Loners
Posts: 28
Pronouns: she/they
Played By: sunni
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Post by cherryfire on Jan 4, 2023 17:55:23 GMT -6
The days since the gathering weighed heavy on Cherryfire's chest, feeling as though her lungs would give way at any moment. Rabbitstar, in his rage, attacked Pansystar under the peace order of the silver moon. Worse yet, Honeyflare lashed out at his own leader, attacking them and ultimately leading to his own banishment. Oatswirl jumped ship with him. Her Clan was falling apart as she knew it. This wasn't how they were raised, her and Skylarkbee. SunClan was the Clan of the righteous and the great. Noble warriors who stood their ground and defended what was right. Nothing Cherryfire had seen in the past few moons was anything like that. So on a cold leaf-bare night were the moon shone silver on soft snow and bitter winds raced through the fields of the territory, she found herself away from the warmth and protection of SunClan's camp. Bitter regret clawed at her stomach. Cherryfire had been unhappy in SunClan for so long, they knew this and had come to terms with the wretched feeling. So way was it so hard for them to leave. At the moment of truth when it mattered most. When Honeyflare finally challenged their unjust ruler. Cherryfire froze. She starred at them like a fool, and continued to play the fool in the days that followed. Not anymore. She'd head south, far away from SunClan's camp. Maybe she'd find Honeyflare and Oatswirl on the way. It'd be nice to see some familiar faces. But until then, Cherryfire was ready to tackle the seasons to come alone. All she'd left behind was a warm nest. //feel free to have your characters react to her absence in the morning or try to search for her
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SunClan
i stop to smell the roses; my body decomposes
Posts: 98
Pronouns: he/him
Played By: rubykh
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Post by Tinyleaf on Jan 16, 2023 20:42:11 GMT -6
It wasn't as if Tinyleaf were very familiar with many of his clanmates on a personal level. Sure, they lived and worked together, and he thought the world of each and every one of them... but if you asked him anything specific about any of his peers, he would be hard-pressed to come up with more than a one-note vagueity about how much he admired their contributions to the clan. It wasn't a bad thing! Just the natural consequence of knowing a ton of cats all in one place. Surely. But just because he didn't consider himself super best friends with anyone didn't mean he wouldn't notice a missing face. In the warriors den, especially in times of leafbare, cats packed together like bunnies in a burrow to combat the wisps of cold that crept in to claw at upturned hides from the gaping maw of the entryway. Every warrior had a place. Not an assigned nest, so to speak, but an unspoken position. Turtlefang on the outskirts, Iceglow over there, Swanmask so kindly bordering the sidelines so as not to take up internal space with her larger size.. everyone slept where they did, and they rarely moved where they slept without some significant change in social status, be it pairing up with a mate or growing closer to a particular friend. It made it all the more obvious when, waking up one morning, there was a gap in the usually unbroken sea of sleeping pelts. A missing striped back, where brown ears had poked up from nearby limbs and unfurled tails.
Cherryfire had been a newer warrior. Not the newest, but young enough that her presence in the den had still been a fresher one. One worth adjusting to. He could still remember when she'd first joined them, and they'd had to sort out where she'd be nesting from now on. The way certain cats had shifted to accommodate the new recruit, and the way Tinyleaf had quietly tugged his moss a few steps outwards to help create ground space for the lucky promotee. Always a loyal one, always doing her best.
So why now, why like this, was she gone?
Even from his side of the den, just recently insulated, the little tabby was instilled with a winter's chill far removed from the winds outside. It was a coldness borne from within. And it gnawed like a termite into his bones, trembling with the might of enduring. Enduring disappearances. Enduring deaths. Enduring exiles. The spotting of empty earth, scoops of flooring where fur had once laid, now gaping bare and raw like festering wounds amidst the den. Many warriors enjoyed the extra legroom. He'd been one of them. At least, he'd tried to be. But it was harder to think on the bright side before the sun was even fully up. When it was just you and your thoughts and the darkness of shadow where a cat had been swallowed into the void.
He couldn't be the one to confront it. Couldn't be the one to follow the scent trail, not when he knew everyone's routine like an extra dewclaw. And Cherryfire just didn't go out like this. Not this early. Or perhaps so late?
A part of him knew without knowing. And he didn't need the confirmation.
As good as it felt to be right, always right, and always the pinnacle of perfection under Starclan's eternal gaze. There was a deep, aching relief to sinking his teeth into honeyed ignorance. To be stupid. To be hopeful. And to always dream with eyes wide open, fixed on that point where the absence seemed to stretch immeasurably, as if to consume him.
Tinyleaf snuggled closer to Fawnheart, who flicked their ear in unconscious acknowledgement. Fawnheart, who didn't know. Who never seemed to.
But neither of them were as dumb as they let on.
He couldn't seem to fall back asleep. He wasn't the type to sleep past dawn, after all. But nobody would notice his little lapse in habit, surely, amidst the growing clamor of a single question beneath the new sun- Where's Cherryfire?
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