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body div#devskin0 hr { }

Caution: Sensitive subject matter below.

Her eyes shine like starlight as she stared down at him.
An infinite cosmos bleeds into silver and blue, eyes liquid phantom gold. He imagines he could feel the fresh of her eyelashes with each blink. Wide and oval, they glitters like full moons. There was beauty in the night for she was there, the embodiment of it.
Her paws stretch into his wounds and he (breathes) sputters and curls away from her. She has the warmth of the sun, scorched and fierce in her touch. She reaches again and he (shivers) turns away from her. She breathes and the exhale is his name. She calls him again and again until he (breathes) calls her name in response and her eyes are (liquid fire) warm but (un)kind.
“It’s ma,” she corrects him and of course. She’s right, she always is. He (has to crack his teeth) smiles and curls his neck (it cracks and his bones shifts and it hurts) and spine until he can look up at her in all her infinite glory.
“Sorry, ma.” He tells her that he loves (no) her. Her smile is genuine and her touch fond as she nudges his (bony, scrawny) slender shoulder. There’s something in her eyes, dark and beckoning and (the abyss stares back) infinite. He is distracted by the twinkles behind her, the silver that runs into her pelt, the warmth of the summer sand along his back. The evening is pale but bright even with the lights that go, but here, shrouded by trees and beach alike, all he can see is the milky navy behind her skull, the wound of stars across the sky.
His ma nudges him and he blinks, vision fuzzy and mouth dry and coppery. He (can’t breathe) exhales with a dry cough. (Blood) sea water spurts and he leans up, finally, lungs race with an ache like a thousand burning fires and some sort of rancid acid burns at the back of his throat. He thinks he is drowning and heaves until all of the (not) salt water is gone, until it drops down his chin and his jaw is weak and his shoulders shake. His breath is a whispery rasp but his mother had saved him and will continue to do so.
Her shoulder brushes against him but her eyes remain on him. He thinks of a thousand words unspoken, of promises unkept, of eyes that glitter in the dark and (he never should have left him alone) how solemn the world is. It is night now and the world breathes. So does he. Even if it means every once in a while he will sputter and cough until (red) it pours from his mouth, until he can breathe easier. His ma is there to coax him, gentle words and mouth just shy of his ear. “That’s it, baby.”
(She has already lost a son, she will not lose another. Not when she wasn’t there.)
She tells him to eat and offers a fish and he smiles and tells her he will. (They both know it is a lie for for his tongue is barbed wire and her eyes a silver falsehood. She is the unicorn who speared the lion cub with blood of crushed moonstones.) Her words are soft and kind, the waves on the shoreline but she never once turns away from him. (Never, not like the sea that turns away and comes back, a false sense of security and hope. She stays, ever eternal. The sea on the horizon.)
She presses her body closer to his. She does not want to ask if he is okay but the words leave her lips and he (has to focus on her, everything is so horribly fuzzy and hazy and he can’t, cant can’t do this a n y m o r e ) has to blink because he’s stunned by the starlight behind her. “I’m fine, ma, always am,” he responded silkily, but it was always easy for his words to be smooth, especially around her because (the charred taste of blood makes it easier to spit out) he trusts her and always wants to be honest with her.
He knows the weight of words and he recalled (how his brother said the same thing as he lay dying, eyes ringed red and voice frail, “I’m okay. I love you, I love you. I am okay don’t worry about me.”) how easy it was to lie. He never wanted to lie to his mother.
(“Baby, what did you do?”
“I’m so sorry, ma, so sorry - I can’t - I couldn’t keep it down -“
The hysteria to her voice, the mania, the pleas for him to get better, “Its going to be okay. It’s going to be okay - you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay -“
I’m okay?
He had believed her.)
The next time he awoke, he was cradled to her side like a kit. Sleep drugs him, lulled him into a dark haze and he’s just so tired (but his brother had said the same thing before he died) and he has to blink his eyes open and stare. The stars moved and his mother’s breath kept him awake for a while longer. She was a (dead, she’s killing m e, h e l p ) comforting weight against his side. He closed his eyes and breathed.
(“Did you sisters see this? Did they, did they?”
“No - no -“
“Okay. That’s okay ... that’s for the best. They can’t ever see this.” Her eyes are remorseful and guilty but she has to think of everyone else, has to stabilize them with the false sense of security that everything is alright.
“No, no - I wouldn’t - let them see this -“
She is afraid that if they see this it will break her daughters. It had broken her little boy to see his brother die from the inside out, literally, and she cannot lose all of them. Better one than them all.
“Please don’t ever let them see.”
She doesn’t know how to fix this but she can be there for him. She can be there for this one like she couldn’t the last one. Like her son, she can keep a secret.)
She called his name and he blinked and took a deep breath. His lungs burned with embers but he was alright. He was fine because his mother was there and mother’s always knew best, she could help him. He looked at her and she was the sun and he blinded by her light, unable to turn away as his eyes melt - because the illusion of warmth was worth the pain. (He can’t fix this but if he lays here with her it is easy to pretend he is not broken.) She called him again and nudged him, sharply into his (too) thin shoulders but her gaze is softer, kinder. The clouds have eclipsed the sun and he can breathe without tasting ashes on his tongue.
(How long until he no longer tastes the blood?)
The fish had rotted some through the night, gross and flimsy but it was something. She didn’t eat it but her words left little room for argument. (He has to keep up appearances so) He was left with little choice but to swallow a bite. It was awful and slid down his throat like jelly. It settled restlessly at the top of his gut before he threw up and again until he dry heaved. (And then some, his stomach does not rest well with nothing to eat and it has since started to digest itself, any nutrients is better than nothing but he tried to ignore the blood. His mother didn’t look twice.) “it tasted rotten.” (Who did he try to convince?)
They walked back towards camp and his pawsteps get lighter as well as his thoughts - he was dizzy and his gut clenched uncomfortably but he had duties to do, mentors to impress and a Clan to defend. He had no time to waste on eating when he could feed the Clan first. (He won’t though, he will go to bed hungry and wake up hungry but he has not felt it for a long time that it will never make a difference.)
Frostpaw walked past him, rays of sunlight freckled her white fur and she had to stop a moment to blink at him. It took him too long to realize that he had stared at her. He smiled wryly at her and her gaze flicked to watch their mother trot past. “You were out for a walk with Rainbreeze today, Troutpaw?” Her voice was kind, warm despite her name and her gaze was steady on him. There is a distance between them that time has placed, a deep-rooted trust despite everything. He could see it by the bright ambers of her eyes. So much warmer than their mother’s.
“Yes.” The words came easy.
Her frown came easy as well. “You look really serious right now. Are you alright?”
(He recalled the last time he had spoken those words, an echo of this moment long before it could have even began as a thought. The sickness had swept through all of them but it was Mosspaw who suffered the worst, eyes puffy and puss seeped at the corners. His coughs are wet and his sides heaved with the force of each one. His gaze was unsteady, voice shaky, but Troutpaw had stayed. He was sick, just enough to be with him, and kin often shared the same resistance, the same genes so it was unlikely they could pass it onto each other and make it worse. The desire for company was what allowed Troutpaw to stay with him. He was tired but kind. He would never turn his brother away.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Mosspaw wanted to see the night sky - they had nestled underneath the steps of the porch towards the cabin, secluded but not isolated. He strained to see them and when that failed he had Troutpaw whisper them to him.
Troutpaw’s biggest regret was not taking his comment seriously. “My stomach kind of hurts,” because he followed it with a blind smile and rock of his head because balance came uneasily and his head felt heavy, or so he told him, “but that’s okay. You’re here and I’m okay.”
Troutpaw hates everyone who claimed to be okay after that point, because he woke up to the sound of his brother stretching but its gore. It’s bloody and it sprayed across the sand, across their paws. His sides heaved and the sounds were loud enough to drown out Troutpaw’s cries. “Please don’t go,” Mosspaw had whispered after he had heaved up something meaty, something that came from no animal.
“If I go, I could get you help,” he croaked but maybe his words made no sound beyond the sobs.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I love you so much, Troutpaw. Please don’t go. I’m fine. I’m just a little tired, let me rest a little, let me sleep with you beside me. Please.” His brother’s words had slurred and Troutpaw had babbled and cried, believing that this was an unwanted nightmare. He kept talking, little stories that would have made his brother smile or laugh, and he kept at it even when he coughed and sputtered then choked on his own blood.
Troutpaw had promised to never leave him. He never did, not even when they had to prepare his body for burial. If he had the strength, he would have left on the raft with him. They had both died that day but only one of them still breathed. It had been the wrong one.
It was days later that he realized he had not eaten, but then he thought of the blood and he lost his appetite all over again. Then his mother found him as he forced something down but couldn’t keep it down and it wasn’t the same and violent extent that his brother had gone through But secrets were not kept from her and she was terrified. She had lost a son, she did not wish to send off another. Perhaps she had blamed him, just a little, because she had whispered that he was okay and maybe he blamed himself because he echoed those words and they fooled each other.)
His mouth echoed Mosspaw’s last words to him, “I’m fine. I love you but I’m fine. I’m just tired, let me rest.”
Frostpaw smiled and nodded. She has no reason not to trust him. (No, wait, please do n t l e a v e m e . )
He thought of how strong she was, how capable she was to handle the truth. But he did not consider telling her what was wrong - nothing was. Their mother said so. He was fine. He was f i n e . (His sides ached. Please help me. Please. Please. P l e a s e. ) “If you say so, little brother. Let me know if you want to go on a patrol later. I’ll let Nightpaw know, too, not to disturb you. You do look like you need the rest.”
“Thank you.” Then he pressed his maw to her ear and she giggled, pleased. (He didn’t want to be alone.)
“Anytime. Rest well, Troutpaw.”
He sluggishly moved to where most apprentices slept beneath the beech trees and stared up. (He was afraid that if he woke up, it would be to his sisters frightened faces and blood on his paws. He would never let them see that.) It took all of his willpower to move, to crawl closer towards the edge of the cliff, where he could (hide) settle in a crevice. It was far enough not to disturb anyone. (His sisters were unlikely to find him here, so if he died, they could not see it. He could not break them this way.)
Sleep came easily but he didn’t recall closing his eyes.
(He was afraid of never waking up again.)
The day moved on.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Caution: Sensitive subject matter below.

Her eyes shine like starlight as she stared down at him.
An infinite cosmos bleeds into silver and blue, eyes liquid phantom gold. He imagines he could feel the fresh of her eyelashes with each blink. Wide and oval, they glitters like full moons. There was beauty in the night for she was there, the embodiment of it.
Her paws stretch into his wounds and he (breathes) sputters and curls away from her. She has the warmth of the sun, scorched and fierce in her touch. She reaches again and he (shivers) turns away from her. She breathes and the exhale is his name. She calls him again and again until he (breathes) calls her name in response and her eyes are (liquid fire) warm but (un)kind.
“It’s ma,” she corrects him and of course. She’s right, she always is. He (has to crack his teeth) smiles and curls his neck (it cracks and his bones shifts and it hurts) and spine until he can look up at her in all her infinite glory.
“Sorry, ma.” He tells her that he loves (no) her. Her smile is genuine and her touch fond as she nudges his (bony, scrawny) slender shoulder. There’s something in her eyes, dark and beckoning and (the abyss stares back) infinite. He is distracted by the twinkles behind her, the silver that runs into her pelt, the warmth of the summer sand along his back. The evening is pale but bright even with the lights that go, but here, shrouded by trees and beach alike, all he can see is the milky navy behind her skull, the wound of stars across the sky.
His ma nudges him and he blinks, vision fuzzy and mouth dry and coppery. He (can’t breathe) exhales with a dry cough. (Blood) sea water spurts and he leans up, finally, lungs race with an ache like a thousand burning fires and some sort of rancid acid burns at the back of his throat. He thinks he is drowning and heaves until all of the (not) salt water is gone, until it drops down his chin and his jaw is weak and his shoulders shake. His breath is a whispery rasp but his mother had saved him and will continue to do so.
Her shoulder brushes against him but her eyes remain on him. He thinks of a thousand words unspoken, of promises unkept, of eyes that glitter in the dark and (he never should have left him alone) how solemn the world is. It is night now and the world breathes. So does he. Even if it means every once in a while he will sputter and cough until (red) it pours from his mouth, until he can breathe easier. His ma is there to coax him, gentle words and mouth just shy of his ear. “That’s it, baby.”
(She has already lost a son, she will not lose another. Not when she wasn’t there.)
She tells him to eat and offers a fish and he smiles and tells her he will. (They both know it is a lie for for his tongue is barbed wire and her eyes a silver falsehood. She is the unicorn who speared the lion cub with blood of crushed moonstones.) Her words are soft and kind, the waves on the shoreline but she never once turns away from him. (Never, not like the sea that turns away and comes back, a false sense of security and hope. She stays, ever eternal. The sea on the horizon.)
She presses her body closer to his. She does not want to ask if he is okay but the words leave her lips and he (has to focus on her, everything is so horribly fuzzy and hazy and he can’t, cant can’t do this a n y m o r e ) has to blink because he’s stunned by the starlight behind her. “I’m fine, ma, always am,” he responded silkily, but it was always easy for his words to be smooth, especially around her because (the charred taste of blood makes it easier to spit out) he trusts her and always wants to be honest with her.
He knows the weight of words and he recalled (how his brother said the same thing as he lay dying, eyes ringed red and voice frail, “I’m okay. I love you, I love you. I am okay don’t worry about me.”) how easy it was to lie. He never wanted to lie to his mother.
(“Baby, what did you do?”
“I’m so sorry, ma, so sorry - I can’t - I couldn’t keep it down -“
The hysteria to her voice, the mania, the pleas for him to get better, “Its going to be okay. It’s going to be okay - you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay -“
I’m okay?
He had believed her.)
The next time he awoke, he was cradled to her side like a kit. Sleep drugs him, lulled him into a dark haze and he’s just so tired (but his brother had said the same thing before he died) and he has to blink his eyes open and stare. The stars moved and his mother’s breath kept him awake for a while longer. She was a (dead, she’s killing m e, h e l p ) comforting weight against his side. He closed his eyes and breathed.
(“Did you sisters see this? Did they, did they?”
“No - no -“
“Okay. That’s okay ... that’s for the best. They can’t ever see this.” Her eyes are remorseful and guilty but she has to think of everyone else, has to stabilize them with the false sense of security that everything is alright.
“No, no - I wouldn’t - let them see this -“
She is afraid that if they see this it will break her daughters. It had broken her little boy to see his brother die from the inside out, literally, and she cannot lose all of them. Better one than them all.
“Please don’t ever let them see.”
She doesn’t know how to fix this but she can be there for him. She can be there for this one like she couldn’t the last one. Like her son, she can keep a secret.)
She called his name and he blinked and took a deep breath. His lungs burned with embers but he was alright. He was fine because his mother was there and mother’s always knew best, she could help him. He looked at her and she was the sun and he blinded by her light, unable to turn away as his eyes melt - because the illusion of warmth was worth the pain. (He can’t fix this but if he lays here with her it is easy to pretend he is not broken.) She called him again and nudged him, sharply into his (too) thin shoulders but her gaze is softer, kinder. The clouds have eclipsed the sun and he can breathe without tasting ashes on his tongue.
(How long until he no longer tastes the blood?)
The fish had rotted some through the night, gross and flimsy but it was something. She didn’t eat it but her words left little room for argument. (He has to keep up appearances so) He was left with little choice but to swallow a bite. It was awful and slid down his throat like jelly. It settled restlessly at the top of his gut before he threw up and again until he dry heaved. (And then some, his stomach does not rest well with nothing to eat and it has since started to digest itself, any nutrients is better than nothing but he tried to ignore the blood. His mother didn’t look twice.) “it tasted rotten.” (Who did he try to convince?)
They walked back towards camp and his pawsteps get lighter as well as his thoughts - he was dizzy and his gut clenched uncomfortably but he had duties to do, mentors to impress and a Clan to defend. He had no time to waste on eating when he could feed the Clan first. (He won’t though, he will go to bed hungry and wake up hungry but he has not felt it for a long time that it will never make a difference.)
Frostpaw walked past him, rays of sunlight freckled her white fur and she had to stop a moment to blink at him. It took him too long to realize that he had stared at her. He smiled wryly at her and her gaze flicked to watch their mother trot past. “You were out for a walk with Rainbreeze today, Troutpaw?” Her voice was kind, warm despite her name and her gaze was steady on him. There is a distance between them that time has placed, a deep-rooted trust despite everything. He could see it by the bright ambers of her eyes. So much warmer than their mother’s.
“Yes.” The words came easy.
Her frown came easy as well. “You look really serious right now. Are you alright?”
(He recalled the last time he had spoken those words, an echo of this moment long before it could have even began as a thought. The sickness had swept through all of them but it was Mosspaw who suffered the worst, eyes puffy and puss seeped at the corners. His coughs are wet and his sides heaved with the force of each one. His gaze was unsteady, voice shaky, but Troutpaw had stayed. He was sick, just enough to be with him, and kin often shared the same resistance, the same genes so it was unlikely they could pass it onto each other and make it worse. The desire for company was what allowed Troutpaw to stay with him. He was tired but kind. He would never turn his brother away.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Mosspaw wanted to see the night sky - they had nestled underneath the steps of the porch towards the cabin, secluded but not isolated. He strained to see them and when that failed he had Troutpaw whisper them to him.
Troutpaw’s biggest regret was not taking his comment seriously. “My stomach kind of hurts,” because he followed it with a blind smile and rock of his head because balance came uneasily and his head felt heavy, or so he told him, “but that’s okay. You’re here and I’m okay.”
Troutpaw hates everyone who claimed to be okay after that point, because he woke up to the sound of his brother stretching but its gore. It’s bloody and it sprayed across the sand, across their paws. His sides heaved and the sounds were loud enough to drown out Troutpaw’s cries. “Please don’t go,” Mosspaw had whispered after he had heaved up something meaty, something that came from no animal.
“If I go, I could get you help,” he croaked but maybe his words made no sound beyond the sobs.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I love you so much, Troutpaw. Please don’t go. I’m fine. I’m just a little tired, let me rest a little, let me sleep with you beside me. Please.” His brother’s words had slurred and Troutpaw had babbled and cried, believing that this was an unwanted nightmare. He kept talking, little stories that would have made his brother smile or laugh, and he kept at it even when he coughed and sputtered then choked on his own blood.
Troutpaw had promised to never leave him. He never did, not even when they had to prepare his body for burial. If he had the strength, he would have left on the raft with him. They had both died that day but only one of them still breathed. It had been the wrong one.
It was days later that he realized he had not eaten, but then he thought of the blood and he lost his appetite all over again. Then his mother found him as he forced something down but couldn’t keep it down and it wasn’t the same and violent extent that his brother had gone through But secrets were not kept from her and she was terrified. She had lost a son, she did not wish to send off another. Perhaps she had blamed him, just a little, because she had whispered that he was okay and maybe he blamed himself because he echoed those words and they fooled each other.)
His mouth echoed Mosspaw’s last words to him, “I’m fine. I love you but I’m fine. I’m just tired, let me rest.”
Frostpaw smiled and nodded. She has no reason not to trust him. (No, wait, please do n t l e a v e m e . )
He thought of how strong she was, how capable she was to handle the truth. But he did not consider telling her what was wrong - nothing was. Their mother said so. He was fine. He was f i n e . (His sides ached. Please help me. Please. Please. P l e a s e. ) “If you say so, little brother. Let me know if you want to go on a patrol later. I’ll let Nightpaw know, too, not to disturb you. You do look like you need the rest.”
“Thank you.” Then he pressed his maw to her ear and she giggled, pleased. (He didn’t want to be alone.)
“Anytime. Rest well, Troutpaw.”
He sluggishly moved to where most apprentices slept beneath the beech trees and stared up. (He was afraid that if he woke up, it would be to his sisters frightened faces and blood on his paws. He would never let them see that.) It took all of his willpower to move, to crawl closer towards the edge of the cliff, where he could (hide) settle in a crevice. It was far enough not to disturb anyone. (His sisters were unlikely to find him here, so if he died, they could not see it. He could not break them this way.)
Sleep came easily but he didn’t recall closing his eyes.
(He was afraid of never waking up again.)
The day moved on.