TW: Sensitive Content TW: Death Camp ThunderClan AND NOW I KNOW HOW JOAN OF ARC FELT // return.

[rowanpaw]

tw; grief, descriptions of a dead body.

☆ Rowanpaw isn't sure when she falls asleep, or if she sleeps at all. At some point she supposes she exhausted herself crying to the point of something near sleep, a state of complete and utter mental and physical exhaustion where you're neither awake nor sleeping, but in an between state where dreamlike visions still flicker behind your eyelids but you can still somehow hear the world around you. She doesn't leave this state till the sun peaks through the trees, hitting her back and letting warmth seep back into her.

The body next to her is cold. It has been for a long time now. Cold, stiff, but still her mother, always her mother. She grits her teeth, scrambles to her feet, flinching as pain shoots through her leg in protest. Every muscle in her body was protesting. But it was her task, her burden alone to carry. She'd bring the body back herself, bury it herself, mourn her herself.

It's laborious work getting Serpentberry's body back to camp. What is normally a five hour walk has to be broken up into bits, because she keeps having to stop to catch her breath, to rest her leg which at this point hurts so badly it's making it incredibly difficult to move it at all. By the time she makes it back, the sun has already passed its highest point– they've been gone for over half a day. She's still crying, half due to the pain, half due to the grief, the guilt. But not regret. Not yet, at least.

She stumbles into the camp, Serpentberry's body with her, and collapses onto the ground next to her mother, her breathing shallow and the pain overwhelming. She feels eyes on her, and knows she'll have questions to answer, but she can barely even think straight.

All she manages is a weak and shaky, "please…" though what she's pleading for, she herself isn't sure.

☆ ROWANPAW. 14 moons
mentored by serpentberry,
adopted daughter of serpentberry and thornstar
peaceful powerplay allowed
ooc - context

 

[Seafoambelly]

SEAFOAMBELLY

, 83 moons / THUNDERCLAN RANGER
A long-furred blue-gray she-cat with blue-green eyes.
Sister to URCHINSPINE
Solemn and distant. She doesn't talk much.
SPEECH || THOUGHTS
Tagging @rowanpaw

---

Not again.

For the second time this moon, young Rowanpaw has borne a body back to the camp.

Only this time, the body is not that of a stranger, a mother to abandoned children. This body is not warm with recent pounding blood and fluffed fur. This body is cold and stiff... though still a mother.

Serpentberry was dead?

Memories tried to grab hold of her mind, tried to bind her in place. Tried to freeze her paws where she stood, remembering the death of a family member and the pain of that final walk. But this time, Seafoambelly would not allow these ghosts to hold her back.

"Someone fetch Juniperstar!" she padded over to the young apprentice and moved to press her nose to the young cat's fur.

"It'll be alright, Rowanpaw," she murmured. "Just breathe for us, dear."

 

[Leafpaw]

Part of him always thought his mother above death, after all she pulled cats from it, she drew them back into the embrace of life with tender care and her many plants. Serpentberry fought death, Serpentberry did not lose to death, how could it take her. How? How could this happen? There were no wounds, no blood, just the smell of it frothed around the tortie's partially open maw, this was sickness then. It had to be, because what else could kill a cat this way. His pale green eyes, the same soft forest shade of his mothers but lacking her intensity honed in on Rowanpaw as he staggered forward, Leafpaw's spotted head dipped to press his forehead to the fallen medicine cats own in a gentle nudge as if he could rouse her.
"N-no but..." His voice cracks, he is a kitten again warm and surrounded by his mother's scent that was touched with herbs and milk, "...h-how...how? She's a medicine cat, you're a medicine cat...give her medicine! Fix her!"
His older sister, adopted but no less a presence constant and beloved in his life, lays there after having dragged their mother back from StarClan only knows where. Had Serpentberry known her death and left to waste away alone? Had she been stricken by a surprise illness gathering herbs and leaving Rowanpaw alone with a sudden and overwhelming burden? He didn't know, tears brimmed in his eyes and he wailed. Thornstar was gone, he had never met him and now StarClan had taken his mother. It was a cruel joke, it was unfair, he was one of ThunderClan's first clanborn, the first to know only them and the stars and THIS is what he got? This is what he and Thistlepaw and Rattlepaw were honored with? Grief. Only grief.

ooc info here.

I am left standing on the edge - wondering how we got this far

Leafpaw

— apprentice of thunderclan
— He/Him
"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
— Chocolate tortoiseshell with olive green eyes.
#ba7a5d

 

[juniperstar juniperstar]

juniper

"and this time, she won't be forgiving"​​

these nights are always the longest, aren't they? the ones spent without the soft hum of breath tickling the thin furs by her ears. only the impression of a sweet scent, unable to bury their nose into the embers of her fur to draw in more of it. greedy, always, for just a little more touch, a little more warmth. curled up as close as she can manage to Hollykit to make up for the absence that feels numbed just a little bit by his tiny frame, she falls asleep clinging to the promise of many more lifetimes spent embraced.

the sun has only just decided to make its way over the edge of the quarry that holds their camp when she had woken finally, to an empty nest. while not entirely unfounded, it had left an uncertain knot in her stomach. reminded of the haughty frustration that had pried a lovesick confession from her lips. was Serpentberry angry with her again? what had she done to earn withheld good mornings this time? the spotted tabby left her den nervous, going about her day with Boarpaw trying to put the uncertainty far from her mind.

up until the last bit of darkness had been chased from the sky. the brightness of mid-day, blinding and relentless for how it denied them shade to lounge in. nothing would be exempt from the burn of exposure, cut raw with nowhere to hide.

there is the call of her name and Juniperstar turns with a stare wide- "Fetch me?" what was there to be retrieved over? you don't want to know. the moment she draws near something cracks. a wire chewed too far to host a connection anymore, there is only blankness. a disbelieving, hollow gaze fixated on shapes and colors she should recognize. you recognize her. everyone here seemed to crowd towards Rowanpaw, apologetic and confused like this strange thing was something she cared about. Leafpaw's hoarse voice demanding a fix. medicine. it was funny... how much it looked like-

Serpentberry.

the connection sputters back to clarity, every color suddenly blindingly saturated, painfully detailed. every hair imprinted into memory, how it stood now instead of the soft, ethereal presentation that memory had held of her. she thinks she might've tried to say her name, but all that her ears manage to catch is some strangled kind of whine. something pathetic, like a dog with a broken leg, dragging itself towards its Twoleg as if they could make it better through proximity alone.

the earth rubs against her elbows where they sink into the dirt, paws numb as they reach to touch silvered coils. they don't uncurl from the space between her toes, do not follow the sharp gaze of a snake eager to hiss its greetings to its favorite charmer. there is no shift of reserved dignity, eager not to be too affectionate where there are so many watching, to conserve her image as a stony-scaled healer. it is nothing but a shed skin... all the substance that had lived in all that color dulled by her stillness. she doesn't flinch even as Leafpaw rubs his face against hers listlessly, hoping it might stir her.

there's nothing. not even answers.

there are too many words and simultaneously not enough. there isn't an explanation that will satisfy the way her chest feels torn asunder. nothing that will stem the bleeding. "Ser..." my breath. (the last, the first) my heart. (mended. frail. shattered.) "Our promise," dies on her tongue as a protest, something never to be cashed in on again. not even once...

her eyes don't stray from the softness of a face, every eyelash that doesn't stir to blink up at her, every whisker that doesn't twitch when pressed against. "What... happened?" her voice shakes with something between misery, hopelessness and a hot, indignant furiousness. a selfish anger that wished it had been her to drag Serpentberry home. to hold her close for that final breath just like she'd promise to Juniperstar in turn, even if it had been seven times over. and she couldn't even be there once.

──✩°｡⋆⸜ ✮

•  
• juniperstar
  leader of thunderclan
  seven lives remain
  

 

[Magnoliapeak]

I SIP A TOAST TO NORMALCY

Rowanpaw comes back to camp with a body. Except this time, when Magnoliapeak sees it, it's not the body of some poor unfortunate stranger. She realizes with a pang of horror that she recognizes the triad of black, orange, and white where it lies unmoving beside the weeping Rowanpaw. Serpentberry. There had been a time when she had thought of Serpentberry as being some untouchable thing. A permanent nuisance. But now, lying in a heap like a pile of leaves, Magnoliapeak knows that the serpent has lost its head.

Something constricts in Magnoliapeak's throat. It isn't grief. She had never liked Serpentberry. It had been the things in the saccharine medicine cat that she had seen within herself that she hated the most. No, instead she finds her hazy eyes focused primarily on Rowanpaw and Leafpaw, likely to be followed by Serpentberry's smattering of other children soonafter. What once had been a strong sense of resentment towards her brood finds itself melting into pity in the autumnal sun. She mourns for them more than she does for the death of the medicine cat. Yet she does not move, standing with her paws stupidly cemented to the camp floor.

Then Juniperstar appears, billowy as always as she sinks to the dirt to grieve the medicine cat. To grieve a lover stolen by death instead of conflict. Magnoliapeak almost cannot stand the sight. It's almost like she is there again on the night of the great battle, watching Hazelheart bury her face into the bloodied fur of her dying father. Except, no. Magnoliapeak twitches an ear, grounding herself. At least, she thinks bitterly, she had not felt a particular attachment to Serpentberry other than a sick kindredness. Juniperstar listlessly stares into Serpentberry's face as if she might open her eyes, and with a lurch the warrior decides she can no longer watch this. She moves to brush past her throng of her clanmates, only pausing when she comes to pass the weeping Rowanpaw.

"I am certain you don't want it," she murmurs lowly to the medicine cat apprentice (or, is it medicine cat now that her mother-teacher is dead?), barely touching her tufted ear "But should you need help preparing for vigil, I will help you. You should rest." Magnoliapeak doesn't wait for an answer, nor does she expect one. She barely even looks Rowanpaw in the face before she is turning to leave the scene. She fears her mourning heart will only continue to tear for those who loved the medicine cat if she continues to bear witness. To be privy to their agony makes her feel sick. The dilute tortoiseshell moves quickly out of camp, seeking fresh air with no destination.
/ OUT

— ⋆˙⟡

✿ magnoliapeak is a thunderclan warrior with sharp resolve and strict standards.
✿ 30 moons old, ages on the 11th of each month.
✿ currently mentoring flickerpaw and sandpiperpaw
✿ in battle, physically difficult and psychologically difficult
✿ her parents are hazelheart x bracken. she is littermate to honeysucklecry and hyacinthrain. she is gen 2 on the junipersable tree.
✿ penned by carat, see her tags here.

 

[DREAMPAW]

(𓆩✧𓆪) every time something drastic has happened in thunderclan, dreampaw has wished she were there. when juniperstar had lost her life to skyclan claws, only to wake up again safe in her den... when hollykit had been found and brought home. dreampaw doesn't know if she can tell the child there is a sister in shadowclan, and likely kin in others as well. either way, she has always wished to be present, to feel as if she has some presence within the clan she used to call home. because thunderclan isn't really her home... at least not anymore. her mother is here, and asterpaw, both of whom refuse to travel to shadowclan. likewise, her father and magpiepaw reside in the pocosin, firmly tied to their roots. dreampaw floats between, tethered by her muzzle and her tail to two separate homes, neither pulling enough to drag her to one side over the other.

he is in thunderclan for a few days after the gathering, mostly catching up with old friends, and while she wishes she could stay longer, she can hear halfshade's voice in her head, growling at her to get along home. tonight is to be her last night, one she hopes to spend with juniperstar and alderpaw before she heads back to the marshes until next moon. the sun rises high in the sky, and while the medicine cats' absence is noted, dreampaw does not think too much about it. she has yet to pry into her mother's budding fondness for the poisonous tortie, and while her relationship with the woman had been fond in the first few moons of her life, dreampaw's absence from thunderclan had stolen that relationship too.

when rowanpaw staggers into camp, the half-clan boy had been about to fetch his mother for a midday meal. instead, he stops, twisting to stare at the older apprentice, maw parted to catch the scent of death thick on the air. "what..." he murmurs, moving closer until he can see the herb-dappled pelt of the fallen. serpentberry, her eyes sightless, tail limp as she is set gently down. rowanpaw collapses next to her, and the horror dreampaw feels is quickly rivaled by worry for the medicine cat's apprentice. juniperstar is called for and... oh. juniperstar.

his mother slips from her den with bright eyes, not yet dimmed by the horror unfolding. dreampaw moves quickly towards her, pushing his mirrored pelt against her lanky frame as she stumbles, stops, sees. the medicine cat's name dies on the leader's tongue, whispered as if sacred. there is no telling the wave of grief crashing over juniperstar in this moment, and so dreampaw does what he can do in the face of uncertainty. he holds fast, steady against her trembling form as she sinks to the ground beside her dead... lover... friend... companion. magenta eyes find rowanpaw, meeting the tearful girl's reddened gaze. "are you okay?" he asks quietly, aware of his oddness in this place. he doesn't belong here.

ACROSS MY FAMILY LINE 𓆩✧𓆪 GOD, I HAVE MY FATHERS EYES

• // " #afaf64"
• 
• 
  DREAMPAW ✧ tags / toyhouse
  
  ✧ demiboy (he / she) / bisexual, padding after NONE
  ✧ 09 moons old, ages realistically
  ✧ apprentice of shadowclan
  ✧ brother to MAGPIEPAW, ASTERPAW, LITTLEKIT, HOLLYKIT
  ✧ son of JUNIPERSTAR x SABLESTAR
  ✧ mentoring NONE / mentored by HALFSHADE
  ✧ penned by LAVS / message lavendes on discord for plots!
  
  a longhaired chocolate spotted tabby with low white and orange eyes. silky chocolate fur cascades in waves across his boxy frame, darker dapples giving him his tabby pelt. creamy white splashes his paws, belly, tail tip, and muzzle, freckling across his face. the hue of a crackling fire, struck through with magenta and violet, sparkles from narrow sockets.

​

 

[brindlefeather's icon brindlefeather brindlefeather]

BRINDLEFEATHER ──

thunderclan | forager​

Brindlefeather had been rearranging his haul from an earlier walk through the territory, humming to himself, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to befall ThunderClan. It wasn't until the scent of death snuck upon his senses that he snapped his head up to see Rowanpaw dragging a body into camp. And it wasn't just anycat - it was one of their own. Brindlefeather's heart dropped as shock and confusion filled the air, then grief as realization set in. Serpentberry, ThunderClan's medicine cat... she's dead.

His ears flatten and his tail droops as the scene unfolds before him. Leafpaw begs for a fix, and when Juniperstar is called out of her den, she all but falls to pieces as soon as she knows what she's just lost. Other cats begin approaching those taking it the hardest, offering any kind of comfort that they can. Brindlefeather pads forward, his head spinning with confusion. How?? he wonders, but no answers come to him. There's no sign of struggle, no gaping wounds - not even a scratch. Just a stiff, cold body that no longer bore life. As if... as if she'd just fallen asleep and never woke up. She was just fine when she'd left camp, wasn't she? Surely she hadn't been hiding some kind of illness or disease from the Clan, right?

With Seafoambelly at Rowanpaw's side and Dreampaw approaching Juniperstar, it's Leafpaw who Brindlefeather finds himself padding up to cautiously, the sting of tears already present in his eyes at the sight of the devastation amongst Serpentberry's family. He sits near the apprentice, a look of sympathy spread across his face. There's no fix for this, not the kind that Leafpaw wants. It breaks Brindlefeather's heart to see children losing their parents...
"Leafpaw," he says quietly so as not to startle him. "I'm so sorry..." What more can he even say? Brindlefeather hates this feeling of knowing there's nothing that can be done to ease the pain, not for Leafpaw or anycat else. "You can lean on me, if you need to... I've got you." Despite his attempt to maintain his composure, a tear falls down his face, and he's forced to tear his gaze away from Leafpaw's wailing.

maybe we'll turn it all around 'cuz it's not too late

it's never too late

• ooc: approaching @Leafpaw
• "speaking" | thinking | action

 

[Rattlepaw]

x

x

x

RATTLEPAW

THUNDERCLAN

APPRENTICE

HE/THEY

09 MOONS

DINGO

Rattlepaw's mind, heart and paws all raced as he made his way back to camp, bounding through the forest faster than fleeing prey but from the moment he set a single paw back in camp everything seemed to freeze. The thoughts about what he had just seen were pushed out of his mind. The sounds of the forest blared down at him no longer and his once racing heart now seemed to skip a beat entirely as his honey coloured gaze landed upon the body that had been brought back to camp. The tortoiseshell pelt was heart-breakingly familiar, and it ought to be since he shared half of it. All sounds around him had become muffled as he stared at the unmoving form of his mother, his own heartbeat the only sound he could register. A sound she no longer shared.

Instinctively his paws would bring him closer and he would approach Serpentberry in a similar fashion to how he had approached the dead snake from earlier. Cautiously. Carefully. As though she were just asleep and he ought not to disturb her. "...Mother?" But he wanted to disturb her, to wake her up and see that this was all just some cruel joke or dream. She wasn't really dead, surely? No. No she couldn't be. Not the medicine cat. Not Serpentberry. Not his mother. StarClan had already taken their father before his time. They couldn't have Serpentberry too.

"Mother please. Please get up" He would gently push his pink nose against one of her paws, tears beginning to sting his eyes as the reality of what was before him began to set in, the voices of his clanmates starting to become clear again. The voice of his brother asking that she be fixed rung out clear as day. "You gotta get up Mumma" Rattlepaw's voice would crack under the grief he wasn't ready to have. The world suddenly felt so large and overwhelming and he felt taken back many moons younger than he was now, back to when things were big and scary but still safe because mother was there to take care of them. Now though? Now she wasn't here and she never would be again. He tried to push his head gently into her pelt trying to feel some semblance of her warmth and the security and comfort it brought with it, but there was no warmth behind her anymore.

With her warmth gone and nothing to soothe the pain that brought it gave way for a new feeling to start boiling deep down inside of Rattlepaw. One that was slowly and steadily but most assuredly clawing it's way up his throat and to his teeth. It showed through his hardened expression as he drew back from trying to garner comfort from what remained of his mother, and in the way his eyes burned like golden venom. He waited to hear how his sister, Rowanpaw would answer Juniperstar's question as well as Leafpaw's demand, staying rooted to the spot he'd taken up close to Serpentberry's body.

He would not move until he had answers, answers to questions he couldn't even bare to ask yet as fury and grief tied themselves into a sickening knot in his stomach.

Living in this world you left behind

A Smoke torbie / Chocolate lynx point chimera with low white and amber-yellow eyes. Looks like a half/half of both his parents.

Littermate to LEAFPAW and THISTLEPAW
Adoptive Sibling to ROWANPAW, THORNKIT(?), FALSEKIT(?) and FAITHKIT(?)
Son of SERPENTBERRY and THORNSTAR / Nephew of SNAKEBLINK
Mentored by GHOSTSTRIKE
"speech" // "thoughts" // #FF9933

 

[Copperstorm]

You walk along the edge of danger
AND IT WILL CHANGE YOU

.

From one dead mother to the next.

Copperstorm hadn't thought he'd still be reeling from the last, but this, this left him rooted to the ground. Serpentberry. Carried into camp by her own apprentice. His golden eyes widened, then narrowed, frozen as his mind cracked open with a flood of questions. Why? How? What happened? Why hadn't anyone been close enough to help? Was there blood... An attack? The questions rattled, but no answers came. At last, he forced himself forward, moving when his paws felt like stone. Seafoambelly was already there, trying to offer comfort to Rowanpaw. Copperstorm bent low to inspect the body, his eyes searching for wounds, for some explanation. Nothing. Just stillness. Just death. His gaze flicked briefly to Rowanpaw, her grief plain, and then to Leafpaw as the young tom pleaded for his sister to do something, anything, to bring their mother back.

Copperstorm's throat tightened, his thoughts straying unwillingly to Thistlepaw. To Rattlepaw. The young ones who still had their whole lives ahead. Stars above… losing a parent this way was something a kit never truly healed from. Juniperstar's arrival drew his attention, and his heart clenched at the sight of her breaking down piece by piece. Serpentberry hadn't been an easy cat, she had sharp teeth and sharper words, often getting under his pelt like no one else... But she had been theirs. A healer, a life woven into the fabric of ThunderClan. And now that thread was gone.

And guilt struck him then, quiet and sharp. He'd spent so much of his moons resenting her barbs, her poison, rolling his eyes at her eccentricity, that he'd never stopped to imagine her absence. Now, faced with it, he realized how much emptier camp already felt. He blinked, staring down at the still form, and swallowed hard. Dead was dead. Nothing could change that.

Rattlepaw's sudden presence made Copperstorm's ears pin flat, his golden gaze softening as he watched the young tom push against his mother's still form, desperate for her to rise. The plea cut through the air sharper than any claw. Serpentberry wouldn't get up. Not now. Not ever. " ...Rattlepaw... " Copperstorm murmured, his voice low, gentler than he knew how to be most days. He stepped closer, the brush of his tail along the apprentice's flank careful, a tether of comfort where words fell short. A sigh slipped from him, steady but heavy, as though his lungs carried the weight of the vigil already.

Grief would hang heavy in camp tonight. He knew it.... Felt it pressing down already, in the pleas of Leafpaw and Rattlepaw, in Juniperstar's broken composure, in the silence that swallowed everyone else. It was a kind of battle they could not fight, only endure.

" ...We need to prepare the body for a vigil. " His voice was quiet, steady, carrying the weight of finality. His golden eyes shifted toward the apprentice. " Rowanpaw… are you hurt? Did anything happen out there we need to be aware of? So no one else falls victim to the same fate? "

Speech, thoughts/emphasis

33 MOONS

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THUNDERCLAN

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SONG

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