Newleaf ushers in renewal, vitality, and new life, no matter the hindrances, no matter the past. Litters arrive by the dozens and fill the nursery every time the snow thaws, a rhythm timeless and invariable. Experience informs Smogmaw on the season's undeniable pull towards parenthood, how it compels some to get out there and start a family through all available channels. For he himself wasn't immune to it, and Applepaw, Ashenpaw, Garlicpaw, and Swanpaw stand as a physical testimony to that.
That he enters this season alone seems a grim anomaly to him. But to call his current situation an oddity feels inaccurate, for an oddity is unnatural. It is natural for living things to die, even mates.
What stands out, then, are the contingencies he has pondered over time and time again, these far-flung prospects which seem all too plausible the longer he dwells on them. He misses love, he thinks. He has felt it once and craves it again. But has the void left by Halfshade become an obstacle to experiencing love anew? Or will he succumb to Newleaf's call and seek companionship the traditional way, as is natural, as is instinct?
Shit like this is why he's a cynic. If all is fluid and constant change, why even try to cling onto anything for fear of losing it?
Smogmaw is yanked quickly from his contemplative state when Sleepyfawn's question pierces through the haze. While adrift in his thoughts, so too was the deputy adrift through camp, and his wayward paws had brought him to the cusp of a tongue-sharing ritual. Accompanying it is the typical gossip, and this installation of ShadowClan's community forum circles around one chief topic: kits. Welp, he's a part of the discussion now, given how close he'd wandered.
Snowpaw's contribution makes a shallow chuckle play along his maw. That's certainly the mathematical lens to view it through. "And yet," he includes himself, tone gruff though bemused, "we must have more apprentices if we want more warriors. Warriors do not sprout from trees, y'know." A fleeting smirk is sent the alabaster apprentice's way, before his focus latches onto a comment Ferndance had made.
Matchmaker. He refuses to indulge the impulse sparked by such a comment, the singular barrier being how he feared her specific brand of logic. She is as frivolous as a moth and twice as persistent. Were he to play along, she'd have him partnered up before sundown. Yet, and unfortunately, he remains curious all the same. "Say, who would you match together?" he asks as a compromise with himself. "You're always so confident in your judgement, Ferndance. I'm sure I speak for us all when I say I'm eager to know."
His vision glosses over the queen, Mockingbirdcry, and then the two younger warriors sharing a frog. His expression betrays a certain kind of open keenness unbecoming of the deputy, and within, a degree of opportunism.
