private I BEGAN FORGETTING HOW [✦] falling & salt

[CICADAFLIGHT]

✦₊ ⊹—— he drifts about camp like a wraith, like the phantom his father is, watching kithood bleed away before his eyes, unspent. he doesn't roam with the roving pack of too-loud kittens that play games and pester the warriors for battle stories and make at fake clans, nor does he join his sister in asking the apprentices what the future that grows closer to his own paws every day is like. instead he whiles away the days pointlessly, curled in a tangle of limbs beneath the tired heads of ferns or the safe spot beneath a snug rock, forcing his too-sharp joints into spaces they don't fit. sometimes beekit can tempt him into joining the games for a while, his presence tolerated by the other kits by grace of his name (kingsblood, echoes his mind), sometimes she merely sits with him as he sulks. sometimes she doesn't come see him at all.

today he finds his aimless paws pulled forth for once, not seeking companionship but answers—he remembers fallinglight's words, dim as his memories of a nightmare-soaked evening are: the rest of us are just the back-up, really. he knows his parents are important, knows his dad's out of the den early to do important things and his pa sometimes is too, but still; he doesn't understand what makes them so important? what makes them so important that other cats remark on his name sometimes? that the other kits will include him in their play at times despite his pointed bones? he's not sure, and his observations from beneath the ferns have gleaned little.

"fallinglight?" he mews quietly, pointedly avoiding touching the split-colored tom, bicolor eyes flicking to his companion. it's a black-and-white cat he's not seen before, looking a little like a more rounded version of himself and his dad—tall and lean but not quite as sharp-edged. colored a little like beekit and starlightkit, too, but he knows this cat isn't related to them. he doesn't look quite right for it. cicadakit is pulled taut and close to himself in the presence of these strange cats, large white paws curled close together and leaving him narrowly balanced on stretching legs, a bent tail curled close to his haunches; nobody has stepped on it yet, but that doesn't mean nobody will.

"why are my dads so ... important?" it takes him a heartbeat to retrieve the word, words yanked unyielding from his throat as he stands flawlessly still, awaiting an answer.

I AM GOD (✦) 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑰 𝑵𝑬𝑬𝑫 𝑻𝑶 𝑩𝑬 𝑫𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑹𝑶𝒀𝑬𝑫

• ooc: @FALLINGLIGHT & @SALTSTING !!
  
• disclaimer: it's important to note that cicadakit is not always in a stable state of mind. his view of the world may not always be accurate to objective reality, which may include seeing things that are not genuinely there, reading motivations or thoughts from actions that are not actually implied, and making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. this is not an attempt at metagaming, powerplaying, or mischaracterization, and is not legitimately true or correct to reality or what your characters actually think or believe.
  
  it will always be noted in the post if he is seeing something that isn't actually there. all opinions & thoughts are ic only and do not reflect my thoughts and opinions as a writer.
• 
  — cicadakit
  — he/him ; kit of riverclan ; 2 ☾s
  — "speech" ; thoughts ; attacks
  — penned by dejavu
  

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[FALLINGLIGHT]

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ⸻ There are some similarities, he's noticed, between Saltsting and Cicadastar's new family, coloring and shape being the most obvious. Of course, for as stiff and poised as Saltsting is, there's still something warmer about him than there is Cicadastar. The shadows of his angular features aren't quite as deep, maybe because he hasn't lived long enough to fill them or because he doesn't bear the weight of leadership. Or maybe that's just how Saltsting is: so very touchable despite his best efforts not to be, and despite most people's indulgence of his personal space.

He can't help but think about these things even now, when they're both still sore from their spat. Fallinglight had ignored him at first, but that felt too much like letting him win, giving him what he wanted— and Fallinglight derives enjoyment from disrupting that. It's why the mini Cicadastar finds them together, surprising Fallinglight by addressing him instead.

"Hey, sprout. That's a good question." He glances at Saltsting very briefly before hunkering down similarly to Cicadakit. "So Cicadastar's the one who makes the most important decisions, like...naming people when they become warriors. Saltsting used to be Saltpaw 'til Cicadastar gave him his new name." An apt one, even. "And if a buncha cats were to ask for our help, he's the one who decides if we give it." There's a lot more to it, but Fallinglight doesn't want to worry the kid by talking about battles or catastrophes. "And Smokethroat is the one who helps your dad keep the clan rolling smoothly. Cicadastar can't be everywhere, and he makes sure cats go on patrols and train." Though Snakeblink has taken one responsibility while Smokethroat recovers.

He catches himself before he can make a face about that. "So your dads are a pretty big deal." Fallinglight leaves out the bit about Smokethroat being Cicadastar's replacement, for obvious reasons.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ 𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝙾𝙵 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝚁 / / \ \ 𝙿𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚃 𝙰 𝚄𝙽𝙸𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 𝙾𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 / / 07.25.23 \ \ 𝙵𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙸𝚃𝙴

• —ooc:
• — FALLINGLIGHT / / 11 moons old / / amab and uses masculine pronouns; will be startled by the use of any others.
  — warrior of riverclan / / earned warrior name early at 10 moons / / skilled but not experienced / / mentoring [n / a].
  — npc parents / / father died in the great battle and mother left when he was apprenticed / / no contact w / siblings.
  — flirtatious & disastrous bisexual / / fairly indiscriminate (even when he should be) / / closed to long-term romance.
  
  a fairly trim, athletic cream tabby and black chimera with high white. fur is thick and a bit sharp, though tends to soften and curl primarily around his face and tail when wet. eyes are a bright, gleaming blue at home with the river on clear, sunny days. he is rarely without a devil-may-care grin, though despite his daring personality, has yet to accumulate noticeable scarring.
  
• dear shell, i wonder what it's like having cicadastar for a dad. just— he's got nine lives, or used to, anyway. does death have less meaning if you know he'll get back up? or does it hurt every time? that can't be it. it only took one time for mom to leave, but smokethroat hasn't gone anywhere.
  
  i hope they're a lot older when they find out how it feels.

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[SALTSTING]

He has avoided the litter for a great many reasons, the first and foremost being that, like Fallinglight some time ago, he fears retribution. It is not a thoughtless fear; he does not fear them the way that some of his clanmates seem to. Instead he sits a respectable distance and watches with keen eyes rather than open his mouth. Fallinglight is among those that welcome the newest additions to RiverClan. In this as all things he...draws others in. It does not come as a surprise to him that he is the one Cicadakit approaches. Had he a question in need of answering, the warrior himself would go to the other as well. He was both knowledgeable and comfortable. To a lanky, angular youth too awkward and uncertain to find their own way as of yet, that is a reasonable decision to make.

Unfortunately for them both, the dark warrior is still present and far less tactful than his companion. In this as in all things, Saltsting goes straight to the point that Fallinglight avoids: "There will come a time that Smokethroat follows in Cicadastar's pawsteps. He will lead this clan as justly as the other, I am certain." It is not obvious, the way that dark eyes soften. In fact, his face does not seem to move at all. Yet there is gentleness even still. "It takes much to be a good leader. Your fathers both will sacrifice much for their clan. It is admirable. With time, perhaps you will grow to understand as a warrior."

 "𝘐 𝘋𝘖𝘕'𝘛 𝘊𝘈𝘙𝘌," 𝘐 𝘚𝘈𝘠, 𝘊𝘈𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎𝘓𝘠, 𝘈𝘚 𝘐 𝘊𝘈𝘙𝘌 𝘋𝘌𝘌𝘗𝘓𝘠  ╱╱ 8.08.2023 ˊˎ＜

• ooc: —
• ✦　　. 　 ˚　.  SALTSTING. FORMERLY UNDECIDED. HE - HIM OR THEY - THEM. YOUNG WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. SEXUALITY ﹖ PENNED BY REVELATIONS.  ——
  
  
  ——  a black smoke with low white and dark brown eyes. his purebred father lent him much of his structure, with the oriental shorthair's characteristic angular features and large ears alongside a tall, lean frame, yet it is his mother's genes that rounded him out, adding strength to his shoulders and toughness to his paws. a kittypet and a colony cat, and saltsting is something entirely new.
  

  ✦ IMPORTANT NOTE. saltsting is touch averse and very vocal about it. icly, riverclanners should be aware of this. repeatedly touching him without the necessary comfort level will leave him with a poor opinion of any character.

• "speech"

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[CICADAFLIGHT]

✦₊ ⊹—— today, blessedly, anger does not keep him company; it must have found someone else to haunt. its presence is one far too familiar, a close friend hanging over his shoulder—anger and all it keeps company with, jostling feverish bodies crowded inside his mind with a faux-sickness, insulated from the real one by his parents. many a day he sulks beneath the ferns as the sun climbs into the sky's highest spires and then sinks again, until his parents pull him back to their nest. many a day anger and its company are phantoms in his mind, clogging his throat with words of rage and his mind with a damp miasma of emotion that never seems to leave. it haunts his nights with dreams that stab and pull and fester, his days with silence and cloudy eyes—rarely it splits him open into slaps and bites and screams.

it is not here today though; cicadakit's mind is as clear and cloudless as it's ever able to be as he awaits an answer. though his calm is closer to another cat's darker moments, it's all he knows, and so today is to be considered a good day. fallinglight hunkers down to reach his height; perhaps less than he would have to for a child who resembles a kit instead of a jutting-ribbed nightmare, a kit shaped like a cat instead of a deer, but that the other cat has to lean down at all is a small balm to his soul. it's a confirmation that, at least for now, he is not like his father—not a looming and tall shadow but a small one who must be leaned to; it feels better to be looked down at than up.

"okay," he rasps, nodding, listening. naming warriors, deciding if the clan gave help, making sure patrols go out—these sound heavy, weighty, as though his own mind would burst under the pressure of it all, even with saltsting's simple and dangerless descriptions. he wonders how his father isn't pulled taught until he rips by it, wonders if this is the cause of his dad's furrowed brow and his pa's weighty shoulders.

saltsting's explanation is much less tactful. cicadakit tilts his head, driving his question into the two warriors with a simpleness that belies the danger of it, "why would my pa be leading? why wouldn't my dad be here to do it?" death is something blessedly unfamiliar to him, for now, and he doesn't appear to understand. perhaps he will grow to, as saltsting says he might - he says something, strange words cicadakit's childish mind (dark as it may be) struggles to understand. the kit rolls the word on his tongue, feels out its sound, mewing, "sacrifice?"

I AM GOD (✦) 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑰 𝑵𝑬𝑬𝑫 𝑻𝑶 𝑩𝑬 𝑫𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑹𝑶𝒀𝑬𝑫

• ooc: LATE sorry
  
• disclaimer: it's important to note that cicadakit is not always in a stable state of mind. his view of the world may not always be accurate to objective reality, which may include seeing things that are not genuinely there, reading motivations or thoughts from actions that are not actually implied, and making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. this is not an attempt at metagaming, powerplaying, or mischaracterization, and is not legitimately true or correct to reality or what your characters actually think or believe.
  
  it will always be noted in the post if he is seeing something that isn't actually there. all opinions & thoughts are ic only and do not reflect my thoughts and opinions as a writer.
• 
  — cicadakit
  — he/him ; kit of riverclan ; 2 ☾s
  — "speech" ; thoughts ; attacks
  — penned by dejavu
  

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[FALLINGLIGHT]

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ⸻ He's a clever kid, but he's still a kid, and his slow, nodding acceptance of the explanation eases Fallinglight's worry that he might not have found a tactful approach. And of course it's completely ruined seconds later by Saltsting, who probably thinks that Fallinglight was lying to Cicadakit by softening the truth, or that he should know what faces his parents. He doesn't hesitate to stand up and jostle Saltsting's shoulder with a pointed narrowing of his eyes and a glance at the kit.

Of course he's now stuck explaining the hole Saltsting's dug. StarClan, if this gets back to Cicadastar and Smokethroat— well. Who knows? Maybe they would actually approve of the candid explanation. "Look, uh...Cicadastar's the only leader I've ever known, but places like ShadowClan have had a few leaders since the clans all started." Stooping back down to Cicadakit's level, he rolls the words around in his mouth, debating what to say, hoping to avoid upsetting him. "Chilledstar was Pitchstar's deputy, and after Pitchstar lost his last life, Chilledstar...became leader." He doesn't want to outright say it. Fallinglight grew up knowing his father had died in the Great Battle, partly because his mother never let him know otherwise, but that's completely different from this. "Sacrifice means you give up something very important to you for something else, and you don't do it selfishly. Your dads are willing to do that for RiverClan, and so are a lot of warriors."
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ 𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝙾𝙵 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝚁 / / \ \ 𝙿𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚃 𝙰 𝚄𝙽𝙸𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 𝙾𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙴𝙸𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 / / 09.08.23 \ \ 𝙵𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙸𝚃𝙴

• —ooc:
• — FALLINGLIGHT / / 13 moons old / / amab and uses masculine pronouns; will be startled by the use of any others.
  — warrior of riverclan / / earned warrior name early at 10 moons / / skilled but not experienced / / mentoring [n / a].
  — npc parents / / father died in the great battle and mother left when he was apprenticed / / no contact w / siblings.
  — flirtatious & disastrous bisexual / / fairly indiscriminate (even when he should be) / / closed to long-term romance.
  
  a fairly trim, athletic cream tabby and black chimera with high white. fur is thick and a bit sharp, though tends to soften and curl primarily around his face and tail when wet. eyes are a bright, gleaming blue at home with the river on clear, sunny days. he is rarely without a devil-may-care grin, though despite his daring personality, has yet to accumulate noticeable scarring.
  
• dear shell, if i die, it's because saltsting ticked off cicadastar and smokethroat and i'm the scapegoat.

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