β§ π π π π π π π π π π βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
[ Deputy - He/him - 45 moons - Bisexual - Mentions: Swallowsight, Briarseed, Sykestar, Mistback - Tags: Cats of the gathering ]
Extracorporeal. Disembodied. His soul lagged behind his body like a shadow displaced from its source. Rabbitsong sat amidst the swell of pelts and murmurs, yet felt entirely aloneβmarooned within himself. The trauma clung to his consciousness like wet moss, heavy and smothering. He could still feel the mud caking his claws, smell the iron of blood mingled with the raw, wet earth. He remembered none of what heβd screamed, only that he had. Begged the stone. Bargained with the soil. Dug until his pads split, unearthing Clanmates who had felt the wrath of the angry terrain they called home.
The cacophony had dissipated into an unnatural stillness, like the forest holding its breath before a second collapse. His crystalline eyes, ringed with weariness, traced the assemblage of cats beneath the pale light of the moon. They pausedβperhaps too longβon Swallowsight, and something inside him fluttered. Not joy. Not quite. But something adjacent. A fragile impulse that momentarily buoyed his drowning thoughts. Was it hope?
Slowly, with deliberate caution, the silver-furred deputy rose to his paws, spine curving downward as he lowered himself to avoid looming over those nearby. He moved like a specter, silent and half-there, and settled beside Sykestar and Briarseed without a word. A shallow bow of his head to the two served as his greetingβan anchor to reality, brittle but still intact.
He sat. And in that sitting, in the way he folded his limbs beneath himself with the precision of a wounded thing concealing pain, there was the echo of someone only beginning to reinhabit their body. He was terrified to speak. His throat felt scorched, hollowed by dirt and water. What if he opened his maw and only anguish poured forth? What if, instead of words, it was a guttural, warbled sob, the kind that splits a tom in two before his Clan?
But silence, too, had its own violence. It left space for doubt to bloom. After Sykestar's address and Bramblefrosts concise words, he could no longer sit in silence. Their words reeled through his head, like that of a twisted fairytale. So he inhaledβquiet, controlledβand when he spoke, his voice bore no tremor, only a grave eloquence born of sheer force. He turned to the mass of Fallsclan cats before him, their eyes poured into him looking for someone to answer for them.
βFallsclan,β he began, the name itself feeling like a eulogy. βWe stand, if one can call it standing, upon the aftermath of catastrophe. Our sanctuary is sodden and buried beneath its own terrain. What remains is not merely ruinβit is desecration.β His tail curled tightly around his paws. Each word was a scalpel, slicing through the thick miasma of grief. βWe have lost more than stone and bramble. We have lost certainty. The illusion of permanence. And with that, the notion that we are owed safety from the worldβs whim.β He looked around, and though his breath still carried the ghost of hyperventilation, his eyes were lucidβclear, but sorrowed.
βI will not pretend I know the path forward. I am not one of those warriors who wears certainty like armor. What I do knowβwhat I cling to like a branch in the floodβis that to remain where the earth itself seeks to undo us may spell the end of Fallsclan.β He stopped, letting the words hang in the air like mist curling from a still pool. βIf we choose to leave, it is not abandonmentβit is evolution. It is survival. If we stay, we do so with the knowledge that we may be burying not only our memories, but ourselves.β He turned, for the first time, to look fully at Sykestarβhis voice now a near-whisper, silk drawn taut. βBut whatever we choose, it must be together. Fragmentation is a second disaster I will not weather.β
Then, as if the words themselves had exorcised something from his chest, Rabbitsong lowered his head again and said nothing more. Silence, this time, was not fear. It was respectβfor the gravity of what must come next. His eyes, too searching for answers, turned to the mass of felines in front of him.
β§ πΏ π π π π π π π π π π π βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
[ Warrior - She/her - 25 moons - Lesbian - Mentions: Injured apprentices, Sykestar - Tags: xxx ]
It was not a title that weighed heavyβit was one that shimmered. βStand in as medicine cat,β Sykestar had said, her voice calm and absolute, her eyes reflecting the steadiness of ancient stone. βThey will need you, Pumpkinpatch. And I trust you.β
She trusted her.
The words echoed through Pumpkinpatchβs chest like a birdsong in an empty hollowβtender, improbable, beautiful. She had nodded, demure as always, but once the patrol had vanished into the mist and starlight, she had exhaled in a quiet gasp, as though she'd stepped across some invisible threshold. Now, with the moon bleeding its light over Fallsclanβs broken bones, she moved through the camp not as a warrior, not as a daughter, but as something sacred. A caretaker. A healer. A possibility made real, if only for one night.
The ruined herb garden lay silent in it's grave. But where another might have seen only rubble, Pumpkinpatch saw purpose. She had gathered herbs from the remaining storesβdrying them, organizing them on clean bark. Her paws, once so tentative, now moved with tender confidence as she pressed dock leaves to Stormpawβs inflamed leg, her breath warm as she murmured soft assurances. "Youβre safe now. Just rest. I've got you." Every word was a promise. Every touch, a thread woven into something whole. She should have been exhaustedβher paws ached, her back screamed, her fur was a tangle of mud and poulticeβbut there was a lightness in her limbs she hadnβt felt since kithood. A quiet thrum beneath her skin, like something awakening. Like recognition.
She passed the nursery and pausedβnot from sorrow, but reverence. Her motherβs voice still lived there, somewhere in the dust and shadows: βYour place is here. Bearing life. Not scraping mud and herbs like some root-scrubber.β But her mother wasnβt near. Sykestar had given her a different place. She turned her face skyward, moonlight catching in the amber gleam of her eyes. The stars blinked dimly through the mist, as though unsure whether to watch or look away. βI know this isnβt mine,β she whispered, voice nearly lost to the wind, βbut just for tonight, pleaseβlet me wear it.β The wind did not answer, but it wrapped around her like a shawl, soft and solemn.
She moved again, quickening her pace now. The apprentices needed more moss soaked in yarrow water. Lemmingpawβs cough was worseningβsheβd crush coltsfoot for him. Her mind buzzed with treatments and tenderness, her heart full with the sensation of doing what she was meant to do. Even if sheβd never be permitted to claim it. But still, there was something radiant in her chest. Not defianceβPumpkinpatch had never known the taste of rebellionβbut quiet fulfillment. A dream that had not died, only gone dormant. A calling answered in the softest voice.
β§ πΌ π π π π π π π π π π π βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
[ Queen - She/her - 48 moons - Heterosexual - Mentions: Cats in the nursery- Tags: xxx ]
His voice was never loud. Even in dreams, it arrived like mistβsoft-edged, half-formed, spoken less with words than with presence. She felt it before she heard it: the hush of breath behind her ear, the warmth of fur against her flank. The hush of the world gone still. Silentstep. He stood at the edge of the water, just as he had on the night theyβd spoken of namesβkit-names, future ones. His eyes, silver-bright and endlessly quiet, watched her with that same unmoving devotion, the kind that needed no shape, no speech. The waterfall behind him shimmered, endless and glistening, its roar hushed to a lullaby. She took a step toward himβslow, dreamlike, heavy with knowing. He didnβt move. He never did. But he waited. βAre you proud of me?β she whispered, the words trembling on her tongue like dew. βEven like this?β He tilted his head, just slightly. The motionβso small, so humanβshattered her. Because she knew it, knew it intimately. Knew that it meant yes. Of course. Always. She opened her mouth to say more. And woke.
The nursery ceiling loomed above herβsmooth stone and shadow, stitched with soft moonlight. Her chest rose sharply, breath caught somewhere between a sob and a gasp. Reality returned not as a gentle tide, but as a sudden flood: the cold ache of absence, the sharp awareness of her body, swollen and sore; the hollow beside her, where no one lay. Her heart beat against her ribs with the fluttering fragility of a birdβs wing. The scent of moss. Milk. Distant laughter. A kit squealed somewhere to her leftβDuskkit, perhaps. The rustle of fur and the low cadence of another queenβs voice answered, warm and grounding. But it was not Silentstep's.
Mourningdove exhaled shakily, her breath trembling as it left her. The tears gathered unbidden, welling not from the eyes but from some deeper placeβsomething marrow-deep and ancient in its sorrow. She did not weep aloud. Her grief had long since taught itself to be silent. She turned her head slowly, cheek pressing into the soft hollow of her nest. The movement disturbed the moss, and for a moment the world shiftedβa flash of moonlight across her pale fur, her swollen belly outlined in delicate luminescence. Life stirred within her: a small, fluttering kick against her ribs, soft as the brush of a feather. She flinched. Then stilled. It was a strange crueltyβto carry the children of the dead. To be so full of life, and yet feel so hollow.
One of the kits giggled again. A high, unburdened sound. Somewhere, Burntleaf murmured in return, his voice steady and warm, the cadence of a parent rooted in the present. Mourningdove closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to remember. She conjured Silentstepβs face againβnot as it had been in death, but in dream: whole, unweathered, watching her with eyes that had once promised forever.
She missed the sound of his breath at her side. She missed the way silence had never felt lonely when it belonged to him. Now, every hush felt cavernous. And sheβsoft, grieving, soon-to-be motherβfelt like the only living thing in a world of echoes. Still, she curled her tail gently around her belly, the tip resting just above where her kits shifted in slumber. βIβll try,β she whispered, to them, to him, to no one at all. βEven if I have to do it without youβ¦ Iβll try.β
The moonlight held her. The den murmured softly around her, full of motion, of warmth, of a world that had not yet ended. And Mourningdove, wrapped in the hush of memory and motherhood, unsteadily got to her paws.
β§ π π π π π π π π βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
[ Warrior - She/Her - 44 moons - Pansexual - Mentions: Rabbitsong - Tags: xxx ]
Silkwail stood near the frayed edges of the gathered crowd, her silver-tabby pelt catching slivers of moonlight like fine, woven mist. She was motionlessβan elegant statue of storm-born stillness, wrapped in that signature quiet that followed her wherever she went. The hush that fell over the clearing might have unsettled another cat, but for Silkwail, silence was a familiar, if unkind, companion. The cold pressed into her thin frame like mist clinging to stone, yet she did not shiver. She stood poised, spine straight, her emerald eyes catching the dim light with an unnatural sharpness. Beneath her polished exterior was a mind constantly calculating, dissecting the uncertainty that crackled in the air like distant thunder. Grief had a shape here tonightβit rippled through whiskers and twitched in tails, hanging in the air like mist too thick to breathe.
She had heard Rabbitsongβs voice before she turned her eyes to him. He spoke not like a warrior, but a mourner at a burial stone. His eloquence struck herβnot just for its beauty, but its fatal clarity. Each syllable seemed to ring like a stone dropped into a deep pool. Desecrationβ¦ illusionβ¦ fragmentation. Words chosen with surgical care, leaving no room for misinterpretation, yet offering no balm for the wounds they reopened. As he spoke, her expression did not shift. But inside, something reeled, it churned, it made her sick to her stomach. Rabbitsongβs words touched upon the very thing sheβd built her life trying to outpace: the lie of permanence. The myth of safety. She had clung to both when she was young, when her motherβs voice whispered terrifying things into her earsβthings like sacrifice, like practicality, like survival at any cost. And when sheβd finally refused that cost, when sheβd torn the future from her motherβs claws, it had left a scar so deep she had built her identity around not looking directly at it. Now, Rabbitsong asked them all to look.
She had never returned to the spot where she and Dawnwhisper last stood. Never returned to the den where her kits had withered away, or to the pool where Minnowkitβno, Minnowpawβonce looked up at her with those glassy, too-large eyes, barely able to stand. The nursery was a graveyard to her. Their home, sacred as it had once been, had long since become a place of ghosts for her. But now, it seemed, those ghosts had risen to demand reckoning from all of FallsClan.
Her tail curled neatly around her paws, though the tip trembled once before stilling. Around her, the Clan shifted, murmured, hearts breaking or bracing. Silkwail said nothing. She was used to bearing things in silence. That silence was the only thing that had ever felt honest. She let her eyes drift to the falls in the distance, though she could not see them from here. Still, she could hear themβever-present, now louder in the quiet that followed Rabbitsongβs speech. They sounded different now. Angry, almost. Not the soft, murmuring lullaby she had grown up with, but a warning. A reckoning.
Silkwail blinked once, slowly. Her face remained unreadable, but deep within her chest, she felt something stir. Not fearβshe had lived too long with that gnawing thing to be moved by it anymore. No, this was something older. Something harder. Resolve. She didnβt know what choice the Clan would make. Stay, or leave. Cling to what was left of their shattered roots, or uproot entirely and seek a future in the unknown. But she knew this: wherever FallsClan went, the past would follow. And so would she. Her gaze lifted toward the stars, and for a moment, she allowed herself to wonder if any of her lost kits had made it to StarClan. If Dawnwhisper watched her now. If any of them had forgiven her. She doubted it. But forgiveness wasnβt why she kept going.
As murmurs began to stir again across the clearing, Silkwail remained in her silence, moonlight painting her in shades of silver and sorrow. She would not speak yet. Perhaps not at all. But she was listening. Always listening. And when the time cameβwhen the silence shattered, and the choice was madeβshe would be ready.
β§ πΆ π π π π π π π βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
[ Apprentice - He/him - 9 moons - Bisexual - Mentions: xxx - Tags: Swallowsight ]
The Gathering was supposed to be a time of connection, a night to share stories and relax after the struggles of daily clan life. But tonight, as the moon hung overhead, something felt different. The air was heavy, thick with an oppressive silence that seemed to cling to the cats of FallsClan like the dampness from the river that wound through their territory. No other apprentice stirred such a sacred gathering, it was just him. He hadn't been permitted to attend per say, he had silently slipped into the attending patrol after Swallowsight. He was afraid, looking for answers that no cat dared to burden him with. But Swallowsight brought him ease like no other, and he could not let her leave alone.
Goosepaw had been bouncing around all evening, trying to keep the usual buzz alive. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake the weight that hung over him. Something was wrongβhe could feel it in the air, and he could see it in the eyes of his clanmates. But it wasnβt until his eyes landed on Swallowsight, sitting somberly at the edge of the clearing next to her mother, that he felt the true chill creep into his fur. She wasnβt herself tonightβher usual vibrance and sharpness were gone. Instead, she sat with her head low, her fur damp from the fog that had rolled in with the evening. Goosepaw's mismatched eyes narrowed, his stomach churning with concern. He had heard the rumors, of course. The mudslide. The landslides that had wrecked part of the territoryβdamaged their home, turned paths into rivers of dirt and rock. Goosepaw hadnβt been there when it happened, but he could feel the aftermath in every silence and every heavy glance. The older warriors who had already seen such tragedies were quieter than usual, as if the earth itself had shaken them to their core. And the younger onesβhis friendsβhadn't been the same since they first heard the news.
Goosepaw padded closer to Swallowsight, not quite sure what to say. He couldnβt tell if she was more upset about the mudslide itself or something deeper, but he knew one thing: she needed him. And he couldnβt leave her alone with the weight of it all, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. He took a deep breath, clearing his throat as he finally spoke, his voice breaking the heavy silence. βHey, Swallowsight,β he murmured, trying to keep his tone light. βI donβt know if Iβm the best at comforting cats, but I think Iβm better than no comfort, right?β Goosepaw sat down beside her, careful not to crowd her too much, but close enough to let her know he was there. He didnβt have the words, not really. He wasnβt good at those quiet, heavy moments, especially when he could feel the earth still trembling beneath his paws. He nudged her gently, his round, soft face flashing her a grin, though it felt hollow. βYou know, Iβm usually the one who needs rescuing, but Iβm kind of wondering if you need some right now, too.β
His eyes gleamed with the same mischievous energy they always had, but there was a sadness to it, too. He could see the pain in her gaze, and it made his chest tighten. He threw in a little wink, trying to lighten the mood as he nudged her again. His mismatched eyes gleamed mischievously, the cerulean one flashing in the moonlight while the burnished topaz one twinkled with playful energy. He always loved getting a reaction out of Swallowsight, especially when she was like thisβreserved, distant. He hated seeing her like this, and even if his ways were crude, at least they were guaranteed to pull her out of her shell. Or so he hoped.
βYou know,β he continued, trying to distract her, βthis Gathering is supposed to be fun. What happened to the usual excitement? I mean, a little bit of mud isnβt enough to take away our spirit, right? Weβre FallsClan. Weβve bounced back from worse!β But his words felt weak even to his own ears, and he stopped, looking down. The reality of the mudslide was gnawing at him, and for the first time, he realized how far-reaching it had been. He hadnβt been at the heart of it, but he could feel the loss all the same. The damage wasnβt just to their homeβit was to the clan. He had heard the whispers, the names of injured cats murmured with worry, and his stomach tightened at the thought. They were all his age, for yowling out loud. Goosepaw shifted his weight awkwardly, his paws flat against the stone beneath them. The distant cries of the remaining clanmates drifted across the clearing. Their chatter was faint, and even their laughter felt strained. How could he sit here, trying to joke and laugh, when there were others out there searching, rebuilding, mourning? His gaze flickered back to Swallowsight, his voice softer now. βIβm... Iβm here, yβknow? If you wanna talk or... just, yβknow, not talk. Iβm good with not talking.β
His words hung in the air, a simple offer, but it felt significant. He didnβt know what had happened exactly with Swallowsightβwhat had caused the shift in her moodβbut he knew that at least in this moment, he could offer her the one thing that had always worked in their friendship: his goofy, unrelenting presence. His mismatched eyes stayed locked on her, waiting. He didnβt have the right words. He didnβt have the answers to the questions of what had happened or what would happen next. All he knew was that Swallowsight shouldnβt be alone right now. The air felt heavier still, and despite his attempt to lighten things, Goosepaw couldnβt shake the sorrow hanging like a cloud over them both. He hated feeling useless, but sometimes just being thereβoffering the small comfort of companionshipβwas all he could do.