private IN OMNIA PARATUS ✦ edenberry

[DOEBLAZE]

The sun sits low and hen-broody in the sky, painting their shadows starkly against the snow as Doeblaze, with @edenberry ?! at her side, crosses the last dip down into Twolegplace. She has to do this on her own time, which means wedging it in after a day of hunting and checking the borders. During her dawn patrol to this very border, she'd watched the redbrick buildings with a stark green eye.

" Thanks for agreein' to come with me, Edenberry, " she murmurs with a hoarse puff of steam. The dregs of her accented meow pop in the relative quiet as the Twolegplace's streetlights buzz to life, the sky purpling slowly around the red sun. Shoulder blades jutting prominently against her shaggy coat, she pauses, the once-familiar pavement foreign against her calloused paws.

" So … where should we go first? Or who should we talk to? " she puts her questions to the pinstriped daylighter, shaking out her pelt to dislodge stray needles. " I've got to defer to your expertise, here. " She punctuates with a scratchy chuckle, musing thoughtfully to herself, " Hopefully more of the rogue-associatin' types will be out at this hour. "

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[edenberry ?!]

The clan's needs grow more difficult to keep up with the later into leaf-bare it gets. It seems like for every hunt they go on, they are already three hunts behind schedule. What little they catch goes diverted towards the nursery... the elders... the sick... and their numbers do not decrease with each passing day. Oddgleam's litter (and Orangestar's as well) now eat prey rather than the milk of their poor dams... and that is it's own new burden.

So to be asked after for a mission that removes them from the monotony of prowling through the trees, they practically lunge at the idea to be useful in some other way. Doeblaze has not been around the Twolegplace in any sincere capacity in some time.. at least not half-so much as Edenberry. They'd been called upon once before for their expertise in that regard, only to unmask the flesh-strewn bodies of what once had been clanmates beloved.

"Of course," they respond, voice cracking with the effort to sound cheerful. "I wouldn't want you trying to wander around here alone," they add, admitting their fear for what lurks through the alleys after dark.

Their ears swivel, listening for the clatter of metal trees and monsters that roar in the distance. Finding cats to interrogate would be simple enough, depending on the location- their own paws itch with a familiar adrenaline, recalling a particularly nasty rogue that had been eager to fight over the scraps discarded in the huge, shiny boxes of stink. "Right... well... the Twolegnests are mostly going to be kittypets and dogs- we'll want to head to the dark paths and abandoned nests to find anything useful probably..." With no Twolegs disturbing those areas, they made great hideaways for the more nefarious and lonely types...

⟡₊ ⊹ i ll betray you like a man

• 
• -- edenberry / skyclan daylight warrior / any pronouns / 20 moons
  -- mostly white with black pinstripe and green eyes / scarred face and back
  -- color #728c69

 

[DOEBLAZE]

Cool wind combs through her cheek fur, whipping it around her face; it may as well be cut from the ice dripping off one of the rooftops, for how readable it is. Then she sighs and the hard lines of her expression slacken; her shoulders loosen a little. It has been a long time since she prowled these streets and now, as ever, she only revisits it on behalf of great tragedy. Nostalgia has long been overlaid by anger, sadness, pain, each death a shovelful of soil on its grave.

" Yeah. It's like the place sprouted fangs and started takin' chunks out of us, " she sighs before realizing how morbid her metaphor sounds. Her correction is hoarse and hasty and halfhearted: " Sorry. That came out strange. "

" Sounds good to me, " the tawny warrior agrees with a brisk nod to her young companion. She never seems to see enough of Edenberry; she only seems to notice them through the holes they leave when they aren't around. Their absence earlier this year had impressed upon her what a missed presence they'd been, what with their endless optimism in ever-dark times.

" I must confess, I've never been 'round the shadier parts of Twolegplace, " she comments as they start their trek towards the boarded-up nests and shadowy paths that wound through the darker side of Twolegplace. Exactly the type of place a Clan-killer might lurk, she thinks; where Oakrumble's killer might linger to brag about their conquests over the forest cats. " 'Spose this'll be educational in more ways than one. "

There's a certain grimness to her voice. It's with a slightly sickening confidence she knows she'll do whatever it takes to catch Oakrumble's killer.

​

 

[edenberry ?!]

Walking these trails still digs like thorns against their pads... Sometimes, in the silence between Doeblaze's comments they can swear they still smell Raindrop on the breeze. That maybe if they're lucky, wandering towards that abandoned dog house, they might see them again. They could pick up where they left off- no longer burdened with a heart split between two others. Would the mottled she-cat beside them forgive Edenberry for the little ink-blotted secrets that came with it? Or worse yet, what if Raindrop was who they hunted tonight- what if they hadn't asked the right questions, or enough of them... if the gift of a jay's feather had been a gift to keep their silence?

They practically shake under their furs, easily mistaken for a shudder against the sharp, snapping cold. Had this place really grown teeth enough to wound them? They look towards the lead warrior with a concerned frown, trying not to make her feel guilty for sharing her feelings. They lived here... but they understood well enough what a nightmare these alleys held within them. "No," they rush to deny it, "No... It made sense. I don't think it was strange... It might actually be the best way to describe it." Their ears drop back for a half second, trying to muster up some sort of kindness to share with the more dour molly- "At least beasts can be understood... we will understand this one too. It'll just take time."

Hopefully...

They veer towards the hungering dark, the sound of their paws sliding over shifting gravel clacking in shallow echo against what hollow walls remained. It is oddly quiet... as if the whole place sleeps to avoid the winter, to pretend it wasn't happening.

It's an act of humility to share her inexperience with them... one that Edenberry takes in stride with a flick of their tail. "It's not really a fun place to explore most of time... the danger here is different than in the forest. But I've met some good cats by just offering to be a helping paw when they need it. Not everyone out here is so lucky to get scooped up by a Twoleg and carried home where it's warm. They're just like you guys... kind of... Imagine what they could accomplish if they felt safe enough to work together rather than apart." An odd musing, a clan of suburban dumpster divers...

⟡₊ ⊹ i ll betray you like a man

• 
• -- edenberry / skyclan daylight warrior / any pronouns / 21 moons
  -- mostly white with black pinstripe and green eyes / scarred face and back
  -- color #728c69

 

[DOEBLAZE]

Old ghosts flit unknowingly around the both of them. Even as they walk, her eye paints strange shapes against the gaping eyes of the Twoleg dens, turns the buzz of a streetlight into a flickering black tail. Her gaze watches the familiar places not with longing but with a gloomy sort of fear, a grimness that resides in the hollow of her throat. Right where she feels the imprint of paws each time she closes her eyes.

Was it her former lover they chased tonight? Had she misjudged him from the first when she thought he only cared to hurt her? No, surely not… he would have mentioned it, she thinks, would have luxuriated in the horror painted on the glassy surface of her eye. Whatever state he'd been left in after the Twoleg medicine cat took possession of him, it surely wasn't one to be skulking around these pathways. Logic is a searing light; it only seems to deepen the shadowy pools of paranoia.

" It felt strange to say, " she admits, but she glances at them appreciatively. Often she worries she's too morbid, too gloomy, too lost in past phantoms to be there for her Clanmates in the now. That the cat she is now is not only different from the one she used to be, but worse; and though Edenberry couldn't hope to silence that thought with words alone, they muffle it a little. " Now that's a much better way of puttin' it. Makes it seem a little less indifferent. "

The stark concrete walls certainly look uncaring to their suffering, but hopefully Edenberry's right. Chase down enough paths, and they'll find the lifeblood of Twolegplace. Find whatever belly hungers for the lives of their Clanmates, and satiate it somehow. Leaf-bare has been unkind enough, and it hardly feels like SkyClan can withstand any more losses. Their forest's trees are easily felled, their numbers easily culled, too easily.

" Huh. I never really thought about it that way… " Doeblaze flicks an ear as the two of them pad on through dimming lights and crunching gravel. Ever since she'd left it, she'd thought of it as capital-T Twolegplace, a mass-thing rather than an inhabited place, some of them less fortunate than others. This was proving to be an informative journey, and gratitude for Edenberry hits her quick. " Makes me wish more of 'em would seek us out. I suppose our image 'round these parts isn't that great… bone-eatin' wildcats and whatnot. "

Her nose twitches as they trek through lights that steadily decline in brightness, through increasingly dilapidated Twoleg dens and ditches that run with oily water. The clean smells of cold air and Twoleg gardens recede, and the scent of Twoleg garbage and dank culverts intrudes.

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