ShadowClan the grease the chemicals // wolfpack

[SABLESTAR]

A cold sensation had crawled it's way beneath Sablestar's skin and made home there since he began this small journey. His deputy beside him, the tuxedo had shared few words while they padded on side by side through the pocosin. Too many thoughts swirled through his mind to keep track of any small talk, which he is sure Wolfpack had no interest in, either. Thoughts of the haunting back in leafbare came to mind more recently. How they had trapped him and some of his Clanmates in a dream of agony.

He had died in that dream- he couldn't shake that fact. How his heart rapidly paced and his body writhed against it, fighting so uselessly. It was a feeling he had been on the brink of when fighting Hawthorne before given undeserved mercy. It's what he felt when Fleecefur pressed their noses together and he felt his bones being pulled to the ground as if they begged to be buried right then. The reaction, the feeling, it was all primal. Something inside that he had no control over and he hated how the fear consumed him.

Their paws find the dusty clearing of Fourtrees and a long exhale pressed through his nose as he looked over the space. No more ice and snow and blood. No more hunger and hate. Just tall grasses, bees and the shade to greet them.

"What do you feel when you see it like this?" So many more memories of happier days lived in Sablestar's body than the night they rebelled. Yet it is all the forest echoed to him every time he saw it. Another haunting with a different face no matter how many attempts he made to shove it down with his successes elsewhere. It wasn't regret that lived in his heart, however. ShadowClan and it's nature may have been his greatest feat to carry, but it all crumbled down when he thought of her. "I see necessity in failure. As foolish as it feels in the moment, knowing how to live through it is what leads to advancement after."

this heart beats cold like the devil his own

• @WOLFPACK
  "mew"
• 

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

  a black and white tuxedo with dark amber eyes

 

[WOLFPACK]

AND I AM SORRY MY CONSCIENCE CALLED IN SICK AGAIN

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While Wolf wouldn't have turned his nose up at conversation, he made no effort to pursue it himself. Not because he lacked an interest in such things, but because him and Sablestar had never really had that kind of relationship. There were never jokes shared between them. Never moments of playful challenge. Just the formality of discussions surrounding patrols, borders, and issues with the other clans. Wolf had nothing to complain about, though. He didn't need to be buddies with Sablestar to hold the rank of Deputy– just had to do his job well enough to deserve it.

The old camp had grown greener since the last time he'd bothered to visit. This wasn't the first time the mottled tomcat had wandered out this way to hunt up herbs for cicada or to bring back prey that wasn't covered in slime or scales– but he'd never really gone back to the exact spot. Mostly because he'd had no reason to. Whatever attachment to this place others might have, Wolf lacked it. Hadn't lived there long enough for it to ever dig its roots into him.

When the pair of them finally reached the dusty clearing that was their old camp, Sablestar finally broke the silence that had settled over them since the start of their journey.

"What do you feel when you see it like this?"

Nothing, was his first thought.

There was no tidal wave of memory, no hollow stirring in his chest that rose to batter him with emotions. Just the feeling of the grass brushing against his ankles and the buzzing of insects in the summer heat. The place looked better than it had, that was for sure. Fuller, greener, alive in a way it hadn't been the night Shadowclan had been born.

But Wolfpack didn't look at the place and see ghosts. He didn't hear the screams or smell the blood. He didn't even remember the names of the cats who'd died there, not a single one important enough to keep. Instead, he looked at the trees and thought about how nice the shade must be in the summer heat. About how good teh squirrel population must be getting with all that canopy cover. He looked at the earth and noticed it's texture– drier than the peat back home, but solid, with a good give for a stalking paw. Easy to hunt on. Easy to die on, too.

When his gaze finally slid back to Sable, it was with a casualness that belied the weight of the question. "If you're waiting for me to say I miss it, I don't. I remember it starving, crawling with cats too proud to change. It's better now, but only because we've left it alone."

There was no malice in the way he said it. No disrespect. Just that same brutal matter-of-factness that shaped the rest of the feline.

"You're not wrong about the rest, though. Sometimes it's good to fail. If we'd won and chosen to stay here, this place never would have recovered the way it has. We definitely wouldn't be as strong as we are with the pocasin."

He could admit that much. As much as Wolf liked to win, it wasn't as if he was a stranger to failure. Running, regrouping, and surviving was sometimes the only way to move forward.

To fail.

To fall.

It was a natural part of the cycle.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked, not unkind, but to the point. Wanting to know the why of it all. The purpose. "I know it's not to reminisce– Cicadabuzz would have been a better choice for that." the bug was likely more emotionally constipated that Wolfpack himself, but at least the two of them would have memories to share of the place, something the Deputy couldn't offer.

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OOC NOTES . ◭ . CHARACTER INFO

• ooc : —
  ​
• shadowclan deputy - male - a large, monochrome chimera with mismatched eyes and several scars

 

[SABLESTAR]

An unsheathed paw swiped idly as the weak bloom of a dandelion in Wolfpack's short moment of silence. He shared it as he let the dried petals fall from between his claws. "I think breaking up the Colony was the best for Fray's legacy. Hawthorne nearly squandered it, so few will remember the tom he was. What this place used to be." If anything Wolfpack had proved that point already. In the grizzled tom's prime the canopy was teaming with the simplicity of life, travelers swung by for Serpent's aid and parted ways. Strangers came for a night away from a storm and disappeared before sunrise. Somewhere along the way it just grew, and grew, and grew until everyone was tail-to-nose with one another.

The tuxedo hummed through closed lips at his Deputy, finding a bit of humor in him. "No, no. I would have brought Mothbite if I wanted to waste daylight and dream. Our conversations tend to be less cryptic than bugs." Sablestar took a breath. "The night of the attack, I thought one of you had betrayed me for Hawthorne. We had moved so carefully, I was convinced he had stooped low enough to secure a spy, but... There was something else." The starless had led ShadowClan to succeed against the ascended traitors that had led his own mate astray. Using the adrenaline of Hawthorne's win to manipulate them.

"The spirit that came to me that night, when we came to the pocosin. She said that I was wrong. A power like hers had come to Hawthorne and warned him of the attack. She called it StarClan. They were going to give him the same boon she gave to me but..." Sablestar blinked away the image of how much blood soaked the fallen leaders neck. "I lived because he was foolish enough to show mercy. With my gift, I should practically be immortal, but... I should have died that night."

The sensation of panic raced through him again as his heart drummed searing pangs against his chest. He had felt in when the angry spirits of the pocosin raged in that sickly nightmare. As the air choked from his lungs one final time.

"I want you to do it. I have preserved my life an inch from death, but if I am to truly use this gift to defend my Clan I cannot keep myself trapped in my own preservation. I cannot stand to fear it a moment longer." Sablestar turned to face the spotted tom now, struggling to keep his breath steady. "Kill me, this life is yours."

this heart beats cold like the devil his own

• "mew"
• 

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

  a black and white tuxedo with dark amber eyes