TW: Death Private i'm your tattoo trophy wife // spider

[serpentberry]

@spider

Serpentberry is along the thunderpath again. A piece of her wants to see Cherryblaze once more, the tricolor molly being a tether to something else entirely. That something else entirely also drags her here with that bit of want, eyebrows stitched together despite the hope to see tall ears abd muddy paws. It's rather unfortunate, then, that the one time she is not paying attentiom... is the one time someone sneaks up on her.

The molly jumps at the sound of crunching snow, the thunderpath stench being too strong for her to smell much of anything else. She sees the spindly legged tom not far from her, hunched over some skinny piece of meat. Oh, she realizes quickly. Her life isn't on the line, not immediately at least, but this tom (Spider, she thinks, but it's been so long she can't recall many names anymore,) has considered her easy enough to fool. Easy enough to traips around and thieve from.

"Hey!" she shouts as soon as she understands the situation, her tail lashing as it does. "You - you drop that right now," she continues, as if her demand holds as much weight as her claws and teeth do. Before the black furred tom is given the chance to obey, she rushes towards him, paws tearing at the snow beneath her.

 

[spider]

Oh? Spider had been so caught up in finally eating something not from the marshland surrounding their camp that he'd failed to notice the molly that was now rushing at him, tearing up the snow as she goes. He blinks in surprise, mouth full of meat and blood, and attempts to dodge her outstretched paws, but fails– he was not a good fighter. He was not strong, too skinny, too much limb and not enough muscle. Leafbare– or, well, life, had not been kind to him. There's a reason that when the battle broke out in the colony he'd run. He's toppled by the vaguely familiar molly– wasn't she Hawthorne's mate?

"So now Hawthorne's followers have decided to care about prey? After leaving half the colony to starve for moons?" He snarls up at her, hackles raised, claws out stretched as he attempts to swipe at her muzzle. "And where are his little kits? Fatherless and cold somewhere, abandoned by their mother?"

 

[serpentberry]

Her paws bulldoze into the spindly legged tom, his coal-dark form spilling over the snow with ease. Serpentberry feels her chest heave, the sudden exerted energy something she hasn't been used to in... moons, she begins to realize. The chilled air scrapes at her lungs and her muscles already begin to ache, but she presses forth, the heat of a fresh kill spurring her on.

"Each of you are as blind as ever," she hisses, unsheathing her claws. His own swipe up at her, scoring a notch into her muzzle - though she winces, she does not verbally remark her pain. Instead, she glowers down at him. As Spider continues to speak, her teeth bare in response, her heart ceasing at the mention of her little ones. It returns with a fervor, the thunderous hammering of a widow scorned. Serpentberry, determined to keep her claws bloodless, dives forward with her teeth, attempting to lodge them into the soft flesh of his throat.

She does not hold, but she plays with the life the other so cherishes. Whether her teeth scrape or if they lodge and release, she makes a show of the power she maintains over his fragility, of the mercy she bestows upon him. She does not smile in his favor, but rather as a mockery of his existence.

"Are you a parent, darling rat?" she murmurs, whispers, her claws scoring into the snow beside his head. "A brother? A son? They would sure miss you, if your body was left here without a trace. You're lucky that in my ultimate kindness, I do not send you to the stars just yet. May you run home and be able to tell the tale, my sweet thief. For if I see you once more, in lands that your paws do not own... I do think I'll take your tongue as my rightful prize." A saccharine grin, her shoulders squaring up. She makes a show of pushing off and away from him, her venom green eyes never leaving the ilk of his thin frame.

"Run, you morsel muncher. Run." For she knows she's making promises she can keep.

 

[spider]

Spider offers his throat willingly, blinking up at Serpent– disappointingly, she pushes off him. Speaks of nonsense, weakness, family. Run? But this is just getting interesting.

"I am nobody's blood but my own," Spider says, voice taking on his usual lilting tone. Spinning webs, spinning webs. "Family, friends– they make you weak. Catching a thief on your territory and letting me out with a mere warning? Has parenthood already made you soft? I'm disappointed, really. Expected more from the cat the great Hawthorne took as his mate, but then, he was weak too."

With a smile, he turns around and takes off towards the shadowclan border, feeling sure the she-cat is on his tail already. She seemed particularly sensitive when it came to mentions of her dead mate.

 

[serpentberry]

Her limbs bunch up beneath her, her claws scoring into snow and ice. She could reply with so much - demean him for having no one to run home too, call him weak for if he knew and experienced loss, he would more than congratulate her for surviving it. No, instead, Serpentberry feels the fangs of his words with every aching bite they etch into her ears. He tries, and he succeeds, to edge her beyond points of no return. He taunts her, goads her into a chase - and she takes it. Foolishly, she takes it.

"I'm going to line my nest with your fur, you awful pest!" Her body disobeys the one shrill voice in her mind, begging her to wait. He tears away and she follows just after him - her speed was once unmatched, but motherhood and grief have atrophied her skills. She still follows him, however not as closely as she would want. "Get back here!" She makes her demands uselessly to the dark pelted feline, following him straight to the thunderpath.

 

[spider]

He runs, runs as fast as he can, relishing in the anger in the she-cat's word. For the first time in a while, he's having fun. He dodges under a bramble bush and bursts onto the thunderpath, going too fast to stop now, the blood rushing in his ears too loud for him to hear it before it happens– a monster hits him. He's crushed in seconds, broken, and his head rolls over to look back at Serpentberry as the life leaves his eyes.