SNOW IN THE DESERT | open

[CELANDINEPAW]

Celandinepaw ran and did not look back.

The golden tabby pushed past the gullies, driven deep like scars in the loamy skin of the land, mudwater welting out of the great wounds. Soft paws ached as hurried footfall stepped upon jutting pebbles and harsh flooring. The moors that she had once revered and loved was now irreversibly broken, injured and howling out in its pain. Amaranth hues of the inferno lapped at the sky, as though it aimed to conquer the heavens above after it had scorched the earth, and she could do nothing to drag it back to the ground. The powerlessness of it all felt overwhelming, sweltering into satin throat with swelling smoke and choking out the clearer airs of safety. The spotted tabby couldn't be there in that moment, seeing all of the Windclan cats drawl out of the home that she had barely acclimated to. She mourned for the world that she once knew, and as she practically flew through the spindly wildgrasses, she never let her gaze become regardant. She couldn't place her gaze on it, lest the yearning of her break in courage fully consume her as the fires did to the fields.

And suddenly, the young molly found herself crashing to the ground ungracefully, and her act of fearful defiance had been a mere flicker in the grand weaving of the wilds. Celandine didn't even know where she aimed to go, where the besmirched winds would string her along. She simply wanted to get out of here, go back to where she had a nice bed and loving parents and she knew nothing but happiness and joy. "I wanna go home!" She yelled to no cat in particular, her golden face now smeared and smudged in wet dirt, stormcloud marring an aureate dawn. The wilds had been nothing as she imagined. Hummingbird heart thrummed maniacal and fierce within her ribcage, threatening to burst out of her very chest. "I'm sorry for leaving! I wanna go back!" Celandinepaw screamed until her voice grew hoarse, until there was nary another word to even surface from her lips. By now, tears ran heavy as twin mercurial rivers down her cheeks. Her face was sore from her sobbing, numbed and cold despite the heat that consumed her. I'm scared... Please, someone save me! I don't want to be a clan cat anymore!

( Takes place during?/a little after the evacuation :3 She's a little ways from the Windclan camp, near where the fire has blocked off the Sun-Warmed Pool )​

 

[sparkspirit]

Sparkspirit thought he shut down this yearning many moons ago.

Past Weaselclaw's death, past Sootstar's demise– past the claws that he used to slice through Heavy Snow's cheek in defense of his littermate, and all the other pain that he has wrought, Sparkspirit has been drowning in a pit of muddy regret. Too much of his life had been built on this straining of muscle and effort. He was the son of traitors and worse. His bloodline ran full of cats who had stood against everything he wanted to earn. Being a warrior meant standing by the leader. It meant knowing who he was, what he was; knowing what he would give up and what he'd give it up for. And everything that he had used to build himself up, brick by brick, came crashing down all too quickly.

And the worst part of it all was that he thought he was right. Giving up the place he'd once held by Sootstar's side was easy because he had finally felt worthy of his family instead. They'd been there. At his side, across from him, tangible. Wasn't that what he had always been so desperate for? Belonging? Why in StarClan's name had he ever thought that he could find that so easily? The WindClan he knew was gone. Replaced by blooming flowers and fattened, lazy moons, and this — this was where that had led them.

The wall of fire roars up before them. Sparkspirit stands far too close to it now. The flames have reached the other side of stone now, blocking off the final access to their water source. All of the muddied trenches they dug would have to suffice now, but what was the point?

I wanna go home, Celandinepaw shouts, and every iteration of the rust-patched warrior screams out in agreement.

"Celandinepaw!" he cries, his paws lunging forward on their own accord. Sprinting closer to danger is the last thing he wants, but the fire creeps closer and he swears he can feel it scorching at his face. Can't the apprentice feel it too? "You need to go! Come on, back to camp, it's safer there, come on!" Camp is not home. It's a facsimile, a terrible mirror image of what once was. The younger cat doesn't even have that much, but still he tries to urge her away from this dangerous lure of memory.

𝘛𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘓𝘌𝘋 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘋𝘚 𝘛𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘐  ･｡ﾟ  🗲  ╱╱ 02.13.2023 𝘊𝘈𝘕𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘚𝘈𝘠 ˊˎ＜

• OOC. —
• 🗲　　. 　 ˚　.  SPARKSPIRIT. HE - HIM - HIS. 17 MOON OLD MOOR RUNNER OF WINDCLAN. VERY LOYAL TO HIS CLAN. PENNED BY REVELATIONS.  ————
  
  
  ——  a trim mock tortoiseshell tom with mostly black fur splashed with the occasional patch orange. he has a singular white mark on the back of his neck shaped similarly to a lightning strike, and a small scar across the bridge of his nose. his eyes are a shocking electric blue.
  

  ✦ ECHOLIGHT x ELMBREEZE. ADOPTED BY YEWBERRY. BRIGHTFAM, BUT SOMEWHAT ESTRANGED DUE TO HIS LOYALTY TO WINDCLAN. ————————

• "speech"

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