private ˙ ˖ ✶ pulse-echo of this penetrable dark ┊ scorchpaw.

[Cherryblossom]

It's been a sunrise since they were first buried alive in these tunnels, or so they think. With no brilliant face of light to guide them, the ragtag band of creatures can only rely on their own exhaustion to guide them from waking to sleep, and with the mere question of their existence exacting a toll upon them, the task isn't easy. Eventually, someone suggested they rest for the questionable night, to little disagreement.

The cool of the cave floor doesn't bother Cherrypaw too much; it hardly reaches her through her fur, a fourth of a kittypet's thick. The absence of a nest certainly does, but having slept on bare earth for the majority of their journey, she finds it...tolerable. The deep, even breaths of the cats around her are not a hinderance to sleep but a blessing: they remind her of quiet nights in the apprentice den, everyone too worn out from training to talk or bicker. Peaceful, almost.

She's on the verge of drifting off into sleep when she hears a faint chatter. Her WindClan friend is somewhere nearby, probably somewhere between her mother and Cherrypaw. (Cherrypaw wishes her mother was here. She hopes she isn't dead.) From her breathing and shifting, Cherrypaw can tell she's awake while most everyone is not. "Scorchpaw?" she murmurs, as quietly as she can. Hesitantly, the girl reaches out a paw to rest it on the other's leg. It's jittering. No, shivering. With a start, the apprentice realizes how cold the floor must be against the other's pelt, wreathed in flames but short-cropped nonetheless. Neither of them have experienced a Leaf-bare yet either. "You're cold." That's obvious. "Uh, here." Carefully, she scoots closer, then drapes her plumy tail around the WindClanner. "Use my tail." Suddenly, she feels a little awkward. It's a better feeling that just lying there while her friend trembles herself to death though.

@SCORCHPAW​

 

[SCORCHSTORM]

It's so dark. There are no stars to guide her underground; no rolling grasses to soothe her to sleep; no great moon to illuminate the moors and the dozing bodies around her. She can hardly believe she'd ever wanted to be a tunneler– and the thought reminds her sorely of her brother. He has to be okay, she tells herself among a million other assuagements. Scorchpaw hardly realizes the way she curls in tightly on herself, teeth chattering, muscles shivering beneath the short crop of her firebrand pelt.

It's only when Cherrypaw calls her name that her bicolor gaze snaps open (not that it is much use) and she fully feels the chill of the stone beneath her. Her paw connects with her leg and Scorchpaw sits up, ears flicking forwards towards wherever Cherrypaw might be. You're cold, she says, and she scoots closer with an offer: use my tail. It wreaths around her and instantly she heats up– mostly in her ears, though, which she hopes Cherrypaw can't feel. At some point she finds her words. "Um– thanks." It's not much, really, but it does make her heart pump faster, and her cheeks warmer, and she thinks that's helping.

Scorchpaw shudders as she rests her chin back on her paws, though not from any discomfort. Rather, the rare comfort has seemed to unleash a tide of emotion on the young apprentice; one that she has trouble parsing. It's all I need Luckypaw to be okay and I hope nobody's died back home and I miss Badgermoon, sometimes sprinkled with I hate Badgermoon, that traitor and who am I even doing this for? even though she knows she's doing it for her Clan who she loves so much. But her mind searches for friends; cats who spare her more than a passing smile. There's Luckypaw, and Sunlitkit, and.... Isn't that sort of it? She knows Wolfsong and Sunstride are fond of her, and she is fond of them too. But her peers; where are her peers? What about Hollypaw, or Parsnippaw? What about the rest of her littermates? They're more distant now than ever, and now she's closer with a SkyClanner than she's ever been with any of them and she likes Cherrypaw more, too.

She feels heat again, this time at the rims of her eyes, and Scorchpaw forcibly blinks the feeling away. No, she won't cry, not in the presence of this girl. Instead, she takes a big breath, and then volunteers something with as much levity as she can muster: "In WindClan there's cats who basically spend their whole lives underground. I used t' want to be one really bad, but..." a puff of air through her nose imitates a chuckle, "... not anymore."

𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐈 𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐔𝐆𝐄 ✧ 𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙈𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙇𝙊𝙊𝘿

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  — scorchkit . scorchpaw
  — she/they ; apprentice of windclanclan
  — short-haired tortoiseshell she-cat with low white and orange/yellow eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — chibi by giinya, signature by raphaelion
  — penned by meghan

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