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[eugenides]

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↷...meet larksong, the newly out of the nursery queen. she is at the age of thirty two moons. larksong has a magnificent orange pelt, marked with distinct tabby stripes. her muzzle, chest, belly and paws are white, giving her a rather regal look. she has a smudge of orange on the left side of her muzzle. dull green eyes top the look off. larksong is mellow and quiet. before the monster's roar, she was quick and lively, but now she's the exact opposite. she rarely talks, and when she does, it's normally to point out the all the negative things. if you try to cheer her up, she'll snap at you and tell you to get lost. all in all, she's a quiet cat who snaps when you talk to her.

[soda]

sunleaf ☼ the medicine cat ☼ mentions → none ☼ tags ↷ none
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Water was coming at them from all directions, hurtling over rocks and ragging past trees as it charged towards them. There was no escaping it, nowhere they could run, no way they could hide. Keep running, she just had to keep running. No matter how much her legs hurt, no matter how the fear was burning in her chest, making it hard to breath, much less catch her breath. 'Climb!'. She wasn't sure where the order came from, how she could even hear it over the roar of the rain, the crashing of the waves, but she obeyed without hesitation. Blinking the salty water from her eyes, she raced towards the first tree she could see, scrambling up it with almost unimaginable speed. Higher, higher higher. She couldn't look down, definitely couldn't look back. Higher, higher, higher.

Blue eyes snapped open, only to squeeze shut again as the ginger she-cat tried to suck in a breath to calm her racing heart, beating painfully against her chest. The breath quickly turned against her in the form of a hacking cough, water expelling itself from her lungs and causing the burning to intensify. She was shaking rather badly, curled up into a tight ball with her fur soaked right through to the bone with water. Everything tasted salty. Her head still felt foggy, the ringing in her ears not exactly helping things. Though, that wasn't ringing, was it? Where ever she was, it was silent. A type of dead silence that she doubted she had ever experienced before. It took her a bit to notice the surface beneath her was distinctly not dirt like- this leading to the obvious assumption she wasn't still back in the medicine cat den, considering its floor was nothing but softly packed dirt. The second observation she made was how her muscles ached, feeling as though she had just ran several miles. Sunleaf decided on fixing that problem first, trying to stretch up from her curled up position as she did. Only to bang her head on the roof of some hard surface. The she-cat blinked roughly, her eyes burning from their exposer to the water and making everything seem blurry. Tentatively, the small she-cat turned her attention on figuring out where exactly she was. A frown etched its way onto her features as she took notice of the wood like material surrounding her, falling back to realization as she identified it as a small notch in an oak tree, only slightly bigger than herself. Wincing slightly, the she-cat ebbed her way to the opening of the notch, immediately regretting it as she got a look at how high up she really was. A wave of nausea swept over her, causing her to press up against the back of her current sanctuary in an attempt to get as far away from the drop as possible. Sunleaf had never been too fearful of heights, but the drop was dizzying to one who didn't expect it to be there. Memories of how she had ended up here hit, just as hard and sudden as the storm had last night. Squeezing her eyes shut once more, Sunleaf tried to resist thinking about it, remembering what had happened. Her small frame was shaking again, but this time it wasn't because of the water.
"I'm alive. I'm okay. I'm alive." The ginger cat whispered, her voice horse and cracking due to all the screams ripped from her throat last night. Yet another one threatened to burst through now. "I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm going to be okay." The mantra was repeated, again and again until her steely blue eyes hesitantly flickered open once more. She was okay. Now she needed to see if any other cat was. If there was an injured cat out there, still clinging to life, they would need a medicine cat. That wouldn't change, no matter who was lost. Climbing slowly down the tree, there was nothing Sunleaf wanted more than to run. To run away from all of this, the destruction, the death, the loss. That desire only heightened as she padded her way through what was left of her home. The tree she had managed to take cover in was one of the lucky few to remain standing, half the forest now uprooted and toppled over itself. The wave of nausea hit once more as she realized what state the camp must have been in. She hadn't been in it he she-cat hadn't been in it when the storm hit, closer to sea level than where the clan made its home, so perhaps hoping against hope it had come out relatively unscathed wouldn't be so far fetched? How she had managed to survive with only a few scratches was a miracle in itself, having been collecting herbs with Mintshine- Just thinking of her late mentor's name made her stop, nearly collapsing to the ground once more. A rage of anger and pain flurried inside her, a mournful choke finally escaping her. Why had starclan allowed this? There had been no signs, no warnings, no prophecies. Nothing. Gasping for another breath, she rose on shaky paws once more, continuing on her journey. She had to go on, to help save those who could be, instead of dwelling on those who were already gone. There would be time to mourn later, when the clan was back together and the survivors found. With a bit more purpose to her sprint, she was soon ducking under overturned trees and leaping scattered bushes. Faster and faster, till the forest was blurring past her. She needed to get back to camp, to do all she could to mend her clanmates and camp- not just their wounds, but their broken hearts as well.

[lucee]

the world around him was hazy and disorientated, stretching below closed eyelids in brilliant bursts of black and white and colour. with it came stabs of pain and numbness in turn, and for a moment looper could have sworn he was back in the mud and dirt, fighting tooth and nail for everything he had. they'd left his body in a ditch on the edge of the shoreline, the day they'd taken over his father's clan and cast him out as a kit. they'd half torn his skin from his bones before doing so, and it had been sheer luck that he hadn't drowned befote being washed up on the shore of the strange island. the clan had readily taken him in. and now .. well, now the survivors were all getting a little taste of his side of life. he had been kicked from clans before for many different reasons but a giant wave send from .. what petty gods did the cats believe in? starclan. well, damn them all to what ever sort of hell they believed in, too.
the prickling of sand in his eyes and fur was enough to make him slowly, gradually, rise to the land of the living.
he tentatively drew in a breath, feeling his lungs expand and rattle with disuse.
he was alive.
air, air, flooding into his lungs with every heaving breath. life, water-drenched and sand-speckled like everything else the eye could see. for a moment the part of his mind that was't a genius considered staying asleep. in sleep there was no agonisingly cheerful smile, no constant stream of thought distracting him from everything he does. no overeagerness and pathetic sense of belonging, no-
predator. noise, stirring the silence and carelessly pushing it aside. the part of his mind that was a genius violently jolted to attention, forcing his rigid muscles to relax and his heaving sides to slow in their struggle for life. his mantra returned to him through the haze and fog. he lifted his head slowly, cautiously, opening his eyes and blinking away the grit.
look, assess, decide, act.
look.
he's in the sand, there's a warm, damp ooze on his shoulder that can only be blood and, for what little good it does him, looper's fairly sure that he's still alive. not for much longer if you don't do something about it, idiot, the genius chides, cold and harsh. use your mind. focus.
debris was scattered around him; mostly due to the flood, of course. the huge wave of blue and white and black. no bodies- not that he really cared, but to any other cat it might have been a small relief - and no life. silence. complete and utter silence .. the heavy weight of carnage and demolition. everywhere.
assess.
no life - no cats. no predators, no prey, no resources. he was alone and, to the best of his knowledge, unwatched, so he was free to deliberate and wear his most insane of grins as he made up his mind unitl he had to make a move. the ocean to his back and the forest to his front. some sort of creature scouring the wreckage for a meal and his 'carcass' at the top of the menu. from the noises above him he assumed it was a bird of some sort - a hawk, perhaps, or a crow. he was too close to the coast for eagles or vultures.
decide.
the rational thing to do would be to play dead. humiliating as it was, lying in the sand with the blood in his fur was the best shot he had at surviving. if the bird got close enough then he could .. claw it. hiss at it. startling it was the best shot he had at getting into the trees, unless he managed to stand, locate debrist large enough to shelter his form and get to it without being spotted.
act.
well, it was go for it or become crow-food.
looper waited in the sand for talons and wingbeats that naver came. the predator had moved on or was momentarily distracted, from what he could hear. the tom slowly pulled himself to his feet, brushing away the aches and pains as best he could. the genius had no time for pain. the genius wanted shelter and healing and protection and a meal, in that order. he needed to move and he needed to move fast.
before he could spare a thought to how critical the wound in his shoulder was looper was streaking across the sand, leopard-spotted pelt stark against the creamy yellow. there was a flurry of wings and a birdcall behind him and he could only hope that it was the bird flapping away rather than towards him. the genius was gone, shoved to one side - for now it was on the loner to keep his organs inside his body - and the non-genius part of his mind was screaming nothing but runrunrunrunrun at him.
the cool shade of the trees gave shelter to his slight frame and he collapsed at the first given chance, flanks heaving and eyesight spinning. sharp pain radiated up from his paws - he'd probably pulled one or two in the wave - and the pull in his shoulder was worse than ever. it smelled bad. beneath the salt and sweat, it smelled of infection.
limping a little way into the trees gave him some peace of mind; a foe on foot was better than a foe from the air. his mantra urged him to head back to what once had been his 'clan' and check for survivors. he stood a better chance with the clan, no matter how weak and pathetic they were, rather than alone on the island which he barely knew himself. there was strength in numbers. grinding his teeth and giving his shoulder a couple of quick licks to remove the worst of the blood, looper began to limp through the trees for the place he was known as 'cedarfang'.

[eugenides]

larksong ↷↷
doing;; getting up, eating, mourning >> location;; shore&forest >> tagged;; pebblepaw, thunderpaw

the orange tabby's eyes fluttered open. she blinked several times, trying to rid the saltwater from her eyes. her vision cleared a bit; just enough to see her surroundings. she was lying on the sandy shore, relatively close to the water. the sun was glaring harshly so she blinked some more. what..? how did i get here? i thought i was in the forest, hunting.. hunting! with my kits.. where are they? my precious kits... fighting down the bubbling panic, the she-cat tried to stand up. she slowly straightened out her legs, and just when she was upright, her legs failed her and buckled. she must have fallen on a wound she had gotten during the monster's roar, because pain shot through her side. several drops of blood came forth from the reopened injury. despair of her failure to do such a simple task rushed over her, filling the tabby's mind with depressing thoughts.

i'll die here, alone. i'll never see my beautiful kits again, if they're even alive still. i'll never feel the warmth of the sun again, nor the triumph of catching prey. i wonder what i'll die of. maybe greencough, or perhaps starvation. dying may even have it's advantages. i'll see my kits in starclan. yes, that's what i'll do. i'll die and go to starclan, where i can see my kits again... but what if they haven't died? well, i'll just have to watch them from above. but it won't be the same...

the thought that she could still see her offspring motivated her. she tried to get up again. this time, strengthened by hope, the she-cat was able to stand, even though her legs were still weak and wobbly. stumbling forward, she began her painful journey to camp. after all, that's where her kits would go, right?

a little while later, she entered the forest. normally, this quick trip would take her less than a minute, but this was not normally. but never mind that. the few remaining trees gave shelter from the blinding sun; she was grateful for that. quickening her pace as much as she could, the tabby trotted through the destruction. a dead variety of dead animals littered the still wet grass. seeing some wood mice, she realized she was starving. hopefully these are still edible, the she-cat thought while munching on a somewhat fresher carcass.

padding more steadily now, larksong walked the path she had walked so many times before, only now, it was obliterated. she took the demolition in sadly. the island will never be the same. then she realized she was nearing where she had last seen her beloved kits. a few more rabbit-leaps and she caught a whiff of fresh cat scent. it was her kits all right. they were here.

eagerly bounding forward, she followed her nose to a fallen tree. The she-cat began to feel pangs of doubt as she clawed feverishly at the moss and soil that had washed up and covered the only exit. if they were alive, wouldn't they have gotten themselves out by now... no. they are just too weak. they are not dead. they are not dead. they are not dead. they can't be dead.

she finally finished her task. the orange tabby tentatively stretching her head into the small area where her young should be. she expected them to come bounding up, or perhaps lie unconscious on the mossy floor. she didn't expect their dead bodies. at first, the she-cat wouldn't believe it. she nosed them, bit them and mewed at them. they just wouldn't wake up. and they never would again. this realization hit larksong, and it hit her hard. no... why..?

curling her tail around the loves of her life, the apples of her eyes for the last time, the despairing cat purred. why would she purr when her kits are dead? a common misconception. cats purr whenever they feel strong emotion. some even purr during their deaths. her purr rumbled like a car engine, filled with sadness. in a few more minutes, she got up, in a daze. taking one final glance, she buried them, showering them with crumpled leaves. and that's when the queen made her decision. starclan, looking forlornly upward, you didn't stop this from happening. you made this happen, didn't you? you wanted them to die. you don't deserve my trust! to mark this decision, she yowled, putting all her remaining energy into it. unknowingly, she had answered spottedcloud's call.

[soda]

sunleaf ☼ the medicine cat ☼ mentions → spottedcloud ☼ tags ↷ loopy
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Lost. Sunleaf was completely and utterly lost. If the situation hadn't been so dire, she might have laughed at herself. So many moons spent patrolling and hunting in the woods, only to end up loosing her sense of direction when she needed it most. Her feet scuffled quietly against the earth as she started in one direction, only to turn back and try another. Maybe she should try heading north- but then again, where was north? A dead tree lay a bit to her left, and figuring a height advantage would work well here, she bounded over to it on unsteady paws. Did she recognize this oak, or was it a product of last night? Gah, she couldn't remember!

Leaping up onto the tree, her blue gaze scanned the surrounding area in hopes of finding something, anything that could help her place where she was. The view provided her with little more than she had before, if anything only serving to confuse her further. Trying to scent something didn't do much good, the storm having wiped everything clean. Maybe she should just pick a direction and go? It couldn't be worse than just walking around in circles all day.

Why did every tree have to look so much like the next? All these new challenges hadn't done her navigation skills any favors, wiping out any familiar land marks she might have been able to spot. It was like she had been dropped in a wasteland, rather than the forest she called home. This was sure to make hunting patrols more difficult, especially since she hadn't heard a single bird thus far, nor seen even a flicker of movement amongst the foliage.

Perhaps she should have paid more attention on those trips Mintleaf took her on, rather than taking in the sights and day dreaming. Or at least have taken her role as medicine cat a bit more seriously, not falling back into the mistaken thinking the older cat would be around forever to pick up the slack. Her thoughts wavered back to her mentor for a moment, the subtle pang she had been trying to ignore suddenly hitting full force, making her pause for a moment and take in a sharp breath.

It wasn't fair that Mintleaf hadn't survived, definitely wasn't fair that she had instead. Maybe if Sunleaf hadn't been clumsy enough to scatter some of their herbs the previous morning, they wouldn't have had to take the impromtu trip in the first place. They could still be back at camp, riding out the storm with the rest of the clan, perfectly happy.

With that thought came the face's of others; her family, her friends, her clanmates. How would they react when she brought the news? What if they had suffered the same fate? No, no thinking like that. Shaking her coat out, she pushed the dangerous thoughts from her head. They were okay, they had to be. Sunleaf would find her way back to camp, and everything would be okay. They would grieve, but they would come together as a clan, as they had during every tragedy. They were called Ivyclan for a reason, after all. They would be okay. She would be okay.

A shout. An explosion of noise, tearing through the silence and setting her ears ringing and her fur on end. Sunleaf nearly fell off the downed tree, clinging to it for dear life as she whirled around in search for the noise. What in Starclan had that been? It sounded almost like.. another cat? A howl of pain, if she was honest, and she'd been in the medicine den for long enough to be able to identify such with little doubt. The classification came with an onslaught of questions, the most prominent being the obvious: what could cause such a distressed noise?

Patrols.

Cats would undoubtably be out by now, perhaps even a few regathering themselves from last night. She wracked her brain, trying to recall if any of her clanmates had left camp yesterday before the storm hit. Spottedcloud had gone out, she believed, along with a few other cats in his patrol. Surely they were okay, they had to be. The clan couldn't recover from the loss of [looper's magnificent booty] that many warriors. What if they had lost more than she first thought? What if they had already found Mintleaf?

Sunleaf didn't have long to dwell on it, another call following the first, sounding more like a wail of anguish than a response. For a moment, Sunleaf had the overwhelming fear whichever cat made the first howl wasn't around to make the second, which could be the reason for said wail. The thought was shooed off quickly enough, the realization the two calls had come from different locations feeding in to the idea they couldn't have been that closely related. It did, however, bring the original question right back around. What could cause a cat to utter such a mournful noise?

Deciding waiting around on a tree all day wasn't going to give her any answers, Sunleaf closed her eyes, taking a breath and trying to pinpoint which direction she had heard the calls come from. It would make most sense to set her course towards the source of the first call, under the thinking they'd be in peril for longer than the second, if only by a few moments. Blue eyes snapped open once more, glinting with a bit more certainty than before as she got a general idea of which direction to start off in.

Jumping down from her perch, the she-cat broke into a brisk walk, advancing her speed until she was in an all out run. For the second time that morning, the medicine cat was racing towards what she prayed was a fellow clanmate, holding on to the even greater hope that this was the right direction to them.

Predictably, to any cat that did not happen to be Sunleaf, it was not the right direction.

As the overpowering salty scent of the ocean hit her nostrils, the she-cat grew to be slightly confused. Had a patrol really gone all the way out to the ocean? The prey there wasn't exactly the easiest to catch, made even more undesirable by how treacherous the water could be for a cat- as the storm last night should have proved. Perhaps they were checking for lost cats. Perhaps they had found some. The thought brought a shudder down her spine, but she pushed herself faster in spite of it.

Just a little bit further and she had broken free from the tree line, the dirt and leaf covered floor now giving way to a sandy beach. Sand that was rather hard to run on. She glared down at it as she ran, paws now kicking it up sand as she kept up her pace. Of all the places to be, why did her clanmates have to pick the beach? Between the pungent smell of the water, and the sand lingering in a cats fur for weeks to come, Sunleaf couldn't see the upside of such a place.

So lost in her thoughts, the cat didn't see the spotted bunch of fur until she had collided into it, sending them both tumbling head over paws and crashing into yet more sand.

[eugenides]

larksong ↷↷
doing;; padding >> location;; forest >> tagged;; spottedcloud

if cats could weep, larksong would of done so. even though she did not regret her choice to give up hope on starclan, she still felt pangs of sadness. she had just thrown away all the things she had grown up with, what had meant nearly everything to her only a sunrise ago, besides her kits. but now they were gone, so nothing mattered anymore. the she-cat considered, briefly, if ending her stay on the world and going to be with her kits would be better. of course, they wouldn't be in that stupid starclan. they would just be in a different place. of course.

eyes clouded with pain, the orange tabby stumbled shakily out of the den-like structure.

the den of death.

larksong paused, wondering why she was leaving this spot. there's nothing out there that can heal this wound. not even mintleaf, not realizing that the medicine cat had passed away. it's not like doing anything will make a difference. my everything is gone. but for some reason, she took another step. perhaps it was her curiosity. there was a spark in her that told her she needed to know what had happened to her clanmates. so she went on, inching her way to camp.

the she-cat was not expecting an attack. then again, she didn't expect the monster's roar, nor her kits' death, so expectations really shouldn't even exist as this point. anyway, just when she thought she found her sense of direction, a putrid and vile scent hit her nose. it took the tabby a few seconds to realize that the scent was from a rat. the said rat, driven mad by hunger and pain, decided that the next creature it came upon would be dinner. that creature happened to be larksong.

if she hadn't been weakened by her ordeal, the tabby would of easily defeated and killed the rat. unfortunately for larksong, that wasn't the case. the mangy bundle of fur threw itself at her, full force. the result was the she-cat falling to the ground. the rat clawed viciously at her stomach, knowing that this was a weak spot in cats. she howled in pain and swiped blindly at her attacker. this blow landed on the rat's muzzle, stunning it. in this short period of time when it was disabled, the former queen managed to haul herself up. realizing she was in no condition to fight, she fled.

once larksong gone what she thought was a reasonable distance, she slowed to a halt. she took a moment to catch her breath. then, finally, she found the camp. home.

[Tremayne]

Spidergaze.

She was right behind him. Briarcloud was right behind him, he could have sworn by it. Spidergaze's golden eyes frantically searched to meet with his sister's blue ones, but he came to no avail. His breathing was labored, and his heart rate sped up. Panic was setting in, and he wobbled on his perch, high up in the tree. Briarcloud was a branch below him, he knew it. He had her by the scruff of her neck, trying to help her up to his branch, and then she was gone. Desperately, he looked around at the base of the tree, searching for the one thing that he loved more than anything, the one sister he was given in this world.

But she was no where.

He scrambled down the tree ungracefully, practically falling down the whole way. When his hardened paw pads were touching the ground, which was covered in a shallow layer of water, he sat down in defeat. He could care less about getting wet and muddy, all he wanted was to find Briarcloud. Spidergaze stood up on wobbly feet, and began to blindly wander around the base of the tree. His eyes were possessed with sorrow and worry.

White fur.

White fur covered in debris and mud, and an accenting ginger stripe on his face.

"Whiteblaze!" Spidergaze yowled, running over to his brother. He frantically nudged the lifeless body, wanting his brother to look at him and crack a joke like he always did. He wanted him to stand up and run around and help him find Briarcloud. He wanted his body to feel warm and full of life, rather than cold and deathly.

But there was nothing.

Whiteblaze was dead, and there was nothing Spidergaze could do about it. His golden gaze looked up into the sky, as if he was trying to find his brother in StarClan just to say one last goodbye. Whiteblaze was his only brother, and a good one at that. They may have had their rough patches, they may have never gotten along, but Spidergaze loved his brother no matter what. Briarcloud, Spidergaze and Whiteblaze were the trio amongst the clan, always with each other and always joking around. However, when Spidergaze was appointed deputy his time with his siblings was minimal, and they had begun to venture off. Whiteblaze was developing a crush on Dewstep, and Spidergaze knew one day they would be mates. He had always been watching from afar, waiting to be an uncle to his brother's kits.

Now, however, that was never going to happen.

All he had to do now was find Briarcloud. She couldn't have gone far, and if she was up there with him she should have survived as well. His sister was a whole different cat entirely, and preferred to be by herself when she wasn't with her brothers. It always made him wonder why she would not pursue finding a mate; she was gorgeous and kind and never had anything to hide. It could have been because she was so shy, but Spidergaze knew she would grow out of it eventually.

With a sorrowful nuzzle, Spidergaze said goodbye to his brother once and for all. He knew if Whiteblaze were here now he would want to find Briarcloud right away. Spidergaze's ears strained towards the sound of a yowl, which was a good sign seeing as another cat was alive. However, the yowl was not Briarcloud's, and finding her was his number one worry right now.