Chamrosh wrote:xxxxIt was a sad sight that met Barn-Owl when he jumped outside that morning. He stopped where he stood, not just because of the stiffness of his hip joints. Instead of the beautiful, warm light that filtered through the leaves from outside camp and landed gently on the flat rocks and newly regrowing plants outside…
xxxxInstead of the familiar warmth of the sun that eased the pain in his joints…
xxxxInstead of the gentle breeze he had come to expect as his normal greeting from the outside world each morning…
xxxx…everything grey…
xxxx…not just the ground, but the sky itself, a putrid grey that reeked of danger…
xxxx…a biting force behind the wind, whispering death…
xxxx…and a dim brown sun that barely warmed his eyes as he glanced past it, and in fact, his eyes could stay fixed on it for as long as he wanted.
xxxxBarn-Owl shivered.
xxxxOf course, the cold was a part, and the wind ruffling deep into his now-thinning fur didn’t help that, but primarily, it was his memory from before that brought the shiver. It was so long ago that he couldn’t remember the elders of the clowder he had been born to had told it to him.
xxxxSome stories you were told as a kit were so terrifying that they ingrained themselves in your head as securely – more so, sometimes – than your own memories. And thus had been what the elders before Barn-Owl was born, let alone an elder himself, had known of what this meant.
xxxxWho knew if they themselves had had the knowledge passed down to them?
xxxxOf course, he had seen similar things himself in his many long moons, but never to this extent. He’d never seen the sun that colour, or the sky looking that putrid. And events like these… they weren’t just random.
xxxxBarn-Owl scoured his time-worn memories for stories he’d been told about what the dead-sky meant when he was just a kit, but he couldn’t remember any stories which involved a sky like this. The ones there were were bad enough. He could scarcely imagine what this sky had to be an omen of.
xxxxTHUMP. THUMP thump-thump. And then a scream from behind him. Any other time, Barn-Owl would have turned his head to look at the kit that had followed him outside, but the sun was almost hypnotic, even if only in the sense of a grim dread building in his chest. He couldn’t wrench his eyes away.
xxxxAnd apparently, neither could Pheasantkit. The shrill screaming of a kit, bewildered and terrified, burned its way into Barn-Owl’s mind more harshly than he feared the dying sun was bound to.
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xxxxOn the first day of bleeding skies, Barn-Owl told the whole camp of how this
had to be a bad omen of some sort. Ospreykit asked if the “leader of Starclan” had turned to join the Darkforest and if his star was dying because of it – it became increasingly clear as Barn-Owl continued, that Ospreykit had the very
strange notion that the sun was just a large star that was so much better than the others that he could do all of the others’ jobs by himself and better during the day, and that the cat who made that star
must have been the first cat, from whom all other cats are descended (making them the best
and the leader), and Barn-Owl blamed Tabbyfur’s kitty-pet upbringing for the bizarre belief of her kit.
xxxxBirds circled over the territory, but none came to land – bar one angry looking kite which none of the hunting patrol dared approach.
xxxxThe humans with their fish tails were back again, scaring away both the waterfood and the cats from the lake shore.
xxxxAnd the roaming sheep that frequented the territory were disturbing all the ground-based prey, wondering around in panic, clearly just as worried about the darkened sky as the Gustclan cats were; not to mention that the sheer size of them would make even one a potentially lethal threat for an unwary hunting patrol.
xxxxThe patrol returned to camp empty-pawed. They wouldn’t go out again until the weather returned to normal, leaving the cats to rely on the fresh-kill pile; a shocking situation when it should have been Green-leaf by now.
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xxxxOn the second day of blasting wind, believing the weather to be linked to whatever had taken their Southern neighbours, and being unwilling to risk any other cat, Heronstar secretly crossed the border where Wrenlan had been. She came back limping, with dried blood matting the thick fur around her throat. Harrierpelt tended to her injuries, and all that any other cat knew was the announcement two days later. No cat was to go there alone, and ideally none at all, until whatever had hurt her was gone.
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xxxxOn the third day of violent rain, Heronstar called Myrtleclaw privately to herself.
xxxx"It’s vitally important that we make sure the next generation can survive such events; we don’t want to be wiped out ourselves. Make sure Ploverpaw is being trained in swimming this moon.” They could afford for not every warrior to learn how to swim; plenty of the territory was far above anywhere prone to flooding, but to have
no means of contacting areas split apart by floods seemed foolish at best. A few apprentices in each batch had to learn to swim, and, frankly, Cicelypaw and Ploverpaw, though they were her kits and she adored them to pieces, were hardly ideal apprentices, and really needed every asset they could find to actually be useful to Gustclan as warriors.
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xxxxA fourth day of biting cold, thankfully, did not come. The sky cleared, back to its normal pale grey, the rain subsided to normal drizzle, and the wind went from numbing to just chilled. (The next day was actually warm and sunny, the first day of what could really be considered
Summer; but Green-leaf had a habit of coming and going for Gustclan, so that could hardly be expected to last.)
xxxxAnd Moraine sat on her favourite spot on the wall, again. Looking at her best friend, again. Wondering how to ask him to be her mate,
again.
xxxxShe took a massive breath in. A huge breath, and she held it for a second, and then words tumbled out of her.
xxxx"I’ll understand it if you say no, or if you feel betrayed and abandon me or whatever else, but, I’ve been wanting to ask this for moons, probably from within a few moons of me having met you, actually, and I have to know, it’s been way too long. You’re gorgeous, right? You’re clever, even if I have no idea how you have your smarts, you’re a good hunter, just a good warrior generally, and I can’t imagine anyway you’d be a bad dad, so would you maybe, in any way, want to be my mate?” She was met with a genuinely shocked look.
“Oh stars, I’m sorry, I… I thought you’d probably have already worked out I like you,I mean like like you, starclan help me.”xxxxThere was a slightly uncomfortable silence. It grew. Not just in length but the sheer agonising
awkwardness of it.
xxxx"I am not sure ‘ow to put this.” The silence restarted, briefly. Pearstone’s tone was incredibly gentle as he started, but in a horrible way, that only made it worse.
“It is not that I do not like you, or anything of this sort, but that I do not like anycats in that way, if I am understanding you.”xxxx"Oh.” Moraine curled up into herself, making a tiny ball as much composed of shame as cat.
“You’re not even interested in being a dad without doing… any stuff that isn’t just what dads and friends do, then? I’d be… fine with that.” There was a feeling like a rock being pushed through her guts.
xxxxThe silence reached the point where Moraine was considering which way to run to avoid having to face up to this situation having happened later.
xxxx"You are okay with that? To be mates in the sense of – is it the same term? – co-parents? not anything else?”xxxxMoraine nodded, and the rock of emotion in her gut twisted. But at least the tightness in her chest (and longing to be literally anywhere else) had finally gone away. And it was good to know why he’d never asked her either.
[Heronstar loses 1 life]
[Boulderdash is on her fourth moon of gestation]
[Moraine and Pearstone are now mates] (no kits yet)
[Bugleclaw, Martinwhisker, and Merlindash go on patrol]
[Chubtail, Osierfang, Sparrowfoot, Nettleflower, Lobeliafur and Firepath go hunting]
[Shellcloud and Langoustinepaw, and Droseratail and Vendacepaw train; fighting]
[Myrtleclaw and Ploverpaw, and Heronstar and Cicelypaw train; swimming]
[Harrierpelt stays in camp to look after his patients]
[Argusheart stays in camp to look after the kits; Pheasantkit, Mosquitokit, Lobsterkit and Camberkit. Tabitha stays in camp to look after the kits; Ospreykit, Noctulekit and Saffronkit.]
[Boulderdash, Pearstone, Moraine, and Barnfish stay in camp]
[Gustclan consumes 1 big fish and 1 hare – 6 portions]
(If the patrol finds a cat, would it be alright for them to be grizzled and battle-worn?)