sensitive topics I GET MY WAY — processing

[Thriftfeather]

Time slips again.

The other WindClanners—the traitors—have gone sometime in the shuffle of it all. Thriftfeather comes alive in the after: jolting as if suddenly struck and blinking awareness back into his eyes. He remembers his pain in the moments after reality crashes back to him, but that is insignificant under the weight of everything else that has happened. Snow, blood, clumps of discarded fur made to look like spindly-legged spiders as the breeze shifts them across the ground.

“What was—what—what was that?” He’s too loud.

Camp is limned silver-white. Moonlight. Thriftfeather’s body has been making the decisions for him for some time—the corpses laid out in the center of camp catch his eye and twist something painful in his gut. This happened: this happened. He hadn’t dreamed a wink of it. He looks around, suddenly frantic; the faces he had seen before, leaving and staying, had been meaningless.

“Why’d they… Who’s still—who’s still here? Why…” The questions are too overlapped to be meaningfully separated. Thriftfeather’s mouth fumbles with the effort—his eyes dart between all of the faces he sees, and tries to track those he doesn’t with the same useless determination as a kitten trying to carry too much down.

“Has anyone seen Gravelsnap? Or—” He tried to draw upon another name, any name, but Gravelsnap is the only one he can think. Thriftfeather knows he is a warrior now, but Gravelsnap has always explained things to him so dutifully when he had been an apprentice. They wouldn’t mind now, even though he’s a warrior now, “Gravelsnap, or, or…”

He trails off into silence even as a list of names appears in his thoughts, those to check for: Gravelsnap, Bluefrost, Ghostwail, Milkthorn, Luckypaw. How many of them still remained?​

WINDCLAN WARRIOR ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 9 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

“Gravelsnap is gone.”

Her voice lacks the frost her name now carries. It’s dull, limp, and strained—tired. Bluefrost pads into the circle of moonlight that bathes their now-empty camp. Her eyelashes lower, flutter coldly and wetly against her cheekbones, until she sees nothing through their spidery film. Snowflakes spiral from a clotted gray-violet sky that threatens to choke the moon; after a heartbeat, she pushes her face higher to regard what she can see of the stars with exhausted green eyes.

“He left,” she murmurs. Thriftfeather looks small to her, in the barren expanse of their camp, although he towers over her. He looks lost. Bluefrost wonders, Is he looking for Ghostwail, too? Beside him, she turns to look at those who remain—what’s left of the WindClan she has always known, had thought she always would know.

, ”​

​

 

[Ebonylight.]

*+:｡.｡ The shock that proceeds a traumatic battle is a frightening emotion. To have your heart work out of synch with your eyes, unaware in it's caged prison that the fight is well and truly over, continuing to scream with an adrenaline-fueled frenzy. The world moves slower, information is clear just still difficult to process. Many of the cats around Ebonylight have become living corpses - as though pieces of them had been felled alongside Hummingbirdheart and Lynxtooth.
Ebonylight can't claim he understands it, though. He'd long since learned to weave through the fights, to scurry out kill that woodpecker drum in his chest. Though he supposed it helped that the lost traitors and taken lives were none of Ebonylight's close friends. Unlike poor Thriftfeather who mewls like a kitten for a figure that had so callously abandoned him.

"But you're not alone" the languid shadow would coo, stepping up beside the younger tom with sympathy glittering in his snake-like eyes. He figures it's his duty to Sootstart to try and help the lost souls find their way back, to refocus on what needs to be done, and to prepare themselves for the great future their leader was carefully laying the stepping stones towards. Thriftfeather would be of no use to his queen if he couldn't blink the blood from his eyes.
But Ebonylight was careful to keep the judgment out of his smile as he bumped his shoulder in a gesture he hoped invited comfort for the youth. "You're close to Ghostwail, right? I'm sure she's around here somewhere. Let her come find you. Everything will be alright. Sootstar will ensure it" he says, voice filled with reverie for their magnificent leader.

*+:｡.｡ Updated 12/6/23

• 
  
• 
  
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ☆ Ebonylight
  ☆ DFAB— He/They/She — Pansexual
  ☆ 16 moons — Ages 1 moon every month real-time
  ☆ Mentored by X
  ☆ Windclan — Moor-runner (Loyalist)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ☆ Physically hard | mentally hard
  ☆ Attack in bold black
  
  injuries: None currently
  ☆ Currently 1 moon pregnant!

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

The relief at seeing Bluefrost here is short-lived. For a terrible moment, Thriftfeather misunderstands Bluefrost. He assumes she means that Gravelsnap had died in the fight—that Thriftfeather could have somehow missed that in his daze. His eyes flick to the bodies, limp and wind tousled, then back to Bluefrost as she gives a clipped elaboration. Left. The knowledge passes through Thriftfeather with a shudder. His heart still aches as if Gravelsnap has died in truth.

"With Periwinklebreeze," Thriftfeather doesn't spit the name, but his mouth gives a dissatisfied curl around it. He'd known, hadn't he? And what had WindClan done? They'd scolded him for being cruel, and Thriftfeather had believed them. Moons later, an old guilt peels out of his chest: Thriftfeather had been right. The vindication doesn't feel sweet like it should. "It's—it's—Periwinklebreeze is the reason they left. Has to be."

His mouth continues to twist and then, before the expression can overtake him, settles into a tense line.

Ebonylight offers his own comfort. Thriftfeather nods along and makes no effort to hide the way his emotions play across his face. The mention of Ghostwail brings something out of Thriftfeather—surprise, recognition—because the only reason he had known to be suspicious of Periwinklebreeze had been Ghostwail.

"She took me in," Thriftfeather explains—hesitates. A glance to Bluefrost, a swallow, and then back to Ebonylight once again, "She's been a mother—she's been a mother to me."​

WINDCLAN WARRIOR ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 9 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[hollowcreek]

( ✧ ) Thriftfeather doesn't originally grasp his attention. The golden tom is a speck in the background of his mind, lost in his own acceptance that so many of their believed allies had deserted them. Hollowcreek thought of Sootstar's own kin that defected against her. Her daughter, Moorblossom, her sister. Bluepool's defection ached in his chest the hardest and maybe he should have seen it obvious. She had not rallied the way he had, and he had wanted to believe it was because she didn't need to as part of Sootstar's council but now... The longer he looked back, the more he thought of their last few times together, she was never at his side.

Periwinklebreeze.

The name tore him from his thoughts and a frown settled on his maw. Flashes of claws tearing through the frail tom and the sickly scent of fear that practically lived on his pelt. Hollowcreek scoffed.

"Don't give him so much credit. Periwinklebreeze is a coward. He couldn't convince a rabbit to hop." His voice is practically a snarl. "Everyone who's left us did so on their own decision. They would rather be outcasts, fighting off twolegs and beasts and go without herbs because they couldn't have a single shred of loyalty. Because they couldn't handle being a true WindClanner like us."
​

( I SEE YOUR COLLARBONE ; AND WANNA LOSE CONTROL )