ARPG WRITING CENTRAL

[TheSongOfTheStars]

HAVEN
Firstlight
161words
Firstlight tilted her towards pale dawn sky and a laugh rippled out of her throat. No nightmares no matter how unsettling they may be could spoil this for her. As her feet traced a path through the silver dew on the grass, her heart became a throbbing stone, a beating ruby inside her chest that pulsed fire throughout every muscle. The sun, a pale disk, was still just a sliver on the horizon and the sky faded from pale lavender to deeper amythest and in the darker recesses the last stars still gleamed.
Firstlight paused as she reached the summit of a low ridge and sank to her chest, gasping for air between breathless laughter. Oh it might have been lonely so far off from the rest of the Haven and chilly so early in the morning, but honestly? Firstlight didn't mind. She enjoyed it actually. Just a few minutes of solitude and stillness and she was like a new cat.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

WAR
Festival- Main Prompt 3
539 words

"Well at least in the grass hutch he's not underfoot. I mean not that I believe that he is who he says he is, but if I accidentally killed Frith's emmisary by stepping on him, I might as well go offer myself up to Pacrack."
Evenswift was talking, ranting really, and Captain Teesa was ignoring her as best she could, it wasn't hard, the captain of the Owsla was both exhausted and well practiced in the fine art of ignoring the rabbits she didn't like.
They exited the warren's tunnels through the main entrance and came ambling out onto the 'front lawn' and for a moment didn't notice the scene gathering at the far end of the grassy stretch. Mostly because Evenswift was still absorbed in her rant about the chipmunk and Captain Teesa had her nose pointed towards the ground, not bothering to use her energy to watch where she was going. Nonetheless there was no ignoring Ratser's loud exclamation of "I knew it!" and they both looked towards where several Long River rabbits had gathered around a strange white rabbit.
"Who's that?" Evenswift wondered as Captain Teesa started towards the group at a quick trot.
"Rah?" Teesa called as she came closer, a question in her voice.
Orionrah startled and looked up from staring intently at his front paws "Oh thank Frith, Teesa."
"Who is this?" She asked, tossing her head towards the stranger.
Before Orionrah could answer her, the newcomer took it on himself to answer "I've been sent by Frith to bring the warmth back to this land. I was only hoping to stay for a day or so, I don't want to be any trouble."
At that, he sent an anxious sidelong glance at Ratser who was grinning like he'd contracted foaming mouth disease.
"I knew Frith wouldn't send us a striped rodent as his emissary! I just knew he wouldn't!"
"A striped rodent?" the white rabbit looked at him with concern.
"No, why would he lie about Frith sending him?" Tufts broken in, his ears tucked down and his eyes wide and watery "And all the stuff he did! How could he those things without Frith's help?"
"I don't know and I sure as the Black Rabbit of Inle don't care."
"But-!"
"Everyone quiet down," Oriorah, snapped, his voice forceful, but not raised and immediately every eye was on him "Frith's Emissary or not, this stranger is welcome to share our silflay and warren for a few days."
"But Orionrah, what if the Frith's Emissary- the other Frith's Emissary is upset? And what if he's the real one and this one isn't and we get in trouble?" Tufts asked.
Orionrah shook his head "I doubt that will happen Tufts. And if it does, then, I'll handle it."
"Captain Teesa," the Rah turned "Would you mind escorting our guest to one of the spare hollows? I'm sure he would appreciate a rest."
"Yes sir," Captain Teesa replied, straightening her shoulders and ears in an attempt to appear at least slightly professional. Though, truth be told, she would've much rather escorted herself down to one of the hollows in the warren. The Coming of the Sun never was this complicated back at the old warren.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

WAR
Festival- Main prompt 4
500 words


"This is a joke, please tell me this is a joke," Orionrah looked down the divided room as if looking for reassurance that it was indeed a joke. No one confirmed that this was a joke. Maybe Frith was playing it, maybe Orionrah shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms Ratser said were bad and this was just one really bad dream. At this point he wasn't even sure if it was his dream anymore, if it was indeed a dream.
Maybe if he'd go to sleep it would all go away.
"Rah," Evenswift waved her paw in front of his face "Rah to Long River Warren. Rah, you still in there dearie?"
He snapped back to attention and shoved the cheeky healer away.
"Alright, so can we please come to a decision on this?" He asked.
The lop-eared rabbit and the chipmunk had been set at the front of the room, while the warren was at the back. He didn't want to see them divided. Didn't want to watch them take sides. That would only make things that much more tense.
"Yeah," the chipmunk said, bristling, "I'm Frith's emissary. You know Frith isn't just for rabbits!"
"That's ridiculous!" the lop-eared rabbit retorted and the two descended into bickering once more.
"Alright!" Orionrah barked after a waiting a moment, hoping they'd resolve it between themselves. They didn't. Couldn't.
"You two," Orionrah growled, snagging each of the so called 'emissaries' by their respective ears and hauled them towards the exit "Will wait outside. If I see so much as a pink nose poked in here before I call you back, I'll personally run both of you out of the warren and off the island, understand?"
They both nodded vigorously and scampered off.
The room was blessedly quiet when Orionrah retook his place at the center.
"Why don't we just make them both leave?" Evenswift asked after a moment "That'd solve a lot of problems, I think."
"We can't just kick out Frith's emissary!" Ratser spluttered "Are you crazy?"
"Well, what if neither of them are Frith's emissary?" She suggested.
A groan rose up from all present.
"For the moment, let's assume one of them is," Orionrah sighed "Which one is it?"
There was a drawn out silence.
Orionrah rolled his eyes and shook his head "Paws up for lop-ears."
Everyone save Tufts raised their paws. The young buck look like he was about to burst.
"Tufts?"
"Well I don't see HOW it could be him!" He all but shouted "The chipmunk was here first and he brought the silflay and the chicks and the acorns and... and..." Tufts ears went down "It's him, I know it is."
"Anyone want to change their vote?"
Summervoice glanced back and forth, then nodded her head.
"Orionrah?" Ratser asked "What about you?"
Orionrah gave Tufts a quick, apologetic look "I think it's the lop-eared rabbit."
Tufts sighed and sat down.
"So can I chase the stripe rat off?" Evenswift asked.
"No."
"Can I poison him?"
"Evenswift!"
"What?"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Convocation
211 words

Anaba always knew she'd take a mate to carry on her family line, but she never really looked forwards to the ceremony and never anticipated taking any of the males in the flock as her mate. So it was rather more blind luck than any deeper reasoning that she chose Eknath as her second. He was healthy and strong as any other bird and fairly quiet, so Anaba thought she wouldn't have any problems with him. But a few weeks after taking him as a mate, Anaba had begun to regret it. He opposed her at every turn, undermined her every decsion, bright sun above he had opinions on everything! A month in, she was this close to just slicing his throat open. Only the last threads of her self restraint kept her from snapping. In a last ditch attempt, Anaba swallowed as much of her pride as she could and started listening to Eknath's suggestions and opinions. To her great surprise she found he actually had several good ideas and once she started paying attemtion to what he thought, he became much less antagonistic. Eventually, after settling their differences, they eventually grew close.
Anaba would never admit it and neither would Eknath, but they do actually care about each other.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

WAR
Festival
Main prompt 5
505 words
"Well, gotta say I'm glad that's over," Orionrah admitted as he and Ratser ambled through the forest, pulling a cabbage leaf full of berries behind them.
"No kidding," Ratser agreed with a huffy laugh "Though we did get some acorns out of it."
Orionrah winced "And a few stubbed toes."
"True," Ratser rolled his eyes "I let Evenswift deal with those. It's nice though to get on with the rest of the celebrations."
"Mm-hmm, hey where's your flower crown?"
Ratser snorted "Like I'd be caught dead parading around with that piece of hraka on my head?"
"Where'd it go?"
"I ate it."
"You ate Tufts hard work?"
Ratser rolled his eyes "He used mine as practice for the ones he made you."
Orionrah paused to touch the crown Tufts had made him "I think he did a good job."
"Whatever, I never liked the flowery part of the festival. Flowers are good for food, not good for wearing."
"What part do you like then? Wait, let me guess," Orion's brow furrowed thoughtfully "The food."
"Very funny. I actually like the recounting of the First Coming of the Sun."
"Oh sure, like you're sentimental."
"It's the part where everyone has to shut up and listen to me talk," Ratser stopped to rearrange the berries on the cabbage leaf "How'd we end up with this many blackberries anyway?"
"Oh, it was a sort of a thank you from the squirrels for the acorns."
"Hm, you'd think they'd just eat it all themselves, greedy tree mice."
"You can't really call them greedy when they're sharing with us Ratser."
"Maybe I shouldn't, but I can."
Orionrah supposed he couldn't argue with that.
They walked for a few more minutes, exchanging mindless conversation before making it back to the warren where Tuft's was basically doing back flips around the clearing.
"Well at least one of us is in the Festival spirit," Orion remarked as the young buck darted over to them and scooped up a pawful of berries.
"Hey now, greedy guts, those are for the feast," Ratser nipped Tufts lightly on the ear "Don't spoil your appetite."
"I won't!" Tufts protested, snagging another berry and promptly shoving it into his mouth "I"m really hungry! I've barely eaten anything all day, Ratser!"
"Well, then you can wait a bit long then, can't you?"
"But black berries are my favorites!" Tufts danced around them, trying to snatch another pawful, but Ratser shoved him hard on his shoulder and sent him tumbling down. The younger buck blinked, then tilted his head.
"What happened to your flower crown, Ratser?"
"Oh," Ratser paused, glancing at Orionrah, who only shook his head with a disapproving look "I uh, lost it."
"I'll make you a new one!"
"No, you really don't-"
"Good idea!" Orionrah cut Ratser off "Why don't you go do that right now? Use the biggest, brightest flowers too."
"Okie-doke!" Tufts raced off.
"Was that really necessary?" Ratser grumbled.
"It was, I assure you. Don't want the rest of the warren thinking our head healer isn't in the Festival spirit!"

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Mountains
Describe or draw how your Medicine cat came into contact with Starclan and how they feel about their new duty. Did they give up other duties to join the clan? Do they regret it?


583 words
Eira took a slow cautious breath and slowly crept out of the bush. For three days she couldn't shake the sense of being watched and one evening when she'd been hunting, she'd heard pawsteps running through the dry dead leaves behind her. That's when she'd bolted. Ran half senseless with fear until she'd dropped from exhaustion from beneath the bush. She'd stayed there for the rest of that day and the night.
But the sensation had eased off and she hadn't heard anything for several hours now, so it was probably safe.
Cautiously Eira took several steps away from her hiding place, ready to return at a second's notice. When nothing lunged for her throat, she relaxed and set off at a brisk pace.
She hadn't been walking a minute when a red shadow with starry green eyes came plummeting from the canopy to land with a loud crunch in front of her.
He offered her a wide alluring smile and she was too dumbstruck to even breathe properly.
"Eira!" He said her name like she was an old friend and he was impossibly pleased to see her once again "You're a difficult cat to find, did ya know that?"
"I...I..." Eira felt a bubble of anger rise up "Who are you!?"
What gave him the right to go dropping out of trees like that?
"Starbite," he continued to beam at her, despite her tone of voice, but he went serious all of a sudden "We need you."
"What? Who?" she glanced around, expecting to see an army of green eyed, grinning cats to descend on her.
"Darkclan."
She paused, then laughed "Darkclan? That's an old myth. Doesn't exist."
"Didn't," Starbite corrected "I'm bringing it back."
She gave him an incredulous look, how was he going to bring it back. Was he going to resurrect the ghosts of long gone cats?
That smile came back "Let me show you, Willowglade."
"My name isn't-"
"I know, I know," He laughed "Eira. But if you really want to know what's going on, come with me. I'll show you."
"Yeah right."
"Eira," he was talking again before she'd even finished "We need you. We need a healer."
"How do you know any of this?"
"They told me... If you'd let me show you, it be so much easier."
She didn't answer.
"You want this," he pressed "I know you do. You feel useless and aimless out here by yourself, you have no purpose but you desperately want one."
She just stared at him.
----
The cave looked like a hungry mouth ready to swallow her down, but Eira had followed Starbite this far, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to follow him a bit further.
The cave wasn't deep, thank heavens, and the stream they'd followed in spread out into a shallow lake that reflected the moonlight.
"Now what?" She asked and regretted it right away, as the empty space took her voice and amplified it tenfold.
"Just wait," Starbite's smile had gone from blazing to small and secret.
She looked around the cavern, then up at the hole in the ceiling. The crescent moon was just beginning to rise.
When it had reached the center of the hole, Eira felt her hackles raise.
"Eira," someone said her name and it wasn't Starbite.
She looked down from the moon and gasped as she realized she was surrounded. By pale cats who were little more than mist and stars.
"Welcome," one of them said, stepping closer "Healer."

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Mountains
242 words
Describe your leader / medicine cat’s relationship

Willowglade and Starbite hardly see eye to eye on anything. Starbite is rash and reckless, charming and charismatic while Willowglade is paranoid, cautious, nervous. They clash often, over many things, anything from when the apprentices should go to sleep, to the length of a patrol, to how often cats should come in to be check by Willowglade. Willowglade wants everyone to be healthy and safe and Starbite keeps pushing and pushing, trying to expand Darkclan as quickly as possible
But they make it work. Sort of. Starbite frustrates Willowglade and he tends to rail ride her into agreeing with whatever he wants to do. She is often intimidated by him, but through, rather divine intervention, Starbite will listen to her if she insists on it.
It isn't all too terrible, Starbite trusts her without any reservations and believes in her far more than she does. In fact, she's one of the only cats he feels really comfortable calling a friend or confiding any of his problems with and she's one of the only cats who really is capable of peering beneath his smiling charismatic mask at any time she pleases. She can see through any of his lies without even trying.
So, its not the most comfortable or stable relationship, but it works out between the two of them and it works for the rest of the clan. They don't undermine each other's authority and support each other, it's not so bad.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

mountains

258 words

"Eira!"
Eira didn't know why Starbite was shouting. She was right there as were the rest of the shifty bunch he claimed were the humble rebeginnings of the glorious Darkclan.
"You came here to us-"
More like Starbite had hunted her down and dragged her to that cave.
"In our hour of need-"
Okay they had needed a healer, but not desperatly, no one had been dying.
"Now, you have chosen to become one of us-"
Also technically true, but that was only because of... well because of what had happened in the cave. She still wasn't entirely certain that she believed what she had seen there and she definitly wasn't prepared to do it on a regular baisis.
"And you have agreed to take on a new name-"
She had. She had felt extrememly out of place with a name like Eira whioe everyone else had a name like Starbite.
"And after careful consideration-"
He stared throwing out names as soon as she'd agreed, with wild abandon and little regard for Eira's input. Finally they had agreed.
"She will now be known as Willowglade and she is now the official healer of Darkclan. She will be treated with all the respect that is due her."
Eira, now Willowglade, smiled as the cats around her cheered. Starbite had spoken with a sort of authority that had given her a bit of hope. This might jusg all work out.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Rise
Breeding entry for Morningblaze and Ashmask
623 words
It was quiet. Peaceful.
Twilight always was here at this season, between the passing of summer towards autumn.
Morningblaze took a deep breath of the still sweet warm air and settled down onto the stone. For the entire day the rock had been soaking up sunlight and now it was like a warm bed.
She closed her eyes and focused on listening. She could always hear him coming, no matter how quiet he was.
Not that he wasn't good, but over time she'd become attuned to the way he moved and knew how to pick his presence out from the rest of the forest noise.
Ashmask was quiet in more than one way though much like Morningblaze herself and while some cats would say they should be friends based on that factor, usually two quiet cats was a recipe for an uncomfortable silence. And it had been at first, uncomfortable quiet and awkward conversations, but there had been a pull and eventually they hit their stride together.
She could hear him approaching now, like a gentle breeze weaving his way down from the forest, through the tall grass like he was a field mouse, until he drifted up on to the rock and stood beside her.
For a moment they didn't speak as they both watched the sun sinking down beyond the horizon, watched at the gold soaked sky turned a deep red then finally dimmed into a rich blue and the stars began to come to life.
He sat as the ribbons of night unfurled above them, curling close to her side.
"I've missed you," he murmured softly, too soft to endanger the fragile quiet.
She hummed and leaned her head against his should "And I've missed you."
"You've been so busy."
It was a statement as well as a question.
"I have," she replied and it was an acknowledgement and an apology. It was also a bit of a lie. She been avoiding him, putting off this meeting by nearly a week as she tried to settle with her newfound situation.
"What have you been doing?"
She closed her eyes, wondering how to arrange her words.
"Many things, dearest, but mainly thinking."
He pulled away from her, but only so he could look into her eyes "Thinking about what?"
"Us, our relationship, our future and all the variations."
"Why?"
She crossed then uncrossed her front paws and tilted her ears back marginally "One of the variables has... changed and it affects... everything."
"Everything?" his voice was still quiet, but now it was strained, nervous.
"Yes," she replied simply, then took a deep breath "I'm going to have kits."
Ashmask went very still and sucked in a sharp breath "Mine?"
It was a fair question, but still, Morningblaze frowned.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, nuzzling his nose against her cheek "You just... surprised me."
She sighed, enjoying his affection for a second.
"We have decisions to talk about, Ashmask," she said.
"I know...I...I'm just excited I supposed."
She smiled "I am too. But I am worried."
"About what? Wildeyes and your clan are kind, they won't mind that our children are crossclan."
"You don't mind that I stay with Songclan?"
"No, of course not, it's your home," he reassured her "You feel safe here. When our kits are old enough they can choose between Songclan and Thornclan but I would never ask you to do that."
Morningblaze let out a long sigh of relief "That lifts a great deal of worry from my heart."
"But, I do want to be there and I want to help name them."
"Of course," she laughed gently "I want you to be by my side as much as you can possibly be."
"I will," he promised.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Mountains
233 words

Featherwatcher stood in the center of the ring of great ancient stones. How she had gotten there, she did not know, had she come from anywhere else or had she always been here? She couldn't recall a place aside from here.
Maybe this was a dream and when she woke up this strange place would dissapate like a fog and her life would come rushing back in a reassuring flood.
But as she stared at the orange tom with green eyes that burned like the heart of a wildfire, all Featherwatcher got was the sense that whatever was happening had been inevitable.
Whether she liked it or not she was here now and unless this flaming being decided otherwise.
"Hey, wanna join a clan?" He asked "Uhh, I mean for the moment the clan would be you and me and the gal I found under a bush because the dead cats in the cave told me about her, but hey we have to start somewhere right?"
Words. Speak. Answer him.
Featherwatcher took a deep breath and the words rose up and tore themselves out of her mouth.
"Sure."
"Awesome," he came winding down the stone. He was an endless river of cat and fire, a hundred thousands legs descending on her.
Then he was there all normal and whatnot, like he hadn't been cascading down on her.
"Cool, so, you're a warrior now."