private Shadow of the Day || Ashenpaw

Garlicpaw is not handling her grief well. Her wind won't shut up, she can't focus, she can't stop thinking about what happened. Her hunts are fruitless, prey hearing her sniffling or a clumsy step and fleeing. She wishes she could run out into the marsh and cry her eyes out until she can't anymore. It's not fair. Why did Halfshade have to die? Her mother, who loved them so much. Who protected them from being eaten by bears, who was so strong and brave and beautiful.... Why her? Why not someone else in another clan, she thinks selfishly.

She lays curled in a far corner of camp after another unsuccessful hunt. Her clouded, grief addled mind tells her there's no point anymore, her mother is gone. But she knows that isnt true, she has a whole clan to help provide for. Yet knowing this, it doesn't seem to matter much. Nothing seems to matter anymore. Where she once found love and joy in her heart, there is only a wound with emptiness and misery festering within it.

She thinks about what the future will bring. She thinks about her little siblings, who she still hasn't quite registered as such yet. It was just- All so sudden! She didn't know her mother was pregnant, had no time to prepare mentally to have little siblings! They just...They just appeared! They appeared, and Halfshade was dead, and it was TOO MUCH.

Everything is TOO MUCH.

She chokes down a sob as tears roll down her cheeks. The future doesn't seem worth it. A terrifying realization strikes her, then. As she grows, she'll have spent more time without Halfshade than with her. Over time, her memories will blur....The horrifying thought that she'll forget what her mother looks and sounds like is enough to freeze her blood. Her tears come pouring down as she grips the ground with her claws.

She needs someone right now. She desperately needs someone to cry on, she can't be alone.

She gets up and immediately trots through camp looking for her siblings. If they aren't here, she doesn't know what she'll do. She's thankful then, that Ashenpaw enters her teary, blurry sight. She wastes no time rushing over to him and pressing her face into his neck.

"A-ashenpaw....." She whimpers, words caught in her throat. "W-what are we gonna do?" She manages.

The world feels so cold, dark and scary without either of her parents here. She doesn't know what to do.​