tunnels out of empathy — whispering

[AMBERTAIL]

Ambertail never seems to cease his work. Though the small cat would doze throughout the day and rise as many of his other clanmates begin to settle down, leaving their nestled camp with Whitepaw in tow, he is rarely asleep for long. She rests and sleeps while he drags his paws back beneath the earth. Sometimes it is to dig– other times, he seeks only peace. Without the bustling of his clanmates. Their loud love, their breathing, their fur brushing uncomfortably against his own. That is where he is now. Slow pacing throughout the tunnels in broad daylight, Whitepaw still in her rest. His paws sweep at debris that has found its way in through a nearby entrance, littered leaves, sticks. Pebbles he brushes away with his tail before they prod at delicate paws. They dig and dig beneath the earth, and still must feel all that they touch. Sensitive paws. Sensitive face. Ambertail's whiskers twitch.

Then he sighs. Scorchstreak would leave. Apprentices would follow. They would dig this tunnel with Sootstar's guidance, but lacking the paws. Frustration is an apt enemy, and one that Ambertail struggles not to chew on as he moves. "Would you have done it differently?" he whispers to the dirt. "Would you have chosen another path? For the clan. The badger." It does not answer him, but through this wall of earth he swears he can hear a set of pawsteps matching his own. "They will die. We will." In his rising paranoia, Ambertail does not hear the steps of the other tunnelers around him. Those on the side of the wall continue to mirror his own.

𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘕 𝘐𝘍 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘞𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘙𝘈𝘛 𝘙𝘈𝘊𝘌.  .  .  ╱╱ 9.14.2023 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘈𝘙𝘌 𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘓 𝘈 𝘙𝘈𝘛

• OOC. rattles a can.... come get your weird cryptid content
• ✦　　. 　 ˚　.  AMBERTAIL. NONBINARY. HE - HIM OR THEY - THEM. TUNNELER OF WINDCLAN. MENTOR TO WHITEPAW. PENNED BY REVELATIONS. ———————
  ——  a tiny, yet proportionally long-limbed tortoiseshell with unfocused amber eyes. though they retain their color, ambertail is blind. those who don't know as much may be confused, and will certainly be met with dry responses from the tunneler himself.
  

  ✦ NOTICE ambertail is blind, and will not react to visual stimuli within a thread! this is common knowledge throughout windclan, and he is rarely seen out during the daytime to accommodate his albino apprentice's needs.

• "speech"

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[SCORCHSTAR]

The calico will be departing soon, she knows. She will be leaving with her clanmates, with two of her kits, and there is a chance that none of them will ever return. This may be the last time that she sees the tunnels. But the upcoming journey does not mean that she should laze about in camp until it is time to leave—there’s still work to be done, a tunnel to be dug. And the also existing tunnels still need to be maintained; Scorchstreak trusts Sootstar as the best tunneler of them all, but the calico still worries for the state of the tunnels while she’s away.

A stiff smile creeps across her face as she listens to Ambertail speak under god breath to some unseen force. The other tunneler is not the strangest of their ranks, though they certainly fight for the title, and Scorchstreak cannot help but to feel fondness for them. She draws a paw across the dirt as she approaches, scraping audibly at hard-packed earth. "Are you talking about us, Ambertail?" She can only assume that the other feline isn’t actually speaking to any of them, but she won’t pry, not now. Instead, she sets about sweeping away a small bundle of leaves, continuing, "They won’t die out there, I’ll make sure of it."

Her reassurances are weak, she knows, but they are as truthful as they can get. The lead warrior will do everything in her power to see the younger cats return from the mountains; their clan needs them, after all. "And the cure will be here for everyone else before you know it." Weaselclaw and Moorpaw will not die as so many had in the wintertime, alone and afraid and wheezing in a den smelling of old badger. They will see a full recovery, even if Scorchstreak has to dig her way back from the mountains.​

[ LIKE A RATTLESNAKE ]​

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[Violetwisp]

The journey cats would be leaving within the next few days and he was dreading it, several of their better Tunnelers were going and with only a few of them to spare the rest of the work would be a task in itself to keep up with but he also didn't blame them for doing so. Who knew if their skills would be needed out there? Scorchstreak among them was a cat to be admired and proud of and he could think of no other who might be as capable as she would in such situations. Some might congratulate or even take the time to talk about lighter things in face of such a task but instead the ginger and black tom was doing that thing again where he made things worse by being vaguely poetic and muttering madness.
"Ambertail you are scaring me again..."
It's all he says, no protest or demand to knock it off because he knows it'll get him nowhere. Blue-green eyes turn to the lead tunneler with a wary glance before he smiles, white teeth in the dark, spotted maw quivering uncertainy, "We've faith in you, for sure. Don't...worry about all that. You'll be back getting filthy again in no time!" Right? Well, he hoped so. Violetwisp was a realist to a degree but he also liked to think more optimistically if the situation could afford it and in this case they really needed that little burst of light at the end of this dark tunnel didn't they?
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