the dark forest ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GETTING ILL [🌙] mass awakening

[SOOTSTAR]

It’s dark.

It’s cold.

Shaggy breaths heave from her slit open throat, the wound that killed her frozen with a stubborn refusal to close. Mist pours out from her nose into the freezing air and green eyes blink rapidly as shock pummels her body.

Vividly she watches her death play out over and over again in her head. Cats she had once ruled over, controlled bared their fangs at her. They unsheathed their claws and attacked her like a pack of rabid dogs. ’I’ll go to the place of no stars! I’ve walked that dark forest many times before.” She hears herself roar, ’I’ll go there… you’ll never be safe from me!’

Wide-eyed she looks up into the sky, past the barren boughs she gazes upon the eternal night sky. Not a star twinkled.

Looking down she scans her surroundings. The roots of the decayed trees curling and spanning out like tendrils as if yearning to reach out and pull the blue she-cat into an even hellish grave. Yet, despite being surrounded by rot the forest seemed more… alive.

The fur along her spine prickles at the sound of heaving, of spluttering, of coughs and groans. The horrid sound of many cats awakening from a deep slumber, an unconscious imprisonment the stars had kept them in.

☾ INFO BATTLE

• 
  » Soot ․ Sootstar
  » Dark Forest Resident †
  » She/her ․ Mate to Weaselclaw
  » Tiny blue smoke she-cat with green eyes. A black, smoky aura seems follow her.
  » "Speech" ․ thoughts ․ attack
  
• 
  » A high-stamina foe who can be difficult to hit.
  » Excels in quick, short moves.
  » Fights to kill and maim
  » Fatal attack of choice is an underbelly dive.
  » May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing

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[✧ Honeybadger.]

NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND I
WE SHARE THE SAME SUNSHINE FROM THE SAME SKY ​

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honeybadger & 13 moons & male & he/him & darkforest warrior ​

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For honeybadger, death had come quick - blindingly so, his short over in the blink of an eye. Overconfidence - his surety that he would win, it'd been his downfall in the end. A gurgled gasp is the first noise that leaves his lips, not unlike the noise that had been his very last. Grey eyes star up at starless night in confusion as he tries to remember how to use his limbs. " Beepaw? " comes the incoherent mutterings of the young warrior as he hauls himself to his paws, still stuck in the horror of his last moments. The reality of his situation is quick to catch up to him - staring slack-jawed at the bodies of those around him. Sootstar - stars, sootstar stands before him, throat gaping and oozing, and it's a startling sight. Horrifying really. It only calls attention to his own wounds - spine and shoulders littered with scratches from battle after battle, throat pierced by scorchpaw's jaws. and yet.. he still stands. " Where? " he asks in a rasp, blinking at her - she is his leader, surely she'd know?

━ actions & " speech, " & 'thoughts/quotes' ━

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━ W E ━ W E N ' T ━ B L I N D ━ G O I N G ━ E Y E ━ F O R ━ A N ━ E Y E ━

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[SPIDERFALL.]

AND A HEART THAT ISN'T HERE​

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With a cough and a sputter, a groan of pain and head lifted his sole gaze lolling around to see...nothing, just darkness. No stars, emptiness and pain. Slowly and warily he got onto his paws, blood seeping out of every scratch and injury from his death, his tail twitched in angry lashes. "What is this place?" he questioned with a wheeze, before snapping his head towards Sootstar and then to Honeybadger with a laughter and a cough.

He had not expected to see windclan's leader here, the self proclaim righteous leader that was starclan favorites, and now it seems she had sunk so low that they had turned their backs onto her. "So much for being Starclan's favorite eh, sootstar?" another choked guttural laughter came from the ill-will tom while pain came and a cough choked him out. Wincing he finally began to look around and a frown peered on his maw before he began searching through the shadowy faces as many who were slain began to awake. Seeking to see if there was any familiar faces amongst those aside from the windclan scum that peered in front of him.​

"speak""Thoughts"​

 

[Gooseberry]

Pain turned to nothing. And then…

Pain once more.

With a longing gasp of air, Gooseberry finds his eyes open once again. He almost didn’t expect there to be anything after death, his soul to be discarded as he would never make it into StarClan. And wherever this is, it certainly isn’t StarClan.

His paw goes immediately for his throat, torn apart not dissimilar to the fallen leader he holds so dear. A permanent stain on his otherwise flawless white form…how disgusting. At least it doesn’t seem to be causing much issue in death. His fur covers it up enough, too, so he can ignore it.

Taking a better look at his new home, the only word that could describe it that comes to mind is dark. No stars dotted the sky, making it entirely black. Whether it is covered by the twisting trees that seem to never end, or there truly is nothing, he does not know.

He is not alone, either. Other cats have befallen the same fate, all dazed and confused as they awaken to the place they were banished to. Though, there’s only one face he cares about right now. “Sootstar-“ Gooseberry rasps as his voice is not used to talking. How long was he in limbo, he wonders?​

 

[CICADASTAR]

his body stitches itself back together ; poorly, leaving white - pink scarring where stars should have sewn. the darkness fades in short, pulsing waves but his mind is forged in pieces, scattered like fish bone ribs beneath his paw. when he first awakes, the world is a bruise of blue - black dusk and swathing, ugly skies. he lies as he was at death ; a mass of crumpled bones and chitin-like vertebrae, bitten bloody at each too thin edge. cacophony of noise beats at his ears but the ringing is louder — a harsh, high pitch reverberating down into the slope of his skull. he doesn’t hear the others, not from where he lies spread awkward - limbed across a cool, damp stone. his pelt is still damp. the bare trees sway overhead and with a start, he realizes he is lost. surely, he must be. the shadows creep around him, angling cruelly against the dirt and gnarled roots where they poke through a thin layer of jutting grass. he doesn’t know this place, doesn’t know how he arrived and certainly doesn’t remember falling asleep. he can’t tell what time it is.

overhead, there are no stars to be seen.

cicadastar feels around himself with a jutting paw, feels the tendons in his body stretch and scream with effort that adds his lilting voice to the song of pain and confusion around him. it hurts, his body, whatever managed to put him here in this place. everything hurts ; his thoughts reel, a heavy haze layering thick over the whirling of his mind when he lifts himself slowly to aching elbows. his pelt is sharp, shards of water and ice clinging to curls of black and broken alabaster. he can still feel it, the falls. he remembers the falls. or moreso the feeling — the misting over his back, the heaviness of his pelt where river water soaks through and rivulets down the span of his sinewy muscle. spidering limbs tremble when he lifts, angles his hind legs behind him and lifts to full, haggard height. his head hangs low between bony shoulders, ears splayed at either side of his head when pale eyes squint, stare blearily through the heavy swirl of mist hanging low over patchy grass. a pawstep, two — cicadastar trudges forward on rickety limbs, tail dragging behind him and fog clinging to the notches of his lower legs.

this wasn’t his meadowlands. this wasn’t much of anything at all.

phantom memories scratch at his skull but he can’t quite place it, or the scars that split the curls along his body. when his serpentlike muzzle pushes finally though the last of the smog he sees her first. a smattering of blue grey against the dull forest. the skin above his nose twitches but he is tired, cold. his skin feels wet to the touch but he does not drip. discomfort sings at his very edge but still he lifts his head, mighty in image alone, as alabaster paws drag him towards where sootstar stands tense, his mind still too bleary to consider what this meant. what the groans, the mumbles of something confused, scared stirs around him. he stalks past her and to.. the wall. a wall of great fog, unlike the one he’d just wandered through. no.. this was something solid, despite the swirl of white - grey from within. as if stunned by its presence, he stops abruptly only a whisker away.

“ what is this? “ harsh, first to himself — his throat screams, croaking and breaking at its smooth ends. cicadastar spins, tail lashing wildly, “ what is this? what is this? “ increasing franticness, increasing static beneath his fur, buzzing through his veins in a way that makes him want to rip them out himself. panic. but sootstar is stood frozen still, and the eyes of the dead continue to blink open. this wasn’t right. windclanners, scrabbling to their queens side. he sees spiderfall amidst the masses of nameless warriors — and though his heart should drop, the tom himself meant less than his dirt after a poor meal. any breath towards him would be wasted, any time spent turning claws against him a waste of his valuable efforts. with another lash of his mighty tail the riverclan leader turns his back, faces the wavering wall again. bodies stir, eyes stare, there is a smattering of some inane, blithering comment shot towards sootstar that cicadastar, for once, does not join in on. in fact, he snarls a harsh warning over his shoulder, never breaking the hard - set stare he had on the wall. spittle clings at his rotten maw. they had bigger things to worry about than sootstar.

and he had to go home. he had to go home, he didn’t belong here, not with the cretinous and lowly.

cicadastar throws himself against the wall, feels the resistance where the lower halves of his forearms meet and blur the invisible force and lets out a sound half - tortured, half - seething when it doesn’t budge. his claws unsheathe, splay from alabaster paws and slash miserably at the mist but he cannot get through — he can’t get through — he had to go, but he couldn’t get through, “ no.. no, let me out! i must to go home. smokethroat is watching camp, my warriors are waiting for me! i do not belong here! not in this — this — “ and where was here? his situation begins to settle in and it sends him spiraling, cicada wing fluttering desperately in the wind. his spine slumps but his paws still claw at what he cannot find, cannot grab, and cannot pass. there had to be a way out, a way home. starclan would come to guide him away any moment now, they would, he knew it. his chest heaves something violent, ribs fluttering where they protrude from his coat, panting heavy into the rotten air. they would take him from this, take him to his kits, his mate, his clan.

they needed him.

COLD & CRUEL LIKE WINDS ON THE SEA  ╱ INFORMATION †

• i.
  
• ★ ⋆ CICADASTAR −−−− FOUNDING LEADER OF RIVERCLAN. HOMOSEXUAL, MATED TO SMOKESTAR ; FATHER TO CRICKETPAW, CICADAPAW && BEEPAW. DARK FOREST RESIDENT. PENNED BY ANTLERS −−− ⁺₊✧
  
  
  he / him. gaunt, curled black tortoiseshell smoke with dead permafrost eyes. his structure sings a feral sort of hymnal, presenting an almost dangerous sort of beauty veiling what monstrosities lie beneath the ivory of his skull. frighteningly thin, sunken cheeks drawing a shadow beneath high, sharp cheekbones with tall, angular ears settling high atop the flatter slope of his cranium. he is beautiful, in a haunting sort of way ; but for all this looks, his expression is lax, void — corpse - eyed and hollow until spoken to, sparking the undead to life. he smiles with too - many teeth, blackened frostbite pulling back his maw to bear canines set beneath curling whiskers, pantomime skeletal. a predatory gracefulness from the lines that press the image of exhaustion beneath ice water hues to the slow, sure gait in which he walks, nameless strength poorly concealed within the hard lines of his physique. always holding himself with a tragic sort of grace ; poised, prim, and uncannily aware of how he appears.
  
  ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── smells like dirty floodwater and frostbite rot.
  ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── put out of his misery by smokestar, who’d taken his final life in the wake of a madness that had grown detrimental to riverclan. banished to the place of no stars for his downward spiral of mortality and paranoia over the course of his leadership resulting in the death of his medicine cat, beesong.
  
  penned by antlers​
  
  
• " speech "​
  
  
  

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[HUMMINGBIRDHEART]

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ She hadn’t expected her arrival in StarClan to be so… painful.

One moment, she’s pinned beneath the paws of a raging tomcat, and in the next her mind goes hazy and her body goes numb. And then… she awakes, and everything is dark, dark, dark. She opens her eyes, and—she realizes that she can’t. A low gurgle leaves torn throat, and Hummingbirdheart sits upright with a sudden jerk. "Hhnngh…" She wheezes out a panicked sound, paws flying to her face. Where once there laid beautifully warm amber eyes, a gaze that she’d enjoyed looking at in the reflections of ponds, she only feels open, wounded flesh.

She screams.

Or at least, she tries to scream. All that comes out is another terrible noise, and this has to be a mistake, right? It has to. She’s in StarClan, right? Aren’t they supposed to heal her wounds when she arrives? Or were her eyes too hard to fix, even for their starry ancestors? She can hear, around her, the coughs and grunts of others who must also be waking up—can any of them see? Her question is answered quickly when an unfamiliar voice, rabid and spitting as a hound, screams that he must go back, that he doesn’t belong here. Where is here, if that’s his reaction to it? "StarClan…?" She manages to croak out an intelligible word at last, struggling and stumbling to get spidery legs beneath her. Everything seems slowed, sluggish somehow, as she pulls her body upright—her limbs feel as though they aren’t her own, anymore. She manages a step, then another, paws dragging across the ground below. "Where…?"​

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[WEASELCLAW]

The shadows begin to shift, to breathe, energy-endowed and creaking into motion. What has lied stiff, like a corpse frozen to the grass for moons, peels itself from the earth with a mind-numbing tearing sound. His mouth is dry, his throat full of grit, as though he’d died in the tunnels and swallowed mouthfuls of sand. His shoulders roll. Blue eyes blink into bleary fire, encircled by bloodshot darkness. "Where…” His voice is a rasp, like claws against the black, tarry stretch of a Thunderpath. He lurches to his paws, staggering, his tail beginning to snap to life behind him.

Weaselclaw’s eyes find the murky, dissonant emerald of his beloved’s, and his heart begins to beat in his throat. "Sootstar.” His voice shatters on impact. He roughly shoves past the others who awaken around them—past lurching Cicadastar, an enemy whose blood he has let stain the moorland, past Honeybadger and Hummingbirdheart and Goosberry, cats he had known and fought beside in life, past everyone and everything that ever has been or ever will be. He falls, shaking, to his paws before her—as though she can save him, as though she can wrench him from this place where he has laid, dormant, for so many moons.

"My love, my love,” he chokes. Weaselclaw’s eyes wander from the tufted tips of her ears to the wound, raw as roadkill, that shears her throat. "Who--? I’ll flay them alive,” he snarls, his pelt beginning to bush out from his thin and ravaged body.

There is only darkness here—darkness, and the company of enemies—but he has eyes for Sootstar alone in this moment, for Sootstar and the cats who’d sent her here.


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