╭───── ⋅ ⋅ ────── 。・゚゚・ ───── ☀︎ ──── ・゚゚・。 ───── ⋅ ⋅ ─────╮
It starts with Sootstar returning, the rest of the patrol and some strange cats Finchpaw doesn't recognize in tow. They were supposed to bring back Lark-kit and Ouzelkit, not - not whoever those cats are, she thinks, and that's the last thing she remembers before the world starts to dissolve. Sootstar's mad, mad at Sunstride for something, and she...she attacks him, right there, right in the middle of camp. It's - what was she doing? And Sunstride's fighting back, and they're both fighting, and everything is still until reality comes crashing down, claws unsheathing and cats yowling. Kill him. Kill him, she'd said, and cats were listening and not listening and it was all - it's all a mess, and Finchpaw can't parse it, doesn't understand what's going on.
She's seen violence before - seen violence in this very camp, blood spilled in the places she'd played games at as a kit, but this is something else entirely different than the rogue attack. The rogues had beaten them down, driven them out of their camp, but - they'd been rogues. It's what they do, Finchpaw had been quick to learn; they stole what wasn't theirs, over and over again, as if it was their nature. WindClan - they weren't like that, they weren't anything like that, and so it had been easy enough to reconcile when it had been WindClan that had stood strong against the faceless enemies, the violence. She'd seen clanmates spar before, seen them train and scrap and scuffle, but this? There were bodies and blood everywhere, and this was real - more real than she'd ever seen, ever even imagined. This wasn't a noble defense; this was senseless slaughter, friend against friend against family, and no matter how eager she'd been to prove herself after the rogues, she can't do anything but shrink back, horror leaching off of her.
Sootstar had said to kill Sunstride, to kill anyone who helped him and stood in her way but - but, Finchpaw doesn't want to kill Sunstride, doesn't want to kill anyone. Even as her mind fumbles, fails to grasp the situation at hand, she knows this isn't right; there can't be anything at all right about attacking your clanmates like this, no matter what Sootstar says. There just can't be.
She hadn't been close to where the fighting had started, but it hadn't stayed near there, either, and as shapes whizz by, bodies of her clanmates locked in brutal matches, she finds herself flinching back, crouching low with her eyes laid flat and her pupils blown wide. Whether she wants to listen to Sootstar or not is out of the question - no more could she bring herself to blows with her clanmates than she could fall still, banishing the restless way her paws always seemed to twitch out on the moors. Maybe she would have stayed there forever, watching as everything she knew tore itself apart; maybe she would stay there forever, locked in this moment for eternity - maybe, if not for a familiar rumble, her ears catching her very name over the din. Fogbound.
Earlier, she'd been at his side, just like always, but when Lark-kit and Ouzelkit had been announced missing, she'd strayed away, searching for kits that would now never be found; somewhere between then and now, though, he'd found her, even among all the claws and teeth that now made up the world. For once, she was rendered speechless, only jerking her head towards him, following the line of his sight to Brightshine and Pinkpaw, who might as well have been a whole moor-length away. Don't engage, he says - run, if she has to, follow Brightshine. "Fogbound - I -" The words die somewhere between her chest and her throat, the protest she wanted to give. What about you? The question goes unspoken, evident only in her expression, and stubbornly, she wants to stay - wants to remain by his side, to watch his back, to help like she couldn't help with the rogues in camp, or the rogues out of camp.
As quick as he'd appeared, though, he's gone again, swallowed up by whirling combatants, and Finchpaw wants to scream and yell and chase after him, but in the blink of an eye she's lost her chance. The tide of the battle makes her dizzy, and the thought of wading into it after her mentor almost makes her sick. She can't just...just leave him there, leave him to fight with - whoever, she doesn't even know what side he's on in this gruesome mess, even if she can't picture his jaws around Sunstride's neck - but that sight of Brightshine and Pinkpaw -
It's clumsy, the way she navigates the battlefield, trying to stay as far as possible from any errant claws, but she's on a mission now - get to the rest of her family. Get to Brightshine, get to Pinkpaw, find everyone else - run. Run far away if they have to, and even though Fogbound had told her not to fight, she'd take on Sootstar herself if she stood between the rest of her family. The swell of cats around her is constantly shifting, revealing new clanmates at every turn, though one in particular stands out even as she draws closer and closer to her goal. "Heavy Snow!" she cries, and she could almost collapse at his feet, sink into his cloud of fur in relief that he's here, too. "Mama! Pinkpaw!" They're all here, and they're okay - for now.
"Where - where's Downypaw, and Heathpaw?" The question wobbles out, and even she knows it's practically meaningless, not among the chaos all around them. If neither of her siblings are here yet, that must mean they're somewhere out there - somewhere in the fray, or hopefully somewhere avoiding it. Downypaw would be alright (she doesn't know that, doesn't know it for sure, but-) but Heathpaw? She probably has even less of an idea of what's happening than Finchpaw herself does. Fogbound had said to stick close to Brightshine, and now that she's here, all she wants is to run, but everybody else is fighting, aren't they? Somewhere, she thinks she remembers Featherpaw and Rivepaw, harried but battling for Sunstride. Even if she doesn't fight, she can't just do nothing - she can't just run without Heathpaw, without Downypaw.
"We have to find them!" Her cry is desperate now, as she tears herself away - even a short distance feels like judgment casting down upon her, but Finchpaw won't leave without finding Heathpaw, at least. She can't, and she scans the writhing bodies before her, willing her sister's white pelt to materialize, willing a matching smoked pelt to appear alongside it, so they could all go, all of them together.
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Finch Finchkit Finchpaw
- She/her (AFAB)
- 4 moons
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Loner Kit Apprentice of WindClan
- Hearty & scruffy chocolate lynx point with splashes of white and bright blue eyes
- Art by Jay & base by
googaoo respectively! <33
- Minor powerplay allowed!
- Penned by Hijinks