Private Backwritten i move, this could die // graybird

[SABLESTAR]

//backwritten because this takes place while juniperstar is still pregnant!

It isn't something she would be used to eating, and it isn't until he's already crossed the thunderpath that he considered its foreign taste might be enough for her to turn away from it. A salamander wasn't all too popular even among his own Clan, but underneath to slick of mud and rubbery skin they could be filling. Sablestar had a preference for their tails for the texture, and maybe his hunting had been more centered than intended, but the gesture of care for his mate was genuine. He feared for how well ThunderClan would keep Juniperstar fed, and not because he doubted their abilities.

They would not denounce their love for each other. Those kits were their's, she had declared. Not just his, not just her's. There would be some sort of cooperation made between them and keep the family they've made together somehow. She had begged him to do the right thing- what she wanted to be the right thing. No more blood, no more twisting entanglements to make this worse. He couldn't control every cat beneath him any more than she could with hers, but he could try. And maybe this delivery would be enough to make that first step.

The problem was he couldn't tell west to east where they had made their camp. This forest was thick with towering trees, tall enough to disorient his sense of direction. The scent of his own home still overwhelmed any path of direction and it was only a matter of time before he either found them or was found. Damn it all. He should have asked her more precisely, he should have just hauled her back to the pocosin when she was alone and couldn't fight back.

Then came a flash of familiarity among the strangeness. He doesn't scent his brother but sees him first, a dapple of grays between the brittle branches. A traitor, but his brother still? "So you're alive- hough!"

The salamander is knocked from his maw as paws push against his shoulders, and he's in a position that feels scarily familiar far too soon. "Don't get so excited, I'm not trying to stick around." The tuxedo growled through gritted teeth as he met the anger in Graybird's gaze.

this heart beats cold like the devil his own

• @Graybird
  "mew"
• 

  SABLESTAR— he/him ･fifty-four moons ･leader; shadowclan ･penned by gonkpilled

  a black and white tuxedo with dark amber eyes

 

[Graybird]

So you're alive- He doesn't expect to be greeted with any warmth of love, not after he made clear his side; choosing his heart of blood, following his foolish longing over his own kin. "I see unfortunately you are as well." There is a brief moment where he wants to finish the job Thornstar started, he remembers the fear and adrenaline of being pinned beneath claws when Gecko tore into him, how close her blades had dug to his throat, how the scars on his chest spoke of how near star-touched he had been. Sable had been equally pinned but his opponent showed mercy he was undeserving of. Graybird wonders if Thornstar regretted it in his dying moments, regretted letting this rat scurry off into the shadows to plot against him; if only he had died that day instead, Thornstar would be here and Juniperstar...
His paw presses down more firmly, his mind reeling in disgust and horror, both at Sable and himself. We are nothing alike. We are light and day. You have hurt her, you keep hurting her- A scream of outrage builds in his throat that he swallows down, his composure frail as a newborn fledgling - quivering and chirping in a barren nest. Graybird does not have it in him to kill Sablestar, they both know it as much as he wishes he was made of stone-perhaps she should've gone with Graystone after all, maybe it would have hardened his bleeding heart, froze it in mineral waste and shielded it from the world. There is hatred in his holly green gaze, he despises that he is not taken so seriously, that his brother speaks with such casual dismissiveness of him - but while he doesn't intend to kill the tuxedo he is sure as hell not allowing him to go any further.
"You bastard, you have no right being anywhere near our territory!" Near her! His heart cries, near any of them, but especially- "You think you can just stroll in here as if nothing happened? That I don't finish what Thornstar started is not to spare YOU!" Juniperstar's sad gaze flashes in his mind, that she would miss this miserable tom is something he knows so well and he wishes more than anything he could make he stop caring for the thorn embedded in her pelt, the one who has made her bleed and cry. Graybird realizes then why he can not bring himself to kill the other, it is not a lack of nerve but of fear in her turning away from him as well - it is a selfish and awful thing rotting inside him. Not mercy, but desperation. ThunderClan would celebrate his fall and she would wither like an untended plant in face of their joy, longing for something she'd already lost but refused to acknowledge and he would be the culprit of their despair. Their pain. He could not stand it. Maw wrinkles, teeth flash against black gums, the fragile edges of his sensibilities fray and unravel, he can't kill-he can't kill-but he can HURT-he can HARM - Graybird rises to his hindlegs suddenly as it to let Sablestar go before slamming his paws back down with claws unsheathed, swiping wildly like he was the one pinned and cornered; the fluttering wings beneath a cats claws.

I am not your kind and gentle husband

& I am not the love you knew before.

• 

  GRAY

  
  — Warrior ThunderClan
  — He/They
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  — SH Gray Tabby with holly green eyes.
  #82847e
  

 

[SABLESTAR]

Graybird's reply is dry and distant to his littermate, words cold enough to question their relation at all. It was true, he and Gray and ben opposing ends of the candles they burned for as long as either could recall. Sable was comfortable centering himself, it was his life just as well as any others. If that meant making a few others miserable for the benefit of himself, that was the simple play of the game. Gray was always much softer, easy to roll over and push out of the way and others would take no hesitation to take anything he offered. He could only protect his foolish brother for so long before he, too, joined them.

Now he's staring up at the face of rage with a goading smile. Do it. Do it and regret it. He would only come back, and who knew what would happen. His Clan may find him if and unleash their own taste of hell again. This time without the weakness of hunger to weaken them, and with more numbers behind them than before. That would mean Gray had to courage to even commit to it in the first place, though.

Thornstar? They still gave him the unearned gift of a name he never lived to see, how kind. "Get a hold of yourself, Gray. You don't kill, not your kin." Sablestar spoke in the same inflection to one of Alders lessons in their youth. When they were closer, when they had a promise to never separate like their parents had. He might have just gotten through the thick skull of his brothers as the weight lifted from his shoulders, but just as quickly he is sent back down yowling and writhing in desperate escape. Searing hot anger eviscerates where Gray's claws strike and he kicks back at Graybird's belly with his hind claws in attempt to throw him off.

this heart beats cold like the devil his own

• "mew"
• 

  SABLESTAR— he/him ･fifty-four moons ･leader; shadowclan ･penned by gonkpilled

  a black and white tuxedo with dark amber eyes