the sound of all good things breaking [O]

Silverpaw

ooc: follows the morning after this topic. takes place two or three days after the battle with windclan.

It was a long, long time after Honeylight’s body went still before he or his apprentice would move again.

Silverpaw tried hard. He fought as long as his brother fought. As long as Honeylight’s legs still kicked uselessly, he shoved and tugged at his scruff, screamed and cried when he wasn’t easy enough to move. But when he felt Honeylight’s body go limp between his teeth, Silverpaw let go of his scruff on instinct, recoiling from the sick feeling of weightlessness that followed one last rattling breath. He stared down at Honeylight, bloodied and glassy-eyed, with his legs splayed at strange angles, for several heartbeats.

And several more.

And several more.

Silverpaw wasn’t sure how long he stood there, stiff and useless. The distant sound of half-dead bark snapping broke him out of his reverie, ears twitching to attention with alarm. He looked up quickly, searching the darkness, but he saw nothing lurking. The weak wind carried no dangerous scent, either, but the panic was already sewn. Silverpaw blinked several times to rid his eyes of the tears he hadn’t realized were falling and numbly bent down, gently taking Honeylight’s fur between his teeth again.

His body was unnaturally stiff, and far heavier than before. It took twice as much effort to drag him half the distance, but Silverpaw tugged at the very edges of his strength to pull Honeylight as far as he could before the continued strain forced his jaw slack. He only stopped long enough for the distant throb of pain to fade away before repeating the process.

It was a long, grueling walk. The only sounds that followed them were the laboured breaths that came whenever Silverpaw had to stop and the shfft, shfft of the body he dragged. Maybe he should have kept begging. Maybe he should have screamed harder, cried harder. Maybe he should have prayed. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened, then.

The distant thought of prayer made Silverpaw blink slowly, and he realized he was squinting now. The dark orange dawn bled away into gold, which in turn melted into lilac that was just beginning to give way to blue. Silverpaw looked skyward, staring hard at the morning light. The night was over. Had it really been that long? It couldn’t have been. That meant it had been hours. Didn’t it? It was still night when they left… and it hadn't been that late yet, either. Silverpaw shook his head with disbelief. It couldn’t have been hours. If it had been so long, then he should be—

Home.

Lowering his attention from the heavens let his eyes fall on the blessed frame of their camp, woven into the territory. It looked so… different, in the light. Foreign and unwelcoming.

Unwelcoming? No, it was home. He’d made it, all his Clanmates and his family were there, and someone would come help, and he could just go lay down, and someone else would come to get Honeylight, and—

His family was there.

Silverpaw’s breath hitched painfully in his chest and the static that had occupied his mind burst into a torrent of worry. They had just lost Moondancer and Batswarm— how was he supposed to present another body to the Clan? How was he supposed to present a body?

How was he supposed to present Honeylight's body? How was he supposed to let Pineblossom and Forestbreeze know? They’d lost enough! Hadn’t they all lost enough?!

Silverpaw suffered a painfully desperate gasp, but he couldn’t combat the angry sob that bubbled or the tears that flooded his eyes and quickly dampened his cheeks. This wasn’t fair! He didn’t want to do this! He couldn’t be the one to tell everyone that Honeylight was dead. To tell everyone that Honeylight was dead, and he’d just watched it happen! A pained growl rolled through his throat between half-choked sobs.

It was another decent stretch of time before Silverpaw regained the composure to drag Honeylight the rest of the way to camp. He still didn’t want to. He wanted to run away- far, far away, where he would never have to look anyone in the eye and he would never have to see anything that would make him think about his brother again. He felt almost wild with the sudden, overwhelming flight response, but barely stronger was the desire to at least properly honor his brother.

They didn’t have far now. He just had to get Honeylight back to camp. Their parents had to know. Honeylight needed a proper funeral. Silverpaw could at least manage that responsibility. He told himself that repeatedly to keep himself moving forward rather than bolting the other way. When he bent down this time, he pressed his nose into the unmarred fur of Honeylight’s neck, holding the contact for a long moment before gripping his scruff again.

His body shook with every step now, and stubborn tears still blurred his vision, but he was at least capable of walking. Silverpaw made it about halfway to camp’s entrance before fatigue forced him to stop again. He used the break to cry out, “Help!” His voice was raw and wracked with too many emotions to separate. He didn’t really expect help to come to him that fast, not faster than he could just get through the thorn tunnel himself… but it was a warning, almost. An alarm to his Clanmates that more tragedy had come their way.

Silverpaw pushed himself to quickly continue on, until he dragged Honeylight and himself into camp proper. They’d only barely made it past the thorn tunnel when he let go for the last time and simply stood, taking in shallow breaths that only made the new fire in his lungs burn worse.

They’d made it. They were home.

Guilt and shame and grief and rage wrestled in Silverpaw’s chest, but he was too tired to howl and rail the way he now wanted to. He at least managed the energy to shout, “Forestbreeze! Pineblossom! I- it’s Honeylight!” before his shaking legs buckled and he staggered into a poorly controlled fall. Silverpaw hissed when his chin hit the ground, but he fought the little ringing between his ears and the exhaustion in his muscles to push himself into a sitting position.

Silverpaw kept his head down, eyes screwed shut to ward off any further tears or block out twisted expressions of grief. He was terrified of the moment any of his Clanmates stepped out of their den’s, terrified of the moment someone was sure to ask what happened… but as afraid as he was, he was desperate to see someone. Anyone. Now that everything was catching up with him– slowly, yet somehow in a rush –the thought of being alone for even a heartbeat longer made the panic flare tenfold. He would bear the weight of whatever grief and anger came to not be alone with his brother’s corpse now.

Pineblossom

It had been hours since Honeylight and Silverpaw left for their training for the night. They left before Pineblossom did her own border patrol, and she had been home for a couple of hours now and there was still no sign of them. Pineblossom paced anxiously out in the camp as dawn broke through the trees. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe she should go look for them. Surely Honeylight would not have kept them out for this long unless something had gone wrong, right? She thought back to when Honeylight was taken by twolegs, or when she and Forestbreeze were attacked by foxes…Then she thought about WindClan and the fear that they would retaliate for the ambush that had gone wrong a couple of days prior, and she felt ill. Pineblossom was just about to go tell Forestbreeze that they should go out and look together when she heard Silverpaw’s tiny cry for help.

Her head snapped up and she stared with wide eyes as Silverpaw struggled to drag a body through the thicket of the tunnel. She stared at the golden fur and her stomach plummeted.

No. Oh stars no.

Pineblossom was at Silverpaw’s side in an instant. When she drew closer, her fears were confirmed. The body that he had dragged was Honeylight’s. She saw the blood smeared along his throat and the life that was gone from his body. A sob hitched in her throat as she leaned down and pressed her face into her son’s fur. It was faint, but she could smell a lingering scent of fox. Another sob that she barely managed to quell. How could it have turned out like this?

She would have fallen to pieces if she was alone. If there was no one but her and her lost son, Pineblossom would have shattered like ice into the deep pools of the marsh. But she was not alone, and even as her grief threatened to overwhelm her, Honeylight was not her last child. No, her last child had just been through a horrific ordeal.

Pineblossom lifted her face from Honeylight’s fur and looked to Silverpaw. Her eyes were glassy with tears that she barely kept from falling down her face. “Silverpaw…are you hurt?” she asked. Her voice sounded broken even to her ears. She bent down and pressed her nose to Silverpaw’s fur, shifting him and checking for any wounds on his person.

Her heart felt like it was being torn in two. Honeylight’s pelt needed to be cleaned, and then he needed to be buried…but Pineblossom refused to not attend to her living son’s needs first.

ShadowClan • Tier 5 • She/Her • 70 | 160 • #6699ff

Credits: code inspiration - 1 2 | image 1 | image 2 | image 3

Hawkkit was outside the nursery when he first heard the call. It wasn’t unusual for him, as he disliked the cloying heat of the nursery and the queens. He was waiting for his father to get back from a patrol, watching the sun slowly start to creep over the horizon, sitting perfectly still. The cry of ‘Help!’ made him jolt, his head swiveling towards the entrance of camp and he instinctively leapt to his feet.

He saw the body, and the blood, and the smell of death wafted over him with a downwind breeze that ruffled the dead warrior’s fur. His ears laid flat. The smell of death had been all too common in the camp the past few days, though Hawkkit had already experienced it once before all this. Sharp golden eyes watched with a mixture of morbid curiosity and repulsion. His mouth tasted of something sharp and metallic, and he realized he'd bitten his own tongue.

There would be no helping the tom--Honeylight--that was brought in. Hawkkit was young, but he could tell that much. He could tell from the reactions too, as other cats crowded around the apprentice who dragged his body in and the body itself. Grief radiated from them. He didn’t know Honeylight, had only seen him in passing, and so he didn’t approach. He just watched with wide, horrified eyes, frozen in his upright position. He hadn’t seen the bodies brought in from the Windclan and Shadowclan fight, having been in the nursery at the time, though the smell had lingered. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much blood before.

Silverpaw

Pineblossom was the first to appear. Silverpaw hadn’t noticed her approach until she was already leaning over Honeylight’s body. Of course she was here. He’d called out for her, and anyone would have come to the muddled reek of death and stale blood and a cry for help, and that was her son— her first son —that he’d just dragged through the thicket and demanded she come see.

He’d opened his eyes when he registered Pineblossom’s presence, looking up to face her, but when a sob caught in her throat his attention dropped to his paws. He couldn’t look at her. Maybe she would see it in his eyes, that he’d done nothing to stop this. “No,” he rasped when she shifted to instead nose at him, the short word burning with regret. He should have been. It would have been more proof of trying than his shaking body.

And omeone else was there quickly, too, trying to examine him the same way Pineblossom had, but he recoiled from them with a weak, leery hiss before he realized who it was trying to get close. Swiftheart… She left him alone to instead hover at Pineblossom’s side. One of his own friends, and one of Honeylight’s closest friends, except for—

Leopardsun.

She, too, appeared suddenly, joining them in leaning over Honeylight. Silverpaw shifted, getting to his paws just long enough to retreat a few steps out of her way before he sat down heavily again, now closer to Pineblossom’s side, where he could rest most of his weight against her hip. He stared at the deputy while she bid Honeylight to stand, stared at Lighttail when she arrived to do just the same. I already begged! He wanted to snap, but a strained noise that stuck in his throat forbid the words from coming. I tried that! Don’t you think I tried that?! It’s not going to work!

Silverpaw turned away when another angry sob started to rise, choking it down to a half-muffled whimper. Even beyond the immediate crowd, there were more on-lookers— someone’s kit, wandered out of place and gawking fearfully. Sympathy was muted by the swelling irritation of being watched and surrounded. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted this to never have happened. He didn't want to be stared at by stupid kits or be near anyone that wasn't his family.

He closed his eyes again, and an indistinct cry from the gathered mourners prompted a quiet, “I’m sorry.” The apology scraped against his throat. Silverpaw swallowed, but the rawness stuck, and his eyes were starting to sting again as well. And even though speaking made his head spin a little, he couldn't stop it now that he'd started. “I’m sorry, I don’t— I don’t… we were just trying to hunt, but there was a fox, and- and-” Silverpaw’s claws flexed, pressing into the soft earth. Weak tears ran down his cheeks again, and he cursed himself that they waited until now to resurface, instead of a few minutes ago when it'd still just been him and still, silent Honeylight; cursed himself for stammering through his apologies. “It was so fast, I couldn’t- I couldn’t do anything to stop it. But I tried to help Honeylight, I promise I did! I wanted to, but I j— I just... watched, and then he was–”

He didn't want to explain anything. He didn't want to be here. He wanted Forestbreeze to show up already, not anyone else. He wanted to believe if he closed his eyes, the days would have rewound while he slept, and he would open his eyes to Honeylight's big paw shaking him awake for early training. A more pronounced shudder ran through him, and Silverpaw gave up on holding himself up to slouch fully against Pineblossom. "I'm sorry. I'm s- I'm so sorry."

Pineblossom

Pineblossom could empathize with Silverpaw. Though she loved her clanmates dearly, their presence made something irrational spark in her chest. It was the same part of her that had held all of the weight of guilt after Ratrunner’s death, and the part of her that kept her from speaking with anyone about the Dark Forest’s interest in her when she was an apprentice, and what had made her bury herself from within after the loss of her litter. It was a stupid part of her that felt she deserved to carry the weight of all pain, and that the presence of anyone else would break everything else apart.

Still, she did not turn anyone away, for while Honeylight was her son, he was a friend to everyone else in the clan, and they deserved their own grievances.

She felt Silverpaw press against her and she moved her paw around him, pressing him into her fur like she could shield him away from the horrors of the world. His small cries shattered her already-broken heart to pieces. She murmured, “You needn’t apologize. It was not your fault. Foxes are vicious creatures, and have stolen the lives of many cats.” She squeezed him tighter against her. “It was not your fault.”

Pineblossom lifted her gaze and looked at Honeylight again. The tears that had filled her eyes before now fell down her cheeks. It was unfair. There was so much life and love within Honeylight, and for it to be stolen away at random by a fox…It was senseless. It was unfair.

And, she realized, while this was not Silverpaw’s first brush with death, it was the first one where he was old enough to understand the rituals. Perhaps it would help him find closure in a way he could not participate with when it came to his mother’s death. She looked down to him, still tucked against her. “Silverpaw,” she began, her voice wet with tears, but patient and strong still. “When a clanmate dies, his pelt is to be cleaned, and then a vigil is held until the sun sets again and he can be buried. We will stay up for the vigil. Forestbreeze too.” Tears ran down her cheek and she blinked more of them away. She leaned down and nuzzled the top of his head gently. "I will help bury him tonight, and you can join if you wish.”

ShadowClan • Tier 5 • She/Her • 70 | 160 • #6699ff

Credits: code inspiration - 1 2 | image 1 | image 2 | image 3