lord of the flies [greeneyes]

[Soma]

YOU KEEP THE SUNSHINE,
SAVE ME THE RAIN​

---

"Come on! he groaned in frustration, a growl lining the edges of his words. Why the hell couldn't he do this?

Making a nest out of moss and whatnot shouldn't have been such a problem, especially when Soma had already proven he was clever with his paws in the past. Shaping some bedding shouldn't have been so hard to do, and if he was honest, it also probably shouldn't have frustrated him so much either. It was just a nest after all.

Your getting worked up over nothing, just relax. he scolded himself inwardly, knowing full well what his problem was; he was putting too much pressure on himself again.

Attending all of the classes being held, learning dozens of new faces and names, trying to sharpen his skills enough to avoid needing a mentor- all while trying to keep his younger brother, Junco, happy. He was stretching himself too thin, and his nest was just another drop in the ocean, more pressure against the dam wall holding it all back.

Forget it. There was no reason for him to get all worked up over a bed when there were twenty other cats in camp that could help him with it. Did he want to approach them and give them a reason to dislike him more? Not really. But Soma was very much aware that it had been his decision to come to Skyclan, forcing a reluctant sibling along with him. That meant it was his responsability to figure this all out so that he could make things work for them- even if that meant forcing himself out of his comfort zone.

"Hey-" he called as he lened out of the dens entrance, yellow-green eyes landing on another tomcat that looked to be around his age. "Um, could I maybe get your help with something, if your not busy?"

A part of him hated talking to other cats. He always felt too big, like the horrific scars along his shoulders and neck from the dog attack drew the eyes of those around him. If that didn't unnerve people, usually his voice did, an unnusually deep rumble that had him keeping quiet around cats more often than not.

And yet, for as intimidating or off-putting as he may have looked, there was a clear attempt to not be those things as he stood there speaking to Greeneyes, head lowered as if to make himself look smaller. "My nest keeps falling apart."

​

---

skyclan - male - 12 months - single - a tall, muscular tomcat with asymmetrical tuxedo markings and yellow-green eyes.

 

[GREENEYES]

Despite the tom's snow-splashed face typically being a welcoming sight among the clan, Greeneyes has found himself not being such for the shelter's newcomers.

An avoidance, a wariness - a twisting guilt, one that makes him feel like he should be welcoming the refugees rescued alongside SkyClan's capture, but one that resents their presence in the same breath.

His mother should have come home, should've been among those rescued. Instead, a plethora of new faces took her place - a moment of celebration for everyone else turned into a moment of mourning for Greeneyes and his siblings. He'd be fine if SkyClan's refugees remained in the shelter, if that meant Daisyflight could still be here. If his whole family could have remained as it was before twolegs thought it a game, placing traps in the forest, taking cats away from their homes.

Even so, that doesn't mean he wouldn't at least try to be a welcoming face, when the moment called for it.

Such as now. Greeneyes is lounging outside of the warrior's den, a bite taken out of the mouse that sits at his paws, when a head pops out of the den's entrance. A rumbling voice asks for help, and the young warrior is quick to scan the area, as if making sure he's the one being asked, before looking up at the large statured feline that gazes upon him. One of the newcomers.

"Oh! Uh..." If you're not busy, the black and white tom adds. Greeneyes glances down at the mouse he'd been chewing on - an excuse sat before him, a reason to not have to deal with the shelter cat. It only takes a moment of hesitation for him to decide to set his mouse aside for the time being. He supposes it can wait - surely it wouldn't take too long, whatever he's needed to assist with? "Sure, sure!"

He rises to his paws, expecting to be able to meet the tom's gaze, but ending up having to look up at him in his smaller stature. His head tilts to the side, ginger ears twitching.

Now, just because he's been doing his best to not have to talk to most of the shelter cats doesn't mean that he's been avoiding trying to place names to faces. Sometimes it's easier than others, but he struggles for a moment with this one's.

"Um... Soma, right...?" he finally asks, finally picks out a name from the depths of his mind. Greeneyes hopes it's the right one, that he hasn't just called the tom by someone else's name. "So, what do you need help with?"

His nest keeps falling apart. Intimidating in nature, thunder-voiced, and yet, bears a simple problem to fix. And though Greeneyes would rather not have to do the apprentice task of building someone else's nest, he's already here, already talking to the hulking tom.

"Oh, that's an easy one!" Greeneyes hums, his crooked tail swaying behind him. "You gotta kind of... weave it together. You know, make sure it's all in one piece to start? Bring it here, I can show you."
​

 

[Soma]

YOU KEEP THE SUNSHINE,
SAVE ME THE RAIN​

---

It shouldn't put him so on edge, talking to Greeneyes, but it does. He's used to whatever attention he receives being negative, and there's a part of him that seems to constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop whenever he has to engage another like this. It's almost laughable considering he's strong enough to knock another cats head for a loop for disrespecting him, but it's an anxiety he constantly lives with- this underlying fear that there's something wrong with him that the others can see.

To his well-hidden relief though, it isn't scorn that the other cat meets him with. He feels a momentary flash of guilt once he realizes he's interupted their meal, but before he can backtrack the other is already agreeing to help him.

"Um, thanks. I'll go grab it."he says, stepping backwards and back into the den.

It takes a few moment for him to gather up the many clumps of moss that was his nest, reappearing in the entrance a moment later and slipping out to join the other.

"It's, uh, not much of a nest right now." he admits sheepishly, towering frame shifting from paw to paw as he looks at the messy bundle of green he'd just placed between them. "I don't know if my paws or too big, or if I'm just not doing it right, but..." he pulled a couple clumps closer to him and tried forming them together into something that looked relatively passable, pressing the balls of moss together as if they would magically stick on their own.

They in fact, did not.

"It just keeps coming undone."

​

---

skyclan - male - 13 months - single - a tall, muscular tomcat with asymmetrical tuxedo markings and yellow-green eyes.

 

[GREENEYES]

That's an easy one, Greeneyes had said mere moments before. Easy, he thought it would be - the young warrior has been weaving nests together since he'd been a newly-named paw, so Greeneyes was expecting Soma's nest to be a simple fix.

His expectations are defied when Soma reemerges from the warrior den with multiple clumps of moss, torn apart and strewn in between the two of them. This will take more work than he'd originally thought - more so than most nests Greeneyes has made. It's not much of a nest, the large tom notes.

"I see that," Greeneyes chirps, inspecting the moss for a moment longer before meeting Soma's matching gaze. "But, we can fix it." The newcomer demonstrates with large paws how he's been trying to build his nest, merely pushing the clumps back together in an action that Greeneyes knows right away will only lead to its demise once again before Soma can let go of the moss, before it can crumble apart between them.

"Here, let me show you something," he says, pulling a few clumps towards him. Sharp claws unsheath from white paws, and he lifts one to show Soma. "Sometimes you have to use your claws. I know it sounds silly, but it works." Claws sink into the moss, prodding at it until it forms a shape similar to the one the newcomer had just tried to make.

"See?" he pushes the newly-bundled moss towards the tom for him to look at. "Try it! But you can't scratch at it. That'll shred the moss, and you'll be worse off than what you started with."

Silence sits in the air for a short moment as the young warrior awaits the shelter cat's attempt, preparing to give pointers if needed. Soma doesn't seem too bad, he realizes, even with his rumbling voice, his intimidating stance. And, though Greeneyes still feels a twinge of wariness at his presence, he thinks the shelter cat might be a good one to keep around the camp. If he figures out how to make his own nest, of course.

"So, where did you come from, Soma?" he asks, crooked tail idly thumping against the ground, "Or... before the shelter, I mean?" Had the twolegs scooped him up from his home, just as they'd done with SkyClan's warriors - with Greeneyes' family? With so many new faces, he can't help but wonder if they'd been forged in similar tales.
​

 

[Soma]

YOU KEEP THE SUNSHINE,
SAVE ME THE RAIN​

---

Despite being nervous about the entire situation, Soma listens diligently as the other shows him what to do. Regardless of whether he's nervous or not, he does want to learn how to do this so he's not constantly bugging other cats to fix his nest for him. Besides, he's always been the kind of cat to pay attention to the things- so long as he found them important, that is. Otherwise he did have a habit of getting distracted rather easily.

Greeneyes uses a technique he never would have considered, using his claws to poke the clumps of moss together, and at first Soma honestly expects him to end up poking unfixable holes into the thing. But the other quickly proves their skill over the task at hand, and instead of shredding the thing he ends up weaving the two pieces together.

"That... makes so much more sense than what I was doing." Soma admits with a rumbling chuckle, tail giving an embarrassed twitch behind him as the other warrior slides the nest back toward him with an invitation to try it for himself. And he does.

Silence overtakes them as Soma tries to focus on not accidentally ripping his own nest to shreds, and it's almost comical how he slowly and deliberately pokes the pieces of moss together with a single, hooked claw. It takes a little to get the technique down, the first couple prods resulting in the moss staying hooked to his claw in little bits, but he seems to get the general hang of it after a moment, ears twitching toward the ginger tom but eyes staying focused on the task when they ask him of his past.

Admittedly, having something to do with his paws does help alleviate some of the stress that question typically brings. He's not proud of his past or the things he did and didn't do, and admitting them out loud to another -even in the vaguest of terms- has never been easy. "Twolegplace, mostly." he replies, the words falling casually with no indication that the past was one that caused him guilt and grief in equal amounts. "My birth-mom ditched me when I was young, so I bounced around a lot between families." he explains easily, that being the simple part of things. "Juncos technically not my brother by blood, but his parents took me in after I lost my first adoptive family. After they left us I figured the least I could do was keep looking after Junco."

He avoids the details like the plague, doesn't even bring up his little sister or older brother. He'd mentioned her to Drizzlepaw and it had left him feeling sour for days afterward, and he isn't eager to repeat the process with Greeneyes.

"What about you? Have you always lived in Skyclan, or..?" he asks, glancing over at the other tom for a moment with curious look. "And am I doing this right?"
​

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skyclan- male - a tall, muscular tomcat with asymmetrical tuxedo markings and electric green eyes.