ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ ᴡɪɴᴅs ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴀʀᴅᴇɴᴇᴅ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛs.

[{{ f i a s c o }}]

I'm not usually intrigued by warrior's writing, yet this one has managed to deftly pull my heartstrings. Keep up the awesome work, I'll be watching this :3

[111misc]

I think sometimes, that if I die before I can do anything important,
and no one remembers me, it'll be as if I never even existed.

Cherrypaw glanced at the tom next to her, but his gaze was on Foxstar, intense and grey, almost single minded in it's loyalty to his leader and clan, in his preservation in the ideal that they knew best. Cherrypaw shrugged off the feeling of difference at that thought, she figured she must be the same way. After all, never had the girl disobeyed her leader or broken the code that the clan held so dear to its heart. It was just because, she sometimes thought, she had never had to break it, or disobey. Sometimes, Cherrypaw wondered if she had to, would she? Because she knew even if she put on the facade, she never really felt the burning passion that Wolfpaw felt towards Foxstar and his laws, and she would never revere or worship him like others did to their leaders. The thought of bowing to anyone disgusted the calico, but she didn't understand that, then.
"Darknose and I picked up the scents of a wolf while we were patrolling the border," the ginger leader paused, and whisperings erupted amidst the clan. Cherrypaw furrowed her brown, thinking. Wolfpaw seemed surprised, and Dustypaw worried, seemingly counting stocks in her head of certain medicines. At first, Cherrypaw agreed with them. Wolves were a bad sign, they were so much larger then any cat, stronger and more vicious. They could kill a cat in a fight any day, and only the best fighters could escape with their lives. But only one wolf? That was good, wasn't it? At least it wasn't a whole pack. They'd hadn't had the back luck to stumble upon that misfortune, as of yet, thank goodness. But another thought nagged at her for a moment, what was Darknose doing patrolling the borders? She couldn't fight, if anything had happened? And had they gone out alone together? Usually warriors went out in groups to do the border checks. How odd.
But Cherrypaw gave it no more thought as she watched Foxstar start up again, tail waving for silence.
"We must be extra careful. Until we can verify that the wolf has moved on, I want all apprentices untrained in the ways of fighting to stay in camp, at all times. The same with the queens," he shot a glance at Tallfeather, "and the medicine cats. We are increasing the patrols our warriors can make, and I don't want any cat going out alone, even the most seasoned of us need someone watching out back when an enemy is lurking about," he mewed, roving his gaze through the clan. Stormyfang, Cherrypaw noticed, was glaring ahead of him, seemingly deep in thought, though no one else noticed. The young apprentice felt a weight crunch down on her chest, and her shoulders sloped under her pristine white and silver-gingered fur. Minnowfur, for the whole two moons of her apprenticeship, had yet to teach her any fighting moves. Hadn't she known this would come of it? That his procrastinating would come to nip her in the end? Shooting a glance that could kill it had such anger behind it at her grey mentor, Cherrypaw caught Minnowfur's gaze. His green eyes were looking straight at her, but they weren't smiling, like when he would talk to her sometimes, and they weren't distracted, as she would have expected, seeing as he'd just turned away from Brightthorn, whose tail rested against his, but they were quite clear and the most solemn she'd ever seen them. Grim looking, but satisfied, was the way Cherrypaw found him. But she was shocked at meeting his gaze so fully, so her judgement was off.
Normally, Cherrypaw was the narrator of the story. She was always the one a cat would turn to for sound advice and a clear mind, because she always seemed to be outside the situation. She had no clan and no bias towards any. She had no look about her that tipped the scales any which way for any issue, really. She could always be seen level-headed in a crisis, smooth talking her way out of a mess while others teetered about uselessly. There was a head on her shoulders. And the cat was observant, too. She noticed things about others, not really important physical things, like what color their fur was, or how long their claws were. She could hardly remember the color of Minnowfur's eyes before then, but she noticed smaller things, and everything she noticed was under the fur and bone. There was more depth to that. Like her thought about Minnowfur, then, was that he looked guilty, under his solemn act, and he looked upset. He looked like he understood something. He had that wise look Cherrypaw had yet to earn, that she could somehow recognize without understanding she'd recognized it. She only knew that he was no fool. It was the same when she looked at Icetail. Cherrypaw had no respect for that girl because there was nothing in her head. When she looked in that cats eyes she saw a blank stare, no depth or character to the person. There was no emotion or conflicting feeling. Cherrypaw saw the artwork that was laid out behind those she interacted with. Icetail was a blank slate, or rather, a painting of little talent and earthy, dull colors. Minnowfur, was for the moment, a painting of twists and turns, and sharp edges. She could see the meaning behind things, like that look she'd just walked into, and sometimes that disturbed her.
But it was hard for her to narrate something when she was looking straight at it. Easily she could glance at Stormyfang, see the rage in his eyes, hidden by a hard stone curtain he pulled over to try and keep his emotions private, and understand the emotions pulling at his heart strings. The lack of security and strength he thought his clan had around it, the need to carry a burden, to help. The desperate want to fix this problem. That was what he was, she had decided long ago, a problem solver. And never in her life had Stormyfang given her even a glance. But that was why she knew so much about him. Because she could watch him without being watched. But Minnowfur was looking right at her, and it took away her power, for a moment. And she looked back. The fire ran from her gaze, and it turned to pure unbridled curiosity, blue depths swimming with uncertain assumptions. She wanted to know what he was thinking. She had to know. She always knew what everyone was thinking, if not technically, then she usually got the gist of it from their eyes and stance and jaw.
But in a way, the lack of power, though infuriating, in it's own way, to the vain she-cat, was relaxing, too. Because power is fantastic. But it's also lonely. Especially when you can only achieve it when invisible, when no one cares about what you look at and how you perceive it.
Cherrypaw's always thought that others only cared for her for her looks, and she's vain and proud of that, in a way. But she's insecure, too, in a way, because she thinks nothing of the person she is underneath. How could she? She had no substance. No depth. With all her talent at understanding others emotions, you should know she'd be able to at least understand this about herself. She is nothing. That is her only opinion on her. A shell.
Because depth comes from experience, and knowledge comes from memory. And what memory does Cherrypaw have? None. Nothing but her own name. And a few tidbits of haunting dreams where she can hear the screams of the cats she presumes are her brothers and sisters, before they died. Sometimes she sees a cloud and a flashback reminds of her of another she saw once akin to it. Or she breathes in fog, and chokes on the memory of it once, long ago.
But memories only come to her in flashes, and experience is yet hers to own. Because she did nothing on the trek to Greenclan's land. She just climbed and stuck to Wolfpaw, who kept her alive.
Cherrypaw can't remember her own family. Her own clan. There is no past for her, and so there is no substance.
Perhaps, in the end, that was why she was so perceptive. Because of the jealousy harbored so lovingly and so deeply at her lonely breast. Everyone knew who they were. They could have real emotions and real lives and real feelings because they understood they were aloud to. And she couldn't stand that. It made Cherrypaw's bones shake and her mind race and her heart pound and her blue eyes water like rivers, crashing in rage and confined to their banks. Because she had none of that, did she? In the end, Cherrypaw really was just a shell. Because she saw everyone with their memories and smiles and depth, even Icetail, she sometimes admitted, had more then her, because she had memories, even if they meant nothing to the white cat. They had their lives behind them, and that meant they had their lives ahead of them.
So Cherrypaw did look closer at everything, Wolfpaw had been right. But not because she was afraid it would slip from her, but because she knew it already had. She could watch you and understand you because she spent her life and all her days wishing she were like you. That she could feel the rage that Stormyfang could feel, and the guilt that Minnowfur, for whatever reason, felt, and the loyalty that Wolfpaw felt. But she didn't feel it, and she didn't understand. She was just suspended, alone, in a world of confusion and questions she could never have answers to.
In a way, it was Cherrypaw's lack of knowledge that made her everything she was. It gave her that sense of vanity, where she believed she was only valuable because she was beautiful. It gave her the observant nature she had so deftly mastered. It gave her the charm she wittingly used daily, for she could adapt far more then anyone else in the clan. She was made to adapt, for when you have nothing to go back to, you must go forwards. And Cherrypaw never really did have any safety net to fall back on, so she always had to blaze her own trail. Even if she didn't want to, at times. And it gave her the most prominent quality about the cat. The one that dominated her real heart. Not the one that thought shallowly about her tortoiseshell coat, or about what Stormyfang and Brightthorn were doing with their afternoons, or the part that despised Sunpaw for his antics and what he had done to her with a deep vengeance, it was deeper then even that. It was deeper then the loyalty to her new clan, deeper still then her friendship verging on brotherhood with Wolfpaw, even though conciensly nothing, Cherrypaw told herself, could be deeper then such a familial love. It was something that the cat kindled night and day, when she spoke and when she was silent, when she was happiest, and when she was most filled with sorrow.
Loneliness.
There is something about the emotion, the most hollow of emotions, that ruins a person. Eats them out from the inside, like acid, or poison. Like fire it burns you until there is nothing left but ash. Isolation is loneliness, and fear is loneliness. Cherrypaw's disease, in the end, was there from the day she left her old territory. The morning she woke up as a kit and forgot what her mothers name was. That, in essence, that mindless isolation from everything one should hold dearest to their heart, is the pure form of loneliness.
Either way, it was hard for Cherrypaw to read right then, her mentor, because the look of depth in his green eyes like emerald was so entrancing. Then the she-cat blinked, and fell from the spell. She swept her gaze back at the ground, but this time, uniquely confused. Cherrypaw was not the type of cat to become bemused easily, she was the one who kept her cool and had a clever tongue at her wits always. But she had decided long ago Minnowfur was, if not dull, at least not sharp, not deep, not really worth any attentions. Cherrypaw tended to make those types of snap judgements, a bad habit of hers she never noticed until too late. But, thinking about it for a moment as Foxstar continued to ramble to the warriors how he would send them out in new formations (which obviously didn't apply to her now because she wasn't qualified enough to even leave camp. For that she knew she would hate Wolfpaw for, since he was able, and probably even pushed towards, leaving camp and fighting the wolf with a few warriors, when they found it.) Cherrypaw had a strange little flick at her heart telling her she might have been wrong. Something she didn't often consider.
After the meeting, which Cherrypaw had dutifully zoned out for, Foxstar bounded off the boulders, onto the level ground with the rest of the clan. The tom, Cherrypaw noticed, as she let her rich blue eyes take in his appearence yet again in her never-boring, ever meticulous way of looking over her fellow clan mates, his bright ginger fur, yellow verging on red, like burnt dusk. Faint, darker ginger stripes wove through his pelt faintly, and Cherrypaw wondered deftly at the older tom what he must have looked like in his younger days, when his muscles were stronger and his eyes burned brighter. She had a feeling he must have been very handsome. His confidence, anyway, just backed up her assumptions. Cherrypaw had noticed that a lot about others characters was based off how they looked, or how they themselves perceived they looked. Dustypaw, for example, must have once thought she was beautiful. She had a pretty enough pelt, golden brown and dappled looking, and by the way she sometimes held herself, and could speak up for herself, you could tell she forgot what she looked like these days. But then she would remember, and something would slink back into her, and she'd stop talking. One could almost always find her trailing after Darknose, a meek shadow, the side of her head without her eye tipped towards the ground subtly, the other eye on the ground before her humbly. It was a beautiful expression, the mild kindness in her eye, but it was hardly noticed by anyone, because they were always so intent on that gaping hole parallel to it. The grey form of Wolfpaw beside her nudged her shoulder with his blueish tail,
"Hey Cherrypaw, Stormyfang's calling me," he meowed, almost guilty, for he knew how horrible she must feel at her sentence, this punishment she'd felt Foxstar had given to her personally, "I think he wants us to go on a border patrol, or something...but I'll see you back here later, alright? Save me a fight," he smiled, but it was still one itching to get out of her way, before trotting off towards his mentor and Brightthorn and Brownwhisker, waiting for him to go on patrol. Subtly the grey and red patched fur on her back bristled. Cherrypaw hated, with a passion, being cooped up like this. It made her feel so incompetent, which, for her, was a feeling she despised above almost all others. Now, of course, she knew that Sunpaw, the mouse-brain, was going to mock her for her lack of freedom, as if she were another kit. Joy. For once, the silver words of Cherrypaw failed her, and she could only wave Wolfpaw goodbye when he turned back with her tail, before his blue-grey pelt vanished into the bracken.
Before she even had time to glance around for her mentor, an unwelcome stench caught in Cherrypaw's throat. A moment later, the dark ginger form of Sunpaw sauntered up to her, his clear, icy eyes a vile sight. Oh, did Cherrypaw hate that tomcat. Vengeance was as undying within her breast as the ever constant loneliness she suffered from, and the calico's mind was not one to easily forget. She hated that tom. And he knew why, of course, and he knew, in turn, that he deserved her hatred. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, or even apologizing, trying to earn (granted, it would have been in vain) any respect from her back, he delighted in her anger, bathed in it, practically.
"Good morning, Cherrypaw," the silky voice purred out, though Sunpaw's eyes were hardly kind, and she returned the favor, "I was wondering," he mewed with such false innocence even a cat half as perceptive as Cherrypaw could have seen the sarcasm dripping off his pelt, "would you perhaps like to come out hunting with me, later today? Brightthorn said I should get a partner to hunt with, and all, so I figured you wouldn't mind helping your clan the only way we can, by hunting and feeding and protecting it." A pause, "Of course, you can come out and hunt, right Cherrypaw? You're an apprentice, not a kit, right? I mean, Minnowfur did teach you how to do something, these past moons, right?" He paused again, and Cherrypaw seriously debated lunging at his throat, "Because, I know I'm not nervous at all, with that wolf around, roaming. Because, well, my mentor actually teaches me something." Cherrypaw looked at the tom for a moment, her azure eyes glaring down his clear, icy ones. A multitude of thoughts flashed through her mind in that second, more then one consisting of what would happen if she decided to claw his face off, and then see how much he was laughing. But she pushed those thoughts, grudgingly, out of her mind. The last time she leapt at him, a moon ago, Minnowfur had banned her from leaving camp for five sunrises. And she could not afford his wrath right now, he looked peeved as it was, during the gathering. So she just took a deep breath, through her nose, and glared at him, trying to think of something to say. Something to weave.
"Actually, Sunpaw," she said as cordially as she could manage, with, what she hoped sounded like a pleasant, congenial, tone, "I have learned a few things, over the last couple moons, but I wouldn't expect you to understand." Cherrypaw shrugged lightly, saying it as if it were the sad truth, not something she were rubbing in, and hoping, with all her vicious might, that she was tantalizing him enough to make it hurt, "either way, I could go out, if I wanted, but honestly," she looked the tom up and down in the way females have been able to do for centuries, "I think I'll pass. Thanks for the offer though, maybe you could go out with Brightthor---" she paused, opening her eyes wider, as if out of mock surprise, "Oh wait, she already left on a patrol, didn't she? Maybe she meant for you to stay here, anyways." Swiveling an ear towards Darknose's cave, she heard a curse as the black she-cat tried in vain to put her new herbs in order, "I think Darknose needs some help, and you are ever so willing to help the clan..." she left the rest to the toms imagination as she stalked off. The effect of her words, silvery sweet and mocking in their own, gentle way, was partially ruined by the fumes of anger radiating off her pelt, but Cherrypaw had a strange moment of instinct and cleverness as a thought struck her. Without thinking it through properly, without thinking at all, really, the she-cat let her tail brush against the ginger toms side lightly, just enough to make him shift his weight away from her, and snap his eyes back towards her, suspicious. But she didn't look back, and a strange sense of envigoration and confusion pinched her. Well, whatever, it worked, didn't it? She thought smugly to herself, sensing the irritation coming off the tom, now, too. Misery loves company, after all. And with both them being stuck there in the tiny camp, two was certainly a crowd.

[moon.]

I love how you built up the suspension between Sunpaw and Cherrypaw - it really kept me waiting. Your wording always keeps me intrigued - oh, how I wish that I could have your vocabulary. I completely see how in tune you are when writing of Cherrypaw - that is extremely hard to do, my friend. I connect with very little of my characters, and even when I do, I still cannot reach the level in which you bring your characters to life. I can see the concentration, yet ease, behind these words.

Hm, critique.... Well, though I barely have any, I do just want to say that the paragraph in which you were explaining Cherrypaw's ability to see deeper (which I love, by the way c;) was just a bit choppy. Of course, you are still an AMAZING writer. Better than I, which I hardly ever admit, for I have too much pride. xD But on a more serious note, just try to blend your sentences, more than just with the separation with a comma. Look behind the lines, beneath the letters, and find the phrases that click, that make you wonder. Make your words that of a birds song and flight - never changing in pattern, yet varying all over the place. For example, keep several sentences the same tone before changing and moving on. Describe even deeper, if that is possible with your level of clarity. I am not saying your writing is bad at ALL. I am just giving you something to challenge yourself, just as you have given me. Besides, I would not be half the writer I am today if it weren't for you.

Other than that, you have left me awestruck once more. Continue like this and you might silence me forever. Oh, how I envy you. If only I had the years... maybe then my writing skills would be half as amazing as yours. Brilliant, misc. You have left me speechless. Brilliant.

[111misc]

Ahah! I tend to do that, use like, a million commas in a sentence. (Look at how many I just used there... O.o) I'll make sure to watch that! Thank you, and, as always, thank you for the compliments, and I know I don't have to remind you, yet again, how great a writer you are too, so don't belittle yourself on my behalf. I'll keep writing, so keep the critiques coming!

[111misc]

<3 Aw, I just want to hug you! Thank you so much. I will keep writing, don't you worry. I've got a whole giant plot planned out, very intense and suspenseful ;)

[shiki,]

o______o
……….
how. do. you. write. like. this.
I must know the secret! *begins to inspect story for secret*
gaaah…it's so utterly beyond awesome.
….way better than mine haha.
anyway! keep up the good work! =]

[{{ f i a s c o }}]

I simply.. am.. breathless. I love your style. It's so.. well, there isn't a good enough word to describe it.
Please do not stop writing this. I will surely die if you do.

This so much. Keep it up, chess!

[111misc]

xD Alright, can do! I'm feeling very antsy right now, so I'm gonna go read a book to calm down, and then hopefully post something legible before tomorrow. Thanks so much all you guys for the support and tips!}

[passion.]

This is truly amazing chess. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. It was like a book I couldn't put down, only, it's in a computer, and it's...well...yeah xD

[111misc]

d a r k n o s e
Darknose panted, black head arched downwards as she pulled herself up another ledge, so steep she dared not look down. Behind the medicine cat, the apprentices struggled upwards, with a warrior or two bringing up the rear. It made the she-cat's cheeks flush, when she reminded herself that everyone else her age was up front, and that she was certainly out of shape, physically. Spending all that time in the medicine cat den was certainly not a workout, she realized, too soon. But already her muscles had become taught and hard, and she had more endurance every day.

That night, when the group stopped, for they had no name and were not a clan yet, in a shallow pit on one of the ledges, Foxstar gave his usual speech. His usual pep talk. Some of the warriors and apprentices had grown exasperated from it, but the beautiful medicine cat appreciated the words of kindness, telling them to be patient, and that Starclan had not really forsaken them. Foxstar always ended his little speech by looking up into the darkening sky, his amber eyes vibrant as they reflected the shining light of the moon and stars, and he would say to them all that as long as the stars hung above them to guide their path, he was sure they were not alone. Darknose approved of that, and she was sure it would have warmed her heart if it were not for those phrases being chilling reminders of Starclan's last connection with her.

From the beginning of her career as a medicine cat, Starclan had never particularily sought out contact with her. She'd received only one or two prophecies her entire life, but she was keen with herbs, and motherly and pacifistic. So she was an average cat for her post. Sometimes it stung her how adept Dustypaw was at her job. She was happy for her new apprentice, for it would mean she and the clan could be successful in the future, but still, sometimes Darknose couldn't help feel a bit useless.

It had been two moons ago, when the cats had first started their migration from the territories into the unknown. The first night they'd slept on the mountainside, a dream had come to the black cat. It was a starry ghost, the form of her brother, who'd died in the Crimson Moon. His name had been Viperclaw, and Darknose had always loved him more then her other siblings, in fact, the she-cat had practically revered him. He had been strong and brave and noble and clever, quick and witty and funny and kind; everything she found good in a cat she found in Viperclaw. When he died, a part of his sister did too, so her heart leapt when she saw him, but he did not come to her to share tongues. He didn't even smile. His dark eyes, which even in life had been grave, were as solemn as death itself.

"Darknose," he began, mewing softly, as if he wanted to brush his starry fur against hers, but his paws were held back by some invisible restraint, emotional, not physical. Like guilt, like duty. Darknose couldn't move, she was frozen, tears of nostalgia brimming in her golden eyes. "There is a danger ahead, I have to warn you. You have to help the clan," he closed his eyes for a moment, not able to bare looking into his younger sister's gaze a moment longer.

"Again there are things stirring,
Amid the shadows of the heart,
And in the sky, twisting and curling,
A red moon shines down in the dark.

To finish what was started,
The soulless require one,
And whether warm or cold hearted,
Depends all on tasks done.

To fail in this endeavor,
Would be a fatal blow,
In darkness swamped forever,
Until the last of us did go.

Forget not this, clan-mother,
And heed the words in blood,
The chosen one shall be discovered,
As an island in the flood."

Darknose, her ears pricked intensely, had continued to watch her brother the entire episode. But her mind revolved around those words, and they echoed distantly in her head and her heart pounded in her sleep. Viperclaw's dark form was lost to sweeping, curling shadows, akin to the ones that swept him up when he was alive, and stole him from her. A choking sob finally escaped Darknose's lips as she tried to scream, and couldn't. In the same instant she lurched forward, the urge to just touch his fur one last time to great. She just wanted to brush it. To feel the soft velvet patterns of her best friend and her only brother's fur, the fur she would sleep next to and breath into every night when she was young. She wanted to pretend, right then and there, that he had never even died. That he was really there with her, and not just a dream, sent by Starclan to warn her, and to tantalize her, too. In that instant he was lost again to shadows, only his burning, dark eyes remaining imprinted in the sky for a moment before even that too was gone. Darknose was in her dream valley a moment longer, long enough for the she-cat to sit down and close her eyes to think, and to let a tear silently fall.

When she awoke she was panting, and her black fur was matted and hot. Standing up, the words of the prophecy hung in the empty space around her, and they scourged a fire of curiosity and anxiety in her heart. Some of the stanzas were obvious, some cryptic. She knew that whatever they meant though, she had to be more diligent then ever, if she was to save the clan. She had to watch for this island, whoever or whatever it was going to be. And the words of blood. She had to be careful, she knew, or the Crimson days would begin again. At the thought of that, a shiver ran up Darknose's spine, but it went deeper then her bones. It shook her very soul.

A part of Darknose aged that morning, before the dawn had even winked over the distant horizon. Everyone slept, but she sat, golden eyes awake and somber, thinking about what her burden had become. What her life had now become. Time seemed to stand still, but that afternoon, it was plain to any cat that something about their medicine cat was off, different. Perhaps a glint in her eyes or a line on her cheek. But something aged in her that morning, when, for the first time in a long time, she let herself cry. It was the morning she realized she had bigger things to do in her life, that she had to let go of whatever petty loves she used to have; for her brother, for her clan, for anyone, and work towards something much more important then just herself. She made her choice, then. Two paths for life diverged before her, and Darknose had made her pick then. She chose her own fate in an act of selflessness and sorrow.