sensitive topics LAVENDER HAZE - vigil

[Moonbeam]

Moonpaw had been adamant on doing the vigil for Reedbite and so when the time came to actually finally hold one she had asked Ravensong questions, learned how to weave the mint into the brown and silver fur of the other to try and hide the scent of death, try and hide the fact that she'd died out in the cold alone and in the dark. While she weaved Moonpaw couldn't help but think of how cruel leafbare was, how cruel it was to take away a life still so young from the clan, and it was a leafbare she'd been told time and time again that it was better than last year, that there was no river freezing over and no flood, no loss of more, but yet it was cruel and yet despite it all she couldn't help but ask herself if they'd gone out the night before somehow if she'd have made it home. Moonpaw knew not to blame herself for this death, it was from weather and season not from a cat's claws or from illness, but still she couldn't help but ask if there was something more she could have done.

"Leafbare has taken a clanmate from us." The alabaster apprentice would speak out, body shuddering with a sigh as she looked over them all from where she sit beside the other, praying silently to StarClan that she was doing this right, a glance in her mentor's direction to see if he would signal that she was doing something wrong before continuing on once more. "Reedbite will be missed within RiverClan, but before she is buried any who may want to can share tongues with her one last time." She'd look over those who had gathered before moving back a couple steps, waiting for those who were closer to the other to share tongues.

I WISH PLANT LIFE ꕥ WOULD GROW ALL AROUND ME

• this is backwritten && takes place shortly after this thread
• 
  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 9 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

​

 

[SWIFTFIRE]

I'VE LEARNED LOVE IS LIKE A BRICK — It always stung for Swiftfire, losing a clanmate before she ever even got the chance to meet them at all. Reedbite had been a wholly unfamiliar face to the former colonist, another colorful mess of brown and silver in the crowd that she walked by each day. In a way, that unfamiliarity was almost a blessing. It kept her from feeling like she would entirely fall apart due to the loss, even if she was far from happy about losing anyone considered a Riverclanner. The fact that it wasn't someone close to her was just what allowed her to actually approach instead of shying away, eyes dark and expression grim even with the sharp scent of mint floating on the air instead of that of death. She spared a brief glance in Moonpaw's direction, smiling weakly in the medicine cat apprentice's direction to try and reassure her that she was doing her job right. Or at least it seemed like she was.

Slow steps brought the bicolored feline over to where Reedbite's body laid, a heavy sigh leaving her as she gazed upon her former clanmate's still form. At least she just looked like she was sleeping, instead of frozen in a stiff and defenseless state thanks to an unyielding leafbare. She wasn't even freezing when Swiftfire leaned down and pressed her nose to Reedbite's fur, no additional chill beyond the flat cold of death. "I'm sorry, Reedbite. I wish we could've done something to save you. I wish... I wish leafbare hadn't ended up swallowing you up." Deep down inside, she knew better than to blame herself for Reedbite's demise. After all, the warrior had taken fate into her own paws when she had gone out in the storm, and she had paid the price for it. Still, would things have gone differently if there had been others out there alongside her, or would they have just lost more friends and clanmates? "Hopefully Starclan is much warmer and kinder to you than down here." It was after that soft prayer that she took a step back from Reedbite's body, letting others say their own goodbyes if they chose to.

YOU CAN BUILD A HOUSE ✿ OR SINK A DEAD BODY

• 
  ✧ shorthaired blue and red tabby chimera molly with green eyes
  ✧ 38 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

​

 

[Lilacbird]

Ever so observant, reedbite was a workaholic, and lilacbird couldn't help but realize if she had slowed down a little, and not pushed herself- maybe this vigil wouldn't be happening. Sometimes, to retreat and return later was a safer alternative than to push foreward with hope to find something in the blistering cold.

She definitely had a fitting name, her temperamental and stern nature on her own enough to make the fluffy warrior bite her own tongue from exchanging many words with the much younger warrior. Unfortunately, that also meant the other was not known by the tortie. She would never know her.

She had gone out alone that day, only to return after the blizzard that overtook her, and Lilacbird wished herself that she had noticed her pelt not in the warriors den. She had gone to sleep in the safety of a den with bodies huddled close to keep warm.

"May your hunt in starclan be everlasting," she murmured softly to the molly, in hopes Reedbite would hear her. Her gaze soft and a sigh escaped her, glancing around for her brother Houndtooth. Did he even know yet?

​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

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

It was not hunger that took Reedbite or his fury might have blazed like an inferno so tall it scorched the heavens themselves, the cold was just as cruel but no cat could prepare or prevent it when it got through your fur and sunk into your hide; nature was ruthless in a way claws were not. He couldn not condemn anyone for this death as much as he wished he could find a source to blame but nonetheless a clanmate was gone and their numbers dwindled in the bitter cold as the snow settled less thickly over the territory every day. So close to the warmth of newleaf, yet so far.
"May you find better hunting in the stars, may you not feel this aching cold again." Smokestar said quietly, taking a moment to sit next to Moonpaw and offer the young healer a careful nudge of his shoulder; she'd been raised alongside his own kits and was close to them all and he could not help but look upon the pale molly as another of his own in a way, it hurt to see her carrying such a burden as to prepare bodies for vigil but it was the duty of a medicine cat and he was proud she took to it with a certain level of grace.

✘ 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.
  

​

 

[valesight ➶]

⸙͎｡˚⋆ ⍋ ѧѦ ѧ⍋ ⸙͎｡˚⋆

This was everything he feared come to fruition. The cold, he'd complained, was enough to freeze his paws off. Perhaps he were gifted with some prophetic sight to have called it out as such but... it's another matter entirely to be right when it comes at the cost of someone's final breath.

Reedbite looked so still it was as if they were not a cat at all. He knows better than to cling to that idea, that they are burying a doll... he's seen her moving once, in more than just a mechanical fashion that made her more real than not-real. It was more reassuring if it had been the case... if she really was just a figment of his imagination that they did not loom around now to send to StarClan in permanent good-bye.

Moonpaw performs the rites... this is a part of her duties now, as he understands it. Morbidly, some part of the mud and sand boy wonders how long it'll be until she stands over him instead. A victim of some stupid battle on a border probably... or eaten by the beasts that had hungered after him since his birth.

Blinking as if it would erase the tragedy or change imminent future, he stares into some nether-distance between the white-furred molly and the Star-crested king that sits beside her.

Another light to join Silverpelt tonight...

Others say passing words of farewell but he has none to share. Saying good-bye felt like dirt in his mouth.​

​

 

[ROOKFANG]

THE HERMIT ─── He despised the smell of mint. He knew what it meant, what its scent was trying to curtain over and lace itself into. He didn't want the truth to be coated with sugar and sweetened with grace, he wanted the brutality of it to remind him of the loss so it may sink into his bones and not escape his memories. Rookfang bitterly enjoyed the sinking tar of the sensation so it motivated him to work harder for the clan, to strive for a better chance for the others. It reminded him of how he had gotten here in the first place, his tiny paws caked with mud and the blood of his siblings. Their faces had been bored into the tired skeleton within that would haunt him night after night, their time of suffering echoing. But he would rather be cursed with the pain of loving them than not have had the chance to love them at all.

Reedbite's vigil was as harrowing as the past ones he had settled himself in the quiet stillness that mimicked the unmoving bodies of his clanmates. His strengthened sense of smell had been quick to connect the associated scent to the common practice within Riverclan as the lumbering shadow detached itself from the inky claws of darkness as he had been observing silently from afar at Moonpaw's work. It caused a thorny ribbon to wrap itself around his heart at the sight of the ivory youth preparing for the vigil, her small form shivering from the shaky sigh as she called out that leaf-bare had sunken its icy nails onto Reedbite. He felt the normal swelling of tumultuous frustration as he joined the others, his focus briefly shattered at the image of his little brother arriving at the vigil. It bitterly made him realize...his brother was mortal. His brother was now another thorn he happily allowed to stick into his already beaten heart and if something were to ever happen to him...

Rookfang slowed down to stand next to the somber chimera, his own heterochromatic eyes shattering the usual facade that he carried as his stiffened locked jaw loosened as he leaned his spiked head to gently drag a gentle lick behind the apprentice's ear. "You must bid farewell. It's the right thing to do." His voice was barely above a hushed whisper, warm like flowing honey as he brushed by his sibling, heavy paws leading to lower himself and press his nose against the motionless body of Reedbite, eyelids dropping to close over glazed stormy eyes to inhale the wretched mint and loving memory of the fallen warrior.​