they speak to me | vinedapple & the ghosts

Like a tapestry born from mist, Shadepool melted from the shadows of looming, manmade structures, glinting cold and metallic in stark contrast to the earthy, living texture of the rolling woodlands beyond. Each building seemed to stand like a guard, posted in a vigil no cat could ever comprehend nor emphasize with. It was the land of the enemy, through and through, where the heartbeat of the great wilds was replaced with the all-consuming rumble of monsters and mechanics that shook the hard, artificial landscape, sending vibrations across the roads like a disruptive splash now rippling across once still waters. She'd never been anywhere like it. Had hoped to never correct that good fortune, quite honestly. But luck only got you so far, once you'd already made the mistake of dying. He was only comforted knowing that this, like everything, would become another foggy memory in the tangled mess he called time.

There was no need to search very far. Somehow, a force beyond her understanding seemed to tug at the husk of her spirit, compelling her onwards, onwards, into the concrete jungle.. and to the clanmate she was once bound. A kinship that withstood even the tumultuous, threatening changes of twoleg encroachment. A chill ran through her ghostly pelt, rolling the blue of her backbone into a tumbling river. The momentum of the movement overtook her- and once more, Shadepool was whisked across the world in a transit of unknown design. A deconstruction of the self, pulled under the swells of reality until, at last, with the force of a heaving breath he no longer needed, he was spat out once more. Hauled from the invisible realm that composed his abstract purgatory, the warrior's form manifested once more, peeling from a pocket dimension and solidifying into roughly the estimated shape of a cat, albeit dripping strangely across the scrub of the false lawn.

Catching glimpse of Vinedapple seemed to finish the job for her. The ghost's oozing seemed to revert, crawling back inwards on itself, closing the fuzzy edges of her shifting state of self, and then, and then, mended like a wound... his features finished sharpening, his ears refined into their true, stable silhouette. His face at last knit together.

It was nice to feel grounded again. For a few moments, floundering around out there, she'd almost forgotten who she was. But with the former medic so close xeir pulse seemed to emit a palpable throb, emitting precious, precious life force- Well, it served as a nice reminder. A thousand memories were carried in their paws, after all, which had tended so many of Shadepool's injuries and ailments. Those memories alone were enough to resurface his fragile identity. To remind him what he was here for.

With only a slight waver overlaying her pelt, cast in the veneer of a watery reflection, he moved in quick paces for the opening where Sunclan's lost member lingered, ignoring any possibility of alarm. No matter the reason for Vinedapple's fate, there was a greater destiny at stake. That of the entire Celestial territories as they both knew it. And if there was one thing he knew, it's that he'd give his afterlife a thousand times over if it meant protecting his clanmates one more time. It gave him a certainty, on those final few pawsteps, that seemed to deepen the opacity of his pelt, filling in its strange transparency until he was naught more than a thick fog. Still squintably not quite right, but just enough all there to skew any questioning. Questions didn't solve anything, anyway, and he certainly had no answers. What a pitiful mentor I've become.

Shadepool leapt to the ledge right across from chestnut healer, barred only by that strange barrier. The impact made no resounding thud. Face to face with another lost soul, she considered him.