private A MAN GROWS WHAT HE CAN, AND HE TENDS IT ✧ ghostpaw

[GRANITEPELT]

This cruel assignment is out of his nightmares.

ShadowClan has its excess of corpses, all of them with swamp flowers threaded in their fur to at least attempt to mask the stench of yellowcough and death. Halfshade’s once-beautiful coat, Loampelt with his stunted paw and speech—and who knew who else would soon follow? Granitepelt has seen his son strengthen, and that is enough for him, but were the other kits next?

He can only hope so.

His claws begin to ache—he has pulled enough soil in his frenzied attempts to evade eye contact with the she-kit. And is that name apt anymore—is it? She is leaner, longer-legged, forming into a cat who still looks eerily like her predecessor. She of the cursed-name, the blinding white fur, the spiked black throat, she of the haunted indigo eyes that mimic a dead, starless night sky—she is the one who is behind him, beside him, her paws beading with sweat and mud.

In his dreams—

In his dreams, she shoves him into the hole and forces his face into the mud, and he struggles and kicks and loses his breath. She leans close to him and she whispers about justice, about how she knows what he did! And he dies, and even in the throes of this suffocation he does not wake until it is nearly too late and he is clawing his nest to shreds.

Sweat pops against his skin.

“I can’t do this,” he whispers, his face an uncertain mask of dread. He does not know if the she-kit hears him. He does not want to turn to look at her and find out.

ooc ✧ 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖎𝖙'𝖘 𝖙𝖗𝖚𝖊, 𝖎 𝖍𝖚𝖗𝖙 𝖙𝖔𝖔 - 𝖗𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖒𝖇𝖊𝖗, 𝖎 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚?

• @GHOSTPAW.
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  — granitekit . granitepaw . granitepelt
  — he/him ; warrior of shadowclan
  — heterosexual ; taken by Starlingheart
  — short-haired gray tom with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Meg

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[GHOSTMASK]

✶ | this assignment, though far from her nightmares, is perhaps the furthest thing from to ghostpaw's tastes. she prides herself on the level of disinterested elegance she works to maintain with a sloped snout and twinkling dark eyes, the impression that she lives without effort. sweating and dipped far beyond the tasteful elbow-length in mud is the antithesis of the uncaring perfection she strives to infuse every strand of fur with, pulling soil like a common mutt to make graves for the lumps of flesh that once polluted her mother's den. that they can no longer infest the camp as they had in life is a small comfort, though she would be happy to let halfshade's beautiful coat rot to rags on her barren skeleton in the carrionplace if it would spare her this work.

unfortunately, it is not to her favor to decline the assignment and mark herself a rebellious apprentice. so she'll slog through it, painfully groom the stinking clumps of grave-dirt from her gleaming starling-black fur afterwards, and sleep in her nest with the knowledge she has painstakingly earned her good impression. it is a comfort to know that the only cat there to see her lose her grace is her father, for there was surely no greater loss of dignity than her unremembered sunrises as a newborn.

vaguely, she is aware that granitepelt avoids her. he always seems to make himself scarce when she comes trotting into camp with a catch or legs dipped in mud, and he's quick to evacuate the medicine den whenever they should land there at the same time. ghostpaw does not think he has said her name once, that she can remember, but it does not terribly bother her. he is not much beloved here, rumors mingling with distaste on the swamp-stinking wind about him, and so his impression of her matters very little.

her claws ache and she hopes they don't splinter, a soreness that spreads into her overworked shoulders as she pulls clumps of soil from the earth to accomodate the bodies that stink of scarce flowers and death. most of what she remembers of granitepelt's voice is a midnight encounter as a child, when she had turned her starless dark eyes onto his and heard his waking screams. unknowingly, she is an amalgamation of all that he hates—briarstar's spikes ring her throat, pitchstar's overlong legs are what she walks on, and of course she wears a death-mask of the first ghostpaw's white.

she knows nothing of this; how could she? she has very little idea of how much even her looks torment her father. white-dipped and long-legged is all she has ever known, and the pinfeather spikes that stick up her throat are merely a minor irritation. dark ears catch her father's voice and she pauses a moment in her digging, turning bleak blue eyes upon his avoidant shape to remark, "can't you?"

"it's not the most pleasant of duties, certainly," she offers with a grim smile, splitting her focus between digging and speaking. "though i'm sure you have plenty of experience, father." if her words give granitepelt a shock, she didn't intend it; ghostpaw knows nothing of his victims mouldering beneath the ground. she only intends to remark upon shadowclan's bleak past and bleaker present, of the famine and illness and cold long past, that her father had lived through—surely, she thinks, he has dug graves before.

OOC ✶ A MONSTER IN THE SHAPE OF A GIRL 𓆩⟡𓆪

• OOC:
  

• 

• 

  ( GHOSTPAW ) ✶ APPRENTICE OF SHADOWCLAN.
  x she / her ; 4 moons.
  x daughter to starlingheart and granitepelt ; sister to nettlepaw & flintkit. apprentice to her aunt lilacfur.
  x a small, serpentine black she-cat with a white mask & pants and unusually dark blue eyes ; a coldly self-centered cat with a careful facade of charm.
  x currently in an era of organizing her misaligned priorities and fine-tuning her ability to manipulate.

• disclaimer: it's important to note that ghostkit is an immoral character with a warped worldview, and her actions and thoughts do not reflect my own opinions as a writer. the way she behaves and thinks is morally reprehensible, and i do not condone these actions outside of roleplay in any way. she may refer to other cats in demeaning ways, including as "things", and this is not an attempt to oocly dehumanize anyone's character, but a reflection of her unfortunate outlook on the world.

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[GRANITEPELT]

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XXXXX“Can’t you?” A voice asks him, more curiosity than anything else. Her, the she-kit wearing a phantom’s face, a spirit’s name. With dread, he scrapes another pawful of earth away from the grave he’s belly-deep in, grimacing as though he’s in pain. “That’s not what I meant. I’m fully capable of completing the task.” Her tone infuriates him, as though she aims to belittle him somehow. The gray warrior’s tail lashes, adderlike, behind him. “Most warrior tasks are unpleasant in some way. You will learn that.” Patrolling for enemies, hunting to feed bellies that disrespect and humiliate you, being asked to die for fools—all of it is unpleasant, to Granitepelt, but it is the life he walks. For now.

XXXXXHe pulls himself back, wiping a mud-caked paw across his brow and leaving an auburn smear. “Though I’m sure you have plenty of experience, father.” Granitepelt’s fur bristles, ice melting slow as honey down his spine. He finally has to turn to face her now, and when he does, he’s met with empty dark blue eyes and a smile aiming for charming. She’s beautiful, but it’s empty, like flowers masking the scent of death, falsely appealing in her fur like her mother’s with features sharp as her father’s, her aunt’s. Ghostpaw wears her face and dances about in a sickening mockery of what had transpired between them, but he does so prettily.

XXXXXThe young warrior’s teeth click together so fast he almost bites his tongue off. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says coldly, evasively, the unease in the air between them nearly palpable. Better to quell whatever this foolish notion is now.

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