camp you're enough † intro

[† rookwhisper]

❝  They are dying. The thought comes in waves; it ebbs and fades like the tide, with cyclical distance from his panic. It swells in and drowns him: you are dying, we are dying– the stars are punishing us for our failures. He is not alone in thinking them cursed. Perhaps that is the most damning of his panics. If he is not alone in his fear, then there must be some basis in evidence, some truth in the darkness they stumble across. Their leader died in one fell swoop. Tales of lost lives have swept through the clans, of leaders miraculously returned. Theirs did not. Their medicine cat had abandoned them. The food that they eat, writhing yet cold, leaves stomachs churning. We are dying. What have we done?

Panic washes out. He forces it out, like breathe from his lungs. Like vomit from a heaving gut. It sits, sickly, on the ground before him as he stills himself. ShadowClan had survived worse. It would survive this too. He was trying to help. With a bone-thin frame and a belly that aches with its emptiness, Rookwhisper crouches over a bundle of plants as if they might speak to him. Their leaves carve many different shapes to the dark, trampled ground. Five points or no points, shadow-veined curves or the moon-bellied expanse of another's underside. They should mean something. He has heard of the other medicine cats, their pull over life. They know, and ShadowClan needs to know, but none have tried to teach them. The stars are silent when he begs them, and the leaves are no better.

With a rasping, defeated sigh, the bisected tom drops his skull to the grass, nose to his chest and long ears brushing tall greenery, his odd eyes closed. Those leaves whisper with the shift of motion, and then they rest there, silent again. Always, eternally.... silent.

†  ooc notes information †

• 
  ooc: rook is trying desperately to teach himself medicine to help his clanmates since bone has refused the role, but to be SUPER clear he is not going to succeed in the slightest. he's just.... trying.
• rookwhisper. named for his dark pelt and quiet voice.
  ──── uses he - him, will accept they - them or it - its.
  ──── around four years old.  a warrior of shadowclan.
  ──── single; sexuality unknown. presumably pansexual.
  
  a tall black smoke tabby with high white mapping the entire right side of his body. though his fur is thick and dense, it covers a rather lean, nearly gaunt physique that suits him despite its typical discomfort. his right eye is blue, while his left is a warm orange.
• "speech"

​

 

[fallenmoon]

Fallen's optimism sometimes comes in handy- with as many tragedies that Shadowclan has endured lately shes kept her head up high, tried her best, hunted and provided as much as she could. It was only a matter of time till the misery catches up to her, but she ignores the thought as she pushes in to camp with another scrawny piece of prey in her mouth, still slightly limping from her endeavors a couple days ago. Its not a lot, but she pushes herself because Shadowclan has been nothing but tense.

She spots Rook, the unlucky recipient of her untapped energy and she leaves her prey with some nearby apprentices, opting to skip over with a bushy tail of curiosity. "Hi-hi, rook-rook-rooky!" she peers over his shoulder as he presses his face in to the ground. Leaves... All Fall saw was leaves, nothing too special- "Whatcha doin?" it seems like an odd prayer, I mean, she doesn't blame him if he is, the Stars are the clans last hope of survival, they're what guided her here after all, following their beautiful glow. She mimics his stance, lowering herself to her haunches and pressing her own skull in to the grass. Was the Earth speaking? Was he hearing the Stars themselves?

She listens hard and finds nothing but the occasional rustle.​

"speech"​

 

[Brawlinglion]

"Having a breakdown, I reckon." Brawlinglion chimed in as she made her approach with her head cocked to the side. Just what was Rookwhisper even doing? She exhaled a low sigh as she stood next to Fallenmoon, her tail swaying side to side in mild irritation. Though her irritation was unrelated to the other two cats, but rather it was linked to a particularly stingy scratch on her shoulder that she had received from her most recent training spar. So something was used to anyway, unlike the sight before her. "Are you getting up any time soon?"
​

 

[FOGTHIEF]

Like his clanmates, Fogpaw has no clue what it is that Rook is doing and his ear flickers to signal confusion as he approaches. While it's true that he hasn't experiened leaf-bare yet, he's heard enough about the enroaching season to know that it spells bad news for their already threadbare land. Still, he doesn't make the connection at the sight of his strange... ritual? That's his guess. Fog's orange orbs scan the ground through his mask of dark fur, over the leaves, then to Rook once more and his expression furrows at the sight of Fallen's mimic. He ignores what he thinks is a childish desire to attempt the same. After all, the only that rumbles in the ground here is the monsters running on the thunderpath.

Fog's eyes shift to Brawling where he nods in agreement with her assessment. Maybe it's just a bad day for the warrior. Empty bellys make to full minds, after all. Stretching a paw forward, the youth aims to discard the greenery to the side then bump his forehead against Rookwhisper's shoulder to urge him back into reality.​

 

[Ravenwatcher.]

So I walk alone down the darkest roads​

---

Hope, something she had once seen driving the clan was also the same thing slowly breaking the clans. Briarstar losing all her lives was an unforseen tragedy, Bonejaw ignoring her duties was a understandable cry of pain after all she had witnessed the death of her own sister, blamed herself for the death of many before she too gave up in starclan. Yet, why did Canarywatcher cling still to hope, the hope her mother would survive and the hope that Starclan would eventually help Shadowclan? Perhaps her young age made her foolish.

Seeing the others begin to crowd around Rook and offer their own form of support made the young warrior approach as well. Ocean blue gaze glittering with curiousity, had he been trying to learn? A slight tilt of her head peered on her face, Brawlinglion seemed not to understand when sometimes others needed a little comfort but she was a fierce and headstrong warrior. Yet, Canarywatcher was no better, instead she decided
that she too would offer no sympathy for the other "perhaps we should hunt instead of mope staring at plants won't feed a already starving clans unless you found edible berries" Canarywatcher commented, yet perhaps one could find comfort in the girls warm sing-song voice, though it still seemed to others the young warrior had no interest in befriending anyone, clinging onto her own useless hope, she was just a much of a fool as others.​

"speak""Thoughts"​

 

[FLICKERFIRE]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

Flickerfire ambles close to the group of cats questioning Rookwhisper, who wears a look of defeat that she feels in her soul. ShadowClan has endured hit after hit only recently. She closes her eyes and thinks about Briarstar's deaths, Twilightfall's, Spark-kit's before that. The Clan seems to have an unlucky poison laced into its territory, and she knows this is irrational -- but logic has flown its coop to many, and it's never been her strong suit.

Luckily, pessimism isn't either -- not needless pessimism, anyway. The dark tortoiseshell watches with scorn as Canarywatcher tells Rookwhisper not to mope and to hunt instead. "Sometimes cats do things besides hunt, Bossy Tail," she says, yawning loudly. "Rooky, whatcha doin'? Don't eat plants. Bonejaw isn't doing her job anymore. If you get sick, no one but StarClan can help you, and they don't seem to be rushing to help anyone." She bares her teeth in a pseudo-grin.

- ,,​

​

 

[BONERIPPLE]

Her name thrown forward into conversation is what brings her from her half doze. Pushing to her paws the molly shakes her head figure and arches her back in a stretch that makes her shiver. As she finally comes over the woman notices her son is there as well. But sje also notices that Rook is surrounded by leaves, many different ones and all with names and uses. Yet she doesn't utter a word and she finds herself almost feeling bitter. Shadowclan will be fine. They were fine before things changed, before Starclan decided to control their lives. So why not now? She almost makes a face before shaking her head a little. "It is pointless to be playing with leaves when cats are hungry. No need to bother with them honestly."

She frowns a little as she shakes her head. Really she is unsure of why he even bothers. ​