TW: Sensitive Content Private Border 'Let's make this exceedingly simple' — Requiem, introduction

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This thread is private! Only post if you have permission!
This thread takes place at the border of the clan territory.
4
0
Freshkill
65
TW: Vehicular injury, animal injury

"You reek of them again," had been the five inciting words that had left his mouth that day.
On the other side of the mesh, the tortoiseshell, who teased along the length of it in lighter-than-air giddiness, tickled him something smug and fierce with her blue eyes. "I told you they were noble," she'd grinned to him. For once, Requiem had not begrudged the shine of early morning light that caught the porch plastic just wrong, near blinding him to anything that was not pressing herself so conceitedly into it. Her furs clung to the cris-crossing seams in small clumps that he feared would be lost to the familiar pinch of them.

"Mariposa," Requiem drawled in exasperated plea, "See reason, please, before you see stars."

Maybe his delivery left a little to be desired, for his friend had paused her cajoling of his enclosed porch, and Requiem was back to cursing that angled light, for he could not read her expression. With an exasperated huff, the dark burmese sank to the cut wood beneath his paws and lazed onto his side. "When no forest brutes come calling for your aide in their battles against the enemies they create for themselves, don't spear me with another one of your moods, I beg."

He had waved for something resembling order from her, whose mood by now had rapidly dissolved into something pelt-puffing and pin-eared. "A boy can utter disagreements his whole life, but when a girl can't crap sunshine on command, the world darkly mutters about her 'moods'."

"Here is where you're safe, Mary."Requiem's exasperated voice had honed to say. He tried to catch her eyes, but the light would not let him. "Remember that."



On a note not dissimilar had been his last sighting of the tortoiseshell, absconding like the rest of them into something that surely they could not understand. Yes, he'd thought bitterly, how enticing it seemed to struggle for your food and hunt, sleep, and groom over the same gnarly trees that hold your dirt. If only to downplay, or distract, from the very real potential that she, like many, would simply be lost to one of their fights. Be it against starvation, or disease, or predation, or each other. So when his little girl had been settled into her little bed with her little sheets and the littler plush to her bosom still, Requiem had slipped from the foot of her bed, his cadence practiced and even to dissuade his bell collar from jingling her awake. When the door slipped open to allow the dog out, so too did Requiem prowl beyond, his lips tight and his temper building with every step that carried him over unknown textures, down the path, and toward the forest line that had tempted too many of his close ones with the unknown.


-


The tarmac smelled of oil, and the sand suspended in it made it gritty against his cheek. The world tilted threateningly on an unknown axis, so Requiem breathed in, bubbly and metallic. In the throbbing hurt of the circumstances that had accosted him, his attention was arrested by a pebble resting near his ear. Small, and imperfect, and simple, and fuck did he hate it. With every mounting degree of presence that returned to his mind, so too did a new wave of hurt, or gush of warmth, and the knowing that that warmth was time running out.

The bastard time. The bastard warmth. "Fu-huck," the house cat moaned bastardously, the right plane of his face felt as though it had solidified itself in blood and flesh made stone. Heavy like it, too. It had looked like a human car, but when he had seen it, it was a bright flash of yellow light. When he came to, he was prone in this deepening evening with no sight in his right side, and blunting pain in that shoulder, his hip. He had hoped that maybe if he'd remained still, the inevitable sharp pains would not find him, but with the too-wide stutter of his ribcage, they plunged up his body in wakefulness. When he threw his head back along the sharp road in hissing hurt, he found himself taken with his pebble again. Stars, he imagined sending it through that dense-headed she-cat's eye.
 
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SEAFOAMBELLY
, 83 moons / THUNDERCLAN RANGER
A long-furred blue-gray she-cat with blue-green eyes.
Sister to URCHINSPINE
Solemn and distant. She doesn't talk much.

SPEECH || THOUGHTS
Tagging none


Long fur swept over the chilly ground. Leaf-fall was beginning, and with it came the cold touch of encroaching frost. ThunderClan was, unfrotunately, facing down the callous seasons with a grieving leader and a dead medicine cat - it was up to the Clan to remain strong and prepared. It was because of this that she found herself on this little midnight hunting patrol, honing her skills to help where it would be needed come leaf-bare.

Her ears twitched as they approached the Thunderpath. The sound of a monster's screech echoed through the forest, and she screwed her eyes shut as her claws dug into the earth.

Wave, crumpled and broken. Urchin, furious and cold.

No, surely it was simply another monster veering on its wild, unpredictable path. She was older now, and reason told her that there was nothing to fear...

The scent of blood on the air.

"Is that-" she asked, her voice catching in her throat. Worried pawsteps rushed her to the side of the Thunderpath, to the crumpled - his soft fur, bloodied and torn - body of the cat lying in the dirt. But this time... this cat was still breathing.

This time there was a chance he could be saved.

"We need to fetch-" Her urgent voice paused. She had nearly called out for Serpentberry. "He needs Rowanpaw's help."

 
He moved alongside the others, ears pricked as maw opened to taste the air as they neared the border, neared the thunderpath. Though Flurrypaw had never fully understood the need to mark the border near here while they were near it - was the thunderpath not a border marker enough? - he didn't question it out loud, simply did as he was told and moved on, but before they could all move on this time the sound of screeching tires, the smell of blood, the soft groans of another heard as they quickly moved closer caused the patrol to move their feet.

At the scene Flurrypaw couldn't help but swallow down some fear, head lifting as blue eyes looked left then right, then to Seafoambelly as she began to speak to call for Rowanpaw, speaking of needing his help, and although he was inclined to agree... "We need to get him off the Thunderpath first." It was a fact, words spoken as though the apprentice had more than eight moons under his pelt on the earth, and quickly he'd look left than right once more before darting onto the path. It didn't matter how deep onto the asphalt the other was, the apprentice would meet him, would aim to nudge him up and use his shoulders to help hold him up.

"We've gotcha." He'd speak assuredly, hopefully by now the kittypet up onto his feet and leaning against him, though not towering over him due to Flurrypaw being almost fully grown it was still a feat and he only hoped that one of his clanmates followed him out here so that he wasn't expected to drag the other back to the dirt alone, ""We'll get'cha fixed up and uhh you'll be fine, kay?" 'Cause reassurance - albeit between strained breathes currently - was best in times like this, right? He'd seen Rowanpaw and Serpentberry give their patients reassurances while they were being healed, so why not reassure someone after they'd almost been eaten by a monster, left to die on the road.
FLURRYPAW he/him, thunderclan 8 moons old.
a buff long-furred cat
mentored by none // mentoring none
NPC x NPC / sibling to none / crushing on none
excelled learner
"speech" // "thoughts"
penned by tikki ↛ rabbitcake on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
 
You walk along the edge of danger
AND IT WILL CHANGE YOU

.


Cursing under his breath, Copperstorm bounded toward the dark shape sprawled across the thunderpath, his heart hammering. The acrid stench of monster still hung thick in the air. He didn't think, he just moved. " To safety first! " he barked, voice sharp with urgency. " Then someone can go get Rowanpaw. " he commented, turning his head to focus on the cat at the side of the road. The tom's body was a mess of matted fur and blood. For a heartbeat, Copperstorm hesitated, a flicker of dread rising in his chest, then he forced it down and got to work together with Flurrpaw. " Sorry for this. " he muttered, tone rough but steady as he crouched beside the apprentice, helping to haul the injured cat inch by inch off the thunderpath. Each movement was careful, deliberate; too fast and they'd do more harm than good.

Once they'd reached the safety of the verge, Copperstorm exhaled a shaky breath, golden eyes narrowing on the tom's injuries. " We don't know how bad it is yet, we can make no promises. " he said, voice low but firm. " Rowanpaw will have to tell us what can be done, but she'll do her best. She always does. " he assured the hurt tom. Then he glanced toward the rest of the patrol, searching faces quickly before fixing on one cat. " You!! Go. Run to camp and bring her here. Don't stop until you do. " His tail lashed once, muddy fur bristling as he turned back to the fallen cat, lowering his head slightly.

" Hold on. " he murmured, quieter now, almost to himself. " You've still got fight left in you. Don't you dare give up before she gets here. "

Speech, thoughts/emphasis


33 MOONS
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Change does not announce itself; it doesn't trumpet its arrival. So when voices trickled into the evening ambiance, and figured blotted the deepening color of the sky, Requiem couldn't place exactly when his solitude ended and this company began. When he tried to catch breath for words, he found that he was breathing half air, half liquid, and sputtered on the concoction of metal-tasting spit. Somewhere between the third cough and the second hack, a figure had hoisted him joltingly onto a semblance of his feet, and he veered with the pain, then lulled with the weight. The blood in his body felt less committed to the cause. Momentarily he swayed, light in the head. Then a bronze cat drew himself to Requiem's side, and he let his pretty head sink into their shoulder. They moved then, a concoction of creatures taking the positions of different limbs and hoping luck would have them locomotive. With the stoic stranger, he shared a tilted stare, in which his eyes momentarily captured his, amber to yellow. In this fragile moment of clarity, he bubbled two words: "Thank you," small around the blood and saliva that dribbled in a dislodged pool from the inside of his cheek, before his pupils faded with misfocus.

He crumpled to the grass, and then, when there were no joints left to crumple, his broken leg gave, and he folded to the grass instead. The space he had taken seemed to collapse around his absence, as though he had held the space of four cats between the strangers. From the ground, he hissed his sudden, searing hurt into the legs and paws of the cats around him, teeth snapping shut over stunted yowls as though to hiss and to bite were the last options available to him. Perhaps the vehicle-dazed tom held enough dregs of his prior presence to hear the russet tom's assurances and believe them to be true, but the lines were not coherent enough to be read between, for the road in its black had claimed his blood in abnormal darkness. It smelled of copper and colored like ink. But he had been freed from it, and in the dip of this verge, the grass was a kinder canvas to Requiem's hurt than the road ever could have been, for it knew blood's true color.

When blood met gray-blue paws, they turned to chestnut.
When blood met cream paws, they made umber.
When blood met brown paws, it deepened to maroon.
When blood met grass, it stayed just the same.

A youthful voice told him he would be fine. Requiem didn't contradict him, stilling beneath the chest-heaving exhaustion, but it was obvious in his clouded eyes that he didn't believe him.

Grass had a nicer smell. It felt as he had always anticipated it to, scratchy, and uncomfortable. Nothing like the gritty, smooth road.

Maybe he could have liked it.
Almost.

The dark-colored kittypet closed his eyes before he really knew what was good for him, and couldn't remember anything beyond but the stepped, ratchety breaths he took in unconsciousness.