Paint it Over | Retro Turtle & Daisy Dreamland

I said it, not me.

The very meticulous phrasing had been lost on her, somehow. With just a flip of the word, the statement had been reinvented, all for the sake of one cat spilling her heart out like he'd pull it out by force otherwise. It was a bold declaration. Something heartfelt, something vulnerable, on the brink of criminal confession which Turtlefang had never been afforded. It was, perhaps, a hint of something he would have wanted in some other life.

But for here, and now, he received Daisyfire's words with staunch silence, head tilting in sheer fascination as he trailed about softhearted words like weaving a morning cobweb. Glittering and detailed, delicate in the precision of every chosen word in spite of his claims of a modest tongue. Just as easy to tear apart.

Turtlefang wondered what it meant that he'd be given this dream, so desperately earnest and affectionate in a way that was so uncommon for anything outside of his deepest memories. It was tragically abnormal. It was tragically pathetic. I'm above this. I'm above you. The last thing he needed was an imaginary friend to prop up his bruised self worth. Not because it wasn't weakened, but because it meant acknowledging that weakness in the first place. And that, more than anything, only perpetuated the cycle. It is so sad, he almost said to himself- the cat standing across from him. That I'd think of you at all, in this image, in this place, and with these ideas. I don't want to hear it. Those words, so carefully constructed to dismantle his heart, were little more than traps to shame him come morning.

And so, with the empty gesture of a solemn smile, he indulged again. A passive agreement to live and let live, just get through it, get through it, and don't let hollow kindness carve out your soul. "We may." With eyes still not quite seeing, not quite acknowledging, he looked towards the puddle once more, at the soft gleam of petals within. A brightness he could not embody. "What do you want to do, then? Since time is so precious."

"That so?" If there was one thing Turtlefang could use after a declaration like the last one, still hanging thick in the air between them, it was something to knock the wind right out of him till he could think with nothing else but his claws. There was no need to waste his breath telling a figment all of Sunclan's secrets, after all. She knew just as much as he did, no more no less, and while his general plan had been to follow the flow of the dream, it was getting more than tiring humoring the antics of someone who should know that he knew that she knew what he knew that they both knew. Tired of affection that meant nothing now nor ever, because he'd wake up and see it all slip away. Not that it's much different in the waking world either.

Transience was a fickle truth to wrangle with. He preferred not to challenge it, and perhaps, the way Daisyfire was suddenly talking so conscientiously about the loose laws of their reality, he was growing tired of it, too.

Good. We can finally make this mean something.

An immediate glint entered his eyes, hardened and narrowed in a singular warning preceding his drop to the earth into a tight hunting posture. Then, with the urgency of pinning a living threat, the tortie sprung at the other in the same motion, aimed with the perfect accuracy of a warrior who had all of Starclan's will on their side.

Definitely a dream, at this rate. (d20)

..Nonetheless, for some reason or another, his claws remained sheathed when his paws met the first touch of the Moonclan cat's wavy pelt, cushioning the pressure of his tackle as he gripped with intent to topple. Somewhere in the midst of his adrenaline, he experienced a strange sense of deja vu. He vowed to break it.

Brow quirking, Turtlefang didn't respond to the compliment, merely watching the unimpressive struggle of the cat now firmly locked beneath him. How had it even been possible to miss that counter? Even in this position, thoroughly toppled, it was possible to recover. Easy, even, with the form of your attacker left vulnerable above. Suppose it's a reminder I should've handled the back legs. Sneaky behavior like that would no longer be permitted. Enforcing his one-strike policy, he shifted his haunches, and punished the attempt with a firm kick of his own to the offending leg.

"Honestly," He murmured, a smugness playing at the edge of his mouth in the starting hint of a smile. "I guess even at your fittest, there's no advantage that can compensate for Moonclan training. I could almost be disappointed..." Where he stood perfectly grounded over the other tom, he made no move to attack Daisyfire further. With a heedless fascination, Turtlefang tilted his head in a warped semblance of apprentice's curiosity, seemingly content just to watch the efforts of his opponent, wriggling about like prey beneath a hunter's toying paws. A fly with plucked wings. Enjoying the power a little too much, his tail took up a musing sway, brushing slowly back and forth in an upturned arc just shy of tickling his enemy's flank. "What will you do, now?"

For his credit, it wasn't the comment that shocked him out of his balance. Rather, in a swift move, Daisyfire's head had collided with his, giving his eyes only a second to widen in calculation before the impact sent him reeling. With a low growl, Turtlefang felt himself fall back before he saw the sky upturn. It was hard to tell, with the stars still clearing from his head from that initial bump. They danced about like taunting voyeurs, gleaming brighter as his stomach flipped with gravity, tossed about like a mouse swatted from the ground and caught from below by a waiting ambush. Too slow, came the feedback from his mind, just late enough to land with a feeble thud. Or maybe that's just me. The spots in his vision cleared out, extinguished until nothing remained of them but the darkness they'd once overlain, a dazzling indigo giving way to distant glints of spacial secrets untold. The night sky with none of the threats, no celestial glimmers to laugh in his face. But, it'd just been daylight a short while ago... Surely the comfort of darkness couldn't arrive so swiftly, not even in his best dreams.

Oh, it was just her again.

Coming out of his stun to finally process the shape of Daisyfire's eyes, Turtlefang's own refocused, emerging from the abyss with a hard swipe for his attacker's shoulders- skimming just off-course to smack harmlessly at the dangle of the other's ears. (d5) Wincing slightly with a disapproval that far outweighed physical strain, his forelimbs slithered down for the time being to wrap idly around the tan fur of hers, locking his paws into place beneath the back of each arm in silent potential. Then, with a studious glance, weighing his chances- he yanked hard, drawing the other cat down into him for a new bout of grappling. (d18) If I can't dislodge you, you'll come down here. As he pulled the other inwards, dragging Daisyfire's pin into a close wrestle, he already began to gear himself for a dirtier attack. "You'll be sorry," He breathed, not altogether sure he was talking about, but resolute nonetheless, even with the brush of fur on fur stalling him a heartbeat longer than he might've preferred. If headbutts were on the table, then...

There comes a crossroads in many cats' lives where they are made to choose between two very different options- Often, it challenges the core of one's very being, calling into question an individual's virtues and priorities as an internal conflict is brought to light. In his own life, Turtlefang had been presented with many of these. For just a heartbeat, caught in the moment as he planned his next move, those choices seemed to flicker through his mind. His mother's funeral. His argument with his siblings. Even instances of his own insubordination. They all assembled a particular truth, and it surfaced at the forefront of his contemplation in the slow second it took him to lightly flex his grasp. The subtle tension was enough reveal the tips of his claws, poised at the ends of Daisyfire's pelt to strike down unfairly. But what is fair, in a dream? Neither of us are real.

At the end of every decision of every day, he knew as well as anyone else. He only worked to his own ends, and he had no qualms about hurting others in the process. Even in this microcosm of choice, that core facet of his identity was already activated, already deciding before he could that he'd tear into false flesh and tear apart this meaningless illusion with it. To win, and see Moonclan blood splatter like poppy petals across his paws. That sounded like a pleasant dream.

But the resonance of laughter against his skin was just as pleasant.

Unfamiliar. Dangerous, probably, even here in a world without consequence. The stars would know, like they always did. It warranted destruction, because so much as a seed of softness could invite his ruin, smearing his name even more than he'd already done by his own means. These things needed to be squashed, these fanciful dreams and hopes that amounted to nothing but ache and led careless sinners astray. Cats who earned nothing, deserved even less, and would inevitably get what was coming to them when karma's hounds came baying on their scent trails. For someone meant to die under the culmination of pain he'd caused others, there could be no humoring the gentle and unassuming. There couldn't be toying around with an enemy warrior like old nestmates, because it made the sentence worse, and Daisyfire or not, it tore something uncomfortable in his chest to remember, remember, remember just how infrequently he ever played around, because who would want to? After everything he'd said, everything he kept saying and doing, there was nothing. Nothing. And.

When his tail hit against him, a meaningless point of contact, he found himself folding. Because for all he knew better, there was something painful in attacking someone this innocent. Not because he wasn't cruel enough- he'd done plenty worse before to his own kin, echoing now somewhere inside, do you think you can forget? But.

She was just playing. And if they both knew what it meant, they already knew how empty a gesture it was for him to treat this like he would real life. Enacting proper vengeance meant nothing here, and it only exposed just how far he'd fallen to have humored something so sadistically indulgent. To succumb to that base drive like a fox panting for the kill- You're sick, you know? What a hole to fall into.

..It's probably what he wants to bait me with, anyway.