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Second place. Even now, the thought of it mocked him. It was funny really, how he was in the same position as his father once was, and gods he could truly understand the desperation of his predecessors. To be so close, to be a fingertip away from this glory, this absolute power, and yet, feel so damn far away. To be truly on the edge of greatness and never quite reach it himself. To be at the top of the world and still fear his own fall, so much that he could barely see the top of the mountain, only the way down.
How ironic, he thought dryly, that in his own pursuit of a solution to his family's problem, he only solidified the cycle he was born into. The lanky tom felt just as paranoid as his father was in his last days, afraid of their own blood that was destined to slice his throat. He found himself drifting towards the borders once more, to the northern one. NightClan was farther from than SummerClan but that was a good thing; his adopted kits wouldn't stray back this way for sure.
He didn't seem to notice he was already at the border of DayClan until a sharp scent of the marker made him stop. He didn't care much about whatever threat they were supposed to pose him, but now that he wasn't some lonely rogue on the outskirts, there were other things to consider before traipsing through another clan's territory.
The second Eshek caught the Primal Instinct scent on the breeze, her heart plummeted. Fresh grief flooded her chest, freezing her in place. The League. Home. She wanted to run back to where she belonged, to her family, even if she didn't know them anymore and they didn't know her. Her breath shuddered past her teeth, her mouth hanging open a little. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind - Funk's fond crooked smile, the tinkle of Innocentia's golden bell as she danced in front of her, Lucistic's mouth moving silently as he led her to the Crypt with that familiar lazy grin, Lorah holding his paw to his chest and sinking into an exaggerated bow, the tired kindness in Miracle's eyes. The horror of Mother's tyranny, the twisting anger as she'd stalked toward the new proxy quarters she didn't want, the smell of mould and winter, the feel of hot blood soaking her paws...
She snapped out of it with a gasp. The League - that time was over. She was DayClan now, whatever that meant. Well, no, she knew what it meant - it meant Lucistic and Innocentia, it meant the remnants of Funk's second marriage, it meant... loyalty. Loyalty borne of nothing but an odd obligation to care for whatever legacy Funk and Lucistic had here, to care for cats she ought to have hated. Loyalty she was supposed to feel to the forest, to Clans with customs and manners she didn't understand, to cats she didn't know. In reality, she felt like a monster from a queen's nursery rhyme who'd weaselled her way out of the cold dark and into the warmth of the nursery itself. She didn't belong. It didn't fit.
But she'd made her choice, and for Lucistic she'd honour it. There was nothing left for her in the League, anyway.
Nothing... That was a lie. Her chest pooled with grief anew. Everything was there. Home was there. She wondered vaguely if Glowstar ever felt like this. She was far from the only cat in the Clan to have come from the same dark origins, after all. The same wonderful darkness...
Finally, violently, Eshek shook herself out of it once again, giving herself a frustrated whack over the face with a paw to be on the safe side. "Suck it up," she hissed to herself, abandoning the half-hearted hunt she'd been on and rising out of the crouch she'd been in that whole time. She stretched out her stiff legs. "You made your choice. Stick with it. Idiot."
Feigning cold, dead-eyed confidence, she raised her chin and marched in the direction of the border, gaze hooded and jaw set in regal indifference. She stopped in front of the tom, eyeing him distrustfully. She didn't recognise him. Hope she hadn't realised she'd been leaning on crumbled out from under her, hardening her gaze and adding more petulance to her address. "We're not accepting strays at this time," she told him, lip twitching up in a slight sneer. It wasn't a frightening look - Esh never managed to look much more than childish and bratty even at the worst of times, like a popular high school bully with daddy's money on her credit card. "And we have enough scrawny ex-League twinks as it is."
dm me if you want to listen to me ramble about the interstellar soundtrack
2,314 posts
Post by achromatic on Jun 28, 2021 20:41:51 GMT -5
Bermondsey wasn't expecting to run into anyone at this border. DayClan cats seemed to stay in their own space, and the league didn't exactly have beef with them these days. The few times he had met one of those cats had been...interesting to say the least. He had heard that their leader was one of their own once, a friend of his father's perhaps? It didn't matter; as much as things had changed there, they had never seemed like too much of a threat to Primal Instinct. DayClan kept to their own and the league kept to theirs.
What he didn't expect, however, was for a cat to come rushing towards him as if she was ready to start a war, with a puffed chest and a glare that could kill, to come around insulting him with literally no reason at all. For a moment, Bermondsey just stood there, baffled at the complete change in how his day was going, blinking his green eyes at the she-cat almost owlishly. Did she...did she just call him a stray? A twink?
He wasn't like the rest of his family, born with a silver tongue full of wit and insults immediately lashing from his tongue. "–and who the hell told you I was here to join your scrawny clan?" he snorted. If he wasn't so baffled by this, he'd surely have been angry, but this cat didn't appear like a threat. "Don't tell me DayClan is arrogant enough to believe themselves to be chosen by the gods or whatever stories you tell, so much that you believe any cat walking around here wants to be one of you? Please."
The tom's eyes narrowed at the cat confronting him. There was something about her; why would she be so bitter about Primal Instinct...unless... He rolled his eyes. "Tell me, were you one of these 'ex-League twinks,' or did we accidentally kill your mother or something? Because we might as well get these sort of pleasantries over with, don't you think?"
As soon as the tom started to talk to her like she was a DayClan cat, Esh's sneer turned into a look of silent horror. She was a DayClan cat, she reminded herself, and the realisation came like a blow, sharp and white-hot. She was a DayClan cat... To him, to others, that's all she'd ever been - they didn't know her, didn't know this new allegiance felt like a collar choking her, didn't know how poorly all of it fit, didn't know the blood flowing under her skin was the same as theirs. She wanted to cry at the thought. That easy familiarity, that belonging she'd always taken for granted - it was gone.
"Chosen by the gods?" she snorted, snapping out of it just in time to catch those words. She drew her head back, looking the tom over with a thin, judgemental smile. She snorted again. "Don't tell me you're Foreign Affairs - if they're letting idiots like you in now, who don't seem to know a damn thing about Clan politics, then the League really is falling apart. That's SunClan, you moron."
She said this like she'd ever done a single day's work as proxy in her life. She didn't know a damn thing that was going on beyond the League's borders during her time in power, beyond the odd rumour or report from some nameless cat she'd planted in one of the Clans that she half listened to and immediately forgot. But she didn't consider that now - all she knew was that this guy was useless and she was better than him. Eshek was nothing if not a hypocrite.
Esh listened to his tirade about twinks and mothers with an ugly half-sneer and a confused mix of quirked brow and frown, leaning away from him with her chin tucked into her throat. "Did we accidentally kill your mother or something," she mimicked, suddenly rising to her paws and shoving past him in the direction he'd come from. "God, you're like a kit out of the nursery for the first time— youngling," she caught herself quickly with a bewildered little start; DayClan was already rubbing off on her, God help her. She finished less strongly, "whatever." Clearing her throat, she resumed her high-and-mighty act, not looking at him. "Why don't you tell me your name first and I'll decide if you're worth the bother? So far," she cocked her head and clicked her tongue, flashing him a faux-sympathetic glance, "ain't lookin' good."
Post by achromatic on Jun 28, 2021 21:31:10 GMT -5
Bermondsey wouldn't be the first to admit that he was a bit lost these days too. Years of travelling through the world, avoiding the clans and his own birthplace hadn't gotten him anywhere, and returning hadn't either. The clans had all changed from what he could remember. SunClan had some cult religion now. MoonClan was unrecognizable. Even Primal Instinct had moved from the ruins in the forest to the city, of all places. This change felt like a second skin, hot and sticky and one he didn't fit comfortably in, though he'd never admit this to anyone other than Charlotte.
He thought things would get better, but nothing had changed. Primal Instinct felt both familiar to him–like a hometown he hadn't visited in years–and yet completely foreign, as if someone had moved all the furniture just a step to the left and he was left bumping into things without a thought, unable to recognize what was wrong exactly, but knowing instinctively that things were different now.
The tom rolled his eyes. "Like I said," every word was enunciated clearly, sarcastically, "I really don't care about what you DayClan cats think of yourselves. You seem way too sure about Primal Instinct, you sure you're not some groupie? Shouldn't DayClan be worried?" He could feel himself seethe at her words, but he knew it was because they rang true. He felt just as new to this as any trainee, still getting used to the absolute mess they called their territory these days.
He was starting to understand now. The way she spoke, the way her words tripped over themselves...she was one of them. "Former Primal Instinct then," he mused, raising a brow at Eshek, "not much to show for if I might say so myself. Bitter, lacking direction, arrogant...tell me, how's DayClan for you? You're all about the peace and friendship kind of life now? Or are you just pretending everything's sunshine and rainbows when you know you can't adapt to a life that soft?"
A smirk appeared on his face briefly. He knew he was right, even without looking at her reaction. After all, didn't he follow that same line of fate himself? "Name's Bermondsey," he snorted, "guess you don't plan on giving me yours." It was all irrelevant anyway, eventually, he'd find out.
You sure you're not some groupie? Eshek ignored his bait, acknowledging it only with a quiet snort as she kept stalking along. He was trying so hard to fake the League snarkiness, it was almost sweet. In a pitiful sort of way.
And then... He almost succeeded. She had to admit, his attempt at cruelty, at being sly, hit pretty close to the mark. Ten points to Bermondsey. "I wouldn't say I lack direction," she replied, slowing to a halt to face him. She pointed in a vague direction that was most definitely east. "Look, north, boom." It was a stupid joke. Funk would've laughed. She curled her lip. "Oh, yes," she interjected, voice sharper now as she circled around him, "we get it, you're a very tough little kitty. Very observant. I'm bitter? Oh, honey, I'd hate to know what you are then. All that worry's not a good look - you'll get wrinkles." She offered a sneering smile, raising one extended claw in a dainty little pose. She dropped it a split second later.
Guess you don't plan on giving me yours. If one thing worked on Eshek, it was reverse psychology. She was too petulant not to rise to a jibe, even if the clever part of her tried to stop herself. "I'm Eshek. And yes, I'm living with DayClan but I'm not..." She searched for the words; when she found them, she forced them out past her teeth, ignoring the bitter taste and the guilt, "one of them. I'm not one of you, either," she added quickly, "don't get excited. Not anymore."
She was silent for a moment, lost in the past. Then, suddenly, reality crashed back down on her. Her eyes widened. She'd said too much. Leaping in front of him to bar his path, she blurted out urgently, "but you can't tell them I'm alive." Without meaning to, without stopping to consider the consequences, she'd put her life in this tom's care. She searched his gaze, mouth hanging slightly open, panic etched around her stare. She hardly dared breathe. She didn't know why it mattered so much, didn't know why she didn't want her identity getting back to the League - something just told her to keep it a secret for now. Something told her it was important. Maybe it was only because if they knew, she'd have little reason to stay in DayClan beyond Luc. Maybe it was just an excuse. A quiver ran through her body; she was torn between the two worlds.
Unlike his mother, Bermondsey wasn't born with the cruelty his oldest brother so easily inherited, or an understanding of what made others tick. He was never one to crush someone without any effort at all, nor the type to so easily pick at the nerves of other cats. Unlike his father, Bermondsey wasn't born with the gift of charisma. He didn't have that silver tongue that wove webs of lies, that struck so sharply without anyone expecting it. However, he did learn how to read someone, and the way her words shifted into something sharper, something more bitter, made Bermondsey's lips twist into a smile.
"–and that's east, and that's west, glad you know the same as a common youngling," he mocked sarcastically. He could almost laugh at her attempts to twist it back to him, as if he didn't know exactly how much of that worry constantly seemed to resurface, whether it was about the kits he had abandoned to throw them off their rutted track or about the curse that seemed to follow him wherever he went. He did a raise a brow at her name; why did it sound familiar? He was certain he had heard it somewhere, something about the league's past, perhaps back in the day? There had been some explanation about what the districts were...oh. She had been the head of one of the proxy departments, no? Something about the mansion they used to live in, the one they were being sent to scout out once more. Surely it didn't matter, but at the grimace on her face, and the sudden panic, he found himself amused at the other cat all of a sudden.
How quickly things could change, he thought, and he contemplated whether to save this information for later or to outright mock her for her idiocy. "What kind of cat gives a stranger blackmail material from the start?" his lips twisted into a dry smirk, "what's stopping me from going straight to Regulus to tell him the who, what, where?" The tom circled around Eshek, his eyes drifting to her face to the rest of her, "I've heard your name before. Eshek. Former proxy, if I'm right. Part of me wonders if you're in DayClan because you sold Primal Instinct's secrets, but from the look on your face, it's a little more than that, isn't it?"
“That’s the joke,” Eshek muttered to herself, throwing Bermondsey a glower out of the corner of her eye.
As the tom began to circle around her, Esh stiffened and took a step back, eyes following him. Her lip pulled up in a defiant sneer, her chin raised in a false show of confidence. When he padded behind her, she snapped her tail to her side so he wouldn’t accidentally touch her. How quickly things had changed - a second ago she held all the cards, now she was the one being hunted. Despite the disadvantage, there was a part of her that was thrilled by the interaction being turned so fluidly on its head. It had been a long time since she’d felt a flicker of fear. She’d always been an adrenaline junkie and now she was getting more than she could ever have wished for.
Then, he mentioned that name. She snapped out of her role in the little game they were playing, expression settling into a dark frown; she ignored the rest of what he was saying - some nonsense about selling League secrets that was supposed to provoke her. Though the knowledge her name was still known made something warm and bright and smug flutter to life in the pit of her stomach. Eshek. The proxy. She clamped down on a pleased little purr. “Who the hell is Regulus?” she growled instead, feigning impatience.
He almost had to stifle a laugh at how the other cat was acting. It was cute really, how eager she was to prove that she was the same type of cat as he, yet her emotions ran high enough for him to see it straight on her face. The fear, the defiance, the anger...he rarely saw a cat who wore every expression with such ownership. Proxy or not, he could see why others used to follow this cat, as childish as she seemed. There was a gleam in his eyes that spoke to his amusement, especially when she snapped her tail away from him. What a prissy cat, he thought.
Bermondsey wasn't one to take interest in most cats, but this situation certainly got more interesting. He raised a brow at her question; huh, she must've really been gone for a while then. Even DayClan should've known about the warden–now–nemesis. "If they're letting idiots like you in now, then DayClan must really be falling apart," he mocked back, his lips curled into a sneer, "how in the world do you not know who Regulus E'tan is? Far before your time? You should at least have known him as warden, no? How long have you been gone for? Gods, do you live under a rock or something?"
He had been gone for years and still, the moment he had returned to this part of the world, the rumours had found him. There was no way that a DayClan cat wouldn't have heard.
Far before your time? “Why does everyone keep thinking I’m old?” Esh asked no one in particular, tone suddenly switching to casual bemusement. She frowned to herself. “I met the rudest apprentice at this stupid little gathering I got dragged along to and she called me, like, a spinster and a hag and stuff. I was like, I’m literally a year older than you. Y'know? And I’m still smokin' hot with the bod to boot - it’s like, hello? I’m in the prime of life. I was a trainee not long ago. It’s really starting to mess with me. Like, Glowstar is freakin' nine years old and no one calls her old! Lucistic is eight! I'm only two! You think I’m pret—“ She broke off, giving her head a frantic little shake like she'd been struck. She stared down at the ground for a moment, giving her own thoughts time to catch up to her, before finally relaxing back into the role of insolent ex-proxy. She sat down in a stooping slouch, wrapping her tail around her forepaws.
If they're letting idiots like you in now, then DayClan must really be falling apart. Esh let out an appreciative purr, eyes glittering with amusement. She was starting to like this try-hard little tom, with his dainty little sneers and cute insults. You’ll get there eventually, champ, she wanted to purr, stopping herself from giving him an encouraging tap on the shoulder with her tail.
Then he spoke that name: Regulus E’tan. Her entire mood changed completely, the light in her eyes replaced by something dark and spiralling. So Funk had been replaced. Of course he had - the League was all about efficiency. She didn't know why she was surprised, didn't know why she'd expected otherwise, didn't know why she'd assumed the League would be as lost in grief as she was. She'd just imagined that after three years of service, that after three years of moulding Primal Instinct into a golden era, he'd at least be given a state funeral and a period of mourning. Three years. Three years and they repaid him with some worthless substitute in his rightful place... Rage bubbled up inside her. She'd always cared about her mate's position more than her own, had always been more proud of it.
She tried to hide it with a dismissive sneer. “Oh, another Nemesis," she growled, looking away. "For a second I thought he might be someone impressive. I can tell you’re new to the League, either that or you’re an idiot." Her voice took on a taunting, impatient note, like she was explaining the obvious to someone asking incessant questions. She gestured with her paw as she spoke, her eyes finding Bermondsey's again. "Nemeses come and go like flies, kitten - if you’re still at the point of being awed by the E’tan title, you’ll grow out of it soon. They all die like the rest of us.” There was bitterness in that last line. She looked away, voice quiet and dull.
Nothing really made sense with this cat. She was a former proxy from when he had been gone, and yet she didn't know anything that was going on with the League. She said she was two years old, and yet he was certain she was older–how would she have been a proxy as barely a trainee? There was no way anyone would make a youngling a proxy, no matter how mad the nemesis truly was. He'd know, his mother had somehow made Daireanne her successor even before her own mate, and back then, he thought that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever seen.
Surely, no one would make a kit a proxy? He shook his head in amusement at the mere thought of it. This cat had something strange about her, and the mere mention of their new nemesis seemed to create a shift in her, from the kitten-like demeanor back into that dark, sneering kind of creature she pretended to be. Who was the former nemesis to her anyway? A father? A lover? Surely no cat could be so loyal to a leader that they'd leave without them?
As she continued to speak, he couldn't help but laugh. Gods, she thought he was some admirer? Some type of cat impressed by a mere title? He couldn't help his own contemplation over where he was now; how the hell did he end up here, talking to some cat and contemplating his own mid-life crisis?
"You think I wouldn't know? My mother was a nemesis once, and so was my brother," his laughter wasn't even the dry type of humour that would usually accompany the talk of death, especially one of his family. He was probably revealing too much about himself, but it didn't matter, it was old news. There was barely a soul that could remember who any of them were. "One of them murdered the other and no one blinked an eye, so let me tell you about how bleeding transient this damned place is. If you expected a funeral procession for any of them, you're better off staying in DayClan anyway; maybe they have that sort of thing over there."
"What was he to you anyway? Funk E'tan, right? Your father? Brother? Lover?" he asked curiously, amused at just how ridiculous this situation felt like.
"Ooh, aaawww, mummy's precious little boy!" Esh cooed, suddenly leaping forward and catching Bermondsey in a close hug, ruffling the fur between his ears with one of her paws. She pressed their cheeks close together. "Wittle kitty's mama was a Nemesis! And his big bwother! And dey muwdered each other like big howwible League cats! It's just so sad!" She snickered, high-pitched and shriek-y, and finally shoved the tom away. "Who here hasn't murdered a family member? Grow up." Unusually tall for a she-cat, she'd always been used to being around the same height as the toms in Primal Instinct - with the obvious exception of Lucistic. Now, to have a tom who was tall but still skinny enough to bat around like a toy, she wasn't going to pass up any opportunities.
"Funk E'tan," she replied almost instantly, stopping herself from the momentum of shoving Bermondsey away by doing a cool claws-unsheathed spin in the dirt; she made a big show of brushing dust from her foreleg when she slowed to a halt, not losing any of her dismissive playfulness despite the way saying his name aloud made her heart ache in her chest, "is none of your business." She tried not to burst out laughing at the implication that Funk could be her father. She wished for the tenth time that day that he was there with her. He'd get a kick out of that. She'd have loved to see him respond, with that cool snarkiness she wouldn't be able to muster in a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. She was too much of a firecracker to mimic that chill. How wonderful it would have been to gang up on Bermondsey now, with that back-and-forth banter they used to have, full of inside jokes no one else understood and intimate enough to terrify...
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she elbowed past Bermondsey and began to trot in the direction of what she assumed was the League's new territory. "C'mon, ribs," she called back to him. "You're taking me on a tour of your new home. I'm so achingly curious." She said 'achingly' with a quivering, breathy purr and lashes that fluttered enough to make her eyes roll back in her head, like she was flirting with some unbelievably tempting morsel of a cat.
When Eshek immediately grabbed him, he almost gave a yelp of surprise, and yet...huh, this felt kind of...nice.... Yeah no, he wasn't going to address his touch-starved issues for years in this weird moment of having someone squish his face like that. Gross. He made a face and immediately shoved her face away from him with a paw. What the hell was this cat on anyway? She was a literal child, he thought, and yet he found it almost funny that it was such a normal thing around here, for cats to literally be murdered by family. Surely his family had been precedence back in the day, but hey, one never knew when living in a dump like this.
Her sudden change of tone, added to what she had just said, seemed to paint the picture in his head of what had happened. Daddy issues, the bitterness, trained to be a proxy so young...she was the exact picture of Safiya except....well, unhinged probably. She would've gotten along with his mother, he thought dryly. So she was a child of the former Nemesis. Interesting. His green eyes flashed with a certain amusement at this newfound information; she certainly did wear every expression upon her face. With a shake of his fur, he was holding that same expression of apathy on his face once more.
"So DayClan's not accepting strays but you think Primal Instinct is?" he snorted, rolling his eyes at her little flirtation show, "ridiculous. How you managed to get them to accept you in...gods, DayClan cats must be more unhinged than I thought." He didn't have to work hard to catch up, giving her a hard nudge as he passed her. More often than not, any cat that spoke to him like this would get a slash in their face really–Bermondsey wasn't one to start fights unnecessarily but in these sort of cases...–but Eshek was entertaining. He didn't mind her attempts at getting his temper to rise all that much.
"I'm guessing this is all new to you?" he spoke, "how long have you been gone anyway?"
Eshek cackled a laugh. "Primal Instinct is a bunch of strays, Bermondsey," she replied, and it sounded like a love poem. She smiled to herself as she trotted along, wistful and joyous. She had no clue how much of her yearning was nostalgia and how much was true - hadn't she always daydreamed, late at night and on cold winter mornings alone in her room, with her father and kit siblings' blood cooling on her paws and the guilt of her latest torture seeping through the drugged haze, about a life beyond its borders? An easy life, as a Clan cat or, god forbid, a kittypet? Now, the League seemed like the most wonderful place in the world, filled with like-minded cats and a sick, easy, mindless sense of belonging she'd always taken for granted. It was like a second skin; how had she ever wanted to shrug it off?
She led the way, absent-mindedly following his scent trail and filled with a whirling mix of nerves, excitement, and earnest longing. How much would have changed? Would anyone recognise her, and did she want them to? What if it wasn't the League she remembered?
"Yes, it's all new," Esh replied, in a rare moment of honesty. "When I was in the League, we were still in the Mansion. When I... got back, I went there but it was all abandoned. It was only after joining DayClan that I discovered you'd moved to the city." She'd spent enough time traipsing about Absum Lux's old territory, at all-night parties and with pretty one-night-stands, to know her way around the city - but then, Absum Lux was always a useless bunch of roaches who couldn't kill a flea. She'd never had to be cautious. She couldn't understand why the League had ever moved into that failure of a group's abandoned hunting grounds. They were more than alley cats. "Why, I'll never know," she muttered.
She stopped as the tops of buildings appeared over the dying treetops. Esh gazed up at them, a strange brand of fear seeping into her fur. "Lead on," she told him quietly, eyes still fixed on the buildings.
tbh idk what PI's camp/structure looks like rn so i'm making it all up whoops
He rolled his eyes at her words. Perhaps in her day, Primal Instinct was only a bunch of strays, but they had been more. They deserved more. They were the cats descended from the darkest of forests, cats who once ruled from the ruins of great civilisations, cats who struck fear into the hearts of the clans...they deserved more, no, they were more.
She had been a member when he was gone when he had lost all interest in the happenings of his birthplace. She had been a member when they had left, the rest of the cats moving away from the great chimerial forest to places he had never known, to places he had found in his journeys. "I suppose these days, they act more like strays than anything," he grumbled, "especially with some of the new cats. They barely know how to care for themselves; I don't know why we didn't just kill them off before they came." The league had gotten weak; in their attempts to save themselves from whatever happened to their old home, they had given up the defiance they had. They had changed.
A small smirk seemed to cross his features for a moment; he supposed he could agree on that one. "Me neither," he replied, "they'd be better off back in the forest than here."
As they neared the city, he glanced briefly at Eshek, at the way trepidation seemed to radiate from her fur. He couldn't read her expression. Was that fear? Was that intrigue? He hesitated for a moment, before glancing up to a low wall, leaping up towards it, landing squarely on his paws at the crumbling brick, before moving forward with ease, not glancing back to the she-cat who followed. The city was a maze, but it was easier to navigate from a higher viewpoint.
"See the church?" he gestured to the spire that stuck out from the Mondrian-esque structure of the city, "camp's that way."
it's not classic if every single description of something isn't wildly different <33
I don't know why we didn't just kill them off before they came. Esh looked sharply at Bermondsey, genuine, frowning surprise on her face. A brief flash of horror sparked through her. Kill them? She immediately clamped down on the instinct, frustrated and confused by her own weakness. She wondered again what exactly had happened in the two years she couldn't remember, the two years she was was both dead and undead; whatever it was, she blamed it just as much as she was frightened by it. She'd always had a weak nature, no matter how much she'd tried to drown it out and smother it down with torture and bloodshed and frenzy; now, for some reason, it was coming to the surface in random bursts. She hated that she was shocked by something a League cat said. Of course they ought to have been killed. Obviously. What good were elders and kits who couldn't fend for themselves? She snorted, sneering at herself like she was saying suck it up, kitties die, boohoo.
Eshek watched Ber for a moment before leaping up after him, taking a moment to balance on the wall and survey the landscape in front of her, tail swishing back and forth restlessly, before jumping down after him. "Well, this is a dump," she grumbled, looking around with an impressed curl of her lip. Buildings rose up on either side of her, the sunlight that seemed so much paler and less warm than it had in DayClan glinting painfully off the glass windows. The concrete under her paws was hard and cracked through with small, miserable growing things. "The League has gone to the dogs."
She tried to convince herself it was a good thing she got out when she did - this wasn't the same Primal Instinct she'd been born in. But it wasn't true. She'd always long for her home. Eshek was nothing if not surprisingly noble, surprisingly devoted, surprisingly innocent; a homebody, a housewife who grew claws and grabbed the knife.
That said, it was a good thing Bermondsey was just some nameless hunter - if he'd had a rank like, say, Warden, he'd have to be seriously embarrassed by the state of things. She snorted and said as much - "bit cringe for whoever's in charge nowadays, right? If I were Regulus or whoever the Warden is nowadays, I'd throw myself off the nearest bridge."
He had noted the way she had turned sharply towards him at his words with a quick furrow of his brow, for a moment so brief it almost looked like it had been a trick of the light. He didn't understand why she seemed so confused by that; this was the league he had known, where no one was safe, where bloodshed was commonplace, where even family wasn't safe from one another. Bermondsey hadn't known anything else, hadn't realized that there could be anything else in a godforsaken place like this. His mother had ruled with an iron fist and his father had returned many a night, blood upon his maw from killing their family's enemies. They had tried to train his older siblings the same way; Daireanne had passed with flying colours, Safiya hadn't. The rest was ancient history, marked by the blood that they had never been able to really get out of the stones that marked the dens of their original camp, far away in the ancient forests.
He almost laughed at her comment over the alleyways that now marked Primal Instinct's territory. "You're not wrong," he snorted as he walked past the monochrome buildings. There were times when he'd return from the lush forest, and feel as if the world had just put over a filter of grey when he entered this city. There wasn't a life to it. Not like the old forests, where–as dark as they were–there was a mystery, a sense of adventure for those who ventured out deeper into the forests. Here, the world was bland and grey and cruel. There was no mystery, just the cold hard truth.
"There's a never-ending shortage in a city like this," he grumbled, "herbs, prey...the only surplus we ever get is cats who barely know how to fend for themselves. If they're not here to join the league, they act like they own the damn place. Bloody kittypets and rogues; what use are all of them anyway?"
He could help but snort at Eshek's next comment. "Believe me, I'm sure they've tried," he replied dryly, the dark humour underlying his tone, "pretty sure they're more disappointed than you with what they have to work with these days. Glad you headed off to DayClan these days huh?"
Inside him was another story. He knew that this was a pathetic mess of a place right now, but it wouldn't be for long. Things had to change eventually, and he would be its harbinger if no one else would. The tom slipped through a cracked window and into a warehouse, the path towards the church easier this way.
"Man, you're a barrel of laughs," Esh told him dryly, as he hit her with negative comment after negative comment after negative comment. Sure, this place was a dump - sure, it was ugly, and depressing, and smelly, and the not-fun sort of maze, and populated with loser cats, and... She couldn't remember her original point. But it was still the League. That had to count for something. "I'll never be happy I headed off to DayClan. I don't know how Glowstar puts up with it - or Innocentia, or any of them. It seems like half the Clan is ex-League cats and I'm like, are you guys not going insane? Don't you wanna just lose it? Glowstar's all about protecting their innocence and I'm like, maybe you've got it the wrong way round. We have a whole group of trusting, naïve cats ripe for the picking - we should be corrupting them." Near the end of her tirade, Eshek, forgetting Bermondsey was there, had stopped high up on the pane of the cracked window and sat up on her hindlegs, and was now clutching at thin air with extended claws like she was about to crush some delicate, invisible thing, staring down with huge, manic eyes. She was trembling with passion.
She suddenly deflated and dropped back to all fours, the world returning to greyscale from where it had zeroed in to a bright red, heat-from-an-exhaust-pipe-quivering filter. "But whatever, right?" She knew she should have been perfectly content in DayClan - she'd always wanted to easy, happy life; now she had it! But she wasn't. Something was still missing. "Anyway~!" She exclaimed the word in a sing-song voice, leaping down into the warehouse and trotting merrily past Bermondsey. "This place is kinda cool, though," she continued, looking around at the soaring ceilings and the vast, echoing emptiness, littered with debris and dotted with tall, many-paned windows. "You could throw a sick party in here. I wouldn't come - I wouldn't be seen dead with a beta cuck like you - but it'd still be sick."
The tom smirked at that comment, amused by this perception she had of him. "Please don't tell me you took one look at me and decided I was one of those cats who think 'friendship saves the day' or something," he raised a brow at Eshek, before shaking his head with amusement. He lacked any type of humour really, everything had always just been a job to him.
He was, however, surprised to hear that Eshek didn't have any type of fondness for the place she now called home. "Oh, DayClan not hitting it hard enough for you?" he laughed, though his green eyes seemed to narrow for a moment, before glowing with that same intrigue at what Eshek was saying. A girl with a plan. As much as he respected Regulus, he was the reactive type, the kind who waited for things to happen rather than surging forward to meet them. It had always been easier to follow one who held action as a mantra; he had been trained like a soldier to do things, to fight and pillage and destroy. He couldn't help but think that if Eshek was still in the league, they'd certainly be able to cause plenty more chaos, keep the clans guessing on their feet as they did everything else under the tables.
Those thoughts went unspoken as he followed quickly behind, glancing to the warehouse, before raising a brow to Eshek. "A party?" he echoed, as if contemplating her words, before snorting at the fiery insult that came like clockwork, "yeah, as if I want to be with a 'pick me' girl like you?"
Still, a party would be...intriguing. "I guess that was your type of thing when you were still with the league then?" he asked dryly, "what's the point of a party anyway?" He had never lived where there were resources for that sort of thing; fight rings and battles, he was used to, parties? That was a different world.
Eshek just grinned along slyly to all Bermondsey's comments, stalking through the warehouse. Yeah, as if I want to be with a 'pick me' girl like you? She suddenly surged closer to the grey tom, pressing the bridge of her nose against his cheek and lowering her voice so it was breathy and roguish. "Shut up, you wanna kiss me so bad it's embarrassing." She let out a cackling little chuckle, gave Bermondsey a big, scratchy lick on his cheek, and slipped away.
"Oh, the parties I threw!" Eshek cried, suddenly collapsing on her back on the dusty floor and clawing at the far-off ceiling with one outstretched paw. "There used to be all sorts of parties in this city, but they were all very nouveau riche, y'know - no class. My parties, though! Back in the Mansion we had this great, huge ballroom and it was mine. Foreign Affairs used to be so lame but when I became proxy we had a killer party every week - literally!" She let out a shrieking cackle, wiggling about delightedly on the filthy floor at her own joke. She wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. "Oh, man, it was great."
What's the point of a party anyway? "Oh, Bermondsey, you sad, sad man. The point of a party is that there is no point. Blinding noise, blurry eyes, falling in love with strangers you'll never see again, herbs that make you forget who you are - it's the most perfect thing in the world. The only pure chaos. Glowstar thinks it's the unpredictable - well, here's all the unpredictability in the world. You never know who you're going to be by the time the sun comes up. I just hope meeting me hasn't come too late - I've heard you toms, with all your hormones and few braincells, have a little ticking clock inside you and once it hits a certain point," she shrugged, pulling back one side of her mouth in a 'whaddaya gonna do?' kinda expression, "sorry, bud, there's no helpin' ya."
She manoeuvred herself around on the floor with her hindpaws so she was facing Bermondsey, looking up at him upside down. "We should throw a party. Here. It's the perfect venue!" Her loud voice echoed through the empty warehouse. "I can help you find a nice she-cat, or a nice tom, and maybe you'll loosen up a little. There's more to life than being the perfect soldier, Ber - there's also shiny silver things that spin around on the ceiling and stuff that makes you throw up!"
