Closed The Colony π™Ώπ™»π™΄π™°πš‚𝙴 π™Άπšπ™΄π™΄π™³ 𝙡𝙴𝙴𝙳 β—ˆ γ€Ž π™»π™΄π™Ύπ™Ώπ™°πšπ™³ 』

This tag is specifically for The Colony prior to the clans forming. It can still be used for any backwritten plots!
It's the most alive he's felt in moons.


Adrenaline has his blood pumping, lungs working overtime to feed oxygen to a heart fit to explode. It has his brain running a forest's length a minute; his whole being on high alert, hyperattentive and acutely aware, sharp and reactive, no longer dull to the world around him. He's got blood under his nails, on his teeth, splashed on his chin, matted in his pelt. There's no time to feel disgust, nor to think too hard on what this makes him. The only sensation he's privy to is that of invigoration. So visceral and clear-cut it's almost terrifying.


He prowls from the scene of his crime, more intent than ever to find another target. Eyes dart and ears flick, his body poised low in the backdrop and slinking with purpose. The shadowy markings of his coat afford him ample camouflage in the dead of night - a fact he doesn't intend to squander.


Smoky's resolve in doing so seemed firm, right up until he locked onto Leopard's stare.


// @Leopard

 
SO LET GO, YEAH LET GO, JUST GET IN

OH, IT'S SO AMAZING HERE

She had expected Sable to -perhaps foolishly- honor his own words to challenge Hawthorne at the appointed time. But that had clearly not been the case when Leopard was roused from her uneasy sleep to the sounds of their new leader waking those who supported him. Everything had almost instantly devolved then. Blurs of color and claws and fangs moved around her so fast that if she blinked she'd almost mistake one group of cats fighting for another that had moved on as the molly stood in the center of the chaos. Untou-

A snarl reached her ears as someone tackled her. A moment before the tabby realized the sound had come from her own maw as teeth closed on a limb, a shoulder, anything within reach in an effort to defend herself. It might have been an eternity until she fought the stranger off, or only a few moments- adrenaline and fear worked in tandem to be sure that Leopard knew if it was either. What she did know was that her struggling had somehow dragged her away from the main fighting.

Tongue briefly flicked out to try to reach a fresh scratch along the length of her muzzle as she tried to catch her breath, wearily looking around before she froze at the sight coming out of the brush before her.

Yellow met amber.

"...Smoky." It was barely a breath, hesitant to speak further as she took in the tom's appearance. There was a near wild light in his eyes she didn't trust. Hackles rose without her realizing, it slowly dawning on her just whose side Smoky had most likely chosen. "How could it happen like this? Was Sable so impatient that he couldn't wait until dawn!?"


IT'S ALRIGHT

  • Β 

  • Leopard
    β€” Colony Cat
    β€” She/Her
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    β€” A dark grey rosetted tabby with yellow eyes
    #3a7b8e
 
Where everything had previously appeared blurred and intangible, Leopard snaps into perfect focus. Every strand of fur on her coat, the tension tied so taut in her shoulders, her pupils in mid-dilation, that quivering jawline. Everything is precise. Detail-rich. Her gaze is icicle-like in how it penetrates, cold and sharp and real. Smoky flounders, a wave of dizzy nausea overcoming him; he wants to retch, and suddenly he can smell the blood on his coat again.


But war churns around him. Yowling and clawing, the groans of wounded cats, the scrape of tooth and nail. Time is short and the risks of their situation mount, every second a wasted chance, an opportunity missed to take advantage of the fray. Leopard was nowhere to be found when Sable roused the cats who'd gathered for change, and that pins her in his sights. An obstacle- rather, the enemy. He knows what he must do. "Doesn't matter now, Leopard. You're in the way."


Gut instinct roars to life, pushing him onward to act and carry out the motions of the deed. Jaw tight, hind legs bent, poised to strike, the tom moves like a stormcloud to tear her down, a mighty swipe of his paw aiming to connect with Leopard's cheek, claws out and teeth bared.

 
SO LET GO, YEAH LET GO, JUST GET IN

OH, IT'S SO AMAZING HERE

Leopard frowns, raising her chin slightly as she takes in Smoky in this new bloody silhouette he's taken on. Who's blood was that on his paws? His maw? Matted in his coat? She recalled that not all that long ago she had commented about pelts like theirs working well for them in the near pitch dark of night and she wondered if he had used that to his advantage on his previous victims.

For the briefest of moments Smoky seemed caught, as if he had realized at that moment what he had done and Leopard took a single step forward.

'You're in the way.' Blood ran cold, roaring in Leopard's ears as a soft hiss left her when the other leapt towards the molly with claws reaching for her face.

"Have you lost your mind!?" The warning had been clear as day but still the tabby had been frozen in place as if in disbelief that Smoky's paws would actually hit their mark. The resulting scratch didn't sting nearly as much as her heart did in that moment- a memory of a question asked of him and his ensuing answer- as she stumbled from the blow, tail lashing.

She had been lucky that it was as low as it had been, any higher and she might very well have been one eye less. A snarl left her as Leopard reared up slightly on her hind legs, aiming to bring a clawed paw down across Smoky's face with all the force her scrawny frame could muster. She could not die here. She could not leave Seal alone to fend for herself like her mate had done all those moons ago when the fox had killed him and Seal's brother.

Another desperate hiss left her as she was locked into battle with Smoky. ...Had she really misjudged the tom so badly? Was this really the cat she had asked to look after Seal were something to happen to her before they could flee across the moors?

IT'S ALRIGHT

  • Β 

  • Leopard
    β€” Former Colony Cat, Now In Starclan
    β€” She/Her
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    β€” A dark grey rosetted tabby with yellow eyes
    #3a7b8e

 
Barely, can he glimpse the crimson rivulets trace their trail down Leopard's cheek. The image remains burnt to his vision even in her retaliatory strike. She cuts him clean across the muzzle and the pain it brings is electric, has his lips curled and twitching to bear his teeth anew. Blood pours and stings. It's warm against his whiskers. It tastes like bitter salt in his mouth, on his tongue. Smoky growls, low and seething, a sound that rumbles from deep within his chest. He can't think anymore; he doesn't want to.


Smoky shunts his weight to the opposite end of his balance. A frenetic burst from his hindquarters serves as his momentum, his front half swinging forward to try to push Leopart hard into the night-dampened soil. "I said, out of my way!" His hindpaws are scrabbling, claws tearing up grass as they seek for traction.


The breath he could use for a rebuttal or some other snark, instead is conserved. This is no mere clash of opinions. It's a tectonic shift. A splitting, and a reshaping, and he mustn't be found on the losing side of it. Shattering that thin veneer of civility between them in the most violent of manners? Collateral damage. There is no room in him for hesitation. There is only the impulse to carry out what has been started.


Should he find himself in a favourable position, and a gap in her defences has presented itself, Smoky will aim to rake his claws down the line of her throat. His initial attack hadn't sent her running, offering him no other path to end the struggle. Leopard chooses poorly, he thinks. Doomed right from the very get-go.


 
SO LET GO, YEAH LET GO, JUST GET IN


OH, IT'S SO AMAZING HERE


She had not expected the sudden force of the tabby slamming into her like he does and she rolls with it, stumbling until a bloodied paw shoves her hard into the dirt. Leopard's limbs struggle for purchase underneath her in an attempt to throw Smoky off to no avail.


"Smoky, don't-!" She's acutely aware of how vulnerable she is pinned down as she is and tries once more to wriggle free- right up until four perfect lines are mercilessly drawn down the line of her throat by the tom she almost considered a friend.


Leopard shuddered, straining to twist her head in the direction of the den she had safely tucked Seal away in. Y-you-" Yellow eyes finally trained themselves on Smoky, eyes wide with fear. Was… Was Smoky the kind to go after a kit? She wasn't sure anymore. "Seal…"


One final cough as the rosetted tabby stared up at her killer before slowly going still.

'I'm sorry Seal, please stay safe…'



IT'S ALRIGHT


  • Β 


  • Leopard

    β€” Former Colony Cat, Now In Starclan
    β€” She/Her
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    β€” A dark grey rosetted tabby with yellow eyes
    #3a7b8e

 
Even as his senses seem to spin, chest wracked by a torrent of frantic, ragged breaths, Smoky sees Leopard die. His name in her mouth, panic so naked and genuine in her eyes. Those scarlet wellings at her throat, spilling down the slope of her neck, matting the cloudy grey of her fur, spattered on the ground beneath. He'd felt her choke, felt her flail and thrash before going still, the warmth in her pelt slowly seeping away. And all he can think about in that moment is that it isn't enough. That it must be finished.


He can't leave her for dead, and then just assume. It's too big of a risk. It's not worth it.


His claws tear at her neck for a second time, ripping and shredding, teeth clamping hard onto her scruff as his paws pull at opposing angles. Thrashing like a canine might its prey. Again and again, to the point of overkill. He doesn't care. This is the choice he's made and the consequence of which that must follow. When his head eventually lifts and his jaws release their grip, there is little left to recognize between where her head once began, and where her shoulders had ended.


In the end, Leopard is not all too different from what she'd existed as in the days before: stagnant, silent, and lifeless.


It takes him a moment to regain himself, and even longer to find the willpower to move. Four paws bring him from the scene in a blurrish stumble, breathless and swaying in his disorientated haze. "Told her to run away," Smoky justifies, mostly for his own sake. And he had. Many, many nights ago, well before Fray had passed, the counsel was given to make her getaway before any of this unfolded. "Her own damned fault. No sense in her at all."


His reasoning carries him away, each step further from her remnants serving to muddy her presence, until it's but an inconsequential itch at the back of his skull.