development flares || training gone wrong

[ashpaw!]

//cw for physical abuse flashback

A paw raised above her blocks the sun, shadow falling on orange fur.

This is familiar.

She moves instantly. Unconsciously. The apprentice cringes low to the ground, ears pinned back, a full-body flinch. (In her mind's eye Spiderfall glares down; he spits threat and venom and promises so much pain. She can already feel the strike of his paw—his claws raking over her face, her flank.)

Nothing follows.

It isn't a blow but a pose—an uncertain attempt, an "is this right?"—a paw that will not come down.

It isn't Spiderfall but Koipaw, anxious apprentice just like herself. Her first proper fighting lesson since before this hell began and ended, before her abuser's exile; Pebbleskip had asked for a joint training session with Lightningstone. They're set up in a clearing near camp, two mentors and two apprentices and a few observers, Iciclepaw among them, she knows.

Ashpaw didn't want to spar.

She'd begged Pebbleskip not to make her and he simpered, he humored, but he did not waver. He'd said so gently, You're not a kitten anymore, Ashpaw. I know Willowroot tolerated the dramatics, but I'm not letting you walk all over me, alright? Let's act our age. Does that sound good?

He'd sounded so kind. Her snow-capped ginger paws had trembled against the ground, and she'd nodded, unsure what else to do.

Now she can't think straight for the terror and the scent must be everywhere. The worst flashback she's ever had in daylight hours. She presses herself into the ground, shaking, and more whimpers slip out—whimpers that form words if someone listens very closely, quiet begging into the sand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I promise I won't tell, I'm sorry Spiderf-fall—"

Please let it be over soon.


​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• please wait for @koipaw to post!
  
  additional tags @LIGHTNINGSTONE and @iciclepaw
  
  
• - 6 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to lead warrior willowroot
  - happy-go-lucky, mischievous, hardworking
  - very friendly, but defensive of riverclan!
  - "speech"
• - disclosed being physically and psychologically abused by Spiderfall, who was exiled & who then killed her best friend
  
  - temporarily apprenticed to npc pebbleskip due to willowroot moving into the nursery
  

​

 

[koispots]

Koi moves like water (subconsciously she takes advantage of the size difference, eyes dilated, staring through the smaller ginger apprentice) at the instruction of her mentor. Battle training was a constant with Lightningstone, again, over and over, until she ached (not that Koi would tell Lightning), Koi did not mind. Koi did as she told even if she didn't want to, it did not bother her. Koi was built to be a machine, whether that be apprentice duties or taking care of a mother who would die despite her best efforts.

The one thing that did bother her was the sudden cowering, the sniffling and the tears and the whimpers are so loud in her ears. So loud, in fact, that she yanks herself back, lets the sunlight fall back upon Ashpaw. Shes silent for a few heartbeats, just staring, a mixture of horror and shock on her face. You hurt her, theres a taunting voice in her mind, sneering, she wants to throw up all of the bile that made her like this. She wants to scorn the moon, scream at the stars. Look at what you've done, gaze upon it. Koi cannot tear her eyes away as fluidly as she had moved away.

She hurt Ashpaw. She hurt Ashpaw.

Her whimpers are incomprehensible to Koi's ears. "O-Oh." her mouth feels like cotton. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no." she squeezes her eyes shut but she still sees the cowering frame of Ashpaw beneath her. She cannot escape it, cannot leave the guilt behind her. It was an accident, she wants to scream, it was not an accident, I know you meant it.

"Get- Get up, im-" she stutters, chokes on the words that catch in her throat. "Please," she feels as if she cannot breathe, her nightmare came true, she wants to curl in to Crappie's side again and then her own tears begin to well at her eyes. "I didn't mean it, I won't hurt you." she blinks away the feeling, she does not let herself be vulnerable. Koi will be steeling her emotions once more after this. Koi will become a robot once more.

However much she wants to help, she knows that touching Ashpaw would make it worse right now. Pleadingly she looks around to the others for help.
​

"speech"​

 

[iciclefang]

( *+:｡.｡ ) Iciclepaw watches this training session with glittering eyes, tension straining her shoulders as she stays her paws. Her own first taste of battle training had been so, so different -- and she'd flourished, snarling and spitting as her mentor twisted and bared his teeth at her. She'd have been more than prepared to take on a couple of undertrained WindClan apprentices. She's different, but Ashpaw--

Ashpaw... Ashpaw could have been this way, Iciclepaw vehemently believes that. Had Spiderfall kept his disgusting claws out of her, had never whispered his threats from Ashpaw's ear, she'd be just as good of a fighter as the rest of them.

"She's not ready," Iciclepaw murmurs to herself. She does not blame Koipaw, who looks devastated, paw raised while Ashpaw cowers and whimpers to herself. The tortoiseshell wants to intervene in the worst way, wants to snarl at Pebbleskip and tell him he's fish-brained in forty different ways, but...

Iciclepaw rises to her paws. "Ashpaw, are you okay? Do you need... to take a break?" She gives Koipaw and Lightningstone an uneasy look. "You both look like you need a break." A black ear twitches. She wants to protect Ashpaw, but part of her is yelling, that's not what she needs right now!

Iciclepaw won't always be here for Ashpaw, to intervene, to step in.

The tortoiseshell is tense, waiting for one of the warriors to respond.​

( I HAVE THE ANSWER, SPREADING THE CANCER ; YOU ARE THE FAITH INSIDE ME )

 

[SMOKESTAR]

"Enough."
It is neither mentor who responds first, but the shadow spill of a tom who had been quietly observing nearby the edge of the clearing, closer to camp. His tone is a low rumbling force, the wound to his throat had not taken away his authority nor had it dampened his spirits and being unable to see out of his left side left him with only one focus; being better at seeing with his right. Smokethroat's demeanor had not changed much but he did tilt his head slightly as he walked, making sure his one good eye was honed forward to compensate. The dark tom still did not go too far from camp, restricting his duties to nearby but only as a mercy for their haggered medicine cat who surely had better things to do than chase him down at all hours of the day to make sure he was capable. It was a small blow to his pride, but a recoverable one; unlike his fellow lead-warrior he wasn't going to go galavanting off into the sunset as impotent as he was right now.
Smokethroat slows to a loping stop next to Iciclepaw, tail flicking forward as if to halt her from moving when she'd made no attempt to do so; call it just hunch or several. She was sensible enough on her own, but sometimes he remembered the other apprentices and their reckleness and almost smiled.
"Take a break, all of you."
How Pebbleskip had been assigned this apprentice was beyond him and he'd be asking for that fixed soon. Ashpaw had a very particular mental state and would probably have benefited from someone more kindly and patient given the circumstances so it made no sense this had happened at all.
"Pebbleskip, hunting patrol." Get lost. He was a strict mentor as well and rarely gave Iciclepaw much leniency with training too but there was a lack of tact present here that was both ignorant and annoying to witness.
The second the other mentor outside Lightningstone cleared out he gave a cough before exhaling sharply through his nose and glancing to Koipaw and the quivering ginger form next to her.
"On your feet, fireball. Trainings over for the day. I'll let you beat up Iciclepaw later when I'm able to pick that back up.."

​

 

[ashpaw!]

Voices murmur overhead, familiar but so far off—Ashpaw can't make them out, not really, not through the sea of sounds of memory. They're scared voices, sad voices, crying—?

—she wonders, again, if Pumpkinpaw had cried—

It comes back to her slowly, in pieces: Spiderfall is dead. This is a training session. She's six moons old (or is she seven yet?) not three or four. And then the voices, swimming closer: get up, please, I didn't mean it— Koipaw; Ashpaw, are you okay— Iciclepaw.

And then one that cuts through, that commands —

"Enough."

Smokethroat. Ashpaw could cry with relief, she thinks, only to realize that she's already crying. Smokethroat is here. He'll—he won't let—he wouldn't ever—

She's safe.

He sends Pebbleskip away—away, thinks Ashpaw, away from her? Why? Does Smokethroat want to scold her himself, then—

But no...

No, that can't be it. Smokethroat is angry, Ashpaw realizes. He doesn't look disappointed or resigned or annoyed or—or anything else that Pebbleskip has tended to look, these last weeks. He looks angry. He looks furious.

Furious for her, says a tiny little voice. Furious that this could have happened at all—furious with Pebbleskip?

Something shifts inside her.

Fresh tears form and start to spill. She hates herself for them. They only make her more of a kitten. "On your feet, fireball" and she pushes herself onto unsteady paws, still shaking. "Training's over for the day."

The comment about Iciclepaw does make her giggle. Iciclepaw's way too strong for that. Iciclepaw's as strong as a real apprentice with real training and Ashpaw — (will get there someday, though she doesn't know it yet) — Ashpaw isn't.

She struggles to swallow. Her throat is tight, her vision still... wrong. She keeps her head down as she walks closer to Smokethroat, fights the urge to run and hide underneath him. She's too big for that now, actually — when did that happen? — and the realization seems to solidify Pebbleskip's arguments. Let's act our age, does that sound good?

She's ruined training. Now Koipaw is crying too and no sparring is happening and Smokethroat's sent her mentor away. She thinks... Pebbleskip will blame her, later. She thinks he'd make her apologize.

Apologize. Right.

"I'm... sorry Smokethroat," she says in a voice that might be too quiet. She takes a breath. "I'm sorry," she tries again, louder. "It won't—happen again." It isn't true and she doesn't know how she could possibly make it true, she just hopes that it's the right thing to say.

"It's... it's not Pebbleskip's fault," she finds herself adding. She only half means it. The other half of her is—

Hoping?

Desperately hoping.

Smokethroat doesn't take anybody bullshit, so maybe—

"He... he's trying to fix me. To make me have less—um—freakouts like that. He's teaching me how, how to act my age. He doesn't t—"

— what had his words been? —

"tolerate the dramatics."

Pebbleskip can't... be mad or disappointed in her for telling Smokethroat things that he actually said. Ashpaw lifts her gaze as she speaks, watches the dappled tom carefully — wary green eyes waiting for his response.

Her gaze flicks to Iciclepaw, too, and again she fights the urge to run closer, to lean against the other girl or curl up beside her.


​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• ooc text goes here
  
  
• - 6 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to lead warrior willowroot
  - happy-go-lucky, mischievous, hardworking
  - very friendly, but defensive of riverclan!
  - "speech"
• - disclosed being physically and psychologically abused by Spiderfall, who was exiled & who then killed her best friend
  
  - temporarily apprenticed to npc pebbleskip due to willowroot moving into the nursery
  

​

 

[LIGHTNINGSTONE]

Lightningstone had been standing near the other mentor, watching the sparring session with critical eyes. He's calling small critiques towards Koipaw, but for the most part she's handling her own. Using her larger size like he taught her, Good, he thinks. An approving nod is sent towards the pair until one of them drops to the ground, whimpering escaping her. His curled ears prick up in confusion and he sends a questioning look towards Pebbleskip.

Smokethroat immediately stops the session as Koipaw begins to panic. On swift paws, the silvery blue tom approaches, weaving himself between the two girls and staring at Koipaw with an unreadable expression. "That was a good session," He mews before casting a look towards Ashpaw. His thoughts echo the others'. She's not ready. But it's not his place to try and play hero. He doesn't know her well, so instead he chooses to focus on his own apprentice.

Turning his hazel gaze back towards the calico beside him, he attempts to herd her away, feathery tail swishing. "It's not your fault. You did nothing wrong," He murmurs to her, stony expression still etched onto his face.​