camp SOUNDS LIKE TROUBLE ╱ OPEN RTAish

[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

Newleaf's never felt like such a curse. It's like he'd expected (or maybe hoped) that this dim fog would linger the rest of his life. RiverClan'd say a little bit frozen. Like the season he'd earned his name in. The last time he'd been– real, it seemed. He remembers the icy shock of pulling Cada from the water. He remembers the wall he hit as he plunged in. And against his will, he's. . . starting to remember the rest of it, too. He's healed up well enough. Just a bit of time to eat well, even in leafbare, and breathe in the scent of clanmates relearned, and Houndstride's good as new. How wrong that was. When he pulls himself out of the muck and into this clan, it means facing everything that'd changed. Cicadastar was dead. The founder of RiverClan, near the first of his friends.

He'd had kits first. The picture of Smokestar round and angry might've been enough to make him laugh in better times. They look so much like the two'f 'em. Each time he sees that one in particular. Stars but it hurts something awful every time. They'll grow up and get better and Hound'll manage it, whatever it is. Long as he gets through this newleaf first. Sitting in some pale sunshine, scars still aching each time that he blinks (gotta be of his own making, he's starting to think), Houndstride's eyes are empty off on the distance. Past the gorge, past fourtrees, right on to ShadowClan's marsh. The place he'd come from. The place Cada'd returned to without him.

It's nearly fitting, but. . . he doubts that'd been the intention behind it, when Smokestar buried him there. Now he's too far away to even be mourned, and his paws are itching with the terrible need to go– dig 'im up, bring him back. Put him somewhere that could be touched. He'd spent so long out of reach. Even before he'd been dead.

With a low scoff, the warrior stretches out his injured limb and asks whoever had the misfortune of being closest: "How's ShadowClan been, these days?" Sounds innocent enough, he hopes.

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. —
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ——— mauled by a fox moons ago and has plenty of scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

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[BOGSPIDER]

｡ ⋆🕷⋆ ｡ Twenty-seven steps of silence. Twenty-eight, and then nearly twenty-nine before the dark tabby with green eyes and a scarred face reaches to him with his voice. Houndstride is interested in ShadowClan's...state of being? Affairs? Interesting gossip? Bogspider knows nothing about any of it, though he was once told he should have been a ShadowClan warrior instead, and not for any complimentary reasons intended to flatter.

He stares at him. Blinks once, and his shoulders rise slowly in a single, measured shrug. "Alive," they answer, rough from disuse. "Dead. Making kittens. Eating frogs." Murky eyes focus elsewhere briefly. "Why?"

⸻⸻⸻ BOGSPIDER. FORMERLY BRIMESENT. HE / HIM & THEY / THEM. WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN WITH KITTYPET BLOOD. THIRTY-SEVEN MOONS OLD. PINTEREST. PLAYLIST.

⸻  a tall torbie with perpetually disheveled, thick fur and mire-gold eyes. while slightly taller than average, he lacks a noticeable presence. they are a peripheral creature, and one that is quite rangy in build, as though a slim yet sturdy mangrove root has taken feline form. not unlike his namesake, he is capable of an eerie stillness waiting for just the right stimulus to strike.

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[SMOKESTAR]

—————————————————————⊰★⊱————————————————————

His kits are the most important things in his life along with his clan as a whole, but the sight of them is also a constant reminder of what is lost and what he will never get back - he wonders vaguely if the newly revived/returned Houndstride would turn teeth upon him at the truth. Would anyone else? Admittedly it is one of several reasons he has told no one but Lichentail, a secret burden to be shared with his deputy alone. She understood, accepted it as what was necessary but he can never settle on that himself. He wanted to know, without any wavering uncertainty, if he had done the right thing and he never would. The stars bore him no sign, shined nothing upon his path to show - he had been given lives, yet he had told Sunstar himself that the act of recieving lives did not mean you were worthy, only that StarClan saw you as the best option at the time. StarClan, he had realized, was as heavily flawed as any living cat for they were a collective of them.
The question is sudden, strange, he does not make the correlation immediately and offers a gentle curl of lips in amusement, "Are you considering leaving us already, Houndstride? Surely my company is not so unpleasant."
As he says as much, Bogspider answers in that odd clipped and eerie tone and he gives the tom a glance aside in passing; his long-limbed and strange stillness was so reminscent of Cicadastar in a way that if they had the same pelt colors he would probably avoid the warrior altogether.
After a moments lapse he is stricken with realization, "Ah." No, Houndstride is not jesting about joining another clan, he probably knows now what lay buried at the Burt Sycamore within the marshes the colony once resided within. Among several other clanmates, his mate rests in territory he had not lorded over and it felt insulting at the time to dig such a grave but they'd had no choice. Earlier he had considered uprooting him to bring to the clan but so much was happening and, admittedly, he could not bare the thought of seeing his teeth scored upon a white throat again.
"...I've considered visiting lately. We are not exactly friends with ShadowClan, but we are on neutral enough terms I had thought they might humor me."
If you would like to accompany me, went unsaid. If he did make such a trek he would need at least another warrior. Lichentail would not tolerate him roaming with only a single cat at his side. He didn't care for the lecture.

✘ I've got a reputation and a name to uphold. ✘ Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves.

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Smokestar
  —⊰⋅ Leader of RiverClan
  —⊰⋅ He/Him
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/vitiligo & one orange eye.
  

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[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

He would've made a good one, he thinks. Much the same way he would've been. He'd lived there, 'course. Frogs and rats and a thick leather collar wrapped tight 'round his throat. Hardly the best time of his life. Between that and the memories those marshes hold, he doesn't think he'd ever willingly go back there. But Bogspider — he's a right sight, a memory of the dark put in front of his eyelids. Looking at him, or hearing him, maybe, Hound can't help a short laugh. "Hope not too many. Last thing those starvin' ghosts need is more mouths to. " It'd be easy to keep the joke going with Smokestar as he approaches, but his eyes turn to the dark tom right as it clicks into his eyes, and Houndstride's amusement falters.

I'd never go back there 'less you drag me, falls flat to the idea of seeing his friend again. Even if it'd never be quite the same through the soil. "Yeah?" It's easier to seem unbothered than he'd expect it to be. "Think they'd be any kinder with a marsh cat alongside?" You really don't mind if I tag along?

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. —
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ——— mauled by a fox moons ago and has plenty of scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

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[Sablemist]

Dark paws bring the domino furred warrior close to the group, lips slightly parted with passing news for Smokestar. The words ready to slip from bicolored die on her tongue as she caught the tail end of their conversation. Visiting Shadowclan? What for? Periwinkle eyes blink in confusion momentarily then trail from the white speckled leader to Houndstride, Bogspider, and back again. "Might I ask why?" She asked curiously, tone semi hushed with the hope she was not intruding.

✿ ≖≖ riverclan warrior / seventeen moons old / she/her ≖≖ ✿​

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[HOUNDSTRIDE.]

He looks at Sablemist with something like a heartache. Brow drawn down, eyes a bit hooded in heavy thought. It felt 's'if nobody knew him, or. . . maybe he didn't know any of them. Time away had left a lot of scars. Literal and figurative. Crossing them's like crossing the gorge, and reaching out's out of the question. No matter if he wants to; he can't quite stretch far enough. Whatever he opens his mouth to say dies in his throat, a gust of dead wind instead of words. "Was a friend'f mine, I'd suppose." Strange to think there was anything to question about that. How many of them missed him? How many of them had moved on? And how many were gonna end up reliving it 'cause he came back with brand new worries? He clenches his jaw.

𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐋𝐄𝐓: 𝐎 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.  ╱ ( 𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑻 𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑳𝑬𝑻 ) 〚 03.11.2024 〛 𓆟༝ ˚ ｡ ⋆｡˚ ༝ • .𓆝

• OOC. sorry hound straight up does not realize not everyone caught on that they were talking about cada lol
• 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. HE - HIM - HIS. PRODIGAL WARRIOR OF RIVERCLAN. ————— mauled by a fox moons ago and has the scars to prove it. though his wounds are healed, nothing can rid him of that pain.  ╱ PENNED BY REVELATIONS
  
  a lean chocolate tabby with lime green eyes. the scars that had once been limited to the bridge of his nose now shatter and expand across that entire side of his face, up to a ripped ear and down to his shoulder and front right leg. it is somewhat difficult for him to put his weight on that paw at odd angles, and he gets grumpy after a long while of walking, but it does not inhibit him terribly.

• "speech"

​