INTO THE MIST [ ✦ ] bad news

[Starlingheart]

Breaking the news that someone is gone is, in her experience, never easy. More often than not, blame is placed on her shoulders. But that was okay, she knows that the grieving often needed someone to blame and she would be that someone if it meant things could be easier for someone else. Both Steepsnout and Hatchingstorm were gone. Steepsnout had been a RiverClanner though, and she knows that it is likely that her clan would want to hold a vigil for her, would want to say goodbye in the way that is customary for all of the clans and so she makes her way over to the burnt sycamore, her shoulders heavy with the news she has to share.

When she arrives, her green eyes immediately search out for the nearest RiverClanner, preferably the black and white pelt of Smokethroat or one of his council but if they could not be found she is content to pass her words along to a messenger. "Good evening..." her voice is soft as she approaches whoever "I'm-I'm sorry to bother you but I-I have some.... unfortunate news..." she shuffles her paws for a moment, glances away and takes a deep breath "Steepsnout is-is gone and I, well I figured your clan may want to-to send warriors to get her and bring her- bring her here for a vigil so-so everyone ca-can say-say goodbye" she would be buried among ShadowClanners, and Starlingheart knows her clan probably will not find this ideal, but there is nothing she can offer other than this chance to say their farewells

// @Smokethroat tagging but no need to wait for him! Anyone can post in this but she is speaking specifically to a RiverClanner

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[DARKWHISKER]

ੈ♡˳ . ° ✦ Darkwhisker prays for the swift recovery of the sick every night before laying his head down to fall into fitful slumber. Though he doesn’t want to admit it— his heart jolting in fear of what it tells about his morality— his father and sister are always the most prominent faces in his mind when he bows his head.

Yellowcough has claimed the lives of many. The churning of his stomach, the thoughts of more succumbing to the illness, he tries to ignore. They would get better, Darkwhisker tells himself, over and over like a mantra. The journeying cats would return any day now, their mouths full of lungwort, and they would get better. Mudpelt and Steepsnout would get better.

Everyone would get better, he always corrects himself. StarClan would not approve of selfishness.

But his faith doesn’t stop the approach of Starlingheart.

Darkwhisker doesn’t notice her, at first. Too absorbed in weaving nests, trying to abate the homesickness by making the burnt sycamore feel closer to RiverClan’s camp. His eyes do not leave his work, until an NPC nudges him and whispers their curiosity in his ear, gesturing to Starlingheart with a sweep of their tail.

He looks at the black-and-white medicine cat, who is speaking to another RiverClanner nearby. A smile curves his lips, reverent yet lacking in brightness. But it falls in the blink of an eye when he finally listens to what Starlingheart’s saying.

Steepsnout is gone. “What?” Gone? Gone where? His mind doesn’t want to understand what she’s saying. But Starlingheart keeps speaking, every word driving the realization further into Darkwhisker’s heart. Send warriors to get her. Vigil. Say goodbye.

His head reels. No. No! Steepsnout couldn’t be dead. She had to live! The journeying cats would be back any day now with the lungwort to save her. She couldn’t die!

Darkwhisker staggers to his paws. He doesn’t know when they started trembling. “That’s… That’s not funny!” Because that’s what this must be, right? A cruel joke. He refuses to believe it is anything else. He doesn’t want to accept that Steepsnout is gone.

Tears blur his vision. Darkwhisker tries to blink them away, but more keeps brimming to the surface to replace them. Slowly, with the world spinning around him, he stumbles towards Starlingheart. He doesn't look at her with kindness, anymore, but horror. “She’s not… Please, tell me you’re lying!” Deep down, he knows Starlingheart isn’t. A medicine cat would not lie; they are holy, divine, blessed by the stars.

Steepsnout is dead. The sun sets, and she would not be here to see it rise tomorrow.

✧　°　.　✶　.　°　✧​

ooc information

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  DARKWHISKER — HE/HIM ･ 17 MOONS ･ RIVERCLAN WARRIOR ･ PENNED BY NICO

  tall, lithe dusky brown tom with splashes of white. a cheerful tom who tries to put a smile on the face of everyone he talks to, darkwhisker's life is devoted to spreading positivity in a world full of negativity. though his words may be fanciful— and coated in the sugar of white lies, at times— he is a well-intentioned, albeit overly idealistic, young warrior.

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[LILYBLOOM.]

Since the moment her father and sister had fallen ill, Lilybloom had dreaded the possibility of one of them dying. Their family had been fortunate so far that the two of them had been able to hold the sickness at bay for a while. Perhaps there was still hope.

When Lilybloom sees the form of Starlingheart approach, she admittedly finds it odd, but does not expect anything bad to come from her presence here. Lilybloom is nearby when she hears the medicine cat address one of her clanmates stating that she had some unfortunate news. Almost instantly, her attention is piqued, and she rises to her paws, a single green eye watching the speaking cats carefully. Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it, she begs silently. In a small way, she anticipates what is coming but that does not make it any easier to hear what Starlingheart says next.

Steepsnout is gone.

"No!" Lilybloom suddenly gasps aloud, her heart sinking in her chest. "Stars...say it isn't true." Her mind can't seem to believe it is true. Obviously she knew Steepsnout was ill but Lilybloom had foolishly assumed, foolishly hoped, that she would have lived. That she would have been able to endure the sickness a little longer and would have gained the herbs necessary to live. Lilybloom hears Darkwhisker making the same stunned remarks as herself, begging it not to be true. She steps a little closer to her sibling, a tail flicking across his back comfortingly.

"Smokethroat," Lilybloom suddenly says, looking for the black cat. "Let me...let me go and help fetch her." Lilybloom can scarcely get the request out through her own choking grief.​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

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Starlingheart should not fill him with dread upon seeing her, but part of him rationalizes quicker than the rest that the ShadowClan medicine cat would not come out here alone just to say hello. Something had happened. He pads forward to greet her with a strained smile which very quickly fades as she speaks. His instincts were rarely wrong, the news was not what he wanted to hear.

Steepsnout. The image of a sleek black and white kitten nestled alongside a tortiseshell mother rises to his thoughts, a dark swath of fur among far lighter and orange dappled siblings with the exception of Darkwhisker himself. His veins fill with ice water, the chill does not permeate past his coat but huddles still in his core. He remembers the day they were born, the first litter to bless RiverClan - his own apprentice came from the same one. She and Fernpaw now journeyed for a cure that would come too late for their sister and his heart aches at the thought of it.

Lilybloom and Darkwhisker cry out, the former asking to be the one to fetch her and he nods quietly with a tight expression and furrowed brow, "Of course...Darkwhisker can as well..." The two of them deserved to do so and they could see Mudpelt while they were there even briefly, he could only imagine the brown tom's grief having been with her and the rest of the ill when it happened. The sick cats were suffering more than just the plague of yellowcough, the horror of watching cats fall one by one and realizing you could very well be next. He didn't know how he would handle such an ordeal, perhaps not with the same grace as he managed his own grief. "...bring her to us. Tell your father and the others to hold on."
A young warrior taken before her time, but they had so many more sick and waiting. His orange eye closes, he wonders if the cats on their quest will return soon or will the camp be nothing but corpses by the time they do...if they do at all. Part of him worries still that something had happened. He offers the medicine cat only a faint nod and a quietly uttered, "Thank you..." before turning to find a team to prepare a burial plot.

——✘ when does ripple become a tidal wave ———✘ when does a candle become a flame

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokethroat
  —⊰⋅ Deputy of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  —⊰⋅ penned by Rai
  

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