tunnels RINGING IN MY EARS &. getting snappy

[SPLINTERPAW.]

SHOULDA TAKEN A BREAK, NOT AN OXFORD COMMA​

---

the stars must have hated them. they must have– because why else would they be put on a patrol with laurelpaw, a cat who has been known to talk just a little too much on patrols. it's not like it's a bad thing necessarily, but anytime they go through their patrols, especially when in tunnels, they enjoy the sanctity of the peace. if their old mentor were still alive... he'd at least try and take into account of splinterpaw's sensitivity to the loudness of the world. they're not sure how scorchstar would, or what rather, do with it. scorchstar was their aunt, their kin and probably the one their closest to outside of their littermates, and father, but she's still their leader. hardly seems like she'd be the type to coddle anyone, even if kin.

their gaze moved over to laurelpaw with a stern and agitated look in their eyes. why was she talking? did she have to keep talking? way to ruin the peace. they felt their claws dip into the cold ground, ears pinning back further as they grumble beneath their breath, tail lashing back and forth. they're honestly trying to keep their cool, but with how close they are to the noise, it's hard. it's not like they hate talking– they just hate it when it's loud and close to them.

"must you be... so annoying? this is a patrol, not a meow fest. be quiet."

// pls wait for @laurelpaw !!

​

 

[laurelpaw]

When given the choice of it, Laurelpaw would say that she preferred the peace that being a cat bound for the tunnels offered. Lengths below the moor lay a different world, one where the dark and the silence of a night ruling eternal brought her comfort, one to which the sun and the sky and all the cats beneath could not compare combined. Here, her name, her face, and her voice all slipped from her, falling to the earth like dead things; stripped away was all that made her Laurelpaw, specifically, and granted to her instead, just for a little while, was the passive mask of simply: a cat in the tunnels, racing away down the path to wherever and whatever she wished.

But this would not be one of those days; it puts a bit of a slump in her step, but the molly perseveres. The morning barely broken out of the clouds, the tunnels at least offer a suitably thick cover of security, and she forces the last bits of sleepiness from her eyes as they adjust. Somewhere to her side, one of her fellows gives voice to hopes for the prey to run well today, now that the leadbare snow was sure to steadily fade, catching her attention. She's reminded then of the particularly plump vole she'd caught bolting towards its burrow the other afternoon, and, of course, she just can't help but to boast over it: chest puffed, voice alight with pride for having caught something to show for her efforts, to show that she is good — she doesn't notice how her words racket off the tunnel walls.

'Be quiet.' Laurelpaw, for all her defiance, can't help but to oblige to the sudden demand at first. She stops dead in her tracks, claws clung to the dirt, black ears pricked towards the voice that had rattled out from behind her. For a moment, she listens: frozen in a moment of surprise, jaws clamped shut as if in anticipation, and of what, she realizes, she doesn't know — can't decide. Reprimand? Something more?

Her mind beelines unhelpfully to the last time she thinks she can remember a cat having snapped at her in such a way. Somewhere amidst kittenhood, perhaps the first days of her apprenticeship; a warrior, stripped of name and face, having been deemed unworthy of these by a vengeful, biased memory. You keep acting out like that, and you'll have been better off following him after all — slipped out of the side of their teeth, the edge of a fang clinging on her skin. A mistake, maybe. Something cruel, said in an irritation not truly her own fault, but rather that of lack of decent food in the pile, or of bad weather on a patrol.

But there was no excuse. Such thoughts didn't come out of nowhere; they were not born from hunger and endless rainstorms.

"You be quiet." she snaps — like a streak of lightning in the fields, it rings clear against the frozen-through walls, sharp and lighting her face up in something bright and angry. Small as she is, the tortoiseshell feels as if she grows to fill the entire tunnel, the space suddenly feeling far too little to house the spite rising beneath her skin. She's snapped her head around, eyes locking in like a hawk upon the fellow apprentice that had dared to speak to her. She can't recall anything specific about Splinterpaw, in this moment, no past wounds for his words to sting, nor bitter memories to stumble over and choke on; yet, she blinks, and he's put on the faces of a hundred cats, their maws sneering and eyes aglint with disdain borrowed from a time older than she. What do they see in the dark — me, or him?

"You do not tell me what to do." Laurelpaw stares the silvery cat down, having planted herself firmly, defiantly, in his way. She registers somewhere in the back of her head that she's likely to get scolded for this outburst — but what was she to do now that she'd been insulted so, now that the venom in her words had just come so easily?
​

we are made ✦ from the sharpest things

• ooc: —
• 
  
  

  LAURELPAW ✦ she/they, 13 moons
  — windclan tunneler apprentice
  — speaking, thinking, attacking
  — snakehiss x berrysnap

 

[VIPERPAW]

*+:｡.｡ "WOAH, HEY, no need to get all snippy" Windclan's president hero would purr, pausing in his careful crawl to look over his shoulder at his fellow tunnelers. His voice comes out oddly strained, almost choked, as he finds himself swallowing back an uncomfortable stone of emotions. There's a lot to unpack here, he must say, as he clocks instantly the familiar edge to his sister's voice and the growing familiarity of thorns in Splinterpaw's. The lilac feline in particular hasn't seemed...themselves in a very long time. Rather, they seem more like...an enemy among their clanmates. Odd. Uncomfortable. Perhaps someone who could be saved?

As expected when he's within earshot of any conflict, a buzz of excitement rolls down his spine, raising his fur like cheetah-cub fuzz. Every derailed fight by his paws puts him one step closer to becoming Windclan's most appreciated, legendary hero, after all! How could you not expect him to jump (or rather, tightly wiggle) at the opportunity? Well...when he blinks through the gloom to find it's his littermate at the other end of the conflict...matters get a little less...black-and-white-y.

Wrapping a long tail around his sister's shoulder, he'd hope to transfer some semblance of comfort - and if not that, a touch to ground her lest she starts a fight neither she nor Splinterpaw can maintain within such a claustrophobic, not entirely secure tunnel. "We all have different ways of enjoying our time in here! A little talking doesn't hurt anyone!" he purrs, hoping to ease the tension but a little less eager to leave his sister defenseless. Whatever is going on with Splinterpaw, they truly have no business talking to Laurelpaw like that. No one does.

But especially when it's so rare to hear her voice so full of light and self-appreciation. "It was a pretty cool vole" he meows pleasantly, hoping to inject the air with some levity, Did you catch anything good, Splinterpaw? " Viperpaw extends an olive branch.

*+:｡.｡ Updated 10/11/24

• "SPEECH"
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ☁ Viperpaw
  ☁ DFAB— He/Him
  ☁ 10 moons
  ☁ Son of Snakehiss and Berrysnap
  ☁ Brother to Rowanpaw, Snakepaw and Privetpaw
  ☁ Windclan — Tunneler's apprentice
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ☁Physically easy | mentally medium
  ☁Attack in bold white
  ☁ None currently