devotional | reunion + joining

[Tornadopaw]

If you don't like me, that's your problem

Long limbs pick through thick marsh sludge brought on by the rapid snow melt. The mud was a hindrance more than usual and she could not wait until the grounds dried at least a little more. Tornadopaw follows behind Tigertooth, quietly taking a moment to glance around at her surroundings here and there. Exhaustion clung to her as she trailed the tom, a small yawn parting her jaws as she blinked away sleep. Dawn patrol forced her to get up early and she was not used to waking up on a normal schedule again after all of her nightly training. The patrol itself proved to be rather uneventful thus far, which only made her drowsiness worse. That is until she caught a flash of movement from beyond the thunderpath. Grinding to a halt, Tornado's head popped up, citrine eyes narrowing as she thoroughly skimmed the area. Another flash of familiar white draws her forward, limbs moving again until she stops just before blackened tar. She sure she could've heard a shout, a warrior no doubt fussing for her to step away from the road. But the warning fell upon deaf ears as the figure became more apparent. "Mom...?" The word was soft, hesitant as it slipped past her lips. Surely it must have been a daydream brought on by her tiredness. But the figure kept moving, looking just as real as the rest of her surroundings. "Mom!" She shouts, hoping to collect her attention. (mentor tag @Tigertooth and mom tag @MELISANDRE )​

When I let it bother me, that's my problem​

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[SNOWMASK]

These cold moons have been miserable and she isn't used to such things. Such harsh temperatures and snow. Though she picked up how to hunt relatively fast it doesn't exactly help when there is barely anything around. Still she has been managing and constantly on her mind are the kits that vanished. She still isn't sure what happened to them and it aches in her chest. Is she a terrible mother? Her mind says yes and ridicules her for ever having left them alone. Yet she never thought that they would simply disappear like that. Just suddenly gone and no matter how far she looked. How much she looked. She has never been able to find them. She can't just give up though, she doesn't want to. The thought of her children potentially dead never once crosses her kind for she won't let it. It can't be. The woman sighs, the cloud of warm breath issuing into the cold air. Her jaw set firm around a piece of prey and specifically a crow she has managed to catch. One of the first things in two days she has been able to sink her claws into. It's a meal at least and she walks alojg the side of the monster path with the idea to return to her temporary den.

At least that is the idea till she hears a voice. Small and she almost thinks it not real. But then it comes again and she turns her head to the side. Those soft grey eyes shift over toward where the voice called and her gaze widens. For a moment the woman just stares and then without thinking she bolts across the thunderpath. No thought that she could have gotten hit crosses her mind. No the only thing that matters is that this is her child. This is one whom she has been looking for from dusk till dawn and all over again. She is shocked, she is ecstatic. Then she drops the crow without care as her eyes brim with tears. "Nady? My dear Nady is that really you? I-I can't believe it....you've gotten so big. Oh my little kit." Tears overflow and she leaves down to press her head gently against the child's. "I've been looking for you everywhere, I was so scared... Are you okay? Where are your siblings?" Her other kits, were they alive and well too. A joyous thing to be reunited with her children.​

 

[Tornadopaw]

If you don't like me, that's your problem

Time seems to flow in slow motion as she watches the dual toned figure of her mother bolt across the thunderpath. She'd heard many horrible tales of cats meeting a rather unexpected end due to monsters zipping and zooming past. So when Melisandre breaks into a sprint to reach her, Tornado's stomach lodges into her throat and remains there. Her head warily looks away and down the road, checking nervously for danger to rear its ugly head. Danger that thankfully never comes. A sigh of relief followed up by a bright smile touching the girl's features works in tandem with the hammering in her chest. Warm tears stream down her face as she dips her head, butting it against that of Melisandre in delightful reunion.

A laugh broken up by minor sobs of relief leave her lips, yet she remains purring all the while. "I've missed you so much, I can't believe you found me after all this time!" With brief reluctance she breaks away from her mother to face the patrol behind her. "These guys took me in after we were separated." sure they were rough around the edges and the clan had its own set of problems here and there but they all helped her to survive and for that she was thankful. Turning back to the predominately ivory molly she jerked her head in the general direction of camp. "They're back that way." Citrine eyes blink as a glance is cast past Melisandre's shoulder that held hopeful curiosity. "Is dad with you too?"​

When I let it bother me, that's my problem​

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[Starlingheart]

"SPEECH"
Starlingheart had insisted this patrol let her come with them, had urged and urged and urged. She needed a distraction, something else to think about and there were only so many times she could rearrange the medicine cat's den, only so many hours she could spend with nothing other than the sound of her own heart threatening to beat out her chest. Wide green eyes watch as a warrior catches something and she thinks I could do that too, I just need to work on it it helped her self-confidence a little bit that such things were no longer expected of her so it was fine she hadn't caught anything on her own yet, though it would be nice to be able to feed herself every once in a while. She wants to commend the other cat on a good catch but before any words can leave her mouth she sees a flash of gray and black from the corner of her eyes and suddenly Tornadopaw is lunging towards the thunder path. Starlingheart wants to scream, to tell her to stop but the words die in her throat, overtaken by terror raw and pure. She looks away, eyes shut tight, unable and unwilling to see a friend get taken from her.

She waits for the inevitable but it does not come. When Starlingheart's eyes open again her breathing is ragged, and labored. She expects to open her eyes and see a bloody massacre but Tornadopaw is fine. Everything is okay. She wants to run to her and tell her how scared she had been and to stay away from the thunder path but she stops when she sees the other cat.

Their pelts are different colors but still, there is a resemblance there that the black and white she-cat cannot deny. Their matching fur types, long and curly, give Starlingheart a pretty good guess at what was coming next and sure enough Tornadopaw calls the she cat her mother. Some selfish part of her is jealous. She wished so deperately her mother could come back like that, that one day she would just appear from the tree line and embrace her, tell her it was all just a bad dream and there was nothing to fear. But Starlingheart had seen the spiky black molly herself n Star Clan, she knew she wasn't coming back.

She casts her jealousy aside and comes to stand just behind her friend. She cannot say she approves of Tornadopaw telling a stranger the location of their camp, but it is her mother after all. She nods her head in a forced polite greeting but her eyes scan the underbrush desperately for Chilledgaze or Pitchstar or someone to send for them.
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[PITCHSTAR]

lucky for starlingheart, there is a npc warrior who departs from the patrol to gather up the king of the shadows. dragged from the confines of his den, pitchstar is led to the thunderpath, where he sees the cat he'd been warned of moments prior. a pale she-cat, with curls that meld with tornadopaw's own as the apprentice nuzzles her, and a pit of envy opens in the leader's stomach. the family resemblance is clear, or maybe he's imagining it, after the npc warrior had told him of the stranger's relation to tornadopaw. a desire that he's had since the moment his mother had drawn her last breath, is for her to return to him. to materialize from the shadows and gather him up into an embrace no different than what he sees in front of him.

selfish. pitchstar wishes that it was him, and not tornadopaw, reuniting with his lost mother. but he knows that would never come to fruition; he'd held his mother as she died, he'd cleaned her blood from his fur, he'd helped bury her. she is dead, colder than a winter's night in the ground. nothing more than food for maggots, now. she is never coming back, and he is forced to watch tornadopaw live his dream instead.

pitchstar brushes against starlingheart's side, two siblings sharing in their jealousy together. "you two, away from the path," the rosette tabby snaps, his spine prickling from the close proximity to the road. he hardly looks commanding, skulking next to his baby sister with ragged fur doing little to cloak his skinny frame. wounds still recovering from the infection that'd ravaged them are swathed in cobwebs.

whether tornadopaw and her mother chooses to obey him, pitchstar would cock his head to one side. "so... you're this little shit's mother? what's kept you from her for so long?" he can remember the day tornadopaw and her siblings had showed up in shadowclan's marsh, freezing and hungry. he'd sent out patrols to search for their stray parents, but nothing had come from them... and he'd assumed that the kits had either been abandoned or orphaned.

he couldn't help but to wonder, why did their mother suddenly show up now?

but, no matter the mother's response... pitchstar couldn't separate kits from their parents. jealous as he may be, he doesn't want to inflict that same pain on tornadopaw and her siblings. "if you're looking to join us, to be reunited with your kits- i won't turn you away, as long as you vow to hunt for and protect shadowclan. but if you aren't..." pitchstar's voice dips into a dangerous tone, lips curling. daring the mother to turn away and abandon her kits for a second time. "you'd best leave the way you came from. now."​

 

[SNOWMASK]

The gentle rolling purr rumbles in her chest as she smiles at her kit. She has hoped for this day to arrive and now fate has reunited them. She is pleased that much is certain. Although there is a small buzz of worry in her gaze as she looks at the cats with her daughter. They took her in? A small amount of nervousness seeps into her and she doesn't know how much she trusts them. They don't look like the trustful sort but she tries her best not to let that show on her face. After all she doesn't want to ruin this moment with her daughter and she hopes to see the rest of her kits too. "Then I suppose I have much to thank them for." Gently she lifts her paw to carefully wipe the tears from Tornado's eyes. "Don't cry, everything will be okay now. As for your father...I guess he had other plans." She really believes this and she casts her eyes to the side as another figure stands close. Another child but one who looks older than her own. She doesn't know how they work but to her a kit is a kit and she gently smiles. "Hello there. Are you one of Tornado's friends?"

Really she is happy to know that she may have friends here as well. Another thing she has to be grateful for. But soon another approaches and he looks haggard. Standing beside the young molly she observes the both if them and sees small similarities. Hmm. But she makes no assumptions yet, though the way he looks worries her a bit. The severity in his gaze makes her slightly nervous. When he says to get away from the path she glances over her shoulder and then ushers Tornado from it, shifting to settle near a gnarled tree. Though when next he opens his mouth the woman suddenly gasps and she glares daggers at him. "Watch your language around these children." She speaks with a heated tone but soon it dies down and she looks to Tornado hoping she will never copy that. At least not for a good while. Yet as he continues speaking she frowns a little. "What kept me? Nothing kept me from them. I've been searching for them ever since I returned and found our den empty. I...I tried everything I could but time didn't slow for me. I still had to survive." As much ground as she traveled she still had to hunt and eat.

But her ears pulled back as he spoke about her leaving. As if she would let slip her children from her paws after finally finding them again. Never. She could not bare such a thing. He wanted her to stay in this Shadowclan. Hunt and fight for them. Though she once lived a soft life it has been hardened from the time she spent with her former mate. The rogue having showed her many things. With a huff she turns and picks up that crow she had been carrying and she drops it in front of the tom's paws. "I'd rather die than be seperated from my kits again. Let this crow be the start of my new life here in Shadowclan."​

 

[GRANITEPELT]

Granitepaw was not on this initial patrol, but he'd followed his mentor from camp with a scowl twisting his handsome young face. A stranger in their territory -- after they'd already been ravaged by hunger, by rats! His claws are unsheathed before he comes across the small gathering of cats. Tornadopaw, snuggled up with what seems to him an awful lot like a kittypet ... or a loner, at least.

The gray tom listens to Pitchstar with mounting, smoldering anger. Weakling. He relents so easily, allowing the she-cat to stay if she vowed to hunt and fight for ShadowClan. Granitepaw fixes Pitchstar with a mutinous glare. "You're going to let this outsider stay?" He tchs scornfully. "She's another mouth to feed, and she abandoned her kits, anyway. I remember finding her." He thrusts a gray paw in Tornadopaw's direction. "Bunch of hungry kits, alone for hours. She's not even a good enough mother to warrant being here."

His bitterness is fueled by thoughts of a faceless cinnamon tabby, one he mentally shreds with sharpened psychological claws. He will not think of her. He will not think of her.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[smogstar]

The dark-striped tabby, as luck would have it, had also been excluded from the border group. Rather, he made his way out of the camp on the heels of the young Granitepaw, whom he did not know all too well, but the tom could infer a shared hatred of morning patrols between them. If something beyond the mud pit roused the apprentice's interest, it would in turn rouse his own. And thus he pussyfoots through the territory, unawares about who or what he may happen upon.

When he eventually arrives at the rim of their realm, Smogmaw is pleasantly surprised to spot a pretty face in the midst. On top of that, the outsider does not appear to be on the verge of death (which, morbidly enough, is better than what can be said about some ShadowClan cats). This is optimal indeed, seeing how Pitchstar has already granted the monochromatic molly permission to join the clan. "Hmm," he coos, shouldering past the angst-ridden Granitepaw. "Well, it's a better first impression than most."

He ogles the prey dropped before his leader's front paws, and a gnawing sensation grows in his gut. His gaze then flicks to Tornadopaw, before falling upon the stranger yet again. "Is 'Tornado's mum' your preferred name? Or s'there something else we should call you?"​

 

[Tornadopaw]

If you don't like me, that's your problem

As Pitchstar arrives, Tornado is instantly reminded of the tom's acute paranoia over the thunderpath. She allows herself to be ushered further away by the guidance of her mother. Although her attention snaps back to the haggard appearance of her leader, more or less annoyed with the way he addressed her. Was it really that difficult to say her name? But her mother is quick to reprimand him much to Tornado's surprise and it shows as the ivory meets her gaze. The girl could only hope Pitchstar wasn't in too much of a foul mood today and would refrain from doing anything drastic. Granitepaw shows himself next and his words cause anger to flare within the black smoke. Her pelt bristles at the accusations being flung Melisandre's way and she comes to take a step in front of the alabaster molly as if to shield her from the brutal words.

What's your deal Granitepaw?" She hisses defensively, tail lashing. "She didn't abandon me. We wandered off in search of her." A small wave of guilt washed over her at the realization amount of worry she placed upon her mother by committing such a life altering act. But they were together now and that's all that mattered. "Stop talking about her as if you know what she's capable of." She breaks the challenging glare held upon the grey and white tom to glance momentarily at Smogmaw. At least he seemed to be minding his manners. ​

When I let it bother me, that's my problem​

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[PITCHSTAR]

pitchstar raises a brow as the she-cat reprimands him, in his own swamp, for his foul language. he throws his head back in a humorless guffaw. "my language is the least foul thing here," the rosette tabby bites back, shaking his head as the dry laughter subsides as quickly as it had materialized. vicious rats, starvation, death looming... the youth here are not fragile, shielded from the world, for they wouldn't survive if they're soft. a couple of curses should not phase them.

tornadopaw, too, is miffed with how he addressed her. though the leader pays no attention to the look she sends him, his gaze unwavering and fixated on the newcomer in his territory.

she answers his question with indignation. nothing kept her, she claims, and pitchstar narrows his eyes. tries to find a lie in her words, but he couldn't. (she could be deceiving them all, she could be as skillful at lying as fleecefur had been.) if it wasn't for the drying tears streaking tornadopaw's face... he would've never even considered allowing her in. she wouldn't be trusted easily, though. pitchstar would make sure that she has an eye on her at all times.

and he'd be lying if he said that the crow she drops at his paws didn't play a part in his final decision. pitchstar's stomach rumbles, pathetically loud, at the sight of decent food. prey is the fastest way to a shadowclanner's heart, it seems... (but it could be poisoned. he would have to make her take a bite of it first before it's given to any of his clanmates.)

pitchstar is about to accept her formally, when granitepaw speaks out. dark fur bristles at his apprentice's audacity to question his authority, in front of this newcomer. with a hiss, pitchstar would aim to sharply cuff granitepaw's ear, though there is little strength behind it. "she came back for them, which is more than some of us can say," he snaps, his skin prickling at the stares his mind convinces him he's garnered. he doesn't even know this she-cat, yet he's defending her... for the sake of his authority, rather than her own honor. he couldn't change his decision, now that granitepaw's challenged him. "my word is final. she's clearly a capable hunter- would you deprive shadowclan of another able warrior to search for food?" another mouth to feed... all because of his bleeding heart for parents and their kits. even if he doesn't back down from granitepaw, everyone already sees his weakness.

huffing, pitchstar turns back to the she-cat, who smogmaw asks the name of. the rosette tabby isn't interested in that part right now; it's going to be changed, anyways. he just wants this shit to be finalized so that he could go back to his den. "you'll be allowed in, but you won't be trusted yet. you will be accompanied by a warrior everywhere you go outside of camp, and you will not be allowed to be alone with the youth and elders of the clan." his snout then jerks towards the crow, which lays at his paws. his mouth waters, his hollow stomach begging for him to scarf it down. "and you'll take a bite of this crow before anyone else eats it."​

 

[leechpaw]

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The soft hum of the raven black apprentice as she watches fills the air, having tailed the others in a bout of curiosity and she stood not too far from where Pitchstar, Starlingheart, Granitepaw, and Smogpaw were. Her ears twitch in annoyance at Granitepaw's words, casting a silent glare at the older grey and white apprentice, pressing her tongue to her cheek. Though she barely talked about it, Leechpaw was touchy about the subject of mothers, especially given her own history with her mother, and she wanted to uncharacteristically snap something at the other. Luckily, though, she watched Pitchstar cuff his own apprentice, satisfied, but the discomfort and upset gleam in her eyes never left, taking a small step to put distance between her and the other.

A flick of her ears pulled her back to Tornadopaw and her mother, the skinny black apprentice giving a kind smile to them both. "Raven feathers make for something nice to line your nest with, plus it's a nice memory of you two reuniting," She points out. Her own stomach rumbles, the ache of hunger clenching at her abdomen, but she makes no move to mention eating. If she doesn't think about it, she doesn't have to worry about it, plus... this is a moment for Tornadopaw and her mother, who Leechpaw is curious to know the name of, waiting for her response to Smogpaw.
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[SNOWMASK]

Her words die in her throat as another comes forth. This one is also a child but the words that pour from his muzzle bite like daggers. For a moment she feels a surge of anger flickering like a smoldering ember. But slowly she reigns herself in. This is a child and she knows better than to be ill at one who does not know the circumstances. Instead she doubles down on her own words. "None of that is true. What you think you know is a falsehood, kit." Her words sre said firmly but with as much of a soft tone as she could munster because if she is honest she is worried about this one. Still her child comes to her defense and she smiles gently. Even though all of this their family is still somewhat whole and that makes things more worth it. Her silvery gaze focuses on a tom who speaks about her first impression being a good one and she chuckles before shaking her head. "It's the least I can do. Especially given the fact that you have all done what I couldn't."

Then he asks for her name and she realizes that she has forgotten her manners. It makes a sudden embarrassment spread through her. "I'm sorry. My name's Melisandre but if you want you can call me Meli." She smiles lightly and keeps herself close to Tornado before she turns her gaze back to the cat that seems to be in charge of the group here. He says she can stay, she will not be trusted, she won't be let out of their sights. This she can understand given that she is a stranger among them and so she merely nods. "Thank you so much for this, um..., sir." She doesn't know his name and so she just defaults to politeness and as she speaks about her taking a bite of the crow she nods. Dipping her head down she fumbles around the feathers before tearing some flesh off and swallowing it. She enjoys the taste of bird the most and she casually pushes it back to him. "It's fine. I wouldn't dare to betray the ones that took care of my own. And yes, raven feathers would be nice."

With a smile to Leechpaw she begins her new life here.​