camp LET'S GET YOU HOME 🎀 HAPPY TEARS

[PINKSHINE]

Looking into a puddle had been what alerted her to the shedding of her colors... And though she still hated rain, ever since that day, she finds herself wandering past the puddles it leaves behind just to see if she's changed again... Usually she doesn't find anything besides the cutest cat ever, but that's nothing new. Usually, usually no... but today is different. Today she finds something, even if she looks totally the same. She finds Pinkshine! Not Pinkpaw anymore, no matter how many times she kinda forgets it... It's the best name in the world she thinks. A name that Scorchstreak is proud of, a name that Sunstar gave to her early with a smile peeking out from under her lips. She was a good tunneler, wasn't she? That's what Halfpaw had said. She had to be, for Sunstar to look at her like that. To be given a name so close to her mother's. for Featherspine to grin, dazzling at the word. She'd had to bite down her own tongue to keep herself from squealing, and she'd never quite found the time to let it out since. Not until now, that is...

Pinkshine stares into a puddle for the first time. she's just as red as she was the first time Pinkpaw had done it. Just as red and black and white - striped. But she felt new. She felt good. All her worries of being a warrior were wiped away the moment Featherspine smiled at her. She just wanted to do this forever. Keep making cats smile proud. She wanted to keep being the best tunneler she can be... And she has no idea when that happened. When did she start liking being a tunneler?

It's better that way, though. It's better for WindClan, and for everyone, and for her. It stopped raining awhile ago now, but wetness pricks at her eyes as if it were still pouring down. It comes in a sniffle, and then a whine, and then she's sobbing, and it didn't make any sense at all. Could she smile and cry at the same time? With a wobbling lip, she tries to manage just that, a paw half - dipped in rainwater. Her reflection is snotty and gross. But, " I'm just s-so happyyyy! " with eyes squeezed shut, she wails.​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

The noise plit through Featherspine suddenly, as if the earth had cracked a ravine right thgough him, rumbling with the reverbration of Pinkshine's cry. Yellow eyes, for a moment, lost their narrowness- they rounded, and pupils slitted with worry glanced all around, trying to find a patchy pelt trembling with sobs. Stars, what had she done? Gotten injured only ... less than a moon, wasn't it, after getting her warrior name? Stars- no, it couldn't happen again. Horned ears pinned against her head, unable to bear the thought that she might meet an awful sight, like Bearflight singed and half-melted, scorched by grasping claws.

He rushed, using honed limbs to find her- among the stench of rain's dampness, he couldn't parse blood beneath, and it came close to sending him into a spiral that he apparently couldn't tell that she was hurt, even so nearby. A once over, though- a twice-over ... and Pinkshine seemed unscathed. Bafflement deepened Featherspine's scowl, especially as Pinkshine punctuated her hysteria with, I'm just so happy!

And within him, there flared affection and frustration all at once. "You- you d-dustbrain, what do you mean?" There was less bite in his insult than he'd give to anything, anyone else- bemusement glowed most prominently through the sheer wobble of her words, a tone she tried to keep steady, though it was hard to hide such a wave of paranoid worry ... and even harder to recover from the wave of relief that had just slammed into him with the strength of a tumbling boulder. Happy, happy- of course she was happy.

Featherspine strode closer to her, regarding the puddle she lolled her paw into with a nose-wrinkle of slight disgust. She closed the distance between them, statue-still at Pinkshine's side for a few moments, their shoulders brushing whenever the calico's weren't staggering with gasping breaths. "You're not-" You're not supposed to do this. But she said she was happy- and he could believe her, maybe... give her that benefit of the doubt. Nothing had happened that would make her upset, he didn't think...

Her eyes glimmered with a sunny thought. A flame of endearment struggled out of his throat, and Featherspine parted her lips, though something snagged in the connection between brain and mouth that wasn't just his stutter. You're so strange, you're so confusing, you're so... "Come on," Featherspine said, but there was a guarded-yet-genuine breath of laughter that pulsed through her voice. "This isn't the new status quo, is it? I'd p-puh... p-prefer that you smile when you're happy." In a gentler tone, she added, "It suits you much more." Really he just couldn't stand the sound of her crying, even if it was borne of happiness. ​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[sparkspirit]

The day that he had earned his own name is still blazed into Sparkspirit's mind. Not his reaction to it (seems silly, looking back– like if it was so important, why can't he remember what his face did; what his heart felt like?) but Sootstar's. Weaselclaw's. There is no sharing this now. To revere the ill-remembered dead the way that Sparkspirit does would have him ostracized in the clan. This is the first moment he had considered that maybe, just maybe, some cats didn't have to feal like that. There were many warriors named after Sunstar's ascension but it had all felt unimportant to him. Nearly rote.

Now there is Pinkshine. A blubbery mess, sobbing that she is happy. That this is a good thing. She had earned it the way that Sparkspirit had with so much less pain. In some bizarre corner of his mind. . . he's jealous. Between the dark tangled cobwebs of buried memories and could-have-been wonderings, he burns with the realization that his kin had it so much better than he did. Her WindClan got to stay. Her WindClan was– good clean safe promising here, in a way that Sparkspirit's WindClan never would be again.

But somewhere alongside that fire is a broken-hearted joy, because no matter what awful pain this new WindClan has caused him, it had done right by her. Pinkshine was good. She deserved to be good. "You're gonna have to take a bath in that puddle when you calm down," he jests awkwardly. "I think a smile would have been much cleaner."

𝘛𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘓𝘌𝘋 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘋𝘚 𝘛𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘐  ･｡ﾟ  🗲  ╱╱ 02.13.2023 𝘊𝘈𝘕𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘚𝘈𝘠 ˊˎ＜

• OOC. —
• 🗲　　. 　 ˚　.  SPARKSPIRIT. HE - HIM - HIS. 17 MOON OLD MOOR RUNNER OF WINDCLAN. VERY LOYAL TO HIS CLAN. PENNED BY REVELATIONS.  ————
  
  
  ——  a trim mock tortoiseshell tom with mostly black fur splashed with the occasional patch orange. he has a singular white mark on the back of his neck shaped similarly to a lightning strike, and a small scar across the bridge of his nose. his eyes are a shocking electric blue.
  

  ✦ ECHOLIGHT x ELMBREEZE. ADOPTED BY YEWBERRY. BRIGHTFAM, BUT SOMEWHAT ESTRANGED DUE TO HIS LOYALTY TO WINDCLAN. ————————

• "speech"

​

 

[Frightpaw]

*+:｡.｡ Frightpaw couldn't say her first ceremony was one she'd fondly remember. It felt almost like a punishment; a consequence for matricide was to lose your title of a child and get booted out of your nest into a whole new, crowded world. If it'd been anyone else, Frightpaw would've found the humor. She's left only with the tools to be envious and bitter in her situation.
"And quieter " Frightpaw adds, brow raised above cold, moonlight eyes. She almost didn't believe Pinkshine when she claimed to be happy. Wasn't happiness inherently tied to smiles and laughter? She watches Pinkshine's blubbering with an intense stony gaze, debating if she should call her out on faking. Maybe she was having a tantrum and trying to avoid cats like Ferretpaw from kicking her for it by saying she's happy. Frightpaw decides to file that strategy away for later.

Still, curious to poke holes into her claims, Frightpaw would smile politely and inquire, "What're you so happy about? "

*+:｡.｡ Updated 6/18/24

• 
  
• 
  " Speech "
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ☾ Frightpaw
  ☾ DFAB— She/Her — Unsure
  ☾ 6 moons — Ages 1 moon every month real-time
  ☾ Windclan apprentice
  ☾ Sister to Deatpaw, Witherpaw, Grasspaw, Whitepaw and Midnightpaw
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ☾Physically very easy | mentally mediocre
  ☾ Attack in bold #1b1e21
  injuries: None

​

 

[PINKSHINE]

Featherspine's familiar grumble has her eyes peeping open, teary and red. She calls her a dustbrain, and Pinkshine very eloquently refutes the label with a snot - filled sniffling. What do you mean? He sounds so confused that it makes her laugh, warbling giggles shaking her shoulders at the same time tears roll down her face. She admits, " I dunno. " Cause she doesn't really do this. She doesn't cry when she's happy. Crying was for when she was too sad to just frown. And frowning for when she was too sad to even smile... Featherspine was at her side now, and Pinkshine slumps against him gracelessly. She's just as confused as she is. When a white paw reaches to wipe her eyes, the tears just keep coming... Was Featherspine making it worse, somehow? She couldn't look so gross in front of her...

Come on her friend says, and she's laughing too, even if it didn't make any sense... Maybe it was because of how silly this was... How weird it was for Pinkshine to cry. The calico sniffs. A vigorous shake of her head denies her of a super scary future like that, one where she can't stop her face from leaking. " I... M-me too, " she says, and wipes her tears again. It suits you much more. Her stomach does this weird twisty - turny thing... What's wrong with her today?

Her head lifts at Sparkspirit's voice. The tears have stopped coming... now she just needed her cheeks to dry. She nods in snuffly agreement. " M'not gonna do it again... I promise, " Not like she'd done it on purpose, but she promises this anyways with a twitch of her tail.

With Frightpaw, she has an opportunity to talk all about her favorite things! And she takes it up, obviously. Of course. " Lots of things! " she's snotty when she says it, and her gaze passes over Frightpaw, over Sparkspirit, lingers on Featherspine, side - to - side, with the corners of her lips trembling... Even just around here, she has lots to be happy about. " All my f-friends... and my name, and... Did you know I like being a tunneler? " Her head lurches forward, fixing an expression of open - mouth shocked on the apprentice. " I didn't! "​