backwritten LOTUS WINE 𓇼 CLAYTHORN

[shellpool]

the sun dims. claythorn asks her what she is looking for, and shellpaw doesn't really know — something special, she thinks, and is all she can come up with. regardless, claythorn is still leagues past her in vision, not bearing the curse of rheumy eyes and white films to blink away when she wakes. thin curls are drenched to midlimb where she's strewn out past the shore, squinting against the glare of sun smattering her reflection into bursts of gold - alabaster light, " can . . can you see anything? " she asks, above the low murmur of greenleaf - thrumming insects, the croon of grasshoppers and beat of dragonfly wings brushing their eartips.

" i dunno what, um . . i want it to look like. maybeee something yellow? " golden. for reasons she can't totally explain, that seemed the best option for pinekit. white paws splash in the low water, the sleek feel of curls threaded warm along her forearms as she digs aside pale, unassuming stones, waiting for the dust cloud to settle before peering through with eyes straining against the molten light of sunset, " hey claythorn, what did you, um . . do with that pebble you found? the other day? " it was pretty, and the steel - lined molly had been uncharacteristically drenched when she's emerged after the dive for it, " was it, like . . special? "

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ° 𓇼 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒

• i. a lil backwritten surprise thread for @claythorn hehe
• 
• SHELLPAW 𓆉 SHE / HER. SEVEN MOONS OLD, APPRENTICE OF RIVERCLAN, MENTORED BY LICHENSTAR ; SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. HAZECLOUD xx LICHENSTAR, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. PENNED BY ANTLERS ----------------- ° ❀ ⋆
  frail alabaster molly with lilac striping and watery amber eyes.
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of dovey lilac curls, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore and plush enough to conceal the juts of malnutrition beneath. tufted elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined rheumy, rosen amber. the anemic cold pink - purple at tender paws and nose tell a lifetime of sickness, further made obvious by the feathering weakness in half - whispered tones.
  

  CHRONICALLY ILL ; prone to wheezing, nose at a constant drip from longterm illness - induced nasal polyps. not contagious.

​

 

[claythorn]

Water brushes over her paws- she thinks, this is good. She thinks, this is what she needs in order to progress. To place herself into the very thing she may fear the most, to let it breath and move around her like she was a tree in the breeze. And, perhaps whilst in these thoughts, she had spaced out. Shellpaw's words caused her ears to perk and twitch, and with a small glance towards her, she looked back to the water in earnest once more.

She didn't answer at first- yellow, Shellpaw asks for. A color rare amongst the beds of cool and gray tones, but one that would make it all the more worth finding. Claythorn doesn't answer her question at first either, so when she speaks, it's about the situation at paw, not what happened in the past. "Stay steady. Moving the rocks without looking first will cover up the more vibrant stone." She says softly. Claythorn's head turned finally, still scanning the waters as she responded.

"The.. green one?" She murmured eventually, recalling the stone with stark awareness. Seafoam, like his eyes- the ones that had taunted her, and now warmed at the sight of her. Ever so slightly, but definitely in the range of... possessiveness. She couldn't help but like that in him. She was his, and he was hers. That was how it was supposed to be, right? "It... is special. It's for... my to-be mate." Claythorn finally admitted. There was no reason to keep a secret, right?

Claythorn pushed to her paws, finally. Where she felt awkward, her paws placed with definite grace. "Look. Do you see it?" She said, breaking her original train of thought. Under the tides, just a hint deeper then Shellpaw would be able to stand in, a marbled orange and yellow stone, nestled into the bed of grays. The water here was deeper, the hue of water turning it ever so slightly blue, but Claythorn knew it would be bright when it was pulled from the water.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ┌── WHO ENCRYPTED YOUR DARK ⋅❁⋅ GOSPEL IN BODY LANGUAGE? ──┐‎

• "speech"

• 

• CLAYTHORN she/her, warrior of riverclan, fifteen moons.
  ⭃ LH chocolate torbie with mismatched golden eyes, scars across her right cheek and over her left ear. cold exterior and threatening glares, built for stamina/battle and not swimming (tall/muscled)
  ⭃ mentored by darkbranch (npc) / / mentoring no one
  ⭃ mated to otterbite / / only child
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by dallas ↛ dallasofnines on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

​

 

[shellpool]

moving the rocks will cover up the more vibrant ones, claythorn says, and shellpaw retracts her paw from newly dirt - swirled waters with a sheepish blink, " ye - yeah, that makes sense. " mumbled from guilty grinning lips, the hunch her spine curves straightening beneath the molly's gentle tone. despite her barbed name and the strength that squares mottled shoulders, claythorn was a nice and comforting presence. perhaps it was the warmth of new life ; shellpaw wouldn't know anything about that, really, but hazecloud had always mentioned a glow that queens got once their belles were all round. claythorn had a glow pretty much all the time, in the same way a wildfire did . . the untouchable halo of flame, now tempered and soothed to a kindling.

the green one? she hums, and the lilac - ribboned girl nods her head eagerly in response, blinking away a brief and subsequent haze over her vision. it's for my to-be mate. small tabby ears prick forward. her to - be mate . . she had wondered, but her mother would cuff her over the ear for being blatant enough to ask.

" ohhh . . hehe. " a quiet giggle, eyes squinting - soft as if she were whispering across nests with a fellow apprentice. her tail comes out of the water on a rickety purr, a long and drenched willow - plume dripping loud plink - plink - plinks into the rippling water below -- claythorn was going to have a mate, had someone that liked her lots and lots and lots . . and wasnt that so special? it had thawed the ice - laden warrior to how she was now, and shellpaw could only thank them for it. whoever it was, " i bet they, they'll like it a lot . . if i got that, i'd cherish it forever and ever and, um . . ever. " it was true. for a moment, she lapses into silence . . and then," do you love them? " she had to. to carry their kits, to gift them a pretty, pretty stone . . that was what something like that usually meant, right?

her gift for pinepaw wasn't like that. she just wanted the tortie apprentice to have something that reminded her of shellpaw. something that she could tuck around at night to sleep, to bring her comfort, to see her through the day in reminder that her friend was waiting for her at the end of it. that was . . plenty different. she mulls it over, maw parting to say something else, something quickly forgotten when — look. shellpaw whips her head around to where claythorn is directing, blinking against the sudden glare of sunset - light reflecting the riverwater into strawberry toned eyes. sure enough, there was something glittering against the pale grey - browns of rocks and stones and algae. an off - kilter blue, shaded a gentle orange in the dimming light. she squints, gasps a bubbled gulp of air and splashes her forepaws forward excitedly, " i see it! hold on, i'll, i'll get it! "

this was something she was pretty good at, diving into the water like an egret, moon - pale curls flowing out from diving ilmbs. when she emerges, she trudges towards the shore as if shes carrying another cat, stomping drenched - heavy body forward with a visage of gleaming pride beaming shell cracked features. sure enough, it is yellow ; a brilliant and odd shade of gold, misshapen and almost - round where stones were often smooth and oblong. spitting it onto the shore, she can see that it's almost flat. curved, sealed like a little maw and cracked as if it could be opened. the thing was pretty, but, " is it . . actually a rock? it looks like there might be, be something inside. "

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ° 𓇼 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒

• i.
• 
• SHELLPAW 𓆉 SHE / HER. SEVEN MOONS OLD, APPRENTICE OF RIVERCLAN, MENTORED BY LICHENSTAR ; SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. HAZECLOUD xx LICHENSTAR, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. PENNED BY ANTLERS ----------------- ° ❀ ⋆
  frail alabaster molly with lilac striping and watery amber eyes.
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of dovey lilac curls, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore and plush enough to conceal the juts of malnutrition beneath. tufted elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined rheumy, rosen amber. the anemic cold pink - purple at tender paws and nose tell a lifetime of sickness, further made obvious by the feathering weakness in half - whispered tones.
  

  CHRONICALLY ILL ; prone to wheezing, nose at a constant drip from longterm illness - induced nasal polyps. not contagious.

​

 

[claythorn]

She could hear the question in Shellpaw's soft 'oh', followed by a giggle. Her ear twitched in very minor amusement, but she wasn't one to tell without being asked. No, Claythorn's bitter chill that followed her fire-licked pelt was one she hoped was near infamous. A warning, to keep away from her unless you needed. Perhaps that's why she was slightly mystified by Shellpaw. Asked for help finding a stone.

She opens her mouth to respond to her second comment, when the question that followed it caused her to all but freeze. To stiffen. Love? Was that what she and him shared? A modicum of agreement, yes, a 'I protect you, you protect my lineage' contract shared between them, sealed with a new life growing from them. But love? Claythorn's ears tilted backwards. Recognized that Otterbite's distance was more then it was before, when she was a warrior. But what could she do to fix that? Nothing.

Claythorn had seen how he ignored kits. That was no level of a lie, some kind of bitter truth she had been swallowing alongside the pride and joy of seeing her progression, of becoming a mother. No, instead, she chooses not to answer this question and is thankfully interrupted by Shellpaw seeing what she sees, the 'look' carrying across the water softly.

The queen watches with a level of.. satisfaction, seeing the apprentice diving so well. She remembered seeing her emerge from the medicine den, finally cleared enough to become an apprentice, healthy enough to keep up with her peers. That much, Claythorn was happy for. Moonbeam did what she knew best, keeping Shellpaw as healthy as possible- her ears perked as the apprentice re-emerged, carrying not a stone, but a shell. Irony, she thinks, and she rises to her paws to follow her to shore.

She hasn't seen one of these in a while, her colony the last time she had really seen one opened and it was rare at that- so it takes a moment for her to remember. Claythorn shifted, settling down after a moment. "It's.. a clam, I believe. Those are shells." She gestures to the two halves of the thing, where the 'maw' split open to reveal halves. "There's a critter that lives in there.. like a snail, yes? I don't think it's edible but it lives in there." She mentions, nodding once as she finished explaining.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ┌── WHO ENCRYPTED YOUR DARK ⋅❁⋅ GOSPEL IN BODY LANGUAGE? ──┐‎

• "speech"

• 

• CLAYTHORN she/her, queen of riverclan, fifteen moons.
  ⭃ LH chocolate torbie with mismatched golden eyes, scars across her right cheek and over her left ear. cold exterior and threatening glares, built for stamina/battle and not swimming (tall/muscled)
  ⭃ mentored by darkbranch (npc) / / mentoring no one
  ⭃ mated to otterbite / / only child
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by dallas ↛ dallasofnines on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

​