private YOUTH OF THE NATION ✧ cherrypaw

[iciclefang]

The chill in the air is biting, and bits of snow have begun to flutter from swollen purple-gray clouds. Iciclefang tilts her head, fur fluffing up and causing her to look comically different from her oft-sleek appearance. She offers a silent prayer to StarClan that the snow is only a bit of flurries, that she won’t have to worry about a snowstorm. Not yet, anyway—she fears what they may discover in the mountains.

A she-cat with a thicker pelt than she catches her eye, mostly-white but speckled with fire and shadow. She tastes the vague scent rolling off of her—piney and strange, SkyClan, unmistakably. “I’m wishing I had your pelt up here,” she says, studying the younger girl. And she is young—younger even than Mosspaw, she realizes. “How long have you been an apprentice for?” She has seen other near-kits on this journey—sent from WindClan, though that’s no surprise—but far be it from her to coddle these cats. They had the -paw behind their names now, and they were expected to act like warriors-in-training, in her mind.

After a heartbeat, she asks, “Who is your mentor? Are they here, too?”

ooc ✧ 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦

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  — iciclekit . iciclepaw . iciclefang
  — she/her ; warrior of riverclan
  — lesbian ; single
  — short-haired tortoiseshell with white and ice-blue eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Pin

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[Cherryblossom]

The snow is wonderful, Cherrypaw finds. StarClan had blessed her with a Greenleaf birth, so that the plush hide she wears now would not trouble her while she still had downy kit fluff. Snowflakes freckle her pelt like stars against the black and incandescent flickers in the red, and she's looking over her own pelt with no small measure of admiration when an unfamiliar voice chimes in her ear.

A RiverClanner stands before her, eyes the clear blue of the icebound streams they've run across here, not grand enough to need the RiverClanners to ford again, but cool and serene. "Mm, yeah. I am pretty warm," the girl smirks, burying her nose into her cheek fur for a moment. "Two moons now." She answers without embarrassment, chest puffing slightly as if to preemptively challenge any notions of the weakness in her youth. "Slate. You've probably seen him. Or heard him." Snowy shoulders shrug, but an impish grin seeps into her face.

The diffuse light muddles the tortoiseshell shades of her pelt, but the white marking splitting her nose somehow gleams in grey light. "You're...Iciclefang, right?" Maybe Mosspaw or Fernpaw mentioned her, or maybe someone had called out her name in the chaos of the rockslide. "How long have you been a warrior?" Her smile is comfortable on her face, confident even in the cool of the flinty-eyed stranger.​

 

[iciclefang]

The SkyClan apprentice meets Iciclefang’s gaze proudly. There’s no hint of shame to her for being associated with the kittypet Clan, but then, why would there be? The tortoiseshell remembers there are those among them who still live with Twolegs; ruefully, she thinks of Chalk, of their discussion about loyalty and reverence. Blue eyes flick over the she-cat again as she affirms she’s warm enough. “Two moons. Stars, but that’s an eternity to an apprentice.” She smirks knowingly. At five moons, she’d been this confident too… and nothing has changed, really.

She gives a slow nod. “Slate. He’s a lead warrior, isn’t he?” She thinks of the hulking tom in question, shadowy of pelt with burning eyes. He’d stuck close to the deputy’s side since their departure from Fourtrees. “I don’t see him with you much, but… something about him reminds me of my own mentor.” She offers a small, tight smile. “Are you close?”

She scrapes together some snow with one white-tipped paw, ambivalent about the cold seeping into her pads. “I am, yes. What’s your name? I’m afraid I haven’t formally met you.” Her tail flicks in response to the SkyClanner’s question. “I became a warrior in the middle of newleaf. I had just reached my eleventh moon.” Though there’s a gleam in her eye, Iciclefang does not speak with any evident pride. “Cicadastar honored me with an early ceremony.”

An interested golden ear flicks; she studies the apprentice for a moment. “Have you fought in a battle yet?” She knows WindClan had raided SkyClan’s territory somewhat recently, but she isn’t sure if this young she-cat had been one of the ones to meet the moor rats in the trees.

ooc ✧ 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦

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  — iciclekit . iciclepaw . iciclefang
  — she/her ; warrior of riverclan
  — lesbian ; single
  — short-haired tortoiseshell with white and ice-blue eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Pin

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Iciclefang's insightful smile makes her, of all things, slightly suspicious. How would she know? The steely-eyed warrior seems far from the bumbling apprentices that Cherrypaw shares a den with, but her remark rings true nonetheless. Two moons past seems like a lifetime ago. She could barely remember the day she was made an apprentice, save for everything she thought was so important in her kithood. Kithood! Cherrykit could never have even imagined the cornucopia of sights she's seen in only the past half-moon.

The RiverClanner considers her answer as methodically as she seems to do everything. "Yeah. Your own mentor?" Cherrypaw tilts her head. Who under Silverpelt made an apprentice into the warrior before her? "Uh." For once, her lofty smile droops into something more sheepish. "Not really. He's kinda nasty." She wrinkles her nose, any trace of bashfulness hidden beneath a fresh coating of disdain. "He doesn't like me either," she says without a trace of sadness.

Cherrypaw seems genuinely surprised she doesn't know her. "I'm Cherrypaw," she meows, sitting up a little straighter. Sunlit eyes grow faintly wider when the warrior answers her next question, an embarrassing kitlike display that she soon tries to wipe off her face. "Your leader made you a warrior early? How?" The apprentice leans ever-so-slightly forwards, as though she'd be able to immediately apply the steps to Iciclefang's success and jump to warrior at 7 moons. Beating Falconpaw and Plaguepaw to warrior seems like a wonderful idea at any rate.

Once more do icebound eyes scruntinize her. "Not yet." Cherrypaw shrugs, trying to hide her disappointment. "I heard WindClan came to fight us in our territory, but I was just a kit then," she replies, as if she isn't little more than a kit now. The girl makes no effort to hide the way her gaze flicks over the RiverClanner in turn, searching for telltale scars on her chill-ruffled pelt. If Iciclefang hadn't detailed her own battle history when she answered her last question, she would add, "What about you? You have to have fought some battles."​

 

[iciclefang]

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XXXXXCherrypaw. The girl seems almost offended Iciclefang had asked her name, which amuses her. How self-important young apprentices are, she thinks to herself… but she had been the same way, she knows. She regards the fluffy little tortoiseshell with gleaming silver-blue eyes, the remarks about her mentor causing her to wrinkle the bridge of her nose with laughter. “Nasty? I suppose I can’t disagree with you,” she says, remembering the way the lumbering wolfish tomcat had crouched over his prey, the way his lips had peeled away from the root of his fangs in a savage display of dominance. She could not imagine Smokethroat behaving in such a way, on second thought. “Well, my mentor and I didn’t like each other much at first either. It took moons before he earned my respect,” she mews truthfully. Perhaps Cherrypaw and her nasty mentor would bond over the course of her training.

XXXXXHer early warrior ceremony and Cherrypaw’s question about the battles go paw in paw. Iciclefang examines a paw, noting the new callouses ingrained in the pads, as she answers. “I have fought in battles before. I helped SkyClan defend their territory when WindClan raided them last leafbare,” she says. She studies the apprentice for a moment. “You weren’t even a thought in your mother’s head then, but RiverClan saved SkyClan from being raided. WindClan wanted your catmint.” She flicks her tail. “And then WindClan raided our makeshift camp. We harbored one of their many refugees at the time, and they wanted her dead.” She remembers Wolfsong’s teeth in her scruff, the weight of him pinning her down. Her first defeat.

XXXXXShe is quiet for a moment. “I fought against ThunderClan, once, too. When RiverClan lost Sunningrocks.” She eyes Cherrypaw. “I was miserable to have been in two losing battles, but truthfully, you learn more from the ones you lose than the ones you win.” She sits up. “Do you know any battle moves yet? I imagine SkyClan teaches you to fight from trees… but maybe you can show me a different one.”

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