private THE RIGHT WRONG [†] SMOGMAW

[SHARPSHADOW]

Sharppaw does not know what she feels, drifting along the mountaintops as she did.

He ought to be relieved. Relieved that they had all found what they were looking for, and what would save the clans if they were not all littered in corpses already. Who hadn't been happy, upon their discovery? Who besides him had not lifted their voices in glee or otherwise rejoiced in their find. Maybe he could at least be sad. Sad that he would return to ShadowClan, when he spoke more easily to those around him now than he ever has with any of their clanmates. He could consider the bears, or the sickness, or the oncoming winter where prey may run worse than it did here in the mountains. Maybe if he put it like that, others would understand.

But he isn't really sad either. He feels indifferent. What he would want is a nonsensical jumble in his own head. A hoard of thoughts even he wasn't privy to. It's stupid.

Seeing the looks shared; the noble words: friends and family to go home to, Sharppaw wonders how it would be to have someone like that. And amongst the sea of strangers (–and perhaps, regardless of that even,) Smogmaw is the closest thing he has to that, even if he often did not understand his nonsense. He thinks that's pretty sad, really.

Here she is, regardless, her paws on the verge of become icicles. He had caught Smogmaw once he had spotted him, alone. And he makes it clear that he intends to sit and talk amongst the peeks. There are a number of things she could say, any one of them important– pertinent to the journey. Instead, she asks probably the least important thing " This... This journey. Was it my assessment? "

OOC † LOOK SEE, ISN'T IT INTERESTING? NO, YOU'RE NOT EVEN LISTENING

• OOC: @smogmaw maow :3
  

• 

• ( IS THAT NOT BRAVE ENOUGH FOR YOU? ) SHARPPAW: Mentored by Smogmaw
  —— he / she , no pref , icked by they prns ; fine with gendered terms ( tom, molly, etc... )
  —— currently 15 moons old. warrior ceremony delayed due to lackluster progress.
  
  a dark smoke feline that stands at an above average height. Easily identifiable by her namesake – an unruly mat of fur, destined to be cluttered by inconsistencies between her chimera fur. Burdened with a broken tail. Recently, she has realized it can still function, though she has wholly believed in its utter uselessness for so long that it cannot without great effort. Anxious, antisocial, paranoid. Sharppaw has not known peace for a single time in his life, and lives anticipating inevitable dangers to the detriment of herself and others.
  — Obsessed with the perceived 'game' within ShadowClan, the rules of which she is unaware of. Striving to be someone more likeable due to this.
  heavy ic opinions! he sucks.

​

 

[smogstar]

His rhythm of movement hiccups and halts, thwarted by an unsought petition from his apprentice. Seldom does he find himself on the receiving end of Sharppaw's words, and much rarer is it for her to initiate a conversation. Given that and the apparent subject matter at hand, there's little he can do to stifle the quick puff he slings her way, before clearing his throat and correcting his posture to feign a more dignified impression—and to look down upon him. "Suppose it is," the tom replies simply enough, tone kept to a lukewarm drawl. "Would be embarrassing for us both if I held you back any longer."

A fraction of him wishes to keep it at that. He isn't ever eager to reveal his intentions or reasons, lest afforded time to review and project them in a more convenient light. Sharppaw's promptness robbed him of this chance and left him with but a few options for recovery. Either the discussion has reached its end, and the neurotic fluffball before him is left with an unsatisfactory answer to fret over. Or, Smogmaw could lower his guard by the narrowest of margins, and indulge his apprentice with an iota of honesty.

Bearing in mind all the allegorical horseshit they've both trudged through on this journey, he would be remiss to deny he'd placed a certain amount of trust in the other feline. She'd taken so much for everyone else's sake—it was his turn to give.

"Well- throughout... everything," Smogmaw begins in the wake of a long and deliberate pause, "I'd been waiting for you to prove yourself. Not in skill. Not in know-how, not in none of that. I'd wanted you to prove yourself as someone I could be proud of." His mind lurches at the prospect of how he may be reading him. But, fuck. There's stands no purpose in leaving his point unmade.

Gorging on his delicate pride and steeling himself against the very notion, he forces the rest of it out. "You've found your claws, and your voice," the deputy continues, "and I admire how you used both against that ThunderClan lowlife. More than that, you saved others' lives when we'd all gotten caved in. I'm proud of you, Sharppaw. You've earned your warrior name."​

 

[SHARPSHADOW]

It's a seed that Iciclefang had planted, and Sharppaw finds himself tracking its growth with desperate eyes. The lilt of his head is slight, but maybe clear enough in his intentions— his wants. Irritation clouds his face at what he's given, at first. The answer is straightforward, for once, and that alone does not make it satisfying like Sharppaw thought that it would. A twitch of the eye betrays frustration. For all that he has attempted to seem aloof, undisturbed— And perhaps he has been somewhat, in front of the other clans, he feels wrangled back into bitterness beneath an obtuse, annoyingly obtuse, brown gaze. The apprentice huffs, and casts his head to the side, fur bristling like quills along his neck. Reputation. Reputation, was that all it was? It is a fragile one, and he guesses that it would be, for how low the bar was set in ShadowClan.

She is already shutting him out, and she expects nonsense when she opens his mouth for a second time. She'd thought the dialogue between them had ended— and anything more was bound to be superflous, and... and annoying. Sharppaw looks to him with a frown. She can understand him, for once. And she thinks she is bound for a loop.

Where was Smogmaw going with this? No doubt, somewhere bad. A longwinded to say not enough, too little, too much. Someone to be proud of. Well, That couldn't be him. And were all those things not correlated? Was skill not benefit? Likeability not power? Sharppaw's face dips farther into confusion the longer he goes. And then, a beat.

Surprise lights upon his face like a wildfire. Startled, he blinks. This was wrong. A lie. A trick.

And the thought is shoved away— because he is happy, and he has done something. And it is not the something he was supposed to; to be happy knowing he was bringing fresh herbs home to the sick. He has done something for himself ( hasn't he? ) Is it selfish? And did that make him bad? Perhaps that made him bad in the same way attacking that Thunderclanner had, and if that won him favor, well...

Sharppaw ducks her head. ...Because she did not know what face to make. Not a clue. " I... " She finds herself blinking wetness from her eyes– embarrassing. This was it. " You... It was you. A– A little bit, " Discomfort coils in her gut at the admission, but they were both sharing. It's all fine. Was that in the way he had intended? Or had Sharppaw only looked to him in the places he had never asked her to? Nonsense words and speech cloud her mind, and today, it does not make her angry.

He felt better, and he felt the same. His lips twitch up in a smile— and he is the same cat he always was. But here– he felt fine. With his claws in the pelt of that ThunderClanner, he had felt fine. His smile widens just a fraction, and he felt it was one he may never share again. " I'm looking forward to... to being a warrior alongisde you. " It feels like a lie, and perhaps it was. She was looking forward to making him proud again. To the breath of happiness, when they returned with jaws bountiful. Maybe ShadowClan would be happy, for just a little while.

OOC † LOOK SEE, ISN'T IT INTERESTING? NO, YOU'RE NOT EVEN LISTENING

• 
  

• 

• ( IS THAT NOT BRAVE ENOUGH FOR YOU? ) SHARPPAW: Mentored by Smogmaw
  —— he / she , no pref , icked by they prns ; fine with gendered terms ( tom, molly, etc... )
  —— currently 15 moons old. warrior ceremony delayed due to lackluster progress.
  
  a dark smoke feline that stands at an above average height. Easily identifiable by her namesake – an unruly mat of fur, destined to be cluttered by inconsistencies between her chimera fur. Burdened with a broken tail. Recently, she has realized it can still function, though she has wholly believed in its utter uselessness for so long that it cannot without great effort. Anxious, antisocial, paranoid. Sharppaw has not known peace for a single time in his life, and lives anticipating inevitable dangers to the detriment of herself and others.
  — Obsessed with the perceived 'game' within ShadowClan, the rules of which she is unaware of. Striving to be someone more likeable due to this.
  heavy ic opinions! he sucks.

​

 

[smogstar]

Reading Sharppaw is much the same as watching pawprints left in sand—just when you feel as though you've got everything figured out, a wave sweeps over and erases it all away. Within a concise timeframe, a mere matter of moments and nothing more, Smogmaw observes indifference turning into disgruntlement; disgruntlement getting swallowed by doubt; doubt faltering into a state of confusion; confusion withering into embarrassment, from which happiness ultimately emerges and becomes less repressed in magnitude as the seconds ticked by. All that from the meagre twitches and spasms in her facial features. What a shambles she is, eh?

Admittedly, Sharppaw's happiness comes in defiance of pre-set expectations. It'd been nonchalance that the deputy anticipated, possibly a murmured 'thank you' if he were fortunate. Moons of neurotic training sessions have set the bar fairly low. But to see a rare smile take hold of his face, it imbues the older tom with a sentiment consistent to his apprentice's. Milder, but comparable all the same; a flicker of unabashed delight, as shown in a toothy smirk.

"Likewise," he tells him, briefly envisioning the breed of warrior she may cement himself as. Flaxen eyes give an up-and-down appraisal. "Your path has led you far, Sharppaw. I'm keen on watching where it goes from here."

With that, he affords the wiry-furred cat a solemn nod. It is a rare instance in which his words weren't bestrewn with half-truths or hypocrisy, and he is fully aware of it. "Both of us'll have a part to play in picking up ShadowClan's pieces, assuming it's been torn to tatters in our absence," concedes Smogmaw, whose cadence lessens considerably by the sentence's ending. Somberness wears on his words, but he feels it to be a realistic enough assessment. "Do not disappoint me." ​

 

[SHARPSHADOW]

It is more than he expected; that curt, muttered, likewise. As auburn eyes appraise his figure, Sharppaw is every bit a ShadowClanner. She hunches her back in a way that he ought to like. The disparity between two sets of paws is seen with a flicker of silver. Black, and then grey; big, and then bigger. He would continue to be watched— opposition to that thing Iciclefang had told him, that he would no longer be upheld to the scrutiny of warriors. Not all warriors, certainly, this was true— Sharppaw would make shreds of them as soon as he is able— but past them all, Sharppaw still saw eyes of burnt umber; furrowed brow, statuesque presence that would remain, no matter how dire things became. And that... was a thing they had in common.

Had she gotten it from him, he wonders? Pins and needles, up and down his back. Nevermind that, nevermind, because his smile glints amongst pure white mountaintops, and his mentor's grin is just the same; horrific.

The both of them, Sharppaw's eyes are full as moons. She thinks it couldn't be her— but if no one else, than who? She could not hang back amongst the peeks, or bury her head in the snow. She needed to pick up the pieces. This is what she's told, and it's what she'll do. Right now, she's stupid enough to believe it. Twitching whiskers seem to sparkle.

He is still an apprentice yet, and beneath that gaze, he nearly feels like he always will be. Sharppaw is blissfully ignorant. Full moons into crescents. A not - right smile. Breathless, " I... " —she would dream of it. Certainly, she would. Sharppaw licks rubber - black lips. " I won't. "

with myself i must play in this game of charades ( ♱ ) cause there's no one to speak to

• 
  
  

• 

• ( OF THE THINGS I'VE GOT IN MY BRAIN ) SHARPSHADOW: Formerly mentored by Smogmaw
  ♱ he / she , no pref , dislikes gender neutral language ; fine with gendered terms
  ♱ currently 17 moons old as of 11.12.23 / ages every 8th
  
  

  dark smoke feline that stands at an above average height. Easily identifiable by her namesake – an unruly mat of fur, destined to be cluttered by inconsistencies between chimera halves. Burdened with a broken tail, often lying dead behind her in the dirt.

  
  Anxious, antisocial, paranoid. Sharpshadow has not known peace for a single time in his life, and lives anticipating inevitable dangers to the detriment of herself and others. —scraping together some higher purpose— making somewhat of an effort to be " likeable "
  heavy ic opinions! he's irrational and mean </3

​