tunnels dreamin' of spring — tunneler bonding time

[SCORCHSTAR]

When she first joined WindClan, all those months ago—it's been nearly a year, at this point—Scorchstreak hadn't expected to take on such a prestigious role. It makes sense, in hindsight, given her presence in the territory's tunnels even before an entire clan of cats moved onto the moor. She is grateful, to some extent, that Sootstar had allowed her to join them; she couldn't imagine being shoved from her home, driven from the land that she had raised her son upon.

The tunnels have been home for her entire life, now, and her fellow tunnelers have quickly become some of her favorite clanmates. Even the strange ones have carved out places for themselves in her heart. They are considered professionals in their tunnels, playing a key role in WindClan's success. It can become stressful, even, which makes spending downtime among other tunnelers all the more important. Sometimes the only cats who can understand her stress are the cats who endure the same conditions as her each day.

Settled beneath the rising sun, near the mouth of one of their tunnels, Scorchstreak lounges alongside several other tunnelers. The morning is filled with idle conversation and the sharing of tongues, and the calico allows a gentle smile to settle onto her maw. At some point, the topic of how they had each gotten their start in the tunnels comes up. "I was born underground, actually,"she says conversationally as she grooms the other tunneler's pelt. "I suppose you could say I've been tunneling for my entire life."

She shifts to turn blazing eyes on the next clanmate. "How about you? When did you first stick your nose into the tunnels?" She knows how a couple of the clan's newest tunneler apprentices got their start in the tunnels—Burnetpaw and Cottonpaw's exploration as kits has not yet been forgotten. But she's curious to hear more about all of her fellow tunnelers and how they came to find themselves in their position within WindClan.
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[ LIKE A RATTLESNAKE ]​

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[curlewnose]

"leave those snails alone, they've got problems of their own"​

Curlewnose chuckled. "Of course you were born down here, Scorchstreak," he teased, shooting his friend a grin. "I fell down a rabbit warren as a kit and, well, you all can see that I left immediately and never returned!" The blue-and-white tom winked, obviously joking as he gestured to his dirt-coated fur. He looked expectantly at the other tunnelers, a grin still present on his maw as he shared tongues with his clanmates.
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✦ ★ ✦​

 

[whitedawn]

If asked if being a tunneler would've been her initial choice, Whitepaw would've been hesitant to answer, especially as the role was mostly chosen for her. Unlike her fellow, newer, apprentices, she hadn't ever been interested in the tunnels or had joined Cottonpaw and Burnetpaw in their adventure, as she was likely sleeping at the time. However, it wasn't something she disliked, even if it hadn't been her first choice. Since becoming an apprentice, this was likely the first gathering of tunnelers that she's witnessed and joined. Unlike Cottonpaw and Burnetpaw, she had no stories to offer about her experience or interest in the tunnels, even if she was fond of her first day of training. Instead, she listened to the stories shared, grooming the pelt of one close to her.

//mentor tag <3: @AMBERTAIL ​

[I'M BREATHING]​

 

[SOOTSTAR]

ㅤ

SOOTSTAR

WindClan Leader
☆☆★★★★★★★

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HP:​

██████████

Loves:

Hates:

​

Born in the tunnels? Whiskers twitch thoughtfully, rubbing against the earth walls in doing so. Scorchstreak's path had most certainly been set for her the moment she was born, and sounds like Curlewnose's had been too not long after. A subtle amused purr rumbles in her throat. Unlike the others Sootstar had been well into adulthood before her first tunneling outing… has it been twelve moon cycles now? …No… but close.

"First time I tunneled was a half-moon after WindClan was formed. Couple of other cats were with me, if I remember right." She would begin to tell her own story while remarking the wall. "I ended up getting separated from the group actually. Thought a few times I'd never find my way out, but I still stand. It's a miracle I still wanted to come back down here after that for a first outing." She snorts in amusement.

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[AMBERTAIL]

The others speak and Ambertail is quiet. They do not wish to bond with the others. They do not wish to speak of what had happened to them, why they were here, what their memories beneath the dirt meant to the rest of them. Still he lingers, hunkered down amidst the others that converse. Their special, secretive club. As reluctant as he may be to participate, there is no disguising that he enjoys this quiet communion. Curling amidst their dirt-strewn pelts feels comfortable and light. It is where he belongs.

"I did not know these tunnels. The others, different, close though. Towards where the rocks make shade everywhere." Ambertail had never seen the sun, but he had felt it on his fur. Felt its absence as a shadow. With that realization, that blooming warmth of early morning, Amber sets his fluffy tail across where his apprentice rests. A poor shield, but an attempt at one nonetheless. "These...I learned alongside Sootstar." Unaware of the social awkwardness of his empty gaze, the tunneled stares straight towards where he had heard their leader's voice, gaze unblinking.

"StarClan has given us each a purpose here. It is their gift," he says simply.

˗ˏˋ〚  OOC NOTES INFORMATION 〛´ˎ˗

• ooc: mooobile
• ──── ambertail. tunneler of windclan. nb, he or they.
  ──── adult, though precise age unlabeled as of now.
  ──── sexuality unknown. a strange windclan cryptid.
  
  ──── a tiny, yet proportionally long-limbed tortoiseshell with unfocused amber eyes. though they retain their color, ambertail is blind. those who don't know as much may be confused, and will certainly be met with dry responses from the tunneler himself.
• "speech"

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[SCORCHSTAR]

The blue and white tom's response is half jest, and Scorchstreak takes it as such. She wouldn't blame him for never trekking into the tunnels again, if his first experience was of falling into them—yet here he is, a tunneler of WindClan. "And of course you ended up here because you fell in," she comments in return with a laugh, tail flicking lightly. It truly is fitting, that a cat destined for the tunnels would simply be dropped into them. "It must've been fate all along." Fate works in strange ways, she thinks. It's given her a son,—and then, of course, taken him away. It's given her these tunnels, her place in this clan that accepts her for who she is.

Speaking of fate—she smiles to Sootstar, the star-blessed tunneler. It was fate that brought the leader to the moorland, that guided her paw in every action she's made thus far. She claims she hadn't even set paw in the tunnels until after she formed WindClan; she even got lost during her first exploration! "I'd never have believed that if you weren't the one telling me. You're so confident, I expected you to have been born here as well." She wonders where Sootstar would have formed the clan had she not settled upon the prairie. The marshland seems too dull for a cat like her.

Ambertail speaks up next, a cat practically made for the tunnels. They are a bit odd, sure, but who of them isn't strange in some way? Scorchstreak likes the tortoiseshell tunneler enough to smile despite the understanding that they will never see it. His explanation is a bit disjointed, and she tries to think of where he might be talking about—tunnels near the rocks? Does he mean the patch of land in RiverClan's territory, or some other rocky land? He's blind, she reminds herself. His directions may not be the most reliable. "I'm glad that I was given this purpose," she agrees with him; this job is a gift. Without her tunneling, she isn't sure what she would occupy her mind with. It seems the other clans occupy their tunnel-less time with meaningless bloodshed. She would hate to stoop so low.

There is yet one in their midst who hasn't spoken, and Scorchstreak lifts her head from where she's been grooming the pelt of another. "Whitepaw, how about you? What was your first day as a tunneler like?" The question is asked in sincerity, blazing eyes trained on the sunlight-sensitive child. Her designation as a tunneler makes sense, if for no reason other than her pale pelt—pale everything—making it difficult for her to contribute aboveground as well as a moor runner should. Perhaps fate's pawprints lie upon her shoulders as well.
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[ LIKE A RATTLESNAKE ]​

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[cottonsprig]

Cottonpaw is there, if not for the casual conversation that trickles between tunnellers about their trials and tribulations on the job, but to spend time with her ever busy mother. She feels she's successfully killing a few birds with a single stone, tucked in close to Sootstar's side as the older warriors talk of their starts and careers. It's admirable - Scorchstreak was born in the tunnels, meanwhile Ambertail had to learn them all from scratch. Each is more interesting than the last, and Cottonpaw pretends to care about the dirt clump on her mother's side.

Scorchstreak turns the question to Whitepaw, the child just as silent as she, listening to the many others reminisce. She has the urge to jump in and express her first day - her unofficial one, even, with Burnetpaw. But she recalls how upset it made so many others, and how further upset it made her, to be essentially called ill equipped and unready for the journey ahead of her. Even now she's frustrated with the notion, but she paces herself and offers an encouraging smile to her friend, instead. Better to celebrate successes than to harp on failures, she supposes.​

 

[Rowanpaw.]

——————————————————⊰⋅ 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 ⋅⊱——————————————————​

He will never truly understand the life of a Tunneler, even as he lives it himself- perhaps it's the earthen walls that feel suffocating at times, or the crumbling of walls when dirt gets loose that could kill even the strongest of cats. Rowanpaw seats himself amongst the Tunnelers as they speak of how they became the Tunnelers they are, and Rowanpaw has to think back on his first day of being in the tunnels. His mother quite liked the darkness of them, preferred them even. Rowanpaw wished he'd been born bigger, though- running on the moors seems so much more fun.

"I- Ah. Hm." Rowanpaw stutters momentarily, drawing his tail to his chest- bushy and full of fluff. "My first time was wandering into the tunnels as a kit. My mother took me in one as soon as my eyes were open." To prepare him, she'd said. Maybe it was better off this way, with him as a Tunneler. StarClan bless the cats who has to deal with Rowanpaw on a typical basis.​

——————————————————⊰⋅ 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 ⋅⊱——————————————————​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Cottonpaw burrows close to one side of Sootstar, and Bluepaw is at the other. She allows her sister the pleasure of cleaning clumps of dried mud from their mother's fur, instead electing to listen politely to the tunnelers recount their stories. She has yet to actually enter the tunnels; Sootstar wants her to be ready before she begins her journey below the earth. After Cottonpaw's incident, she can see why.

Her path as a tunneler, like the other young apprentices, had been decided for her upon birth. She and Cottonpaw are the smallest of the litter, with their mother's compact build. Their littermates all take after their father, wiry and long-legged, built for racing the moorland and defending their borders. She'd never questioned her destiny, nor would she begin to. Sootstar had imprinted upon both daughters that being a tunneler is an honorable rank. Bluepaw couldn't imagine not following in her mother's pawprints.

She turns unblinking green eyes on Scorchstreak, Curlewnose, and Ambertail in turn as they relay their first forays into the tunnels. She thoughtfully begins to clean an ivory forepaw, finding herself growing almost comfortable around the other tunneling warriors. It's something she will be able to understand acutely someday, an unbreakable camaraderie built by paws that only scale what lies below.

Rowanpaw speaks, startling her out of her thoughts. The blue-pelted femme eyes him curiously. "You got out of camp?" She'd been warned, all of her littermates, about the dangers of wandering unseen into a tunnel. She licked at her white paw again, thoughtful. "Perhaps StarClan meant for you to be a tunneler." Her high-pitched voice is low and serious with her assertion.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[LAMBCURL.]

He loves it here. Togetherness, even if his pelt was not was not one of the few tucked so close that their tongues brushed and his whiskers may tremble with tickling closeness. He is a being of pure snow, fresh as the frosted moss itself. Moons and moons, it may be, but he could never hope to compare to the ancientness of the earth itself. Hardly, either, to Scorchstreak. They are similar only in their cavernous affinities, and snow dusting below her chin.

Born underground, the beckons glassy eyes to widen. He too, had been birthed in darkness, but hadn't been so lucky to find himself shrouded within earth. It was not a mother's love, either, but rather a barn's dilapidated walls. Though a wet tongue had lapped his pale head, that warmth had not been the same. At least, he did not think as such, for he wouldn't have crawled so reverently, as he had. Or so his mother told him, that is..." Did you follow the sun to surface...? " he had yearned for the outside the moment he could form so much of a thought. He supposes, the sun was much easier to follow when there's only dark beside you. Darker, yet darker...

His breath is soft and warm like it still shined down on them. So unlike the reality of a nook within hollowed earth walls... A fall, an accident. A tear itches the flesh pink of his eye, lashes fluttering, an accident, whispers strangely in his mind. So unlike him. So unlike the others... Curlewnose is gazed upon with a certain blankness.

Thoroughly, he is captivated by the words of their leader, and subsequently Ambertail, blessed enough to witness such a grand rebirth. Dreamy sigh, his heart aches in whole agreement. Impossible to name, what he had toiled over before this... A purporse, the thought ripples throughout the group in waves. Something they may agree on, despite all else. Crinkled eyes would drift between the forms of apprentices. New, budding purpose. To - be martyrs for whatever they may dream of...

What a mother, indeed. Lambcurl casts his gaze to that one, level smile, compared to the crescent grin that had adorned his maw not much earlier. " Perhaps, " he agrees, hushed.

〖 OOC 𓆩ꕥ𓆪 NOTES 〗

• ooc: horrifically late at this point but wanted to get him in <3
  
•  
• 
  LAMBCURL: HE / HIM , CISGENDER MALE ; GAY & SINGLE, IN LOVE WITH EVERYBODY TBH ; TUNNELER OF WINDCLAN ; 41 MOONS
  
  tiny, curly - furred albino tom with teary pink eyes. ; dreamy – eyed and dreamy – minded, Lambcurl drags himself across the land with an ever-present smile and glassy bug eyes. Deeply honored to hold his position as a tunneler and whisperingly reverent with everything he does. Somewhat unnerving in ideals and the way he speaks, but he means well.
  — tentative voice claim: fox mulder