- Dec 1, 2022
- 97
- 16
- 8
WAKE UP TO THE SOUND OF YOUR FLEETING HEART ⋆⁺₊⋆
Moving a whole clan is messy, chaotic business. Their current camp is a whirlwind of activity as warriors try to help elders and kits out of flooded dens, gather waterlogged herbs before they're lost to the river, and countless other tasks that need to be done now, all at once, if they hope to survive the end of leaf-bare. Watching over the kits become an anxious second-thought: as long as they're safe, in sight but not underfoot, most have more pressing matters to attend to than making sure the small terrors aren't getting into trouble. And for the most part, they don't! It was scary, having to dig their way out of the snowed-in nursery to find the camp halfway underwater. Hazekit doesn't know how to swim yet! Her mom and Ashpaw only have two mouths to carry tem all with, and there are four of them. Even once they're on drier ground and that fear abates, Hazekit is determined to be good. She heard the warriors when the apprentice den collapsed. It was scary, more so even than being stuck inside, and she doesn't want to make her moms afraid like that.
Tiny paws aren't ready for a trek in the wilderness, so once the time comes for the big move the adults take turns carrying the kits. Hazekit is willing to make efforts, but come one. She won't be dangled over the territory when she could be surveying it instead, and she lets Wetfern know with a curt, ”Walk!”.
Wetfern is old, nearly an elder, really, and his neck is stiff and achey from years of hunting and swimming. He doesn't mind the respite from the slight but persistent weight of a kit. As long as you stay close to me, he agrees indulgently after they've crossed the slippery frozen river and he's had to put them down again to rest tight muscles, And tell me when you're tired.
So Hazekit is being good, letting Wetfern rest, and she's being a grown-up, walking to their new camp on her own paws. She feels like a warrior on a patrol, sniffing that log, overturning that rock, fantasizing that she can catch a whiff of prey-scent or Windclan fiend. It's almost fun enough to forget that it's a bit tedious to get frog-marched in a straight line, caught between warriors without any time for a quick detour around that cool-looking bush over there. Surely there's a reason they're being displaced like this. The blizzard kept them sequestered for so long, and now the river itself is bringing them out, further into the territory than Hazekit has ever been. It can't just be dumb bad luck. It feels like serendipity. It feels like they're being called out, and Hazekit itches to answer.
The woods hum and whisper around them, the wind through bare branches like a song, like a voice, speaking of secrets hidden where she has never gone before.
Warm, secret dens lie buried between tangles of roots, crevices so dark and so deep they have never been touched by river water or snow. If you were to peer into them you would see nothing, only the quiet dark, the cold stupor of the long leaf-bare sleep, but they are not empty. Crawling legs of squirming insects and burrowing prey curl into them to wait the deep frost out. You might walk a thousand times above them and never notice them...
She tries, she really does. But it's hard, being good, when the whole world is calling, and she wants to answer so badly.
They're not doing anything bad, anyway. Just looking around for a bit. They won't go very far.
Curiosity overcomes caution. Wetfern is old, he should probably retire already, and his eyes aren't what they used to. Easy, in the foggy dawn, to miss the way Hazekit slips away, tumbling out of the procession of Riverclan refugees and disappearing in the undergrowth. They don't spare a second glance back towards their clan: they have sleeping bugs to find.
A little later, in their new temporary camp, Wetfern will look around and, finding his charge missing, call softly: "Hazekit? Has anyone seen Hazekit?"
// Hazekit is off on an adventure! This thread technically takes place in the temporary camp, when others find that they are missing. I'll make a thread later for them to be found
Moving a whole clan is messy, chaotic business. Their current camp is a whirlwind of activity as warriors try to help elders and kits out of flooded dens, gather waterlogged herbs before they're lost to the river, and countless other tasks that need to be done now, all at once, if they hope to survive the end of leaf-bare. Watching over the kits become an anxious second-thought: as long as they're safe, in sight but not underfoot, most have more pressing matters to attend to than making sure the small terrors aren't getting into trouble. And for the most part, they don't! It was scary, having to dig their way out of the snowed-in nursery to find the camp halfway underwater. Hazekit doesn't know how to swim yet! Her mom and Ashpaw only have two mouths to carry tem all with, and there are four of them. Even once they're on drier ground and that fear abates, Hazekit is determined to be good. She heard the warriors when the apprentice den collapsed. It was scary, more so even than being stuck inside, and she doesn't want to make her moms afraid like that.
Tiny paws aren't ready for a trek in the wilderness, so once the time comes for the big move the adults take turns carrying the kits. Hazekit is willing to make efforts, but come one. She won't be dangled over the territory when she could be surveying it instead, and she lets Wetfern know with a curt, ”Walk!”.
Wetfern is old, nearly an elder, really, and his neck is stiff and achey from years of hunting and swimming. He doesn't mind the respite from the slight but persistent weight of a kit. As long as you stay close to me, he agrees indulgently after they've crossed the slippery frozen river and he's had to put them down again to rest tight muscles, And tell me when you're tired.
So Hazekit is being good, letting Wetfern rest, and she's being a grown-up, walking to their new camp on her own paws. She feels like a warrior on a patrol, sniffing that log, overturning that rock, fantasizing that she can catch a whiff of prey-scent or Windclan fiend. It's almost fun enough to forget that it's a bit tedious to get frog-marched in a straight line, caught between warriors without any time for a quick detour around that cool-looking bush over there. Surely there's a reason they're being displaced like this. The blizzard kept them sequestered for so long, and now the river itself is bringing them out, further into the territory than Hazekit has ever been. It can't just be dumb bad luck. It feels like serendipity. It feels like they're being called out, and Hazekit itches to answer.
The woods hum and whisper around them, the wind through bare branches like a song, like a voice, speaking of secrets hidden where she has never gone before.
Warm, secret dens lie buried between tangles of roots, crevices so dark and so deep they have never been touched by river water or snow. If you were to peer into them you would see nothing, only the quiet dark, the cold stupor of the long leaf-bare sleep, but they are not empty. Crawling legs of squirming insects and burrowing prey curl into them to wait the deep frost out. You might walk a thousand times above them and never notice them...
She tries, she really does. But it's hard, being good, when the whole world is calling, and she wants to answer so badly.
They're not doing anything bad, anyway. Just looking around for a bit. They won't go very far.
Curiosity overcomes caution. Wetfern is old, he should probably retire already, and his eyes aren't what they used to. Easy, in the foggy dawn, to miss the way Hazekit slips away, tumbling out of the procession of Riverclan refugees and disappearing in the undergrowth. They don't spare a second glance back towards their clan: they have sleeping bugs to find.
A little later, in their new temporary camp, Wetfern will look around and, finding his charge missing, call softly: "Hazekit? Has anyone seen Hazekit?"
// Hazekit is off on an adventure! This thread technically takes place in the temporary camp, when others find that they are missing. I'll make a thread later for them to be found
[⋆]
