WHAT THE WATER WANTS | frostwind

[SCORCHSTORM]

Scorchstorm does not often visit Frostwind. She tells herself she does not know why, when in reality she does; when in reality, she is scared to face whatever judgment he might see fit to wring out onto her. She had left him the same way she'd left Rumblerain. At least Frostwind seems to understand why — seems to accept her after all. (And he should, the small and spiteful animal in her insists, you saved WindClan with that cure.) The knowledge does not bring her lost littermates back; does not heal the fraying relationship between herself and her remaining one.

It really is just the two of them left. Scorchstorm, wearing her mother's fur and father's build, Frostwind wearing the opposite. It should be easy to approach him now, ouzel in her teeth, searching for company. She tries not to think about how she would have brought Bluefrost this meal; she tries not to think about how she would have given it away to Rumblerain, if they had asked her to. She tries to stay present for Frostwind's sake — the littermate she has dismissed over and over, the only littermate she has left.

"I brought this to share," she greets, dropping the bird at her brother's paws and settling down across from him. Conversation has never been particularly natural for the flame-streaked molly, but it comes even less readily now. Her tongue is arrested by her own grievances that she does not see fit to express. Bluefrost is pregnant, which makes me sad. They had never been in a relationship; they had hardly come close to padding after one another. She shoves the sadness down. Rumblerain is so skinny. They must be starving. A subject she would not like to broach for what she had hoped would be a friendly conversation.

She settles on this: "It's good that prey is finally returning to the moor." It is the same type of water cooler conversation she would have with anyone else. Scorchstorm's chest twinges with the impersonality. "I...." She opens her mouth, but does not know how to follow up. With a miserable frown, she asks her brother, "how are you doing?"

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐌 ✧

• ooc. @FROSTWIND
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 15 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

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[FROSTWIND]

꙳•❅* There’s a rift between himself and Scorchstorm, these days. A gorge, he thinks with a wave of grief. A mountain, he thinks with a thorn-prick of bitterness. As much as Frostwind clings to her, the only littermate who still runs the moor at his side, he can’t shake the distance that lies between them. She’d done it for good reason—and so had Scorchstreak and Luckypaw—but that doesn’t change the fact that they’d left him behind when he needed them most. He had laid near death in a badger’s den where too many had died before him, and his family had toured the mountains free from sickness. At least Rumblerain… they had stayed. But he can’t ignore his sister as her broad form approaches, ginger-patched like flame, offering him a share of her meal. "Thanks. I… agree." Her attempt to make small talk falls flat, and Frostwind doesn’t bother to appear animated with her as he responds.

His littermate pauses for a moment, apparently considering her words. Or maybe she’s just gearing up to try and befriend him again. His speculation is given clarity when the calico spits out a question about how he’s doing. He’d think it’s obvious, given the recent attack, but he can humor her. "Could be better. You know, the whole…" he gestures with a paw, as though the motion can explain everything that’s gone on around them. The whole DuskClan thing. The whole “my littermate doesn’t know who I am anymore” thing. He falls silent once again, but the signs of his restlessness are all too clear, even to a sister who he hardly knows anymore. His white-capped tail lashes near violently and his claws unsheathe swiftly, digging into the dirt beneath him. I should tell her. I should have told her days ago.

"I saw Rumblerain." He blurts it out suddenly, the sharply-spat words a stark change from his usual calm demeanor. His jaw tightens, and the next words come out a strained muttering: "When they—when DuskClan attacked. After. I ran into them. I should have…" I should have killed them. They’re the enemy now. I should have taken the chance. He’d caught them off guard—they were thin, weak with hunger and the fight they had already taken part in. "But I didn’t. I couldn’t… you know?" He couldn’t do anything to harm his wayward sibling, the one he’d grown to be closest with in the end. His flanks rise and fall in a heavy sigh. "They didn’t even know my name" Frostbreeze, they had guessed, only after first calling him Frostpaw.

❆ outpace the dawn

• ooc: —
• 
  FROSTWIND ❯❯ he/him, tunneler of windclan
  ❆ scruffy black and white tom with icy eyes. sly and calculating.
  ❆ son of scorchstreak and badgermoon ; brother to scorchstorm, luckypaw, rumblerain
  ❆ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  ❆ penned by foxlore

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[SCORCHSTORM]

Their smalltalk goes nowhere. She supposes she could have expected this — it has happened the same way every time she tries to talk with him since her stint in the mountains. An outstretched paw and then a rejection; they are shadows of siblings cast onto the wall of a cave. Hardly the real thing. It is cruel that she be so distant from the brother closest to her.

Scorchstorm nods politely as Frostwind gesticulates his worries into further ambiguity. It does not take a genius to understand what he means, at least in a general sense; things have not been good in WindClan since they were kittens, and maybe it had not been good then, either. She trusts her younger self's judgment less and less as the moons go on. She had judged Badgermoon a good father, back then; had judged Rumblerain a good sibling. Well, look at them all now. She grimaces, just slightly. The grimace deepens when she notices Frostwind's claws dig into the dirt beneath him.

Her mouth opens to form what's wrong? but Frostwind beats her to the punch. "I saw Rumblerain." He spits it like an ember. The words on her black lips die, and Scorchstorm's mouth hangs open in her shock. "What?" she prompts, but he is already spilling again. "I should have...." he sputters and dies, but Scorchstorm completes the sentence for him: ... should have helped them. Should have saved them. Should have told them to come home.

As he continues her ears sink further down her crown. "What should you have done?" she asks again, more vicious this time because she cannot understand her brother, and because she cannot understand Rumblerain either. Frostwind had had the chance she has been grasping at since DuskClan had formed. He could have spoken all the sense in the world to their littermate and maybe, maybe Rumblerain would have come home. But he didn't, because... why? Why not?

"They didn't even know my name." Her chest twinges. They probably didn't know hers, either, but they could learn, couldn't they? "You saw them, and you did not... did you at least try to bring them home? They're so skinny. Scorchstreak could vouch for them, I'm sure, and...." Scorchstorm's shoulders bristle. The plan she has mapped out so many times in her mind fizzles here. Even with all of her family's voices united for Rumblerain's reform, WindClan has exhausted itself on second chances. Who could say that they would really be allowed in?

Who is to say they want to?

Her eyes close, and Scorchstorm imagines it perfectly: Rumblerain, meek and remorseful at the border. Rumblerain crossing through the territory back to camp. Scorchstorm, Scorchstreak, Frostwind, and Rattleheart all swearing their lives on Rumblerain's ability to re-integrate. Sunstar, kindly allowing them the chance. When she opens her eyes again, she does not acknowledge the impossibility of it all. She just sees her brother, the littermate who had wasted the chance that she has been hunting for moons.

"They just... they missed so much. They could learn. But we have to... we need to get them home, first."

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐌 ✧

• ooc.
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 16 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

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[FROSTWIND]

꙳•❅* His calico littermate’s jaw drops open, falling still for too many heartbeats. She pushes him to continue on, and he does. But as he keeps talking, he can see the way that her posture withers. He braces himself to face her rage, to answer for his mistake. When she speaks at last, though, it is not with fury against his inability to raise claws against his pointed littermate. No, Scorchstorm is angry that he didn’t try hard enough to draw Rumblerain back into the clutches of Sunstar’s leadership. Frostwind flinches away from her, suddenly all too aware of the stark difference in their sizes. He had thought the same as her before the invasion, but it’s been months now. When is it time to give up on their wayward littermate? It hurts to think of them out there in the wilderness, starving slowly and aching with hunger. He thought he knew what was right, what needed to be done, but once again his beliefs are challenged by a sibling who seems much more certain than he is.

"I should have fought them." His voice is a burst of noise, the snap of sinew in a dog’s jaws. The spill of blood from Sunstar’s throat as Granitepelt had taken his life. His hackles bristle, rising to meet her challenge with his own halfhearted glare. He isn’t angry, not really; he feels backed into a corner, a prey animal with nowhere to run. Did you at least try to bring them home? Scorchstorm asks, and it’s the same wishful thinking that Frostwind clings to as well. They both need to let it go, now. It’s been slipping through his claws, unraveling as it goes—how long can a foolish hope hang on, when Frostwind had seen the wounds Rumblerain had inflicted upon their own former clanmate? He swallows around the lump in his throat, working past the furious pounding of his heart. In telling her that they should give up on Rumblerain, he might as well be telling Scorchstorm to stop being Scorchstorm. "They wouldn’t have listened. They’ve given up on you. On our family. On WindClan." We need to get them home. But what if this isn’t their home anymore? What if we aren’t their home anymore?

❆ outpace the dawn

• ooc: —
• 
  FROSTWIND ❯❯ he/him, tunneler of windclan
  ❆ scruffy black and white tom with icy eyes. sly and calculating.
  ❆ son of scorchstreak and badgermoon ; brother to scorchstorm, luckypaw, rumblerain
  ❆ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  ❆ penned by foxlore

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[SCORCHSTORM]

Frostwind flinches away from her. Scorchstorm notices it, and it hurts, but lately all of her hurt is ferrofluid on the magnet, spiked and sharp and reaching for more. So when it hurts, her stoked ire does not douse itself; rather, she feels a series of small combustions in the space between each rib, each one firing its piston and pushing her forward. More imposing, more angry, more on fire than she was the moment before. She's so much bigger than he is. He has to feel it — and StarClan, is she wrong to remind him of it now, when he tells her that he should have laid claws upon their littermate?

His words snap against her like a whip. She cannot prevent the way her lips peel away from her teeth in that moment, and honest and terrible snarl. She has always held the lion's share of intensity among her littermates, and it shows in the curling demon's mask that she wears now. Frostwind is not wrong. Rumblerain had chosen the wrong side; they had chosen to align themselves against Sunstar, against WindClan, but... against their very family? Frostwind should know that there is hope. There must be hope, or else the hours Scorchstorm has spent worrying about their prodigal sibling will have been completely and utterly wasted.

Once the shock of his stabbing declaration has worn off, Scorchstorm finds her mournful riposte: "I can't believe you!" It is a wail more than it is a sentence. The anger in her face has wilted into a funeral veil, black and grieving. Frostwind's declarations that Rumblerain has given up on them all only twist the knife further into the rotten wound. "You're— you're the one giving up! They need us!"

It's still true to her. It has to be. She needs it to be true in order to bandage the bleeding, aching heart. The ribbons of hope may have fallen through Frostwind's claws, but Scorchstorm grips them so hard she tears through them, a final tether to the sibling she cannot accept she has lost. And what of the one standing in front of her? Would she lose him, too, fighting him so fiercely now? Rumblerain may have been the one to truly lay claw upon their former clanmates, but Scorchstorm's tongue can lash just as terribly.

And she cannot stop it. Frostwind has wasted her golden opportunity, and now he tells her that her hope for her sibling is better off chilling on the side of the Thunderpath. It is an ultimate spit in the face; a kick in the teeth; a lance in the chest. It is through tears that she looses her final arrow back at him. "It should have been me." She has to pause, has to clear her airways of thinning mucus before continuing. It's out before she can think better of it: "They would have come home. Maybe they wouldn't for you, but they would for me."

Copper and gold eyes sulk over Frostwind's bristling hackles, his furrowed-brow frown. Tears flow freely from her, honeyed in the dying sun. And she finds that what she would like most now, after all of her poison has been spit, is a hug. Something, any symbol of peace made after their barbed exchange. But she cannot find it in herself to initiate — and in the wake of that failure, shame rises. That shame finds the anger lingering beneath the skin, and together it creates some new kind of emotion, one she does not have a name for. All Scorchstorm does know is that she wants to hug her brother, but she cannot put herself in motion, and she wants to send him away despite not wanting to lose him, so she would much rather he leave of his own accord, just not forever.

Tight-lipped and watery-eyed, she bores into him, waiting for his next move.

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• ooc.
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 17 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

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