anything is the same | return, carrionplace

[CHITTERTONGUE]

જ➶ It feels like a fog in his head. Wrapping and compressing. Shifting and pulling. His mind twisting. It's uncomfortable, so so uncomfortable. His eyes peel open and he doesn't remember how long he has been laying in this ditch beside the thunderpath. He does remmeber running and running sone more. His face hurts, legs burn. But running had been necessary at the time. Of course it had been. Home was the thought in his shattered mind. Just home, fractured and splintered. The rats overran him, sickness trampled him. Bright lights oozed across his vision and then only when strength demand did he run and find his escape. His claws impacting soft flesh making those things recoil from him. Their fright had been enjoyable in a small way. No need to enjoy such a thing at the moment. That is how he came to be here, murky water half coating his bright cream fur before he finally pushed himself to stand. Panting he drags himself up the ditch and along the outer fence of Carrionplace. The smell of the area making him nervous. The border he stepped across multiple times before he headed in. His smile pulls at his face too tightly, it hurts. His teeth flashing as he finds something to jump on.

The silver fence rattles with his weight, his half blind gaze focused on the area around him. Is his family okay? Is Needledrift? For a moment he closes his eyes, a sudden breaking chuckle leaving his half parted jaws. It's strained and he feels tired but he is alive at least. Slipping off the fence he lands within his kingdom of trash and treasure, stepping with care as he makes his way across. Perhaps he will come across someone. Perhaps, perhaps. ​

 

[Needledrift]

tags ₊˚✧ ﾟ.Needledrift had given up patrolling the edges of the ShadowClan territory for Chittertongue some time ago. Before she went on the journey, even. Her paws always felt so tired when she went out to the dredges of the Carrionplace now, as if they could feel the same dread that laid heavy on her heart. The journey had been so hard on her paws, but for some reason, every step towards the Carrionplace - even just on a normal patrol - felt more tiring that the entire trek up the mountain and back.

It was something Needledrift felt she should've outgrown by now. During the journey, she had made friends from all over. She had so many companions and people to admire now. She had found love when she returned home, a kindling-that-turned-into-a-warm-hearth sort of love. Ferndance carried their kits in her belly. Life was good, by all accounts.

But ShadowClan was missing something.

Someone.

A chatter. A laugh. A snicker. A chit-

"CHITTERTONGUE?!" Normally so quiet, so sensitive to how her speech would be perceived, it's all thrown away as the lanky figure of spikes and spots approaches. He is limp and his scent is tarnished by the dredges of sickness and rot but then he laughs, in the way that only he can laugh and Needledrift can feel her heart contort in on itself, trying to engulf that sound, to keep it. Hold it.

Needledrift herself lets out a small gasp before she is off, her small paws thumping against the hardened ground in her rush. He's not dead, he's alive, he's here, he's -

Onset by delicate paws, one, two, three pitiful bats to his ears. "Where were you?!" Comes her strangled hiss, a sob masquerading as fierce concern. "I wa-a-as so worr-ied an-and your sisters, the-ey (hic) I thought you we-e-ere dea-ad!" For the third time that moon, the tears flowed freely down her face. Little paws cease their assault to rest lightly on the ground in front of his dirty paws. Green eyes blurrily lift to meet mismatched blue and amber.

"You're not dead.... you're not dead. I'm not dead. You - I - "​

 

[CHITTERTONGUE]

જ➶ It's the sudden shout of a name he has not heard in moons that makes his head snap up. His tail lifting up straight in the air. For a moment he cocks his head and stares from his one good eye. Not believing what he is seeing because if it is real it will shatter him. Make him feel safe, make him drop his guard. Make him realize that perhaps all of that running, all of that fighting was good. He did well to get here. His head is running in circles as he finally understands just who called to him. Sees her running at him and then, oh Starclan, it's real. It's very real. Her paws smack his ears, her voice washing over him. Rivers of water leaving her eyes and his smile seems to stretch wider, and wider. Happiness like a disease spreading across his face yet he feels relief, he feels better than he has in moons. "Needle....Needle....I'm, kehehe, I'm s-sorry. I didn't mean to..."

That is the truth. He didn't mean to be dragged away, he didn't want those twolegs touching him. Like some experiment on their table. The warrior doesn't even admit to himself that they saved his worthless life by helping him. "Twolegs...it's always them. They did so-something to me and I lived." Bittersweet it is as he presses his skull against her's. "Not dead...not dead...never dead...hehekehe. No more tears, no more." He breathes out those words in earnest, ragged body stiff but hoping to calm her. What about his sisters? What happened to them? What happened while he was incarcerated?​

 

[Needledrift]

tags ₊˚✧ ﾟ.He's pressing into her and she lets him, lets the leather of her nose grace his mucky cheek. He's gross and unkempt, far more than usual, but for the moment it is tolerable because he is home. Home with her, at least. She breathes in a few shuddering gasps of air, each accentuated by a little hiccup and a fading sob. Oo-oh, you stupid, stupid, wonderful cat. Oh-oh-oh, StarClan... I love you so much, you do-on't even kno-ow-ow how ha-a-ard..."

She gulps in another breath of air and pulls away slightly. "I think Lilacfur would be better to ask.... Starlingheart...." Starlingheart was in no state to recount all of the turmoil at the moment. Still grieving the loss and her mate and child, Needledrift couldn't imagine the sweet medicine cat trying to tell her brother the levels of duplicity Granitepelt had put her through. Skunktail was realistically the most sound of the three remaining siblings, but Needledrift did not like him very much these days.

"Starlingheart just... needs a little time... and it's not really my story to tell. I could tell you about the journey or Ferndance. I've got a new apprentice but everything else..."​

 

[smogstar]

Seldom do the long-gone faces of ShadowClan ever resurface. Smogmaw supposes the same could be applied to any clan—those who've turned their back on their homeland face stringent repercussions, denunciations at best and excommunication at worst, which makes for a sound deterrent to wayward paws.

Such reasoning extends not towards kidnapped kits, obviously.

Given the regularity with which his clanmates have turned tail and run, however, banishing runaways from his mind is as effortless as breathing. Second-nature. A subconscious necessity that allows him to reroute his attention elsewhere. Should they return, then all the better, but the likelihood is so pitifully minuscule, he doesn't deign to bother himself over with it. Hence, like Needledrift, the deputy's endeavours to find Chittertongue hadn't eclipsed the moon's cycle.

Allow yourself a moment of amusement, and picture the dumbfounded astonishment written large across his features upon discovering a certain tom's whereabouts; semi-lidded eyes, the barest hint of a furrowed brow, and an almost indiscernible downward curl to his lip. It may not read like much, but any ShadowClan cat worth their salt will attest to its signifance. Smogmaw was flummoxed beyond reason.

In what logical realm could Chittertongue's continued existence make sense? Considering his mind's capricious nature, he ought to have carked it moons ago, the moment he no longer had a clan covering his dappled ass.

Twolegs, he says. Funny.

Smogmaw merely watches the spectacle from afar—Needledrift has made a nest out of his pelt and nestles aggressively into it, sloughing off stories and anecdotes with nigh-endless enthusiasm. Chittertongue thirstily laps it all up, that furball, and the longer the conversation progresses, the less the deputy feels inclined to intervene.

He opts to intervene, regardless. "Twolegs," the tabby echoes on approach, paws grazing snow-touched mud. "It is always twolegs, isn't it? Dogfur said the same." Though, Chittertongue's absence superceded Dogfur's by an extensive margin. For what reason would a twoleg release a cat they've had imprisoned for so long? "They give you a collar? Call you any funny names? Cut you?" Now what a shame that would be.

The deputy's shoulders slacken somewhat, and joints pop noisily as he forwards into a stretch. A certain air rests about his gaze when he appraises the Briar-spawn. Not quite accusatory, but close enough to make it uncomfortable. "You're not dead. Does that mean you're back?" Already can he envision the reception he'd be met by. What with Starlingheart's compounded grief and Skunktail's predilection to point the paw (so to speak), there's every chance it'd get blown out of proportion. "Here's hoping your cover story holds up well," he adds, dry as a bone. "You've missed a lot. A lot."

Yellowcough and its victims. The journey. Granitepelt, Siltcloud, and their conspiracies. Must be nice, living two seasons in the past. Stars know how Smogmaw would do anything to escape this present. ​