private come, my darling, homeward bound

[ashpaw!]

Today her pawsteps shake. She's far from helpless, out here alone, but she's sure not doing great; a month in that twoleg prison left her muscles to deteriorate, and she's not a great land hunter besides; there are no rivers to fish from, here, and plenty of competition for land prey. She's been reduced to tears a few times by now, forced to dig through twoleg trash or starve, feeling farther from RiverClan than ever. But she did it — sacrificed her dignity for survival. She did it, and she's here, still alive, pawsteps shaking as she treks through more alien landscape.

The twoleg dens and monsters all look the same, strange straight lines laid one after another, an unnatural order that repeats and repeats. Not the forest at all, and almost impossible to navigate. And the loners and kittypets, so far, are not helpful — either they haven't heard of clans (and isn't that terrifying, to be so far out no one's heard of the clans) or they won't speak to her in the first place. There are vicious ones, too, street cats intend to defend territory, and she's come out of more scrapes alone than she'd have ever thought she could handle before this.

But she can. She has. And she keeps going.

She's going to make it, so day after day, she wanders and she walks and she asks every cat she can find for advice. She's got to believe she's made progress. You can do this, Ash. You keep going. You'll get home, and you'll get to be a warrior.

And then she hears something that stops her in her tracks. Was that — a mewl?

She's hearing things. "He — hello?" Ashpaw calls, creeping toward the source of the sound.
​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• ooc text goes here
  
  
• - 12 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to riverclan warrior willowroot
  - crushing hard on iciclefang
  - got real fucked up as a kid so if she seems like she was fucked up as a kid, that's why
  - bitter, cagey, jumpy; responds violently when startled; perpetually exhausted; territorial, unfriendly to non-riverclanners
  - soft spot for kits
• - kidnapped from riverclan by twolegs! but she making her ESCAPE!!!
  

​

 

[hellebore]

she said "it must've been the wind" — she wasn't entirely clear how she'd gotten here, in this dark and scary place. to people. it was just a metal trashcan, but to her it smelled like rot and metal ( even if she wasn't entirely sure what metal was ). the little pink collar that with the shiny little ball on it had been tossed in there with her, and she could only wonder how it had fallen off of her. her blankie is in there too, so she'd come to the conclusion that she had super powers, like those creatures that had fed her that yucky, horrible food for a whole month.

the little mewl she'd let out, half a yawn and half a cry, had echoed off the tall, metal walls. it's not so bad in here, now that she really thought about it. if she crept over some of the black plastic, she could see the blue sky, and hear.. a voice. whoa, that sounded kind of weird! he-hello? it wasn't the voice of the other cat that she'd lived with, who'd been weird and overprotective of her. who had that been, anyways? "hello?" she called back, voice significantly smaller than the one that had called to her.

it's not for lack of trying! she was just.. small. "hey, stranger, have you ever tried to jump over a really big gap? you sound like you could!"
​

 

[ashpaw!]

That little voice, again. Ashpaw swallows against the lump in her throat. It's definitely a baby, and Ash is definitely not imagining the voice. She sounds... so little.

"hello?"

A kitten out here. Ash doesn't even want to think of it but here she is, faced with the reality. Maybe just a lost kittypet, she reasons, with a safe home somewhere? As she mulls possibilities, she picks her way forward, through strewn twoleg trash and flies that flock to it. It reeks. And here, in front of her, a large container, one whose purpose Ash has learned by now. This is where twolegs leave their crowfood and droppings and other refuse.

It's tall, metallic. And as the little girl's voice continues — have you ever tried to jump over a really big gap? you sound like you could! — it becomes very clear that this is the source of the sound.

Did twolegs ... throw the kitten away? Like crowfood?

Stomach rolling, Ashpaw approaches still closer. She sizes up the trash can — she could make that jump, easy, as long as her bad paw doesn't give her trouble. But a kitten couldn't. Is that what the kit is talking about?

"Hey, little stranger," she calls back, trying to keep her voice steady. How could anyone do this, she's thinking — even the cruelty of twolegs doesn't seem enough to throw away a kitten. A kitten! "I bet I could get you out of there, if that's what you mean... hang tight for me, okay? I'm coming."

She sizes up the jump again, drops into a crouch — then she leaps, and sticks the tricky landing with only a little struggle. She balances up high on the lip of the trash can, peering down into it, bright orange fur backlit by sun.

There.

Ashpaw can see the girl is brown and white and very, very small. Can't possibly be more than two moons... her heart pangs. "Kid?" she calls, soft and hesitant. "I'm gonna jump down and grab you, is that okay?"

"My name's Ashpaw, by the way. What's yours?"

And who left you here and why are you alone and are you hurt, are you sick — she won't bombard the girl with questions but Ash has plenty. ​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• HEY IM CRYING
  
  lmk if there's anything here that needs changing/a different way you want this to go! im just improvising based on how ash would react >:)
  
  
• - 12 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to riverclan warrior willowroot
  - crushing hard on iciclefang
  - got real fucked up as a kid so if she seems like she was fucked up as a kid, that's why
  - bitter, cagey, jumpy; responds violently when startled; perpetually exhausted; territorial, unfriendly to non-riverclanners
  - soft spot for kits
• - kidnapped from riverclan by twolegs! but she making her ESCAPE!!!
  

​

 

[hellebore]

she said "it must've been the wind" — well, that hadn't been exactly what she had meant. no, she'd been thinking about the gap between what the two-legs called the coffee table and the couch, because she's still a little grumpy that she didn't make that jump. no, she'd dropped like lead onto the carpet below, and had wailed right up until the moment that the two-leg had wrapped her up into her blanket on the couch and she'd fallen asleep.. how long had she napped for, for her to end up in here?

the stranger appeared, and helle didn't seem bothered by her situation in the slightest, looking up with wide eyes in such a way that made her look like an angel in hell. "hi!" she chirped, shifting around on her blankie for a moment, before turning around in circles on it to try and get comfier to no avail.

"i'm hellebore! my mommy called me helle, and my people called me baby. you've got a funny name, lady!"
​

 

[ashpaw!]

"hi!"

ashpaw's heart just about melts. the little girl starts to turn in circles, and ashpaw works very hard to maintain her composure. "your mommy, huh? and your people?" she pauses to think on her wording for this next question, this very important one. she voices it as gently as she can. "....do you know how to get back to them, or are they all gone? have you been — alone here awhile, i mean?"

all gone. it could mean anything. but this little girl, hellebore, what a sweet name — she might not know the answers to things like dead or abandoned.

not having heard a protest, ashpaw nimbly leaps down from the lip, into the cramped space just big enough for two of them. she'll aim to scruff the child, then hop back out of the trashcan, setting her down softly on the grass.

"i like your name, little hellebore," she says. she smiles sadly at the comment about her own name. "it is weird, isn't it...? that's because it's a special name. in my home, our names reflect our place and our loyalty ... our promise to stay and take care of each other."

she swallows past the lump in her throat. she'll get home again, she tells herself. she is ashpaw still. she is a riverclanner still. "i'm trying to find my way back there."

she hesitates, then adds — because the girl is so little, and is she hurt? who is taking care of her? "if you have nowhere to go, i can bring you there with me." she crouches down low to hellebore's level. "you'd be safe, i promise. there's always food there, and always someone to love you." willowroot, snakeblink, cicadastar, iciclefang, crappiepaw... always, always someone.
​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• ooc text goes here
  
  
• - 12 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to riverclan warrior willowroot
  - crushing hard on iciclefang
  - got real fucked up as a kid so if she seems like she was fucked up as a kid, that's why
  - bitter, cagey, jumpy; responds violently when startled; perpetually exhausted; territorial, unfriendly to non-riverclanners
  - soft spot for kits
• - kidnapped from riverclan by twolegs! but she making her ESCAPE!!!
  

​