✕ POLTERGEIST ✕ Witheringr̶o̶s̶e̶wraith SRP (TFCRP)

Instructions

✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕ Rosepaw. /Rosepaw./ The name tasted like bile and rot on Witheringrose's tongue as she stumbled out of RiverClan's camp. As she went she angrily ripped the flowers that had decorated her fur away, casting their petals to the ground like splatters of blood in the grass. Her vision blurred, and she stubbornly blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. /Don't let him have that satisfaction./ How could she be so blind? She'd seen it in him from the very beginning—that look in his eyes, the one that so resembled the way Rhapsodyfever had looked at her when he told her she looked just like her older brother. And yet she'd trusted Columbinesong anyway—loved him like the father she'd so desperately wanted and needed—and for what? Because he had smiled at her? Because he laughed at her jokes instead of staring down at her with regret? How could he speak to her so calmy while she danced with roses in her fur, have the gall to look her in the eye when she received her warrior name? He'd said she was his daughter, called her his little flower. She should have known he wasn't talking about her. She should have known that he was just like Rhapsodyfever. Rottie paid no attention to her direction as she ran further into RiverClan's territory. All that mattered was that she was going /away/. Eventually she made it to a small stream, and almost in a trance she stopped to look down at her reflection. The swirling water twisted her shape in grotesque ways, smudging out her panting mouth and pulling at the fur on her cheeks until she was nothing more than a swirling blob. Desperately she pulled her bangs back away from her eyes, needing to see some clear part of her reflection, but all she saw was two blue chips half-hidden behind her paw. Her ragged breathing took on a sharper pant. Savantpaw, Rosepaw. Witheringrose had kicked and screamed her way through life, lashing out and pulling pranks and leaving trails of /me, me, me/ across every path she walked. She'd tried her very hardest to be someone to remember, someone unmistakable and bold, but no matter how hard she tried others saw someone else in her place. What was it about her that made them see only a ghost? Witheringrose slammed her paw into the water suddenly like she was possessed, disgust and panic and something indiscernible shrinking her pupils to slits. Desperately and a little hysterically she cast about for something, anything, to change her reflection, to make sure no one would ever look at her and see another ever again. The first thing her paw hit was a rock. Blood welled up from where her paw scraped against the stone. Her gaze snapped to the sharp object in a single second of clarity, where she mentally recalled what Rhapsodyfever had described Savantpaw to look like. One second, and then she was taking the stone to her fur, slicing and pulling at her bangs with caterwauls of anguish and rage until there was nothing left for the stone to cut. Tufts of fur littered the pebbles around her as she stood, panting, staring at the ground unseeing for a moment before looking to her reflection once more. The ice-blue eyes in the water stared back up at her like will o' wisps. A fit of hysterical, helpless laughter bubbled up from her chest. Was she just a haunted creature? The thought filled her with rage all over again; the ghosts who wore her fur like a veil had been put there against her will. But if Rhapsodyfever and Columbinesong thought she would be their perfect replacement child, then they had another thing coming. Witheringwraith would be the one doing the haunting from now on, and she was going to make everyone pay. "YOU WANT A GHOST?!" Her voice was raw and broken, but she screamed like she could make her fathers hear her all the way back in camp. "THEN I'LL BE A GHOST! I'LL BE A POLTERGEIST!" Witheringwraith would be a demon if that's what it took. ". . . I'll make you see me." The only answer was the faraway call of a loon as her caterwauls gave way to tears. ✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕✕