the grove of goldenrod and gorse

[stag]

Howling.
She/Her | [a blood stained grey shecat with darker markings, blue and yellow eyes.]
Scent: Blood and Soil.

Heronpaw. Howlingkit. Both were names he had given her. Both were names she knew nothing about. But alas she took the one that held the most familiarity. Crimson stained her pelt, each movement was ragged. Choppy. As she dragged herself further, the scent of the thick, maroon colored fluid that escaped the corpse linger on her maw. It clung to her fur, it was a part of her, even if it was faint.

She did not care to truly wash, rip off the mats of fur that hugged the substance. She had crossed a stream to get here so her pelt was still damp. Water dripping off the longer facial sections of her fur. A reminder of her.

She was in her blood, she created Howling. The spirit had given her limited knowledge, only of her name and how she looked. Lostspark. An odd name in Howling’s eyes. Who is named something so terribly themed? It made her seem like a mistake. A stain on the world.

She is snapped out of the trancelike state that she floated through this plain of existence within. Howling halts. Her movements stop completely as tired, glazed over eyes trace the flower petals. The taller stalks of the same colored petals. It was beautiful. Yet they only brought the distant nightmares flooding back. It was similar to her eye color, only brighter. It was her own eye, her right eye, staring at her as far as she could see.

Howling moves swiftly, her paws locating a clearing in the grove. Trees grew around the clearing, covering the area in a layer of shade that allowed those to travel the grove to cool off. However, her pelt rises and falls faster. Panic. Pure panic as Howling aims to curl in on herself, keep away the haunting eyes of her

Body shifting so that her blue eye remains visible, flooded with tears. Words of regret flare within her mind. Those begging for forgiveness that won’t ever be heard.

Failure. Shame. Guilt. All rise to the surface, they burn her. Each blood splatter burns…a reminder of what she has become.

She has become what she hated.

She has become Lostspark.

[ @Rose ]

[Rose]

Lostspark
She/Her | Purrks Overlook

One did not get to pick the good in their life. Nor the bad. Fate had it's own plans, it's own cycle to run. Habits. Concerns. Pathways. The like. As such, Lostspark's life was not planned in the slightest. It ran it's own course, not bothering to wait for her.

Tears gathered at her eyes, silent, forming for the first time in moons. Hidden away, a world of feelings she did not allow - did not know how to allow - anyone else to see. Her eyes stung, burned, her body wanting to expell this sadness. To be rid of it, to make it go away. But Lostspark refused. She did not let the tears fall, did not let the evidence of her loneliness streak down her cheeks, to mar her face, to mark her among the weak.

Unable to be the stoic and unfeeling cat she portrayed herself to be. Surrounded by so many, and yet so alone. Grief tugging at her heart, insistent, unavoidable, unignorable.

Wolfkit, Larkpaw, gone. Neither biologically hers, and yet both having left holes in her heart. Sorrelkit and Daykit, both stolen, one by death and one by a cat who thought to call herself her mother. Both kits hers, missing now from her life all the same. Magpiekit, Gloomkit, missing after birth. Smokekit, dead to her own mistakes. The gaping chasm in her heart, stretched too wide, uncrossable.

Heartbreak followed in her wake, except it was her own doing that brought each of these grievances upon her. She had no one to blame, no one but herself. These mistakes were her own, and she was clueless as to how they were meant to be reversed. Maybe her relations with her kits would be tarnished forever. Lostspark did not know how she deserved to live, with everything that she had done, for being so unable to mend the bonds she'd broken.

Even the kits who remained in ShadowClan. . . Lostspark would not fault them for looking upon her with scorn. How could they think well of her when she did not think well of herself? And the daughter who had left of her own accord? The melding of her and Darkfall, one of the little bundles of joy Lostspark had thought she'd welcomed into the world, joyous memories tarnished by a hatred so profound and direct that solution felt too far. The finish line uncrossable.

When would happiness approach, when would this torment stop?

Perhaps it is the remembrance of a kit lost that brings Lostspark to her paws. No tears have dared fall from her eyes, lest she despise herself more for them, lest someone bear witness to the hurt festering in her heart, sitting and sitting until she is rotted from the inside out. White-tipped paws carry her from her perch, her resting place that oversees camp.

The earth is still, not a whisper on the wind, anticipating the collision of two cats long since separated. It burns, her limbs unrested. Lostspark doesn't care to wait, to pause, striding across this landscape. She wants it to hurt, to remind her that this is what she deserves. That no, she deserves worse, but this will have to do.

It is the overwhelming scent of blood that draws her in. A shark honing in for the kill, drawn to the one thing that will feed it. In this case, it is the sensation of home drawing her in. The feeling of finding something that had been lost years ago, for Lostspark can smell the lingering scent of a cat long gone. A mother never forgets her young. Damned she may be, hurt she may have inspired, pain she may have inflicted, but ignorance is not a trait she allows remain.

The former Medicine Cat finds her daughter at her paws, curled into a tight ball, a mirror of the position she herself wants to remain in for the rest of eternity. Her instincts override her senses. Lostspark drops to the ground, curling around her daughter, soft, sheathed paws clutching her tight against her chest, not a care for the blood. Her daughter is uninjured, her daughter is alive, no matter what she had to do to remain so.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So so sorry, Sundew. Forgive me, please. Come home." Her words halt, her breath hitches to keep the tears at bay. Her chest squeezes, no air going through, unable to take breath. She cannot make decisions for her daughter. "You don't have to come home if you don't want to. I love you."

[ @stag - Howling ]

[stag]

Howling.
She/Her | [a blood stained grey shecat with darker markings, blue and yellow eyes.]
Scent: Blood and Soil.

It hurts. It feels like her heart is being ripped out of her chest, smashed underneath her paws like it was a game. How dare she do this. How dare she show her face here.

Howling stares at her fur, The lighter grey fur that stuck to her memories like a spider web on a bleeding wound. A fitting metaphor…considering the current situation. The darker cat is a mess. Tears flood down her cheeks as paws wrap tighter around her.

The present sobbing destroyed any form of strength that The Fallen held in the sorrowful moment. Howling pushes away. Her own tears would ruin her Mother’s pelt as the shecat pushed closer. The shoving motion was not rough but a light nudge and a few steps backwards; as the Enforcer’s daughter spiraled deeper and tried to collect the falling pieces.

A Mother is gentle. Caring. For a single heartbeat, Howling wants to embrace her as before. But, the outsider cannot bring herself to do such a thing. The soft words are painful. Each is like a new wound that would bleed a golden color, but invisible to only The Fallen.

Howling stares blankly at her Mother. The title was granted upon one's parent figure from birth. But Howling had stripped it away just as swiftly as it was given.

But what was she, herself labeled as….?
Daughter.

A daughter was her Mother. A daughter was proper. A daughter loves her parents. A daughter cares for those she loves……

A daughter can forget but she cannot forgive…can she..?

Howling’s words are direct. The bitterness from all of the two’s previous conversations is now gone. Hollow and monotone. They break towards the ending question. “Do you even know the words you speak, Mother?”, she whispers the title of the Enforcer. The Fallen’s eyes look towards the golden flowers that surround them. Sitting down in the small clearing, across from the older cat.

“Forgive. Forgive you? You…..are………Sorry…? Sundew….” If she could laugh, she would have, only out of pure lack of mental stability in this situation. One darker paw finds itself covering her bloody maw. The name was foreign at best, was it a nickname? It had to be if it was coming from her.

“Tell me why…..tell me why I cannot love you. I do not feel what you deem as forgiveness. I don’t know why I cannot feel that.” A noise escapes her lips that is similar to a giggle. Yet it is twisted, something it should not be.

She is on full display. There is no getting her way out of such an interaction.

Howling must face her own downfall.

She must face her Mother.

[ @Rose ]

[Rose]

She/Her | Purrks Overlook

Thunder, bring her, through the wringer,
Show her I'm the judgment call, the one who makes her kingdom fall.

There were a lot of words. A lot of feelings. Too many, jumbled and disoriented. . . out of reach.

Lightning, wield her, use and yield her.
Show her what she can't conceal, for true nature will be revealed.

Hurt. Hate. Both festering inside her, aimed at her. She hurt so much, every piece of her just yearned... for life to be simpler. She was stuck in an endless loop. Unable to move on because it would look like she was abandoning her family. And unable to mend these bonds because of mistakes she'd made in the past. Irreversible mistakes that could not be undone, that could not be forgotten. A small part of her wanted to be selfish, wanted to wish away all her mistakes, but she had gone down that path before out of sheer recklessness, and it had cost her everything.

Enlighten me, Heir of Shadows,
since selfishness was far too great.

Hate. Not directed at her daughter, but that familiar well of it, directed at herself for the decisions she'd made over the moons. For the awful curse she'd brought down upon her family after wishing away her blindness - she had not even been aware of the kits that grew in her abdomen.

'Tell me why…..tell me why I cannot love you. I do not feel what you deem as forgiveness. I don’t know why I cannot feel that.'

“Tell you why...” A laugh as she trailed off, devoid of joy. Gone was her mirth, her amusement. She was a broken record. Tired of hoping, tired of reaching for the edge of the cliff she had fallen off of, her safe haven so close... and yet so, so far. Getting further each time she tried to find even footing. “Tell you why you cannot love me.” The lithe grey feline echoed, lowering her face to look her daughter in the eyes. Her daughter, her sweet Sundew, already having shot up, one day to be taller than Lostspark. A better cat than Lostspark.

I wonder who'd take the weight of the damned,
And suffer a gruesome fate.

“You cannot love me, daughter,” She did not know what to call her Howlingkit anymore. The she-cat did not appreciate being called the affectionate nickname Lostspark had given her, and so she would respect those wishes. “-because I am a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Grief filled amber hues at the reality of her own words. She hated it, hated this situation, hated her truth, but it was not something she could run from.

Not now, not ever.

“I grew up with the mentality that I cannot be loved, cannot be forgiven for the mistakes I make, and so the effort I put into this family turned out so lacking that here we are today.” Her heart, her soul laid bare. These ugly truths were ingrained in her. She was selfish, she was cruel, she harbored a hatred for herself that extended the bounds of normalcy.

[ @stag - Howling ]

[stag]

What makes you better than me?
You justify your belief
I breathe (You breathe), you fight (I fight)

--

Howling is still. Her movements are nothing more than her own breathing for the next few heartbeats. Anger that she was known for now showing itself and rising to the surface. The shecat stands, tail lashing back and forth as the dark pelted cat closed the distance between the two by a few pawsteps. Her formerly hollow and monotone voice is now full of life. Life that would burn away and scream in the agony. Consumed, due to the fire within.

“I don’t care what thoughts are brewing in your head right now, but if you believe I owe you a damn thing then think again. You claim you love me and that you wish for me to return home..? That place was never a home for me, it was only a spot where you hated me for simply existing. Stars…..Spirit would hate your very being.” Spirit. That pelt was similar to her own. Spirit would hate every single one of them.

--

We're made of violence
Born in the silence
No winners in a losing game (Game, game)
There's no solution
To our retribution
Will you become what you defame? (-fame, -fame) (Hey!)

--

Her claws dig into the earth. The blood that covered them held the reminder of it all. Why did she suffer? How did she end up here? What is she doing?

What was she doing? What was she going to do? Howling knows there is only one way out. Death. But to die to her own kin is shameful. It threw away any form of honor that death managed to carry upon its blood-stained back. Her ear flicked in frustration, but they both held new scars. A tear on the right and claw on the other, a show of strength. Of courage. Traits she knew her Mother did not hold.

--

I die (You live), you live (I die)
Keep telling endless lies
The hope you symbolize
I breathe (You breathe), you fight (I fight)

--

To kill one’s own kin on the other paw….no. She couldn’t, right? Yes. No. It didn’t make sense. Shakey blue and yellow eyes meet the Enforcer’s amber pools. Morally it was wrong, to attack one’s kin was to attack one’s own self. She couldn’t.

No, she could. She would. Yes. It was justice. Her revenge for all of those moons of neglect and if she had the memories of them, her siblings own suffering. The words that once again leave her stained maw are now cold. Howling keeps the eye contact she held before.

--

Woah, do you read me?
Wipe me out and hope your sight is clearer
Woah, can't you see me?
Are you looking through a one-way mirror?

--

“Do you see what you have done? Do you know the pain you have cost me, to your own self. Do you know what happened to us, Mother?” Howling hopes to tear her apart from the inside out. That would be nicer than dragging claws across the pretty lighter pelt.

A voice of her mind emerges from the darkness, the same as before. The one that ordered her to not question the enemy and strike first. “Why question this foe? You use force. Stop standing around.” It catches the young cat off guard so much that she physically jumps. Regaining her balance swiftly and breaking the eye contact that had remained.

She would do as ordered. Her Mother- No. Her name was Lostspark, no longer held value. She would only beg. Cry further about her own pains and it was something that Howling could not stand anymore. “Consider this my goodbye.” Without giving the idea a second thought, The Fallen surges forwards. Teeth sinking into the fur and flesh of the former Medicine Cat’s throat. Biting down as hard as she could before the taste of iron filled her mouth and even then Howling did not let go. She wants to kill. She will kill.

powerplay approval: given.

[Rose]

She/Her | Purrks Overlook

The lithe grey enforcer braced the moment she felt it, going still as a statue. The minute shift in Howling's tone, in her stance, her movements. Lostspark knew what was coming. A part of her had always known. So it was not unexpected when her daughter clamped her jaws shut around her throat.

. . .and in that moment, Lostspark died. The light drained from her eyes, her hope extinguished. The sheen of tears dried, realization that Howling would never forgive her a tidal wave that crashed over her. With a sigh, the Enforcer pulled away, jugular stitching back together, slowly closing as reality morphed, shifting, changing.

Dreaming.

[ Dreamwalker Purrk Active ]

Howling was dreaming, whether she’d known it or not. See, Lostspark was no fool. She had been born to a trickster, a sly fox. Forged under a steel paw, shaped to be cunning, to be cruel. Life was a game of chess, and Lostspark had learned that the only way to play was to always be ten steps ahead. It was the only way to live in a world this heartless. Her feelings were real, none of that had been faked. But she was disappointed, in herself for wishing so badly to be forgiven she'd blinded herself to the truth.

Amber eyes turned to the horizon, the sun dipping faster than it should. It was all fake, though. A dreamscape. Her paws carried her away from Howling at a leisurely pace, one step causing flowers to bloom, and the other withering the ground. “Don’t you miss me?” Her voice was soft, conversational, as if Howling had not just intended and attempted to end her life. “Because I miss you. More than you know.” The lithe grey molly inclined her head, tail swishing against the ground as a reflecting pool formed in front of her, the water crystalline.

She turned back, one last time, as her paws carried her further into the water. “I'll always miss you, Howling. You are my daughter. You will always be my daughter, but our story has to end somewhere. If you wish to re-open it, if you wish to pick up that story once more, you know where to find me.” And then the darkness swallowed her whole, her ghostly form fizzling out of existence, only a ripple in the water where she'd been wading.

[ @stag - Howling ]