camp MEMORY IN THE MAKING [π“†Ÿ] Ears Wide Open


The small kitten has been spoken to many times in her life, but she was born with deaf ears and even recently sound was a strange prospect. Noise came to her as if her head was submerged in water, distorted, faint, and sometimes even echoing. This noise was all meaningless to the blue she-kit, it was too confusing and unclear to give much mind to when milk was always at the front of her nose. Milk and sleep... milk and sleep... the key to happiness for a cat as young as she.

Today, milk-drunk and growing tired, something abruptly clicks. Or more so- something pops. The pathways of her ears widen.

Again she is spoken to, 'baby', 'little one', 'darling', the kit has always ignored it. Until today.

Her head turns to acknowledge the cat who has spoken to her, blue eyes stare oblivious to their meaning but somehow she knows the noise that moves from the cats lips are directed at her. She mewls happily with the discovery of this new ability.
  • Β» Unnamed Kit
    Β» RiverClan Kit
    Β» She/her . AFAB
    Β» A pretty blue lynx sepia with blue eyes
    Β» ”Speech”  thoughts β€€ attack
  • Β» A meager kitten, defeating her is no boastful feat.
    Β» Excels in hiding, running from danger.
    Β» Fights defensively to survive.
    Β» May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing
 
The unnamed boy's eyes have been open for a little bit now. The world passes him by in blurry, exciting shapes, a muffled film spooling past hungry blue eyes in a new riot of color. He finds he can keep his eyes open for only a whisker's twitch of time, but it hardly bothers the child on his instinctive crawl towards more information.

Something is different today. Another dimension has been added to his world. The flat and soft plane of sound expands into a mountain range, with all its high peaks and deep valleys, gentle passages and rumbling hills. A familiar set of shapes hovers in front of him: eyes, nose, mouth. The boy blinks curiously at the mouth, which opens and closes in a startlingly novel way. One of his sisters babbles. At it? Almost hesitantly, he copies her, and by extension the cat in front of him. "AaaaAAAaaAAaa," he says.​
 
die with memories , not dreams .
οΈΆκ’¦κ’·β™‘κ’·κ’¦οΈΆ
He’d stopped to offer prey to Hazecloud when mismatched hues widened unknowingly. β€œAre they alright?” They’re not hurt, are they? He couldn’t help but inquire, gawking at them as strange sounds rose from newborn maws, eyes barely opened. He was rarely around their youngest, always out hunting, or training with his father to have a proper childhood, friends before he’d grown older, no longer needing his father’s supervising hues.

He wondered if he needed to fetch Ravensong. Or Moonpaw? Was this normal? Did he make those sounds too? Or was he even more of an outcast than he realized? Blinking several times, Dawnstorm bit his tongue before more questions spewed out on a pink sandpaper tongue.
thought speech
 

She was told talking to newborns had some sort of benefit to their development. It's hard to see right away, of course Hazecloud isn't expecting for them to wake one day chattering her ear off, but she felt odd talking and knowing they don't comprehend a word she said.

"Was that a good nap? Are we feeling well rested now?" Her gentle voice soothed them as they stirred awake. Still without names, still feeling so far away from them. Would it ever go away? Had Snowflakekit's death also sucked away the connection she was supposed to feel for them? She still murmured sweet prayers and followed every behavior a good mother should, but it felt no different than a warrior's patrol most days.

Today her coo's are met with happy mewls, queues of recognition not only of her voice but that she was being spoken to at all. The tom was next in a much louder, stretched vowel that made her giggle. Hazecloud looked up at Dawnstorm and nodded quickly.

"They're learning to listen and speak. We're not born knowing everything our bodies do, so they spend a lot of time figuring it out. This one's been the loudest of all three." She lifted her tail to point out the tom sandwiched between the two mollies. "When you make sounds back, it helps them learn their speech." Or something like that. She turned to look down at the boy again and, in a much softer tone, repeated back his long 'aaaaa'.
 


was it so bad to dream that one day she hold her own bundle of joys tight in fluffy paws? guide their paw steps, nurture them, cuddle their bodies tightly- but she would dread the day of letting them go to become apprentices, to go to become warriors- where their lives would be put at stake every day.

shed push the thoughts back, a small rumble of a purr crawling through her throat as she approached beside hazecloud. "they're... so small. do- do you reckon I c-could t-try to watch th-them when they're a bit bigger?" the molly asked, a bit hesitant. of course, she wouldn't feel beat down if hazecloud declined. she was only offering her services.

 
⋆ βœ§γ€€ γ€€ Β· γ€€ ✧ ⋆ βœ§γ€€ γ€€ Β· γ€€ ✧ ⋆ βœ§γ€€ γ€€ Β· γ€€ ✧ ⋆
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It's yet to be a sign of concern yet but they are still unable to help themself but be completely fearful this time it might be (every time). Dawnstorm's voice is hushed from distance when the blue hears him suggest something might be wrong. A worried hum escapes her, paws turning abruptly towards the nursery for fear she was missing some important medical event that a mother should be around for. Stars am I doing this right, they think feverishly, peering over Lilacbird as the molly inquires about babysitting them.

Her tiny son screams with vocal cords that are... far stronger than his little size would suggest. Hazecloud goes about explaining it with such leisure, an unbothered glance between her nervous clan-mates and back to a howling boy with a soft 'aaaaaa' of reply. Why does it seem so effortless for her...? Lichentail looms there like an imposter... staring with wide eyes and a hung-open mouth.

She could tell in the way the kittens turned bleary blues towards the sounds of their clan-mates that they were finally hearing something.

"Sunshine... they recognize your voice," she murmurs, transfixed on the wiggling babes.

WELL IF YOU WANT MY BLOOD I'LL MAKE SO MUCH BLOOD
THAT YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING DROWN
 

the babies are pretty boring, but they aren’t.. awful. not really ; shellkit learns to adjust to this as she grows, slowly but steadily alongside the youngest of her nestmates. they were growing, too, albeit at a snails pace β€” gluey eyed peeling open to reveal a deep, watery blue, crawling about on their round bellies with splayed, spiderlike legs. it’s silly, shellkit thinks, as she crawls after them near on her tummy herself. curiosity keeps her close, leaves her only whiskers away when the kits turn, flailing their heads around like curious birds. the silvery she-kit mewls and shellkit gasps a loud, happy thing, flops onto her side so she can gaze fully at the splooted kit, sap - colored gaze gleaming, ” hi, baby.. oh hiii, little baby. β€œ she whispers, letting her tail fwap, fwap gently against the moss behind her.

one yells, and shellkit can’t help the burst of giggles that erupt from her maw and snort through her nose. ” they learn reeeeal slow, huh? β€œ the girl cooes, reaching out a splayed paw to bat slowly, gently at the tom kit’s tiny forepaw. they are too young to play, though, and she retracts her arm before hazecloud can remind her that the kit won’t be as inclined to bat her back as she would have liked. she instead tosses her head towards the crowd, towards dawnstorm and lilacbird, lichentail and hazecloud. lichentail breathes something soft and reverent and it draws her eyes back, to the little blue kits. wow.

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  • i.

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  • SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING xx UNKNOWN, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. TWO MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS.
    delicate lilac - striped molly with sugarplum eyes.
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    she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of shell - touched cream, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore. feather breath and 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 warm, sugared amber ---------- Β° ❀ ⋆
    currently exhibiting symptoms of whitecough. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

 
༝ ˚ q⋆ 𓇼 ⋆q ˚ ༝   He doesn't think he had ever been this small. Even to think that he had been as small as Shellkit once is strange. But these ones? These tiny little not-cats are so small and so silly that they must be another species entirely. He's not as interested in them as his littermate seems to be. Still, Riverkit remains close. There was some pale, sickly jealousy that Hazecloud now has more cats to look out for. That was her job, the way that it was Smokestar's job to stand up and say big things to the other cats, but Smokestar is in charge of everyone, and he'd thought, for a while, that Lichentail and Hazecloud would just be in charge of...them. If they'd noticed Riverkit was a little bit sullen and strange for this long, they thankfully did not tell him about it. And with time, he'd adjusted.

Yes they were small and weird, but they weren't that bad. And Hazecloud still had plenty of time for them. Maybe in a way he liked watching these little things grow. They hear them now? They know that they're talking to them? It's good that they recognize their voice, but from where he's sitting near Shellkit's original location, Riverkit's face twists to one of bewilderment with its brows drawn down and its ears pricked tall. "Well they don't have to yell about it," he protests.
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  • ooc: β€”
  • "speech"
  • π“†Ÿ. Β° .β€’ .𓆝 .β€’ Β° . π“†Ÿ β€‚π‘πˆπ•π„π‘πŠπˆπ“. HE β•± THEY. KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING x οΉ– NEPHEW TO SMOKESTAR. PENNED BY REVELATIONS.  ———
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    β€”β€”  a messy blue tabby with low white. though small and slimmed down by the chill, riverkit's thick coat will bounce back with time and love. the fragility beneath his fur will dissipate with time. though currently stocky as most kittens are, he will gain some semblance of delicate stature with age. with a steady diet, riverkit may begin to fit into the clan he's so proudly named for.
 
  • Haha
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