you only roll snake eyes — mudtastrophe

[hitch]

in character   out of character   character tags   reference

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  ── ShadowClan's never been what Rose would call dry or even comfortably damp, but with the thawing of the recent blizzard's fallout, the marsh has somehow transcended beyond wet, cold, and muddy. It would be impressive if it didn't irritate Rosemire so far out of his own skin he might as well be a StarClanner. The sludge of melting snow has bonded with the existing boggy ground, sucking at his paws and clinging to his pale legs. Occasionally, it'll hold to him so tightly he has to yank himself free, splattering a wide arc of mud across his sides and even his damned face.
  
  But that isn't the worst of it, come to find out. The worst is when he loses his footing, and he's too unbalanced by lack of nutrition to recover fast enough, meaning he falls flat into a particularly mucky puddle. Rose lies there a moment, reconsidering his many decisions in life leading to this moment— and the mistakes, most notably his birth.
  
  Slowly, he starts to push himself back up, and now he is more brown than white. To his eternal disgust, he has to spit out a glob of swamp. He doesn't beseech the sky for mercy because he knows better.
  

  ---

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• n/a​
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• ──── surr'oseal'isme (rosemire; formerly roseal). he/him. reluctantly shadowclan.
  ──── approximately thirty-eight months old; not entirely certain of his own age.
  ──── single & uninterested in any romantic attachments; possibly open for flings.
  ──── tall, scarred albino w/ sharply-peaked ears and a bobbed, scruffy tail (voice).
  ──── ─── currently noticeably thin and haggard. ribs and spine are pronounced.​
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[smogstar]

ShadowClan's new coat of paint - or, in a less metaphorical sense, coat of mud - has left much to be desired. For the majority of days since the melting, Smogmaw has found himself in predicaments similar to Rosemire where the gelatinous ground has tried to suck him in. At times, the mud feels stickier than tree sap, and it fused to his fur in such a merciless fashion that removing it via tongue came as an impossibility. At least it isn't the snow. Smogmaw fucking hated the snow, and he is quite content with it being gone.

Wallowing through both self-pity and mud, it takes the tumbling form of a clanmate to break him out of his stupor. Jerking his head over his shoulder to get a clearer view of what has happened, the lower half of his face contorts into a smile when he sees the mess Rosemire has made of his pelt. When the once-alabaster tom hawks up some of the muck, Smogmaw can't help but laugh. "Aw, look at you," he taunts in a cooing tone, inspecting the patch of ground responsible so that he doesn't make the same mistake later. "Good luck getting any of that out. That stuff'll stick to you til next moon at the least."​

 

[Tornadopaw]

If you don't like me, that's your problem

Tornado had been walking past when she witnessed the alabaster tom fall rather ungracefully into the murky sludge, staining his pristine pelt brown. An empathetic frown decorates her lips, watching still as he picks himself back up only to be ridiculed by Smogmaw. Trudging forward she grimaces at the situation, tail flicking before offering her own thoughts. "You could always try scraping the majority of it off by rubbing against a tree." It wouldn't get all the mud off but it was certainly a start. Anything would be better than licking nearly all of that off with just a tongue alone.​

When I let it bother me, that's my problem​

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[Ratshadow]

CALLED TO DEVIL AND THE DEVIL DID COME ✧​

Ratshadow never considered herself to be pretty. The small black cat often has tufts of fur sticking up. Her emotionless face was undesirable and the jagged scars on the side of her face added nothing in the beauty department. So a little mud caking her black fur was nothing to worry about. It was just mud. Better than being covered in crow food. Though, when the mud dried it could be uncomfortable.

“If you wait for it to dry, it will crumble off easier.” she offers, unsure if the white feline was willing to be so patient. Otherwise, she would say find some water and wash it off. But it was still rather cold and she doubts they’d be willing to freeze. Ratshadow watches to see what they would do. ​

 

[FERNDANCE]

The large-eared warrior's gentle laughs echoed like a panting dog as she watched Rosemire faceplant into the bog. ShadowClanners losing their footing and falling into the bog was a tale as old as time (or at least, at old as the group), but that did not stop it from being a timeless classic. Her own fur was often caked with nasty things, from water to soil to little bugs to leaves to things that she didn't even know the name of. Ferndance considered most of it to be a part of her 'collection', gathering what she could and stuffing her cluttered nest with it and happily sharing it with others when some items inexplicably fell off of her coarse pelt. It had not been her intention to add more to the cacophony of visual mess that was her fur, but as the eyes of clanmates settled onto Rosemire, Ferndance's intrusive thoughts quickly took over. She leaped into the muddy patch after the tom, liable to splash anyone too close to the puddle as her paws waved about with reckless abandon. Eventually, she sank down completely into the mud, her tanned belly turning a coffee brown as the liquid soaked her.

It was... cold. Uncomfortable. Why had she done that again? Ditzy eyes trailed upwards until they reached the gaze of her clanmates. "I thought it would be fun." She justified quietly, slipping and sliding until she found some grip beneath her paws and pushed herself to her full height. Her fur spiked like stalactites, a dark liquid dripping at erratic points from each point. She turned her head, luckily spared from her frog splash into the quagmire, towards Rosemire. "At least now we can figure out how to remove mud together." Fern offered, smiling widely. Smogmaw had laughed at the unfortunate feline, hopefully, not being the only one mucky would reduce Rosemire's embarrassment if he felt any. It was a presumption, but she knew how some animals could get when their fur was ruffled.



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[hitch]

in character   out of character   character tags   reference

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  ── If he had any pride left, Rosemire might have bristled at Smogmaw's rolling laughter, but it's been a long time since he could claim enough self-worth to be offended. Rather than answer him cuttingly, he just smiles wryly as he flings mud from his paws. It's tempting to catch Smogmaw in the splash zone as petty vengeance, but he hates this muck too much to curse anyone with a similar fate. "At least?" He snorts, then makes a face at the lingering taste in his mouth. "Your optimism is inspiring."
  
  He glances up at Tornadopaw, who at least hasn't come to gawk or laugh at his misery. It's sound enough advice, though he's sure that whatever residue might be on the trees will doubtlessly wind up in his pelt. "They'll be my first victim," Rose vows with a good-humored grin in her direction, one marred slightly by mud in his teeth. This isn't the first time the marsh has entertained itself with him, but he...hesitates to chase that memory. He doubts Cicadastar even remembers; he seems to have shaken off his past here the way Rose wishes he could the grime.
  
  "I could do that," he agrees with Ratshadow, "but I'd have to be patient enough to sit and wait in all this filth." She can probably infer from his answer that he isn't patient enough. Rose moves closer to a tree, meaning to scrape all this shit off, but Ferndance abruptly gives herself over to the swamp gods in a muddy baptism.
  
  She just...willingly? Because she thought it would be fun? He blinks at her, and when she smiles, his own helpless grin is completely bewildered. "Misery loves company, but between the both of us I think I'm the only miserable bastard. We could try the trees, like Tornadopaw said?"
  

  ---

  ​
•  
• n/a​
•  
• ──── surr'oseal'isme (rosemire; formerly roseal). he/him. reluctantly shadowclan.
  ──── approximately thirty-eight months old; not entirely certain of his own age.
  ──── single & uninterested in any romantic attachments; possibly open for flings.
  ──── tall, scarred albino w/ sharply-peaked ears and a bobbed, scruffy tail (voice).
  ──── ─── currently noticeably thin and haggard. ribs and spine are pronounced.​
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• 
  
  

 

[DOGFUR]

Dogfur picks up his pace excitedly when he sees a commotion ahead of them. Brushing past the pelts of his Clanmates, his wide eyes land on Rosemire's muddied pelt. "Ah," He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in a long arc. "Such a shame, especially with your fur. It would have been better if one of us got into it." The others surrounding were various shades of black and brown—uninspiring colors to say the least.

He leapt up when Ferndance splashed into it, splattering his chest with flecks of mud that blended neatly into his mottled fur. He yelped. "Oh, I hope for rain! That would maybe loosen it from my fur." His eyes flashed at the two still wallowing in the puddle. "I do not want to share tongues with either of you until you're clean."

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[ADDERJAW.]

( ➳ ) Adderjaw let out a snort when she watched Rosemire fall into the sea of mud that's plagued the camp since the thaw, sitting not too far away. Poor thing, she thought, more sarcastic than truly sympathetic. He'd suffer the mud worse than most of them, with his pelt such a blinding white. Adderjaw herself was fortunate enough to have little worry of this; her dark fur, a gift from her mother, made the mud virtually indistinguishable from the brown of her pelt. That didn't mean she liked it, though. The clumpy heaviness it lent to her fur was certainly bothersome, but such was the cost of living in the marshes.

The she-cat watches as a small group of cats gathers, drawn in by the tom's misfortune, each offering bits of advice. She ambles over, only to be caught in the splash zone of Ferndance's mouse-brained antics. Mud dots itself in thick clumps across her fur, coldness thankfully not reaching her skin. She blinks in surprise for a second, before snapping at the older she-cat, "Watch it," voice a low snarl. She shakes herself off, dislodging bits of mud with little care for whether or not they hit the other cats.

The she-cat lets out a beleaguered sigh, assessing the situation. The remaining mud has now smeared itself further across her fur. "...The trees are a good idea," she concludes reluctantly. She then turns to address Rosemire, unquestionably the victim of this situation, and an innocent party, unlike Ferndance. "Best get it off fast unless you want a stain, you'll lose your pretty white coat that way." What a tragedy.

Adderjaw considers for a moment. "On the bright side, it'd probably help you hide better. No one would see you coming -- or smell you coming, for that matter."​

 

[Ratshadow]

CALLED TO DEVIL AND THE DEVIL DID COME ✧​

Utter disgust flashed over her face as she watched the cat willingly cover themselves in mud. Ratshadow couldn’t believe a cat would think it would be fun to dip themselves in mud. If it was to do something useful then she would be more understanding. Like to hide from an enemy or prey. Or to blend into one's surroundings. But for fun it was not useful. And she had no interest in getting covered in mud. Getting to her paws, the senior warrior padded away from the group. Not wanting to wait around to dodge more mud. "" ​