private RESOLVE AND GRIEF ( & ) SMOKESTAR

[WASPRATTLE.]

Wasprattle would be found by the riverbank, where RiverClan territory melds into unfamiliar wilds beyond. It is where he had come from, and perhaps, again where he should go.

He has made himself the stranger that he had never wanted to be. He yearned for something different, even— as that is all that he ever has been. Keen observer on the edge of many a territory. At times he was welcome, at times he was not, but it had never been his. No place had been his own to settle down in; to weave a nest that he may one day share with a mate and kits. His brother had managed that much, while he had only been left to sit and wonder. That made up most of all he did, after all.

That same brother had been the one to let him in. To extend to him: friends, family, new beginnings, and the last kind of them all.

Now that same brother is gone, and this house is hardly a home.

All that wondering has left him with acquaintances and little else, it seems. With paws that may wade in water, but have little desire to do so. Stranger, staring across the heads that were his clanmates; faces that were his kin. Nieces and nephews. He’d prefer to think that they would always have each other, even if they lost their father. Even if they lost him.

A rustling behind him betrays presence brought anew. Of all the things that he was, he would never seek to be rude, despite what this was. Perhaps this was the worst of faces, to see as he ponders himself in the river’s reflection. Or perhaps, this was no ordeal to him at all. Head turned sideward, Wasprattle nods his head in greeting all the same, a long, sloped nose dipping in respect.

" Pardon me. " He feels the need to apologize, even if the tomcat may not know whatever for. Then his gaze is back to the rushing water, and to the lands beyond.

tell me when the fog will subside & ( please tell me when the fog will subside . . . )

• ooc: @SMOKESTAR
  

• 

• [ PAY MORE FOR OLD ADVICE ] WASPRATTLE: RiverClan Warrior ; Brother to Cicadastar
  
  

  & He / him , fine with they / them pronouns as well.
  & 52 moons old as of 12.27.2023 ; ages every 1st

  
  a strikingly tall tabby tom striped shades of warm amber and brown. dons a four - pointed star on his forehead as well as a white tail - tip and golden eyes. typically wears a too - intense stare that is not telling of his nature. despite his outward appearance, he tends to make himself quite small. particularly interested in the experience of living.

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[SMOKESTAR]

—————————————————————⊰★⊱————————————————————
The are the same shape cut from different material. One the color of clay, terracotta burial pots, sweeping sand dunes and the glint of an early morning sun burning across the landscape. The other was cold, ice encrusted shadows trimmed in frost, a rippling pool, stagnant waters. Wasprattle's sight was jarring above all else, the shadows cast to silhouette him in a mask of darkness that only briefly took him so offguard he feels his heart leap upward into his throat to choke him. For a moment he's silent, the reeling horror of the spirit constantly in his peripheal suddenly standing before him takes his words and forces them back down. Smokestar has not felt such a chill since that day, even the realization that Cicadastar was more than lost to him had not struck him with such sharp terror.

But it passes, slowly, the tension in his shoulders gives and his fur flattens as the wind shifts overhead branches enough to let enough light through to dapple a warm pelt. Brown, black, tempered orange...Wasprattle. They'd not spoken since stars know when, he had never given Cicadastar's brother much thought, caught up in his own life and his own grief but it was clear that the other was as rattled as his namesake too. To lose kin, even if they had been seperated for so long - it must hurt.

Smokestar approaches on careful, even steps, his long fire and brimstone gaze set forward with a narrow into the distance the slope-headed tom gazed and he glances back to him once he had stepped alongside the towering figure with a cautious curiousity. "...are you leaving?"
There was an odd longing in that sunlit gaze, a desire for something else now that the only chains holding him had been torn open by a lover's kiss - Cicadastar was dead, he knew the other had already felt oddly awkward being in the clan as it were. He thinks of what it might mean for Wasprattle to just leave, a part of him selfishly wants to keep whatever lingering traces of his mate there were in his clan but another part knows its an unfair burden to place on another. The lean tom at his side was not his mate, nor his shadow, but his own cat. Still, it was leafbare and they needed every cat available to help and surely it was better than struggling alone?
"...if you have to at least...wait until newleaf. It'll be safer for you, but I'd prefer you not."

——✘ when does ripple become a tidal wave ———✘ when does a candle become a flame

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokestar
  —⊰⋅ Leader of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  

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[WASPRATTLE.]

Wasprattle is met with straightforwardness— something he could appreciate. For all the thinking he does, things are easiest when they are lain out before him clearly. So too did that question lack any anger. Would his leaving, however truthful, however he may feel, be betrayal? And would it be met with the same hostility any brand of traitor would be? To walk or run away, no matter the circumstance?

Evidently, no, but he ponders this anyways.

Silence, because this is a thing he cannot answer straightforwardly, neither for Smokestar, nor himself. An answer that he himself was not certain of was hardly worth giving, he thinks. Quiet stretches where he makes himself an answer.

What peculiar wording there. If he had to. What did he really have to do, besides eat and sleep? He'd think it a great disrespect, if he called his called his leave a necessity. Cicadastar has cultivated greatness, for all the time he has been here. Smokestar has done nothing but support that vision for as long as he's known. It was an honor for him to be here. It is an honor.

" You're very kind, " he remarks then, not quite meeting the leader's gaze. He wishes that he could tell him more; a glimpse into a landscape Wasprattle could hardly traverse himself. It's a surprise, that another would care about his leaving. Or perhaps it wasn't. A clan needed it's cats, after all. " ...I feel the same, " he admits. Then to clarify: " I would rather not leave. "

Eye contact is typically something he strives for— in the interest of politeness; properness, but in the moment, he struggles. River ripples give him something else to focus on. Something that isn't so... complicated. " RiverClan is the most settled I have been in some time, " he shares. Many would not yet know— That he can ramble for quite some time, if allowed. Smokestar would find himself the unknowing victim. " I had hoped that it would be a home. " A pause. " ...I suppose i still do. "

" I fear that I've made myself a stranger, I— I suppose. Without him, do you question why I am here? Does anyone? Does everyone? " A breath in. It's been moons, now. And RiverClan has continued to move, to grow, to thrive..." I'd like to see it through to the end. " He is not lucky enough to say he had been there since the beginning, but it's been long enough to see trial and tribulation; grief and turmoil. It's something he could never tire of, the nature of a clan; what happens when cats are brought together... " It is not mine to watch over, but I find that I would like to do so, regardless. "

tell me when the fog will subside & ( please tell me when the fog will subside . . . )

• 
  
  

• 

• [ PAY MORE FOR OLD ADVICE ] WASPRATTLE: RiverClan Warrior ; Brother to Cicadastar
  
  

  & He / him , fine with they / them pronouns as well.
  & 52 moons old as of 12.27.2023 ; ages every 1st

  
  a strikingly tall tabby tom striped shades of warm amber and brown. dons a four - pointed star on his forehead as well as a white tail - tip and golden eyes. typically wears a too - intense stare that is not telling of his nature. despite his outward appearance, he tends to make himself quite small. particularly interested in the experience of living.

​