pafp I GOT UNHOLY GHOSTS -- storytime

[SMOKYKIT]

Stories of the past are something that Smokykit has grown up with, handed down to her by her parents and by her other kin. No matter the contents, the kitten greedily spirits them all away, keeping them safely tucked away in the back of her mind to recall when she might need them next. For her, it's almost as if the stories come to life, larger-than-life characters dancing about inside of her skull - as if they could step right out and suddenly be real. The heroes (and villains, occasionally) are often those of her own lineage, she's told, and even though Smokykit didn't get a chance to meet some of them, she feels almost as if a small piece of them lives on within her. Her grandmother, Halfshade, is spoken about in smart tales of how clever she was, and her aunt, Applejaw, revered for how strong and reliable she always was, and of course, Smokykit loves every second of those stories, but there's another figure that haunts some of the spun narratives that she's grown particularly fascinated by.

Smogstar was a great leader, she's been told, and she's also aware of the resemblance to him she bears - not yet old enough to understand the weight behind it, beyond her curling stripes and amber eyes and wispy name, but enough to understand that it's something of an homage. Of course, Smokykit isn't the only one that possesses those sharp looks; after all, just as she's heard Halfshade had passed down her dual tones to some of her children, so too had Smogstar to Laurelgrin. Something of an enigma, her uncle has been - not lilting and soft, like Swansong, not passion-filled like Halfsun; no, he's more...muted? Downtrodden? Smokykit isn't quite sure how to describe him, not when she herself remains untempered and unknowing of the grief that he carries in his heart, heavy like a stone.

Were she a little older, a little wiser, perhaps she would have put more thought into seeking him out (or, perhaps she wouldn't have; perhaps she always would have sought him out for this, no matter what), but here she finds herself, kitten paws seeking out what could almost be her double. Whatever he's doing at the moment is completely ignored in favor of the question burning a whole through her, and Smokykit rocks on the balls of her feet, looking up to meet his twin flames with her own. "Hi, Lau-rel-grin," she sounds out, the name sounding funny as it leaves her mouth. "Llllaurelgriiiiin," she repeats, unable to hide a giggle of delight, though she tries to tamp it down for her next question.

"Hey, can you tell me a story? A cool one?" Laurelgrin has not been quite as forthcoming as some of her other kin when it comes to stories of the past, and today Smokykit intends to change that, needling her uncle if need be. "Ooh, can you tell me one about Smogstar? Like, the bravest thing thing he ever did? Or maybe the coolest thing? No, I like the bravest better, I think!" The kitten prattles on, as if the only care in the world she has is getting to hear a story - a new one, hopefully, or at least a new perspective on an old one. She puts on her best convincing face, wide-eyed and pleading, in the hopes that he'll say yes to a story of some kind. "Please?"​

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ THE RADIO PLAYS A FAMILIAR SONG 𖤓 AND YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

• OOC: Please wait for @Laurelgrin ^^
  ​
• 
  
  
• SMOKYKIT —. She/her, kit of ShadowClan
  — .Flintwish x Ashenfall, littermate to Promisekit, Tinykit, & Mercykit
  — . 2 moons old, ages on the 1st
  — .An ill-proportioned, smoky molly with bright amber eyes and an exceedingly curly, tangled pelt.
  — .Enthusiastic and vibrant, easily distracted, prideful & caring - friendly within reason
  — .Peaceful & healing powerplay permitted - brushing up against her, shoulder bumps, etc.
  — .Penned by Hijinks - feel free to DM me on Discord to plot! ^^
  ​

 

[Laurelgrin]

His presence in the clan, let alone in his siblings lives was easy to miss. Ashenfall had his litter of kits and while Laurelgrin had gone to see them, to offer congratulations and all the other things you must do when new family members are born, that's where is connection to these new kittens petered off. It felt a little rude, but being polite hadn't been a very big thought as of late. So, life continued much the same, sometimes he overheard Swansong speaking about them, she seemed particularly enamored. Yet, he still stayed firmly set apart.

Until now. It was getting colder and the camp was hurried with tasks that under warmer weather would be more relaxed. This included the ghost-like tom, he had been hunting and helping bring in whatever soft moss could still be found. He was in-between tasks when a small obstacle planted herself straight in his path. Flames of eager interest bore into his soul as Smokykit tries his name. For a second there is concern, did something happen that she would need to seek him out of all cats. That something happened in the nursery? He turns to look at the den, but thankfully sees nothing out of the ordinary, no other cat seems concerned either.

He gazes falls back to the kitten who now makes her motive clear, she needs a story. The tabby flicks an ear as he contemplates the task. He had missed out on any stories that most ShadowClan kittens would have heard so he doesn't have much for the clan's legacy. He also doesn't have much life experience that wouldn't be a terrible story for a kitten. He figures Ashenfall would come for his throat if he told his daughter about the time he found Screechstorm being attacked by an owl. So a firm rejection was about to leave his lips when Smokykit changed the goalpost.

She wants to know about Smogstar... of course she does. Of course she does and of course she comes to him. "Alright." the reply isn't warm, but it's affirmative. "But, I'm not telling it in the middle of camp. It's too cold."

He laid on his side, near the nursery out of the weather. This was a fine story-telling spot, "Now, I am not the best cat to tell this story since I was younger than you when the end of it happened. But, I'll try my best," it's said like a promise "So, more than maybe fourteen moons ago, I want to say, there was a sickness that infected each clan. It was bad. A cat that caught it had to be strong and healthy or they were not likely to fight it off. It was scary. The medicine cats at the time found out what they needed to cure it, but it wasn't anywhere close." He hoped he was being as kit-friendly as possible, the concept of a plague was a bit of a heavy conversation.

"So, what the clans did was send the best warriors and apprentices they could, to go and find it. So one day they set off. The group of cats went so far, I think I remember hearing about mountains and dangerous predators. Some cats didn't make it back from what I was told when I was around your age. But, do you know who did make it back? Smogstar. Or I guess then he was Smogmaw, he came back to the clan with the herbs needed to save the clans. He and a couple other ShadowClan cats were the bravest they had ever been and saved the clans because of it." He had helped save the clans and yet Halfshade died and his kits were kidnapped. Laurelgrin kept his mouth shut about that part, Smokykit didn't need his own reservations to taint her image of the tom.

"speech"
​

 

[Needledrift]

☾ It was soothing, the gentle ups and downs of a story told by a secondary party; someone who was perhaps present for the drama but never directly in-line with it. As she listened just a nest-length away, Needledrift found herself mrrowing with amusement. They had no idea... no inkling that the rest of the cats on the journey were just as instrumental as ShadowClan's warriors. StarClan had blessed their paws in community, specifically to save the clans - united. They were all of the same virtues and truths when the boundaries of clan and fraternity were removed.

Needledrift often visited the mountains these days. Snowy peaks towered in her mind, though in focus was only the cats she most cherished and trusted... both from the journey and her more quiet life in ShadowClan: Duskpool, Orangestar, Ferndance, Smogstar, Hazecloud... her children. Safe. Tethered. Untouchable. Blessed by StarClan without threat of scorn or retribution... surely, it must make Mirestar nervous to have be spited out of a final life.... surely, it made Smogstar anxious to know that his life had been placed on lien, with only his deputy to pay the balance. Needledrift couldn't imagine being put in such a position... wouldn't the community of the mountain be preferable to broken promises and empty debts?

But Laurelgrin and Smokykit held none of the same conflictions. When they spoke of the journey, they held Smogstar in the same rapture that Needledrift held the stars, and so she obliged: "Smogstar led me, Sharpshadow, and a medicine cat to the Mothermouth and beyond. We traversed the scariest cliffs and braved the most tumultuous waters and when we reached the summit -" she paused, her voice lingering at the tip of the mountain, words stolen by the wind traveling down the otherside.

"It was Magpiepaw..." soft as feather does she call upon him. "His name was Magpiepaw, and StarClan had blessed us through him. He found the lungwort and you should have seen him... what a medicine cat he would've been..."

"Smogstar... your grandfather," gentle green eyes land solely on the little kit, "He could see clear-through the darkest cave, and navigate the shadows like a fish through as stream and... he was a really good friend." She was sure that Smogstar would have found her being a bit emotional over him to be exceeding. She swallowed. "Your blood and his are the same, made of the same hero's colors. I see all of the best parts of him in you." Mint-green eyes flickered to Laurelgrin, all the same tones of his father, though blurred and rippled... as if a leaf had graced his surface and changed it slightly... but definitely. "And you, too."​

 

[Tinykit]

Where any spawn of Ashenfall and Flintwish were, Tinykit was sure to be soon behind, not wanting to leave his siblings alone in the cold outside of the nursery. He knew deep down that they were not properly alone - there were clanmates out here, warriors and apprentices that were ready to take care of the kits if need-be - but they were without him, and maybe it was just that deep down he didn't want to be without the touch of his sibling's fur against his own side. When Smokykit left the warmth of the nursery to seek out kin, for a moment the kit contemplated staying within the thorn bush that made up his temporary den but eventually found himself braving the chill air to follow behind, silent as they moved from one place to another before a story was being told and quickly he found himself comfortable hiding where the wind couldn't get him.

It was a story about Smogstar, about the cat that Smokykit resembled and was named after, and it made sense why his sister would want to know about her namesake for it was someone they had never met, a potential to never meet if whispers of him just leaving were true. Tinykit didn't quite understand it, but if he was so good that his parents would name a sibling after the tom then he could only think that the whispers weren't true, that if he did leave on his own then he'd come back one day and that he left for a good reason... it had to be. The story Laurelgrin shared only cemented that thought deep within the kit's head, for one so good that he were to lead cats through the mountains to help with sick cats when he wasn't a medicine cat meant that he didn't do a bad thing by leaving.

""Was it cold in the mountains, like here? Or are they warm like um... like the nursery?" Slowly the question is asked, eyes looking over to Needledrift once the story is over, once she confirms Laurelgrin's story and speaks of going herself. ""Was it s-s-scary?" Excitement grips at him now, words picking up their pace.

ooc ♡ fiery gems for you, only for you

• --
• 
• TINYKIT ♡ he/him / kitten of ShadowClan
  
  
  ♡ 2 moons old. ages every 1st
  ♡ born to Flintwish and Ashenfall
  ♡ brother to Promisekit, Mercykit, and Smokykit
  ♡ mentored by None
  ♡ speaks in #7b7bbf
  ♡ peaceful powerplay allowed
  ♡ penned by tikki
  

​

​

 

[SMOKYKIT]

For a moment, there is a pause, and while she does not doubt Laurelgrin, it still hangs in the air between them - and then, before she could ever pick up on any of his uncertainties, the silence is broken, immediately forgotten in favor of delight. "Yay, yay!" come her cries of excitement, Smokykit practically dancing circles around her uncle as he begins to direct them back towards the welcoming maw of the nursery. "We're gonna get a story!" she announces, as though Tinykit hadn't been at her side, following in her shadow, and she settles easily against his side, smoke-brushed pelt tangling against burnished gold.

The moment that the story begins, she's enraptured, all starry-eyed with her emotions worn clearly across her face and in her movements. Though she doesn't interrupt, too entrenched in the narrative, she certainly reacts, whether she realizes it in the moment or not. The mentions of the plague find her wide-eyed, visions of Starlingheart flitting through her mind's eye - for, of course, she can imagine no other as skilled as her grandmother, no one else to occupy the position of medicine cat (except for Marblepaw, maybe, but this was ages ago!). The thought of some illness that not even her all-knowing grandmother could treat is practically unthinkable, and yet here Laurelgrin is, touting it as truth. That all the medicine cats gathered together to determine this cure escapes her, for surely Starlingheart must have been at the forefront of it all, then and forever.

A furrowed brow quickly turns to an expression of excitement, curling smiles and well-timed nudges of astonishment towards her brother as the tale begins to unfold before them. Mountains, dangerous predators...of those, Smokykit hardly understands, but what she does understand is [i[awe[/i], some raw and nameless emotion that overtakes her now. That Smogstar and some others had undertaken this incredible journey and not only returned to tell about it, but also returned successful, with the necessary treatment? Laurelgrin had more than exceeded her expectations with this story - he'd completely blown them out of the water, and though he tells her he's not the most knowledgeable on this story, Smokykit is practically vibrating with the questions she's fighting to keep straight in her head.

Still sorting half-baked ideas, Needledrift takes over the mantle before any of Smokykit's questions come to light, and in an instant anything she would have asked Laurelgrin is banished the moment Needledrift reveals her own involvement in the journey. Once again, the slew of questions threatening to spill out from her are tempered only in part by the vivid imagery that Needledrift paints and in part by what her own imagination adds, as though she were there herself. The closest she can come to scary cliffs and tumultuous waters is the great rock where Mirestar holds Clan meetings and the churning puddles scattered about the edges of camp, but even still it's not hard for her to imagine her own version of what it was like for Smogstar to lead them - after all, though she'd never met him herself, she and Laurelgrin share a striking resemblance that must have been gifted down through Ashenfall from somewhere, or more aptly, someone.

Needledrift speaks of herself and of Smogstar, of course, but also of Sharpshadow, a name that she vaguely recognizes, and of Magpiepaw, of which two details stick out to her - that he was described as a medicine cat, of course, but also that he was described in past tense. Of course, if he were still around, she would have met him by now, of course, but it still strikes her just how fondly Needledrift speaks of him. "Magpiepaw," she breathes out, softly so as not to disturb the rest of the story, but to feel out his name.

As Laurelgrin and Needledrift have told their shares of the story, of course their attention was focused on those listening, but Needledrift's next words feel...more personal, in a way, as though the weight of them had settled gently over her back. She speaks of Smogstar navigating through darkened tunnels, eyes piercing through the dark just as surely as the light, and again, she speaks fondly of him, speaks of him in the past. Smokykit does not yet understand much beyond the fact that Smogstar was here once upon a time and now is not even as he has evaded death's grasp, or so those around her say, but she thinks she understands this - he was a great cat, and someone that she wants to be like too, one day.

The weight of Needledrift's gaze settles over her, settles over Laurelgrin, too, and Smokykit does not shirk from it; instead, she leans into it, greedily drinks in the comparison from someone who was so clearly close to Smogstar once upon a time. It's not until Tinykit offers his first question, gently unfolding into something more steady, that Smokykit is brought back into the moment, her own questions spilling out unchecked, as though she hadn't been something of a ghost moments prior. "Was it really that far away? Like, all the way out of ShadowClan?" For someone whose entire world is made up of camp and stories from beyond, it's hard to imagine the full breadth of just how far they had journeyed for a cure.

"Oh, um, what's the mountains, also?" A place, she had surmised, and yet, it's still a word that feels foreign on her tongue. Was it cold, Tinykit asks, and she waits with bated breath for the answer to that, too, to add a new piece to the thoughts she's puzzling together. Though she perhaps would never quite be satiated with stories of Smogstar save for meeting him one day, a new character has entered into the tale, one she's wholly unfamiliar with, which just wouldn't do. "What about Magpiepaw? Was he one of the ones that didn't make it back, like Laurelgrin said?" There's so much more she could ask, so much more she needs to ask, about Smogstar and about the perilous journey, but Smokykit limits herself, only barely holding back the glow of excitement that keeps her chained to the spot.​

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ THE RADIO PLAYS A FAMILIAR SONG 𖤓 AND YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

• OOC: -
  ​
• 
  
  
• SMOKYKIT —. She/her, kit of ShadowClan
  — .Flintwish x Ashenfall, littermate to Promisekit, Tinykit, & Mercykit
  — . 2 moons old, ages on the 1st
  — .An ill-proportioned, smoky molly with bright amber eyes and an exceedingly curly, tangled pelt.
  — .Enthusiastic and vibrant, easily distracted, prideful & caring - friendly within reason
  — .Peaceful & healing powerplay permitted - brushing up against her, shoulder bumps, etc.
  — .Penned by Hijinks - feel free to DM me on Discord to plot! ^^
  ​

 

[Needledrift]

☾ "So scary." Needledrift entoned imperiously, the role of entertainer filling her with an actor's whimsy. "The mountains were frigid, and bigger than any pine in the deepest part of the forest. Imagine a thousand trees stacked atop another, that is how far up we were... and twice that distance away from home. It was so high, you wouldn't the way we took... you could see the right out to edge of the world, where the sun is swallowed by water that is so inky blue, it's like the night sky in reverse."

Lungwort purple and sunset orange colored her memories of the summit, and in her mind's eye, she could picture the dazzling array of hues and shades in between. All the colors of the world condensed into a pearl of memory... only to slip away in a wistful sigh as a question lanced her reverie: Was he one of the ones that didn't make it back?

"No... Magpiepaw, he... he - we lost him not too long ago, actually... before Smogstar... I believe it was new-leaf, but he was eaten by a monster. He's with StarClan now."​