private UNDER THE GLOWING STAR [ ✦ ] Sunstride

[Halfsun]

Dreams are a contagion. They fill your head with thoughts, with ideas about the way things should be and then when reality strikes, when it wipes the fantasy away, the result can be soul crushing. Lately, Halfkit has been doing a lot of dreaming. The more she thought on it the more she realized that maybe she didn’t mind WindClan. She wouldn’t have to go into the tunnels again, she had since learned that the thing that Sootstar had said when they had first met, about her and Ouzelkit needing to be moor-runners, was in regards to the two separate ranks that divided the clan. Pinkpaw was a tunneler, and though she was sad they wouldn’t train together she was also relieved. Based on the response of her calico furred friend, being a tunneler wasn’t so great. But being a moor-runner meant that Halfkit would have a lot to learn she thinks. She had been preparing all of her (short) life to carry out her apprenticeship in the pines. She didn’t know the first thing about the moors! And Halfkit was determined to be ready.

Sunstride had been so helpful the first time she had asked him for advice that she had decided to seek him out again. "Sunstride?" she says as she draws close to him "Will you tell me what it’s like to be a moor runner?" did cats ever get swallowed into all the hills out there? Were there things to watch out for? Were there things that ever took his breath away and made him wonder? She wants to know so badly.

// @SUNSTRIDE

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[SUNSTAR]

For a moment, he does not know how to tell her the truth– that this is not a dream she will see come to fruition. His plan to return the kits has been slow coming, but now that his oath had been made, he would not turn his back upon it. In only a day, they would be returned to their home. To the father that they did not know well enough to miss. Putting himself into Smogmaw's place is...strange. Would he know enough to miss the kits as they are, or would he simply miss the possibility of them? All that they could mean? It is a great luxury to think in such hypotheticals, he knows. It would tear him apart to lose one of his kittens now. That is what drives him, alongside the desire to correct Sootstar's many wrongs. They called him willing to see this pain wrought upon another– they should be glad that they do not have any experiences to show them otherwise.

Sunstride hesitates, and then chuckles. It is a low, sad noise. "It is one of the many great things in this clan. To stand still and see the full of one's territory laid out before them, without anything to stand between you and the horizon– I do not think I could explain it to you beyond that. It is dangerous, and wonderous, and a great many other things." His voice trails off. Once before he had been a warrior. Far different than a moor runner, just as he was far different from a WindClanner. Still he is not meant for their bursts of speed as they chase down a hare, or the delicate weaving of agile paws. He was a relentless warrior, and he did not quite belong here. Maybe that is why he feels for the two littermates as he does. Drawn to this world by lies, only to find a shaky home there regardless.

"What is it like to be a ShadowClanner?" he asks in turn, glancing sideways down to her. "What do you remember of the marsh?"

𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓  ╱╱ 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐕𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 〚 11.22.2023 〛 —————«

• OOC. —
• 

  SUNSTRIDE. WINDCLAN DEPUTY & MOOR RUNNER.
  ——– HE – HIM – HIS ╱╱ 48+ MOONS OLD, ADULT.

  NPC x NPC, LONERS. MATE TO WOLFSONG; FATHER TO BEARPAW, SINGEDPAW, RIVEPAW, SUNLITPAW AND FEATHERPAW. MENTORING SCORCHPAW.
  
  TH ╱╱ LARGE CHOCOLATE ROSETTE TABBY, ICY EYES.

• "speech"

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[Halfsun]

The way he describes it sounds just like how she imagines it to be. Breathtaking, wondrous. To stand up on a hill and see where the sky ended, to see all that it was that you were charged with protecting. It seemed like a whole ‘nother world. And, in a way, it was. "Wow" she says her voice breathy "I hope I can see it one day" she can imagine herself as an adult, standing next to an equally grown up Pinkpaw and overlooking the whole of the territory. She had seen a little of the rolling hills when she had first been brought here. Just a glimpse but it is enough to allow her mind to imagine the way the hills would look when the sun made everything golden in the way it does.

She wants to ask more, to inquire about the dangers that lay beyond bramble walls, but Sunstride has other ideas than idle chitchat about the moorlands. Instead he is asking her about ShadowClan "Sootstar told me to forget about that place" She supplies, feeling awkward though she is not entirely certain why. She picks at the grass under her feet with her claws, a thoughtful expression creasing her features. "I liked the way the sun would dance through the pines, I liked chasing the shadows" she finally admits after a long quiet moment, her voice soft, as if she is afraid someone will overhear her. "but the other kits said ShadowClan is gross and wet, and that frogs taste bad!" and she wanted so desperately to be like the other kits that she was willing to believe it. If they didn’t like ShadowClan that neither did she! But the traces of doubt in her voice would give away her true feelings to a more experienced ear.

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[SUNSTAR]

That his opinion is much like a kit's is enough to startle a laugh from Sunstride. The doom of this moment is briefly forgotten. "Ah, I did not try frogs during our stay in your territory. We hunted the carrionplace." He is not going to tell a kit of what happened there, and whatever he may think of the marsh...in this moment, Sunstride does not want to crush her thoughts of the place more than they have been. That Sootstar had asked her to troubles him, the way that it had once troubled him to put aside his roots outside of WindClan. He was Sunstride, and would never be anything but, and yet– how terrible it is to forget who he had been before. The warrior sinks to his belly and looks off into the distance with somewhat squinted eyes.

"A long time ago, I lived in a place with trees like ShadowClan's. That did not age or die the way the others do. They were green even with snow upon the ground, and grew only taller, never weakened." Seaglass eyes glance at her with only the slightest turn of his head. "There are nights that I would return there, if I could. It is still my home, even if WindClan is as well. It is not Sootstar's choice if you forget ShadowClan or not."

Dreams are contagion, yes, and they could not be truly crushed. "They miss you, you know. Your family, your friends."

𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓  ╱╱ 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐕𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 〚 11.22.2023 〛 —————«

• OOC. —
• 

  SUNSTRIDE. WINDCLAN DEPUTY & MOOR RUNNER.
  ——– HE – HIM – HIS ╱╱ 48+ MOONS OLD, ADULT.

  NPC x NPC, LONERS. MATE TO WOLFSONG; FATHER TO BEARPAW, SINGEDPAW, RIVEPAW, SUNLITPAW AND FEATHERPAW. MENTORING SCORCHPAW.
  
  TH ╱╱ LARGE CHOCOLATE ROSETTE TABBY, ICY EYES.

• "speech"

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[Halfsun]

She has heard tales of carrionplace before, though they were muted for kits ears she knows that the adults speak of it with disdain in their voices. A place only meant for desperate times. He, like many other adults she knows, passes over the topic quickly and moves on to other things. She does not mind it, talk of carrionplace was not something she wanted to hear right now anyways. She watches as he lays down but she does not join him, with him on the ground like this they were at eye level and she is able to glance in the same direction he is looking in, to see the same thing that he sees though she is certain that they look at it through different eyes, her own being so much less experienced.

A quiet moment passes and then he is talking again, saying how he is from somewhere similar to ShadowClan. "Whoa really?" it is difficult to believe he had been from anywhere other than WindClan. His next words she does not want to hear, she does not want to listen to how he would return if he could "But WindClan is your home now" she reaffirms but there is uncertainty in her voice, it is clear that she is shaken.

"Did they tell you that?" she asks, suddenly interested in the conversation again, mismatched blue eyes turn to focus on the deputy next to her. There are cats she misses of course, but if they miss her so much she wonders why they dont just come and tell her that themselves. Did they really tell Sunstride or was it something he was making up like grown ups sometimes did when they would pretend they knew things they didn't.

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