sensitive topics DAY BLEEDS INTO NIGHTFALL &. hunting patrol return

[KINDLEHEART]

What a fool Kindleheart had been for looking forward to his hunting patrol. What a fool he had been for welcoming the change in pace.

What left as a patrol of four, now returns as three. Kindleheart leads Roeflame and Rabbitnose with a weight on his shoulders - that of Graystorm's. The fallen warrior, a body broken by beasts, is carried on the brown tabby's back as he treads forward in silence. White patches in his fur are stained crimson by his failure, and Kindleheart's stomach twists at the thought of what had happened, and what's to come.

He should be thanking the stars that he'd even made it out, that no one else had fallen to the same fate as the warrior he carries. But, he can only feel the heft of Graystorm, he can only see Graystorm, see hooves against the warrior's pelt and remember the helplessness that froze Kindleheart's paws in place. As the patrol's leader, it's only right that Kindleheart is the one to return with the body - a retrieval that was a miracle in itself.

Still in shock from what had happened, Kindleheart doesn't know what to do as he nears ThunderClan's camp. He doesn't know what to do as he looks to Roeflame and Rabbitnose, as he checks to make sure they're still with him, that they hadn't been snatched by the beasts while he hadn't been looking. A shaky breath is taken as he steps through the entrance.

"We... Where's Howlingstar...?" he finds himself asking, his voice slow and staggered, small in his own form. It feels like someone's controlling him, as he moves to set down Graystorm's body. "Someone... Someone fetch her, please."

// hunting patrol tags: @Roeflame . , @Rabbitnose; no need to wait!​

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[Rabbitnose]

His fur was still on end. His eyes were still widened with shock and terror over what he had witnessed just minutes before. Horrible creatures, trampling and ripping Graystorm like it was nothing. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. He didn't know the tom well, but nobody deserved to die like that. He will never forget the sounds. The cracking of bones, the ripping of flesh, the splattering of blood.

It was all still so vivid, unlike anything he had experienced thus far.

His throat was dry and his voice was lost. All he could do was help Kindleheart carry the body back.

He wasn't ready to hear the wails of grief that were coming. He hadn't been ready for any of this, but what are we if not leaves floating on the river, forced to go with the flow no matter how tumultuous it gets.​

 

[HOWLINGSTAR]

Nobody has to fetch her. She's already there, on her paws to greet the patrol her son had been on only to freeze in place as Kindleheart, Roeflame, and Rabbitnose slip into camp with an all-too-recognizable gray pelt along their backs. Her face grows slack with confusion, wide eyes flicking from the body to Kindleheart to the other warriors and back again. The thought he could be dead doesn't even register. He's being carried because he's hurt. He needs Berryheart. "Somebody get Berryheart," She weakly demands, still unmoving. No one does it. "Somebody get Berryheart!" She commands again, louder as her feet finally allow her to pad clumsily forward.

Somewhere deep down, she knows. A mother can tell when her son's soul is no longer with her. Her face is contorting as she reaches them, pain etched into her features as a memory of a small, fluffy gray kitten tumbling between her paws flutters through her mind. "My baby..." Howlingstar's voice is nothing more than a croak as she stands helplessly, watching her clanmates gently place his limp body on the ground. "My baby, my baby, my baby, no, no, no." The words tumble softly from her lips as she collapses by Graystorm's body, pressing her nose into his fur to breathe in her youngest son's scent.​

 

[RACCOONSTRIPE]

Graystorm. Raccoonstripe sometimes feels the two of them are more similar than they would like to admit. His brother had left this morning with his usual brash, fierce arrogance, confident to his end. The tabby had smirked, giving a warning echoed by the rest of the warriors—Be careful.

As Kindleheart lowers the gray warrior’s body, Raccoonstripe thinks about wrestling in mud puddles. He remembers the filthy water splashing over their pelts, the burn in his muscles as Graystorm had pinned him again and again. He’d boasted every time, and it had filled Raccoonstripe with so much rage—when he finally got the chance to pin his brother, he’d not let it go for half a moon. Every time he’d see him, Raccoonstripe remembers smirking and saying, “Remember that mud fight I beat you at? And Gray, as his name was then, would scowl.

He stalks closer to his littermate’s body, gone cold. Stove through. His blood has blackened over parts of his fur, and the stench of those wild beasts permeates the air. He will forever associate it with his brother’s death. With loss.

It’s Howlingstar’s cry that first causes his façade to slip. She cries for Berryheart, but as his mother approaches Graystorm and sees what he does, she crumbles. Her keening for her baby causes him to clench his jaw, fighting a storm of emotion that threatens to break over him.

“What happened?” He slowly turns dark eyes on each warrior before resting on Kindleheart, who’d led the patrol. His voice is taut, tense, but his limbs are shaking, and before he can get an answer, he lowers his face to Graystorm’s fur and shudders. Tears burn against his eyes, blinding him to everything but the horrid scent of all that has happened to Graystorm.

“Damn you for not being careful,” he rasps, unable to keep the tremor from his voice now. “How could you let them beat you—how?...” His words trail off, and he falls silent, unable to move away from the dead warrior’s body.
​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[Moonwhisper]

Moonpaw is sparred leaving the camp with Raccoonstripe again for another training session in the worst way possible, in the midst of grooming her paw she smells the patrol arrive long before she sees it and he ice blue gaze widens in horror; head turning sharply to the rush of movement at the camp border. Gray and red mix, draped across Kindleheart and Rabbitnose's back, she has never seen him so quiet and still before; the energy her uncle once had has died down into nothing more than a limp body, fur only barely tussled by the passing breeze. The tortie point rises to stand, stiffly following along after her mentor and eyes widening and watering at the sight of Howlingstar in such a state; the usually proud and noble leader crumpled over in grief. She had not seen her in such a way since Morningpaw and the brief memory of bloody snow and a cold body mirroring her still warm one forces up a hiccup of a sob in response. She had been quietly fighting it down, wanting to be strong for her family, but she was so tired of losing when they never once deserved it. They had done nothing worth having their blood taken from them like this, a small selfish part of boils with brief rage as she realizes Fireflypaw and Howlpaw will find out later and mourn as if they had any right to and its quickly dampened by the realization that such thoughts were cruel even for her grudge.
No one had gotten Berryheart yet and so, to put herself to use to make amends for such thinking, she turns and bolts for her uncle's den on stumbling and swift limbs.

---

[Ooc]
Fetching @BERRYHEART !
​

 

[BERRYHEART]

His name, again- it spilled from mouths like bile, just as unpleasant to hear, to taste. It was not difficult to work out why his mother sounded like that. Puling- there had to be something very wrong. Something urgent. Scooping up a clump of marigold, he met Whispers' gaze with a quick nod, and- said nothing, as neither had she. Blood-scent wound around his breath like tendrils, and for once the sensation of it did not make him falter. It was daunting, this newfound strength- especially when he could recognise another familiarity among wound-weep.

Cold sprawled through him like an infection. Frozen blood, his body in stasis, uneven olive eyes settled upon Scamp. His littermate. The matching pelts of his mother and brother blurred into bark-hued frames around his vision, everything centring around the claret-brushed body that lay on the floor of camp. His crooked jaw fell slack, dropping the marigold. White-toed paws trampled it into the ground, his steps uncharacteristically careless. Apathy numbed him from the waste of herbs.

"Get up, Graystorm." A name. It was a name that left his maw, not anything affectionate, not anything forgotten. It was purposeful, level. Deep-set and ice-cold, anger thrummed dully through Berryheart's voice. It was barely-there, but so seldom heard that to many it might have seemed jarring. "This isn't funny. You're upsetting them."

His broken jaw fastened unevenly against itself, a nauseous swell in the back of his throat. He swallowed the lump, skulking closer to his brother's body. Dead, and he'd known it from the moment he had seen him. His words had been nonsensical, and he knew it- was embarrassed for his temporary loss of control, a blatant denial of fact. And yet, as he gazed upon his brother's dead body, he still could not keep himself composed. He prodded him, kept his paw rested upon his fur, trying to feel for any spark of warmth, any catching breath, any lingering yet-to-depart spirit.

But there was nothing there.​

PENNED BY PIN ☾​

 

[BLIZZARD FANG]

BLIZZARD FANG ♂​ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥​

The bloodied body of Graystorm lay. His chest no longer heaves and his eyes do not glow, denial booms across his kin, but with a gut-wrenching feeling the senior knows. He walks with StarClan… His head dips heavily, as he processes this loss grief swells in his heart. Pushing forward while paying mind to the grief-stricken family he looks to Kindleheart for an explanation. Who had done this? Or was the question what? Those were deep gashes embed in the fallen warrior’s body, no cat could’ve done that, Blizzard Fang knew better. ”Yes… what happened Kindleheart? Are the rest of you okay?” Despite the horrible situation his tone was calm and unwavering in the midsts of a sorrowful yowls that drenched the air.

 

[KINDLEHEART]

Just like the moments that had led up to Graystorm's demise, this too happens all too fast. Howlingstar's arrival, the tears of the fallen warrior's mother, his siblings, the questions.

What happened? What happened?

He's still reeling from the shock of the warrior's death, and the wails that fill his ears make answering the question even harder. I failed him, he knows. He led them the wrong way, after all - if Kindleheart hadn't noticed the boars sooner, would the whole patrol have been lost to the boars' hooves?

And yet, Kindleheart hadn't even moved to try to save Graystorm. Would there have been any time, anyway?

"Beasts," he says quietly, his gaze lowering. He cannot look at Howlingstar, at those that surround them. His leader's son has died under his watch. He's failed the whole clan, hasn't he? "I... There were so many. I told everyone to get down. He didn't listen and..." A shaky breath is taken, before he continues.

"He got too close," he croaks out, "I... I'm sorry."
​

 

[BLIZZARD FANG]

BLIZZARD FANG ♂​ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥​

Beasts. Vague, unknown, Blizzard Fang cannot help but conjure the image of monsters with large, curled claws in his head and gigantic yellow teeth. His fur bristled, if Kindleheart did not know this monster by name then it was new to their forest. The story is told, Graystorm met his fate. Blizzard Fang looks to Raccoonstripe, then to Howlingstar, it pains him to ask any of them to duty while they process this tragic loss. But what was next for ThunderClan to do? ”Should a patrol go out to ensure they’ve left?” He’d be more than happy to tag along or put his paws to use doing else wise, whatever Howlingstar asked in this dark hour.

 

[WOLFWIND]

A crackling voice. Hushed murmurs of grief. Wolfwind is on her paws in an instant, eyes looking past Moonpaw's stumbling form. A returning patrol stands at the tunnel's entrance, crowded by her kin: Howlingstar slumped on the ground. Raccoontail's neck bent. Berryheart soon joins them. Golden flowers are brought, and soon forgotten. Wolfwind pads over on shaking limbs. The guessing game is a cruel one. All the things that could make Howlingstar crumble to a pile on the ground. Only one thing comes to mind, but Wolfwind didn't want to believe it.

Her eyes meet a fallen body, beaten and bruised. The body of her uncle is strewn across the ground. Wolfwind had wanted nothing more than to be like him, when she was younger.

She'd felt this before, when Morningpaw had been struck. The uncertainty. The well of sadness just barely being kept from running over. She nearly can't believe that its real. That the same face she'd seen smiling at dawn was a face that would not smile again; twisted in pain instead, then a dull nothingness that told of the battle he'd had, and the loss of life gleaming in his eye. It wasn't real. Something supplies, but she knows that it was.

Wolfwind lets the well of tears bubble over. The rare name on Berryheart's tongue spelt grief that she sat silently with. Wolfwind breathes, and lets tears wet her eyes. At least she could say goodbye to him, like she hadn't been able to for Morningpaw. " We'll see you later, " she croaks under her breath.

She'd thought he was invincible.

She'd thought Howlingstar was invincible too, once. Wolfwind pressed herself to her grandmother. Beasts. Again, her mind supplies.

They would take care of it for him. " I can go, " she offers.​