camp SPARKLING GEM ♡ intro / mud cats

[mockingbirdcry]

If there's one thing ShadowClan will always have—through all the cold, famine, death, and disaster—it's mud. Mud is a crucial part of the very territory they live in, where their primary prey makes its own home, what adorns nearly everyone's pelts, and part of what makes ShadowClan, well, ShadowClan. As such, Mockingbirdcry has taken it upon herself to educate the nursery kits on the general importance of the thing—and what better way than a game for the little scraps to join in on?

" Gather around, kits, " the queen coos softly, wide doe eyes beckoning forward curious faces. She sits, feeling the cool mud squelch under many - toed paws, and waits for her little audience to collect themselves. Mockingbirdcry scoops up a healthy pawful of mud once the kits have settled, patting it onto a dryer spot, and then hauls up another, and another, and another, until she has a passable lump. Pink tongue poking between her teeth, the queen molds the uppermost pile of mud with her paws.

" Look, it's a mud - cat, " the she - cat mews sweetly, poking " eyes " into the muddy plain that makes up its faux - face. She prompt scoops up a withered little pink march - blossom nearby and tucks it behind one of the " ears ". She turns glimmering brown eyes onto her audience, overlong lashes fluttering as she beckons the bravest of them forward with one paw. " Do you want to make your own? " Her muzzle curves into a smile. " You can name them, too. "

// talking to kits, but open to anyone!

" speech "

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[FERNDANCE]

Despite the accusations, Ferndance was not a kit. Gangly limbs and a decent height made her look more horselike than kitlike and it was obvious as Mockingbird's call rallied the little ones over that she wasn't exactly the target audience. It didn't stop the smile upon her maw, the wonder in her expression as she saw piles of sludge turned into mud-cats before her eyes. She was perfectly capable of being serious, but too often, it was more fun to find the joy in the most mundane things - even if those things just so happened to be piles of mud. "Gorgeous... absolutely gorgeous..." She moved forwards and past the Queen, her wedge-shaped head hovering all too close to the mud-cat. "I can really see the... the resemblance to..." Blinks grew slow as her mind drew a blank. Who in ShadowClan wore blossoms behind their ears? "Lilacfur?" Did the Lead Warrior ever wear them? Likely not, but it was the first name that came to mind. It was only after Mockingbirdcry continued that the tabby realised that these were made up creatures - an original character, if you would.

Moving away from where the kittens were likely getting stuck in, Ferndance's paws worked quickly but without much dexterity, piling mud on top of mud and scooping up any bits that tried to crawl down her mountain. When she was finished, the beast had no eyes or ears, its legs were crooked and bent - but it had a tail that stretched the usual tail-length. To the untrained eye, it was a pile of mud, to Ferndance, it was her first-ever creation, one that didn't need eyes or ears or morphous form to be a creature worthy of being called a mud-cat. "Mudpaw..." She decided quickly on the name. "Because it made my paws all muddy." She looked to Mockingbirdcry with a grin. The single, alabaster paw she had was no longer visible under shades of black and brown.

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[smogstar]

Nestled down in the innermost depths of cats' psyches, there lies this charming urge to scoop up whatever was under their paws into a mound and breathe life into it. As though the freshly-built muck pile could be anything but. The deputy has seen it done with snow, mud, slush—the list goes on, somehow.

A tom of Smogmaw's logic-driven disposition finds no warmth nor company in superficially strung-together heaps, and yet he has made several impressive mud monsters in his day. He attributes it to Garlicpaw mostly, and can safely say he'd have never done it otherwise; the companionship offered by inanimate dirt piles is negligible, particularly when juxtaposed against the sheer, unbridled camaraderie of a mushroom den.

It is indeed a way to keep the clan's young ones entertained, though, and Smogmaw always extends recognition to deserving parties. After all, the moving parts inside a kit's mind is where rationality dwindles to naught, and promoting a kit's development is a rare instance where heart trumps reason. Sometimes. "Stars above," he rasps, encroaching on the scene with the barest hint of a smile touching his maw. "We're aboutta have a whole mud clan on our paws."

Terracotta eyes flick across the infantile assortment frontwards to Mockingbirdcry, before landing and lingering on the queen herself. He must wonder if this activity stems from whim and whim alone, or if the molly found herself in need of a way to pacify the nursery's never-ending cries. It is a reasonable suspicion; he recalls how brief Halfshade's permanent tenure in the den ended up being.

"Tsk. Looks like Mudpaw's been hogging the fresh-kill pile." Smogmaw deduces Ferndance has long awaited a reason to frolic around in dirt. That ugly abomination at her claw-tips far outstrips the required proportions for a mud monster, or mud cat, or whatever moniker the day deemed appropriate. He has half a mind to step on the thing, to squash it beneath his pawpad and quash it into distant memory. The compulsion dissipates as soon as it arrives, for he knows the audience would surely take offense. "Could've sworn I saw Mudpaw out of camp without a mentor at its side," he goes on, trying his luck at being facetious. "Better be careful with this one, seems like a troublemaker." ​

 

[CHILLEDSTAR.]

no. no no no. absolutely not. never in a million moons, no. eugh. chilledstar was fine with a lot of things, but getting unnecessarily dirty with mud? not one of them. they winced as they watched the others, a shiver crawling up their spin and making them recoil back. how could they stand that? how were they so okay with getting so dirty? what was fun about that? nothing, if you asked chilledstar. sure, their home was muddy and marshy. getting dirty in shadowclan was easier than it was to be pushed by wind in windclan, but that did not mean that they had enjoy it, and believe them, they did not enjoy it one bit.

they find themself cleaning their fur, as if the sight of mud makes them feel dirty enough to clean yet again. gross.

"hope you're having fun making a mess, but keep that away from me! I swear to the stars if you all get one bit of mud on me..."

they're serious, but even then there's a playful edge. they're not gonna hurt their clanmates for getting them muddy, but they may very well hold a grudge and be sure to get them back for it.

———————---***ALL OF MY FEELINGS ARE GONE***———————---​

I LEFT 'EM ALL ON THE FLOOR✧ MAN WHO'S TO BLAME IF YOU DON'T LOVE ME NO MORE

•  
• — black feline with a white marking across their face, a white chin, a white right front paw, and blue eyes. chilledstar is covered in scars, the most prominent ones being the one across their face, and the one across their neck.
  — 44 moons old; ages the 3rd every month
  — they / them pronouns
  — aromantic / homosexual ; currently not looking / looking
  — child of JAGGED and RAVEN
  — shadowclan ; loyal to shadowclan ; other info if applicable
  — mildly difficult to befriend ; trusts barely anyone; trusts no one outside of shadowclan
  — "speech", thoughts, attacking
  — peaceful powerplay allowed

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[Willowburn]

THE GODS CAN KNEEL ⋆⁺₊⋆
Curiosity had lured him over to the scene, though disgust was urging him to turn around and run. Willowburn, unlike some of his clanmates, did not view mud in high regard. If there was a way to avoid wading through the filth then he would take it without question. So naturally he did not wish to partake or remain close to 'Mudpaw', or whatever other creations that came to be. "Oh, such fun. I think I'll be sitting this out however, I just finished bathing you see." Unlike Chilledstar he would be more likely to thump a clanmate if any dared to smear a single drop of mud on him in that moment.

- ⋆ -​

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[Gigglepaw]

"Mud-cats!" Gigglekit squealed in delight as she watched Mockingbirdcry from where she was sitting at Ferndance's side, and she watched with just as much amusement as her mom got in on the fun and made her own mud-cat named aptly named 'Mudpaw'. "O-o-oh, let me try, let me try!" The she-kit mewed, plunging her paws into the mud that had been disturbed for the messy activity.

She worked diligently in preparing her mud-cat, even taking the occasional glance up at Ferndance to make sure she was getting the features right. Somewhere along the line Gigglekit had gone from just muddy paws to a muddy underbelly and even mud on her face, though she seemed nonplussed by the dirty situation she'd gotten herself into. She noticed that some other cats had begun gathering around, and she looked over at them curiously.

"You're not gonna help with MudClan?" She asked Chilledstar and Willowburn, adopting the name that Smogmaw had so cleverly come up with. She looked back at Ferndance, before deciding, "That's okay! I can make enough mud-cats for everybody!" Gigglekit declared.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎OOC ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ .ᐟ.ᐟ INFO ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

• !
  

• 

• GIGGLEKIT ✩ kit of shadowclan, one moon
  → blinks incessantly.
  → peaceful and healing powerplay permitted.
  → penned by Archivist → .archivist on discord.
  

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