[fancypost bgcolor=;border:0px;font-size:10.5px;text-align:justify;width;360px;line-height:130%;]One.
Two years. Simplistic are such words, given only a short time as the tongue forms the breath necessary, once a chuckle, light yet cast within bitter notes to sour its edge, had they risen from his lips, readily given within jest. But now they seemed a heavy weight which carved through his heart, left within a darkness, a space he sought to fill but nothing could quite settle there. It had been two years since he had first been brought forth, since he was conceived within a matter which had been conducted through treachery and confusion. But than none had quite figured it out had they that the product of love was not just that, little more than mistakes given life because two sought to cause harm.
In some place buried in the back of his mind something yearned for that time, when the confusion had been masked by gentle words expressed between three over the heads of the ones they had brought into this life, bundles of life bound in happiness, little slices of each mingling together in physical manifestations. He wanted that simple time again, when love had been so easy, those words never far from lips curled into the sweet frame of a smile, all until that day when it came crumbling down.
Though so much was left to rot, those pleasant moments of family and love, of friendship he had conducted and held close, soft, flickering candles he wanted to protect, it was the pain that held him prisoner, which roared through his mind on those quiet nights. Sharp and cold – through soft flesh had those teeth torn so easy and cut into bone, the startled, pained cries still ringing within the confinements of his head, as loud and clear as they had been when first they left him. Scars and the faint, blurred structure of old memories, that is all that remained of that time, the first moments to the last of which he stood in the moors, his only home, where he lived and died for the first time.
Two.
None of it had been the same though somehow he had tricked himself into such a belief, somehow his heart had brought to life an image of what had once been – empty moors swept by wind, left crowded by fruit trees and the open clearing left dusty and marked by foot traffic – yet the image which had greeted him had been so different. Of course the similarities had laid there, the land might be different for his own place had been torn apart, found within the wide sea of grass he might not misplace, or the orchid laden and sweet with the scent of fruit. It had been in the village, the cluster of wooden structures which dotted the open land, the slow, relaxed stream which parted the land like a blue ribbon, those had been the first signs nothing was the same.
And then there were the faces. He had been so idiotic to think that those who had been present when he had been a child would be around for they had aged as he had, growing wiser though given to the savage flow of time, visited by death one by one. Still he had been drawn, had allowed the hope to flicker and stay alive within him though it twisted his stomach and made his heart ache to hold. Barely a few months – such a short amount of time but it had been enough, overwhelming and cloying, different though given to the sense of déjà vu. He had been a coward, letting it all get to him and push him away once more – so just why was he coming back?
Three.
Small rocks clattered as they came to roll down the steep edges of the mountain, dislodged by all too big paws unsteady and unsure in their placement, some digging into the callous pads, working into the scar tissue though not enough to break through it. Heavy pants pushed between clenched teeth – such was the breath which escaped the heaving chest, outlined by the bitter tones of laughter, faint as it wrapped about his breath. Across the open moors the tired gaze flickered, taking in the patchwork of colour the orchid had claimed, the golden tinge to the moors as the grass waited for winter and the cluster of the village, amongst which its inhabitancy seemed nothing but black smears.
“Home…” The word was a gentle rumble pulled from the depths of his chest and on he pushed, unsure as to why it was he permitted his steps to draw him back, why he let the soft, fuzzy memories take him once more, of a childhood spent in so similar a place, only to turn to the time he had cut too short only recently. Reason had pushed him away and now there was none, nor a rhyme behind the heavy steps which dragged him down, slipping somewhat on the rocks as he moved, nothing but that desire, a pull.
He had a child. It had been somewhat strange news to him, seemingly an empty promise which fell on almost deaf ears yet he had forced himself to go, following those familiar steps once again – somewhere within those windswept moors he had a son. Still did disbelief colour that thought for all the sweetness it had gained, nibbled by worry for he was not fit to be a father though this was not blood, no there was nothing there, just a murmured name was he in this child’s life. So why had he come back, let himself take the paths again for someone who did not know him beyond the name he had left behind, the life he wanted to escape?
A heavy breath escaped his parted jaws and it was upon the outskirts of the village the cougar came to make his halt, unsure if he might so freely enter though he was still apart of Windclan, he had never made an official announcement, had never said he was leaving, yet he stopped all the same. Briefly he wondered if letting this body slip, taking the tabby he had been born as and had grown within might be better in which to greet his child, only to be discarded within a few seconds. That was not who he was anymore though he held the name still, he had left that person behind when he had left once more, he was not prepared to let himself sink back into it, not when he had tasted freedom.
[fancypost borderwidth=0;font-size:7.3pt; width:488px]