Open Camp BUT I NEVER PRAYED MYSELF ❋ camp arrival

[NAMELESS]

x

The child keeps close to their shepherd's side. Their paws move with uncertainty, sore with the walking and nipped at eagerly by leafbare frost. They could no longer run, they think distantly. On all sides they are flanked by cats with strange faces, who spill words like sweet honey and leave their head spinning. This morning, their world was so small, enclosed within the confines of decaying hallowed walls. They were never supposed to see this far, and the wrongness of it seeps like frost to chill their bones.

When Sanctity stops, the child does so in turn. This is the place their strange entourage has deigned to bring them - WindClan, the bright one said. The name is strange. It all is strange.

Though hardly different from the rolling fields they passed, the child immediately notices how alarmingly cluttered this place is with cats, despite its openness. Like their own home, it teems with life - and yet the faces here are unknown and dizzying, moving in well-worn paths that are foreign to an outsider like themself. It is all too much; they duck their head down, resist the urge to scamper under their shepherd's paws and hide.

OOC // follows from this thread!

won't be tagging everyone, but companion tag for @SANCTITY

no need to wait !! any cats from the linked thread can be assumed to be accompanying them

ONLY THE YOUNG ONES DIE GOOD

???

LONER KIT
they / them, nonbinary
5 moons old, ages on the first day of the month
semiverbal, primarily communicates nonverbally
rescued(...?) from a rogue cult by sanctity

"

SPEECH

" & ACTIONS & INTERACTION

penned by saturnid.

 

[SANCTITY SANCTITY]

SANCTITY
SHE/THEY
40 MOONS
LONER

PENNED BY DEJAVU

CONTENT WARNING: Very light implications of harming a child, light self-destructive thoughts. Sentences are marked with asterisks.

Windblown and frost-nipped, Sanctity descends into camp with the child at their side. * She dares not lay a paw on them for fear of it growing clawed, but she stays within a tail-length. They are surrounded by a pack of colorful cats with lilting voices and wide-open faces. It is vaguely reminiscent of her time as an initiate, if several shades off, a little more lively. The child moves without certainty. Sanctity might have done the same, but her learnings are rooted down to the bone. She moves with unerring formality, head held high, checking her long steps so as not to outpace the flanking cats.

The high grass parts to reveal a flat scoop of prairie, sides dotted with burrows. And cats, cats everywhere, chatting and laughing. Sanctity's dark gaze widens, moving over the expanse of the camp, feathers ruffled. Her order kept their own company, for the most part. They were not like the others. They were not to sympathize with the sheep, or worse, the lambs. That path led only to the darkness of godlessness… a darkness she finds herself mired in. Her claws jerk in their sheaths, and she stays them with will alone.

" Many thanks for welcoming us into thy hallowed home, " she says stiffly, unmoving but for the slight wax and wane of her speaking mouth. The child is restless at their side, lacework senses crushed by the press of unfamiliarity. You brought them to this fate, some croaking maw issues, traitor, oathbreaker. She shivers. * The icy bite of the leafbare wind is lessened here, and she grieves its loss. * It had felt good as it scourged her flesh. " If ye should require any feat of me, ye need only ask. "

​

OOC:

 

[Wrenwhisker]

Wrenwhisker would've sooner chewed off her own forepaw than missed accompanying these strangers back to camp. This was for a few reasons, some of them virtuous - she was concerned about the nameless kitten, for one thing, and had plenty of suspicions about the big stranger who accompanied them - and some of them purely for her own self-interest. If something wild happened, she wanted to be there to see it - and she wanted to see her Clanmates' reactions to these newcomers firsthand. Excitement was harder to come by as a Clan cat than it had been in her younger years, and though she'd never admit it, that was a good thing. It was what she wanted: a withdrawal from the constant strife and hardship faced by a cat living on their own. But, stars above, it did get boring sometimes. This was a thrilling development, all things told - surely this big stranger would be a source of amusement for moons to come. If they stayed, anyway. As for the kitten...well, she'd just have to keep an eye on them. And she did, in fact, as she slunk along after her patrol, her blue eyes shifting back and forth from Nameless to Sanctity. As they entered camp, the scruffy she-cat would shake out her fur - somehow rumpling it even more in the process - and sink onto her haunches, adopting her typical slouched posture and continuing to stare at the strangers.

"Ohh, don't you worry about that." meowed Wrenwhisker with a sandpapery chuckle, as Sanctity offered herself up for work. "We'll have plenty of uses for you, y'big beastie." She wondered if the chimera was good at any skills WindClan valued: could she hunt? Fight? Would she be as valuable a defender as her bulk suggested? Could she take down hares? Surely she could learn to if not, and with far greater ease than someone like Wrenwhisker, whose tunnel-compatible body put her far closer to her prey's size than she would prefer. A cat's size wasn't everything, of course, but in a Clan known for the smallness of many of its warriors, a creature like Sanctity presented some intriguing possibilities. The tortoiseshell-tabby leaned forward, trying to put herself at Nameless's level without necessarily making the kid raise their head. Eye contact sucked sometimes; she understood. Poor thing. This must be the first time they've seen so many people. "Hey, kid. You want something to eat?" She didn't feel comfortable making an offer of food to Sanctity, not before Dustystar or Goldenroar made a move to formally welcome her...but a kit was different, surely.