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Pastel was a wanderer by heart.
She came and left as she pleased and never hung around for more than a week before she was off on her way again to go someplace new, and boy did she go places. Every visit was filled with hugs and laughter and warmth, and the girl never failed to carry gifts with her when she appeared. Pastel brought with her mellow presence many books for her father, each with a note handwritten in ink just inside the cover, and for her brother she brought many assortments of plant specimens he had never laid eyes on before. For the both of them she presented intricate stories of the sights she had seen and the people she had met. In a way, Crow envied her for it.
When their reunion was all over, like always the rosy-hued feline would be off on her way again to conquer new grounds, and she would walk out the door with a cheerful goodbye and a promise that she would be back home very, very soon. Crow believed her. Someone as capable and headstrong as Pastel would surely be dandy on her own, so he did not find reason to worry when she was away for extended periods of time. It was just the usual.
As the feline passed the junkyard, he caught wind of the same smell that had emanated from the heaps of scrap for the previous week, and like yesterday and the day before he paid no mind to it. It was a junkyard after all. Things in junkyards always smelled unpleasant, be it the rusted metal after a rainfall or the carcasses of rats buried in the filth. He shook his head and continued on his way, but something nagged at the back of his head. A sigh escaping his lips, he poked at the chain fence, searching for a weak point with his socked paws, and he would slide beneath the barrier with a wince as he left behind a tuft of his pelt behind on a jagged point. Crow needed to figure out what that smell was.
As soon as the feline entered the junkyard, he would spot a cluster of corvids tussling over scraps on the ground in front of him, and a noise of annoyance rose from his throat as he walked forward to scare them away with an irate shout. As expected, the birds launched themselves into the air in a cacophony of squawks, but what he was not prepared for in the slightest was what rested beneath the cover of their dark feathers. A figure. A painstakingly familiar figure.
Crow felt as if he had prodded into fresh concrete as he willed his legs to take him closer, a sense of cold dread overtaking his form. A paw stretched forward to touch the corpse, and a patch of its rosy-hued fur freed itself from its pathetic hold on the corpse's withered skin.
Pastel.
An overbearing sensation of nausea washed over the tomcat, and he stumbled backwards and retched painfully onto the soil by his feet, then felt his body sink to the ground as rapid, wheezy breaths overtook him. She was dead. She was fucking dead, and it was his fault for not being there.
You did this to her.
Claustrophobia, then nothing. Crow stared blankly at the ground beside the body of his daughter, unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to do anything.
Pastel was a wanderer by heart.
She came and left as she pleased and never hung around for more than a week before she was off on her way again to go someplace new, and boy did she go places. Every visit was filled with hugs and laughter and warmth, and the girl never failed to carry gifts with her when she appeared. Pastel brought with her mellow presence many books for her father, each with a note handwritten in ink just inside the cover, and for her brother she brought many assortments of plant specimens he had never laid eyes on before. For the both of them she presented intricate stories of the sights she had seen and the people she had met. In a way, Crow envied her for it.
When their reunion was all over, like always the rosy-hued feline would be off on her way again to conquer new grounds, and she would walk out the door with a cheerful goodbye and a promise that she would be back home very, very soon. Crow believed her. Someone as capable and headstrong as Pastel would surely be dandy on her own, so he did not find reason to worry when she was away for extended periods of time. It was just the usual.
As the feline passed the junkyard, he caught wind of the same smell that had emanated from the heaps of scrap for the previous week, and like yesterday and the day before he paid no mind to it. It was a junkyard after all. Things in junkyards always smelled unpleasant, be it the rusted metal after a rainfall or the carcasses of rats buried in the filth. He shook his head and continued on his way, but something nagged at the back of his head. A sigh escaping his lips, he poked at the chain fence, searching for a weak point with his socked paws, and he would slide beneath the barrier with a wince as he left behind a tuft of his pelt behind on a jagged point. Crow needed to figure out what that smell was.
As soon as the feline entered the junkyard, he would spot a cluster of corvids tussling over scraps on the ground in front of him, and a noise of annoyance rose from his throat as he walked forward to scare them away with an irate shout. As expected, the birds launched themselves into the air in a cacophony of squawks, but what he was not prepared for in the slightest was what rested beneath the cover of their dark feathers. A figure. A painstakingly familiar figure.
Crow felt as if he had prodded into fresh concrete as he willed his legs to take him closer, a sense of cold dread overtaking his form. A paw stretched forward to touch the corpse, and a patch of its rosy-hued fur freed itself from its pathetic hold on the corpse's withered skin.
Pastel.
An overbearing sensation of nausea washed over the tomcat, and he stumbled backwards and retched painfully onto the soil by his feet, then felt his body sink to the ground as rapid, wheezy breaths overtook him. She was dead. She was fucking dead, and it was his fault for not being there.
You did this to her.
Claustrophobia, then nothing. Crow stared blankly at the ground beside the body of his daughter, unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to do anything.