chapped lips, parched tongue; silvertongue was content to roam in and out of memories. a shy girl and a morose boy, playing senet in a rich room. a priest, undone by her pale belly as an altar. kasmut, kissing her with a mouthful of wine. satsu, her touch soft if only for those dizzying days of unending demands and exquisite pleasure. to be pharaoh's favoured, for a time. the touch of saltwater upon her paws when she had been sent to the islands. the man who had tended her after. and the darker ones; the way her soft feet had torn upon mountain rocks, the way her silken pelt had been only rags and dust by the time she had foudn crowfeather — crowfeather —

***

crowfeather, crowfeather, crowfeather; the boy, the prince, the shadows, the stars — silvertongue blinked, and rain was upon her face. silvertongue breathed, and the anguish was hardly bearable. once more she was a crumpled rag in a forlorn place, and, though she knew he would not be there, nothing stopped the ekeing cry in her jagged voice; "@Crowfeather?"

RE: las estrellas - Crowfeather - October 23, 2023

But she was wrong.

Crowfeather had been searching. Maybe for a piece of himself. Maybe for the man he loved. He had ventured out beyond the riverland and into desert. He had lifted his haunting gaze in hopes that he might find the piece of him that felt as though it had been carved clean from his chest - carnal, with a fist gripped so tight he could never hope to fight back.

The dark star did not find the piece he sought. He did not find signs of his missing son. He did not find Germanicus. And as he walked the unfamiliar terrain, he considered never going home. It was as though he had always been meant to flee into the dark.

The hoarse cry lifted his sharp features. He knew the voice, but not in this way. Something like a cold chill swept through him. On three legs he raced until he saw her. As Crowfeather stood yards from where Silvertongue suffered, he was disgusted and shocked at himself for feeling satisfaction.

RE: las estrellas - Silvertongue - October 23, 2023

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: suicidal ideation

had she known, oh, had she known that this emotion passed through crowfeather at all, silvertongue would gladly have died that very moment with his image in her eyes and her heart stilled rather than suffer living though such a concept. but she could not know, could not — what silvertongue did know was his gait, his tread; was that him upon the wind? cracked lips formed a plea; "take me home," begging while tears chased themselves backward to puddle hotly along her temples, "take me home to our children."

***

she shut her eyes, not knowing if she imagined him or if the steady harvest-moon gaze was true. turning tearstained face, silvertongue tried to will this figure of him closer; but she knew, she knew, she knew; why did he not come to her? "i want to go home!" she screamed at the spectre with the last of her fury, an exhale dropping her thin shoulders back into the dust.

***

wren. it is better this way. it is a sentence so cliched. so rote. it is a story too often told. a man who stands between women. i cannot let this be our story. i cannot let our love belong to anyone but us. he would always be between us, wren, amante. always there, because it is where i have put him. i pull your face into my mind. i dance with you as i have never danced with him.

***

silvertongue wavered between consciousness and void. she would not die now; her body would fiercely sustain her even if she laid against this ground for days. a wish was not reality. the glassblue eyes were veiled and now silvertongue lay in silence upon the ground, staring at grains of sand lifting in a hot zephyr.

RE: [m] las estrellas - Crowfeather - October 23, 2023

He swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing it down until it no longer choked him, no longer stopped the air from flowing to his lungs.

Silvertongue begged to go home. Crowfeather closed his eyes. Where was her home? For he did not think that she wished to stay in Riverclan. Perhaps the creek… perhaps somewhere far away, where she did not carry memories of the horrid things that had happened to her.

The shadow willed himself to choke down his tears. He did not understand the flurry of emotions inside him. He could not let them speak.

And yet…

Are they? Are they our children? Did she know that Stormpup had disappeared in the night? Did she know that Shadowpup had started to ask about Starclan? Worse than these thoughts was the one that lingered. Did she even care?

Crowfeather’s eyes softened. He approached her battered figure and pressed his shoulder against hers, urging her to rise. The dark figure could feel his chin quiver, holding back the cries he felt welling up from his chest.

L-Lean on me… I will take you home.

Wherever that might be.

RE: [m] las estrellas - Silvertongue - October 23, 2023

"yes!" she sobbed, she seethed, hoping that crowfeather would not look behind the curtain at her lack of maternal love. it was not dislike, nor hatred, nor rejection; "i will not come home," she warned weakly through arid jaws, pleading up into his face as rawboned arms draped around his shoulders, "until — until you tell me you love me, crowfeather. say that —.that we will marry, sí, say you will be my husband and i your wife and — and — perhaps we might;" she grappled for his nearest wrist and held its crook against a belly she knew was now barren, but all his! the plea was in her flesh. desperation, forged, stamped, etched in all of her: none of this, none of this was worth a single step more if she must live another hour in this purgatory she had suffered for years; "or tell me you do not, crowfeather," silvertongue breathed, clinging to his arms as her own grasp slackened, "whatever you must say it now!" knowing, knowing she would surrender her very breath to him.

RE: [m] las estrellas - Crowfeather - October 23, 2023

Stiffened limbs met her words. An answer before he could speak it into the air.

The tears fell while his teeth clenched tight. Crowfeather did not know how to tell her what he felt. He did not know how to speak the words into her heart or soothe her ruffled edges.

I can’t-

The words were choked from his mouth. Crowfeather buried his face into his hands in shame. The sobs shook his shoulders, his chest heaved with them.

There- There is something wrong with me.

There had always been. No darkness had been able to swallow it. No amount of cruelty had beaten it from his bones.

Y- You are… the one I want to want. But wanting wasn’t enough. It could not sway his heart from its true course. The path he did not want to follow. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Germanicus.

I am not fit to be loved… In the weight of his voice was conviction. Crowfeather believed that he was doomed to this misery. He had brought it upon himself.

RE: [m] las estrellas - Silvertongue - October 23, 2023

hell seemed to yawn beneath silvertongue for long, tearing moment as crowfeather denied her. the breath that rose now choked, dissolved in her throat; pulse pounded. he insisted this was him, that he wanted to desire her but — "nothing is wrong with you," silvertongue insisted a moaning hiss, raising languid forearm to touch his face now, bring it truly toward her own. "if you were not fit to love, i would not have — i would not love you beyond everything else. everything." the sharpfang felt him fading from her, withdrawing; she pressed ankle to mouth and found she was crying, salt running across the edge of her lips; "you cannot love me. this does not make you unfit." what vestiges of her remained, given to assure; he could not. he would not; he could not, and a cold serenity settled into silvertongue, shielding her for a time from the pending sense of horrified shame waiting to fall upon her bowed head.