pafp KNUCKLE VELVET | game

YIPPINGKIT

FATE, UP AGAINST YOUR WILL
Aug 4, 2024
16
3
3
Yippingkit is decidedly too young to grasp the intricacies of ThunderClan's politics. Howlingstar had been there, had promised him safety, and then she had been tossed over a wall to die. Fallowbite had killed his mother, and then it had killed its leader — or, at least, it had stood by to watch it happen. He had little attachment to the brown-streaked ex-leader, but he remembers the night of her death vividly; fear had been a thick fog over them all. Vile cruelty had exploded around camp until it felt rimed in blood. Yippingkit had huddled in the nursery, facing the wall on Nightbird's instruction, with only Doepath — now Doecry — and his littermates for comfort. There had been no exits. Only hot and spitting fear and hatred, in such a volume that it had caused him not to leave the nursery for a single sunrise since.

But comfort has found them in strange ways. Their silent stillness had only been external, while their mind had exploded with new ideas about cruelty and suspicion and what it meant to be afraid. After a talk with their littermates, they had come to a new conclusion: the only way out is through. There are no exits, but Yippingkit knows how they can weather the storm now. If they play nice, maybe no one will ever harm them again.

So they find Fallowbite, monster that it is. They tremble as they greet her with little more than a hollow-eyed stare. She could kill them — she had killed before, and he had seen it — but something has stopped her in the past moon that Yippingkit does not fully understand. Still, fostering some breed of kindness with it would do him well, he thinks. "Will you play Clan with me?" he asks it, and when it agrees, he does not give it a chance to change its mind.

"I'll be Yippingclaw," Yippingkit tells her, "and you'll be Fallowstar." They ignore the tremor in their polydactyl paws, stepping a few paces back and puffing out their chest in as best a display of confidence they can muster. They look a bit like a dried leaf clinging to its branch. They realize too late that they must think of a reason for Fallowstar to be overthrown — they did not understand Howlingstar's proclivities for kittypets, or why it was such a bad thing — and so they invent. It is perhaps unfortunate that, for all of Yippingkit's imagination, they must play so closely to reality.

"Fallowstar, you hurt a bunch of cats!" the whelp decrees, voice hitching. He thinks of Baying Hound, of course, not realizing the other ways which it could be true; not thinking of the betrayal on Antlerpoison or Doecry's faces. "So I'm the Star now!" A natural misunderstanding for one not born into Clan life, he misidentifies his prospective role in his game, but he does not think much of it. Instead, Yippingkit launches himself at his littermate, kitten claws unsheathing instinctually, batting at Fallowbite's huge frame without care for where the pinprick blows might land.
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  • ooc. please wait for @FALLOWBITE !
  • YIPPINGKIT —— kit of thunderclan . baying hound x duke . littermate to howlkit and thrashkit, sibling to many ✦ penned by meghan

    a hulking black smoke with low white. striking dual-toned eyes. fluctuates between total apathy and a need to fit in; difficult to befriend, and does not trust easily. unsure of thunderclan as a whole.
    intersex, nb masculine / he they pronouns / 03 moons & ages every 5th
    peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
    —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. a kitten, he can hardly defend himself, but that will not stop him from trying. apt against opponents his age thanks to his sheer size.

    "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
    full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
 

ˏˋ*⁀➷ The clan that Fallowbite has brought its younger siblings to is hardly better than the fox-burrow its mother had trapped them in. It can't help but feel responsible for that. If it had acted sooner, if it hasn't just stood by... Maybe it could have stopped this.

It could obsess over maybes forever, though. The truth is that all of its efforts to keep its family safe have done more harm than good.

Yip - Yippingkit - stares through it with empty eyes. It makes her stomach curdle. No kit should look like that, it thinks. It remembers how playful its nurserymates were, in youth. It remembers how all the kits used to laugh and play, before Skyclaw took a life right before their eyes. Fallowbite had never been afforded that innocence; it had never brough her anything but annoyance to see it.

She thinks she would give anything right now to see that obnoxious, youthful light in Yippingkit's eyes. She wants him to skip around camp and pester every warrior he can, not stand before his sister and stare straight through her.

The request for a game startles her. It's a start, at least. "Uh," she says, unaccustomed to being asked to play. She blinks a lone, bewildered eye at him. "Sure, kiddo," she mumbles, staring down at his tiny form and awaiting instruction.

The roles are assigned, and for a moment she doesn't quite get it. Don't kits like playing leader?

And then - she gets it, and the pit in her stomach returns. Oh, she thinks hollowly. A game of imitation. Yippingclaw, they name themself. Fallowbite wants to tear Skyclaw's heart from his very chest. He's so much like her - these kits are so much like her. She cannot bear to see them grow up to be as cruel.

She doesn't have the heart to stop the kit's play-murder. It's the first time they've really approached her, and she doesn't want to lose that trust.

And so "Fallowstar" falls aa dramarically as it can manage to the ground, a monotone and raspy voice rising from her scarred maw. "Oh nooooo," drones the molly, assualted by a barrage of kitten-claws. She's beginning to think her little siblings will leave her with even more scars. "You - ow - you've killed me... Now you're the - ow - leader of ThunderClan..." She rolls over onto her back - away from the kit's attack, and tucks her fluffy paws against her chest. "Bleh..." It shuts its eye, hoping that will satisfy the kit.


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  • FALLOWBITE ⁀➷ she / it, warrior of thunderclan, twelve moons.
    a scarred, pointed brown and white molly with shaggy fur and golden eyes.
    standoffish and solitary, always seems to have a dark cloud hanging over its head.
    baying hound xx npc, littermate to antlerbreeze & doepath.
    peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
    penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
 

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ- "hi, uhm... yippingclaw. you are gonna be yippingstar, now, right? well, I'll be orange...belly. yes. orangebelly, and i will be a great warrior at your command!"

he figures it won't hurt to join in on the game. he knows how fallowbite feels about him, but he's hardly ever been one to believe that they're not friends. even if she, herself, says it. orangepaw would remain true to it. once a friend, always a friend. and even now, even in the turmoil of everything happening, he is still going to call her such. he turns to yipping"claw" as the young kit says, and he bows his head respectfully, smile still on his face.

"very well done, yippingclaw! the clan is in the best paws it can be with you as our new leader. will you take our medicine cat with you to go get your lives? as leader, now, you gotta have nine lives, as I am sure you truly know, seeing as you're very smart!"

he sits down, ignoring the ache in his limbs. he had gotten stiff with so much lack of movement. he is doing his best, here, though. he wants to make sure yippingkit knows this clan is for him. they belong here, and they would he a great warrior one day, he knows.

"then you will have to choose a deputy when you return."