HEAT THE PINS AND STAB THEM IN | ashenpaw

[FLINTWISH]

Flintpaw does not want to live in ShadowClan anymore. There is a suffocating wool being pulled over his eyes; that ShadowClan is united now, that they've all said their piece and they'll work together to spread sunshine and rainbows over this bog. Flintpaw doesn't trust it. He looks at each cat and sees someone who has condemned Granitepelt — rightfully so, his rational mind tells him, but it is hard to stop seeing Granitepelt as his father when he'd spent so long trying to make the man fit the title. Maybe Granitepelt had never meant to be a father. He wasn't cut out for it, some might say; he was mean, apparently, too harsh. Too hateful. But Granitepelt is the only father Flintpaw has ever known, the only father he's ever struggled to get into the good graces of, the only one who mattered when all was said and done. He was a monster. Flintpaw had been visited by his father's victims. But he was still his father.

Their pelts bear too much resemblance. Their whole being does, really, though he thinks Granitepelt has always carried himself more confidently and with less blubbering anxiety. Flintpaw does not have the luxury of pride. Her entire life she has been chasing it, but she's fallen short each step of the way, and now Granitepelt's exile has smashed her teeth into the dirt on top of it. She can't face her clan after that. She'd only made it worse when she'd spilled her ire from black lips at the reconvening of the Clan. How could she expect any cat to want to see her face now?

So he'd left. Flintpaw curls up in the hollow of some forgotten tree in the far reaches of the territory. It's cold. Mud clings to gray limbs, and he makes no move to groom it off despite the chill it instills in him. He feels corpselike, though differently from how he'd felt when he'd been ill — the catatonic numbness sits heavy in his chest and muddles his thoughts, but fails to restrict his breathing. They might be looking for me, he thinks, claw trailing aimlessly against the soft wood he lies upon. They might not find me. He's okay with that.

But it seems he's proven wrong. Pawsteps sound through the mud when somecat approaches, and Flintpaw's ears prick, a murmur of alarm in his chest. Who's there? But he remains silent — if they were really looking for him, they'd surely present themselves.

/ @ASHENPAW

𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 ✧ 𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

• 

• 
  
  — flintkit . flintpaw
  — he / they / she ; apprentice of shadowclan
  — short-haired solid blue tom with low white and blue/green heterochromatic eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — headshot by me, signature by dreamydoggo
  — penned by meghan

​

 

[ASHENFALL]

˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 Before the dramatic unmasking and subsequent trial over Granitepelts numerous crimes against Shadowclan and the feline species as a whole, Ashenpaw quite honestly thought very little of the tom. His mate was the one that burrowed herself into his mind, a burr stuck in between his metaphysical toes. Starlingheart's ever-presence within camp irked him, her insistence to put on a show of meekness and humility, dangling her power over them all the while. Granitepelt, however, was just another warrior. He was merely a shrewish figure in his life as Applepaw's ill-tempered mentor, the most concerning thing about him was the possibility that his desolate personality would rub off too much on her. (Should he be concerned that his murderousness had rubbed off on her now?)

No one could have guessed the depth of Granitepelt's villainy, though many made obnoxious claims of "bad feelings" about the cat Ashenpaw sorted squarely as desperate grasps at saving their egos, colored by the ugly false sun of hindsight. He called Starlingheart a murderer for what she did, and blood would stain her image for as long as Ashenpaw had breath to remind everyone of it, but some had already forgiven her. Was it the passivity of the act? The turning of her cheek at his grief-charged accusations coupled with a soft gooey sadness embedded as a permanent fixture upon her face? The juxtaposition of her sorriness against the dead-eyed reveling Granitepelt did in his confession was ... troubling.

Ashenpaw tried not to dwell upon his potential paw in driving the traitor's children away from the clan. Indeed, he had made his distaste of them apparent without a shadow of a doubt. But also... it wasn't like he forced their dad and aunt to kill a bunch of clanmates and then pawn his toddler-aged siblings off to the nearest insane tyrant within the vicinity. Regardless of however much he did or did not contribute to the ostracization of his clanmates, and however much feeling icky about it did nothing to mend the permanently shattered lives of everyone he seemed to even glance at, the simple act of feeling things did nothing actually helpful. And so, he volunteered to join the search party. Was that tangible enough? Could Starclan ease off on the shame a little bit now?

However, the vibes of the search patrol were so unbearably miserable that Ashenpaw peeled off from the group as soon as he could. He was tired of being around everyone and extremely ready to half-heartedly skulk around the mud by himself until everyone inevitably gave up and they could return to camp with yet another empty nest to throw out. He recalled an old tree hollow around here somewhere... one he recalled napping in as he hid away from Snakefoot some moons ago (poor guy never had the best of noses, or maybe he didn't care enough to look that hard for him... Though, that didn't matter nowadays).

To his surprise, the hollow was already occupied.

"Hmm... and to think I was worried Granitepelt got you, too..." he mused, lifting a paw to prod at Flintpaw's mud-stained frame, as if to test if she was still alive. The possibility of Shadowclan's formerly residing cold-blooded-killer either adding a son that slighted him to his list of victims or convincing them with snake-like whispers to join him in exile were equally possible. It seemed neither was the case though, unless Granitepelt was hiding in the shadows somewhere waiting to pounce on him unsuspected. The boy threw a quick glance behind himself, just in case, before turning back toward Flintpaw. "Did you just decide to take a nap out here orrr...?" He cocked his head to the side, as if he was genuinely confused.

Of course, Ashenpaw knew very well what would drive his stone-furred den-mate to the remote edges of the territory. The thing that would lead him to press himself into the dark recesses of the tree-rot, half-hoping to sink into it completely, never to be found. Well, he kind of did. Neither of his parents fed apprentices to bears or stuffed poison down their leader's throat. Halfshade's death was a noble one, actually, as the elders spouted in the shadow of her passing. But even as the unimpressive smoke-and-mirror son of a martyr, the unblinking eyes Shadowclan camp were often too much to bear.

"They sent a search party for you and everything, very dramatic..." He said with a lazy shrug of his shoulders, as if Ghostpaw wasn't also gone, without a trace and with no sign of ever returning. Ashenpaw wondered what it was that led to Ghostpaw's commitment to vanishing compared to Flintpaw's apparent hesitance... He narrowed his gaze as he regarded the other, and he wondered idly if she'd always looked so much like Starlingheart, or if the resemblance was based simply on them both looking all droopy-eyed and pitiful today.

YOU'LL ASK, 'WHAT CAN I DO?' ˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 AND THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER

• OOC: i wrote more than i thought i would.. dont mind me <3
• 
• 
  — ashenkit . ashenpaw
  — ftm transmasc. he/him. 8mo apprentice of shadowclan
  — muted blue torbie w/ pale blue and amber eyes
  — smells of rainsoaked fern and swamp milkweed
  — currently in an era of guilt. all ic opinions!
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — icon by nya, fullbody by tropics, sticker by saturnid
  — penned by eezy
  

​

 

[FLINTWISH]

/ light tw for paranoia !

Ashenpaw's frame blocks what little, pathetic light had managed to struggle into Flintpaw's hollow. The stone-pelted apprentice's gaze drills through the rotting bark, decidedly not pointed at Ashenpaw himself; really, he can't bring himself to meet his den-mate's eyes. Now that he's been found, his pelt is set aflame with shame. Ashenpaw's musings do little to help douse that flame. He jokes about Granitepelt, about the drama of it all, and Flintpaw's jaw sets. Finally, when Ashenpaw prods her side, she rips her eyes out of the bark and lobs her attention to his face, still silenced, tongue pinned beneath many pounds of cottony uncertainty.

What is there to say?

Ashenpaw should hate him, especially now. So, even in his irreverence, why was he being... nice? Or, at least, comparatively nicer than the last time they'd been alone together, similar to this. Flintpaw doesn't understand. "You went looking for me?" His voice sounds like sand; spills from his mouth equally dry and raspy. "But you hate me."

Dual-toned eyes twitch narrow at their corners. He can't stop the slow-drip trickle of suspicion from coming in, an IV in the bloodstream. He's ashamed of his peeling away from camp and hiding in this tree. It had accomplished little besides making him look young, stupid, emotional; but he's equally reluctant to depart from it, equally afraid to enter camp again. They'll exile me. Maybe Ashenpaw is just going to lead them all to this hollow. The search party could be real, but it's far from innocent — Flintpaw imagines a fire-wielding mob of ShadowClanners tearing after him, teeth and claws bared, running him out of the forest just as they'd run out his father and his aunt. Ashenpaw is just trying to placate him until they all arrive. Isn't he?

Flintpaw's fear is palpable. If his quickened pulse and shorter breaths were not evidence enough, then the fear-scent in the air would surely tip off his peer to his paranoia, but Flintpaw doesn't even realize the symptoms of his spiraling. It's like someone has taken his brain out of its casing and doused it in ice. The chill hollows out his spine and makes a home there, refusing to leave. The fur at his shoulders spikes like icicles.

"I don't... whatever you're doing, stop it. I can't go back to camp. I can't go back." Spilling, spilling, spilling. He's not in his right mind, pleading with Ashenpaw like this, but will the other boy realize it? His voice grows harsher, sharp as the brambles that protect their camp as it rises; then, it falls, a conspiratorial whisper: "They'll exile me. I'm sure of it."

𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 ✧ 𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

• 

• 
  
  — flintkit . flintpaw
  — he / they / she ; apprentice of shadowclan
  — short-haired solid blue tom with low white and blue/green heterochromatic eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — headshot by me, signature by dreamydoggo
  — penned by meghan

​

 

[ASHENFALL]

˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 Flintpaw is splintering and shattering before his eyes and it is all too familiar to him. Though, it's something of a near out-of-body experience to watch it unfold in front of his eyes rather than feel it between his ribs.

'But you hate me.' Flintpaw rasps, and Ashenpaw is quick to correct him, "I never said that." He told Starlingheart that he hated her, and he meant it. Inversely, he has told his family that he hated them — small sparks of momentary fury and meaningless upset that meant nothing at all. He didn't mean it, they knew this. Right?

But Flintpaw, he didn't tell her he hated her, only that he would not forgive her. There was a difference that Ashenpaw felt vindicated in drawing the line between. Still, his heart hammered with that familiar ring of guilt — the guilt came only in the knowledge that he was singled out as an example of the rot within Shadowclan that was driving the mad to slaughter innocents and abduct little children and prostrate themselves before despots. It clung to him like the mildew smell of the tree-corpse they sat beneath now.

"Smogmaw offered to help and-and I'm just his apprentice so..." he shrugged off any consideration that his motivations for coming along to help sniff her out were for any reason deeper than a shallow sense of duty.

Flintpaw shifts downward into a fearful little creature, bristling and coiled up like a cornered rat. Ashenpaw's pelt prickles in turn as if a chilled wind rushes out from within the tree hollow itself. She's being ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense, why was he falling apart like this? Why couldn't he just pull it together like everyone else was supposed to? Granitepelt and Siltcloud's exile had nothing to do with him... Why did it have to ruin everything? Why were they ruined?

"Did you feed Poppypaw to bears? No? Then you're not getting exiled. You're just being- you- you-... Forget it." He bit out, stumbling and tripping through his words before giving up completely in the end. Ashenpaw tugged himself to look away from him, stepping awkwardly to sit upon a clutch of ferns, and was quiet for a moment.

"Do you really think I'm gonna drag you back to camp if you don't want to go?" he said finally, scoffing, "You could leave right now if you wanted to, it's not my life, it's not my mom that's crying." Ashenpaw made no move to leave, though, despite his apparent dismissiveness. Did he want to stay here sitting on a pile of fern fronds in the cold all day? Not necessarily. But there was nowhere else he particularly wanted to be instead, so he sat.

"I don't feel like going back to camp either. We can sit here, I don't care."

YOU&#039;LL ASK, &#039;WHAT CAN I DO?&#039; ˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 AND THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — ashenkit . ashenpaw
  — ftm transmasc. he/him. 9mo apprentice of shadowclan. mentored by smogmaw
  — muted blue torbie w/ pale blue and amber eyes
  — smells of rainsoaked fern and swamp milkweed
  — currently in an era of guilt. all ic opinions!
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — icon by nya, fullbody by tropics, sticker by saturnid
  — penned by eezy
  

​

 

[FLINTWISH]

I never said that. Flintpaw eyes Ashenpaw with suspicion. Had he not made his ire so explicit before? He'd ripped Halfshade from the other apprentice's grasp, and for that he would not be forgiven — this she knows in no uncertain terms. But the hate... had she imagined it? Imposed it into her memory as her world caved in? No. The hate is what she's built her walls around; she would not have become so fortified in her defense on suspicion alone.

But suspicion still drives her; breaks her mind like old china. Smogmaw offered to help — Flintpaw's claws dig into the soft, rotted bark of his perch, though they sheathe again moments later. Still, Ashenpaw's defense placates him somewhat; as the other apprentice continues, harsh and exasperated though he is, the ruffled fur at least begins to lie flat. Maybe... maybe there is no mob coming to rip him apart and put him on display, no desperate chase to come. Flintpaw becomes aware of the mud caked into his limbs. He becomes aware of the dire chill in them, the copper tang of blood — had he bitten his cheek too hard somewhere along the way?

He flicks his dual-toned gaze again outside the hollow to Ashenpaw, sitting on a weary throne of ferns, a scowl (though not a particularly unkind one) etched into wood and stone features. It's hard to know what to say in response to the boy's assertions. You're not getting exiled. You could leave right now if you wanted to. His fear still paints the other's words uncharitably, though in Ashenpaw's persistence Flintpaw has begun to try and struggle through the fog. Slitted pupils flick about Ashenpaw's frame, less critical than curious. Why is he still here? He doesn't feel like going back to camp, sure, but why would he not sit anywhere else and leave Flintpaw to his own miserable, paranoid ramblings?

Silent moments pass. Flintpaw hears his heartbeat thrum thrum thrumming against his eardrums. But it slows, gradual, hesitant, as if afraid to beat in any rhythm besides a frenzied one. It is after this silence that Flintpaw finally murmurs, "thanks." So quiet, so inconsequential it is easily missed, and yet he means it — or he supposes he does, anyway. They suspect that many other cats would have found them and dragged them home kicking and screaming, or maybe chased them out of the bog entirely (though Flintpaw wonders with increasing frequency whether that would really be a bad thing).

Still, he is curious (still he is suspicious), and his tongue cannot stop its movement when he asks, "did you know all along? About Granitepelt." And here would swing the Damoclean sword.

Many of his clanmates had espoused their knowledge that Granitepelt had been rotten all along (a killer all along!), but Flintpaw fails to see it that way. Really, she finds the sentiment insulting to her mother's intelligence and her own; Granitepelt, though far from a kind father, had never done anything to indicate his true villainy. Even the scars on her shoulder do not register as some evil act; rather, just the result of a tough training session. But Granitepelt had been a good warrior — if not in the moral sense, than in the productive one. He trained Applepaw, Ashenpaw's sister. He caught prey. He fought for ShadowClan right up until he fought against it... and though his justification had been winding, Flintpaw saw the logic in it, at least. Granitepelt hated ShadowClan because ShadowClan hated him. In that moment, Flintpaw had identified with the narrative wholeheartedly.

But even as Ashenpaw denies his hatred, Flintpaw struggles to reconsider her position as ShadowClan's second-most wanted; fails to reconsider her path to anything except absolute destruction of herself and the things she holds dear. She is afraid to become more like Granitepelt than she already is. She is afraid to have suspicion cast upon her just for being his son. And so she asks Ashenpaw, because maybe if he didn't suspect Granitepelt as many warriors claimed to have, then he doesn't suspect her, either, and maybe that could mean she'd have a clear path to something else. What exactly it would be, though, she isn't sure.

𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 ✧ 𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

• 

• 
  
  — flintkit . flintpaw
  — he / they / she ; apprentice of shadowclan
  — short-haired solid blue tom with low white and blue/green heterochromatic eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — headshot by me, signature by dreamydoggo
  — penned by meghan

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