private dread ─ sprucepaw

[WISTERIAPAW]

✝ ── Today he felt peculiar. The reason? He is unsure, but there's something wrong. Maybe it is just one of those days where he will always feel wrong. Everyone has those days after all. Where nothing can be done other than sleep and hope the next day is any better. However, even if he tried to sleep in his nest... His paws screamed that he should be doing something. There was still much to do and seeing as it would do him no good, the tom would rise to his paws and look around. Many apprentices were out training, but some should be returning. The first cat his eyes land on is Sprucepaw. His heart stutters and before he can stop himself, he pads over to her. They've trained together for awhile now that they aren't strangers, but Wisteriapaw has never been so odd. "Sprucepaw I need to talk to you," he mews while pushing her. There's no room disagreement. He would drag her out of camp if he needed to.

She doesn't make much of a fuss after she's practically been forced outside of camp to a more private area within their territory. Wisteriapaw doesn't say anything even if she asks him why the heck he wanted to speak to her. The uneasiness he feels hasn't subsided. We're together. Nothing bad will happen. "what's the worst way to die?" okay, maybe we shouldn't have started off that way. however, he is rattled and it doesn't help that his mind supplies him horrid ways to die. "I think it's a tie between rats from the carrionplace or a surprise attack from a fox. Actually foxes are less common, right? Yeah, I think being mauled to death by a fox is horrible. Isn't it?" When he meets his eyes with hers, it screams help me. don't run away. don't tell me i'm crazy.

// @sprucepaw

 

[sprucepaw ✰]

Sprucepaw is far too willing to explore the land without warriors. Mapleberry, her mentor, enjoys leaving her in the shadows and forcing her to find her way around, after all. Hours have been spent trudging the marshes of her home, alone but not lonely. Wisteriapaw's urges are met with eagerness, not unease, even when the tom stammers and struggles himself. She follows closely. Happily, even.

His question is met with a quirked brow. Her tongue trills against the roof of her mouth with a partial laugh, "Oh, that's a hard question." But she wavers on it. He continues - rats, with their disease and dread and infamy around their home... or foxes. She waves a paw towards him, "Foxes don't really live around here. ThunderClan, more like. They don't like the sopping wet underfoot," she tries to convince her friend, pressing her shoulder against his reassuringly. And then, as a joke, she offers, "Granitepelt's claws must be nasty. He probably gave every cat he's killed a gross infection. That, would be an awful way to die."

 

[WISTERIAPAW]

✝ ── She offers relief with her answer. It's true. Foxes aren't common here and it's more of a Thunderclan thing. However, something still tells him that it wasn't impossible. He's not even sure why he's so fixated on foxes of all things. He's never seen one, but the elders told him they were sort of like dogs. The difference being they were much more agile and they bore red fur. Well... at least, that's what they told him. He had been curious as a kit asking if there were different clans of dogs. They had laughed and said no, but there were foxes, wolves, and other things. he looks at her, less fearful, yet apprehensive all the same. "Are you sure? I mean, they're more of a Thunderclan type of thing, but are you sure they wouldn't come here. Maybe they like being sopping wet or something? I guess they'll have to go through Thunderclan first anyway, so guess they like the taste of Thunderclanners or something..."

This is a hill he was prepared to die on until a joke is made about granitepelt. granitepelt was someone they had all trusted. he's seen starlingheart get hurt and ghostpaw hasn't been found yet. he didn't get to spend much time with them, but everything's been a wreck ever since it came out that granitepelt killed so many of them. it goes to show you can't trust any of your clanmates. who knows, maybe granitepelt would've killed him if he wasn't careful. a laugh escapes his lips and he nods, "Yeah. I think I'd rather get eaten by foxes or rats than let his stinky claws kill me. I hope a fox eats him! after what he did to everyone, i hope he gets killed by one or it infects him just like he did to every cat he killed." Okay, so maybe they both needed to seek some help in how to process what granitepelt had done.

 

[sprucepaw ✰]

His anxiety is unending, unbecoming, and Sprucepaw almost understands why her mother doesn't bother with many folk like Wisteriapaw. Aside from Pigeonthroat, supposedly. The black tabby sits in beside her pale pelted friend, wondering if they're foils of her parents. If in another life, she would be smitten with the tom so eager to be scared, just as her mom fell for the molly with ants in her paws. She laughs, "Maybe they'll come when the snow's all dyed red with blood," she suggests, shaking her head shortly after. "Trust me, Wist. A fox would have to trudge through snow and sludge to make it to us to begin with! If it doesn't smell anything good -" which, to be fair, most frogs smell like dung, "- then it won't bother even making it here."

In truth, Sprucepaw's opinion of the Granitepelt situation is... difficult. It can be cut and dry - the tom stole kittens, murdered too-many-cats to count, and betrayed them all. But also... not her family. Not her mother, not her siblings. She feels too far removed to be properly scared by the newly founded boogeyman of ShadowClan. But the jest seems to help the tom a little, and she smiles, "I can see a fox gripping him, and - and - thrashing him, yknow? All mean like!" Though after she says it, the imagery gets to her. The she-cat shakes her head, "What's gotten to you anyways, Wisteriapaw? Bad dreams? If it makes you feel better, I think we could fight off a fox if we worked together. Nothing could beat us!"​