- Apr 3, 2024
- 105
- 26
- 28
CW for gender dysphoria & confusion
⊱⊰ The hunting patrol had been… uncomfortable. He’d refused to speak even a word to anyone else, unwilling to give the traitors who’d helped kill Howlingstar and hurt his uncle the satisfaction of knowing that they haunt him. He had glowered at even Lovelight, undeserving as they were, for daring to drag him on a patrol away from Gentlestorm. As heavy as his concern for his uncle was, as stiff as his focus on catching prey had been, the lilac-furred apprentice had found his thoughts slipping away as he worked. Strange thoughts, stuffed into the shadowed recesses of his mind, began to press their way to the forefront. They demanded attention, demanded to be revisited. Hopepaw, perhaps stupidly, listened to them. Now, he finds himself back in camp, and he has to say something… doesn’t he?
"Gentlestorm, I think… I think something might be wrong with me." He stands hunched over despite his size, an awkwardly-shaped shadow darkening his uncle’s den. There is a long pause, wherein Hopepaw says nothing. He merely stands in the den’s entrance, trying desperately to convince himself to take that last step inside. It won’t be that bad, he reasons, he’ll just tell me that I’m fine. And truthfully, he hopes that his uncle will tell him everything is fine. Gentlestorm is still recovering from the wounds that Hopepaw feared would kill him. It feels… unfair, to bring his own problems to the medicine cat, even if it is his duty. Who else can he speak to, though? Roeflame is missing her kits, her real kits, and her mate. Braveheart and Coalpaw are both… too young, he thinks. Whatever the reason, the idea of approaching any of his brothers with something like this seems mortifying. There are few other warriors that he can trust under Skyclaw’s brutish rule, which leaves only his pale-furred uncle.
It isn’t as though Gentlestorm has anywhere to be, at least. A captive audience, even if it is one that Hopepaw feels guilty for holding captive. He doesn’t meet the older tom’s eyes as he continues, "I don’t like it when anyone calls me… a tom. I don’t like it when they call me handsome or that stuff." He thinks back to Myrtlekit and her compliments, how she’d called him handsome… She had been so nice, is so nice, but her compliment had still made him feel weird. And then he thinks of Coltkit, and the word pretty, and the way his face had felt impossibly warm at the compliment. He’d spent all day repeating it in his head, staring at his face every time he’d seen his own reflection in puddles of water. "But… I am a tom. I’m Batwing and Leopardtongue’s son. And I’m your nephew." He knows that Dovepaw isn’t a tom or a she-cat, they’re somewhere in between—both and neither at the same time. However, being… in between doesn’t feel right, either.
He knows that, physically, there’s nothing wrong with him. He just feels wrong. Like everything that his clanmates see is wrong, his pelt a thin barrier that does little to defend him from their judgment. In a voice kept low by uncertainty, he murmurs, "Sometimes I wish I could be like Littlepaw." Why her specifically, though… he’s still trying to figure it out. Maybe because she’s his only sister, and Littlepaw is daughter and niece and pretty. It’s with a start that Hopepaw realizes that maybe he… also wants to be all those things. But copper eyes fall upon the medicine cat’s patched-up wounds once again, and the sight of crimson splashes against his muddled mind. "Um… sorry. Do you need anything?" He turns away, putting his back to his uncle as he begins to inspect the various plants kept stowed away in the den. They all look the same to him, but if Gentlestorm needs one of them, he’ll do his best to get it. Anything to keep his uncle from having to rise from his nest.
- ooc: @GENTLESTORM
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HOPEPAW ❯❯ he/him, thunderclan apprentice
⊱ skinny, thick-furred lilac tom with deep copper eyes. soft-spoken and sleepy, but can be a bit of a grouch.
⊱ son ofbatwingandleopardtongue(adopted by roeflame) ; brother to braveheart, hazepaw, cardinalpaw, coalpaw ; adoptive brother to beetlepaw, dovepaw, littlepaw
⊱ mentored by lovelight
⊱ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted ; does not typically like physical contact from anyone besides his family
⊱ penned by foxlore
