Username: Arrikanez
Cat Name: Hope Within Tears
Gender: Male
Rank: Knight
Clan: The Dark CarnivalAge: 3.2
Prompt:Hope wandered aimlessly along the sandspit, his ears somewhat at half-mast as well as his tail, as he busied himself with
something in the sand. His brief time on this plane, and already he was starting to wish he wasn't quite so.. isolated. Sure, Viperstar and the others were fine company - but his heart belonged to one, and only one. One whom he'd do anything to bring back, like he was brought back. Carrying a rose carefully, delicately, avoiding the sharp thorns, he crossed from the thicket in which he had stored the flower, to the small shrine where he had piled the other things. Tomorrow, they would be washed away by the tide's waters, but today, they served as a reminder.
"Happy Valentine's Day, love." Hope stated, laying the rose on the pile of pretty shells, and small animal teeth. There were also some nice chunks of colorful metal in the mix, and some pretty painted glass, and a couple of beautiful stones he'd managed to sift out from the rubble around the sandy banks. Once he had placed the rose, he sat in front of the pile, and canted his head to one side, remembering. "I miss you every day, Val." he murmured quietly. "Ever since I came here to this forsaken place. I don't remember much about my snake life - I just know Chroma made me one. But now... as a cat, I... I wish you were here." he heaved a sigh. "It reminds me of that one other time we celebrated our love, you know? Granted, that was a lot of drinking, and a lot of
other things that I wouldn't necessarily have done if it hadn't been your idea." Hope chuckled a bit at the thought.
"I thought... for a while... about just walking into the sea, you know. Leaving this place behind? Because I didn't want to be anywhere that you weren't. It just didn't seem worth it. But then I remembered how much we used to talk about what would happen if one of us died - to poison, to bullets, even to our boss's knife. I remembered you saying that you'd want me to live, just to spite whatever twist of dumb fate caused us to be separated in the first place. So I stay. I stay for you. I stay for us. Because you
didn't. And something about that is okay, because there's me left." The brown-striped cat paused here, and reached out a paw to rest delicately on a purple piece of glass. His mind wandered back to a moment when the both of them had been alive, enjoying their jobs, back to back and having the time of their lives. He grinned.
"I know he can't say it, but Ian's here. You'd die laughing. He turned into a cat! Imagine that. He can't say his own name. Heck, I can't say my own name. None of us can - Chroma took that ability from us. But it's definitely him. Which gives me vague hope that this Chroma character can pull from time as well as dimensions. So maybe we'll see each other again. Especially if I can see Ian now. Or... get this... 'Viperstar'. It's some stupid naming convention for cats that I never heard of when I woke up here. I can't say my own name, but I was told to call myself Hope Within Tears. Most people- er... Cats... around here just call me 'Hope', which is fine by me. The other name is a mouthful."
Hope pushed himself to his feet, and started to pace around the memorial shrine, closing his eyes and leaning against the wind - almost imagining he could feel Valisk's hands brushing through the fur around his face, whispering into his ear that it would be alright, that everything would be fine. Then calling him dumb for worrying in the first place. Tears started to trickle down Hope's face, and he dipped his head, and lifted his right paw to swipe them away with a nervous, shaky laugh.
"I'll bet they'd name you something stupid too - if you woke up here as a cat. Wouldn't care, though. I know you wouldn't. You'd just take it in stride, and march right up to Ian, and call him by name." he snorted. "Would confuse the
heck out of Fortune's End, and Luck of the Draw, though - not to mention Depth Strider. Yeah - there's others here. Fortune's a sweetheart. Dating someone out of the group, though. Some tom named Bullheart. Sounds like a standup guy. The kind of guy the likes of US would have shanked twice on a Tuesday, and walked away laughing." Once again, he paused, a lump forming in his throat. It took a few minutes to gather himself, and he steadied his voice as he spoke again.
"Listen to me going on. It was YOU that was the motor-mouth. I'm just rambling without a cause. Hey, that would probably be a better name for me. Rambler Without A Cause. Makes just as much sense as the other." He barked out a laugh, and gestured to the whole area with his paw. "Wouldn't that be something - I could go around re-naming the other cats. Uh, but maybe I won't. The Power That Be here, Chroma, seems to think it's a bad omen to go renaming ourselves. He's some sort of god, and I don't
particularly want to land on his bad side! It's bad enough being stuck in a cat. I didn't even like cats, I was more of a dog person. Oh, but you'd love this."
Turning, he walked a few paces the other way, and stopped with a paw up, before looking at the sky and the rising sun. "It WOULD serve that I'm here talking to you before the sun's even up. But I couldn't really sleep. With what day it is and all. You know I wanted to take you to that dessert place. The next time we had off. The one that served the starberry tartlets? Heh. You probably would have just asked for the recipe, and then made them
ad nauseum until Ian, I, or Laur asked you to stop." Here, he snickered with the thought, and turned the other direction, crossing to the largish rock platform nearer to the ocean, and climbing up on it. He sat there, and glanced back toward the memorial.
"Coming here in the wee hours of the morning would have been something YOU would have done." he stated, and then lifted a paw as though someone was about to interrupt him. "Ah, no no no. You know you would have. Don't give me that." Another snort. "Then you would have done something sappy and sweet like ask me if I was tired from running through your head all night. Your puns always were the worst, although they made me smile in a world where there wasn't much to smile about..." He trailed off, and looked at his claws for a moment, contemplating what to say next.
"... I loved you, Val." he muttered. "I never outright
said it. There wasn't time. So much to do, so many people trying to kill us or take advantage of us, but I did. Even after you... after you died." This part was hard. Remembering the hurt, the hole in his heart, the last image he had of him when he was still named Trek, holding a shot and dying Val in his arms. "I got them, though." he said, dropping his head. "I hunted every last one of those suckers down for what they did to you. Every single one. Does that make me a bad person? Probably. Vengeful? Yeah. But it was worth it. I could never have imagined having someone like you in my life. And it wasn't the same after that, either."
He gave another sigh, this one softer, sadder, facing out toward the cresting waves where the red sun was painting everything with blood. "I died too. I mean, obviously, or I wouldn't be here... but it was much later. Taking a bullet for Ian. Dumb kid got in the way of some really high-end weaponry. At least it didn't hurt much. Not as much as losing you did. There's something else - something I forgot, or was forced to forget. Between then and now. But it's not important, I don't think." The mottled tom gave a light shake of his head, and closed his eyes again.
"If you came back to me, even in cat form - I think I'd recognize you immediately. So if you wanted to do that... or if... if you're listening, Chroma, if you wanted to go fetch him for me? That'd be grand."
Hearing no reply from either side, Hope rose from his position on the rock, and stretched out, claws digging into the solid surface, and tail arching over his back. Once that was finished, he at least physically felt a little better, even if there was an ache in his chest, where it always was. That, would probably never go away. But at least he could look on it as something he would always have to remember his partner by.
"Anyway... Happy V-Day, Val." he said again, dipping his head toward the memorial. "I should go head out on morning patrol before Ia-... I mean 'Viperstar' wakes up. But... I'll come back and say goodnight to you. Just like always." He moved to touch his nose to the largest rock in the pile. "Hope you're having a blast wherever you are. Enjoy the rose, yeah? I know you liked 'em." With a soft purr to whoever may or may not be listening, he took one last look at the memorial, sighed again, and then marched off with a renewed energy to attend to the patrols around Chroma's land of rusted blood and steel.
