IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD - clues by the river

[RAVENSONG]

Rarely is the dark pelted medicine cat seen out of camp nowadays. The occasional herb patrol is all he leads and while he does still know the territory like the back of his paw, it is not something he has traversed often. The river continuously shapes the earth, even in little changes. Ravensong knows this because he is familiar with the earth and what grows out of it. He does not track prey, but plants.

He had gone out by himself this morning, before the dawn broke. There had been a severe rainstorm the night earlier and Ravensong worried if it would have loosened the roots of their riverbank herbs. With the patients in the medicine den still asleep, he slipped away. He had not gotten very good sleep anyway.

But he did not return. Luckily scent is easy to follow and one can easily trace his steps to the river. The only clues were a patch of jet-black fur snagged in driftwood that had tangled at the banks, and shreds of celandine and chervil lay about the area. And unfortunately for the drypaw, the river does not let scent linger. It is like he disappeared out of thin air.


/this is the ic reason for raven to be absent while im away this week!

☾₊ ⊹ темная ночь — dark is the night

•  
• 
  RAVENSONG of RIVERCLAN — LH BLACK POLYDACTYL MALE (CARRYING CINNAMON, DILUTE) a tall, slender creature with pitch-black feathery fur, large ears, and a sharply angled skull held up in an aloof manner. smells of dried herb, speaks with a low and rumbly accent and walks with an elegant slinking gait.
  
  — born in twolegplace and orphaned at a young age, he joined riverclan at its inception and began training as a drypaw warrior known for a bitter temperment until beesong made him his medicine cat apprentice. after his mentor's untimely death, he had been named ravensong at the moonstone, young heart revitalized with anger and guilt. he is a somber and thorough medicine cat that guards every word spoken in the confines of his den.
  
  — secretly loves "the stars but not so much what inhabits them" — openly suffers from chronic migraines — single, but "it's complicated"

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[Hawkcloud]

Hawkcloud is beside the river by the time daylight has risen, settled along the bank and watching the clear waters run past her snow-furred paws while she waits for any signs of fish. She enjoys the sounds of the river's bubbling, the melodic birdsong filling the trees above despite the early newleaf chill. The ambience is like a peaceful song for the cheerful she-cat's ears, and she indulges in it for a moment before deciding she ought to head a little further along the river until she finds just where the fish are hiding.

When she picks up the fading scent of the medicine cat as she meanders down the bank, Hawkcloud pays it little mind. The warrior assumes Ravensong had simply been by earlier in the morning — that is, until the sharp scent of herbs reaches her nose, too. Turning to look at the ground beneath her paws, the she-cat is startled to find bits of herbs on the riverbank below. Sniffing at them curiously, the tomcat's scent leads her towards a tuft of his fur trapped in driftwood at the water's edge. "I wonder why he'd leave herbs behind," she muses to herself, not assuming anything has gone wrong.​

 

[Moonbeam]

Moonpaw had slept easily through the night for the first time in weeks, the storm the night before causing her a little alarm at first but she found with the familiar scent of her own nest and the soft pattering of raindrops outside the den that she quickly found herself in a deep sleep, so when Ravensong had left on his own to check on the plants that grew within the territory she hadn't woken up. It wasn't until a little while after that he'd left that she'd stir, looking over towards his nest to notice the shadowy medicine cat missing from the den and at first she thought nothing of it, assuming that he'd taken the time to sun himself in camp while it was warm and no longer raining. When she left the den however and saw that he wasn't there she'd soon found herself following alongside a patrol that was heading out, doing her best to stay near the patrol while also following her mentor's scent.

She wasn't the best at tracking but it had worked out in the end, Moonpaw had made her way towards the riverbank and paused when she saw Hawkcloud by the bank of the river. Though the white apprentice didn't hear the warrior muse to herself something similar flicked through Moonpaw's mind before it quickly dawned on her - he wouldn't. Ravensong couldn't swim, and he would never leave herbs behind, not like this. "Have you seen him?" The apprentice would quickly blurt out as she ran over, eyes widened as she looked up and down the bank, eyes landing on the driftwood in front of her before fur rose on end and eyes moved to the water, scanning what she could, hoping that she wouldn't see a black pelt among the rocks at the bottom of the river. "Someone get Smokestar, get-get someone!" Now, right now, she wanted to tell them, she needed him here now.

I WISH PLANT LIFE ꕥ WOULD GROW ALL AROUND ME

• @SMOKESTAR
• 
  MEDICINE CAT IN TRAINING;
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ FLESH WOUNDS
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ INFECTIONS
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ ACHES & PAINS
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ ILLNESS
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ BREATHING ISSUES
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ TRAVELING HERBS
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ BROKEN BONES
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ KITTING
  — ꕥꕥꕥꕥꕥ POISONS
• 
  ꕥ SH white masking cinnamon torbie w/orange eyes & small ears
  ꕥ speaks softly & often found humming
  ꕥ 10 moons old; ages the 17th every month
  ꕥ homosexual homoromantic ; interested in beepaw & redacted
  ꕥ currently being mentored by ravensong
  ꕥ easy to befriend/interact with ; hard to anger/upset
  ꕥ "speech", thoughts, attacking
  ꕥ easy in combat unless in water, focuses on defensive tactics
  ꕥ peaceful powerplay allowed

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[lichenstar]

⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ​

"Moonpaw."

Not the night-feathered form of their leader she'd requested... but instead, the shambling figure of a white-gray phantom. Her shrill voice is enough to make Lichentail's ears hurt and only one is capable of flattening to shield some of the noise. Why does she sound so panicked? Why is she screaming for Smokestar? Glancing between the anxious apprentice and Hawkcloud, even the warrior doesn't seem half as high-strung as the pale furred girl beside them.

"Why.... are you... yelling?"

There is a bundle of herbs left at the ground... A dissipating smell of Ravensong's earthy scent which mingles now with his den-mate. She'd seen him that morning... hadn't she? Hazecloud was nothing if not the boy's biggest fan and he'd promised to slide her more of those honeycombs if her throat still hurt (it did but she'd not allow him to keep shoving useful medicines down her mouth).

Maybe he'd left them here because he saw Dovethroat? Or maybe Oddfish had finally turned up after months of frigid winter to have kept it from coming home? The Twolegs hadn't returned yet, the icy floes on the river only just receding enough to make it enjoyable recently... An image of dilute fur makes her skin crawl uncomfortably under the weight of knowledge.

This isn't.... It isn't like Beesong. Ravensong's fine... We aren't even near the gorge.

---

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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[SMOKESTAR]

—————————————————————⊰★⊱————————————————————

Ravensong is missing, scent by the water, his apprentice in hysterics.
Smokestar moves with urgency, it feels as if all he does is run nowadays, from one place to the next to see the next body on the ground, the next visage of blood spilling from wounds. The rogues are gone but he has not relaxed since and he thinks he never truly will.
He hates to admit his mind is immediately moving to the worst possible scenario he can imagine, despite himsef he sees a broken body cloaked in cinnamon fur at the edge of the water and while they were nowhere near the gorge, as Lichentail also thought, he can not help the bile rising in his throat.
He is constantly reminded that Ravensong can't swim in their daily life, the way the dark tom avoids the water's edge, the way he never joins when the clan is fishing or idly splashing about, he finds it the one thing about their medicine cat he can't stand and he is swearing internally that he will force this cat to learn to swim if - when - they drag him back from wherever he was swept from.
The herbs on the shore are all the signs he needs to move to Moonpaw and push his nose into the top of her head in a gentle, soothing manner, "Deep breathes, moon beam. We'll find him."
Single orange eye flits up, lands on his deputy and Hawkcloud, "Each of you grab a few warriors, split up and move down each side of the river to sweep it."

✘ I've got a reputation and a name to uphold. ✘ Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.

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

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[SWIFTFIRE]

I'VE LEARNED LOVE IS LIKE A BRICK — Frantic cries. They had become a more and more common occurrence around Riverclan lately, and the sound of Moonpaw's voice alone was enough to fill Swiftfire with dread. Had the rogues returned? Who's dead now? Her own thoughts are enough to make her flinch even as she drives her paw forward, ignoring the wall of hesitance that made her want to just stay where she was. Ignore the medicine cat apprentice's call and remain in blissful ignorance, if only to avoid having to face the reality of another lost clanmate. At least this time the loss is extremely literal, rather than death's claws ripping through Riverclan once again.

That is, if Ravensong hadn't already been swept along with the tide and drowned beneath the unforgiving and once again free-flowing blue of the river.

She shook that thought from her mind, her steps bringing her up to the side of the river not long after Smokestar had appeared. "I'll go with either of you, just tell me where. I'm sure he couldn't have gotten that far from here..." Hopefully he hadn't, her mind lingering on the fact that she had never actually seen Ravensong in the water. She wasn't even sure she had ever seen him splashing about for fun, the realization only pushing her further towards a sense of despair that she couldn't fight against. Swiftfire wanted to believe that Starclan was on the medicine cat's side
- they had to be, didn't they? - but her faith in them had become more and more shaken as of late.

Everyone had told her Starclan was watching out for them all, but why had they lost so much recently if that was the case? "Moonpaw. Uhm... did he mention anything to you, before? About going somewhere? If we have anywhere else to start from..." Though going off of how panicked the apprentice had sounded, it seemed doubtful that she held any more knowledge close to her chest, away from the rest of them.

YOU CAN BUILD A HOUSE ✿ OR SINK A DEAD BODY

• 
  ✧ shorthaired blue and red tabby chimera molly with green eyes
  ✧ 40 moons old; ages the 1st every month
  ✧ bisexual; currently not looking
  ✧ daughter of lilou and germaine
  ✧ formerly of the ripple colony; loyal to riverclan
  ✧ easy to befriend; desperate to improve the former colonists' reputation
  ✧ "speech", thoughts, attacking
  ✧ peaceful powerplay allowed

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