private MAKE YOU CARE ☽ GRIME

[grizzlyridge]

In the many, many moons that had carried on past his first separation from home, Grizzlyridge had forgotten the scent of home. Each twoleg had their scent, and at the time he'd thought it would never fade from his fur. That even beneath the dog, or the trees, he would always remember where he had belonged.

He hadn't.

The first time they touched him, he had felt only panic. The way that they swept him into their arms was more suffocating than safe. After the one that had pulled him into the shelter, how else was he to see them? How could they be the kind protectors he had once thought them to be, when this was what came of it? The shelter smelled of death and despair. The dogs that lived across the way barked ceaselessly. Even the neighbor, who he could not clearly see and spoke to him only through the bars, was little comfort. Quiet words he did not understand, held safely within his twolegs' arms for the first time in many moons– he has no idea they told his twoleg of the way that they had slept pressed together on opposite sides of the cold den wall separating them; how they would stand for a vantage point with which they could see each other, or meow loudly enough to be heard.

He had seen Grime for the first time in a small, too-bright room. It was nearly more of a comfort than even another SkyClanner would have been. Just as the shelter staff had said: they were instant friends. And so the journey home had been made not with one cat, but with two. A freshly-scarred cat as big as a dog and one just a bit smaller. The color of his eyes had been startling. Most everything about him had been, in truth.

But they are home now. The carpet is strange beneath his paws, and Grime must not fare any better. Grizzly does not run off to explore the home just yet, and instead settles on his belly near where the other tom had been deposited, and waits for him to speak.

˗ˏˋ〚  OOC NOTES INFORMATION 〛´ˎ˗

• ooc: @GRIME
• GRIZZLYRIDGE. world-weary warrior of skyclan.
  ──── uses he - him - his, may accept they - them - theirs.
  ──── about four years old.  a former pine group member.
  ──── homoromantic homosexual, but this may develop.
  
  a large, broad-shouldered highlander cat with lightly tufted curled ears and large paws made larger by extra toes. a solid seal point with only a small white marking on his muzzle and deep blue eyes.
• "speech"

​

 

[GRIME]

❝ INFO ❞ He wonders if this is some kind of omen. He's spent moons debating whether or not to pursue the loose thread lying limp between him and the clan cat. Every day that ended left him knowing it was another day the kits grew, potentially without a father in their lives. Even if he couldn't be certain they were his, her stoniness toward him was an indication of something, wasn't it? And when his stalling crawled into another moon, he thought about how disastrous it could be if they had a father with them, if he would disrupt instead of mend. When he'd finally dragged himself out of yet another alleyway fight to retrace his steps to the place they'd met, twolegs snapped him up.

Grime might have lost his mind without Grizzly's steadiness, though when another set of twolegs whisks them both away into a den quieter than the last, that risk remains.

Grizzly settles down, clearly uncomfortable but looking better than Grime feels. He crouches, holding himself so tensely he might fray apart. The fur's stiff on his back, slightly raised. His stare swings back to the other tom and his curled ears, wild-eyed and alarmed. "I," he starts, sounding out of breath. Grime inhales audibly. "I really, really have to pee. Where's the– the gray sand thing?"
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[grizzlyridge]

His twolegs have retreated some, resting on their not-nest, sides pressed together and hands held in silence. It had been like this before, when he would meet another pet. It had been like this with the dog that had chased him from them to begin this journey– it had snapped and snarled and they had deemed it too dangerous; it should never have been close enough to threaten him. But it was. They could not protect him from everything. Grizzly knows that now. But it was better here than the wilderness, where food is as unknown as the cats around them. He would try to show Grime that not everything needed to be a fight, that sometimes twolegs are kind and good, and care for you deeply. Not all out there would take advantage.

He might have laughed at him, were he not trying so hard to make him more comfortable in this place. "You can't smell it?" Grizzlyridge tilts his head, though he realizes a moment later that of course Grime would not know it as well as he. "Come here." The layout of this den is not at all like their last. It is still so barren, freshly moved. His own scent must have been long-gone from their last as well, but to be confronted with its absence here is unpleasant. He flicks one ear and trots off, swallowing the feeling, to nod Grime into the room that has clearly been set up as theirs. A place to climb, others to rest, bowls of water and places for food– the former is empty as of now. They will come if he asks.

"This one has shelter." Grizz leaps on top of it and settles down in wait. "It will feel better."

˗ˏˋ〚  OOC NOTES INFORMATION 〛´ˎ˗

• ooc: —
• GRIZZLYRIDGE. world-weary warrior of skyclan.
  ──── uses he - him - his, may accept they - them - theirs.
  ──── about four years old.  a former pine group member.
  ──── homoromantic homosexual, but this may develop.
  
  a large, broad-shouldered highlander cat with lightly tufted curled ears and large paws made larger by extra toes. a solid seal point with only a small white marking on his muzzle and deep blue eyes.
• "speech"

​

 

[GRIME]

❝ INFO ❞ He keeps glancing at the twolegs, just in case they decide to snatch him up in their strange, long-toed paws like the ones at the shelter. Grime doesn't like the way they stare, though he thinks they're pretending not to because he notices them looking away sometimes. Grizz has been good to him, but he doesn't know if he's capable of doing this every day for the rest of his life. He must not have been either, if he'd wound up in SkyClan and stayed there.

Shifting his weight between paws, he casts the pale cat an insincere, baleful glare. "I'm sorry my nose isn't trained to hunt down the peeing box," he says, defensive, but Grizzly fortunately drops it to lead him through the odd-scented den and into another area. Reminds him of the common room in the shelter, with the climbing spaces and little fake-pools for food and water. Not that he's keen on either right now, and he doesn't take time to drink in the sights as his companion hops onto a sandbox different than the one he'd used before.

He examines it and Grizzly dubiously, but need wins out and he forces his way inside. It's dark, and he doesn't like that so much, and he's quick about his business to escape sooner. Except he's got the sand all in his toes again. "Dirt would be cleaner," he grumbles, slamming a paw into the nearby den-wall to shake loose the grains. "How do you even fit in there? Or is it bigger when someone's not sitting on top of it?"
​