camp HOLD YOUR BREATH WE’LL BE JUST FINE — thunderstorms

[Bluepool]

Bluepool feels the coming storm in her bones. No, really. Perhaps it is a sign that she's getting old but the spot where her tail abruptly ends begins to ache long before the rain comes. "it'll be a heavy one" she remembers saying that morning before the rain had begun and sure enough, the torrential downpour was enough to drown a cat if they decided to stay outside in this. Thus, many of her clanmates, herself included, had retreated to the burrows around the camp to settle down for an early evening.

The rain is not the end of their troubles though, as if to really solidify that they were staying in, thunder rumbled in the distance. She closes her eyes and allows herself to be lulled into a peaceful haze, surrounded by the distant low rumble and the sound of rain hitting the ground outside.

When she opens her eyes again after this brief respite she looks around at the cats who hide in the burrow with her "So" she begins casually "Anyone have any good stories they know or a game we could play?" anything to pass the time or else she was seriously at risk for going insane in here.

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[Juniperpaw]

Juniperkit should not be here. He does not know much, but he knows this fact for certain. One moment he was teetering at the entrance of the nursery and the nest he was swept away in a bustle of much larger cats who seemed to be in a big hurry. Mama will be upset that he wandered so far from the nursery and that his paws were all muddy. Anxiety glints in his eyes as he nervously watches the other cats taking shelter in the burrow. Each rumble of thunder shakes him to the core and he presses closer and closer into Bluepool's side. "Why is the sky growling?" Juniperkit asks in a rather pathetic voice. It sounded worse than Scorpionkit's hangry grumbles when Mama took too long to feed them.​

 

[: ̗̀➛ SCORPIONPAW]

( 𓆩⟡𓆪 ) Scorpionkit should not be here, either. She doesn't really care about that, though. Swept up by the same crowd, Scorpionkit had scampered after her brother, eager to find out what was going on. She follows him all the way to a little burrow, a hollow in the earth, wide and curious eyes taking in the dirt walls she can glimpse as she slips under cats' legs. Scorpionkit is tiny, even for her age, bound for tunnels like these. It lets her easily skirt by unnoticed, right until she pounces out at her nervous brother, paws reaching wide. She doesn't quite tackle him, instead landing just beside Juniperkit in the hopes of startling him. "Sky's angry!" She declares confidently, in response to his timid question. "Grr!" she imitates, fluffing up her fur. She's not scared, she can growl too!​

 

[WOLFSONG]

──⇌•〘 INFO 〙 He does not know why the weather often calls to their old injuries, but it is a reliable measurement of a coming storm nonetheless. At least the sky's tears are warmer today, carrying the promise of the coming greenleaf's heat, and he nods a greeting to Bluepool as he slips inside. He hadn't taken shelter until he was relatively certain no one was in any immediate danger, though he still worries for some of the tunnelers. Heavy sheets of rain soften the ground, and any weakened areas might suffer further, so it's likely Wolfsong will venture out again to scour the moors as a precaution.

'Til then, he smiles down at the frightened Juniperkit and the boldly leaping Scorpionkit, and for a moment, his sole eye sees their father below that maddened RiverClan beast. "It certainly sounds as though it roars, doesn't it?" He glances at Bluepool, and supposes he may as well finish two birds with one strike. "My mother told me a story passed from her mother, and her mother's mother. When you look at a storm-strewn sky, you see only the unders of the clouds, yes? We cannot see the world above them." His rasping voice is cast slightly lower. "These swollen clouds carry mountains on their backs. Mountains are mounds of jagged stone which scrape the sky with their sharp peaks, and sometimes, they shed their stones like our fur. The sound you hear—" He pauses, and waits a moment. It isn't long before another lash of thunder strikes, cracking twice. "That is from the mountains atop the clouds colliding, shedding rock and shaking the sky."
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[Minkbreeze]

☽ MY MIND IS PLAYING TRICKS ON ME ☾​

Unlike many cats, Minkbreeze found storms exhilarating. The clashing thunder, the darkened sky, and the possibility of being washed away or struck by lightning were all a part of nature's delicate yet brutal dance. If you asked the chocolate sepia, the world was always looking for ways to kill off its inhabitants, why else would living in it be so difficult?

Whether it was for the sake of balance, or because nature itself simply enjoyed being cruel, Minkbreeze relished in it nonetheless. So while her clanmates sprinted for cover from the ran, Mink sat within the downpour for several heartbeats, becoming a soaked and sorry-looking sight to any who rushed by. A gleeful smile was adorning her maw, but eventually, she knew that staying out any longer put her at risk for sickness, and she wasn't keen on getting scolded by Vulturemask any time soon.

Her now muddied paws hurried as best they could to the closest den, finding Bluepool and Wolfsong inside, the latter seeming to be telling some tall tale about the clouds and mountains to two little bundles of fur. Her mint green recognized them as Spiderblooms' littles and would smirk before shaking out her coat like a dog, lightly spraying the occupants with rain droplets before sitting so she could groom, "Wolfsong's right you know." She would purr with a delicate smile, "It's why cats run and hide when the storms hit, the rain doesn't let you see if a piece of those mountains has gotten through the clouds and is falling right on top of ya until it's too late."

She would give her fur a few licks before following her jest up with, "But don't you worry kits, it's a rare thing for a cat to be crushed by those rocks. Normally only happens to cats who don't behave, and you two always behave, ain't that right?"

---

speech ✩ windclan ✩ warrior ✩ tags​

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[Juniperpaw]

One moon is plenty of time to get good at predicting when a particularly pesky sibling is trying to scare you. And Juniperkit has had lots of practice. They were scarcely out of the womb before Scorpionkit started on her lifelong mission of attempting to scare Juniperkit to death. She is good at it too, unfortunately for him, but at least he is getting better at controlling his reactions. He doesn't like looking as scared as he feels. Although Scorpionkit's sudden appearance startles him, he ignores the urge to flinch and scowls at her. "Buzz off, Scorp." He doesn't say anything more. He wants to box her over the head for her antics. She's like an ant compared to his much larger size, but he won't. He doesn't like causing trouble, even if he feels like his annoying little sister deserves it.

Wolfsong's story is a much welcome distraction from the growing urge to bite Scorpionkit's tail. He shuts his eyes as the thunder growls again, imagining the churning mountains resting atop the clouds. Do birds live there? What about cats? Surely, if there are cats that live in the stars then there must be cloud cats, too. "But what happens if the clouds go away?" Does that whole world disappear? Does it fall apart, only to join together again on the next cloudy day? Too many questions and not enough answers.

His attention shifts to Minkbreeze, listening to her helpful addition with a thoughtful expression. If stuff fell from the sky, it made sense why Windclan burrowed underground. He didn't like the cramped, muddy tunnels, but he supposed it was better than getting crushed. "Sure," Juniperkit says finally. He's too busy deciding whether or not to believe the older cats or if he needs to add this to his list of stories to investigate. Clearly Minkbreeze isn't afraid of getting crushed--her pelt is soaked! "How do the rocks know?" he asks skeptically. Cuz technically the kits were breaking rules right now! And he really didn't like the idea of being squished like a bug...​

 

[: ̗̀➛ SCORPIONPAW]

( 𓆩⟡𓆪 ) Despite her brother's angry reaction, Scorpionkit does not hesitate to declare triumph. "Gotcha, gotcha!" she crows, doing a little bouncing dance around Juniperkit. He's been getting less and less scared of her, but it has done little to deter the tiny menace. Just means she has to work harder, get scarier! Still, she'll take the scowl on his face as a sign on a successful ambush.

The big golden cat tells them a story, and admittedly, Scorpionkit isn't fully paying attention. They're a little too focused on the thunder, on growling back at it at every clap so it knows she's not scared of it. He tells them of big mounds of rock in the sky, and okay yeah, that is pretty interesting, but also she's pretty sure she's right and it's angry. Minkbreeze's words are satisfying -- the mountain-pieces come for misbehaving kits, aha, she knew it. She has no reason to doubt the story, unlike her more inquisitive brother. She slots the idea of cloud-mountains neatly into her worldview, deciding that she'll just have to climb up there one day. She'll get real angry, and growl real big, and then they'll learn their lesson and stop falling on little cats. It's the perfect plan.

For now though -- "Not gonna get me," she exclaims. "Scorp's too fast! Nothin's gonna crush me!" Because yes, okay, she is currently breaking the rules, and it's certainly not a new experience for her. She's not scared though, not of big cats who'll get her in trouble, or the thunder-growls, or the falling-rock death that hurtles from the raging mountains above. She's not scared of anything. She crouches down in demonstration, as though about to take off. She can run and hide for now, and the scary things will never catch her, and then one day she'll roar louder than the thunder and everyone will be scared of her instead.​

 

[Juniperpaw]

Ignoring the object of his annoyance is the only way Juniperkit manages to temper his emotions. Big emotions are strange and unfamiliar: his two least favorite things ever. Swallowing them down feels a little like having bubbles of air trapped in his stomach. Usually he is able to overcome this discomfort with a little bit of space. However, there is no space in this cramped, smelly, muddy burrow and Scorpionkit's mocking cheers starts to crack at her brother's composure. It doesn't matter if he holds his tongue or fights back, she always finds something to tease him about. Juniperkit goes quiet and stares hard at his sister. Everything conflicting about her which he usually accepts with tolerance is suddenly amplified. Her silly bragging usually makes the boy want to roll his eyes and maybe sometimes laugh, but, right now, he wants to get even. Without warning, Juniperkit pounces onto his sister just as she sinks into that playful crouch. "Not fast enough, mouse-brain!" he challenges, trying to bite the scruff of her neck. It wasn't often that he gave into his sister's taunts, but there was always a little part of him that enjoyed it. They usually ended up tussling in the nursery, no matter how hard Juni tried to resist.​

 

[SNAKEHISS]

❪ TAGS ❫ — Ears folded, a cranky scowl tugging down on his features, Snakepaw was huddled in the corner of the burrow with his tail wrapped tightly around his paws. Oh, how Snakepaw dreaded the rain. This was his first newleaf, and so far it was turning out to be rather wet. How long would this last?

He only half-listens as Wolfsong illustrates a rather ridiculous story about thunderstorms in order to keep the kits from the clutches of boredom, though even Snakepaw knew that it was all just a nursery fable. Sometimes the sky just... did things without any long-winded explanation behind them. Besides, if the clouds did indeed carry mountains made of jagged stone upon their backs, then why did water fall instead of rocks? It made absolutely no sense. He's certainly as dumb as rocks. Snakepaw sneers, twitching the tip of his tail irritably. Were all rogues this brainless?

As if Wolfsong's voice filling the burrow wasn't painful enough, Spiderbloom's new littles were growing too rowdy for his liking. "Could you occupy yourselves with something else?" Snakepaw growled, gritting his teeth as the pair scuffled too close into his personal bubble. "Other cats have to share this space with you too, you know." Keyword: have to. He'd rather not be in here at all, cramped up next to the others as opposed to being outside on the open moors. The fact that his nest was going to be soppy and mushy after this storm did not help his mood at all.​

 

[SPARROWBREEZE]

It's times like these when Sparrowpaw desperately wishes she were back home. That the dogs never came, that she was curled up beside her mother as the storm above raged on. But, the brown tabby is an apprentice, and WindClan is her home now - homesickness for the old barn isn't an option.

No, Sparrowpaw must be brave, as thunder echoes through the burrows that she and the rest of WindClan have resorted to hiding in. It sounds louder in here, in tunnels she's not built for. Her tail curls around her paws as she crouches down, trying to make herself smaller.

Her heartbeat sounds as loud as the thunder, and her ears flatten against her head as the sky rumbles once more. For a cat who'd once thought the moor's lack of cover was terrifying, Sparrowpaw thinks being down here when the world's so loud is much worse.

Wolfsong's story was a welcome distraction, though Minkbreeze's continuation of it only brings Sparrowpaw's nerves right back. Perhaps being outside in the storm is worse, even though she'd rather not be in the burrows for longer than she needs to.

And the kits, the kits somehow have all the room in the world down here, as the two take the opportunity to play. Sparrowpaw feels her heart twisting at the sight, one so reminiscent of her and her own littermate in her days before the moors. Their game makes her crouch down further, trying to get out of their way.

"Careful!" she squeaks at them, eyes wide as her paws move closer to her form. Sparrowpaw can only hope this storm ends soon so that she can get out of there.
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