of all desolation [charrie backstories] {p}

[nocturnal]

will convert this into a toc eventually
comments, questions, wanna chat? vm/pm me
thanks for stopping by

[nocturnal]

He snuck away from them at first light, that strange time when they were already awake, but not awake. Triton hid neither his intent nor his pawsteps, knowing all too well what secrets did to their camp. It was best to act normal, unsuspicious, because, after everything, his guardians knew how to spot discrepancies in his form.

Still, he barely made it twenty paces forward before a silky white tail curled around his own, rerouting him towards the willow trees. Triton only sighed; he knew better than to argue.

“No,” his father commanded, and the tabby raised a brow. He had not done anything yet, not explicitly.

“I know you, Triton,” his father warned. “You will not.”

“I will not what,” the tabby drawled, to prolong the conversation before his inevitable punishment, if anything.

His father remained silent, scrutinizing Triton’s form. Rich brown fur, darker swirling markings, gleaming green eyes… it was all there. Still there.

Triton sneered, then. “You can’t stop me, Father.”

“I can,” the icy white tomcat countered. Triton glared, opened his maw to snipe back a retort; before he could speak, his father continued, “but not without hurting you.”

The younger of the duo ran his tongue across the sharp tips of his teeth. “You care so much about my safety, Father…” Feeling rather spunky, Triton dared, “You forget how much control you have over me.”

“Do I?” his father challenged. “Do I forget? I know you will go against my words. You will not be satisfied until you see them for yourself. Triton — they will blind you, bend you and betray you—”

Triton lifted his paw, placing it upon his father’s muzzle, silencing the other tom. “I am stronger than you were then. I will make them run like rabbits into their burrows, like snakes slither into the earth.” Despite the doubt in his father’s eyes, Triton let his paw fall back onto the ground. He stepped closer, nudging the feline’s shoulder with his head. His father sighed, but accepted the embrace.

“Go, then,” the ice warrior obliged after breaking from the moment. “I shall spread the word that you are on hunt.”

With a genuine smile on his face, Triton dipped his head. “Thank you, Father.”

As the two parted ways, the tabby heard his father’s final set of instructions: “Triton? Should you, at any time, yearn for a retreat, search for the darkness in your sleep. Do not hold yourself accountable for anyone else’s actions. I will not expect to see you again; however, if I hear you die in a stranger’s war…”

Triton paused. Lifted his tail in adjournment, then went from a casual walk to a full-blown run. A lazy grin spread across the tabby’s maw.

He would be fine.

[nocturnal]

He doesn’t know what’s happening. He knows that the earth is wet and the den is dry, but he does not know what is happening.

There’s screaming. His daddy is the one who is screaming. His mommy is too. They’re screaming together but not together, unsynchronized, and not at each other. They’re screaming at something bigger than them, larger than them, larger than life—

His brother yells, too; and his sister. It’s the scared type of screaming, the terrified one, the crying one; like when brother was bitten by a bad ant, and his face was all scrunched up, and his brother doesn’t cry, so it must have really really hurt. Which means that his siblings are scared, or maybe they are hurt, but he doesn’t know why or of what.

It rained earlier. It was dark during day, dark scary clouds as far as the eye could see. It was loud, too; loud like boulders falling into the river, loud like the place where twolegs go. Loud like two monsters crashing into each other.

And then it was bright. It was bright, and then it was loud. Or maybe it was loud, and then it was bright.

He couldn’t tell. It was too confusing. Now, he’s still confused, and he doesn’t think he wants to tell.

It smells heavy, heavy like heat, but it’s not hot; it’s like there is water in the air that’s just there, not falling. It is humid, but he doesn’t know that.

It is musky, too; where it should not be musky, but he doesn’t know that.

Suddenly, it is quiet. He doesn’t like the quiet. There is something bad in the air, and its scent is overwhelming, like someone killed too much prey and left it there to rot.

Something comes closer, with old yellow claws and bad stinky breath. It growls but it doesn’t; it sounds more like a huff or a scoff than the growl of a cat. Either way, he gags on the weight of its scent, and—

And—

His name is Royal. Collapsed, half-hidden beneath the wet earth and orange leaves, he feels anything but royal. The scene is seared into his mind, of still bodies and large gashes, of black and old yellow and red red red, but he does not know what it means.

He does not know what anything means.

That musky smell is trapped in his nose, and that black and red is trapped in his head—

There’s something wet on his face, trailing from his eyes and soaking his fur. He is crying, but — of course — he doesn't know that.