint movement in Cicadabuzz's expression—something like humor, or perhaps pity. "A legion of warriors will not you from death's jaws, Sablestar. You could build walls of bone and still, it would find you. The only thing that ever stands between you and it is luck. That—and whatever it is inside you that refuses to be devoured by the darkness." They rise then, their shadow long across the den's back wall, the remaining herbs still clinging to their fur like small green ghosts. "Rest while you can. You'll need your strength. The memory of death does not fade easy." Their tone carries no threat, only a strange, weary certainty—as if they are speaking not from faith, but from memory.