Hawkpaw :(( Kudos if you remember him I was feeling motivated to write SO instead of doing a Fifi srp I've been needing to get out I wrote a small Hawkpaw thing instead :hearteyes: Not my best work but I got the point across, enjoy reading ig Ignore the lack of anything in the actual project I was too lazy to draw anything The quotes are from the song Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons, they’re supposed to be his inner turmoil of sorts, he’s not actually speaking them aloud (I just noticed how that could be confusing so I wanted to state that here lol) ____ The moon hung in the midnight sky like a distant, uncaring god as a fleeting hazel shape darted through the dense forest, his heart heavy with sorrow. His escape from the clan had unleashed a storm of emotions that raged within him. The memories of his mother's agonizing death during his own birth, his father's callous abandonment, and the clan's relentless rejection tore at him with every step. “Weep for yourself, lion man, you’ll never be what is in your heart,” The young outcast known as Hawkpaw sprinted through the shadows, trying to outrun the ghosts of his past, but they clung to him like a curse. His heart, aching and heavy, thudded painfully in his chest, each beat a reminder of the pain he was fleeing. His breath came in ragged gasps as he pushed himself harder, desperate to leave it all behind. “Weep, little lion man, you’re not as brave as you were at the start…” Yet, despite his speed, he couldn't escape the feeling that he was being watched. The hidden eyes and teeth of the forest seemed to nip at his heels, to judge him, condemning him for his very existence. It was as though the world of the night itself had turned against him, making his escape a nightmarish journey. “Rate yourself and rake yourself, take all the courage you have left,” Hours passed, and his body screamed with exhaustion. His lungs burned like the fire of the Dark Forest, his legs threatened to give way, but he refused to relent. The forest whispered cruel secrets, and the night pressed in on him, relentless in its pursuit. It felt like a never-ending torment. Then, as he rounded a small hill, his strength finally gave out, and he fell to the ground. His tears flowed freely as he cried out into the night, his voice a raw, anguished plea to the indifferent stars. He cursed them, cursed his fate, and wondered where he had gone wrong in a life that had always seemed to be a relentless cycle of pain and rejection. “And waste it on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head.” As his sobs wracked his body, he slowly gathered his strength and climbed to the top of the incline. His heart still ached, but the tears had cleansed his soul in some small way. From the hill's summit, he gazed out at the distant Twoleg cities, their lights like distant beacons in the night, a silent hum of a reminder there was so much open world beyond the clans. “It was not your fault, but mine, it was your heart on the line…” With the hawk's feather his aunt had gifted him clutched tightly to his heart, he contemplated his uncertain future. The world stretched out before him, beautiful and cruel, and he wondered what it held in store. But he knew that he could no longer bear the weight of the past, and he was determined to rise above it. This single feather was his connection to his mother, a symbol of a love that had been taken too soon. As he gazed out into the unknown, he whispered his promise to himself and to the stars above, vowing to find his place in a world that had tested his spirit and to prove that he was not defined by the pain of his past. To prove them all wrong. “I really messed it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?” And to prove that this was but the start of his story. “Didn’t I, my dear…?”
