sensitive topics (retro) Feel the warmth leave my hands | patrol return

[Snakeblink]

MAYBE I'D BE A SAINT IF I WEREN'T ————————————​

Blood trails after Snakeblink, a broken line of red drawing their itinerary on the half-melted snow. Some of it is his, dripping down the lean line of his shoulder from a bite whose deep ache has faded into a frozen numbness. Most isn’t. Most flows out of Lightningstone’s open wounds, staining his pelt rust-red, leaving smears over the white of Snakeblink’s where the warrior’s body touches his. He insisted on carrying him back. Would not, could not, ask it of Brookpaw or Gillsight, though either would have been better suited to the task: Lightningstone is — was — not a small tom, and his bulk would be unwieldy and uncomfortable for Snakeblink to carry in any other situation, let alone on a bad leg.

Still. His patrol; his failure; his responsibility. They still have Oxbowpaw to contend with anyhow.

He staggers into camp, wavering in place for a moment as the weight upon his back almost drags him down, remaining standing only because he doesn’t know what to do past this. Does he lay Lightningstone down upon the dirt? Give his report and go about his day? Rest for a moment in his nest? Or perhaps the medicine den would be a safer bet. Stars, his shoulder stings.

The thought shakes some energy back into him. He opens his mouth; no sound comes out. Wets his lips, tries again, hisses out:

”Someone get Smokestar. And Ravensong — Gillsight is wounded. Lightningstone and Oxbowpaw...” Are past help. He swallows with some difficulty, voice hoarse with something between anger and grief lodged in his throat. ”We were outnumbered. They were waiting for us.”
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——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely ​

ooc. information.

• Backwritten (like two weeks), takes place after THIS thread! Living participants tag: @brookstorm @GILLSIGHT
  
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  — Snakeblink • he / him. 49 ☾, riverclan warrior
  — a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
  — gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
  
  
  

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[SANDPELT]

ꕀꕀ The patrol that stumbles into camp is preceded by the thick scent of blood. Sandpaw is on his paws as soon as he smells it, rushing to meet his clanmates as they enter the camp. "Snakeblink, what-" He stutters, stumbling over his words. He doesn’t need to finish his question; he can clearly see what’s happened. The slumped forms of two clanmates lie bloodstained across the backs of those who hauled them back. Wounds litter the pelts of the survivors, hallmarks of a battle hard-fought. "Waiting…?" An ambush? That’s impossible. The rogues couldn’t have planned it, he thinks… but he’d also thought they couldn’t have planned the ambushes before this, too. Suddenly he’s struck with the thought—he’s been underestimating the enemy. If it had been him out on that patrol, or any of the patrols that have been attacked by rogues, he would only be a liability.

The tom stands still as a river stone, face twisted with disbelief. What can he say, to make this better? What can he do? Nothing. Nothing except for… helping where he can. And right now, what he can do to help is getting his fallen clanmates off of the surely-exhausted backs of his clanmates. The thought spurs his paws into motion, moving to stand at Snakeblink’s side. "Here, lay ’im down. I’ll help." The dirt may not be the greatest resting place for a warrior like Lightningstone, but it’s better to gently lower him to the ground than it is to let him crash down when the lead warrior’s legs finally give out.​

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[RAVENSONG]

Although no cat calls his name, Ravensong has become so accustomed to the scent of blood following these patrols that he instinctively gets to his paws to inspect every patrol that returns to camp. But there is a different, more foul scent in the air, and while he sees motionless bodies be placed onto the ground, he does not believe his eyes until his paws take him closer to the remnants of Snakeblink's patrol and he sees the Lightningstone's eyes have glazed over and there is no hope. The only herb the warrior will receive tonight is mint.

"Thank you Sandpaw. Help him down." Ravensong swallows thickly, choosing to focus instead on the black and white warrior that Snakeblink had called attention to. "Come here Gillsight," He rasps. Brookstorm is in the corner of his eye, and he cringes to think that the poor girl is now all alone. How quickly Buckgait's line had dissolved. "I have to take a look at you."

☾₊ ⊹ темная ночь — dark is the night

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  RAVENSONG of RIVERCLAN — LH BLACK POLYDACTYL MALE (CARRYING CINNAMON, DILUTE) a tall, slender creature with pitch-black feathery fur, large ears, and a sharply angled skull held up in an aloof manner. smells of dried herb, speaks with a low and rumbly accent and walks with an elegant slinking gait.
  
  — born in twolegplace and orphaned at a young age, he joined riverclan at its inception and began training as a drypaw warrior known for a bitter temperment until beesong made him his medicine cat apprentice. after his mentor's untimely death, he had been named ravensong at the moonstone, young heart revitalized with anger and guilt. he is a somber and thorough medicine cat that guards every word spoken in the confines of his den.
  
  — secretly loves "the stars but not so much what inhabits them" — openly suffers from chronic migraines — single, but "it's complicated"

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[lichenstar]

⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ✧　 　 · 　 ✧ ⋆ ​

It is more commonplace than not now... to see or be apart of a parade of bloodied champions (if you could call it that, with stinging loss at the heels of it). Stars might even mistake it for something they enjoyed with how constant this onslaught continued to be... When had they last tasted a real victory that hadn't been paved in waterfalls of death to have earned? The flood had been four full seasons ago now.. and it frankly, sat on her like a marker of when everything really started to fall apart. They'd never been given a proper chance to recover and enjoy living after that. Loss after miserable loss.

Snakeblink is a careful sort... his hardly marred pelt tells of his experience with dodging danger. For it to come back littered in cuts says he has failed, for once... and with two frighteningly still bodies in tow, it is more than just a small one. She can see Lightningstone first... the fact that his flank does not rise and fall anymore startling enough. He was more than skilled as a warrior, had fought for his clan time and again always with some success to take pride in and yet, there are tears where his throat should be adorned in pale grays.

Her breath catches, immediately drawn to looking for his look-alike, his daughter- her apprentice. Selfishly her eyes flutter past blood-matted fawn fur, seeking out verdant eyes that linger on the floor. She's alive, and the relief is entirely drowned out when the rest of what she'd glanced over finally registered. When she hears Snakeblink's lack of willingness to confess the reality out loud.

"But...." You only just left... How could it have happened so quickly? And so violently... and yet so silently out of reach?

Swallowing past the way her heart flutters wildly in her chest, she wonders if Brookpaw feels like her paws are even hers anymore... if she even recognizes she has shambled all the way back to camp. If she can feel her own body past the numbness of grief so close and so sharp. Her father.... her sister.... They were the only kin she had left.

Her mouth runs dry at the thought of apology. What good would 'I'm sorry' do when twice now she'd failed to be there? Meadowheart shouldn't have died either... every loss preventable if just maybe she'd been closer by. If she hadn't prioritized a moment of peace over protection.

"I can... I can fetch Smokestar," she murmurs, brushing past brown tabby fur with a mournful, prying glance. Don't blame yourself again, even though she knew he would.

@SMOKESTAR cmere pspspsps

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CLAIM THE BURIAL I SEEK IN DREAMS

FLOWING RIVER CEMETARY​

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[brookstorm]

"They're dead."

She speaks hoarsely, eyes reddened and cheeks damp with tears still shed. She says what Snakeblink cannot, a fact that minutes ago, she detested. Her expression is vague, morose - her grief holds her in a sharp, stabbing embrace and she looks upon her Clanmates as if they're nothing more than reeds bending in the wind. A cough shakes her - a remnant of her choking sobs that no longer throttle her.

Brookpaw looks down at Lightningstone, and she feels as if it will start over again. The trudge home was filled with constant checks - would his whisker twitch? Would Oxbowpaw stir? - only for the 'constant' to fade into 'rare,' then to now and soon, never again. They're gone. Everything about her hurts and the cat she faced hadn't even laid a claw against her. The blood smeared into her fur isn't her own, though it's unlikely the owner will miss it.

Lichentail looks to her and she returns her mentor with a silent stare. She wavers on her paws and watches the dog obediently fetch her handler, and bitterly thinks, Why'd you send me? She says nothing more, slinking closer to the remnants of her family (dead, gone,) and lays with them. She'll stay with them for as long as she wishes, until she is told she must let them go, even. ​

 

[otterbite]

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ- Otterpaw stared at the fallen forms of Clanmates he never expected to see returned on the backs of Clanmates, limp and cold before he even earned his warrior name. Lightningstone was supposed to be a strong senior warrior, one all the kittens had looked up to when they saw the adults filter in and out from patrols. He was much like Ripplewave in that he was all work and no play, but that's what made him so admirable. He was a pillar to the prime warrior RiverClanners became. Meadowheart, Oxbowpaw, Brookpaw... they were supposed to follow his steps of glory. Much how Otterpaw envisioned himself in Pikesplash's.

"They are." He still can't seem to wrap his head around it. First Buckgait had been kidnapped (whatever, apparently she wasn't liked much). Then Meadowheart killed during the rogue attacks. And the rest of Brookpaws family now wiped away by the claws of more outsiders.

Quietly he at on the other side of them from his former denmate. Oxbowpaw was his denmate, too. Sharing the center together as the oldest apprentices. Would she earn her warrior name like their brother? Only after the glory of a fight? It felt cheap, if that were true. Ravensong's attention is on those that survived, those that weren't becoming coated in their own blood and he felt his anger rise in frustration for his friend but he didn't have it in him to spit his venom.

"..." His jaws open as if to speak but for once, he's speechless.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎┌── IM OUT OF CONTROL ⋅❁⋅ OH, HOW I BURN FOR YOU ──┐‎

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  OTTERPAW ✩ he/him, apprentice of riverclan, eleven moons.
  ⭃ scruffy blue/black chimera with white undercarriage and green eyes. noticeable kinked whiskers
  ⭃ adopted son to pikesplash // apprentice to coyotecreek
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay requires permission / / underline and tag when attacking or making an action toward
  ↛ see battle info here
  ⭃ penned by beatae ↛ gonkpilled on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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