[Archaeopteryx.]

Why does this cat stay?

Max 500 words, one art piece.

Ends June 20th at rollover (20 to 21)

Code: Select all

[b]Username:[/b]
[b]Cat Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Rank:[/b]
[b]Clan:[/b] (Please link)
[b]Age:[/b] (1 year or above)
[b]Prompt:[/b]

x
Name: Kestrelcloud
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Rank: Warrior
Clan: https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=4742697
Description: black based silver carnelian carrier
braided tabby with low white
Age: 5 years
Edits: [nr] accessories, scars, expression, claws
[c] ear placement, shorter tail, min fur, ear tufts
Owner: Hallowitch

[Zephara]

Username: zephara
Cat Name: Duskfade
Gender: male
Rank: trainer
Clan: River’s Rush
Age:
Prompt:

wip~

[Booberry Smoothie]

Username: Lunastar589
Cat Name: Dawnlight
Gender: female
Rank: Patrol
Clan: Crimson Lands
Age: 4/yo
Prompt: WIP

[ArtMajor]

Username: ArtMajor
Cat Name: Cottonmoon
Gender: Male
Rank: Deputy
Clan: Smokeclan
Age: 5y 6mo
Prompt: Back when Cottonmoon was a kit, living with his family on the unclaimed side of the island, his parents made him promise to never go near the wild cats calling themselves Shoreclan. As he grew, Cotton kept to that promise, staying far away from the cats he saw as well...frankly an out of their mind cult. Especially their leader, Tidestar.

But when Tidestar died and was replaced by Shellstar, things began to grow impossibly worse. Shoreclan stayed within their borders, but any cat who strayed too close was killed on sight.

Cottonmoon came across a patrol savagely attacking a young loner, and though it was too late to save her he barely escaped with his life. After fleeing to the great Stone Barrier, a massive wall of stones that sectioned off a small corner of the island, it was there he met Smokestar, a blind cat whom Shellclan's gods had decided would heal the twisted clan.

But a blind cat alone is no good, he would need help, and that is why Cottonmoon stays. He has named himself as Smokestar's guardian, protecting the prickly tom, and guiding his paws so that one day, he may take revenge for that little loner, and all the others who died under Shellstar's reign of terror.

212 words, may add more later

[espen.]

Username: quirky;
Cat Name: Harping Eagle | Harp/Eagle for short
Gender: Tom
Rank: Villager
Clan: The Principality
Age: 60 moons
Prompt: He stays because of [ a possibly ] unrequited love and devotion to a personal cause [ caring for his childhood sweetheart ] .

Charming Magpie was just that, charming. Wonderfully adorable in everything he did. Harping Eagle loved that feline through and through, ever since they were kits. So it worried him when suddenly his fluffy hair was messed up and his eyes bloodshot, darting every which way.

A new group of cats had come to settle next to their village, and Magpie went to scout it out, in hopes to welcome them kindly. Moons later, they needed caretakers for their new kits. Magpie, being the loving and sweet tom he was, volunteered and grew to love both the job and the points of interest (the kits). But something was troubling him, and Harp could tell. He twitched and flinched at every noise, every remark on how the kits were growing and practicing battle moves. It was if he believed the world was out to get him.

Harping Eagle approached the tom one day and inquired about his sudden moodswing from bright and cheery, to somber and fragile. Breaking down into sobs and tears, Charming Magpie confessed everything to his friend. It started with wanting to do right by the new bandit leader, Ravaging Serpent. Then it was found out what brutality the kits were being brought up into. Gorey battles raged outside the camp, blood drowning many, and scarring those few who remained. He didn't want to just raise these kits and lead them to the slaughter. Harp's heart shattered, not just from the news, but from the look on his love's face. It was pure and utter desperation. Desperation to fix things, to make it all better, but having about as much power as a soaking-wet fly in a mason jar trying to escape through a closed lid. He had no words to express his great urge to soothe Magpie's worries and fears. So instead, he just inched closer, body up against the other, and groomed the tom througoughly, ear to tail tip, hoping the much needed tidying up would help, even a little bit. He ended it with a loving lick on the forehead.

The black and white tom's breathing evened out, going from a jagged mountain range of shutters, to a smooth, new spring of gliding breaths. His gleaming head rose, powder blue eyes meeting ancient amber, both softening as they saw the other's struggles. The cats stayed like that, in the middle of a field, until the sun's shinging edge dipped into the horizon. The only thing that changed with nightfall was that they curled up together. Harp was still comforting Magpie, whispering about how they'll fix everything and end the war, together. Charming Magpie just smiled and drifted into a peaceful sleep.

[SonOfStarGod]

Username: SonOfStarGod
Cat Name: The One Who Speaks in Silence
Gender: tom
Rank: medicin cat
Clan: here
Age: 1 year
Prompt: 337 words

I remember that night when he died, the screaming, the cold. I heard nothing, not even my own scream, as he fell down into the foaming, hungry water, swallowing him up. It was midnight when it happened; no one else heard a thing, not even those sill up to stand watch for the monsters; the water made sure of that. All we wanted was some moss to treat an injury; it would be fine, he said; he had done it a thousand times before. What a fool, only a year older than me, now I am cursed to read the stars, too young and too naive.

I could disappear into the night out into the rocks and grass, into the sand and beyond the human place, beyond over the mountain. But I know I can not, the monsters would get me first if not my clanmates, if not the other clans. So I will stay and treat their wounds to the best of my ability, I know so little, he had so much more to teach. But now I sleep on my cold moss bed, I spin around and around trying to get comfortable, I spin around and around in my head trying to forget the look in his eyes as he fell and the absence of a scream. Eventually, I sleep. I dream of the gods, the old gods, the ones without names, or maybe they did have names, secret, forgotten, irrelevant? They look down onto me towering above like the mountains in the distance, but they are close, too close suffocating. Grinding closer and closer until they are on top of me, and I scream a silent scream.

I awake; the others are staring at me, so move groggily awake on the brink of their own dreams. My scream was not silent it was heard, by my clan, my friends, and my family. I will not die and be replaced like so many medicine cats before me. My legacy will make even the old gods tremble. The stars will be rewritten in my image as I see fit. So that no other cat will have to die a pointless death. I roll over, standing up, time to get to work.

[l1lithu]

Username: l1lithu
Cat Name: Lunarclaw
Gender: Female
Rank: Elder (formerly medicine cat)
Clan: House Cats Community
Age: 11 years
Prompt:
Lunarclaw hails from the same (Non-player) clan that the current leader, Gremlin was born from. She grew, was apprenticed, and trained under their medicine cat. She was proficient in medicine, but also found enjoyment in foraging and fighting amongst the warriors of her clan.
It was a fine day for bushwalking when she was out exploring the outskirts of the forest, near the twolegs settlement. She had spotted some valuable herbs on the other side of the road, and overcome with excitement and energy, she didn't pause or consider before gleefully padding over the concrete to retrieve the herbs.

A twoleg monster came speeding towards the distracted (then) Lunarpaw.

She awoke in the unfamiliar setting of a twoleg den. Not a den, a medicine cave of sorts.
The scents were harsh. The light blinded her. The artificial winds chilled her. Yet there was a source of warmth near her.
Lunarpaw spent the next few days in something known as a veterinary clinic.
When she finally escaped the eternal drowsiness and the haziness, she found herself staring a small twolegs in the face, the sides of her vision restricted, and her body so heavy that she wished to simply fall back into the silence of before.
So she did.
Slowly, she regained strength, and even more slowly adjusted to her new home in the twolegs settlement.
She met the House Cats Community, and was appointed as medicine cat by the (former) leader. Her twolegs knew her as Luna, but she was granted the honour of graduating apprenticehood and becoming known as Lunarclaw among the cats at her request.

Many times she thought of returning to her clan: to her mother, her littermates, her friends, and her mentor. However, every time she took a decisive step towards the forest, rhe small twolegs would come running with a smile and a loud noise to pet her, or give her a treat.
Every time she lingered close to the edge of the settlement, her new friends would bid her a good day or night, starting up a friendly conversation.
Every time she took a step into the forest, someone would come running for her, speaking of injuries or illness that she was obliged to attend to.

So her stay went from weeks, to months, to years.
She made friends, looked after kits, grew close to her twolegs.
She worked as medicine cat, took on an apprentice, and taught until her mentee was worthy.
Then she rested her old bones, settling for the warm sunlight on the porch and the easy food from her small twolegs, which could barely be called small anymore.

And so she stayed, in the warm sunlight, with the warm twolegs and her newfound clan.

[454/500 Words]

[Divantae]

Username: Divantae
Cat Name: Bellacara | Moonshine
Gender: Genderfluid, DFAB (she/they)
Rank: Medium
Clan: Ruby Red Resort
Age: 6 years
Prompt:

It all started with a young cat named Bellacara: her matted pelt soaked so heavily from rain that it clung to her ribs as she flung open the reflective glass doors to the hotel lobby. Pellets of water scattered from her onto the marble tile floor as hastily as prey would flee from any cat that called themselves a Ruby. She simply had nowhere else to go. Formidable as the Rubies were, she came to realize she caused no fuss nor ire at her mess as she flicked her jacket to the side. The bellhop simply collected and folded the article in a neat pile on his lap before nodding his head towards the front desk sympathetically, flicking his tail methodically from side to side like a metronome's pendulum. It was then in the untamed, harsh pools of the receptionist's eyes that she feared if she lingered too long they would start to call her name in a skeleton's voice, as the dead which popularized her living world most often would. Oh how they leered over the young molly in the moon's vague silhouette, cutting through the stars, making them twinkle through their spindly shadowed arms. And when they finally reached for her form in the dark, she'd cry out in a cold sweat, answering their pleas with one unchanging answer. It was in this dilemma that Bellacara would find herself proposing and accepting a simple deal on this day.

-∞-

Cats are spiritual creatures: whether they cause great havoc in the most unlikely events to hit the evening news or somehow scrape by the most bone-chilling dangers without a scratch on them. That's what the Rubies say, anyway. Moonshine is obliged to agree, as they don't truly understand how the cat formerly known as Bellacara was ever blessed with a divine power such as this. Well, they weren't going to complain with the offering of such a desperate host at their newly-fitted, aching paws. It takes getting used to, they say, from prowling the blanket of night sky, howling out to the wolves in tease, to padding the cobbled streets in a tiny feline's body. They realize they've already gotten what they've desired from this gang of mortal cats, yes, to experience the most fun a lowly stray cat can have. But Moonshine supposes that any good spirit possessing a living, breathing body should pay up, too.

So, if you're ever in the need of paw pad readings and contacts with the dead, you'd be best to press the sixth button on the elevator and find Moonshine waiting for you, propped up on velvet pillows high above an eerie, unnatural mist cloaking your paw steps. But be warned that she is strictly out-of-commission on her off hours! The cat you'd find on her breaks definitely does not like to be bothered with trivial matters of the spirit world. Some would say it's almost like they're two different cats.


[489/500 words]

[Knickknacks]

Username: Knickknacks
Cat Name: Driftwood
Gender: male
Rank: citizen
Clan: salted stone
Age: 4 years
Prompt:

wip!

[hallowitch]

Username: Hallowitch
Cat Name: Kestrelcloud
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Rank: Warrior
Clan: https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=4742697
Age: 5 years
Prompt:
Someone had to do it. The weather started shifting, becoming cooler through the nights and the sun growing weaker during the days. The rocks, which used to be so lovely and held heat well past sunset, were cold to the touch, even at noon. Kestrelcloud had enough pity in his heart for the vibrant young Sagebrush, her heart nearly bursting with hope and promise, that he decided to help her. At first, he came and went, checking in, trying his hardest to be aloof. Just a quick "How're your stores?", make sure the future Leader wasn't hurt, and the stream was still flowing.

Sagebrush always was excited to see him, asked him how he was faring, never pushed him to stay at her Winterclan dens. Kestrelcloud appreciated that, that she trusted him to take care of himself, trusted him to be truthful if he needed help. She was thrilled whenever he brought her a meal, always asked to share it with him instead of taking it all. Kestrelcloud's old leader never would have been so generous. Slowly, he was warming to the fact that maybe all leaders weren't like his old leader.

The first night that frosted, Kestrelcloud made his decision. Through the icy white grass he trotted, his paws numb, his heart pounding into his throat. Maybe the whole time, Sagebrush was just playing nice. Maybe she didn't want his help at all. But as he approached the dens under the spruce trees and called her name, Sage's delicate face poked out, delight evident even in the darkness.

"Kestrelcloud!" she called, voice musical, "I caught a mole for dinner, would you like to share?"

He nodded emphatically and slipped into the pine boughs. After they finished, he curled into a freshly-dug hollow which Sage had bedded with soft leaves and fur. She never mentioned it, but he had the feeling that she'd prepared this for him a while ago, just in case. She was so good at that, never hunting for a compliment or validation, just doing good things quietly and hopefully.

Kestrelcloud decided he loved her shortly afterward, and he never spent another night away from Winterclan, away from Sagebrush. Every day in her joyous, kind presence made his heart lighter, his mind at ease. She'd bump him with her shoulder or flick water at him teasingly, and he felt such adoration that he knew, this was where he was meant to be, forever.

[406/500]