private ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO

[STORMFEATHER]

It's quiet. Stormpaw's ear flicks as she raises her head to glance around the other sleeping bodies in their makeshift camp. It's strange—she realizes—how different this feels from a Clan. There is no leader, hardly any order apart from the respect other warriors had for each other. She had never known that such a lifestyle could be possible. Where would they all be if not for some strong paw above them to guide them? Maybe how she had been raised was all wrong. Maybe cats of other Clans could live among themselves with harmony.

There were a few cats she did not like—any SkyClan cat in particular would catch Stormpaw's ire because she liked very little of them. That was only because she had been raised properly to know that true Clan cats had true names, not some Twoleg jumble or no suffix. If any Clan did not deserve to be called a Clan, it would be SkyClan, but still it seemed, StarClan watched over them, even forcing a ThunderClan cat to save one of their apprentices.

Stormpaw felt her teeth grit against each other as she thought about Little Wolf's death again. Unable to handle the welling of emotions, she abruptly got up and slunk away from the sleeping cats. She had never been good at night-hunting, but if anyone asked what she was doing—she did not owe them her business. They were not her leader or mentor anyway.

​

 

[dovethroat.]

Dovethroat has always been a bit more withdrawn, but the fact that he has felt so isolated—except for maybe some of the other RiverClanners, some of the time—has made this journey feel particularly lonely. It's hard not to feel down on his luck. He savours the feeling of the feather tucked away under his dense fur, but having nothing more than that is beginning to get to him. He is not sure if he should feel a twinge of guilt about that or not. Their first (and so far only, and hopefully only ever) loss in the group had struck him hard—and it made any angst he felt seem silly and stupid. Unfortunately, that was not very conducive to himself feeling any better.

His sleep patterns have gotten better, but he cannot sleep very well tonight. When Stormpaw stirs, it makes him jolt awake out of the quarter-sleep state that he was in; where he was fully conscious but everything just seemed to feel fuzzy.

"Wh—huh?" He mumbled, whipping his head around with squinted eyes. He sees the hazy form of someone stalking away.

And for whatever reason, he feels the impetus to follow behind. Stretching out his limbs, he takes a few cautious steps in her direction. At least, he thinks the silhouette is a her. It looks like Stormpaw—was the her name?—but he doesn't remember as well as he would like to admit.

Everything goes well until his sleepy mind makes him swerve and collide face-first into a tree, a confused and surprised yelp of a meow erupting from his maw.

[⋆]​

​

 

[STORMFEATHER]

She notices almost immediately another cat is following her. Stormpaw's tail flicks irritably. Perhaps some cat wished to use the dirt place at this hour. Now she would have to hide around until they were gone so she could mope in peace.

She had never allowed herself to wallow in emotions. Warriors simply did not do it. She valued the good of the group, the Clan, above herself. In the grand scheme of things, how she stood out as an individual should mean very little. And with that mindset, the tricolor apprentice was struggling to adapt to a world where ThunderClan did not exist.

It did, sure, in theory, and back at home, but here in the mountains, there was no ThunderClan law to be enforced. None of this forest was her's—ThunderClan's—so she wondered what a Clan really meant. Her feelings of insecurity were perhaps different than Dovethroat's. She wished to be lonely because without a Clan she felt utterly worthless. The only thing that kept her going was thoughts of returning to her father, brother, and mentor with the lungwort.

She was not here to make friends.

Stormpaw ducked into a bush of bracken, watching as the tawny tabby strode by. He stank of RiverClan—or so Stormpaw imagined—and she turned up her nose, about to slip away until he smacked face first into a tree.

An immediate peal of laughter rose from the bracken and Stormpaw poked her head out, blue eyes glinting.

"Do they not teach you to walk on land in RiverClan?" She crowed.

​

 

[dovethroat.]

Dovethroat recoils back, shaking out his head like a stunned bird who had fallen out of the sky. He is a more emotional, more sensitive soul—even if he tends to the quiet side, everyone can tell. Even if sometimes he thinks that he is hiding it well. Hazecloud has treated him very kindly so far; but no, he has not made any friends. He has had people help him, and connected with people—but are they friends? He does not feel comfortable calling any of them that, he thinks sullenly.

It isn't for a lack of trying, or wanting. Dovethroat decidedly places much less value on clan affiliation than your average journeyer. He sees the point of being so tribal rather silly. It had already been proven to them that there was plenty lungwort to go around, and they would only be making out of here with enough of it together.

However, it was impossible to deny that there was some animosity. Dovethroat wasn't perfect.

As he scrunched up his nose, he spun to woozily look at Stormpaw. "Do—Do y-you not learn... m-manners in ThunderClan?" Dovethroat snapped without thinking, his voice sounding weak.

[⋆]​

​

 

[STORMFEATHER]

"I don't think you're in any position to hurl insults." The yearling shot back with an amused sniff of her nose. Her eyes blinked owlishly at the dusky brown RiverClan tom, feeling unthreatened by his words.

"Is that the best you've got?" But before Dovethroat can answer, Stormpaw seems to have abruptly changed her train of thought. "Why are you following me anyway? Got a crush?" Her voice dripped into poised sarcasm. She had seen Dovethroat a few times—but had never thought too much of it. On some occasions they had ended up close to each other, but that was always likely due to coincidence. There was only so many cats and Stormpaw loathed every SkyClan one. Dovethroat was harmless, she had deduced. The tom either was not interested in being entirely mean, or was unused to being on the bully's end of the stick—she assumed. That must be why he had such a stunted, meek way of going about things.

☾₊ ⊹ sing for the laughter, sing for the tear

•  
• STORMPAW of THUNDERCLAN — LH FEMALE TORBIE WITH HIGH WHITE (CARRYING DILUTE) a small and slight creature with patches of black tabby and red tabby fur and bright blue eyes. her facial features are round, obscured by a heavy feathering of fur around her cheeks. smells of oak wood and basil, her voice has a rough, raspy edge to it that sometimes peaks into higher pitches, and her gait is described as firm and solid.
  
  — born to flycatcher and flamewhisker and raised alongside her brother falconpaw, stormpaw was always hyper-aware of an expectation of excellence hanging over her. she fails to excel at hunting, the skill her parents are most known for, and struggles with a severe identity crisis revolving around her obsession with thunderclan as the savior of the clans. she finds herself lost without meaning when she tries to detach herself from thunderclan as a whole, and uses a religious fervor in starclan to distract herself from her mental crisis.

​