ARPG WRITING CENTRAL

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
233 words

Morningblaze closed her eyes and let the sun soak into her coat, waiting for the warmth to wake her up and bring a bit of easiness to her stiff bones. It was ridiculous, really, she was not old, she was really still young.
But, despite her name, she never had liked mornings, for as long as she could remember.
They were just too cold.
She yawned and curled her tail closer to her side, wishing that morning came sometime around noon.
"Morningblaze?"
She jerked her head up, startled that someone had managed to sneak up on her.
Sandclaw.
Of course it was Sandclaw.
"Yes?" She had more than enough practice keeping her voice steady when all she would usually be shaking, but she had not expected to be putting that particular skill to use this morning and hoped desperately he had not caught the trembling note.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course," she forced herself not to answer too quickly "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You were shivering," the lean tom said blandly "I thought you might be ill."
"No, just cold," she relaxed a bit "Thank you for asking."
"Of course," Sandclaw looked from side to the other but didn't move "May I keep you company?"
"Of course," she said it before she even had time to think about it.
He smiled and she cursed her heart for beating just that bit faster.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
208

Whisperstorm never had been good at sitting still and it drove everyone else around her absolutely crazy.
Or it used to.
Now instead of her driving everyone else crazy the quiet and loneliness drove her crazy. It hadn't been her idea, her choice, to leave the clan. No, she was probably one of the only cats who had ever annoyed their clan so much that they called her in front of a committee comprised of the leader, deputy and elders, with the rest of the clan as audience, to be told that maybe, it would be better if she just did not live there anymore. Also it wasn't her choice to make, they had already made it and she was expected to be gone.
Right now.
Time to leave, you don't live here anymore.
At the time it had totally blindsided her, but looking back...it made sense.
The clan had liked their peace and quiet and Whisperstorm was wild and loud.
Now she could be wild and loud and not bother anyone and really really lonely .
She shook her head and kept stomping forwards.
She was also lost.
Well, since she didn't have a home anymore, was she really lost if she didn't have any place to go?

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
215

The soft pale gold light of dawn reached out long fingers through the fall leaves of the forest, painting the orange leaves with vibrant halos.
There was a chill in the air and it only added to the sensation weighing on Grayflight's shoulders of how fragile and temporary life was and how quickly each season overturned the next. It had been high summer when he had found the vast forest and in what only seemed like a few hours the world around him had waxed, then waned away.
"You look as though you carry a heavy heart brother."
Grayflight startled as he was addressed from seemingly thin air. A quick glance around revealed a white and brown cat perched on a branch above Grayflight's head.
"Perhaps I do," Grayflight replied, tilting his head back "What of it?"
The stranger shrugged "Nothing. Many cats come through here who carry things too great for themselves."
"And where do they go?"
The stranger leapt off the branch and landed with a light thump "Some keep moving and I don't know what they do. Others go to Songclan."
"Songclan?" Grayflight lifted an eyebrow at the name "I don't think I'd fit in well with a clan."
The strange cat chuffed a laugh "It's not exactly a normal clan friend."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise

307 words

Hollowmoon had invited him to stay the night in his den, which, for some reason, Grayflight had imagined would be on the ground. Not a hollow thirty feet up in a tree. With an owl in it as well.
Sunwing didn't speak. Or if he did, Grayflight couldn't hear him, even though Hollowmoon had been chatting quietly to the bird ever since they'd climbed into the hollow.
Maybe he just was speaking a different language. Grayflight thought he could track the bird's little movements: a twitch of his wings, a tilt of his head, a blink, then match them to Hollowmoon's comments.
"Anyway," the brown and white cat said after wrapping up his 'conversation' about the weather with the owl and turning back to Grayflight "We get a lot of city cats passing through here."
"Interesting," interesting, especially since Grayflight hadn't told Hollowmoon he was from the city.
"You carry yourselves differently. You look up much more often then a wildborn cat. They keep their heads down and ears up. They already know what to listen for."
"Which one are you?"
Hollowmoon smiled thinly "I suppose I'm like you. Born and bred in the asphalt jungles."
"But you never joined Songclan?"
"I find myself unfit for prolonged company with other cats," Hollowmoon said with a dismissive flick of his tail "But the other cats seem happy there."
Hollowmoon continued on about Songclan while Grayflight only half listened for a while.
"...He was a nervous skinny thing, gray striped, I doubt I would have seen him if he wasn't flailing so hard," Hollowmoon huffed "He had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen."
Grayflight blinked and suddenly he was paying attention again.
Don't be ridiculous, he chided himself, there had to be hundreds of thousands of nervous skinny grey striped green eyed toms.
"What was his name?" Grayflight asked.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
214

Nightlily dreamed of flying. Of climbing to the top of the great ancient oak and leaping from the peak of the tree and instead of plummeting her body arches upwards, the stars funnel around her, the trees spin beneath her.
Then she's free, the earth never bruises her feet again.
She can see the world and it goes on forever, an endless plateau that disappears into a beam of light.
Weightless she surges forwards and reaches out towards the blurry concept of the infinite.
----
"She's doing it again," Mousetoes groaned as he rolled to his chest.
"I know," Ottercatch replied morosely as he licked a scratch on his shoulder, given him by their flailing denmate.
"I'm going to wake her up."
"Don't. She's not crying."
"I'll give her something to cry about," Mousetoes grumbled as he edged closer to Ottercatch as Nightlily continued to thrash.
Ottercatch sighed and Mousetoes wrinkled his nose at the scratch "You'll have to see Morningblaze about that."
"Or Graystorm."
"Graystorm asks too many questions."
"I don't know, maybe we should tell someone."
"And what is that going to fix? She's not going to stop because we told someone."
"I don't know, maybe she could be assigned her own den?"
"And how do you think that would make her feel?"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
232 words
"Ahhg what is going on?" Mousetoes found Ottercatch being rolled into his face uncerimoniously at an extremely accursed hour.
"Hey shh," Nightlily hissed at him, she was up on her paws eyes bright and gleaming "We don't want to wake anyone else up."
"We?" Ottercarch certainly wasn't awake so...
Mousecatch heaved his clanmate off his face and got to his paws, shrugging off sleep, just in time to see Flamepool slipping out of the den.
Nightlily grinned at him, then took off after the older warrior.
"Where are they going?" Ottercatch asked as he too shook away his drowsiness.
"I don't know," Mousetoes sighed "But they're up to no good that's for sure."
----
"What do you think you're doing," Mousetoes demanded, out of breath. Nightlily and Flamepool hadn't been slacking and were already down by the river when the boys got out of the dens.
"Nothing," Flamepool said, too quickly.
"Pranking Firebee," Nightlily said at the same time with a sweet smile.
"Firebee, are you serious!? Wouldn't you rather prank someone less dangerous? Like a rattlesnake or a fox?"
Flamepool rolled her eyes and huffed. Apparently the question didn't dignify an answer as she stomped off.
"Are we going to tell Firebee?"
"Are we going to wake up the angriest cat in the clan? No, I don't think so. We'll tag along and if it get out of paw, we'll tell Wildeyes."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise Fall event
144 words
Darkness, but she does not fear it. It envelops her but does not smother her. She is a hunter and the darkness her ally.
Then.
It shatters.
The sky cracks open and stars spill out in a waterfall of light.
She can be seen now and there is nowhere to hide, nowhere that is safe. She crouches close to the ground, heaving for breath in her utter panic. The darkness, she has to bring back the darkness.
You can't. The voice is spoken aloud and yet only echoes in her head. Would you curse your clan to live in the shadows of evil, child?
No! But the darkness is safety, not evil, they hunt by night, they live on the edges of dawn and evening.
Young fool you will destroy them.
She tries to run, but she knows that she will destroy her clan.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise Fall Event
155 words
Nightlily awakes only when Ottercatch shoves her.
Gasping for breath after her dream of running through an inescapable land, Nightlily finds Mousetoes and Ottercatch staring at her in concern.
She grins and shrugs, trying to dispel their fears and reluctantly her denmates return to their own nests while she curls her tail over her nose and stares blankly for the rest of the night.
Go away, go away, go away, she chants internally as she moves through the day numbly, trying to shake the sound of the voice. She has never been able to banish the memory and today is no different. She tells no one because no one would believe her.
There are no spirits, there are no ancestors, the dead do not interfere with the living, Wildeyes said and Nightlily believed her. This had something to do with Nightlily and Nightlily alone.
She is not going to destroy her clan.
Yes you are.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise Fall Event
185 words
Songclan teeters on the edge of destruction though none know it. Not her leader or her deputy or her healers or old wise ones. Not the kits or the queens or the apprentices. Only one young warrior has an inkling and she refuses to face it.
A darkness that believes itself to be a bright light lies in the heart of the forest and hunger and thirsts for the cats. It has been forgotten for millennia and it craves worship. It craves life and if it reaches it out it will drink it from the veins of the clan cats.
If only it can deceive the young cat that she is the clan's doom and convince her that the redemption she needs to be absolved from her fate is found in the darkness, then the false light can take her and use her as a vessel to freedom. Through the warm living breathing body it would travel back to the clan and bleed them dry.
It would drink the life from them and their children and their children's children and rule like a monarchical parasite.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise Fall Event
122 words

A pile of old dusty bones deep in a cave, broken and fragmented. Nearly nothing.
Her name had been Seren and one time she was feared. One time she was loved. One time she was betrayed and her rule ended and her kingdom collapsed and her body was hidden away. But she herself was not gone as she should have, some specter of malice remained.
She for ages she could not escape the confines of her old bones, but something has changed and now she can reach out into the darkness of a single dream and plays with the mind of Nightlily like a mouse. Once again Seren Queen of Stars is trying to lead fate to the place of her choosing.