[razr]

ohhh no ! :( this cat's too late for april fool's!
maybe next year? in the meantime, tell me about something else they've been late for!

ends 4/10 at rollover! (10-11)

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:
Gender:
Rank:
Clan:
Description: solid black with green eyes
Age:
Edits:
[NR] expression, accessory, torn ear, claws
Owner:

[Timid-Decidueye]

Username: Timid-Decidueye
Cat Name: Crowtear
Gender: she-cat
Rank: Gatherer
Clan: x/x
Age: 1 year
Prompt:

She was late to her apprentice AND warrior ceremony. Both an hour late because she slept in. What a silly goose.

[Adamented]

Username: Adamented
Cat Name: Piha
Gender: Genderfluid (she/her, they/them)
Rank: Gladehunter
Clan: [x] Gladewood
Age: 1 years
Prompt:

Everything. Piha stresses about time and deadlines, and her body's rhythm with time has always been off. Actually, the closer it gets to time she needs to be somewhere, the more stressed she becomes and avoids it, leading her to only be even more late... Even if she's just pacing at the den entrance ready to go before she even needs to be.

[Coy0te]

Username: Coy0te
Cat Name: Ravenstorm
Gender: Female
Rank: Scout
Clan: Blizzard Clan
Age: 44 moons
Prompt:
Ravenstorm is known for being late to morning border patrols. One time she was late even to a special patrol with the leader himself! She's still embarrassed because of it...

[Mercuré]

mark!

[néktar]

Username: néktar
Cat Name: velvetsmoke
Gender: tom
Rank: warrior
Clan: marbleclan
Age: 58 moons
Prompt:
vel has been late to almost everything — late to duties, his sisters kitting, and all of his nephews apprentice ceremonies. the worst thing that he has been late too his own entwining ceremony. leaving his lovely mate waiting for him for almost the whole day at the alter. he had taken a walk that night before to clear his mind and calm his nerves, falling asleep underneath a willow tree on the far side of the island. not waking up until the birds began to pick at his ears and tail around sunhigh. he cried profusely when he got there covered in mud and foliage as he raced through the territory to get back to camp and make up for lost time.

[Kazin]

Username: Kazin
Cat Name: Raven
Gender: she-cat
Rank: Gardener
Clan: TreeClan
Age: 5 years
Prompt: Raven was late only once, and she vows to never be late again. It was a rough time for TreeClan, one of the toughest times the clan had ever gone through. Rogues had been attacking the camp, relentless and brutal, many warriors dying. As a gardener of the clan, Raven did not fight, but that didn't mean she wouldn't come to support her clan and help the healers. She promised her best friend in the clan that she would be there at dawn to help with preparations to fight the rogues for what the clan hopes would be one last time, and had no idea that she would be bitterly late that fateful day.

Raven arrived to TreeClan after devastation had already reigned on her clanmates. She has never forgiven herself for it, going so far as to leave her kittypet life behind and join the clan permanently, but the damage had already been done. Her best friend was killed. Raven believes that if she hadn't been trapped indoors, and had actually showed up at dawn like she said she would, she would have been able to help heal her clanmates and not as many would have been lost. Raven now arrives painfully early to any clan event, and will never let herself lose another clanmate again, not if she can help it.

[DovieCaba]

Username:
Cat Name: Poppy
Gender: Female
Rank: Medicine Cat
Clan: Dovie's Stars
Age: 1 year
Prompt: She was late for her birthday this year because she got 'lost' foraging for flowers to make poppy crowns for her and her friends.

[Embergleam]

Username: Embergleam
Cat Name: Duskbloom
Gender: Female
Rank: Warrior
Clan: In The Wake Of Giants
Age: 6.5 years
Prompt:Duskbloom has been 'running late' for five years straight now.

You see, Duskbloom hails from the same clan as Ivystar and Owlflight. She was born a scant few moons after them and grew up trying to tempt them into silly kittenhood games. As they matured Duskbloom put both twins on something of a pedestal. Owlflight, then an apprentice medicine cat, was the one to tend to Duskbloom's many scrapes and bruises during her own apprenticeship. Ivystar, then Ivytwist, was part of the very first training patrol Duskbloom ever went on. They were a steady constant in her life, fixed points she could anchor herself to when the going got rough.

More than that, they were what she aspired to become, a microsm of idealized adulthood condensed into two fluffy bodies.

Is it any wonder, then, that Duskbloom's world tipped on its ear the moment the twins announced their plan to leave the clan of their birth?

She wanted to demand they stay, to howl to the stars themselves that they couldn't leave her like this- but how could she? Ivytwist and Owlflight had been growing more listless for moons now, their effervescent sparkle dulled by the humdrum drag of daily life in the clan. They weren't happy. Asking them to stay here for her sake would be the height of selfishness... but the thought of taking the same leap of faith they were was absolutely terrifying. Clan life was dull, yes, but that made it safe. Abandoning it meant inviting disaster into your den. Much as she wanted to invite herself along on the twins' adventure, Duskbloom simply wasn't ready to face the great unknown.

It was better, she decided at last, if she didn't say anything at all.

Thus she swallowed her feelings, tamped them all down deep where even she could ignore them, and tried her very best to be happy for her friends. She helped them plot their course into the great unknown, gathered supplies, even went on their first few 'practice trips' to get the feel of traveling. All the while the words 'take me with you' tangled up on her traitorous tongue, an arrow nocked but never loosed. She couldn't. Or, perhaps more accurately, she wouldn't. She wasn't like the twins, effortlessly confident and sure she'd always land on her feet. She was different. She was awkward, uncertain. She was... just Duskbloom, a warrior of no particular skill with no particular future ahead of her.

The shame of it all curdled in her belly and rotted there.

When Ivytwist and Owlflight left, Duskbloom could barely bring herself to see them off. She didn't deserve to be there, basking in their reflected glory- but they deserved to have her there to see this, the culmination of all their careful planning. So she forced herself to watch, to smile, to laugh, to cheer loudest of all as they disappeared over the horizon-

-to hide her tears until she was tucked safely in her den, where none could hear her shatter.

Duskbloom drifted through life for moons afterward. She hunted, patrolled, ate, drank, slept, everything necessary to live, but the spark seemed to have gone out of her. Nothing her parents, littermates, or clanmates did seemed to help, either. Words of encouragement were lost on her. Invitations to play mossball or share tongues fell on deaf ears. Half a dozen herbal concotions failed to elicit a response. (...beyond pinned ears and a curled lip, that is.) It was as if, the healers mused, Duskbloom had tucked herself away in a nest of her own misery. She fancied herself safe there, shielded from reality by a wall of her own emotions.

It was Goldberry, Owlflight's former mentor, who finally struck through to the heart of the matter. She found Duskbloom curled in her nest- something that had become a habit of late- and sat with her. She had a question, a very simple one, that somehow had never been asked before.

"What's keeping you from going after Ivytwist and Owlstar?"

A peculiar light came into Duskbloom's eyes. She sat up, fur standing in clumps, and fixed Goldberry with a stare that made the healer's heart squeeze tight. Something perilously like hope was starting to kindle in those green, green depths.

"...nothing, I suppose," Duskbloom answered, her voice rough from disuse. She cleared her throat, briefly embarrassed, and tried again: "But I don't know where they went."

"Then you'll just have to find them, won't you?"

Almost overnight, Duskbloom came back to life. She had a mission now, a concrete goal to work towards, and that made all the difference in the world. She spent perhaps a moon planning, preparing, and, yes, recovering from what she eventually recognized as a severe depression. Then she too took her fate into her own paws and plunged into the unknown.

She was already over a year late when she left Ridgeclan, but by all the stars in the sky, she did it anyway.

Tracking the twins was a bit like chasing a shadow. Everyone had heard of them- a wandering healer and his warrior escort were nothing if not memorable!- but precious few had actually seen them. Fewer still were willing to share what they knew of her quarry. Duskbloom was forced to learn, and fast. She honed her hunting skills on an endless parade of mice, birds, and equally fast-moving prey- things the clan would have overlooked, but a single cat couldn't. She learned when to stand her ground, and when to book it up the nearest tree.

Perhaps most vital of all, she learned that she did have what it takes to make it on her own, even without the twins to look up to.

Some fortuitous combination of luck and skill eventually led Duskbloom to the first clan Owlflight and Ivytwist had stayed with. Unfortunately for her, they hadn't stayed there long. The twins had moved on some moons previous, leaving only vague mentions of 'heading north' in their wake. Late again, Duskbloom gave herself a day to pout before setting out once again.

She was 'late' again at the next clan. The twins had passed through some moons before, staying just long enough to nurse a hatchling owl back to health. Then the now-trio had departed to the west, in search of some spring and the cats who guarded it. No fool Duskbloom, she rested for a few days, gathered her strength, and set off in hot pursuit.

Thus began a pattern that repeated itself for literal years. Often Duskbloom found clans that had heard of the twins; sometimes she got truly lucky and found those who'd sheltered them for a time. More rarely the stars shone down on her and someone remembered exactly where they'd been headed. On those rare occasions she made up time, eating away at the twins' lead by slow degrees. The trail grew warmer and warmer as moons wore on, sightings more common, recollections more vivid, until-

Until she found herself on a storm-tossed coast utterly unlike her long-ago home, and for the first time in her life, she was early.

One of the many cats along the trail had mentioned a camp at the foot of a redwood whose bark was marked with a star. It was new, they said, founded scarcely a month ago, and it was led by a fire-bright tabby calling herself Ivystar. Finding the so-called Startree wasn't too difficult- it was, after all, the tallest tree in the entire stars-blessed forest- but finding the cats that called it home was slightly moreso. The lot of them were out on patrol when Duskbloom crept into their camp. They stayed gone for hours, too, only returning as night fell.

They found a familiar (...well, for some of them) face curled up in one of the spare dens set aside for future clanmates, sleeping soundly for the first time in years.

The rest of the night was a blur of purrs, and tears, and stories told beneath a star-strewn sky. Yes, Duskbloom had been late for far too long, but it had been worth every second. At long last, she had her friends back.

(1,362 words, ack!)

[sammpup]

Username: sammpup
Cat Name: Skunk-Rain
Gender: Female
Rank: Warrior
Clan: Rubble Clan
Age: 65 Moons
Prompt: Skunk-Rain isn't late very often. She tries her best to be on time to everything but sometimes despite her best efforts she's still late. The most embarrassing time for her was when she was so late to a patrol that everyone had already left by the time she showed up. To make it worse when she hurried to try and catch up with them she found them.... already heading back. She apologized for 10 minutes straight and ran off to patrol by herself to make up for it.