MADONNA LYRICS | merlinpaw

[WOLFPAW]

The first lot of apprentice duties had not been bad for the cream cameo, who instead of being taught how to hunt or fight, was instead shown one of ThunderClan's many borders and the inhabitants that lay beyond it. Within the apprentice den, the moon doing its best to shine through gaps in the fern canopy, Wolfpaw could not sleep, the day's events repeating in their head as if on a disc. They still remembered the awe they felt seeing a ShadowClanner for the first time, the fear of seeing a monster zooming past, the lessons Rowanthorn had tried to teach while they instead tried to interrogate the neighbours on their culture. It had been so much, but not too much. They looked out to the other nests, orange eyes blinking incessantly as they saw that Merlinpaw was still awake. Perhaps it wasn't uncharacteristic of their sister, she had been the one to fear apprenticeship the most, but optimism compelled them to believe that she felt the same as them.

Wolfpaw shuffled up to the tortoisehell's nest, belly dragging across the floor as if they were too exhausted to get up. In actuality, their limbs begged for more movement, to see beyond the pine forest, beyond ThunderClan, to see things not even the oldest cat in the clan had bore witness to. They wanted to witness all them things and more... but perhaps not tonight, when it was just two siblings and a den full of near-strangers that'd snip at them if they disturbed their sleep. Still, there was a smile upon Wolfpaw's muzzle, their hushed tone still able to convey an easy excitement. "I went to ShadowClan today." They waited to make sure Merlinpaw was listening before they continued. "It was so cool, the cats there were like actual shadows. I don't think I could've seen them if it was nighttime." They weren't necessarily secretive, but certainly mysterious, far more mysterious than any cat they'd known within their home.

With the logic they were running on, it would be a letdown if SkyClan didn't end up flying, and WindClan wasn't as fast as leopards. They tilted their head. "I want to see RiverClan next, to see how well they can swim. What about you?"


@MERLINPAW
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[MERLINPAW]

Where Wolfpaw found wonder and awe, Merlinpaw only found the terror of the sheer breadth of the unknown beyond the nursery. She had been aware of it, woven through stories of myth and monster alike, but to come to the head of what she did not know overwhelmed her. To her, it was like she had been thrown into another world, a world in which so much could go wrong. There had been so many new environments and too many new faces, as though she cast her misgivings into the abysm of her fear, a dreaded place that she would surely return to when the morning peeked around once more. Would she have to memorize the names of all the cats that she came across, would they glare at her with headlight-eyes and burn through her gossamer skin? And she could hardly understand why Howlingstar assigned her as an apprentice to the deputy, of all cats, setting a spotlight upon her. The moon glared through the cracks in the canopy, like a scope pitting through a chasm, invasive light that searched for her feeble form. Sleep evaded her, as it often did, for it seemed more slippery than the silvery fish that Riverclan caught. It had been the anticipation of the next day that stole away her peace, as though what had not happened yet had left her craven, moreso than she already had been.

Merlinpaw's dull goldens turned towards Wolfpaw shuffling towards her, with an excitement so unlike her own henhearted spirit at the rungs of the barathrum, something quite incomprehensible to the molly who feared even the outside of her own nest. How do they do it?, the young apprentice often thought of her siblings. She wondered why Starclan had imbued her with that sickening sensation of trepidation rather than the electricity that blitzed through the young and impressionable. "Oh... That's - That's cool." The blue tortoiseshell mustered a smile upon a down-laden face, though it came like a sluggard thing tamed and worn, despite the rosied youth that beat and brushed upon her fur. "Flamewhisker, she - I went to many, um, borders. Shadowclan 'n Windclan 'n Skyclan 'n, uh, Thunderclan. I mean, Riverclan." She mewled quietly as to not wake up the rest of her kin, pusillanimous even in the face of the slumbering. Merlinpaw had bunched herself up as not to take up as much space as she could, but the lumps of warm bodies still bled into her personal space... She found herself missing the more spacious nursery, though even she knew that she had outgrown that enclosure.​