On this sunrise, Cherrypaw is lingering at the back of the train. She's just...tired. The initial excitement had worn off long ago, chipped at and dented by the endless walking and brilliant new territories. Even foreign lands grow weary upon the eyes as the cats trek through them day and night, straining hard against the same-y strangeness to discern danger from novelty.
Perhaps it'd been the river that dealt the biggest blow to change's thrill. Bobbie would've died if it hadn't been for a RiverClanner, and beneath the immediate waves of shock and relief Cherrypaw had sensed a black, tarry dread creeping beneath the adrenaline. She ignores it, of course. There were always new faces to talk to, and new friends to familiarize herself with. So much to do outside of being stuck in her own head all day, like some of the quieter journeymen seem to be doing. Still the feeling clings to her, lining the inside of her skin like a fresh coat of paint.
Their current surroundings don't faze her—much. If she squinted her eyes and viewed the cliffsides through her lashes, she could almost imagine their towering shadows as that of the pines back home. Except, the deep umber of SkyClan's grand old trees is so much warmer than the monochrome arching all around her, suffocating her fire-flecked pelt with the ashes of its color. These monoliths lack the comfort of rustling pine needles, whistling birdsong, and amber-lined sunlight. All she gets are the whispering of distant winds and the unsettling clang of their voices, starkly alone.
An odd crackle sounds above. It's the first sound in a while that
wasn't made by a cat. Curiosity leads her gaze upwards, only to quickly flee from it as horror bursts into her bulging yellow eyes. The cry of the ShadowClanner behind her is lost in her own internal scream. Bit by bigger bit, the walls around them are crumbling. Not crumbling—
falling, shooting towards the ground with a speed belied by their size, their shadows blossoming like the blood they hope to pool beneath. Some boulders bounce off the sides of their cliffs; others simply rocket towards the earth, as though gleefully abandoning the height so unbecoming of them.
Cherrypaw had imagined them as trees. Some pieces of the cliff had been shorn into long and narrow shapes too; the shadows they throw upon the earth are those of falling trunks.
In this gray world, she's a kit again. With sun-sized eyes she blinks stupidly at the plummeting shapes, like she's never seen them before or even known they could fall like that. Terror, instinctual and primal, wells cold in her pale limbs. Her breath is a solid ball of marble in her throat. Her fear is a shell of armor around her, too heavy to move, so much it's useless. In the very recesses of her mind, she wonders how Snowpath had
willingly thrown himself beneath these things. Had he known for certain that he would die while he was running towards them? Is that just the fate of those who happen to lie beneath them? Chaos rages around her, but all she hears is the steady drone of the wind and a single, ominous creak.
Something hits her, something tender yet substantial. Though her terror endures, the shell of fear crumbles at Figfeather's touch, freeing her limbs and throat. All at once, the screaming and fleeing world returns to her, and she is forcefully reminded that she is a part of it. The amber-furred warrior screams a direction, and Cherrypaw lifts herself into a sprint after her. Pebbles shower their escape; a few bound off her flanks and spine. Dust, shimmering ash and silver, rises all around them like fog. Within the storm of stone she hears the whip-curl of thunder: the biggest of the stones, finally finding their mark and sinking gratefully into the earth. She thinks nothing of them except only to push herself faster, slamming her pawpads sore against the unyielding earth as she runs.
She almost crashes right into Scorchpaw. A yell flies from her mouth, startled:
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The sight of another girl seemingly falling into the same trap as her is immediately loathsome and shameful and
angry. "SCORCHPAW!" she screams, shrill over the low rumble of rockslide. Convincing her to move would take too long. Figfeather did it to her, so she does it to Scorchpaw: as she picks herself back up into a run again,
Cherrypaw aims a harsh shove at the apprentice's flame-brushed side, with only a glance thrown backwards to see if it worked. (She's just a WindClanner that she's known for a half a moon, after all.)
Somehow, nearby is still the same ShadowClanner that'd been behind her, as well as the familiar shape of Chalk. She calls out to him, her nose swinging towards a vague direction. The SkyClan apprentice barely registers the unruly state of his fur when she looks, whatever disdain he would generate momentarily obscured by their shared deserpation. And then Cherrypaw sees it too. A shadow cut in the cliff face, barely more than a sliver of space, but she comes to the same conclusion:
Better than nothing. Galvanized by fear and hope, she makes one last sprint towards the opening.
ooc: following
@FIGFEATHER and shoving
@SCORCHPAW to try and get her to move, heading into the same place that
@SHARPPAW. is!
