COME WHAT MAY || Sagepaw

[TWILIGHTFALL]

Such grief, ShadowClan has faced. Twilightfall had been content to stay in the nursery, and feels she is needed even more now that Sandra has lost a child and has stopped caring for herself or her surviving kits. But ShadowClan has youth growing into their paws, needing warriors' skills to survive.

The black and white queen goes to Sagepaw in her nest quietly, on soft paws. It's not quite sunhigh, but later than dawn. "Sagepaw. Would you like a tour of the territory? I know you've been to quite a few places yourself, but I was thinking borders, perhaps. We can hunt on the way back." She dips her head to the blue-eyed femme before withdrawing and seeking the camp's exit.

@Sagepaw
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PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[Shimmerkit]

She had not anticipated her apprenticeship excitedly the way some of her denmates had. She had in fact, dreaded the idea in its entirety. Apprenticeship meant learning to hunt, to fight--the mere thought of which made the gangly molly's stomach twist with unease. All life with her father had ever been was endless training, endless cuts and scratches from unsheathed claws, endless battering for her failures. Sagepaw wanted to turn tail and flee.

And now as Twilightfall stood over her, it seemed she had no time left to do so, and little choice in what happened next. So she simply stood and nodded her head. "Okay," she answered softly, padding after the older she-cat.

 

[TWILIGHTFALL]

The dappled black and white she-cat looks appreciatively to the lanky blue-eyed apprentice padding at her side. There's a quiet resignation about Sagepaw - nothing of the excitement that she'd anticipated, truly. She reminds him of Ash, the way he'd dreaded hunting practice, had been miserable when Salamander had taught him to fight. Afraid of failure, he'd been.

With Sagepaw, though, she isn't sure that's what it is.

"Is everything alright?" Her tone is soft, inquisitive, but she does not stop walking. "We won't be doing anything too stressful today, so don't worry about that. I... I'm not really up to it myself, I admit." She smiles, but it's empty. She wants nothing more than to go back to the nursery, but duty to her Clan is first. The kits are big now, almost old enough to be apprenticed themselves...

Twilightfall is quiet until they reach the Thunderpath. She noses through the brush, staring from a distance at the stretch of stinking black asphalt. "Lucky, we are, to have this to divide us from the other Clans," she murmurs. "Can you tell me what territory lies beyond here?"

It's the moors, where Sootstar now reigns. A WindClan patrol had been here not too long ago - their scent, musky and strange, lays under the stench of the Thunderpath.
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PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[Shimmerkit]

Sagepaw nodded quickly as her mentor asked if she was all right. What could she say? She didn’t know the older she-cat well at all. It wasn’t like she could actually tell her what was bothering her.

Hearing something hollow in Twilightfall’s words, Sagepaw pricked her ears. “Are you okay?” she asked softly. They had reached the Thunderpath by then, and Sagepaw flinched. This was where her mother had died, trying to flee with her. The space beyond it was open fields, with almost no trees to speak of. “It’s WindClan,” she answered confidently.