camp may you always be satisfied ࿐࿔ jury

[lichenstar]

✦˚.✧˚✧˚✦˚ ✧ ˚✧˚✦˚✦.˚✧

CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY ✧

• "RiverClan."
  
  Her gaze sweeps back towards the willow, making sure the rustling of leaves reveals the faces of her council... The gaunt stare of Ferngill who has become pressed between his home and his kin. The righteous indignation of Beefang's glower, a spitting image of the ruthlessness of her father... so distant from the tom she looked like. Snakeblink practically winces at every move and she is certain this betrayal is just another set of invisible claws dug into bleeding tissue. Moonbeam's heavensward stare as if beseeching StarClan for what answers they might share to guide this decision. Robinheart, an empath bleeding her heart to find rationale behind such betrayal and praying for mercy. Foxtail, whose bravery has become inspired by something so rigid and reliable as the code. Hazecloud's disappointment and turmoil to see a friend put on a stand before everyone, to bare witness and pass judgment and wonder if she could've spared her this future.
  
  Iciclefang... The accused.
  
  "No longer... do we remain... blind... to the misdeeds... of one of our own. A warrior born... and raised under... the warrior code. A member... of two councils... relied upon... to enact justice... and defend the clan... and code... with her life." She need not explain it all to them in intimate detail, the word had spread like wildfire and could not be bottled back up once cracked open. They knew what she stood here to introduce, the violation of a law that binds them.. what separates them from mere rogues.
  
  "Iciclefang... has confessed... that her children... are half ThunderClan." She did not run and hide once confronted, did not pretend she could bury it. Had faced the conversation with as much dignity as a disgraced warrior could conjure. Had divulged every truth (was it every truth? was there a way to know for sure?). "This romance... has been dead... for some time.... I choose... to trust that much." Even if she didn't deserve that trust.
  
  "But you all... have been... deceived," she searches the crowd for Pikesplash, for his dark furred daughter, for Roepaw, and most importantly Iciclefang's three children. "Mistreated..." No one deserved an apology more than those children, than every half-blooded child that had earned her spurn in some way. "I ask you... who fed her... cared for her... nurtured her... kin... and trusted her... to lead and... guide you..." Her chin lifts, staring at the masses down her nose with a confidence practiced but insincere. "What punishment.. befits this betrayal?"
  
  Lichenstar had made up her mind... In truth she understood soon after Iciclefang began her confession that she already knew what to do. Or rather, believed she'd weighed the damages and chosen what most seemed justified. What would make sure she truly got to spend the rest of her life making up for this. Maybe she would live a far more open and honest life (and she hoped that was true... that this would not jade her... even if it isolated her at first). Time would ease wounds but they'd scar... and scars did not leave. Pinepaw would forever have to gave upon her face knowing the mercy of her scars were from a piece of her hidden away.
  
  "None of you... will lift your claws," she adds, sharply- she would not see Hyacinthbreath's fate repeated. Chased by the hounds of her clan. She would not suffer another lashing out like Sunpaw had towards Foxtail. Whatever beating they could even supply would amount to nothing compared to the horrified faces of those children- the mother in her knew that well enough. Knew the miserable distance that had grown between her kin to be far more heart breaking than any injury, even those that had seen her sent to the stars five times over.
  
  
  [[ welcome to the jury of your peers ]]
• about
  
  speech hex code ✧ #6368A5
  
  ooc notes ✦
  tagging ✶
  penned by tieirlys
• ˚ ★⋆. ࿐࿔ ✦ . . ˚ . . ✦ ˚ .
  
  . ˚ * ✦ . . ✦ ˚ ˚ .˚ ✦ . . ˚ . ✦ . . ˚ ੈ✧˳·˖✶ ✦ ˚ ✦ . . ˚ ★⋆. ࿐࿔
  
  . ˚ * ✦ . . ✦ ˚ ˚ .˚ ✦ . . ˚ . ✦ ​

 

[CRAGPAW]

Cragpaw sits stiff and unmoving beside the medicine den, with his brother at his side and Pinepaw just inside. His claws dig into the cold, damp earth beneath him as Lichenstar's words hammer into his chest. No, no, no. A look of horror finds his face as Iciclefang's crimes are laid bare to everybody. Around him, his clanmates shift and murmur, their low voices charged with anger, shock, and betrayal. He doesn't dare meet their eyes. He can feel their stares - on Iciclefang, on him, on his siblings. Every whispered judgment feels like a stone hurled his way. If there was even a chance cats didn't know before, they do now, and the thought causes a thick lump to form in his throat. Publicly shamed, all four of them, even if that was not the intention here. Tears of shame and disbelief prick his eyes as he stares wide-eyed at the ground in front of him.

His mother stands before them, and the young tom can't look at her either, not for more than a fleeting second. The weight in his chest presses harder, threatening to crush his very heart. Half-ThunderClan. The words still sound like grating birdsong in his head, never leaving him alone. He squeezes his eyes shut as if he could erase all of this. This isn't real. This is someone else's story, not his. He isn't supposed to be here, sitting in a crowd while his mother - his strong, unwavering, rule-abiding mother - is put on trial for breaking the very laws she taught him to honor. The thought makes his stomach churn.

When Lichenstar's piercing gaze sweeps the crowd and touches on him, Cragpaw shrinks into himself, ears flattening. What does he think his mother deserves for this betrayal? He doesn't know. He's angry, so so angry. But not even he wants to see his respected mother humiliated in front of the entire clan. Gut twisting, he lowers his gaze to the ground, embarrassment enveloping him. He just wants to disappear.
​

 

[SUNSPARK]

It feels weird, judging someone even though Sunpaw doesn't really know them. She hasn't really talked with Iciclefang, and even after all of this was revealed after the battle of Sunningrocks, it hadn't really been of any concern to her then. Sure, she had understood that everyone was shocked, betrayed, but for a while Sunpaw hadn't cared. At all. Outside of the obvious that Iciclefang had clearly done something wrong, and that had lost quite a lot of respect in Sunpaw's eyes- but as she listens to Lichenstar, she can't help but heave a faint sigh.

And in the end, even though she's kept her mouth shut while everyone else has been chittering about it around camp, she finally speaks. "Kids... never ask to take on the choices their parents make," she has to start. She feels bad for the other apprentices who have to call Iciclefang a parent. It's.. unfair. She might not be a half-clanner, but she was a loner. A kittypet, all turned Clan Cat. For a while it had been pretty obvious that she hadn't belonged. And even up til recently too; her unwavering decisions to not follow the grain, even though it would be easiest to go with the flow of the unspoken parts of the warrior code. But they had never asked for this.

Heck, she had just been punished for- well, no, she never broke the laws. Maybe an unspoken part of them for sure, the respect of her mentor, the respect of people who have rank and experience above her. But she would never have done something so damning as to truly oust herself as someone who didn't belong in RiverClan.

"I won't follow somebody who thinks that they can break the rules everyone else has to follow. That's not fair. And I don't care if it's love or not," she declares, ever bold and ever strong-willed. "I'm supposed to respect the people above me because of their experience, their loyalty to their Clan, their understanding of the code and the stuff that we have to follow. I will not follow Iciclefang."

Somehow, she swivels her head to try and find Foxtail in the crowd. Now's a good time as ever to be reminded of her soft-hearted and good-natured mentor, whom she had so horribly misdefined this entire time. Ugh... Sorry, Foxtail. It's a passing thought, one that brings herself to her conclusion. "I also don't think that Iciclefang should be allowed to teach us. Like, apprentices. Because if I got in trouble for not really being taught or... well, following some of the things that I should have known, then I don't think it's right for her to be expected to teach someone to do something right when she's already done something wrong."

Without a waver in her voice, she gives a faint nod. She's said her piece. Exile, punishment; whatever they decide in the end isn't really about her. She hasn't known Iciclefang long enough to really say what she deserves or not, but she knows what she would want out of a mentor, out of someone that she's supposed to follow - and Iciclefang make the choices to show that they were not that.
​

 

[splashdance]

There's been an awful ringing in her ear for the afternoon - ever since Lichenstar pulled their council away, into the safety and silence of their willowy den. Splashdance admittedly did not think much on it; she's no idiot, she needs not to wonder what is happening behind the draping leaves. But the warrior tells herself that she has far worse to worry over. There's no use in toiling in the demise of one of RiverClan's greatest, when her life hangs in a balance of its own.

She's mid meal; her gaze flits to the nursery, where kittens mewl and play inside, and she can't finish the morsels she has left.

A paw presses away the rest of the fish, murmuring to the cat nearest to her that they may finish it. She wanted to speak with Moonbeam, freshly early in the morning, but…

Splashdance supposes that her mind wanders to the council's hovel more than once, for reasons that she cannot avoid. Regardless she tries to tuck her thoughts away again; a manner of hours will not change her judgment in the same way that it will Iciclefang's. She need not be greedy.

A pound in the back of her mind, an ache in her chest, and she spurs to her paws to walk and wander the territory once again. She can't stand the pressing of these riverlocked walls; she, a former resident of the night, wishes to flee when the claustrophobic shadows greet the corners of her vision. A rasp of sand and foam summons her attention despite her want to escape, and she watches, just with everyone else, as Lichenstar places her councilmen on trial.

Huh…?

Her tail raps against the ground in disbelief. What she had expected once RiverClan's council had come to a consensus was vague already - Swiftfire's betrayal was publicized, but Pikesplash's was given brevity, the lengths of his punishment hidden to even Splashdance herself. This… This is new, to release Iciclefang to the hungry maw of the Clan, who's wounds are still being nursed, who's eyes still weep with those lost.

Her punishment… is in their paws. In some small way, in her paws.

Splashdance's gaze holds to Lichenstar in the same disbelief, and if she finds the other's blue impartial glance, she will turn hers away. For in the trenches of her own river blues, an anger furls into flames. Not for Iciclefang, who's ire she has faced for moons only to learn of the falsehoods behind it. Not for Lichenstar, who's council either couldn't agree on a punishment or the leader herself couldn't find one fitting enough.

For herself, for in the light of having a chance, in the tide of power lapping at her paws… She looks at Iciclefang, feels the terrible shredding in her chest, and cannot say with sincerity that she wants the other to hurt. Splashdance cannot wish ill will to the cat who has betrayed them all. For if she does… it would mean that she wishes the same for her mother and father. It would mean that she would want ridicule to descend onto the pelts of Pinepaw, Cragpaw, and Crabpaw.

She acts not for Iciclefang's salvation, but for brotherhood in the three that now struggle with their revelation.

"What punishment… fits this betrayal?"

The silence that paws after the inquiry retrieves the ringing in her ears, as if the many cats around her think of the mistreatment done unto her by the accused, wait for her (or the trio of siblings) to set the course. If they speak first, and they hurt the most… then the rest of the Clan may fall in line behind them. Who knows what would fit this circumstance best if not for those who hurt the worst in the aftermath?

The added addendum that claws will not be wielded do little for the warrior, for she did not grow up in such terrifying times. She did not see Cicadastar or Smokestar for the legacy they built beneath them; only Lichenstar's passive forgiveness that's worn thin with the constant beating from her Clan. She did not know Iciclefang as the hard-to-break warrior that came before her time as a councilman, nor the unyielding apprentice before that.

All she sees is a bully, unmasked by her own cowardly efforts.

Does she speak first? Splashdance isn't sure. There's white noise in her ears as she allows her gaze to waver on Iciclefang, on her brother beside her. What can she say to this woman that won't be repeated time and time again?

"... I forgave you." She imparts with a broken tone. Her expression is unreadable, hard. Her emotions are kept beneath a tangle of seagrass and marshweeds, threatening to break through her sharp ivory teeth with the slightest tug. "I thought that your… displeasure in knowing me came from your loyalty to RiverClan, and your disgust that I came from a broken code. I forgave you, and tried to make amends, because I wanted to understand you. I wanted to believe that if I were in your place, I would be critical, too. I would be guarded and sharp…" Splashdance swallows the lump in her throat, tensing her jaw.

"It's guilt, then, that spurred your spiked tongue. You asked me when I first got here - 'Why?' - and I gave you everything I could. You asked me time and time again, if ShadowClan were here, would I fight them with vitriol - and I said I would. And you still... you still made an effort to treat me less than. You knew of my past being a problem to everyone around me and… and you made me relive it."

Splashdance furrows her brows. She looks on, and on, and on. "Your children will be loved still. They would've always been treated with care, like I was, because my only misfortune lay by your… merciful paws. By your guidance and teachings. But I hope that you, Iciclefang… I hope you understand just how difficult it is to strive for acceptance and learn that you will never get it. I forgave you - but for this? I cannot forgive anymore."

She finally tears her gaze from the mottled she-cat, looks to Lichenstar and the council behind them. "I cannot follow a team with her on it. Mistakes… accidents - they happen. But her pressure to ensure that all who fell prey to the same trap as her are given worse and worse punishments, whilst she remains untouched… I can no longer trust that her efforts are in good faith." There's a long beat as she wavers on her paws, adding her own addendum with the much calmer, much more solemn, "And her children deserve placements away from her. I was given trust and understanding by my parents… I can't imagine the pain that comes with learning my mother could not loose to me her dearest truths."

She leans back on her haunches, her piece spoken. Not one ounce of Splashdance is settled, not one bit of her relieved eith the circumstance. She glances towards Iciclefang and forces herself to find solace with the forming truth that she may never truly be comfortable with the revelation.
​

 

[iciclefang]

She had listened to her councilmates spit in her direction for what had seemed like hours. Even those she had considered kind-hearted had wrinkled their noses at her in disappointment, and for that, she cannot blame them. She had anticipated Lichenstar's council to rake her over the coals, had expected the heat from that fire to sear her flesh and fur, but never had she expected the blue-coated leader's next steps.

She is escorted from the willow den and toward the base of River Rock — and she goes, her paws numb with cold. This is a nightmare, she tries to tell herself, as Lichenstar sits on her perch and denigrates her before all of RiverClan. This is a nightmare, and I'll wake up, and nothing will have changed. My Clanmates will still respect me. My children will still love me. Stormywing will be nothing but a memory.

Iciclefang is reminded of the hurried, hushed way Splashdance had been squirreled into the Clan, the way Lichenstar had demanded silence from all of her lead warriors regarding the girl's origins. Pikesplash had expressed enough remorse, apparently, for his sins to be washed away — but that is not the mercy Lichenstar grants her councilman. The lynx point regales the Clan with the origin story of her kits, of Iciclefang's infidelity to the warrior code.

She does not flinch away from the accusation. She had already admitted they were true. But she searches the crowd, looking for kits who deserved to be granted the same secrecy, the same respect for privacy, that Lichenstar's precious Splashdance had received. Iciclefang meets Cragpaw's eyes from where she sits, and there's nothing but sadness in her blue gaze. I'm sorry, she thinks, but cannot say; the Clan has begun to speak, angry, self-righteous, and she cannot apologize to the cats who deserve it most.

Sunpaw is the first to sling her pawful of mud. Iciclefang sits in stoic silence. Is it not humiliating, to be chided and chewed by a cat who has not even earned her warrior name — a cat who is still under punishment for her defiance against her superiors? But the tortoiseshell waits calmly for Sunpaw to finish, and then she moves her bruise-colored eyes to the next cat who chooses to speak on her fate.

It's Splashdance, of course, and that curdles Iciclefang's belly something awful, as though she's eaten poison. She had grown to accept the ShadowClan-born she-cat after some time, but Splashdance is angry. Angry about the way Iciclefang had treated her upon her arrival to the Clan. The tortoiseshell shakes her head, but she does not verbalize her thoughts: You were a ShadowClan apprentice who never should have left your home. You came here for adventure, not because of loyalty. And I tried to save you from the pain of having your family split into two. The girl had never seen eye-to-eye with her on that, and frankly, they never would; she's fuming, now, calling for her demotion alongside Sunpaw, calling for Iciclefang to be separated from her children.

The tortoiseshell meets her gaze evenly. It is deceptively blank. I know I hurt you. I cannot take that back. But everything I did, I did for my kits, and I would do it again. It had never been the plan for them to discover their half-Clan heritage; had it been up to her, she'd have died with that secret, and now she wishes she had, wishes she never had to see the way her kits' eyes alight with pain as their Clan looks at them like mistakes. With pity.

She takes the lashings, and she sits, waiting for more, for surely there are. Surely the Clan of her birth, the Clan who had raised her, the Clan she had served and then lead, surely they will lift their claws to rake her pelt again and again and again, because in their place — she had done the same, and that is the example she's made.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Iciclekit . Iciclepaw . Iciclefang, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 30 moons old, ages realistically on the 17th.
  — mentored by Smokestar ; mentoring Pinepaw ; previously mentored Cicadaflight
  — riverclan lead warrior. mudpelt x icesparkle, gen 2.
  — former mate to Stormywing ; current mate to no one.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  sh tortoiseshell and white she-cat with ice-blue eyes. confident, capable, proud, dry, conceited, condescending, distrustful.

​

 

[Pinepaw ⭒]

-ˋˏ ༻ ❆༺ ˎˊ-
For as much talk there had been about the poor children this and the what about the kids wellbeing that, as Pinepaw gazed upon Lichenstar with rising bile in her throat, all she could think about was how this felt like some sort of cruel punishment. Public humiliation- a ritual not even Swiftfires abominations had been subjected to. If it was only Iciclefang that was being subjected to the horrors of this display, perhaps it would be just; but that was not the case.

For as much as Lichenstar targeted her words of mistreatment and deceit towards Pinepaw and her brothers in lingering looks, the tortoiseshell could only feel resentment for her leader, for her mother, for her Clan. The leaders gravelly voice is quick to rouse the freshly blinded apprentice from her nest, coming out to sit beside Cragpaw with the help of Crabpaw shoulder to lean on.

Sunpaw is the first to speak when Lichenstar has finished her speech, and Pinepaw's tail tip begins to flicker side-to-side from where it curls tightly at her paws. To be stripped of her rank and mentorship was reasonable to suggest, but Pinepaw detested the idea of a choice being made for her, another thing she had no say in.

Splashdance's scorn is not unfounded, and Pinepaw sits and listens with a furrowed brow bone. Her words ring true enough as she recounts Iciclefang's treatment of her, at least from what the apprentice could recall. They had been friends once, before Pinepaw knew better. With her mothers ire she had learned to look down on Splashdance for both her forbidden heritage and disloyalty to her birth clan, and Pinepaw supposed that hadn't necessarily changed. The only thing that had was now the warrior could group them together, try to grace Pinepaw with her kind heart and empathy. Any budding kinship that Pinepaw could have mustered in that moment when, like Sunpaw, Splashdance casts her vote on where the children should be placed.

She could feel the burning of eyes flitting towards her and her littermates, catching glimpse of the poor brothers and their sister; mutilated at the claws of a leader and saved by betrayal, it was quite the tragic story to tell. Adjusting her posture, Pinepaw sits slightly taller, her spine rigid. Damn your pity, damn your tragedy.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎┌── AND I BEG TO BE TESTED ⋅ ࿏ ⋅ BY GODDESSES RESTING ──┐‎

• 

• 
  PINEPAW ✩ she/her, apprentice of riverclan, 6 moons.
  ⭃ stocky, coarse-furred tortoiseshell she-cat with large, white dipped forepaws, a white tail tip and muzzle. Honey hued optics take the shape of almonds.
  ⭃ apprenticed to Iciclefang.
  ⭃ daughter of Iciclefang && Stormywing ࿏ sister to Cragpaw && Crabpaw
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by Noor ↛ @toyangel on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

​

 

[CRABPAW]

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 Crabpaw had expected some sort of punishment exacted upon his mother for what Stormywing had revealed. He had expected her to spend time atoning for her past crimes, and had expected her reputation to be tarnished for good. But this… this is too much. Lichenstar announces their heritage to everyone in the clan—there's no escaping their scorn now, even if they hadn't been aware before. Ginger-splashed ears tip backward with dismay, and he knows that if he were to look, his expression would be reflected on his littermates' faces as well. He helps his dappled sister rise, aids her as she moves from her nest. Should she be up and moving around this soon? He isn't sure, but he isn't about to tell her that she should stay stationary. He sits beside her, spine stiff as a board, and tries to listen carefully to every word that floats through the camp. His tail flickers against each of his siblings' flanks, a feeble attempt to comfort them.

He says nothing as his clanmates voice their judgments, trying to stay quiet and still—stoic, so they won't have reason to stare at him, to make a mockery. But Crabpaw has never been good at stilling his tongue, and Splashdance suggests that the three of them be placed away from her. He bristles, and his paws shift uncomfortably. The words spill from him after only a few moments of fidgeting. "Hey. Pinepaw is her apprentice, shouldn't she get to decide who her mentor is? And Cragpaw, too." Why Cragpaw would have his mentor reassigned, Crabpaw isn't sure, but it seems horribly unfair to do such a thing to his brother. Ferngill probably knew, and Crabpaw has made his peace with that. Both his mother and his uncle did bad things, kept secrets from their kin—but their punishments shouldn't hurt Cragpaw and Pinepaw, too.

time to fight ˚𓆛˚｡ it’s time to ride

• ooc: —
• 
• CRABPAW 𓆝 he/him, apprentice of riverclan
  𓆟 ginger and cream tabby with rippling white spotting and mossy green eyes. closed-off and unnaturally quiet.
  𓆟 mentored by cicadaflight
  𓆟 son of iciclefang & stormywing ; brother to cragpaw & pinepaw
  𓆟 peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  𓆟 penned by foxlore

​

​