someone to stay || snakeblink

[ashpaw!]

She finds him alone in camp, doing ... doing Snakeblink things, probably. Snakeblink things are not like normal things. They're their own category. He's funny that way.

She asks him to take her out of camp. To go on a walk. She wants to ... she wants to talk to him. It's been forever and if... if she's gonna be honest, she wants someone to lean on who isn't Willowroot. Because she always leans on Willowroot. And she feels really guilty about that sometimes. And especially now, after the battle... Willowroot got hurt, she lost a friend and Ashpaw doesn't want to — doesn't want to put anything else on their plate.

She's been feeling really — mean about herself lately. Stupid little kid, she thinks sometimes, why can't you act your age like every other apprentice? Still behind, no matter how hard she tries, still running and running after a finish line that runs, too.

She feels selfish for asking, tries to disguise it. "Um... it's just been awhile since we talked! You could — you could take me fishing? You're good at fishing." Oh, yes, Ashpaw, very casual. Good job.

Snakeblink has always been kind to her, though. Has always liked her. He watches out for her — makes her feel safe. She knows he's probably got, like, real friends, other friends who are his age but maybe he won't mind... hanging out with her too.

Should he oblige she'll take the lead, bounding out of the camp as quickly as she can. It's so depressing to be in lately. "How... how are you doing?" she'll ask. "The raid... um... that was..."

Scary, she's thinking. Awful. They attacked us in our own home and we could barely fight them off. Couldn't fight them off, really, they — they —

"I just wanted to catch up," she finishes weakly, "since so much... bad stuff has happened."

How does she ask for... support? Admit that she's not doing so great? The words get all twisted up in her throat, till she doesn't even know what they would have been anymore.
​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• @Snakeblink
  for clarity, snake could roll a 2 on perception and still notice that somethings wrong
  
  
• - 9 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to lead warrior willowroot
  - crushing hard on iciclepaw
  - happy-go-lucky, mischievous, hardworking
  - very friendly, but defensive of riverclan!
  - got real fucked up as a kid so if she seems like she was fucked up as a kid, that's why
  - "speech"
• - KICKED FOX ASS
  - she is on a JOURNEY
  

​

 

[Snakeblink]

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

Ashpaw finds him while he’s busy, but Snakeblink is never too busy for the ginger apprentice. Never too busy for any clanmate in need, really, but her especially. Her presence is like sunlight on water at the edge of his vision, a persistent glittering, always nagging at the back of his mind, and turning to face her only feels like focusing on a secondary but persistent duty he had put aside for a time.

The recent chaos has made his self-appointed protection detail of Riverclan apprentices fall to the wayside — he’s barely made time for his own — but he’s not surprised to find Ashpaw looking… out of sorts. The loss of Clearsight hit all of them quite hard: some in grief and some in fear, the feeling of seeing peace and safety shattered by such an untimely and bloody death.

”Well, when you ask so nicely, how could I refuse?” he replies wryly to her invitation, following after her and trying to keep up with her enthusiastic pace. His sprain is fresh and still stings when he rests too much weight on it, but he’s not about to be outpaced by an adolescent.

The way she asked for his company seems out of character: she’s usually more overt than this.He stares at her back as he tries to puzzle out the reasons why she could possibly want to talk to him. A problem with another warrior? No, she’d go to her mentor for this, or perhaps all the way to Cicadastar if it were important. Something she’d be too embarrassed to tell Willowroot or a friend, then?

He freezes, missing a step and nearly tripping as it occurs to him that she is… of a certain age… Surely she already knows where kits come from, given her mentor recently had some, but she’s gotten quite close to one of Mudpelt’s brood, hasn’t she? Iciclepaw, he recalls. Stars, what if she wants to ask about that? He’s well known for his knowledge of gossip in the clan, but he’d like to think the recent incident with Cindershade made it obvious that he should not be trusted to impart relationship advice…

She asks how he’s doing, stumbling over her words, and he huffs in sympathy as he pushes aside the voice in his brain frantically begging him to run away from teenage romantic discourse. He understands her difficulty in voicing it. It’s difficult to take enough distance to encompass it properly: the feeling of intrusion, of not being safe even in their own camp, their own dens, lingers past the battle.

”I’m fine enough, all things considered.” He stretches his leg, wincing at the twinge of pain. ”Any fight that doesn’t end with me thrown down the gorge is a win as far as I’m concerned.” His mouth twists at the clumsy wording and he flicks his tail dismissively, as if to wave off his own sentence.

I just wanted to catch up.

”Well here we are, catching up.” He clears his throat awkwardly. ”Is there… anything you’d like to ask me about… or is this strictly a social call? Oh,” he adds with affected surprise, ”Look, here’s the river already.”

He slows to a stop and stands there, wondering how poorly she’d take him jumping into the river rather than answering any question in the vein of how do I tell Iciclepaw I think she’s pretty.
​

——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely ​

ooc. information.

• 
  
• — Snakeblink • he / him. 37 ☾, riverclan warrior
  — a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
  — gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
  
  
  

​

​

 

[ashpaw!]

They fall into step, and she's grateful, she's so grateful. She doesn't want to be alone with her thoughts right now. Not after the raid... not after the way it left them broken, left them lost in their own camp. Marked by violence — literally, in Smokethroat's case, she remembers with an awful shiver. It's too familiar a feeling, dredging up her past every time she thinks more than a few thoughts at once.

Stupid, she thinks at herself halfheartedly, but he's talking to her now, even seems happy to. And that... that is nice. That's a comfort she leans into.

"Fine enough, all things considered," he answers, and Ashpaw will take that — because so many of their warriors aren't — she attempts to brush up against him, returning whatever comfort she can. "I'm really glad you got out okay," she says.

"Is there anything you'd like to ask me about?"

StarClan, is there.

"I don't... I don't really know," she says, flailing for words. "I guess I just ... I've been feeling really bad lately. Really really bad, and I don't know... I don't know..."

She trails off, throat stoppered by no, you can't, don't say another word. You don't talk about this — no one wants to hear about this.

All at once it tumbles out of her.

"It's just — I just feel so — broken. Like I'm — like he broke something in me that no one's ever gonna be able to fix, like — "

Like what? How does she describe it, this certainty, this sense of fate?

"Like no matter what I do or how hard I fight it always comes back to — him. To what he did. To being alone and scared and, and knowing I was gonna die. He led me there, left me there in that box, I was alone and it was — it was so scary, I was so small, and I can't forget that, how small I was. I can't stop feeling small. I wake up at night and I — "

She cuts herself off, cringing at the memories, the humiliation of admitting she still gets nightmares. But she can't stop. She can't stop telling him, talking about all these feelings that have just gotten scrunched up inside her for months. "I'm back there. Screaming in that silver box, or — or under him, his claws on me. I can't... forget it. How small and scared I was. And how after, he'd... he'd... he'd hurt me all the time, just because he could, because he wanted to. Ke-kept me alive so he could..."

Toy with me, she wants to finish, but the words get stuck in her throat. "Do what he liked," she says instead, and maybe that phrasing's just as bad.

Now the worst part. What tops it all off, the man's final damn legacy left on this clan: "And he killed Pumpkinpaw," and her next words are softer, afraid of the meaning they contain, "because of me."

Because she couldn't keep her damn mouth shut. Because she couldn't just — take it a little longer. Suffer a little quieter. The admission sits so heavy in the air between them; Ashpaw has never told anyone this. The promise she broke, the price her clan paid... they don't know.

Pumpkinpaw would still be here if not for her.

She's wondered, sometimes, if Cicadastar would hate her. If Quietstream would hate her. If they knew. A daughter, a sister, so much life beating in that cinnamon calico chest, softness guarded by a sharp tongue, and Ashpaw — Ashpaw took that from them.

"And it's never gonna leave me alone." She's shaking, tears making their way spitefully down ginger tabby cheeks, down the swath of fur scarred white. She thinks of fierce Cindershade, gentle Willowroot, steady Smokethroat and poised Cicadastar, how unlike them she is. How she cries like this. "I can't get away from it. I — I'm sorry, I shouldn't — I shouldn't make you deal with this, I just — "

It didn't have anywhere else to go. All bottled up inside her, and as soon as he asked it just — burst right out.
​

—— " i found gold in the wreckage "

✦ ooc ✦ character information ✦ recent events

• ooc text goes here
  
  
• - 9 month old orange tabby with green eyes
  - apprenticed to lead warrior willowroot
  - crushing hard on iciclepaw
  - happy-go-lucky, mischievous, hardworking
  - very friendly, but defensive of riverclan!
  - got real fucked up as a kid so if she seems like she was fucked up as a kid, that's why
  - "speech"
• - KICKED FOX ASS
  - she is on a JOURNEY
  

​

 

[Snakeblink]

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

Ashpaw brushes against his side, dredging a brief purr from Snakeblink’s treacherous chest. She’s a good kit — not a kit anymore, he tries to remind himself — and he’s glad she trusts him enough to go to him for advice, even if he thinks it’s a very bad idea.

I've been feeling really bad lately. Really really bad, and I don’t know…

Realization jolts through Snakeblink at the barely-restrained panic and anguish tainting Ashpaw’s juvenile voice. He goes still as stone, ears swiveling as his entire attention turns to her, laser-focused. Oh, he’s been so foolish, thinking this was about… about teenage infatuation, wishing he could get out of this situation easily — but by the stars, this he’ll find a way to help with.

He opens his mouth numerous times during her frantic rambling, about to cut her off with reassurances or refutation, but she always continues before he can find the right words, or any word at all, really. What she’s been through, what Spiderfall did to her and the other apprentices, has always been discussed in loose details among the warriors of the clan, sympathetic cooing over the injured adolescents overlaid with insults spat at the traitor. But Snakeblink has never heard about it from the victims’ mouth, and nothing could have prepared him for how— how terrifying it sounds.

He’s been wounded by allies before, been betrayed by friends, has lost loved ones and fights alike — but he’s never felt helpless, not like Ashpaw has. He’s never been at the mercy of another cat without the ability to fight back. And yet past experiences still leave him with the blood-curdling fear of being pinned and powerless under someone bigger, stronger, whose desire to kill him overpower his own desire for survival; how much worse must it be, he wonders, to be Ashpaw? To have been played with like a toy, like prey, threatened into silence? How much worse have they made it, all of them warriors supposed to protect their young, guilelessly ignoring her pain because it was easy, because apprentices can take care of themselves?

(How much worse since? He remembers Pebbleskip, the mentor’s brusque indifference. Remembers the fox she fought in the night, alone because no one thought to keep tabs on her. Remembers Peachpaw— how many apprentices have they failed with their neglect?)

Her voice fades, almost breaks on Pumpkinpaw’s name, and Snakeblink—

Cannot stop her, cannot shape the words on his tongue, can only blindly connect the dots — her admission, rumors he’s heard through the camp of Pumpkinpaw’s fate, Spiderfall spitting words before his banishment. He reconstructs the events as best as he can, shuddering at the gaping holes left, the deep dark recesses of what Spiderfall did that none of them are aware of, the things he took to his grave.

His next words, when he finally finds his tongue again, drop out of his mouth just as she’s saying, I shouldn't make you deal with this, I just — "

”No,” he bites out, voice cold and flat with dread. ”No, you shouldn’t. You should never have—” he stops himself, nose wrinkling as he struggles to put his chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order. ”Ashpaw, the way you’re feeling, it’s— wrong, it’s—” Misguided. Pointless. Only hurting you more, when you do not deserve it.

He clicks his tongue, tail lashing in irritation, and finally moves his stiff body to face her. He lifts a paw, unsure of its welcome, before nudging her cheek with it, gently. ”Ashpaw,” he enunciates, starting over. Her guilt-ridden voice lingers in the air, and this feels like the most important thing for her to hear: ”There is nothing you could have done to stop Spiderfall from killing Pumpkinpaw. He was— a beast. A poison in the clan’s blood, and you are— an apprentice. Very young, still, and even younger when he did this to you. Even if you had suffered silently forever, it would not have saved her. She would have died regardless. We would only have had two dead apprentices instead of one — and countless more, if Spiderfall had his way.”

He breathes slowly, eyes skittering up as he thinks. ”Worse yet, we might not have had any idea about what happened. He was cleverer than we accounted for, and without your testimony… We would have put things together much too late, I think.” He looks at her again, forcing himself to look deep into her eyes, trying to convey the sincerity he struggles to voice — and to soften the cruelty of his words. ”You could not have saved Pumpkinpaw. But you saved yourself, and you saved the clan. Every apprentice that goes unhurt by Spiderfall, every kit who grows up in kindness… That is thanks to you being brave enough to speak up.”

It’s hard to keep still when he wants so badly to pace, but he fears spooking her even more with sudden movements. The tip of his tail jitters behind him and his paws flew against the ground, restless, wishing to plunge into the neck of that abject creature. He’s glad Smokethroat put an end to him — but he wishes he could have bitten Spiderfall’s throat out himself.

”If you must blame someone,” he adds, gentler, ”Blame Spiderfall, for making you believe you had to pay for her safety with your blood. Blame us, the warriors who failed you, who were blind to your pain and to his cruelty. We should have done better by you.”

He leans closer, offering comfort but leaving enough space for Ashpaw to avoid it if she so wishes. Giving her at least this much agency seems the bare minimum after everything.

”You have been… indescribably brave and resilient. That you stayed quiet for so long speaks of your love for Pumpkinpaw, and that you dared to speak despite your fear speaks of your courage. He could not take that from you. As for the rest…”

That is harder to speak of, because there is no kind truth here. Pain lingers; love outlives its recipients time and time again. Snakeblink carries grief with him everywhere he goes, as do most cats of the clan. Lives like theirs are rife with loss. The only question is: how do you go on?

”What you feel now, it is… A wound that is still bleeding. And you will never not have that wound,” he agrees, unhelpfully. ”Like Smokethroat will never again not have the scar on his chest. We carry our hurts with ourselves our whole lives. But you are not a dry stick. You do not break irreparably. That wound will heal and scar, and one day you will find that it does not hurt anymore, and that you have outgrown it, so that instead of taking up your whole heart, it has become a smaller part of it, and is getting smaller still everyday.”

He only has his own pain and grief to draw inspiration from, his own persistent ache of the soul, but he puts all that old, fading pain behind his words when he adds, ”And you will not be alone while it heals. That much I can promise, if nothing else.”
​

——————————————————————————————————— so god damn lonely ​

ooc. information.

• ooc: local man tries to be reassuring, rambles for fifteen minutes, ultimately gets a C- in harm reduction
  
• — Snakeblink • he / him. 37 ☾, riverclan warrior
  — a sleek, skinny tabby with long ears and a scar over his right eye.
  — gay, not actually evil, penned by @Kangoo
  
  
  

​

​