two sides of the same coin [dapple]

[Duskfire]

I WANT SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS​

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Dusk knew a thing or two about knowing nothing at all. It was an unfortunte side-effect of where he'd been born and how he'd been raised, neither of which painted a pretty picture. The situation he'd come from had been nothing short of dire, with cats left to go mad as they starved, locked in rooms and cages. It was a horrible place where he'd had to do horrible things to survive, and it took a lot to unlearn those things. Thankfully, Windclan seemed willing to do just that.

The copper-gold tomcat had only been a part of the group for a few weeks now, but already in that time he'd felt himself changing and growing to like the place. Before joining up with them, back when he'd been locked in that helhole, he'd thought it would be enough to just get out. If he could only get away and escape then happiness could be his. But it hadn't been that easy, because what was happiness? For Dusk the closest thing he'd ever had to it was a full belly and a good nights rest, things that had come to him less and less the older he'd grown. When he'd first made it out and onto the treets of twoleg place, he's been little more than a walking skeleton.

But it had been months since he'd found his freedom, and weeks since Windclan had begun showing him exactly what it was he'd been missing; purpose, community, a real life beyond just surviving to exist.

And for the most part Dusk had done well to cement his place among the Windclan cats. While Sootstar had not yet made him a full warrior, he could see that the cats no longer looked at him coldly or spoke to him with doubt and skepticism in their words. On the workfront the spotted tomat seemed to be thriving. Active, observant, and crazy fast, he had proven right away to be rather skilled at catching birds, able to leap upand pluck them right out of the air if he timed it properly. He till hadn't caught a rabbit yet, his body still working on getting its stamina up, but he was doing well. He was well fed and muscle had found its way to his body, and while he still had a lot to work on he could at least rest assured that Windclan cats saw him as competent.

His social life still wasn't doing all that great tough, and he knew there was nobody to blame for that but himself. He'd been watching the other cats carefully, trying to figure out what made it so easy for them to just... be that way. How was it so easy to just trust each other and smile and laugh? He could see their happiness so plainly- so why couldn't he see his own?

Padding into camp with a vole between his jaws, Dusk would make his way over to the freshkill pile to add it with the rest. The clan had only just moved into the camp a day or so ago, and if he was honest he still wasn't fond of the way the gorse walls rose up around them. It remindd him too muse of the walls of ths he'd been kept in, but he forced himself to bare with it. At least Sootstar didn't make them sleep in dens, allowing the warriors to sleep out in the sandy hollow beneath the stars.


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windclan warrior - male - 17 months - homosexual - polyamorous - single - tall, strong bengal tomcat

 

[Dapplefoot]

Dapple searched the sky of stars as she kept a light pace trough the seemingly endless moors, there were so many here, far from the twoleg place. It reminded her of her first home, the den her mother-cat had scraped out of stale hay, the smell of musty old wood and rusted tools surrounding her as she listened to her new siblings mewls. she was only a few months older than her parents newest litter, the only one of hers. She was lost in the sea of her mothers long fur, warm and safe, snuggled to her side as she hummed a lullaby.

Dapple began humming the tune to herself as she walked. The wind whipped her voice away, drowning it in it's own sound. But it didn't matter, there was no one to sing to anymore anyway. There was no one but her. Having nothing else to occupied her mind, the memories kept coming.

Her father brought her mother fresh-kill, touching noses and settling by her head. He tore off a tiny chunk for Dapple, keeping a watchful eye on his other kits, seeming content as is mate ate and his kits were fed. But then her sire was gone. One day he just didn't come back from a hunt. Dapple was hungry and her sibling cried for milk, but her mother-cat just didn't have enough. Dapple was given a special task by her mother. "you're the oldest, you're big sis okay? Mama's gonna get us some food. Keep your siblings safe."

Dapples mother hunted for a while, and her litter grew, but Dapple was still the biggest, she was big sis, at first she took care of her littermate's when mama was gone, kept them together, tried to keep them warm.

She remembered that struggle as she made shelter in a large bush. How she would pile hay around the kits, huddle them together and curl around them as best she could. Dapple scented a hare in a nearby burrow but couldn't get herself to pursue it. It reminded her of the worst of the memories.

Her mother's fur thinned unnaturally, her eye's began to glaze.

The wild cat visibly flinched as she pictured one of her mother's coughing fits. They where so violent they scared her siblings. Dapple hunted after that.

The she-cat forced her head to the ground, placing her large paws over her face. She refused to recall that day. She couldn't dwell on the flashes that raced across her mind. The blood on the hay, the thud, the long, quiet sound that haunted Dapple. A final breath taking center stage over her distraught siblings rushing to her, cowering under her paws and crying for her to do something.

Snap out of it. Dapple stood and shook the feelings from her fur. She gave herself a few calming licks, picturing her little siblings happy and safe in their twoleg homes. "Right then. Onward." She told her self in put on cheerfulness. "Something new."