I want to see people (and I want to see life) | smokethroat

[Hazewish]

WAKE UP TO THE SOUND OF YOUR FLEETING HEART ⋆⁺₊⋆

The adults of Riverclan are fascinating. Strange, scarred, consumed by cryptic concerns only grown-ups understand but that Hazekit is desperate to know about anyway. She loves listening to them: it’s like a glance into the great big life awaiting her outside, once she can finally leave camp. Stars know when that will be. Lately, they’ve barely been allowed to leave the nursery, what with the blizzard outside. It’s making her a little stir crazy — even wrestling with their siblings can’t keep them entertained forever, not when there’s so much to see beyond the walls of the den! Well. Usually. Lately it’s just been cold and white.

Some of the older cats have taken to keeping the kits company, to give the exhausted queens a break from bored, overly-energetic kittens. Elders come and go; warriors with a bit of downtime. Their stories are all good; not better than Hazekit’s moms’, but entertaining enough.

Today, it’s the camp-bound Smokethroat who made the trip to the nursery for some reluctant kitsitting, and Hazekit could not be happier. They think Smokethroat is so cool, perhaps the coolest — perhaps even cooler than her parents (don’t tell them). He has all those scars, and those white patches in his fur, and he always speaks like he has a thousand stories. The only way he could rise higher in their personal ranking is if he would share more of them: the elders have an easier time getting rid of ticks than she has getting tales out of the gruff warrior.

They keep trying anyway. Mom said Hazekit was named after him, and it got them thinking that maybe it’s destiny. Maybe with a name like his, she’ll have a life as interesting as his own seems to have been. She’d like that very much, she thinks — but she’d like to be sure, and for that, he needs to tell her stories. He’s missing an eye and Starclan covered him with star spots: surely there’s a lot to say. Today, he’s not getting out of it.

Hazekit clambers over Smokethroat’s tail and all the way to the front of the warrior. Wobbling up on their forelegs, they put both their front paws on his face, careful to avoid his recent wounds, and look deep into his single eye.

”Story,” they demand. ”You! Past!”

@Smokethroat

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[SMOKESTAR]

Hazekit is being a menace, he feels kitten paws hobble and tumble over his tail and remains rigidly still to aboid knocking over whichever furball is making their way around him to pester; getting a face full of silver paws and large sunshine-colored eyes. The demands are met with a careful stare, an inferno stilling into candlelight at the sight of the child who was supposedly named for him. He might have been a little too overwhelmed at the idea to comment on it at the time, but Willowroot was always looking for ways to pick on him. This was just one of many and a very successful attempt overall, he was flabergasted at the mere thought a kitten would be named in any similarity to himself. You'd never catch him dead admitting to being touched by it however. Names were strange things, weren't they. They could have no meaning or more meaning than any cat could fully rationalize. They could be the dying whisper of a mother pleading her kits survival, in honor of a loved one or even just something comforting used to indicate adoration.

"Story..." He mused quietly, word slurred from one of the pale paws practically shoved over his mouth and he raised his foreleg to give the kitten a careful tug forward and off his face where they could settle in the crook of his curved paws instead. He would temper his descriptions for the child, his time on the streets was coated red and drenched in violence but there were some things he could twist appropriately.
"You know, I was born in two-leg place...left alone very early." Mother died fast, snuffed like a flame, "My first fight was with another young cat my age and I won, left him a mean tear in the ear to remember me by and took his food." One didn't have time to consider morals when you were starving, a gracious victory it was not but it kept him alive all the more longer. "He came back with friends later. Chased me through alleyways, across roaring thunderpaths, I couldn't run fast enough to get away so I climbed the nearest high wall I could only to find a dog on the other end. Was stuck there perched high with that slobbering mutt on one side and some angry cats making their way to me on the other when the wall wobbled under me and started to fall."
He raised a paw, shook it for emphasis, the wall had been made of shining coils and stretched tight across an opening in that alley path and he was sure it had a term for it but he couldn't remember if there was or not. Wall would work fine in this case.
"When the other cats arrived I leaned onto it on one side and jumped up, caught the edge of an opening in the two-leg nest near me and sent the wall falling down. The dog saw the cats gathered there and decided to chase them rather than climb up after me. Never saw those guys again, maybe they got eaten...maybe they ran far away to another two-leg place, who knows. Dogs are no joke..."
Was it really a good idea to tell such a young cat about dogs possible eating others? Eh, well, maybe not but at least Hazekit was getting the picture to avoid those mutts in the future. It was a lesson, of sorts.
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[Hazewish]

WAKE UP TO THE SOUND OF YOUR FLEETING HEART ⋆⁺₊⋆

Not one to keep still for long, Hazekit initially squirms when Smokethroat tucks them away from his face, but they stop moving as soon as he starts recounting his story. She's engrossed in second in the tale of long-past battles and daring escapes. Of course it would take that manycats to go against Smokethroat. He's so big, and strong, and nothing can keep him down. Even one eye short, he's still a lead warrior. And too smart to go against overwhelming odds, too, outrunning and outsmarting his opponents like nothing!

They listen with baited breath to the mentions of twolegs place strangeness, things like alleyways and the thunderpaths she's heard so much about. That he would run across multiple ones... ”Cool,” she murmurs reverently. They've never seen a dog, but their mind easily supplies visions of flashing teeth and slobber, evil, glowing red eyes, a monster of fur and death snapping at Smokethroat's heels as enemies approach from every sides. They hold their breath when he talks about a moving wall – caught, despite him being very alive there and now, by the thought that there was no way for him to get out of it unscathed.

But he did, too quick and too clever for any dog or any cat to get him. Hazekit's fur is puffed in excitement as they nod wisely, wide-eyed: dogs are no joke indeed. She won't forget that particular wisdom anytime soon.

The twolegs place sounds fantastical and hard to believe with all its dangers and frantic chases, its unnatural lights and warring gangs of rogues. They wish they could see it. Run across it's thunderpaths and over its wobbling walls like Smokethroat did. She even wishes she could see a dog in the flesh – just to know what they really look like.

All thoughts of moving forgotten, they curl into a little ball of fuzz against Smokethroat and turns a hopeful, starry-eyed gaze on him. ”Another?” She pleads, voice going a little fuzzy with sleepiness. They don't want to sleep yet, not when Smokethroat has such cool stories to share.

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