lavellan
for windswept and dawn <3


The moon shone brilliantly in the sky that night, unfiltered by clouds, outshining the stars. It was large and white and burning, and it felt like it was staring right into him. Like one single white eye that was ever watching, waiting; her glare some cosmic, unknowable judgement. 

Windsweptashes shook his fur, as if somehow it could shake off the pale white light that filtered onto his pelt. No use, of course, it was still there, and so was that endless sense of being watched. He had never felt it before, that sense that he was being constantly seen, constantly under scrutiny. Perhaps it was all just an illusion built from the authority and the new acknowledgement that came from his position, maybe it was all the religious ferver getting to him, making him wonder if he, without doing anything, was a sinner too in some silent, unknowable way. That would be awful, that would be horrid, he was the one cats came to confess to; if he wasn't the example, who would be?

He'd never really believed in Selene before, not really. He thought she was real, but though he'd never admit it now he had always felt her to be a cruel goddess. Harsh, capricious, merciless. "Selene's mercy." That was touched on in every prayer, but she didn't seem to have much mercy, much sympathy or compassion. Not with so many dead at her paws. Not with so many bodies burned away to somewhere, who knows where -- only the divines did. Only Puzzlemaker. And Windsweptashes was no more the wiser. 

He was normally so busy he could push those thoughts aside, pretend he was fine. That this was normal. That he was good and goddly and that he could be exactly what Selene, Puzzlemaker, and Moonclan itself needed. But he knew without a doubt in quiet moments like this it was a lie, or at the very least a show. The muteness of the night got to him, or perhaps how routine and mundance it felt, slipping into his old job of checking the borders. He had done this before not but a few moons ago, when everything had been normal, when the term The Culling wasn't a soft, hushed word on the edge of everyone's tongues. The only difference was now there was no patrol; he was too nervous after the last one's events to trust the gaggle of teens and children that now made up the majority of Moonclan to do it alone, and he cared too much about them to risk it even with him around. But why couldn't he bring them around, why couldn't he risk a short patrol? It was so quick, so meaningless, so mundane, what could happen with an adult at the helm? Perhaps it was the crushing guilt; there was always crushing guilt. They were parentless, mentorless, loveless and guidanceless bar for himself and so few other cats. And he wanted to do everything for them, and it always felt like even when he gave his everything, he was doing nothing. 

The canopy thickened; for the first time in the while, the light of the moon had been drowned out by shadows. He lingered in it a moment, it was a short relief.