april competition submission.
"an untitled s**tshow"
Trigger Warning: The following challenge contains heavy suggestive themes, depressive thoughts, violence, coarse language and suicide. This, alongside all of the other garbage topics I cover in this fic, is also not very well written. If any of these make you uncomfortable (specifically the one where I write bad wink wink), please consider disregarding this chapter altogether.
cast of characters:
Beechstar - Muscular silvery-grey tom with pale blue eyes, and long, pointed ears. He has a slight snaggle-tooth, and torn ear-tips, as well as a long scar along his side. He has mottled grey accents on his back, and on his tail. He has lighter markings on his muzzle, and belly.
Sandstar - Skinny dusky ginger tabby tom with green eyes, and white paws. He has two jagged scars on his shoulder, and a long, thin tail. He's missing a claw on his back right paw. He has short ears.
Aspenflash - Lean cream and grey cat with grey-blue eyes. They have a white blaze marking on their chest, and another flash of white on their tail, and front paws. They have speckled darker grey markings along their back, and under their eyes.
A quarter moon shone out through the murky, cloudy sky and onto the forest, making the water puddles sparse amidst the grand tree trunks glimmer in an eerie, off-white light. The temperature was chilled, enough to make one's spine straight but not enough to freeze it; the distinctive sign of a chilly night in early spring.
Somewhere in the midst of the dew-drenched grass, two toms, bathed in shadow and the other's scent, shuffled around, letting out quiet noises that could only be perfected with the use of a well-practiced tryst. The grunts, the controlled breaths to stay in their constructed whim of secrecy. Even beyond the first hook-up, the prick of exhilaration made by creating a zone outside the rules of life still tickled Beechstar in all of the right places. It was his nicotine. And he knew full well that his partner felt the same way.
They rested into their now-soaked nest of moss, the slimmer tom spooning into the hold of the muscular. Beyond all of the complications that came from the years of fucking in secret, one could boil it down to rather elementary terms: Beechstar returned to hold someone that wanted to be held, Sandstar returned because he needed to be held. The highs and lows of their lives moved in tandem; that was why, even after all of the shouting, arguments, threats, slurs, they returned to get another hit. The only time they really could have stopped was before Sandstar lifted his tail for him in their young warriorships. Now it was too far gone.
Beechstar shifted his paws along Sandstar's chest, rousing him from the edge of sleep. He let out a wordless murmur to signal that he was listening.
"We should talk about the battle tomorrow."
"Do we have to…?"
"Our clans are going to war tomorrow, Sandstar...we should probably set some boundaries-"
"Jeez, I asked you to fuck me so I could forget about this bullshit, not pillowtalk about it."
The callousness in his voice made Beechstar cringe, more of a bad habit now than a direct response to his words. Sandstar was always coarse and dirty in his colloquial state of mind. He knew that more than anyone.
"Cats might die, Sandstar...I know we agreed to keep matters private between leadership work but I'm worried that cats will go after queens and kits."
"You worry too much," said Sandstar, snuggling into Beechstar's chest, "Who the hell would want to go after kits? They're kits!"
"You never know...when you go into war without rules, anything is at stake…"
There was a pause, Beechstar idly stroking his lover's belly and sending instinctive shivers down Sandstar's spine.
Then the latter spoke. "Why must you do this…?"
"What?"
"Why must you always think of yourself as a righteous guy? Why must you always think that...there are rules to follow-"
"Sandstar, I don't want to have this argument again-"
"Fucking listen to me, Beechstar! Why do you always have to be so...attached to LichenClan?!"
Beechstar felt his heart begin to beat faster. "Sandstar, you know why! I'm doing it because it's my obligation to StarClan-"
"OF COURSE IT'S STARCLAN!" Sandstar broke from the embrace and shoved Beechstar aside, getting to his paws in a rage, "It's always them! They're the reason why we're in this mess! They're the reason you've had us risk our necks to see each other in bed for seasons! You know what, fuck them! StarClan can eat the cum you just stuffed in my ass! I don't care about them-"
"WELL, I DO!" snapped Beechstar, "They're all I have, Sandstar-"
"WHAT ABOUT ME?! WHAT ABOUT YOUR...KIT?!"
The word "kit" hit hard. Beechstar tried to suppress the rage he felt for his lover invoking their name.
"Their name is Aspenflash. And if you touch them tomorrow, I will rip all nine lives out of you."
"Go ahead! I DARE YOU!"
They bared their fangs at each other, seething with a vein of rage reserved for longtime enemies. It was an anger only they could bring out in each other.
But it didn't last. It never did. Eventually Sandstar calmed himself, realizing he went too far, and Beechstar followed him.
"Sorry."
"Me too."
Sandstar sat down, avoiding Beechstar's eyes. "I will order LupineClan to not attack the camp."
"Thank you."
"And as long as you leave my daughter untouched, I will do the same to Aspenflame."
Beechstar looked down at his paws for a moment before nodding. They were quiet for a couple more moments, letting the argument fizzle out into the chilly early morning air.
"I should go," said the former quietly, "Chestnutpoppy will be wondering where I am-"
"I'm sick of this, Beechstar."
Beechstar probably would have ignored him if he didn't hear the pain in his voice, yet he turned around to face his lover. "I'm sick of this...stasis we're in. I don't know how much of this balancing act I can take."
"Sandstar…"
"And yet I don't...want to make a decision. I can't imagine either running away with you or leaving you. And it's...I feel like I'm killing myself for something like that."
That was the Sandstar he fell for. The eloquent, caring side he showed everyone.
Beechstar walked forward and wrapped the LupineClan leader into a comforting hug, licking between his ears as Sandstar snuggled into his chest to savor his scent.
He didn't say anything. Besides, anything that he said, whether it be that everything would be fine or how he actually felt about their relationship.
After a minute of silence, Beechstar broke away. "We should leave."
"Yeah…"
Beechstar, with a lick to Sandstar's cheek, turned away and began to head home to camp.
They were fucked. Whatever they did. They had waited too long to run away, and they had fallen too hard for the other to admit that they had lost their one chance to have a future with each other. Now they couldn't tell if they were addicted to the stakes themselves or were actually in love with each other.
At least...that's what Beechstar told himself.
"I love you."
That was why Beechstar never responded.
The sun was beginning to creep up on the horizon when Beechstar, freshly washed, returned to camp to see Chestnutpoppy waiting for him.
"You didn't come to bed last night?" said his mate, eyes bright with concern.
"I needed to think…" said Beechstar, licking her on the cheek, "Is...Did Aspenflame come home?"
"They were out all day yesterday. I'm not sure if they came back or not…"
"Great…" said Beechstar, "On the day of the battle he's sleeping around..."
He turned to the warriors den, "Gather the warriors and set up a hunting patrol. We leave when we're fed."
Chestnutpoppy, the LichenClan deputy, nodded. "Yes, Beechstar."
As she roused the clan, Beechstar retired to his den, taking a deep breath as he flopped into the nest that was empty of him most nights. His mind was let free to breathe one last time before the battle.
He never liked battle. He considered himself a tom grounded in good morals, and among them was to let ideals breathe. Anything that didn't prejudice others should be given a chance to breathe in a society. Not every structure worked best, so why not try to diversify and make a Clan function the way that was best for everyone?
He considered himself rather...interactive as a leader. His focus was giving everyone a voice, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or pelt color. Beechstar had conversations with fellow Clan members often about things that the other Clans would consider too personal. Beechstar called it comforting, the sense of community. Sandstar called it careless.
LupineClan, the little brother resting in the plains to LichenClan, was much more bombastic. They took pride in their diversity, wearing the fact that the leader was part of a successful polyamorous relationship with two she-cats on their sleeve as a marketing point to progression. Being gay was celebrated. They had even made a festival about it. Sandstar, who was pansexual, found it refreshing. Beechstar, who was gay, thought of it as preachy.
And it wasn't just the arguing lovers that found each other callous. LichenClan and LupineClan's warriors often didn't get along, finding each other exchanging snide remarks when their border patrols crossed paths and giving disgusted grimaces when they were either being subdued or cantankerous, respectively. Territory was never a problem; both Clans had rather large heaps of land that they used plentifully without complaint. A battle over a strip of land, like the one hours ahead of Beechstar, was a diplomatic statement of dominance.
Beechstar had been outvoted when voting on whether they should go to battle. Sandstar had been the one to instigate it.
The LichenClan leader didn't even bother groaning about the irony of the two leaders of the Clans with the fiercest rivalry sleeping together on a nightly basis. He had done that so much that even he was tired of it. All it would be was a reminder that the best way out was to do this balancing act until they died. If it got out that he and Sandstar had been in a inter-Clan sexual relationship for as long as they had, their Clans would almost certainly explode or implode or be victim to some disastrous consequence. And yet it still felt inevitable.
It was a game of chicken. Who would back out first? Who would grow tired of the balancing act and throw it all away? Because it certainly wasn't love that was keeping them hooked. Even the "I love you"'s thrown around by Sandstar felt like a formality.
...Right?
No. They didn't love each other. That was the conclusion that Beechstar said aloud to comfort himself. There was no love. There was nothing but sex. And a relationship for sex was more fake than real.
He was pulled from his thoughts when he caught a scent at the entrance to camp, which was a tree trunk split from the roots to the lower half from a storm in years past. Beechstar emerged out of his den back into the gray, overcast morning, where a lean cream and grey cat, marked up with white and dark gray spots on their fur, was whispering a last sweet nothing into a young ginger molly's ear. The she-cat had a dopey smile on her face that Beechstar came to read all too well when they left for a night with Aspenflash.
Every Clan seemed to have a resident horndog. Unfortunately for the LichenClan leader, it just so happened to be his non-binary kit.
His mantra about the relationship between sex and relationship health was formed before he met Sandstar and, while now strictly in the public eye, he maintained it. Sex shouldn't be a definition. It should be a sign of trust. And while most agreed, his child didn't.
It could almost be written off as a "like father, like child" consequence, but Aspenflame seemed like they were addicted to a state of mind where they knew they were living life on the edge. When they came out to Beechstar and Chestnutpoppy, they had seemed...overjoyed. At first, everyone thought that it was the relieving of the burden of knowing who they were, but when he was found knocked out on the border with catmint in his muzzle, the leader began to figure out that there was something else under the simple answer.
They felt free. Almost too free. Once free from the constraints of male or female, they felt free to live carelessly, licentiously. At least, that was Beechstar's theory after seeing them bring home cats wearing a distinctive facial expression he knew too well from his nights with a certain dusky ginger tom.
Of course he felt obligated to intervene. But he could only stomach so much of his own hypocrisy. As such, he forced himself to stand aside as they grew into a caucous, thick-skulled cat. He forced himself to stand aside as they catcalled and jawed as the peanut gallery in every Gathering. He forced himself to stand aside as they cussed out border patrols, specifically from LupineClan.
And, as recent as two nights ago, he forced himself to stand aside as they nearly beat the daughter of his lover half to death.
In his defense, he thought to himself, he was trying really hard to stop himself from joining in.
That was another gross part about his relationship with Sandstar. Part of him, no matter how hard he shoved it down, felt bitter, bitter jealousy whenever he saw Sandstar kiss, lick or show affection to anyone in his family in LupineClan. It made no sense. He was acting just like Beechstar. Acting to keep an affair that would cause cataclysmic consequences if it came to light. Yet what should have been a sense of camaraderie was tempered and drowned out by a primal urge of...possession.
He was the one that mounted Sandstar. Sandstar should be his.
Forget if it was possible. Forget about whether or not they could even start a life for themselves somewhere else. He wanted him at all times.
He snapped out of his thoughts, shaking his head. StarClan, why did I have to go along with this…?
He leaped down from the rock ledge where his den rested and went to meet Aspenflame, who was nipping their fling's ear one last time.
"Father," said the warrior, their eyes noticeable bracing themselves.
"Come take a walk."
"Don't we have a battle today?"
"That's why we're taking a walk."
Aspenflame didn't believe him, but they fell in line as they left camp. The wind made Beechstar fluff up his pelt and the ground, damp from rainfall, was soggy, but not a slog to get through. It would be dry season soon; something that Beechstar thought was the only good thing about spring.
The two walked through trees, idly listening to the early bird's songs and mating calls as they headed for the outskirts that marked the edge of LupineClan territory.
When they arrived, Beechstar looked at the terrain they would be fighting in. Most of it was flat and open, parked with swathing amounts of brown prairie grass that stuck out like a sore thumb in contrast to the gray sky. Along the shore of the nearby river, Beechstar could see different lupines strewn about the drenched rocks.
Sandstar always said that they were his favorites. Beechstar had always rolled his eyes and wrote it off as Clan pride.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Beechstar turned to his kit. "Because I trust you? I'd like to hear your advice."
"You know what my advice is…"
"Is it to sneak around them and go to the nursery? Or beat the shit out of them?"
"The second one!" retorted Aspenflame sharply, "Stars...it's like you think I'm heartless or something…"
Beechstar didn't respond. "I don't think we should try to hurt them…"
"May I ask why?" they snapped, venom in their voice.
"Because wasn't it your idea to jump the leader's daughter?"
"So what?! Are you just going to Let us get our asses kicked just because the warriors outvoted you? How could you?! Where's your honor?!"
"We're alike, Aspenflame," said the leader coldly, "We both lost our right to honor years ago."
He was right. His honor had been rooted in the life he had thrown away the night after the Gathering that Sandstar courted him. The sense of truth in his voice was so transparent that even Aspenflame, amidst their young warrior angst, knew something was being held from him.
"Are you okay, Father?"
They expected a stoic answer. Instead, they got a disheveled, weak sigh.
"No, Aspenflame. No, I'm not."
In that fleeting moment, Beechstar felt his child's fear. He was supposed to be the cold-hearted, stoic father whose criticism they ignored when they went out at night. Not...something else. Not someone suffering.
He decided, for peace of mind, that Aspenflame was probably more uncomfortable than afraid for him.
And yet he kept talking.
"I'm scared for you...this life you live can't be good for you, just sleeping around without the will to commit. It's a terrible feeling. It's not good for you to continuously find someone new to numb your fear of stuff like this, it's...I don't want you to turn out like me. I don't want you to go through the pain that I go through because I love you…"
He stopped himself.
That was the first time in his life Beechstar had said that.
I love you.
Not to Chestnutpoppy. Not to Sandstar.
But to his child.
He expected to feel empty. The same way he felt when Sandstar said the same thing to him. He expected to feel fake.
And instead, he felt everything that he had been trying to shut out ever since his kit was born. Ever since he held his lover for the very first time.
The wind blew lightly over the grass, making it rustle quietly. It was the only noise that could be heard between father and child.
"What pain...father?" said Aspenflame quietly.
In that moment, Beechstar wanted to tell them everything. How he had been in a sexual relationship with the leader of their enemy for almost two years. How he had locked himself in a tightrope act between being deputy and being leader to the Clan he had loved with all his life to pleasuring the lover he kept for almost every single day since then. He wanted to scream to not just them but the world about the feelings in his chest and how he always felt that his chest was going to crush itself from the pressure he felt just by waking up in the morning. He wanted to cry in their arms and just feel...the feeling of knowing that he had something...anything to hold on to.
And even then…
"It's a...long story. A story I'll tell you when we finish this battle."
Aspenflame nodded quietly, before walking over and resting their paw on top of his.
Beechstar kept his eyes out on the LupineClan terrain as his child walked away and returned into the forest in the direction of camp.
The LichenClan leader, despite the battle on the wake, closed his eyes.
He didn't see anything. He didn't see a future with or without Sandstar or Aspenflame. But he felt...for just a moment...freedom.
All his burdens cut. His chest released and free to breathe.
And it was beautiful.
Beechstar walked back to camp with his back tall and head higher than it ever had been before. For once, he didn't feel like a troubled soul drowning in his own regret. He felt contentment that overpowered the guilt and apathy that had plagued his life. He felt alive for the very first time in...who knows how long.
Then he noticed something.
Aspenflame's scent shot off of its trajectory to camp and deeper into the forest. In the midst of their scent, Beechstar picked up something else. Something...musky?
Slowly, he pursued into the forest to check it out for himself. He couldn't hear or see them anywhere, so whatever it was must have been nothing.
Eventually, after not too long of a trek, he came into a clearing. He opened his mouth, noting that Aspenflame had turned back to camp after he came here.
And then he saw why.
In less than a moment long enough to think, everything inside of him; the spine, the drive, the confidence, was gone.
Throughout the affair, he and Sandstar had taken great measures to hide their tracks, considering the scandalousness of the act. Sandstar had gone off to dispose of the nest in the river while Beechstar had marked the place the nest had been to mask the scent. They had done this routine for so long and with such regularity that it became second hand nature.
At least, it was.
Frantically, Beechstar looked away from the moss nest that reeked of his and Sandstar's scent and around for his child. They were nowhere to be found.
Beechstar raced back to camp, back too frantic to remember to maintain its posture, to see Aspenflame, bent over their prey to hide the petrified look on their face.
The LichenClan leader then realized how fucked he really was for the first time in his life.
The sky remained a drab gray as Beechstar led his Clan to the LupineClan border. Throughout the march, he could hear excited chatter. Warriors thrilled to receive the opportunity to prove their worth to him, their peers and those watching from above the clouds.
Beechstar didn't join in such buzzings. He couldn't even if he tried.
Aspenflame had moved to the back of the pack, as far away from him as they could. They had told Chestnutpoppy that he needed to let their mind calm before the battle. The leader knew that he was not lying.
He needed to remain calm. As reckless as they could be, Aspenflame was a skilled fighter. They knew when they needed to set aside personal grievances for the sake of fighting. But the part that scared him most was that...what exactly were they setting aside?
They knew the fundamentals, but...now that he thought of it, there was so much that he could misconceive.
But it didn't matter. The point was that he was setting it all aside for this skirmish.
As the trees parted to show the horizon, Beechstar could see the outlines of cats lined up and armed to fight. He sucked in a breath as he saw Sandstar, eyes resilient and locking away all emotions from the outside world.
A crease formed in his worn chest.
He is your lover and he is your enemy.
There was no plan. No scheme to sidestep Sandstar from getting hurt. He was already too tired to think of any sort of thought like that.
All he wanted to do was to get through today. And then...then he could go back to the balancing act he called his miserable life, for all he cared.
He came to a halt at the border, the LichenClan warriors slowing and quieting behind him. In the midst of the growling and spitting going on around them, his eyes found his way to Sandstar's.
For a brief spark, they read each other perfectly.
I'm scared, said the gray tom.
Me too, said the ginger tom, but get through today and everything will be just fine.
Beechstar gave the slightest of nods in response.
The leader closed his eyes. The battle was set. He took a deep breath to calm the hammering in his chest.
And then…
"LichenClan, attack!"
They charged.
With a chorus of feral yowls, the groups charged at each other and unleashed themselves upon the other in a fury of tooth and claw. It took seconds for driblets of blood to begin sprinkling along the brown prairie grass.
Beechstar cut his losses and launched at a charging long-furred gray she-cat, slamming his shoulder into her chest and knocking her off balance. He swooped under to try and cut out her legs, but she latched onto his shoulders before he could destabilize her. Thrashing, he withstood a brutal blow to the side of the muzzle before slashing her nose to throw her off balance and whack her aside with a well-practiced slash of the other claw.
As she recovered, a tom stormed in from his right. Beechstar quickly ducked out of the way of his charge before pouncing on top of him and dragging him to the ground. Claws unsheathed, he slammed them into his shoulder, causing him to scream as blood welled out of the cut. He managed to hold him down while also fending off the she-cat he had faced, who was still disoriented from the nose cut, with a couple well-timed slaps to the face.
He looked around. He saw more cats of LupineClan bleeding and staggering than cats of LichenClan. From what he could see, they were winning.
His observation was interrupted as another cat leaped out of the fray and pulled him away from the tom he was pinning down. He was about to fight back with a blow to the neck when he saw who had attacked him.
It was Hareblaze. Sandstar's daughter. He noticed the swell in the leg that Aspenflame had assaulted at the border a couple days ago, but knew that he couldn't hurt her.
He focused on defending himself, blocking shots from her as she pinned him down by the chest. It was only when he parried a block attempt and landed a swipe on the side of his muzzle that he realized with a jolt that he wasn't getting out of this unscathed.
"GET OFF HIM, YOU BITCH!"
From the opposite side of the fray, Aspenflame slammed into Hareblaze's flank, sending her sprawling back. Beechstar, relieved, got to his paws and got a few licks to his cuts before hissing at the retreating tom and she-cat that had tried to jump him.
He turned back to his child, expecting to help him when he noticed something alarming about his posture. Instead of normal battle, he was trying to pin Hareblaze down and aiming all of his blows with unsheathed claws to the head and neck. It was a technique Aspenflame had never used in training, but one that Beechstar could easily figure out the intent of.
He wasn't trying to win. He was trying to kill her.
"WAIT!" said Beechstar, pouncing on his child only to be sidestepped and sent sprawling on the ground. He scrambled to his feet to see Aspenflame pinning the she-cat down by the chest and raising the killing blow.
He was rooted to the ground. He couldn't move. He could only watch.
The claws fell.
Blood splattered across the grass. Hareblaze's plea for mercy was cut off as she choked on her own blood. Aspenflame stepped away, eyes cold with hatred as his enemy slipped away from life forever.
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
Sandstar stormed forward, blindsiding the warrior to the ground as his eyes ignited from shock and grief, to primal rage. Beechstar got to his paws immediately as the LupineClan leader locked his jaw onto Aspenflame's throat.
The scream of agony resonated in his brain.
He was then on top of Sandstar, trying desperately to rip him away and to save his child. But fueled by the grief of losing his own daughter, he lashed around and slammed Beechstar to the ground with a brutal blow to the head.
His brain seemed to ring. The noises of battle faded as he tried to get up again. To try and save the one cat in his life that he knew that he could love.
But he couldn't.
All he could hear was the cries of pain slowly drowned out by the sickening squelches of a vengeful father stabbing his daughter's executioner to death.
Tears flooded Beechstar's eyes. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to face this.
He felt a paw between his shoulders plant him down firmly and a snarl into his ear.
"This...is...your...fault…"
Beechstar struggled against the grip, but couldn't harness enough will to rise against him.
"We had...a promise...why did you…"
"This wasn't...me...Sandstar…"
"LIAR!"
Sandstar slammed his head down, causing something to roll around like it was a marble in a jar. "You ordered them to! YOU DID THIS!"
"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"
"YOU SAID MY DAUGHTER WAS GOING TO BE UNHARMED! WHY IS SHE DEAD, BEECHSTAR?! WHY IS SHE DEAD?!"
Beechstar almost gave up. He was ready to surrender everything. The battle, the territory, his Clan, his name…
And he glanced to his left and saw his child's body.
Their face warped in abject, feral horror.
The blood that stained their fur.
And he felt a fire inside him.
"Because...I care about...the ones I love...and that's...not...you…"
Sandstar, in his shock, loosened his grasp. And that was when he striked. He launched himself up, whirled around and tackled the ginger leader to the ground.
The two were locked in a tussle, trying to deal the final blow to the other while also trying to avoid the blows that could kill them. Their children lay rotting, their Clans lay watching they fought with every single ounce of rage against the other that had built up over the years for the chance at a normal life that they had stolen. For the lives that they had killed. For everything that had gone wrong because of the other.
Slowly, they began to tire. Blows began to land. Blood began to spill.
Beechstar felt unearthly. He felt immortal, charged with such a rage that made every blow look weak and his motive to send the son of a bitch they were fighting to the deepest depths of the Dark Forest dangerously volatile. Eventually, Sandstar slipped up on an attempted jab to the neck, and he brought him down to the ground on his back.
Without hesitation, he stabbed Sandstar in the throat.
He knew that it wasn't enough to kill him. He brought it back before StarClan could send him back with the healed wound and stabbed his throat open again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Beechstar was crying. The flowers, the grass and their pelts were soaked in Sandstar's blood as the ginger leader lost the ability to fight back.
Hot tears dribbled down his face as the LichenClan leader looked his former lover in the eyes, as he choked on his dwindling lives and into his now, inevitable demise.
His throat felt lodged in his chest. He could barely breathe as in the midst of his agony, a cold, calm acceptance of his death washed across Sandstar's eyes.
And then, as his final moments ticked away, he reached forward and pressed a paw to his cheek.
His dying eyes gave a message Beechstar wasn't ready to read.
I never lied.
Beechstar felt the pulse of warmth leave the paw as it fell to the ground.
Moments later, the LupineClan leader's eyes grew placid, and he was still.
The world faded out. It was just Beechstar and the burdens of the two opportunities he had for love dead at his paws.
And all he could do was scream out his pain.
They were everything.
Regardless of what they thought, how they thought and however complicated their relationships with him had been, they had been everything.
And now…
He was nothing.
All Beechstar could do was scream.
FIVE DAYS LATER
Beechwhisker walked away from the forest, a clear destination in mind.
It had been two days since he had resigned as Clan leader. He hadn't revealed the tryst. How could he? Especially after he had spent his whole life inventing ways to keep it secret.
Chestnutstar would be a fine leader. Much more...clear-headed than the jumble of a mess that he could be.
The journey had begun with worry. What would happen to LichenClan? Would LupineClan seek vengeance? Would everything fix itself now that he was gone?
He comforted himself by telling himself to not worry about cats he never cared about.
It was all just them now. Aspenflame and Sandstar. He swore that he felt something or someone looking down on him with scorn and disgust. Maybe it was a stray soul of StarClan. Maybe it was one of them.
There were a lot of things that he could never figure out. Life was too short and his mind was too fast for him to even start to comprehend the disaster his life was.
Thankfully, it wouldn't be a problem for long.
He approached the Thunderpath, sitting by the edge and looking for monsters coming on either sides. As he did, he glanced at the lupine next to him and smushed it with his paw. He could really go without the symbolism there.
The tarmac began to rumble. As a red monster began to roll closer and closer, he stepped onto the black road and closed his eyes, accepting his fate.
As he did, he swore that somewhere close by, there was a pair of eyes watching him. Waiting for him to see him. And the fact that it was probably either his child or his lover made him less excited somehow.
But he knew that it would be good. He hoped for it actually. He had never known how to communicate, so forcing something like this upon itself was, in a really fucked up way, the right thing to do.
As the monster's roar filled his senses, he wondered...Was it Sandstar or Aspenflame. The lover he had convinced to wreck his life just for fucks or the child he had thrown away in the process for so long?
He would see when he opened his eyes.
Word Count: 5565
Well...
That was awful.
Like, I know that I say that about everything I write, but...this felt so dysfunctional. I really should have given myself more time to polish this because this is really rough and I'm not proud of this at all. I actually could be convinced to do a rewrite of this because of how bad this is.
Well, at least it's something to get the ol' brain working on writing again.
I mean...this was written in about 14 hours. Which is cool I guess.
I'm sorry you had to suffer through this abomination. I will be confused if this places in top three.
And that's all I have to say.
Please criticize the hell out of this. Please.
Best,
~Res