Another Unsuccessful Venture [open]

[BrightTail]

PetalHaze was about to exit the den, when Charredback's delicate voice broke through the silence. ”Alright, I’m sorry for being so… hypersensitive," PetalHaze hung her head down. She couldn't believe it! Charredback had no reason to apologize. All he did was give a reaction. PetalHaze was confused, but smiled at the apologetic tom.

She turned her head around and gazed lovingly at the tom. He looked so fantastic sitting there. His fur had beautiful features that she wished she had. Charredback seemed to waft into a sleep. PetalHaze let out a small chuckle and bounded towards his ear. Her next words were shocking, perhaps unbelievable. She had wanted to tell Charredback for quite some time. As PetalHaze moved her mouth, the delicate words drifted into the ear of dear Charredback. "I love you" PetalHaze gave a gentle lick on the ear and then turned around. She walked out of the den, returning to the stream to hunt and sunbathe some more.

As she arrived at the stream, she couldn't help but think about Charredback. She wondered about his reaction to her words. A small chuckle escaped her mouth. She felt like she could do back flips! PetalHaze jumped straight into the water, enjoying it's cooling effect. She sat in the shores, letting the gentle water sing to her.

Words: 216
Muse: LOWWW
Comments: I can't wait to see your post Char XD

[Lightstar]

”I love you.” It was the soft whisper the mother lied to her son as she groomed the grit from his tangled fur. Such a quiet, gentle, white little lie it was, a tiny three-word sentence said to satiate the youth who knew no better. Perhaps she never realized that the word “love” would be interpreted so twisted, would become so warped in the mind of the child. Did it have a meaning to anybody? It certainly had no meaning to her.

Instinctively, Charredback felt he was missing out on something, like there was an absence in the core of his being. He never thought to label it love, exactly. He was still a young cat, and affairs of the heart were far from his mind. When those three words, so empty when they rang through his mind, fluttered into his ear, spoken by a voice that tumbled with the excitement of barely-contained confession, they meant nothing. Initially, anyway.

The tom had already been drifting to sleep, but the sound roused him slightly. Confused, he was about to flick his ear, to send the strange vibration of noise spiraling from his ear, but then there was the warm wetness of a tongue flicking across that very ear. A mind that was muddled with sleep went absolutely still for a second; as it floundered in a sea of thoughts that tried to lift the tom to wakefulness, its desperate paddling stilled, and he began to sink back to his stupor. For an unknowable reason, though, his heart began to flutter within his muscular chest, a wild bird caged in the confines of his ribs. Muscles were stilled even as the blood that powered them surged through the tom’s veins, burning, urging him to realize… something. There was something just beyond the grasp of understanding of his drifting mind, so wrapped up in his shame and unhappiness, that seemed essential. The empty heart knew it, and sent its messengers to alert the brain. Still, it wasn’t until the she-cat who so roused the emotion of the tom had exited the den that Charredback’s mind clawed back to the surface and he lifted his head to stare after the beige tail that quickly flicked out of his vision.

“I love you.” His mouth formed the words though no voice echoed from his throat. They were empty words, words with no meaning, words his brain had nearly deposited into forgetfulness. Yet somehow he clung to them, and as wakefulness returned, the tom’s eyes of liquid gold widened into bright yellow coins.

“Love” was not exactly an empty word, for it had a definition. It meant something like powerful affection, didn’t it?

Did this mean that Petalhaze felt affectionate towards him?

What an incredible, peculiar, disturbing thought! A frown appeared on his muzzle and his eyes narrowed again. Charredback couldn’t have understood that correctly. Petalhaze did not feel affectionate towards him. She was his rival, after all, his tormentor, his competitor, that friend that you liked but you argued with all the time. Perhaps… perhaps she merely meant they were friends. Yet since when did ordinary friends go around saying they love each other? Never in Charredback’s memory had such a phenomenon occurred.

But hadn’t he already established that he misunderstood? Perhaps his weary ears had been fooled by a thought that melted into a dream. No, he knew that his thought was mistaken. Petalhaze was the rival of Charredback. She couldn’t love him.

As Charredback rested his head back on his bedding, wishing himself to sleep once more, a last thought flickered across his conscience: She couldn’t love him.