Event Territory 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 ◈『 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚢𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 』

[Smogmaw.]

{$title} [This thread marks the next step of our haunting event! Replying to this thread gives you an additional point towards the Fresh-Kill prize! Happy digging :3] [CW : bones]

ShadowClan has strangled itself with paranoid delusions of ghosts and apparitions haunting its new territory. So far, the Night Guard's heard tell about eerie voices in the wind, furtive shades occupying the fringes of clanmates' visions, and pawprint trails becoming arbitrarily overwritten by an invisible third party. What a bunch of hooey. Rattled minds and strung-up nerves aplenty, all over stuff going bump in a night. In case no one's noticed, the clan'd just made its home in a bunch of mush and muck, a primeval swampland crawling with disease and vermin. Sometimes a splash's just a splash, and not anything more.

But the bones. Now, that's something.

Call him a pragmatist, or call him a clueless cynic; if there's any truth to be chased here, Smogmaw feels it lies in the feline-like bones that'd washed up after a recent rainfall. He's no specialist on understanding the weather, but as far as the tom knows, meat-stripped body parts are an uncharacteristic symptom for torrential rain. Those fragments hailed from somewhere; from someone, too, obviously, and they couldn't have fallen from the sky. With Sablestar's permission, Smogmaw commissioned a patrol to scour the shadowy knolls near the bones' last known sighting, and assigned it some simple directives:

indent1.

Map the terrain. Deduce possible origin points of bones.

indent

2. Take note of all peculiarities encountered.

indent

3. Report back with findings.

indent

4. Do not, under any circumstance, die.

⁂

They'd embarked when the sun was just past its highest. Now, daylight is but a recent memory, and rather than warm rays lathering their hindparts, their backs instead glisten with the sludge churned up by their march. It is a foul part of the territory they are in, up to now undeserving of a thorough exploration. Heavy, oozy mud stretches on from where they stand, broken only by mere strips of land and dark bodies of water.

Viscous slush snaps from his hocks as he clomps out from a soggy waste, forepaws hitting firm ground at long last. Smogmaw's laboured breathing is loud, deep and drawn. When his sightline eventually lifts, he finds he stands upon the largest swath of unbroken land he'd seen in what felt like an age. "Okay! Everyone, c'mere! Let's-," his tongue lashes over his lips, "-regroup for a bit."

He sighs, rightly drained, and bracing for the looks of sheer loathing that would come his way. Being all too aware that boring patrols are the bane of this clan's existence, boring, long, and exhausting patrols must be an unthinkable scourge. When they emerge, he's initially relieved to see no one had gone and broken directive #4, yet becomes otherwise uncomfortable with how fruitless their efforts have been. Miserably, Smogmaw glimpses down at his muddy paws as they cluster before him.

"We're all gonna-"

'Head back', is what he's about to say, but no sound follows. Instead, his tongue retracts violently and suddenly catches on the roof of his mouth. He stifles a gag. Then, a tremor, strong and pure as sunlight on a cloudless morning. Nausea and dread compete to fill the gaps, eliciting a similar sensation to what he'd felt when the fog closed in all around Wolfpack's patrol, only so much stronger. Is something closing in now?

It dissipates as quickly as it had arisen, and in its wake festers a compulsion, an urge that must be sated at the soonest convenience. Eyes, previously scrunched, fall upon the clanmates once more. "We're all gonna dig where we stand. Now."

The group isn't afforded the luxury of elaboration; the Night Guard has pounced onto the soil, claws wrenched free to ravenously rip it away.

---

// y/c discovers bones. old, yellow bones. if they're unfortunate enough, possibly an entire skeleton. these bones belong to cats, and there's an entire graveyard's worth of them. note that this isn't just any graveyard; the remains are messily piled on top of one another, as though haphazardly buried as an afterthought, rather than a formal ritual.
// feel free to have y/c feel the same sort of nausea/dread that smogmaw felt! it would be super cool if u did ;)
// and as mentioned above, replying to this thread grants you a point towards the fresh-kill prize!

 

[lostpaw]

Lostpaw had been picked for whatever reason had made sense in Smogmaw's head, seeing as her relation to her sister didn't really bode well with much of anyone. The apprentice couldn't blame them, really, her sister was a force that not even she would mess with. She had done as Smogmaw had said to, looked for things and marked things and… well, now here she was, soaking wet and a little more than pissed when Smogmaw gave the order to dig. Yeah, because… oh. Shit.

That fog that rolled in, it clenched her stomach. Made her want to throw that frog right back up from when she'd eaten it that morning. The fear and the adrenaline that came with that fear found its way into her system and then she was digging right along with Smogmaw and the others.

The ground was firmer than the mush she had been in and on beforehand, but her paws still fumbled beneath her as she dug. The dirt was clammy and clung to her like wet on water. She would need a big bath after this. Like, in a river.

It would take her a bit longer to find bones like the others, but the ones she found she would grip with her little teeth and pull as hard as she could and she would plunk down next to her hole with… oh. That was. A lot of bones.

SHE IS FREQUENTLY KIND ☆ AND SHE'S SUDDENLY CRUEL

• "speech"
  
• 
  

  

• LOSTPAW she/her, shadowclan, six moons.
  ☆ a sh solid grey she-cat with green eyes / small and fast
  ☆ mentored by @/Mothbite
  ☆ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / always tag @hellybear
  ☆ penned by hellybear ↛ hellycinth on discord, feel free to dm for plots / click for toyhou.se

 

[F l e a p a w]

Things had gotten to the point where even Fleapaw had to admit something was off.

Sure, at first, she thought everyone was just playing it up like they always did—whining about feeling watched, seeing things in the swamp. A bunch of dogshit, she figured. And a good bit of fun too, cause she wasn't about to miss out on good pranks.

But then stuff started happening to her. That chilling prickling sensation like eyes constantly on her—clinging to her pelt like cobwebs. The cold nipping at her heels, even on mild days, frost blooming in her steps.

Even now, she felt it, hovering behind her. A hound breathing chilled air on her heels. There was never anything there, but sometimes she swore there was a face not her own, looking back at her from puddles. For a second, she wondered if it was a curse like Bluegale said. But then she got to thinkin how stupid that sounded. Curses weren't real… and... and whoever that skull she dug up belonged to was too dead to care. Dead folk didn't need their bones. Not like they could use em again, but she could.

When she heard Smogmaw was leading a patrol to look for bones, she jumped at the chance to go. Flea was gonna be on her bestest behavior for their bone expedition. No doubt Frogmaw would send her packing if she grated on his nerves.

But she hadn't even had the chance to try if she wanted to. The ground was still sticky, no ice left to support her steps. Fleapaw had to work twice as hard to keep up. Her paws didn't sink as deep, but she still had to fight against the suction of the muck, each step dragged back by greedy mud. The slurp, slurp, slurp of it clutching at legs all she could hear for most of the trip.

Her breath came ragged, tongue lolling to the side as she hobbled to match the longer strides of her clanmates. Every part of her burned, fire under her pelt, but she set her jaw and kept moving.

When the patrol finally stopped, she fought against the quaking in her legs. She swallowed thickly, nostrils flaring with muffled her uneven breaths. Fleapaw moved to stand beside Lostpaw, pressing into her sister's flank for support. "Uhnng… I uh—" She swallowed hard, "Don't remember it feeling this far…"

Suddenly, a sharp, nauseating sensation rolled her stomach. Fleapaw swallowed thickly, fighting the urge to hurl—if there was even anything left in her stomach after trudging through the muck for so long. She licked her maw, saliva seeping at the corners of her mouth

Smogmaw's order cut through the silence, sharp enough to make Fleapaw jump, ears twitching. Dig? Oh—right. Bones. Bones! They were here for bones.

She shoved down the nausea, ignoring the twisting in her stomach, and lowered her nose to the earth, smearing mud across her muzzle as she searched for a good place to start.

But her paws weren't content where they were. A strong feeling urged her to move away from the spread of the patrol. She treaded further, steps sluggish until her paws halted in a place. The mud clamped tight as if something beneath had latched on, refusing to let go.

Fleapaw gaped at the ground, eyes burning into a singular spot. Then she began to tear into the earth, mud darkening her pelt, shoulder-deep as she ripped up layers of damp ground.

​

shes got a knife ▬ι═ﺤ stab stab

• prompt: —— bones bones bones bones
• 
  I extend my hand like a mob boss and allow you to kiss my ring but when you lean closer you see its one of those glow-in-the-dark spider rings you win at arcades [MUNCH] you disrespec me - and eat my spooky spida ring! which cost me 50 tickets at funtime arcade and pizzeria. VINNY! Hit her with da sticky hand!​
  ​
• FLEAKIT / FLEAPAW / FLEAFIRE
  - she/her
  - apprentice
  - 6 moons
  - speech thought
  - some physical powerplay permitted
  
  
  penned by user​

​

​

 

[Sealpaw]

┍❆

She was Smogmaw's shadow now, grey rosettes always just a tail length behind tabby stripes as the patrol trudged along. Spread out. And eventually reconvened to what felt like the only dry spot in the pocosin for as far as Sealpaw could see. She stayed by her mentor not just because that was what she was expected to do, but mostly because she didn't want to be near Fleapaw anymore than necessary if she could help it. Surely Fleapaw was still angry with her and she did not want to test an already shaky foundation when the tension amongst the whole clan was so thick.

"Is there really anything out here..?" She finds herself asking, more complaint than question as she tries to no avail to shake mud off a paw. Further complaints died in her throat as her mentor gagged suddenly, blue eyes snapping towards the sound to find the cause. "Are you ok-" He wanted everyone to dig? Dig here..?

Unease filled her from tail tip to her paws, claws hesitantly unsheathing to better dig beside the tom. Every pawful of dirt flung aside serving only to heighten the dread rising in her chest. 'I don't think we should be doing this...' The thought comes, biting her tongue to keep it inside instead of blurting it out for all to hear.

At some point the dread is replaced with a fervor. A need to see what lies beneath their very feet overtakes her and her paws are working overtime now for reasons she can't explain. There is nothing but Sealpaw and the earth beneath her paws until- a claw snags on something that is decidedly not earth. Something porous and yellowed with age and she retracts her claws with a startled yelp at the realization. The empty eye socket of a cat long dead stares back at her.

"S-Smogmaw..! I found something..! I found a skull!" Scrambling out of the small hole she had dug Sealpaw looked around with widened eyes, realization slowly hitting as she watched her clanmates all dig around her. Lostpaw seemed to have found some as well, Fleapaw seemed on the trail as well and Sealpaw swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.

Was... Was this a graveyard..?

❆┙

*•.¸❆

─WAVING THROUGH A WINDOW─

❆¸.•*

• 
  Sealpaw
  — Shadowclan Apprentice
  — She/They
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  — Grey, Rosetted Tabby With Blue Eyes And A Bobbed Tail.
  #4c66bf

 

[Stoatpaw]

——————————————— Together, we'll make our way home ✦

Likely to her father's chagrin, Stoatkit noticed another patrol being taken out of the camp; she'd noticed him, and, well... Most of the clan was on edge. Smogmaw wore an expression she'd never seen on him. Admittedly, the nerves were getting to her too; she wasn't sure what was happening, and, try as she might, it was hard to pry anything out of anyone around her. Of course, the bones Fleapaw had found, and the great big dead hawk she'd seen in the pocosin probably didn't help it. But she was determined to stay on the same page as the rest of her clan, and if that meant sneaking out of camp again, she didn't care too much about the repercussions. Sablestar didn't mind letting Fleapaw be an apprentice early because she ignored being told to stay in camp; maybe she could prove herself worthy of being an apprentice too!

With that resolve, she slipped out of camp, only some tail lengths from the rest of the patrol. Though her dearest friend Fleapaw was joining suit, Stoatkit cringed a little, seeing Sealpaw further ahead, tailing Smogmaw. Stoatkit decided sticking by Fleapaw to avoid any other arguments might be wise. She padded at her friend's side, noticing her struggle to keep up, sinking into the mud with heavy footsteps, chest heaving as she tried to keep up with everyone. Stoatkit hadn't joined a patrol before, so it was stark seeing Fleapaw left so far behind the other cats, though she couldn't deny by the time Smogmaw stopped all the cats her own chest was tight from the pace they all took. She took a long, deep, though shaky breath to steady herself. She'd get used to it in time!

Though she hadn't caught what Smogmaw said, cringing a little. She took a mental note to always look to the patrol leader for instructions, what's a warrior without being able to follow instructions. Though it was obvious what he'd asked, the cats all around were digging fervently. Just the sight of these cats all digging into the mud like their lives depended on it, and there was a dread that washed over her. One she hadn't felt in a very, very long time. It twisted in her stomach like something rotten she'd eaten. Her mouth watered just at the thought, even before plunging her paws into the mud. She wasn't all too good at digging, but it's what they'd been told to do. She didn't know what she was looking for yet.

The mud was cool as it coated her paws, slick against her fur, a familiar and comforting feeling amidst nausea that crashed into her like waves, dizzying. Stoatkit wasn't unfamiliar with death, her lost skull crown and mighty carrion find - albiet it was as good as crowfood by the time she did. The stench of rot and decay was something that laced the pocosin as it always had. But here there was no death smell, it was rich and familiar, but the taste of bile laced her lips as something hard clunked against her claws, cool, familiar. She did not stop, however. Pawing at the mud, dirt, and silt until her fur was stained, she stumbled back, tears pricking her eyes. Her eyes scanned the area; Lostpaw plucked them from the ground, far too many for one spot; Sealpaw had that terror on her face that the cats in camp did not too long ago when Fleapaw returned with her trophy, who dug with a fervour like she hadn't been struggling to walk a short while ago.

Stoatkit's paws trembled as she looked down at the hole she'd dug, mud clung to her fur like she was the one responsible for the curled up skeleton she'd unearthed, barely bigger than her or Sealpaw. She couldn't move, couldn't speak. She wished more than anything, in that moment, that she'd listened to her father.

——— While you were sleeping,

Everything changed at once. ———

• 
  Stoatkit
  ✦—Shadowclan kit | 5 Moons
  ✦—She/Her
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦—A slender white cat with faint lilac markings and blue eyes.
  #96d5f1

 

[Mothbite]

Still so young, Desperate for attention!

indentttThis place gives Mothbite the creeps. His paws sink into the soft, cold mud, so dark that even his white paw had been stained the same deep black as the rest of him. With a sigh, Mothbite shakes his paw, flinging off excess mud, before moving forward. The rest of the clan seems to be doing just as poorly, if not more so. Smogmaw begins to gag in the middle of his speech, and Sealpaw worries over him. Fleapaw too, begins to act ill, stumbling and heaving. Mothbite nearly goes to comfort her, but stops himself. 'That'd just make her more upset.' he reminds himself. Besides, she's with Lostpaw. She could offer aid far better than he could.

indentttMothbite doesn't begin to dig at Smogmaw's call. Instead he finds his attention pulled by something else. A little white kitten among the crowd.
"Stoatkit." He calls - the usual heat and venom is gone from his voice, instead replaced by the somber tone that engulfed the area. Mothbite walks up beside her, taking a curious glance at what the kitten had dug up. It's a skeleton, and a small one. The implications make his stomach churn and twist. Looking at Stoatkit, he can see that she too understands what must have happened here, to leave such small bones buried beneath the ground.

indentttIn a rare moment of tenderness, Mothbite brushes his tail against Stoatkit's shoulder.
"You should get back to camp." He says, softly. This is no place for someone her age. He may be powerless to stop Fleapaw and Lostpaw from seeing it, but at least he could spare Stoatkit. It would be a shame for such a clean white spirit to be tainted by this dark mud.

ababaugfbiufhufbdfduibabababa

Mothbite | 19 moons | Shadowclan Nightguardbababbnihfibnfdifdhfhabbabab

 

[cicadabuzz]

CICADABUZZ, 27 moons / shc + med. cat
a SH cinnamon tabby/chocolate tortie chimera w/ orange eyes
parent to deathberrykit, hemlockkit, mistletoekit
a reserved, pragmatic healer driven by duty rather than sentiment

Cicadabuzz does not scoff at the idea of ghosts. Not anymore. They have seen the dead linger, felt the weight of voices that do not belong to the living. Fleecefur was proof enough. Her presence—intangible, yet undeniable—had shattered the notion that death was an end. It is a transition, a shifting of form, a new existence beyond what most can comprehend. So when word reaches them of ShadowClan's paranoia, of whispers in the wind and unseen figures at the edges of vision, they do not dismiss it as simple fear. Fear, after all, is often the body's way of recognizing what the mind refuses to understand. Cicadabuzz knows this well. But it is the bones that settle like a stone in their thoughts. Feline bones, rising from the swamp like relics of the past unearthed by time itself. The land does not simply give up its dead without reason. Water carries many things—secrets, stories, sickness—but it does not conjure the remains of those long gone from nothing. Something had disturbed them, drawn them from whatever grave or resting place once held them.

The land remembers. And, in its own way, it speaks.

Cicadabuzz wonders what ShadowClan has disturbed.

The swamp is old, older than the Clans, older than the paws that now tread its paths. It has swallowed life before, and it will again. But something is wrong here. They do not have to set foot in the muck and mire to know it. The dead do not wake for nothing. They picture the patrol—cloaked in filth, their breath heavy, the weight of exhaustion pressing upon them—standing amidst the murk. The moment when words died in Smogmaw's throat, when the tremor overtook him, when instinct and some unseen force commanded his claws to the earth. Cicadabuzz does not know Smogmaw well, but he is not a cat given to flights of fancy. If something compelled him, then there was something there to be found. And they did find something.

So many bones.

Cicadabuzz turns this over in their mind. It is not simply the presence of the remains that concerns them; it is their emergence. Something has shifted. The balance has been disturbed. The swamp has given up its dead, and the dead are rarely content to be unearthed. Perhaps ShadowClan believes they are dealing with spirits—restless, vengeful, seeking retribution for past sins. That may be true. Or perhaps they seek repentance, to be given the respect they deserve as those who have lived and died before them. Cicadabuzz does not claim to know. But they do know one thing. The dead are not to be ignored. They do not join in digging into the mud that holds the skeletons of those long gone.

 

[Lowlight]

☼ ✧

Lowlight was wondering if their territory might be haunted when fog came to choke out his patrol. Now, he knows that it is--and he might be, too.

Smogmaw's words have barely left his mouth that already the cats around fall into frenzied digging, unearthing clumps of mud and bones, whole bones stained with the depths of the swamp. But Lowlight can't move. It's as if the shiver that crawled up his back has wormed its way under his skin, wrapped itself around his lungs, and is now slowly trying to crawl back out through his mouth. He doesn't know whether he wants to throw up or cry--but the sadness doesn't feel like his, exactly. Neither does the urgency making his paws shake, wanting to dig into the earth. Mud splatters up his pale fur, covering the sun-warm tones, but he is too feverish to go deeper than a few whiskers-length before he has to stop, panting and shivering like the midst of leafbare even though he feels like he's burning up.

"I don't think we should be digging these up,"

he says queasily, swaying in place. It's hard to move, but when he turns around he sees Mothbite and Stoatkit and the sight of the young cat shocks some warmth back into his limbs. He staggers their way, tilting his head to come down to the kit's level. He's about to offer to walk her back--give himself a respite--but the change of altitude, such as it is, makes black spots erupt before his eyes, and he falls flat on his face as his paws turn to jelly under him.

✧ ° . ☼ . ° ✧

ooc Information

• ooc: —
• 

  DUNNY — HE/HIM･ 32 MOONS ･ SHADOWCLAN WARRIOR ･ PENNED BY @Kangoo

  A solidly built flame point/red tabby chimera with golden eyes and a small nick across his lips.

 

[Smogmaw.]

Fresh water. The soothing rise and fall of Halfshade's breathing when his head nestles near her neck. Rich, velvety, fresh-caught squirrel.

These are the diversions Smogmaw feeds his mind so as to numb himself, or otherwise postpone, the white-hot discomfort. That he is vindicated in his theory does not allow his unease to subside. Because resting there in the fresh wound of earth is a skull, and a ribcage, and the rest of its spinal cord, all desecrated by time and toil. His chin retreats, a grimace settles over his features and remains until the Night Guard's apprentice exclaims her own findings. He turns, stalk-still, and observes with the others—beneath their paws, an immense scattershot of bodies rest.

Clarity comes to him in slow pulses. They stand atop a burial ground. One which lacks the dignity and orderliness expected from such a site. This place is not pristine, nor was it revered in its last use. Whoever's buried here had been hastily thrown away, dumped and discarded like the inedible giblets from fresh-kill, unimportant.

Smogmaw ventures towards Sealpaw's site and crouches over the remains within. What urgency had pervaded him before is gone. Nothing lingers here but death. Death, alongside a desire to know more. To understand who the hell these cats were and where they'd come from. He scans over the surroundings with a different, pensive eye, now knowing that death permeates this very landscape.

"Good find," he compliments his apprentice first, expression mild with subdued encouragement. "Stoatkit, wait by the edge of the mound. Not too far. We'll take you back shortly."

He skirts away to inspect the samples of Lostpaw, Fleapaw, and Stoatkit's efforts. Each yields roughly the same: fragmented remains, torn, frayed and separated, scattered and forgotten. He looks next to two of the patrol's seniors, Mothbite and Cicadabuzz, exhaling sharply thereafter. They'd left the grisly task to the younger ones, which was fine, really. But he can't help but wish they'd at least lent a paw. Lowlight, to his credit, put the effort in, but was nevertheless bettered by kits and apprentices. No backbone, nor bones to show for it, or even a sense of balance to keep his face out of the ground. The true scale of what lays below can't yet be grasped, not without further digging, but from what's become visible, he suspects the earth underpaw is almost entirely occupied.

Smogmaw grunts at the mental image this summons. "We're not the first cats who've lived in these parts," he voices the conclusion that every soul in the party's reached by now, scanning them all through slit eyes. "Unless somethin' drove 'em all mad and diggin' graves wasn't all that important to 'em... I think somethin' very bad happened here."

Landslide? Some sort of massacre? Pestilence, plague? He grasps at whatever far-fetched theories would allow this scene to make sense. Obviously, burying so many cats takes time and effort, which requires planning. Mass graves don't arise of their own volition. Incompetence or carelessness for burial practises was a possibility he'd considered, but no matter the reasoning, someone had gone to the trouble of putting them in the soil. He agrees with the declination put forward from Lowlight's end out of principle. But privately, there's another motivation; even if he was at liberty to reveal that strange impulse he'd experienced earlier, this was beyond their rank. Sablestar would be better suited to such decisions.

For now, he rolls back onto his haunches. "Then I'll stay, try to see what I can learn from what was dug up," the tom declares, biting at a mote of dirt lodged under his claw. He feels he must, though the reason evades him in full. "Mothbite," he looks to the other Night Guard, "you ought'a lead the wee ones home. As well as anyone who wants to go with 'em. Tell Sablestar what we found."

 

[F l e a p a w]

The heaviness in the air does not dissipate. If anything, it feels like it's closing in around them—smothering everything, thick enough to sink into her fur. Fleapaw's ears flicked, picking up the voices of her clanmates. But they didn't sound like voices anymore, more like the buzzing of flies. But maybe that wasn't too far from the usual.

Her claws dug deeper. The mud was dense, rich—well-fed. She tore through it hungrily, peeling back the burial ground, shoulders vanishing beneath the black earth, until her claws struck something hard. Flea gasped, brushing away the mud to rub against something ivory colored in the dirt. "Bones!" She whispers, excitement lighting up her voice.

Actual bones! And these were easy to get to. How many were there, tucked under their feet just waiting to be dug up? If she weren't in company, she might've danced and kicked up mud in her celebration. But she kept quiet and grinned to herself.

Then her eyes caught movement and her mood soured instantly. Her eyesfollow Smogmaw, watching him assess everyone's work. Would he take it away, just like Timber did? Fleapaw's frown deepened, irritation snapping like jaws in her stomach.

Would he even let her keep one? Just one? Just to look at. She eyed the bones, wondering if she could somehow swallow one whole and regurgitate it later. Owls did that, right? Spit up bone pellets or something?

Her shoulders sink a little. No way. These were too big. Too thick. No chance she'd be able to cram one into her mouth, much less swallow it.

Things are made worse when she catches talk of heading back to camp. Her head snaps up, pelt prickling as she tromps over to the group. Why was everyone so intent on babying Stoatkit? She was nearly an apprentice anyway! If Smogmaw weren't here, she might've chewed Mothbite's ears for fussing. Timber did enough of that already.

Fleapaw turns her attention to Smogmaw. "Ain't no wee one." She speaks up, paws planted firm in the mud. "I wanna stay and help dig up more bones." Her gaze snapped to Mothbite, glaring. "Don't need him to find my way back anyhow." They coddled Stoatkit because she didn't fight back. But Fleapaw was less tolerant, more inclined to stand her ground. She hoped that would someday encourage Stoatkit to stand up for what she wanted too.

____________IF I COULD PAINT THE SKY 𓆏 WOULD ALL THE STARS THEN SHINE A BLOODY RED?

• ooc: —

• 

• FLEAPAW she/her | shadowclanner | 6 moons
  → FLEAKIT / FLEAPAW / FLEAFIRE
  → mentored by POSSUMGRIN and FROSTSTORM
  → former mill kit and kittypet
  → some physical powerplay permitted
  → speech thought/emphasis attacking

 

[Tickpaw]

TICK

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?

Tick, who would supposedly carry the 'paw' behind his name until the age of twelve moons, moved quietly after the others, having slipped along with his siblings. He hadn't wanted to stay in camp. His legs ached for movement, and his mind craved something new. He knew he was thin, knew he didn't look like much right now. But he was curious. This place was unknown, unfamiliar. The trees. Tuh-rees. The plants, the flowers, everything was new, and for a moment, he felt like a newborn kit again. Maybe, in a way, he was. The only difference was that he already had a mind of his own.

Trailing behind the one called Smog... Smogmaw? Tick felt a sudden chill creep down his spine. His orange eyes narrowed to thin slits. Something was wrong. He didn't know what, but the air itself felt... off. A pit curled in his stomach, nausea rising before he could place why. Then came the order. Dig. He blinked, staring as paws scraped against the earth. His siblings, Flea and Worm, no wait, it was Lost now... Hmph. Weird name. She wasn't lost. She was found. Anyway, they dug, unearthed something. Bones. His hackles lifted.

Flea drifted farther from the group, and instinct made him step closer to her, his gaze flickering between his siblings and the odd ShadowClan cats. He didn't move to help. Something about this, about tearing bodies from the ground... It felt... wrong. It was one thing to find bones, that was cool to a certain point. But another to pull them from the earth. A shudder wracked through him. His eyes locked onto the medicine cat who had nursed him back to something more than a starving husk. A curt nod was all he offered them before he turned back to Flea.

Too many bones.

A sick feeling churned deep in his belly. The sight yanked him back, to the skeletal body crammed in the sack with him, its hollowed eyes, the stiff, rotting fur. His breath hitched. He recoiled, body tensing, tail lashing once in an effort to shake it off. A sharp hiss escaped his throat, a warning to himself as much as anyone else. Then Smogmaw spoke of taking the younger ones back. Tick's head snapped up, eyes burning as he turned fiercely on the ShadowClan warrior.

Flea would stay. Lost would stay. And so would he.

" I have no qualms with staying. " he spat, voice sharp as claws. His tail flicked once, decisive. " Just questions about what happened. "

═════════════⊹⊱ ⟡ ⊰⊹═════════════

 

[Stoatpaw]

——————————————— Together, we'll make our way home ✦

It was like a haze coated Stoatkit's mind, a thick fog that stole her perception of what was happening. A lump gathered in her throat; she couldn't have spoken if she had tried for what she'd found. Tears threatened to prick at her eyes as she scanned the curled up thing before her. She didn't want to think, but her mind wondered who they might have been once. Did they have a family too? A father who cared for them? Siblings they held dearly? A clan who cherished them? No... Her gaze flitted up for a moment, seeing the bones pulled out every which way from holes dug by her friends and clanmates. There were too many bodies here, forgotten. They weren't put somewhere with tenderness, like the bones in the mud. No. Whoever buried these cats didn't care. She stared down at the skeleton again. Could that be her someday?...

Her attention was snapped back to reality when a tail bushed against her side, she blinked hard, refusing to show the tears that threatened to well in her eyes. 'Mothbite?' There was a softness in his eyes, one she'd not seen before. She let out a shaky breath she hadn't realised was paining her chest. "You should get back to camp." Usually she'd have a little indignation at the thought of being ordered around, especially not by Mothbite of all cats, but this time she felt perhaps he was right.

Though her eyes darted up as a white and red tabby cat, Lowlight, walked towards them; she hadn't spoken with him much but his approach comforted her more. He leant down to her level, and if it wasn't for him collapsing, she would have bumped her forehead against him as a thank you. She yelped a little in surprise with the older cat collapsing, she looked up to Mothbite in concern, but he seemed dazed than anything. She breathed again for a moment, her little heart racing but attention away from what she'd uncovered. Even with the older cat collapsed and dazed, she gently headbutted him for his attention and tapped a paw to her chin - thank you - something she and her father began to cobble together when she struggled to speak, or it wasn't safe for her to.

She noticed, however, Smogmaw talking; he was further away, so reading his lips was harder, far harder, but her attention perked up when he looked at her.

"Stoatkit, wait by the edge of the mound. Not too far. We'll take you back shortly."

Stoatkit huffed a little, there was consensus she should go, she wasn't going to fight it, all the sudden her body felt so, very heavy. Like she hadn't slept in moons. But for a moment, she looked to Fleapaw and Tickpaw, her friends, at least hoping they might come back with her for company. Though her chest ached a little to see both very determinedly wanting to stay, Fleapaw was probably trying to find a way to convince her to stay. But it wasn't going to work, not this time. Her heart ached; she'd pushed it one too many times, and she'd stumbled on something no kit- no apprentice should see. Her eyes flickered to Lostpaw and Sealpaw; she hoped they'd have the sense to sit at the mound, too. She stood, but before she walked off, she gently nudged Mothbite's leg, he infuriated her sometimes, but she had to respect his kindess.

Stoatkit felt eyes on her, a nauseating feeling with her back to the other cats. She couldn't see what they were saying if they were saying anything at all. Maybe she didn't want to know. She'd rather be ignorant, it was safer that way - she wished she'd considered that before wanting to join the patrol. It didn't take long until she made it to the edge of the mound; she silently lay down, waiting for the other younger cats to join her or an older cat to escort her home. Eyes adverting from the patrol, she didn't want to see anything else.

——— While you were sleeping,

Everything changed at once. ———

• 
  Stoatkit
  ✦—Shadowclan kit | 5 Moons
  ✦—She/Her
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦—A slender white cat with faint lilac markings and blue eyes.
  #96d5f1
  ⤷ Written by Phoenix

 

[webpaw]

This was fun! Webpaw almost didn't catch the patrol leader's gagging, her paws eagerly pulling up bits of half-solid land with fervor. Some of it replaced by the sludge above as it spilled into her progress, and in between her growl of frustration, the feeling suddenly ghosted along her spine. The sound that escaped her mouth was atrocious, somewhere between a warble and a retch. She barely realized the bone her claw scraped against until she went to scoop more out, a quiet act of defiance against the idea of going back.

She ducked into the hole, grabbing the bone with her bared teeth and slowly wiggling it free from its residence. Webpaw didn't need the denotation of fur or flesh to know what species this was. This structure was a replica of something she had, regardless of if it was an arm or leg. Once, it had been someone else... Pretty cool!

"Can we take this one back to Sablestar?" Her find was the biggest (really not) and best (debatable), so it should've been the one presented in this chilling case.

⊹ ࣪ ˖͙͘͡

she/her; afab / any gendered terms / 6 months
shadowclan apprentice / mentored by bluegale
seal sepia with vitiligo / orange eyes

peaceful powerplay allowed, no perms needed
ask before hostile powerplay unless preplanned
always open to interaction in battle unless stated otherwise
ask before injuring !

 

[Tickpaw]

TICK

But the weight of the world won't bend my knees

The determined look on Tickpaw's face wavered the moment he saw Stoatkit's reaction. Up until now, they had managed to steel their stomach, but it was obvious something was wrong with the young she-kit. She seemed uneasy, different. Stoatkit always carried herself with confidence, with a voice that made itself known. But now, she was silent. A small frown crept onto Tickpaw's face. He shot a glance toward Flea, subtly tilting his head in Stoatkit's direction before bounding over to her at the edge of the mound.

Lowering his head slightly to catch her eye, he studied her with quiet concern. " Are you okay? " he asked gently, the worry clear in his voice. His gaze flickered briefly to where they had come from before settling back on Stoatkit, noting the way she deliberately averted her eyes from what had been uncovered. She didn't want to see it. Without a second thought, Tickpaw positioned himself in front of her, standing as a small but determined barrier between her and the sight she couldn't deal with at the moment. He wasn't much bigger than her, but it was enough. Enough to shield her from whatever was making her uneasy.

" I can come back to camp with you. " he finally offered, his voice quieter now. " I haven't been digging, anyway. "

He could always find out what happened later. Right now, Stoatkit needed someone beside her.

═════════════⊹⊱ ⟡ ⊰⊹═════════════

 

[F l e a p a w]

Fleapaw's fur bristled, she was ready to dig her heels in if Smogmaw dared to send them back. This was a hill she was willing to die on—pun intended. Her head was tilted about as far back as it could go, eyes narrowed at the Night Guard's face.

Something shifted in the corner of her vision, and suddenly, the fire in her chest sputtered. The flaps of her ears twitched at the sound of her brother's voice.
Tick was talking to her, but something was off. Fleapaw's bones felt heavier as she brushed past the Night Guard, stepping over the collapsed warrior with an irritated glare and a light kick for good measure before making a beeline for her friend.

Flea wove around Tickpaw and settled beside the white kit with a soft frown. "Stoat?" Her head tilted as she tried to get a good look at er friend's face. "What's wrong? Do you feel sick?"

Death and decay weren't new to Flea. She had seen plenty of it—at the mill, on the streets, not so different from the graves they dug out now. The rot was something she had long accepted. She had grown used to the sight of bodies, of flies swarming filth, of sickness sinking into bone and leaving nothing but frail husks behind.

The unease still churned in her gut, pulsing and fading, but her nose would wrinkle, pushing it down. She glanced back, eyes drawn again to the half-dug grave.

Something about it called to her. The thought of uncovering more made her paws itch—gnawing at her far more than she cared to understand. She didn't want to leave.

She hesitated. Her claws flexed. She wanted to stay but Stoatkit... Fleapaw turned back, looking at her this time, and the sight of her friend's pale face had her torn. Flea thought she might try to convince Stoat to tough it out or send her back with Tickpaw, but that didn't feel right neither.

Her tail flicked sharply, and she stifled a sigh. "Eh whatever. Guess I didn't care that much anyway." She muttered, trying to force indifference. As she said it, her stomach twisted a little tighter. "Let's… head back."

IF I COULD PAINT THE SKY 𓆏 WOULD ALL THE STARS THEN SHINE A BLOODY RED?

• ooc: —

• 

• FLEAPAW she/her | shadowclanner | 6 moons
  → FLEAKIT / FLEAPAW / FLEAFIRE
  → mentored by POSSUMGRIN and FROSTSTORM
  → former mill kit and kittypet
  → some physical powerplay permitted
  → speech thought/emphasis attacking