camp I GOT MILLIONS ON MY MIND — reminiscing

[Rainecho]

"And do you- do you remember the look on his face- how mad he was?" Rainecho’s words are broken by laughter, a joyous sound that could be heard echoing through the camp as she sits with a group of fellow ShadowClanners, a plump mouse resting between her paws. Leaf-bare had been hard, and they had lost quite a few cats, but that didn’t mean it had been all bad. There were still times that she can find comical, light in the darkness.

She takes a bite out of the piece of prey, taking a moment to be grateful for a full belly before pushing the creature away with one paw, towards another one of her clanmates. "Okay, okay, your turn! What was your favorite thing that happened this leaf-bare?" she asks, mismatched eyes focusing on the cat who she had deemed next to speak, a silly lopsided grin appearing on her face.
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[Ravenwatcher.]

So I walk alone down the darkest roads​

---

Ravenwatcher had only been listening in to the conversation that was going on, as usual being a shadow amongst the clan, and true to her name, just watching and listening. Everyone was chattering and having their moments of reminiscing on leaf-bare, Rainecho telling her favorite moment and having a good laugh about and before she knew it, the spotlight was put onto the young warrior and she froze a bit as she awkwardly shifted herself a bit trying to remember anything good that had happened during leaf-bare that she had enjoyed and a frown slip onto her maw before she sighed a slight bit.

"Err... perhaps...uhm..." She trailed off a slight bit as she let a soft sigh press from her lips. "Kind of silly but...when the first snowfall happened..." Ravenwatcher expressed in a defeated tone as she sheepishly looked away. The first snowfall at been beautiful, the way the snow slowly began to blanket the ground...it had been quite peaceful, and to her that was the best moment before all hell had broken loose. "Nothing really...special" she stated calmly, hoping someone else would interject and tell their favorite moment so she could go back to being nothing more than a shadow.​

"speak""Thoughts"​

 

[S A B L E T U F T]

can we leave it behind? — When there was little else to do, tasks all fulfilled and the last of the days prey opportunity scarce, it was only natural Clanmates would come together and share their thoughts. Strengthen their relations to one another, harden their trust for one another. Sabletuft gravely recalls a very similar evening before one of the many battles he attended, a method of gaining confidence and courage before a fight. Recall good memories in case you met the moment of your end, and to seize the chance of surviving to recall more again.

He shooed away his looming thoughts just as quickly as they had appeared. Many of these warriors were just kids, they didn't need an old man clouding the mood. He rose from where he had been resting to join them, seeing as they had gathered so close anyhow. "The first big catch when the cold really hit. Seeing the hope in everyone's faces, even if it was just a single night with a full belly. Because who knew how long it would be before that happened again." Sabletuft's gaze was avoidant of anyone else's, certainly reliving the high of hope from that night. — tags​

 

[Yarrowpaw]

The difficulty of leaf-bare had been lost on Yarrowkit, for perhaps the simplest but most powerful reason of all: he had not been alive to experience it. He had heard stories, of course, of the biting cold and empty bellies and sickness and death, but these were vague concepts to him, intellectual not experiential. In time, the boy would learn of winter's hardship, but as a spring-born baby, he would be spared for some moons to come. Nevertheless, he was a whopping three moons - something he was quite proud of, by the way - and he had some memories banked already. They just weren't especially leaf-bare...y. "The water by the leaf-smell-place was all shiny and hard once." he chimed in, his light blue eyes drifting to Rainecho's tail. So fluffy... absently, he lifted a paw and attempted to bat at it, a grin lighting up his tiny face. "It was cold on my paws, but I could walk on it. Pretty cool. It was all wet and normal again by sunhigh, though." only a kitten, perhaps, could find fascination in a pool of water frozen by a cold spring morning, but it was a memory he liked, and probably the best one he had from the earlier, colder days of his existence.​

 

[COMFREYPAW]

Seeing Yarrowkit constantly insert himself where he does not belong is a source of anxiety and bewilderment to Comfreykit. She has to admire the boldness in some ways, but the little charcoal she-kit is perpetually terrified of stepping on one of the warriors' toes. She wants them so badly to like her, and she feels as though her littermates ruin that for her sometimes! She edges close to her dust-colored brother, pressing her flank against his for a moment as she listens to the conversation.

Leafbare. A cruel and twisted fable for Comfreykit. Her mother's ears had been culled in the bitter frost, and many cats had lost their lives, including their old leader, Pitchstar. She had not known Pitchstar, and she did not particularly want to. He didn't sound very nice at all.

"Does leafbare happen every year?" She dares to ask the cats gathered, her voice soft. She can't share any memories but those ingrained in her from being Clanborn. But why reminisce over a time that seemed so awful to her?​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[SHARPSHADOW]

† Sharppaw is an outlier between it all. Her pelt prickles within the beginnings of a half-circle. Rainshade's airy laughter always feels out of place, light and unburdened by the marsh's inherent downward pull. Far from the wry and disconcerting crackles of laughter you'd typically hear within these walls. More akin to the squeaking of birds, than anything else. Crows picking at carrion. That was all they were.

And with that, Sharppaw can think of little in leaf-bare worth praising. She had been born this season, lived to see summer, found himself at an age where she finally understood, by the time the snow came. It'd washed away the last of naivety, she thinks. Pickings of prey were now clutched tighter by her chest, steady breath is a fleeting thing when she perches between her clanmates. They hadn't meant for this. They hadn't.

The first snowfall, the thought makes a distant melancholy bubble in her throat. He remembers when he'd seen it. The sky's ash, wet on his nose. It was the one thing that ever managed to make this land worth looking at. Something other than mud, for once. That's all it had been, at first. She would never trust snow again. " It had been, " quietly, she argues, silver gaze askance as his voice drifts to Ravenwatcher.

The taste is bitter when Sabletuft speaks. the first big catch of leaf-bare. Tornadopaw's? Forestshade's? It wasn't hers is what she focuses on. Mud seeps between her pads.

" Another three seasons, and it's back, again... " He murmurs to Comfreykit, voice lowering as he does. He'd like to believe that it didn't work that way. He hasn't seen it himself. It's wishful thinking.​

 

[EERIENIGHT]

In Eeriepaw's eyes, leaf-bare had nearly been the end of ShadowClan. The blanket of white, the cold, the hunger - all signs led to their impending demise, a fate dodged by the grace of newleaf's warm weather. A near miss. A miracle.

So, when Rainecho asks for a favorite moment of the cold season, the void-furred tom struggles with an answer. A favorite? In a time of struggle? Was there truly a bright moment, in those frozen moons?

Sabletuft's answer leads to Eeriepaw finding his own.

"My mouse," he says. The small scrap of prey, while not the big catch the warrior reminisces on, had been Eeriepaw's very first catch, a miracle of its own amongst the battle-struck mission to the oak forest. He can still remember the itching sting in his ankles from the ThunderClanner who'd struck him, the fear of losing Spectermask in the process.

ShadowClan's youngest ask if leaf-bare will happen again, and Eeriepaw finds himself dreading the thought. The realization that the world's end will come again, that ShadowClan will struggle once more, strikes him, and the tom can only hope they'll be better prepared for their battle against the next frost-borne season.
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