pafp LISTEN TO THE RAIN FALLIN' — prompt

[iciclefang]

Her dreams are restless and filled with memories. She moves through corridors full of shadows, and when they take shape, they are cats with gleaming, pupil-less eyes. Stormpaw, limp, fur drying in spikes from dog saliva, from blood—Little Wolf, banked in snow with her life bleeding out before the eyes of her mate, her Clanmates. Iciclefang kneels at a thousand graves in her dream—her sister’s, Stalkingpaw’s, Cicadastar’s—and the last is of a living cat, a cat she should lay to rest but that she cannot, a cat whose scent she carefully rinses from her fur with icy river water before she returns to camp.

When dawn clumsily pushes its way through the reeds covering the warrior’s den, Iciclefang wakes easily and with gratitude. She leaves the shadows and the dead where they belong—behind her—and she walks into a brisk and frigid morning. An early leafbare snow carpets the pebbly shores, the sand, and frost gleams silver from the willow’s barren branches. She sits, wrapping her tail around ivory paws. “So it begins,” she murmurs—she can observe the faintest webbing of ice at the very edges of the water that runs through camp. “It's like the stars themselves descended."

[ please wait for @NETTLEPAW ; prompt thread: "Clanmates see a sight before them and gasp and coo in awe, Nettlepaw can only guess what he is unable to see based entirely on context clues." ]

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[Nettlepaw-]

NETTLEPAW ♂
RIVERCLAN
APPRENTICE
FOUR MOONS
BLIND IN BOTH EYES
BIOGRAPHY AND TAGS
APPRENTICED TO PIKESPLASH
PLAYED BY SHEOGORATH​

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He's tired, but that's not unusual. Sleep has not been peaceful for the boy since his mother died, since those rogues had driven them out of camp after camp. The screeches still echo within his ears, the blood still rests upon his nose. As he shakes himself awake, however, Nettlepaw pushes the memories back with a fierce yawn, before stumbling to his cotton hued paws.

It's cold when he steps outside, paws that sink into the thin crust of a glistening snow that he can only imagine the beauty of. Nettlepaw isn't used to it yet, and just as he has the last time it snowed, his march is an exaggerated gait as he flicks freezing moisture from each paw he lifts, before placing another down. One ear flicks as he hears the voices of his clan-mates, recognizes Iciclefang among the quiet, morning chatter.

"What is?" The boy questions, scenting the air.

He doesn't smell Pikesplash. Perhaps his mentor was still asleep? And it didn't seem that patrols for the day had been sent out yet, either. Nettlepaw had nothing better to do for the moment, it seemed.

Clouded eyes shift to the Lead Warrior, and he sees only the blinding white of the surrounding snow, and the glow of the sky. He can only guess what she must mean. In the past moon, he has learned that his breath swirls like mist from his jaws, and that the snow glitters like a pale night sky, though these are things Nettlepaw has never actually seen for himself. He has also been told of ice, a harsh, shining thing that creeps across the water, and might one day freeze their river solid.

"The snow?" Nettlepaw guesses as he steps closer to take a seat a mere tail-length away. The sounds of gentle water flowing through the camp fill his ears as the chill of a leaf-bare wind nips at his nose. "Or... the ice?" He wonders if ice glistens the way he's been told of snow. Why was it different, anyways? He decides to ask, "Why is ice hard and snow soft? Aren't they both frozen water?" Nettlepaw inquires thoughtfully. Why was one so different if they were birthed from the same source?
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[FERNGILL]

Ferngill woke early with the pushing of the light, bruising through his eyelids in orange glow. The sun in leafbare seemed harsher despite its lack of warmth- it rose him from sleep, set him in strides toward where his Clanmates would be gathering. Conversation would bud before duty bloomed, and now that he was not so behind, Ferngill could find a fleeting excuse not to hurl himself immediately into work.

He would've expected Iciclefang to be getting herself ready, honing her claws for the hardships of the day- instead, he followed her eyes to the riverside, curiosity grasping his attention. The frost, like glittering dust, salted the reeds- the river glimmered with starshine in daylight. For everything that Leafbare brought, it was at least beautiful. "Nice to know they're looking out for us," Ferngill murmured, the words woven in a misty breath that plumed from his smile. It was a nice thought.

Nettlepaw snagged his attention, then- a single green eye settled upon the young apprentice, and he hoped the smile sat on his face might bleed into his voice. "Snow and ice."

His question, though- it crumpled Ferngill's face into a thoughtful frown. "I... don't know," he murmured, bewildered. Neither could he find any possible reason for it in the crevices of his mind. "Sometimes things are just like that. The sun's bright and the moon's not, but they're both light."​

✦ penned by pin ✦​