camp i dont know my name at all ✧ change

[lichenstar]

⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ​

If their more frequent and meaningful discussions were any indication, Hazecloud had gone through many great efforts to conceal her own simmering feelings of misery, terror, and grief. Snowflakekit was not the only name on her lips to have caused her great heartache and while she wished she'd been told sooner, it was pointless to sit on it now.

Pressing her nose tenderly into her mate's cheek, the lynx point turns to her many tiny joys and smiles warmly, bending down so they might touch noses too. "Hello my fledglings," she purrs in soft tones. "Howlkit... my larkspur boy, come here."

It already felt like wincing to say his name again, knowing how deeply it sat under Hazecloud's pelt and burned like the teeth that threatened to wrap around her neck. Best to do this now, while he is young, while he does not need to endure the drama of the elder's gossiping. Cricketpaw had suffered enough of that, even if for different reason. The last thing she wanted was to foster a resentment between mother and son, one that he could not and would not be able to understand was not his fault.

It was those dogs.

Dogs hardly acknowledged at all unless pressed about. (It would be easier if she didn't always have to pry for a piece of her heart to be shared).

"Your momma and I have thought of a name that suits you better, my treasure," she starts, blue eyes flicking to her sunshine love nervously. Would he throw a fit to have something taken from him like that? Kittens were angry about the rain being too loud, the warriors being too tall, damn near anything really... would possessiveness of a name he'd hardly had, less than a moon, be worth hissing and spitting about?

"Don't worry... they kind of start the same..." It had been a discussion had in quiet for once. Alone... Without well-intentioned clan-mates sniping their suggestions and muddying the waters. Besides... this one, almost... matched his siblings. In a silly way. Another nervous flick of a broken tail, another begging glance for Hazecloud to continue this little announcement (the children favored bad news from their daylily more).

--

/noting that this would've been before the rogue patrol, sorry for timeline wonkiness :P
@HOWLKIT @hazecloud

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CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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[HORIZONPAW [transferred]]

"HELLOOOOOOO," Howlkit yowls, baby blues wide with doglike excitement. He walks towards Lichentail with his tail stiff, kneading the ground at every other step with snowflake-spread toes. He has done a lot of growing in his sedge-laced confines, blooming into the warm-dark space like a bulb in the earth, shooting legs like roots in all directions—and his voice in more.

Instead of moving into Hazecloud, or him or his sisters, she continues to look at him. He looks at her. "Your momma and I have thought of a name that suits you better, my treasure," she begins, carrying the message as carefully as she would a handful of broken glass. Howlkit frowns concentratedly. "My name," he states. "Don't worry... they kind of start the same..." She sounds like she's tiptoeing with her tongue, like he tiptoes around his sleeping sisters and everyone else in the den, quiet like they tell him to be. It must be bad. His name?

A wail starbursts into the milk-scented air. "MY NAME!" The kit collapses back onto his haunches, glaring at Lichentail through tear-scrunched eyes. He glares at her like she'd just kicked him halfway across camp and backs up until he's halfway into pale fur lining Hazecloud's belly.​

 

[hazecloud]

Though a heavy heart hangs between her ribs she knew it was not meant to be held alone. By herself, it felt like a stone nudge firmly between her lungs and threatening every breath she pulled with a choking break. Her resolve had been growing petal thin, on the verge of snapping like a brittle stem in the harshest leafbare icy winds.

And she had. Away from the eyes and ears from her peers. Far away where only one other could understand how endlessly guilty she felt, where another paw could reach within and ease the grief and anxieties that had wedged itself into her heart. It didn't come without pulling teeth to say it at all, though. So tunnel-focused on her reputation as a mother to the Clan she had grown used to hiding everything. Not letting a single word slip that may even imply she was struggling, despite some of her actions that made it clear. How she hovered over them like starving hawk, the amount of warriors she allowed to watch them only counted on a single paw. Rising and falling with them the moment any of them stirred from their nests.

She would have even been willing to swallow her grievances with Howlkits name. If Lichentail hadn't torn the roots of her fears from the journey she would have never said a thing about how his name sent chills straight to the bone. How she still heard the braying hounds echo when she heard his name, because that was her sweet boy. Her son as innocent as the springs bloom.

Hazecloud mirrored Lichentail as they entered the nursery. Still playing as loud and boisterous as they could physically be- "Shellkit, your brothers aren't mossballs." She laughed as she rounded them all to greet Lichentail. Her mate began her gentle explanation with Howlkit first, and she rest to sit behind him with a comforting wrap of her tail.

"This will still be your name, don't worry. You'll like this one... I promise." Hazecloud placed a paw between his ears as she peered down at him. "Your new special name is, Horizonkit. Where the sky and stars say 'hello' and 'goodbye', like your sisters."​

 

[HORIZONPAW [transferred]]

Hazecloud's tail muffles some of the childish anger in her son's stare, like drawing wool over the brilliant blue sky of his gaze. The boy throws an additional glance towards Shellkit and her brothers when they're called, jealousy igniting in the shadowed depths beneath furrowed brows. No rational jealousy this time: just the pervasive, intense annoyance that could only befall a child who hasn't gotten what he wanted and sees others enjoying themselves anyway.

A stormcloud paw settles between similarly-colored mountaintops of ears, making them twitch to life. Hazecloud's gaze is the gentle green of the Greenleaf canopies he has never known, soothing despite the snow-silence thickly laid beyond the nursery antics. "Don't want..." he mutters, tucking his stubby tail tighter around himself.

Hazecloud continues, undeterred. "Hoh-hoh-hoh..." the newly-named Horizonkit puffs, as though trying to demonstrate how awful this new name was compared to his old one. "Hoooooowizooon," he drawls, eyes shutting with concentration. For a moment he's quiet again, and all seems well. Then: "NooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO—"​

 

[lichenstar]

⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ​

His eyes stare at her with such joyous delight to see her, long vowels dragged out in delighted tones of greeting. Already she regrets this, knowing he is too small to understand, knowing she is sorely losing out on the only kitten she had the chance to pick a name for herself. It is a shared responsibility this time, one chosen in tandem agreement. Maybe.. I'll pick something that'll stick next time... she considers with a sense of wistfulness. Howlkit- uh, Horizonkit, is equally unimpressed by this situation, resorting to tear-creased glowering from behind the plush fur of his milkmaid. It hurts... for such a scowl to be directed at her. She knows she probably deserves it for more than just stealing his identity from him especially after they'd waited so long to name the trio at all. "I am so sorry my little love," she panders to him immediately, ears folded in dismay of his yelled protests.

Lowering herself to the ground as a flattened grovel for his forgiveness, it is humbling to be so enamored that a tiny kit like him so easily tramples her heart. Hazecloud tries to ease him into complacency, to forge ahead and offer new associations that might make him feel better but it is a silence of contemplation that is not long-lasting. He bursts into a wailing cry that stitches itself into her memory- a thing that wrenches at her.

Tears well in her own eyes, crawling pathetically towards him with a paw gingerly outstretched to beg his mercy. "Sweet sun-blossom, do not cry," she wills with warbled words. "It is just a name my little spark... you are the same boy as you woke up this morning."

Looking to Hazecloud with a frown in creased lips, the point-marked deputy isn't sure this was a great idea after all. "We should've made Smokestar do this," she suggests feebly, half-hearted in a joke that rings some truth to her regret. He would probably rip her other ear off to hear she'd opted him as the villain but... how could she enforce this change when he cried so loudly about it? Better he who did not have to suffer the tiny tom's wrathful screams...

---

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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[brookstorm]

She thought that the bulk of this naming business was done and that she'd not have to hear about the little tots' names until they became 'paws. Brookstorm is, frankly, not too happy to be sorely mistaken in this matter. A sparrow is brought to the fresh-kill pile just as Howlkit shouts about his name, and ears crane away as if they can avoid the all-too-loud child's tantrum. His mothers speak to him, too far for Brookstorm to make sense of anything, and eventually the kitten is acting more like a hound and doing what his namesake suggests - howling.

It takes everything in her to not just walk away, however despite her vendetta against her former mentor right then, the woman is their deputy and would benefit from hearing after this. Her tail twitches as she hooks some moss out from a stray nest, pushed too close to the nursery entrance. "Don't kittens get distracted easily...?" she asks, rolling the moss beneath a paw. Once she finds it sufficiently rounded, she kicks it up in the air in front of the little tom, "Here," she says, tone still too-tough for a child in all honesty, "If you can hit it taller than your moms, I'll bring you back a big fish from my next hunting trip. How's that sound?" They both better thank her for potentially silencing their siren son.​

 

[EVENINGPAW]

She watches.

It's most unlike Eveningkit to sit still - but at least it's evident that she has not been possessed by something else and is still undeniably her, considering how she looks like she is about to pounce. Her body is stiff, ears standing up, eyes wide and even her tongue still stuck between the front of her lips, having been interrupted in her cleaning.

If it was any other day, Eveningkit would already be weaving between the legs of her parents, jumping around and getting into everybody's faces to let them know of her opinion. This time... feels different. Lichentail and Hazecloud wear different faces, talking gently to Howlkit despite-

Despite wanting to change his name.

"But... why?" Here it comes. Her voice is shrill as it breaks away from her chest and out into the world, disbelief carrying her forward and standing right in front of Howlkit. "You named him! Why change it?"​

( DON'T NEED PERMISSION ! )​

 

[DIPPERFROST]

Dipperfrost cannot imagine ever being called anything other than what she had been named at birth. Her parents had chosen her name upon her entry onto this earth. Moments after she had drawn her first breath she had been christened with it. Dipperkit then Dipperpaw and now, finally, Dipperfrost. She is no one else but that nor would she ever be if she had a say in it.

Howlkit's plight is what draws her over on long limbs, sun drowned eyes flickering first to where the kit wails on the ground, to her former mentor and her mate, and then finally stopping to rest on Brookstorm, of which she comes to stand next to, her ivory coated pelt brushing against the other's river-hued for all of a moment in a way of greeting, and her gaze following the moss ball the molly tosses in the air. A distraction, she says.

It is when Eveningkit speaks that her attention is drawn to the small figure. He is questioning why in that whiny tone kits often took. Momentarily, her ears find the back of her skull and she looks to his mother before answering carefully "Sometimes, change is necessary" is all she says. Lichentail or Hazecloud could elaborate further.

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[TWINKLEPAW]

This puzzles young Twinklekit equally as it does Eveningkit.

She moves to stand next to her near-identical litter-mate, confusion shining in her eyes. Despair lodges in her little chest as Howlkit- no- Horizonkit begins to wail.

’Why?’ Eveningkit asks the question on the lynx’s lips, yeah, why? Dipperfrost’s answer only leaves Twinklekit with more to ponder. Sometimes, change is necessary, a concept far too big for her newborn brain to handle. Her brother’s continued protests causes tears to bubble in her blue eyes, this is all too much for the little she-kit… Why was this happening? Why was change needed? Why was it happening even though Horizonkit didn’t like it?

”…Why?” She mews a question again, glossy eyes round and pleading for an explanation she could understand from the adults.

𓆟 INFO BATTLE

• 
  » Unnamed Kit
  » RiverClan Kit
  » She/her . AFAB
  » A pretty blue lynx sepia with blue eyes
  » ”Speech”․ thoughts ․ attack
  
• 
  » A meager kitten, defeating her is no boastful feat.
  » Excels in hiding, running from danger.
  » Fights defensively to survive.
  » May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing

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[HORIZONPAW [transferred]]

Lichentail lowers herself to the ground, blue eyes almost a mirror of his in how wide they've stretched. Her face looks a little funny, fish-globe eyes centered in the choppy waves of her face, reduced to a sphere with ears flattened against her skull. That, combined with Lichentail's attempts at placation, succeed in slowing his wails down to mere hiccups. "Nuh-no I'm not," he sniffles, pouting manipulatively at his mother. "I-I'm Huh-Howizonkit. Nuh-not Howlkit." He glares at her as though this should have been obvious when she first thought about it. Before she decided to change it. Change him. Horizonkit could not possibly be Howlkit; something about him has fundamentally changed now, like the course of a rolling mossball after batting it.

A stranger arrives. She is mostly gray, with funny curled ears and a mossball beneath her paw. She tries to give it to him, but she says it in a mean way, like she has rocks in her mouth and not the honey his mothers have in theirs. He looks at her, somehow both blankly and angrily at the same time, then scoots a little deeper into Hazecloud's belly fur without further response.

His sisters finally find their way back to the gathering, twin shapes of white popping in besides him with equally concerned expressions. Why? Well, Horizonkit hadn't even considered that. It was a good question. It was an upsetting question. He nods vigorously, staring down Lichentail again as another stranger appears, who he also ignores. "Why!" he echoes. "WHY?!" he screeches. "WHY-Y AM I LIKE THIS?" he sobs, collapsing under the weight of his new existence and kicking his legs around.​

 

[EVENINGPAW]

-

This is conflicting, to say the least. Lichentail and Hazecloud are keeping their tones and voices even, nice and slow, kind and not at all trying to be mean. It almost makes Eveningkit reconsider the whole thing - surely they wouldn't want anything bad with this?

She blinks up at Brookstorm and then Dipperfrost; the former trying to play with Howlkit (bound to fail), and the latter... well, that one seems mean. Eveningkit huffs and puffs as if that'd intimidate everyone into leaving.

And then, and then...

Howlkit starts wailing - why change such a fitting name -, and any softness Eveningkit might have gathered is now all gone. She's fully in protective mode now and hurries to wrap her little body around Howlkit, pushing him further into the safety of Hazecloud's fur. Even if she and Lichentail are the reason for the crying in the first place.

"Give it back to him." Eveningkit half-pleads and half-orders, eyes angry and brows furrowed, treating the concept of a name as something physical, an object that their mothers are holding.

˗ˏˋ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ & ɪ ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ! ´ˎ˗ ᓚᘏᗢ 03.05.24

• 
• ✦ OOC -

• EVENINGKIT ⸝⸝-- RIVERCLAN -- SHE/HER -- 2 MOONS

  ✦ DAUGHTER TO Lichentail x Hazecloud
  ✦ SISTER TO Horizonkit & Twinklekit & Snowflakekit
  
  ✦ Pale grey point she-cat with yellow eyes.
  ✦ Penned by ˏ 𝙠𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙣 ´​
•  

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[hazecloud]

Lichentail may as well have thrown herself over the Thunderpath of Horizonkit's steamrolling emotions as she lowered herself down and placated to his outburst. Hazecloud is not as overly empathetic or even remotely apologetic as her mate, keeping the same calm smile on her maw as she did with any of her children's hysterics. She had seen him behave the same when the sun was 'too bright' to play outside or when he played too rough with a twig and snapped it.

To the queen, this behavior is a blip in her day, but she doesn't withhold her attention from him. While Lichentail tries to soothe him with words she continued to brush her paw down his spine while she met Lichentail's gaze with her own unimpressed expression. "We're doing just fine. This isn't even the worst it could be." It's spoken like a promise, because she has seen worse.

Brookstorm is not helpful in any manner, talking to Horizonkit as though he's an apprentice bleating over the elders fleas and she curled her tail tighter around them as he cowered into her fur. Kits were not flies to simply wave away when they didn't act as desired, and she gestured as so when she flicked away the mossball.

Eveningkit and Twinklekit echo off one another in their twinnish nature. "Dipperfrost is right, sometimes things change, like names." Hazecloud peered down at Horizonkit once again as her words are aimed for him. "Change can make you sad sometimes, and that's okay too. Your momma's will still love you when you're sad about change." Eveningkit is now shoving Horizonkit into her and she sneakily wraps a paw around her daughter to pull her in with him.

"Look at you! Little Smokestar of the nursery!" A laugh comes easy to her as she dodged around the forbidden two-letter word for these kittens. Humor seemed to work most often. "When all of you get older and bigger, there will be moments just like this one. Big change, little change, and sometimes you can't give it back. But it's going to be fine, see? There's prey in our bellies and clouds still in the sky. Nests are still warm. We're all still safe even though it happened." Her gaze pulled toward Lichentail again, waiting for the molly to either join them.​

 

[lichenstar]

⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ​

The appearance of both of her former apprentices is a little bit embarrassing, if only because she is sprawled out on the ground reaching pitifully for a boy that has directed all his ire and frustration at her. It was not a level of attitude she'd accepted from either of them... had actively scolded, really. But they are trying to help, for whatever it's worth and she thinks to be grateful, if not for the grating tone that Brookstorm uses to try to sate a terror and a menace. Moss ball was a great distraction when it wasn't offered by strangers... Horizonkit is nothing if not stubborn... or shy. Whatever hope she had about the bribe with fish is quickly dashed by the insistence of both her daughters- they demand a reason and it isn't one Lichentail can really give them.

It wasn't her that hated his name. She'd picked it herself- this pained her just as much as it did their tiny, howling (proving he'd been aptly named) son.

A shrill scream of, 'Why am I like this?' is sure enough bound to draw attention and it so flusters her need for privacy and calm that immediately she itches to be free of this confrontation. Her mate argues the two of them are handling this fine but... she feels like she's sweating under her pelt. This is... very much too much. It's all a lot of emotions and big baby tears and none of Hazecloud's reassurance and soft spoken words strike a cord of comfort in her (so she doubts they will in their less rational young).

"I'm going to be sick," she mumbles to herself, listening to Eveningkit demand a return of his identity as if it were something stolen. It is reminiscent of a conversation she'd had with her parents a long time ago now... but one that still made her stomach churn. A son stolen.. or something along those lines right?

Pressing close for just a moment from where she'd groveled on the floor, her touch is tender but quick. She does not linger once risen to her paws, bends down to nose her rambunctious fledglings roughly before seeking her escape. "I'll be right back.. I promise."

I just need some fresh air...

---

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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​

 

[HORIZONPAW [transferred]]

Almost instantly, his flank grows warm with his sister's body, wide eyes and small tongue blaring insistently from the pale uniformity of her coat. Squashed snugly between Eveningkit and Hazecloud, Horizonkit's sobs quiet once more, thought hiccups echo between each knead of his mismatched paws. The boy says little to back his sister's demands. She has it handled, as she and Twinklekit always do.

Hazecloud, however, does not negotiate with her little terrorists. Summery green eyes tip his upwards to meet them as she explains, her voice as smooth as a clear little stream. The striped boy mulls over her words, gaze drifting from mother to mother. "What if change always makes me sad?" he pouts, but whatever worries he holds are soon swept away with a fit of giggles as Hazecloud scrunches Eveningkit in tighter with the both of them.

And anyway, the fog-furred queen is quick to answer him regardless as she turns towards his sister. Horizonkit doesn't want to be a Smokestar, but Eveningkit definitely seemed like she might. His mother's tongue draws pictures in the air, of clouds swinging on their hangers in the sky and nests glowing with the heat of their bodies, and a small purr begins to tremble in his birdbone chest. "Okay." He chews on a stray tuft of Hazecloud's fur as he thinks. "But what kiiiind of change?" he asks querulously. "Like, like being a 'ppppppprentice?"

Suddenly, his other mother is pushing her nose into him, and then his siblings, and then Hazecloud. He blinks at her, confusion worrying lines into his cherub face. "Where's she going?" The little tabby turns to his remaining mother expectantly.​

 

[EVENINGPAW]

-

The moment stills. It's like when the stormy winds die down into something more akin to a breeze, light and not at all threatening. Everything is easier to handle within the company of family - even if family was the reason this entire thing happened.

Any and all bristling tufts of fur gets buried in Hazecloud's own. Eveningkit tries to resist it, just for a moment, just to see if she could win- she cannot, partially because Hazecloud is much more stronger, and also because Eveningkit quite enjoys being dragged in. It's like a giant hug. Soothing and refreshing after this fight that's taken so much of her energy. Now only Lichentail and Twinklekit need to join them.

"Hehe... little Smokestar," Eveningkit murmurs to no one in particular, and sags against Hazecloud. She drops the stance and makes herself comfortable; warm and safe. Hazecloud explains something that Eveningkit simply has no experience in, and Howlkit's voice seems to have stabilized, now that he's not crying nearly as much.

Being an apprentice. She thinks of becoming Eveningpaw, graceful and strong and skilled apprentice of RiverClan, and thinks a name change might not be that terrible after all. Only if Howlkit accepts the new name, of course.

And then, and then.

Eveningkit hears her voice before even thinking of talking. "Mom?"

Lichentail is leaving. There's something in Eveningkit's chest, frantic and panicked, and it takes her a moment to realize it's her own heart. "Wait! Wait for me!" She wrestles herself out of her family's hold and hops away, right after Lichentail-

But those limbs are so much longer, and she's so much faster.

Eveningkit sags again. It's not into the familiar, pillowy pelts of her mother or brother. There's only the cold, hard ground underneath her, and she feels all alone - doomed to endure the weight of her mistake. "I made her sad."

˗ˏˋ ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ & ɪ ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ! ´ˎ˗ ᓚᘏᗢ 03.17.24

• 
• ✦ OOC -

• EVENINGKIT ⸝⸝-- RIVERCLAN -- SHE/HER -- 2 MOONS

  ✦ DAUGHTER TO Lichentail x Hazecloud
  ✦ SISTER TO Horizonkit & Twinklekit & Snowflakekit
  
  ✦ Pale grey point she-cat with yellow eyes.
  ✦ Penned by ˏ 𝙠𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙣 ´​
•  

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