camp WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE \ recovery + fretting

[MALLOWLARK]

He was not alone, and he had not died. Those were the most important things, though- he had to keep reminding himself of them. It didn't matter what had or hadn't happened, what had or hadn't been done. Dawnglare had not died, either. With the lungwort's bleeding they breathed well, they breathed together. And that was something of a problem, wasn't it? Because the only way he could fathom breathing was if was together.

Horrid possibilities sprawled out before him like ivy. And they were not the funny kind of horrid- like two cats running so fast into each other that they exploded, or someone screaming so loud that their teeth shot out of their mouth like porcupine quills. They were not the impossible, hilarious kind of horrid.

They were possibilities of Dawnglare, like Steepsnout had, growing cold in his sleep. He could almost feel the slowing of breath, the emptying of a soul beside him, and- he could nearly hear the scream that might have ripped itself from his throat, tearing and tearing until there was no breath left to let it out alongside. That reality had scraped terrifyingly close. A reality where nature would have stolen away the kindest thing in it, and Mallowlark would have been left alone. Truly alone- without his mother or any of his family, stuck in the rot-infested moors he had abandoned. Without any cats left who seemed to trust him. Because, looking at the other Skyclanners... it would be stupid to pretend they had ever wanted him here.

He was, and would have been, without Pollenfur too- he imagined she would have kitted by now, near-definitely. But no matter how many times he went hunting by Twolegplace, he never caught a glimpse of her patchy pelt. Never even caught the slightest sliver of scent. To think- something bad might have happened to her. The rot of the moorland sprawled everywhere and it never stopped.

A single bird was dropped from grinning jaws onto the freshkill pile as Mallowlark returned to camp from another skip along the Twolegplace border. If he'd had no luck seeing his aunt, at the very least he had caught something. His smile was the emptiest it had felt for moons- and he felt eyes drift in his direction- and for once, for once... he could not turn his head to meet them. They were not the faces he wanted to see, and they did not want to see him either.​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[Cherryblossom]

As always, the gaze turned in Mallowlark's direction is not a friendly, familiar one, but something more akin to a child tentatively peering into a zoo enclosure. He'd gotten sick in moon she'd been gone, then cured a quarter-moon before her return. Cherrypaw couldn't bring herself to care. She doesn't think she could care even if he'd gotten sick under her witness. His suffering, if he could feel suffering at all beneath his glued-on grin, was over and done with, all out of her sight. Concern came more easily to her with Falconpaw of all cats, but even then it was a disgusted sort of "I couldn't have had my ass kicked by someone who died coughing and moaning like an elder."

A surge of confrontation sweeps through her as their paths cross, him depositing a catch on the fresh-kill pile, her on her way to snatch something off of it. "You go to the Twolegplace a lot, huh?" It's a statement half-blurted out. Pale amber eyes stare at him in the same way one stares at an older sibling they'd just hit, hoping for a reaction. "I can smell it on you," she adds, wrinkling her nose. The smell of the Twolegplace isn't even that bad to her; most of what animosity lies in her face is from moons of watching her clanmates treat the man before her like a dead mouse with a mildly offputting flavor: digestible but not easily swallowed.​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar, for all his misgivings about Dawnglare’s mate, feels a faint sense of relief as he watches the black-pawed warrior slip into camp, fresh-kill clamped in his jaws. He cannot help but detect peat, wind, heather in his fur still, even if it’s half-phantasmic—but he had accepted Mallowlark into the Clan, and he’s as much a SkyClan warrior as Dandelionwish now. The Ragdoll’s ears flick as he listens to Cherrypaw interrupt him—“You go to Twolegplace a lot,” she chirps, telling him she can scent it on his pelt. His eyes narrow slightly; what was there for a WindClanner in Twolegplace?

“Mallowlark is well-traveled,” he says mildly, blue eyes flicking from the young tortoiseshell to the grinning white tom. He thinks of the days Mallowlark had courted Dawnglare, veiled in secrecy, cloaked in moonlight amidst massive shadowy oaks. His jaw tightens, then relaxes. “You must be feeling better, then, to go all that way.” His tone is carefully neutral.

, ”​

​

 

[falcongaze]

❝ STATUES AND EMPIRES✧°.☀ ————————————
Falconpaw had shared a similar experience to Mallowlark. The sick in the den, the yellowcough slowly spreading through his body and eating at his muscles. Labored breathing and the worst of it all, the innate knowledge that it would lead to death. Until the cats got home, until Cherrypaw's stupid face showed up, until Greeneyes found him in that nest near-dead. The nightmares of the dogs, the snapping at the back of his neck- it still sent shivers through him.

Vision lifted and shifted from where he was resting- he managed to make it a bit further today, actually climbing up and down a tree with Greeneyes's watchful vision- towards where Mallowlark returned within the confines of camp. He's swift to deposit the freshkill in his mouth, fresh to turn his vision away from the cats who watched him. And truthfully, after laying alongside the former-Windclanner within the confines of the den, he didn't need to look at Mallowlark any longer. No, his vision was pinned on Cherrypaw.

Her tone, her words, caused him to turn his head and watch her carefully. He could hear it. The way she had brought up the fact that he was from the sewers near constantly, how she kept driving his heritage into the ground. Well, it was almost akin to what was happening now, but it wasn't the same, was it? Falconpaw's nose flared as he pushed to his paws, coming to stand before Cherrypaw. "Why do you feel the need to state the obvious?" Falconpaw asked Cherrypaw, his blue eyes barely narrowed but his voice bored.

Please don't get a dizzy spell. Please. Not now. His thoughts whispered, and by the Stars, he hoped it didn't happen.

"SPEECH"

[penned by dallas - ☀]

———————————— ☀.°✧ ALL AT YOUR PAWS ❞ ​

​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

Mallowlark had been rather content just to sit, grinning emptily, unbothered as a stone. His frequent visits hadn't gone unnoticed, though- apparently. By Cherrypaw, no less, a cat he was grateful to. In her eyes was none of the same gratitude. Not really a shred of gladness, either. By now, he'd be blind not to notice it in every gaze except for the moonlit-blue of Dawnglare. His flank prickled to be joined, but there was no-one there.

Mallowlark glanced to Blazestar as the leader cut in, and- he did not think Blazestar had ever really looked directly at him. They met eyes for a moment, wide silver and bruise blue. Something swam within the depths that Mallowlark couldn't identify. His words gave nothing away, either. Well-travelled. Was it an insult?

For a few moments, Mallowlark worried he might be incurably miserable- but with a hollow brightness he did speak. "She's right, though," To Falconpaw- whatever tension fizzled there, he wasn't eager to sort out. Banging their heads together or something...

To Cherrypaw. To Blazestar. Pupils were too-quick, like darting flies. Attention shifting like snapping bone. Always had been, always would be. "Yeah. Loads better, thanks to you," A giggle-accompanied glance in Cherrypaw's direction. Sincerity of tone, even alongside emptiness. "M-hah-my aunt lives there. Just been trying to catch her, to be honest. Tell her I'm not dead!"

In SkyClan he never hid. He was tired of it. But what was right, anymore? ​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[DUSKPOOL]

anger makes you stupid . stupid gets you killed .
︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

Duskpool wasn’t unfamiliar with it, traveling to the upwalkers in search of his own family who scoured the upwalker homes with the last bit of their clowder before settlin’ down, unlike the wooly-furred warrior who sought something more to a life he had barely wanted to live. He breathed, shaking his helm at the troublesome thoughts that plagued him day in and day out, haunted by the deceased, arguably, he still was.

His disdain for the upwalkers was strong, but the obsidian-furred warrior wasn’t about to deny others, especially when he visited his own kid among the white-wooden fences and through metal bins filled with black pelts, stuffed to the brim with crowfood. “I head out there to visit my kid.” He rumbled, tail flickering. The only one living. He couldn’t help but think, muscles twitching at the sour thought of Lostmoon stiff body buried beneath layers of dirt. “Might have seen yer aunt.” He added, turning to glance at Mallowlark through his peripheral. ​

​

thought speech​

 

[Cherryblossom]

""Why do you feel the need to state the obvious?" No longer is Falconpaw's voice pitched high with youth, but the sound grates against her all the same. She shoots him a disdainful look out of Blazestar's view, a full-on glare intentionally suppressed. "Have you ever had a conversation in your life?" she meows, forcibly leveling her tone to the range of merely piqued. The tom, now taller than her, had been getting bolder of late too. Falconpaw's circumstances mirrored Mallowlark's in that she hadn't been there for the journey he'd fought in his sickbed, and she doesn't care to wonder either.

Authority looms gentle behind the three. Mellow blue eyes flit across the backs of her and Falconpaw before settling uneasily upon Mallowlark, like a bluebird fledgling unsure of its hold upon a branch. He says nothing of consequence, just how Cherrypaw likes it. For a moment she's wary that the hulking white tom will burst into laughter at that, letting loose the flock of crows he keeps behind too-many white teeth, but he only snickers. "You're welcome," she meows stiffly, then limbers some with a pointed glance towards Falconpaw, a silent gloat saying, "What, not gonna thank me too?"

Mallowlark adds something about his aunt. Talk of the enigmatic tom's family doesn't surprise her as it once did, but the fact that some of it is at the Twolegplace does. "Why don't you tell her to come to SkyClan?" the calico asks offhandedly. Not that any cat would want another Mallowlark in SkyClan, but he was...tolerable, to the extent of the little she interacted with him. She isn't thinking about the potential for another WindClan refugee within SkyClan's borders either; the expatriat had made her sound like a pampered little kittypet rather than a lean, talon-clawed ex-moor-beast. She tilts her head at Duskpool when he arrives with a similar comment. "They never come to the borders for you?" The idea of choosing to live away from a clan is unfathomable to the apprentice.​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

Oh, and another; Duskpool, gruff and direct as ever. Could've expected it, but not that he spoke of his kittens- kitten. It made him think of Pollenfur again, lost somewhere like a breeze- everywhere and nowhere, like she'd said. But still, still- having someone so elusive in your life, maybe Duskpool could understand... even if you ought not to, you missed them, you worried. Even though nature wouldn't whip them away from you, not too soon...

Sometimes death struck when it wanted. When it wished, when it deemed right. And even if it was right, it made it all hurt no less, and kept the worry in cyclical incessance.

Nature was kind, and nature was cruel. He'd always known it. "I don't think she would've spoken to you," Mallowlark chimed, grinning, grinning. And it was honest and not unkind. Pollenfur wouldn't want to speak to anyone she didn't know, especially not a Clan cat. Besides, Hyacinthbreath was still with her... she had a hidden home to retire to, somewhere on the breeze...

Cherrypaw's words cut through his thoughts, and a burst of laughter split through his fangs. Cackles split his ribs in two and wouldn't relent, because- ah, joining SkyClan at a time like this? And, and- a Skyclanner related to him? It would never work, would it! Giggles, they erupted like blood from a cough! And they wouldn't stop, and they never stopped. "No! Nononono... no one here wants that, ne-heh-heeether does she... think she's done with the whole Clan thing."​

☺PENNED BY PIN​