- Jun 11, 2023
- 136
- 43
- 28
❀‿ It had been the dawn of a warm greenleaf day when Lupinepaw—still Lupinekit, back then—her fears to Bobbie about stepping into apprenticehood. She had been so small, and the forest seemed so big and scary, but perhaps in her own childish way she had prescribed the correct diagnosis to her intangible mess of feelings, even if they were expressed in simple words from a small mouth. The forest was an apathetic beast, with jaws that held no space for mercy, and Lupine had not the strength to fight it off.
Ironically, Lupinepaw had assumed that her precocious glimpse into fear and hopelessness was a strength of hers. Her peers didn't seem to fret as much as she did, it had become somewhat of a point of pride for the young she-cat. They were free to live with their youthful innocence for as long as they were able to, Lupine was alright with being the one to worry. She stared down the barrel of the cruel reality of life, daring it to catch her off guard. It could not, for she knew what it was capable of, and she'd armored herself accordingly with the ever-turning carousel of possibilities.
Bobbie had been victim of a dog attack before,—two dog attacks actually, she recalled her mother's abridged, kit-proofed recollection of what led her to join Skyclan before they were born— who was to say that it wouldn't happen again? Falconpaw had been attacked by a predator only a few days previous. She and her fellow apprentices spent their days training and hunting in the heights of the pines, it would be so easy for her or Drowsypaw or Cherrypaw or Crowpaw or any of them to slip and plummet to their doom. Perhaps she spent too long mulling over all the violent, gruesome ways everyone could die every day, but she figured there was some merit to being pleasantly surprised when another day passed that they did not come to fruition.
On that grey and gold painted morning before their apprentice ceremony, Lupine's fears were horrifically tangible—visions of teeth and claws and pools of blood filled her head. Back then, sickness was not even a passing thought in her mind, something tucked away in the unimportant corner of her mindscape floating nebulously as something to “be sure to go to the medicine den” for, should she come down with something akin to the sniffles. Back then, she didn’t know anything about the creeping dread of an invisible enemy, or of how much horror could fill up inside silence.
Lupinepaw did not have much of an appetite that previous evening, nor did she have the energy to care to chat with her clanmates or even give herself her daily scheduled evening groom, opting to head straight to her nest after her day’s obligations. She had been able to rationalize the thing that hovered over her the past few sunrises as simply another manifestation of that awful, but well-acquainted feeling that squirmed in her for all her life. It ebbed and flowed with time, she was beginning to realize. It had shrank amongst old moss in the elder's den with a brother she held dear, but spiked with a vengeance beneath pelting rain upon witnessing her friend who shone as full and bright as the moon be turned into something so small and terrified. She filed this new, draining feeling away as one of her known enemy's many mirrors, even if an itch in her brain whispered the other possibility. The mounting dread pressing against her pelt and tightening in her throat was ignored, as best she could, and she fell into a fitful sleep as many in this camp did before her.
It was still dark—just before the first pale creepings of dawn began to peak its head—when she sputtered awake, choking on phlegm and catching her breath with a shallow gasp. I need to go outside, get some fresh air... She thought, though reality had already begun to sink into her bones. This wasn't... she'd never felt this before. She stood on weak, wobbly limbs, putting all of her energy into avoiding jostling her sleeping denmates. Lupinepaw reached the entrance of the apprentice den after what felt like hours, the early-morning darkness swirling around her sickeningly as sat heavily. She was exhausted, bone-weary, and dizzy in a way she hadn't known before in her short life. Even as she moved agonizingly slow, like the air was made of thickened pine sap, her heart raced.
Lupinepaw was sick, she was sick and it was the thing that some medicine cat had named "yellowcough", and she was sick and Tallulahwing died from it after only a few days. And she was sick and Mountainheart was a strong, powerful warrior and she was scrawny and still had some of her kitten-thin fur. And she was sick and so was Crowpaw but he was getting better because Dawnglare and Fireflypaw gave him medicine and maybe they would give her some too but maybe he was only getting better because there was something innate inside him that was stronger than she was. She was sick and Orangeblossom and Figfeather and her mom had to go far away to find more medicine and who knows how long they would be gone. And she was sick and she was dying and she was going to die.
Eyes welled up with familiar tears, though this time the well-known constricting of her throat only made her cough worsen, and only left that much less room in her lungs for oxygen. She had to get to the medicine den. Her small, smokey black pile of fur inched along the perimeter of camp, crawling on her belly because it was too hard to stand up. Her diaphragm contracted with unwilling sobs, head pounding from the effort of trying to stop them from coming. She wanted to wail and scream but hadn't the energy to, so she just buried her head in her paws and cried to herself in the empty silence that still draped itself over a slumbering Skyclan. The sun crept upwards, and dawn broke into a sunny, yet chilled morning, and Lupinepaw remained shaking and miserable on the ground.
It was hopeless, she didn't know what to do, all she knew was that she was sick and she was dying and she was scared. Lupinepaw murmured into her fevered, tear-soaked paws, "I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mommm..."
Ironically, Lupinepaw had assumed that her precocious glimpse into fear and hopelessness was a strength of hers. Her peers didn't seem to fret as much as she did, it had become somewhat of a point of pride for the young she-cat. They were free to live with their youthful innocence for as long as they were able to, Lupine was alright with being the one to worry. She stared down the barrel of the cruel reality of life, daring it to catch her off guard. It could not, for she knew what it was capable of, and she'd armored herself accordingly with the ever-turning carousel of possibilities.
Bobbie had been victim of a dog attack before,—two dog attacks actually, she recalled her mother's abridged, kit-proofed recollection of what led her to join Skyclan before they were born— who was to say that it wouldn't happen again? Falconpaw had been attacked by a predator only a few days previous. She and her fellow apprentices spent their days training and hunting in the heights of the pines, it would be so easy for her or Drowsypaw or Cherrypaw or Crowpaw or any of them to slip and plummet to their doom. Perhaps she spent too long mulling over all the violent, gruesome ways everyone could die every day, but she figured there was some merit to being pleasantly surprised when another day passed that they did not come to fruition.
On that grey and gold painted morning before their apprentice ceremony, Lupine's fears were horrifically tangible—visions of teeth and claws and pools of blood filled her head. Back then, sickness was not even a passing thought in her mind, something tucked away in the unimportant corner of her mindscape floating nebulously as something to “be sure to go to the medicine den” for, should she come down with something akin to the sniffles. Back then, she didn’t know anything about the creeping dread of an invisible enemy, or of how much horror could fill up inside silence.
Lupinepaw did not have much of an appetite that previous evening, nor did she have the energy to care to chat with her clanmates or even give herself her daily scheduled evening groom, opting to head straight to her nest after her day’s obligations. She had been able to rationalize the thing that hovered over her the past few sunrises as simply another manifestation of that awful, but well-acquainted feeling that squirmed in her for all her life. It ebbed and flowed with time, she was beginning to realize. It had shrank amongst old moss in the elder's den with a brother she held dear, but spiked with a vengeance beneath pelting rain upon witnessing her friend who shone as full and bright as the moon be turned into something so small and terrified. She filed this new, draining feeling away as one of her known enemy's many mirrors, even if an itch in her brain whispered the other possibility. The mounting dread pressing against her pelt and tightening in her throat was ignored, as best she could, and she fell into a fitful sleep as many in this camp did before her.
It was still dark—just before the first pale creepings of dawn began to peak its head—when she sputtered awake, choking on phlegm and catching her breath with a shallow gasp. I need to go outside, get some fresh air... She thought, though reality had already begun to sink into her bones. This wasn't... she'd never felt this before. She stood on weak, wobbly limbs, putting all of her energy into avoiding jostling her sleeping denmates. Lupinepaw reached the entrance of the apprentice den after what felt like hours, the early-morning darkness swirling around her sickeningly as sat heavily. She was exhausted, bone-weary, and dizzy in a way she hadn't known before in her short life. Even as she moved agonizingly slow, like the air was made of thickened pine sap, her heart raced.
Lupinepaw was sick, she was sick and it was the thing that some medicine cat had named "yellowcough", and she was sick and Tallulahwing died from it after only a few days. And she was sick and Mountainheart was a strong, powerful warrior and she was scrawny and still had some of her kitten-thin fur. And she was sick and so was Crowpaw but he was getting better because Dawnglare and Fireflypaw gave him medicine and maybe they would give her some too but maybe he was only getting better because there was something innate inside him that was stronger than she was. She was sick and Orangeblossom and Figfeather and her mom had to go far away to find more medicine and who knows how long they would be gone. And she was sick and she was dying and she was going to die.
Eyes welled up with familiar tears, though this time the well-known constricting of her throat only made her cough worsen, and only left that much less room in her lungs for oxygen. She had to get to the medicine den. Her small, smokey black pile of fur inched along the perimeter of camp, crawling on her belly because it was too hard to stand up. Her diaphragm contracted with unwilling sobs, head pounding from the effort of trying to stop them from coming. She wanted to wail and scream but hadn't the energy to, so she just buried her head in her paws and cried to herself in the empty silence that still draped itself over a slumbering Skyclan. The sun crept upwards, and dawn broke into a sunny, yet chilled morning, and Lupinepaw remained shaking and miserable on the ground.
It was hopeless, she didn't know what to do, all she knew was that she was sick and she was dying and she was scared. Lupinepaw murmured into her fevered, tear-soaked paws, "I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mommm..."
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OOC: AAAAND SHE'S DOWN FOR THE COUNT!!!
TLDR: Lupinepaw is sick and sprawled on the ground in a corner of camp at the break of dawn, having tried to crawl her way to the medicine den. She's extremely upset but not delirious, and is displaying symptoms of cough/fever. -
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lupinekit. lupinepaw
— trans she/her. 5mo apprentice of skyclan
— ??? ; single
— tall, long-haired black smoke with low white and green eyes
— smells like sweet lupine flowers and young pine needles
— “speech”, thoughts, attack
— icon by saturnid, fullbody and chibi by nya
— penned by eezy
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