- Aug 17, 2022
- 147
- 127
- 43
He was not stranger to uncertainty. His head had been held low for so long it was a wonder he recognized any cat by their face and not their paws. Snowpaw felt almost normal again, he would never truly be but this was a start. In his keen observation of his clanmates he noted their peculiarities, their misgivings, their hesitations. It was hard not to see, it was all so familiar to him now. He wore his burden upon his shoulders and it never grew smaller but the weight began to seem less crushing over time. Snowpaw was growing into it, adapting to it, understanding how to exist with it. Even still he found his ears flatten at sharp voices, would recoil when a cat bumped into him accidentally or friendly; he still had nightmates, but that was the thing about pushing forward-eventually they stopped being so overpowering. He did not run, he did not cower, but his reactions displayed he was still not recovered.
The blue tabby was sitting in the camp, dawn patrol left him groggy and morose and he glanced at the prize he had stumbled across during it that almost made the early venture worthwhile. Pristine, unbroken, a flawless cicadashell; round glassy eyes and a seamlessly torn back where the insect had emerged. He had given one of these to Greenpaw a long time ago, so long it felt like another life entirely, another cat; blissful kittens unaware of the world and all its struggles. He wondered if Greenpaw kept his, he wondered if it was smashed and forgotten like so many things left behind in the nursery. Snowpaw glanced up from his staring at the carapace, golden gaze drifting listlessly until they settled upon black and white fur huddled off to the side and pressed back into the trunk of a tree in what he could clearly tell was a defensive position. Nothing was happening to Termitepaw, not that he could see, but the signs of fear were so thickly plastered over the other apprentice it was hard not to think they were under attack given their posture. Sometimes, he realized, the scariest things were the ones you couldn't see.
The dappled tom rose to stand, teeth gingerly picking up his insect shell by one curled leg to carry it with him over to the and he paused to make his steps heavy, his presence known to not startled before promptly setting it down in front of her with care and stepping back; distance for security.
"Did you know.." He started, voice heavy from his lack of use of it-he rarely spoke unless necessary anymore, "...that Cicada start like this? Crawling insects, low to the earth. When they come from the shell they have wings."
-- @TERMITEPAW
