i'd rather sleep | chrys

[Howlfire]

When she's not talking to her brother when he has a spare moment there isn't much for Howlpaw to do in the medicine den. She sits, she sleeps, she watches the medicine cats sort their herbs, she eats, she sleeps, she stretches her legs. Oh, how she wished to be outside training again! Howlpaw couldn't wait to go hunting with Redstorm again or practice sparring with him. At least there was one bright side in knowing her time in the den would soon be over.

She is sitting in her makeshift nest when she hears a cat near the entrance followed by some hasty words about cleaning for an errand. Moments later she hears pawsteps approaching, and rolls in her nest to see who the visitor is. Unfortunately, she can't help the smirk from breaking out across her features when she recognises Chrysalispaw's chimaeric pelt. "Cricketpaw!" She's practically beaming at him by the time she calls out. Cricketpaw. It was funny how a mistake of the name had resulted in a playful nickname that had, unfortunately for Chrysalispaw, stuck. "Is this a social visit? Or am I mistaken in thinking you've been assigned to clean the medicine den?"

@CHRYSALISPAW ​

 

[CHRYSALISWING]

The medicine cat den always felt awkwardly sterile to Chrysalispaw, for the unadulterated and undefiled displays of life and death had always made the boy uncomfortable, as though merely thinking of mortality would drive him to madness. Truly, he wasn't one for pondering such leaden questions, for such weighted indolence surely had a price when it came to the success of the clan. If everyone spent their waking moments worrying and wondering, then nothing would get done. The droves of coughing sick and deathly scent clung to the walls, like a bad miasma that clung to every breath, a whisper of a beguiling ailment. It felt like he was going to get ill by simply being in it. Chrys never lingered there long, quick to rip off his bandages even if skin pressed against freezing air. Especially not with that nutcase Dawnglare managing the place.

Today, Silversmoke ordered him to clean more wads of mossy bedding, ribbons of pallid greens and browns like tousles and tapers of forest's footing. Blegh. Triangular ears caught upon a familiarly mawkish moniker, and Chrys shiveled his head around to face Howlpaw, as if she was there simply to taunt him in his darkest days. He'd already had to deal with the likes of Greenpaw defending his sister, but he couldn't find the strength to expose his claws farther from their sheaths. A dull scorn flooded his angular features, a slow scowl that crawled upon earthen countenance, like the slithering vine of the lichen. Still, a venom seemed to run within the undercurrent of his movements, though bayed and tamed as it was. "You wish it was a social visit. No, my idiot mentor is making me clean old bedding until my paws fall off."
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[Howlfire]

Chrysalispaw responds in the usual clipped manner she had come to expect from her fellow apprentice. "I mean a social visit would be nice," Howlpaw admits, chuckling to herself as she did. "But I doubt you'd sit and chat with me." It wasn't meant in a mean way of course, but she was stating what she considered to be true. The two got on well enough but she could not recall them having had a serious conversation before...at least not one which didn't devolve into Chrysalispaw grumbling about something or Howlpaw joking about something.

As he got to work, her amber eyes watched him carefully. "You better do a good job," She told him, a wry grin forming on her lips in anticipation of the response she was about to get back. "Some of us have to sleep here, you know." He probably would do an alright job, but Howlpaw could still remember making nests with him and how half-heartedly he had gone about putting those together.​

 

[CHRYSALISWING]

Chrysalispaw gave Howlpaw a side-eye of a glance, mismatched gaze rendering itself unreadably stark, with only the harsh light outside splashing some color on it. Statuesque in his stoicism, he didn't often let his true emotions flow through the windows to the soul. Whatever sentiment did evade through fallible cracks of the wall were, inevitably, envenomed by the acid of his own sardonicism. He would rather be doing anything than sitting in the cramped den, twiddling his paws errantly, and getting his claws dirty fiddling with the yarn-like strands of moss. The moss-ball was a fickle thing, and not nearly as striking to capture his adolescent attention. He couldn't shirk on his duties, not while the hawkish gaze of Silversmoke stared at him from afar, burning shame into the flame-brushed pelt even as his mentor wasn't physically there. He'd been called almost every name underneath the sun - disruptive, arrogant, rude - but the one thing he feared was more menial work to be done.

The sterile walls of the medicine cat den seemed almost maddening in the way they would echo his and Howlpaw's words, as though they were trapped in some sort of cave, even as the entrance lie just in paw-lengths of their grasp. If he couldn't handle this, he wondered how the Windclanners could handle eating dirt down in the flea-infested tunnels they ran through. Another grumble bubbled from Chrys' mouth as Howl's words seemed to taunt him, a pinprick of ivory teeth showing though not enough to be bared, a flash that barely constituted as a warning for anything. It was more of a drawn-out exasperation than anything. This time, the wads of bedding held together much better than before, as he paid a careful mind not to toss them on the ground when he was done. Not by a long shot, though. "Yeah. I feel bad for Dawnglare and Fireflypaw, since they have to sleep here every day. You think the smell of herbs is the reason why they're like that?"
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