When your world cracks When your heart is broken When you feel as if you’ll never be whole again Do you frown and cry? Scream and rage? Or do you put on a happy face, And laugh And smile And cover up Do you hide your emotions? Viecroypaw was content. That had always been the case, in full honesty, a contentment that came from the strength he drew from his own smile, the joy he felt when he laughed, the power he drew from the high emotions of both himself and others. The emotions joy had always been star-bent on inducing in others from the day Delphine had brought him to camp. The day that the simple pronouns of he/him had no longer been enough, the day ‘joy’ truly described Ceroy more than anything in the world. But that had been moons ago. Moons before he truly understood the world, moons before he became an apprentice. Moons before now. Other cats had changed drastically in that time, learned to be smarter, faster, stronger, stealthier, and wiser than joy in the space of those moons, as few as they were to a full grown cat. But Viceroy had stayed the same. Not learnt any real lessons. Simply taken from the preypile without thinking about where the prey came from. Played with kits without truly thinking about what they got from the game. Listened to Delphine’s instructions without thinking about why they may be just a little bit more than words. That they might be important. How, Viceroypaw faced hunger, in the fact that Delphine was no longer feeding him, and in the fact that he had not cared to learn to hunt, to even prepare himself for the outer world. Delphine had smiled. Smiled when she spoke of the old MossClan, the one that had failed. Smiled when she made the kits apprentices, when she sentenced them to fend for themselves. It made Viceroy sick. If smiles were joy and happiness, then what was Delphine’s? Delphine wasn’t evil, so that could only mean one thing; smiles could lie. And if smiles, erosian’s source of strength, the only thing he was good at, the only thing he thought he truly understood, could lie, then that meant everything else could. And would. Because why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you put on a happy face, and draw strength from fake emotions? This made joy feel sicker. Smiles were lies. No, could be lies. And if that was a possibility, then what were the smiles Viceroy had received from others? Expressions of wonder, or masks of a faker? The truth shattered him as the realisation sunk in. What if he didn’t make cats happy? What if he made them have to cover up? Viceroy found joy’s paws taking himself out of camp, towards the forest. He cried out in his emotion, before suddenly tripping over, and landing in a bed of thorns. It hurt. Stars it hurt. The thorns were each a smile, deadly and sharp, hiding so much underneath. They belonged to every cat he had ever met, and the vines were Delphine, smiling as he sentenced joy to hunger, as his world broke. They wrapped around the young cat as he struggled, unable to escape. Red patches began to appear, but only a little, like tears Viceroy was not able to release from his eyes, for the pain was too great. He took a step froward, wondering what awful thing he must have done to deserve this, what awful thing his clanmate’s had done. Because Viceroypaw was not content. And the thorns in his pelt bound him to the truth, unable to escape from. He would not try. He could not. For his smile, the source of strength, for the first time in his life, had left him. And joy was not planning to wear that mask for a long time to come.
