private you on the shore ✧ iciclefang

[lichenstar]

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The crunch of frosted foliage underfoot was pleasant to the ears despite the way it stung fleshy paw pads. Cold was not a welcome sensation, especially with fur so thin as hers... but then again, most of RiverClan could relate. And what with the river freezing over, a good majority of them were out of their element. In short, she was lucky not to have been born in such isolating conditions but...

There were some that weren't... and despite it all, seemed to be thriving. Her company for the morning was one of such luck, a protégé in every sense of the term. Surely, she stood as an example of what every RiverClanner should strive for in their own children, a model for the future. And yet... Lichentail still found herself worrying. Iciclefang was a smart girl, she made up for her lack of sheer brawn with her brains and had done well enough to see herself a respected member of the council so young but there had been signs of her priorities, her morality, that left questions. Was there, perhaps, negatives to being so closed off as to live in a clan your whole life? She thought, briefly, about her own experiences, about how her formative years may've made her more prone to impatience... how her own parents' misgivings about having children encouraged her frustrations with kittens herself... but at the very least she could acknowledge that not everyone outside of RiverClan existed only to hurt them.

"I don't think I've heard your perspective on the journey yet," she comments into the softly singing air, alive with the hum of insects that insisted on surviving as well, "Did you learn anything, exploring outside of RiverClan for the first time? Was it what you thought it'd be?" She is still young enough to not be stuck in her ways... and the deputy had a lot of hope for her development with time and exposure. They were not close and so she could not assume the role of a mentor figure (besides, Smokestar was plenty) but still, encouraging that kind of introspection nagged at her as another duty, even if self-imposed.

"Being a lead warrior will probably ask you to call on those experiences a lot... I know I've had to with other things. The Great Battle... times before that even."

The clan had largely been made aware of her courtship to Hazecloud (by force, the blue lynx point thought sourly) but there was a far more ingrained history there than many were likely aware of. It extended to the colonies, when they'd have other names, rounder faces as signs of their youth then, scar-less and full of hot-air. Not so much unalike the stony molly she wandered with now.

"It's a good thing," she reassures abruptly, reminded of how many times she'd been poked at for her skills in trees, amongst birds. "Though I imagine your experience to be more complicated." It had been a necessity of a different breed. A star-sent mission rather than a reality that demanded isolated survival from birth.

-- @iciclefang

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WELL IF YOU WANT MY BLOOD I'LL MAKE SO MUCH BLOOD

THAT YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING DROWN​

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[iciclefang]

Iciclefang can’t help but hold tension in her shoulders as she pads beside Lichentail, even as she rubs her cheeks against the reeds slapping softly at their pelts as they pass through them. Undergrowth stiff with frost snaps satisfyingly under their paws, though the riverlands are quiet today; the prey seem to be holed up, away from the bitter, dry cold. The tortoiseshell walks carefully, as though the earth beneath her is made from eggshells. She can’t explain the sensation she has around Lichentail now—she respects the blue-pointed warrior as her deputy, but even in moments like these, she remembers the snap of judgment in cerulean eyes.

Ashpaw had returned seasons ago, at this point, and their friendship had fizzled and died with her re-arrival. The ginger she-cat had not been unfriendly, but Iciclefang had stumbled awkwardly on unsteady ground where her friend had been concerned. Old feelings still came and went, but now, when the tortoiseshell thinks of love, she associates the word with a gray tabby pelt rather than a flame-colored one. She thinks it is perhaps unfair of her to hold a grudge against Lichentail when she and Ashpaw are barely on speaking terms outside of the relationship any Clanmate has with another—is it?

She pauses, tasting the air, just as Lichentail breaks the silence that hangs between them. She asks Iciclefang her perspective on the journey. The marbled warrior blinks snow-blue eyes in surprise. “I learned plenty.” She wonders what the RiverClan deputy means, and decides it doesn’t matter. She will answer with the honesty she approaches everything with. “We learned from each other. They learned RiverClans’ strengths, and we learned the other Clans'. My life was saved by a cat from another Clan…” She lifts a paw and runs it along the scar slicing through her shoulder fur. She remembers limping against Stormywing in a dark cave, led by the only cat who could see the shapes in the shadows. She remembers hooking her claws into stone, aided by a daylight warrior’s careful guidance—remembers her paws tangling in undergrowth, remembers the slavering jaws of a hound at her heels.

She smiles—it’s small, tight, but there nonetheless.

“When I left, I expected RiverClan to stand alone. But that’s not how it was.” She remembers Hazecloud standing with them at the Thunderpath, remembers her own words. RiverClan will go alone, together. By the end of their journey, she’d missed now-familiar scents in her nose, missed pelts brushing against hers that were from the mires, the forests, the moors.

Lichentail speaks of the Great Battle, of times before that, that had molded her into the cat she is today. The tortoiseshell turns a curious but subdued look her way. “What do you mean by times before the Great Battle? You must have been very young.”

, ”​

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[lichenstar]

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As much as she wished that wasn't the answer, she knew better than to suspect they would have no impact on the RiverClanners during their extended trip beyond the territories. Hazecloud was a perfect example of how fickle the heart was, forming a powerful bond with a ThunderClanner as if those same claws hadn't been brandished against them when they were at their weakest. Batwing's face makes her blood boil... Makes the fur on her shoulders stand on end to be reminded of him.

The fact she was willing to admit to her very life being saved though... that seemed wildly out of character for Iciclefang, whose policy at borders was completely uncompromising. It was equally horrifying, in part, to know that their most promising young warrior had nearly died out there. "That must've been terrifying," she says softly, staring at the tortoiseshell with round, sympathetic eyes. To rely on a perfect stranger to be the thing keeping you breathing...

"I can relate," she admits through a tight-lipped frown. That WindClan tom... She still could not place why he looked so familiar. Why she had let him walk away from the border unscathed... an exception she never expected to make. Without the other clans having united together to drive out their usurpers, they'd still be huddled near the Sycamore, starving.

She is startled with the knowledge that she really is more of an enigma than she imagined. She enjoys her privacy, loves to keep her life a secret... But the lead suggesting she had been incredibly young makes an amused purr rumble in her chest. "I'm flattered you imagine so..." A small breath, a pretend flick of annoyance to have to explain her deceitful age in question. "I would've been a little older than you are now when the Great Battle happened... I wasn't even really part of the Marsh Colony for terribly long before that. My parents were loners... My twin and I were their first but we have a younger sister somewhere out there too."

It is probably the most she'd ever shared with someone born amongst the reeds and quiet streams... Her eyes squint at the corners, thinking about how tiny Iciclekit had been, toddling around the newly established camp, taking in the world with wonder-wide sky-blue eyes. "Ripplesnap nearly died in that battle... On our own we surely wouldn't have made it. But with the clans came medicine... collaboration... a mutual goal." She shrugs then- she knows that story, she lives it.

"We weren't very socialized then... Hazecloud was my first experience with having a friend that wasn't my littermate."

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WELL IF YOU WANT MY BLOOD I'LL MAKE SO MUCH BLOOD

THAT YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING DROWN​

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[iciclefang]

Lichentail examines the scar in question, her tones softening. “That must have been terrifying,” the deputy murmurs, and Iciclefang remembers the atom-splitting pain, the rush of fear and adrenaline thrumming through her veins, the impact of Stormywing’s body against her as stone crumbled and fell around them. “It was,” she murmurs in agreement, her ears twitching uncomfortably at the admittance. “We were trapped under the rockslide for days after the mountain fell on us. I could hardly walk on my own.” She closes her eyes for just a heartbeat, mimicking the darkness she and her companions had been cloaked in. She can almost hear Smogmaw’s muffled pawsteps, almost hear the water trickling through the cave system. “I’d never had to rely on someone like that before.”

She lifts her blue gaze toward Lichentail’s, catching the I can relate. “Oh?” She prompts. She does not know this story—does she? Curiosity rounds her eyes, and she listens to Lichentail talk about the Great Battle, about Hazecloud.

Iciclefang admittedly knows Hazecloud now much better than she does the RiverClan deputy. The gray-pelted molly had been a source of wisdom on the journey, having been the only of the water-dwelling Clan cats who’d seen a Thunderpath before, much less crossed one. The tortoiseshell dips her head. “So you’ve known Hazecloud for many moons, it seems,” she says in a quiet, unassuming voice.

, ”​

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[lichenstar]

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She thinks about how that might feel, knowing her experience with cave-ins or land-slides or anything similar to be abysmal fantasy at best. To suddenly be surrounded by the dirt.. the rock... the mud... no bright light of the morning sun to light your way, no glittering stars to trail after. It seems horrible... like a fate worse than dying if only because StarClan were Silverpelt itself... it could not be dark there. It would not be lonely as wandering in infinite shadow begging for help.

To rely on someone. A stranger.

To be raised amongst the clan, she is sure that her understanding had been shaken. The world was not so cut and dry as us and them. Wasn't that obvious in the way cats still wandered blindly through borders to find what their hearts desired?

"While you were all on your journey... We lost the territory. Got chased out." Her mind supplements the losses, thinks to list them... But her heart will not supply it. "When we had to fight back, the clans agreed to help each other, for mutual benefit... out of necessity. WindClan broke that promise pretty quickly... but not all of them." She shrugs, as if not quite so bothered by the identity of a perfect heroic stranger. "Was a boy that smelled of gorse that kept me from being a casualty here."

Embarrassing... a deputy in the comfort of her own territory to be felled so easily. But there wasn't much else to explain. Besides.. why linger on that when Hazecloud could be discussed? It was a lot easier to dote on happier times and prettier faces.

"Oh definitely... Laika and Syren back then. A couple of wild-hearted barely-adults. She was a heart-throb to say the least," an amused purr filters what embarrassment rushes to her cheeks. "Her parents don't like me much but... heart wants what the heart wants. The Great Battle made things... complicated." It always returned to question marks and fragmented numbers instead of crystal, clear-cut answers. Relationships were, for lack of a better word, hugely inconvenient.

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WELL IF YOU WANT MY BLOOD I'LL MAKE SO MUCH BLOOD

THAT YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING DROWN​

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[iciclefang]

Iciclefang listens to Lichentail’s retelling of the rogues infiltrating their camp, of being pushed away from the home they’d laid claim to after the Great Battle. The tortoiseshell closes her eyes. “Worse than when the river froze, I imagine,” she says quietly. “We were displaced then, too. And we lost Cicadastar then—but only once…” Lichentail would remember, of course. RiverClan had been

She trails off, her ears twitching as Lichentail tells her of a boy with gorse and heather in his fur coming to her rescue. She nods, almost excited to find common ground with the RiverClan deputy. “While I was journeying—when we were nearly to Highstones, we were chased by dogs. Big, angry things, like the ones that plagued ThunderClan.” She blinks, remembering. “One of them was on me, about to snap my spine in its jaws, and a WindClan apprentice outsped it and distracted it. Were it not for her, I’d have died a horrible death.”

She exhales, watching her breath gather like fleeting gossamer before her sculpted features. “I despised WindClan.” Her tail tip twitches. “We all did. They ambushed us in our home. They took my mentor’s eye over a rabbit I’d rightfully caught. They—they were our enemy. It’s strange to owe one of them my life.” She tries to meet Lichentail’s gaze, wondering if she feels the same way.

Laika and Syren back then, the gray-masked warrior tells Iciclefang. She nods, her smile small and tight as she considers the two loners outside the boundaries of Clan life. “I can’t imagine living without a Clan,” she murmurs. “No rules, no structure, no daily patrols, no warrior code… no denmates snoring in your ear, nothing holding you to any place.” She blinks again, this time considering. “I’ve never known anything different. On the journey, things were a little different, but we all knew we’d return to our own Clans at the end of it…” She thinks of Stormywing’s fur brushing against hers, of the tabby’s tail twining with her tortoiseshell, and suppresses a sigh.

, ”​

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[lichenstar]

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Hmm... the river freezing. Lichentail thinks about it with an uncomfortable roll of her shoulders, releasing an unwilling tension to have remembered it at all. Nearly drowning.. the way something could be so cold it felt like you were on fire despite that? Hard to believe how much bigger Iciclefang was... that Brookpaw had been nothing more than an idea at the time. "Hopefully... StarClan sees fit to give us a break from being shoved out of our homes for a little while." She couldn't help but find some of the fault in them, who knew and did nothing to stop it.

It's probably the most she's heard from the tortie since... well, ever. She isn't normally one to open up and gab about her life, much less the complicated feelings that run rampant in that head of hers- it's refreshing, if not a bit terrifying at the same time. If she had half as much of an unpracticed tongue as Snakeblink, she's sure to make the young lead warrior regret confiding in her with one hapless sentence. She didn't remember Hazecloud talking about dogs though.. nor that it had been such a close call.

There were scars that went unexplained and she knew better than to ask after the vain molly's story for them.

"Hard to hate all of them," she agrees in a short, wrapped up thought. That much they can agree on. "Another dissonance from when I was young- sometimes you can just rely on perfect strangers in a way you can't do as easily with borders to cling to. It'll be hard to repay that life debt now... though I hope his generosity will earn him some luck later on."

"I'm sorry that you'll probably have to face them as enemies once more..." Hyacinthbreath had already proven that a promise was a lot harder to keep than it was to say out loud.

And it would set them apart forever, it seemed, the sheer vastness in the gaps of their experiences. She talks about structure, about the laws and rules that keep things neat and orderly and Lichentail only smiles. Rules had their benefits. Except nothing in life was as simple as yes or no the way the code suggested it might be. "It put a bigger emphasis on family for most... those bonds you were born into were likely the best ones you were going to get. The wandering was nice though.. if adventure is your sort of thing and it was for me and mine. I'm sure the Ripple Colony feels the same way, I bet they miss sleeping under the stars instead of sheltered beneath woven reeds." They weren't completely impossible to relate to, even if she found their stubbornness a bit (a lot) unbearable.

"Sometimes..." she pauses, wondering if it may be taken the wrong way... if maybe present company is too skewed to understand its deeper suggestion before deciding to rely on Iciclefang's intelligence to dissect it. "Rules are more of a burden than anything."

"Love and loyalty are the same thing... kind of." Left unsaid, And time is how you measure either. It is impossible to devote time to something or someone without loving it at least a little.

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WELL IF YOU WANT MY BLOOD I'LL MAKE SO MUCH BLOOD

THAT YOU'RE GONNA FUCKING DROWN​

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