sensitive topics OH MOTHER, I CAN FEEL THE SOIL FALLING OVER MY HEAD ⁀➷ injured

[FALLOWBITE]

ˏˋ*⁀➷ 　Despite everything, she turns her single unbloodied eye skywards.

The stars are blurry, a half-real haze hovering far out of reach, silent and cold. She remembers, feverishly, young Bravepaw - with his sparkling eyes and startled laugh - saying that StarClan had a plan for her.

It makes her chest feel like it's caving in.

There is no place for her there, she knows, among the peaceful fields of glittering stars. There is no place for its mother, when she finally meets her end - and oh, how it hopes she will meet it by its own claws. There is no kind afterlife waiting for either of them. They are rogues, and all that they are meant to do is tear eachother's bodies to shreds. This is what Fallow was born for, not some play-pretend dream of being a noble warrior.

There is something rotten beneath the torn flesh that covers its ragged form, something putrid woven into the mats of its sagging, bloodmatted pelt. Something horrible passed down from mother to child, a festering and infectious sort of decay. It spreads throughout her veins like a disease, pours out through bared teeth and shed blood.

This is what it was born for. This is how it will die.

Fallow's breath hitches.

For the first time in her life, Fallow feels like praying. Mama, wails some small and wounded part of her. Mama, as she looks up to the stars, vision already blurring. She knows that there is no one to answer her call. Her mother still wanders the earth like a condemned spirit, ran off with clawtrails through her belly. Fallowpaw too, retreats, trapped in some bloodstained sort of purgatory. A punishment for the curse of her birth, rogue-born and putrid. Her paws stumble hazily across the earth, dripping trails of crimson behind her.

I don't want to die, she thinks.

And there it is, over and over again. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. She is scared. Everything hurts, and all that escapes her maw is a low keen. It is all that she can know with certainty in that moment. I don't want to die. She cries out at the terror of the world, same as she did in the owl's talons many moons ago.

And her paws find herself home.

It is only then that she collapses.

Heaving, ragged breaths tear through a bloodied form, crumpled into a horrid heap just fox-lengths from the gorse tunnel. Blood bubbles from her mouth, spills from the gaping hole where her eye once was.

She does not have the strength to call out. All she can do is trust in the kindness of her clanmates, and wait for help to arrive.

‎‎┌── HERE IN THE FOREST, DARK AND DEEP ⁀➷ I OFFER YOU ETERNAL SLEEP ──┐‎

• follows from this thread!
  
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  "SPEECH"

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  FALLOWPAW ⁀➷ she / it, apprentice of thunderclan, eleven moons.
  ➳ a scarred, pointed brown and white molly with shaggy fur and golden eyes.
  ➳ standoffish and solitary, always seems to have a dark cloud hanging over its head.
  ➳ baying hound xx npc, littermate to antlerpaw & doepaw.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[antlerbreeze]

She would be lying if she said she hadn't worried for her sister. Antlerpaw and Doepaw had taken the brunt of their mother's anger on the physical wound side- but the mental... Antlerpaw hadn't ever spoken to Fallowpaw about it, but given how she had been the one chased in a brutal rush through the forest when they were young, she was sure there was something wrong.

Tonight was no different- Antlerpaw stayed awake later then normal, her scarred eyelids half hovered over golden eyes. Vision cast to a brilliant night sky, summoning any courage to ask Starclan something, but it was always a half-baked question and always discarded to the side. There was.. something, out there, not typical to this night-scene. She thinks she must be hearing things, remembering something- but the way the noise of ragged breathing echoed through the gorse tunnel had her fur standing on end.

Antlerpaw pushed to her paws, cautiously pushing through the gorse, and when she emerged from the other side- A shriek left her, ears flattening backwards. "Fallow. Fallow?!" She cried out, staggering to her sister. Head turned, words shouted into camp- "Help! Please!" Antlerpaw's vision swiftly turned back to her sister, collapsing at her side.

She hadn't been able to see the carnage cast against her mother when they were younger, the way her mother's claws had dug into her own eyelids, or that of Doepaw's. She hadn't even been able to see the aftermath, where Gentlestorm's soft paws took care of them and nursed them back to health. No, this was real, and gruesome, her face twisting in a manner of sickness. It was shed in moments, summoning courage that her mentor had gifted her, strength that Thunderclan had imbued in her.

"C-can you walk? Fallowpaw. Fallow." She called, swallowing any fear. "Please- we need to get to Gentlestorm. Who did this? It wasn't.. it wasn't Mother, was it?" Antlerpaw worried out, trying to get her sister onto it's feet.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ┌── SHE SAW IT IN MY EYES ⋅❁⋅ SHE DIDNT EVEN CRY ──┐‎

• "speech"
  

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• ANTLERPAW she/her, apprentice of thunderclan, ten moons.
  ⭃ LH cinnamon lynx sepia with low white. smaller body, agile and slippery, fits really well in small gaps in the underbrush. soft spoken but strong and determined.
  ⭃ mentored by howlingstar / / mentoring no one
  ⭃ padding after no one / / sibling to fallowpaw and doepaw
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by dallas ↛ dallasofnines on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[braveheart : ̗̀➛]

☀ . ° ✦ There's something haunting about the lack of a mother's love. To Bravepaw, it had been unfathomable. For so many moons Leopardtongue had swathed him and his brothers in kindness and tender love, forgiveness and bountiful patience for her rambunctious sons. The queens that lived beside them in the nursery had been the same with their own young, and even after he graduated to the apprentices den the mothers that replaced him had only provided the same care to the next generation.

Fallowpaw's mother was horridly cruel, acting a way a mother never should. In ways he never thought a mother ever could! And he had witnessed it inflicted against more than just Fallowpaw, but against her sisters who had become his close friends. Hurting them when she was meant to be their greatest protector.

Bravepaw, along with so many others, had assumed Baying Hound wouldn't dare make a return after ThunderClan had defended her battered kin. Today, he would be proven dreadfully wrong.

"Fallowpaw!" Her name fell from his lips in a breathless gasp, following Antlerpaw's method and joining her efforts on Fallowpaw's other side. "We'll get you home, I promise! Can you hear me?" A dry swallow rubbed harshly down his throat as he struggled to hold back fearful tears. Quickly he blinked them away as he briefly met Antlerpaw's gaze, taking in a shaky inhale to steady himself. He couldn't cry, he had to be strong!

✧　°　.　✶　.　°　✧​

ooc Information

• ooc: —
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  BRAVEPAW — HE/HIM ･ 10 MOONS ･ THUNDERCLAN & APPRENTICE ･ PENNED BY beatae!

  A Longhaired chocolate tabby with a white locket and deep blue eyes. Very thick coat that has started to grow into long, wispy curls. Developing into an awkward stage of kitten uglies as the rest of his body grows and changes. Severe scars from owl talons stretch across his shoulders and another that starts from his back down his left thigh.

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[doepath ࿔]

It was no small secret that Doepaw went out of her way to cuddle as close to her sisters as possible at night.... It was not so often that Gentlestorm had the time or space for a shared nap and she was far too big now to clamber on top of him in his snoring snoozing and giggle about it. She'd been insistent that Antlerpaw not make her sleep in her nest alone, had saddled up next to her sibling to awkwardly squeeze close on the camp floor to pass the time together waiting... and somehow, despite the lack of a comfortable nest, she'd dozed off.

The abruptness of Antlerpaw's departure from her side is enough to stir her, ears lifting in a strained effort to listen- the ragged breathed wheezing, it must be what she heard too... It's a rattling thing, ravaged, shuddering inhales. She's on her feet as quickly as she can stumble to them, half-asleep and struggling to focus her vision on the blotchy gorse tunnel's entrance... Her sister's voice cracks with anguish just beyond it and urgency finds her sleep-numbed paws. "Fallow." Why was she out this late? Why was it alone? Why did the cramped entrance reek of sweat and.... blood....

"Wh-what happened?" She pressed past the gorse where it snags at pieces of her fluffy coat, insistent and impatient. Bravepaw is suddenly there too, shouting her name like she's dead- like she's dying- like...

Why isn't it answering them? "Fallowpaw," she mews, tone tight and demanding, as if frustrated to be ignored. Her vision swims in tones of crimson, swatches of soft browns and even more sanguine rivers... No ragged response. Her heart seizes uncomfortably in her chest, her stomach twists into a familiar knot of panic and it registers somewhere that Antlerpaw mentioned Gentlestorm. Without thinking she turns on her heels, abandoning the grisly scene just as quickly as she'd arrived, crashing towards the medicine-heady den and though she opens her mouth to summon him, to wake him up, to do something to be a good, helpful informant, all that she finds is the taste of salt on her lips and a keening wail. "Please," she whines, pressing her paws persistently against the burly medicine cat, "You can't let her die!"


-- fetching @GENTLESTORM​

 

[THUNDERGLEAM]

Time was of the essence, and blood wound in tendrils through Thundergleam's nose, get again. It was Fallowpaw, this time- collapsed upon the earth, Bravepaw and Antlerpaw flanking it. For a moment, the pale molly stood stunned- its eye was carved, ichor and remnants running down her face like tears, dried and clinging in clots. She swallowed, making tentative approach- her claws itched beneath her skin. Fallowpaw suffered so desperately... but physical pain, it was never unfixable. She would not bite the apprentice's throat like a struggling fledgling... no, not for this. She let Doepaw pass, instead lingering in the space between.

"Stand strong at its side," Thundergleam murmured with finality to the two apprentices. "Lead her home. I shall look out for..." her voice shook, horror permeating her voice. "For whatever beast did this." She bounded with purpose to stand station behind them, ensuring there was no-one, nothing, lurking in the undergrowth. What terrible, awful... what sickening creature would dare irrevocably damage someone, ensure suffering for so long... ​

penned by pin ☾​

 

[STORMYWING]

As soon as she had realized Fallowpaw was gone - again - the warrior had descended into a panic. She traipses through the forest, running this way and that while screaming her apprentice’s name at the top of her lungs. She couldn’t have run away again! She couldn’t! But the longer she looks, the longer she shouts, the more doubt begins to creep into her brain. She remembers what Roeflame told her. How Smokepaw had dragged her name through the mud and Fallowpaw said nothing. Is she embarrassed of me? Does she keep running away because she hates her mentor? The warrior shakes her head, trying to rid her mind of the thought, but it lingers in the back of her skull. She has to keep looking.

She’s not sure how much time has passed when she can faintly taste blood on the air. She rushes to the source, finds blood spattering the ground, and her heart sinks. It had been here. “No,” She mutters to herself, eyes wide while she looks around. There’s a trail, she sees, and so she descends into the brush, following the droplets of blood until voices reach her. She bursts through the undergrowth, heart racing at the sight of Fallowpaw crumpled on the ground. Blood stains the earth and her breath catches in her throat. "Fallowpaw!" She calls, urgency clawing at her throat her as she rushes closer.

Antlerpaw, Bravepaw, and Doepaw surround her, their faces etched with fear and panic. As Doepaw rushes off to retrieve the medicine cat, Stormywing stays by Thundergleam, seemingly frozen in shock. "I'm here, Fallowpaw, I’m here!" The tabby yowls at her, but she can’t help but wonder, does she care? Bravepaw and Antlerpaw help the apprentice to her paws, try to assist her into camp, and all she can do is remain close behind her. Gentlestorm will know what to do.

With a glance at Thundergleam, she moves forward protectively to bring up the rear with her former charge. Bicolored fur bristles as she scans the area for any lingering threat. "We can't let whoever did this get away with it. We'll hunt them down,” She growls, a guttural, dark sound. I’ll kill them for this.
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