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[attr="class","hhybIMPORTANT"]Yeah, I don't want to be that kid[break]
No, I'm not going to hang my head[break]
And be another accident[break]
So long to the kid that I used to know[break]
So long to the place I used to go[break]
I'm not a R.I P. [break]
Not another sick, sad, tragedy [break]
- The Kid I Used to know - Arrested Youth.
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Prompt : How have you been? [break]
Content Warnings Parental Abuse, rping warrior cats in 2024, death, [break]
Notes" I will post this table up when I get a chance for other people to use, and there will be a jcink/proboards version AND dark version if I can remember. Deadeye is owned by
bex - Arrowstar is hilarious to me still.
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Arrowpaw - Arrowheart - nay, Arrowstar was on shaky paws, though the ground was steady. He felt so sick to his stomach with a undiagnosed feeling. Medicine cats would not be able to kill this poison in his veins. He wanted to lash out at his companions, but the smile on his maw was delicately held and framed by whiskers. He may be young, he may have never had an apprentice - but Arrowstar was now the leader of SkyClan. They looked towards him with unsure little faces of prey, of mice, thinking he was like his father. He was nothing like Lightningstar and he wasn't going to ever put his paw in the marks he left behind.
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Scars hidden under his fur, down his flank - were echoed in the broken clan. He took his time, stayed positive - only retiring with his feelings at the end of the night, staring at the twoleg den until he finally dozed off. Arrowstar was kind - they would say. Arrowstar has a heart dripping like the rain falling off leaves - they would say. Arrowstar wasn't sure how to prove to them that he could stand on shaky legs and still lead. StarClan was a bygone thought, stories of elders who managed to survive his father's tyranny.
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His brothers - at least the ones who did leave him, buried in the ground to rot - would not have listened to him. They lusted after power just like their sire. His sisters, more of the same. While two or three half-siblings would speak to him, would encourage him - their voices were drowned out by the flapping wings of anxiety. He was a kit to come - barely able to keep his head above the water.
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The orange tom did not keep his paw on the gushing wound that Lightningstar's death left. Unlike what they thought of the dutiful
replacement for the massive hulking cat - he was small, barely past 24 moons yet he led them with the knowledge required and lost among the weeds of the elder leaders. They pitied him and at first it made it feel like he had ants in his pelt. However, he would smile, chip like the birds, and they were none the wiser.
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Green eyes would make them freeze when he looked at them with such ire behind his smile. A smile so rigid that stone would find themselves envious. His open acceptance of those deranged and lost sympathetic to their plights of anguish though he suffered no such compulsions started to surround him. Cats murmured in the shadows around him of how powerful he must be to leash such threats to them or that could be threats. He might as well laugh in their face with a happy smile.
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It almost felt a level of vindictiveness that he didn't like to feel.
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He felt that they judged him wrongly and were now having to eat the crowfood at his paws like rats desperate to please a god so they didn't get slaughtered. Arrowstar would never harm his family, not because he couldn't - no - he felt no reason to. He felt kinship with a grouchy elder or an eager kit. They did not understand what being under his father's paw did for the orange tom. Tyranny should be fought until their last breath. Freedom should be won as the pain and suffering taste a bit sweet.
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Maybe coping - Lizardstripe would bemoan the fact his friend did nothing for his own mental health, a spring trap that rarely spoke out of a chipper tone. Was it learned behavior that he was nothing like his abusive and narcissist parent? His mother was a distant memory, dead and rotting just like his father now. They spoke of Deadeye in hushed whispers as if he had done something wrong. No, they should wish they had half the the loyalty of that injured tom.
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He found his admiration - his breath hitch in his lungs staring at his father's murderer. He had seen him from afar, scented him on the wind with DuskClan. The rogues in the middle of the twoleg town spoke of him as standoffish - but again, this mischaracterization! This assassination of his character like teeth to the neck of a rabbit. Did no one think for themselves? Did they fall under his father's tone like little scared kits? He suffered again and again under that tyrant. He spat in the face of the regime. He bared his teeth at the idea of submitting.
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Yet, they were so cowed by their own opinions instead of free thought.
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Bah.
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He hated how they spoke about Deadeye like he hated the whispers about him in the beginning. They died down - his inner circle becoming bigger and defenders feeling more safe speaking their mind. His rings of support were both vines against his paws and the ability to soar on command. He listened to his clan because he was never listened to. He coddled them because he was never coddled. They forget the terror and stopped seeing Lightningstar in his shadow.
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He was no longer that small kit that was a mirror of his father. He wasn't underwater struggling to breathe, he wasn't dead from a monster that wore his fur. He had his own thoughts, own emotions. Sure, he would stay stone faced and chipper, always speaking with a smile instead of that monster's snarling roar. He forgave his clan mates for being nothing but weak maggots that didn't belong on crowfood.
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Freedom was better than being tied down and in the bogs of the swamp. He didn't want to make clan mates with mosquitos and flies. He was happy. He was whole. His Clan was thriving. He may have had to make a few deals with dogs
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All good things - leafbare wasn't as harsh, using the abandoned two leg dens to be able to keep prey stored well and outages from the wind and rain. Kittens grew strong. Spoke of his name as if he was Starclan in one cat. Intimidating beliefs of others were only intimidating if he couldn't keep up with them. He knew he would need help one day - and after forcing Duskclan's paw, he waited at the border, bees in his fur.
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Green eyes shined as the cat known as Deadeye stepped forward. He ignored whatever look was on his face to give him a bright chirpy noise in his throat, friendly.
"Hey there! How have you been?" He asked, tilting his head back to camp.
"Come on. Let me show you your new freedom, friend." Because what better show of a unique and free mind than having a growing crush and admiration for your father's killer and clan's savior?
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Neko 
