Private ENCOUNTERING THE SHADOW ☽ wolf

[vampire]

Rain batters the pocosin, blurry droplets hard to pick out against the dark sky. The moon is a white eye carved open against the velvet-dark of a leaf-bare sky. Each time a veil of rainclouds drapes over it, the light bathing Vampire and their fellow watchcat falls a shade dimmer, painting pockets of mocking shadow between the hardy pond pines. Her breaths are milky plumes against the hazy blackness of the marsh at midnight.

Night watch. She likes her nest, but she likes this too—the cold chapel silence, the way the shadows paint trails for her eyes to follow. Always roving, moving, watching, and there's plenty of opportunity for that here. Moonhigh sharpens the world, focuses it into logical planes of light and dark—polar to the stained-glass complexities of the day.

" Small wonder one of Hawthorne's hasn't taken a swing at us yet, "

she muses into the steady silence, each word punctuated by a small puff of steam. @Wolf is her companion for the evening's duties, one she doesn't mind but for his unfortunate name—he'd seemed quick enough on the draw when she'd pinned Timber. Sharp enough, too; it'd seem the simple act of confronting the oak-dipped stranger had revealed many shades of ShadowClanner. Reaction alone could be so telling.

She watches him now, in fact, out of the corner of her eye. Direct eye contact can be distracting, sometimes, picking out the particulars of color and shape and expression.

" But perhaps not. "

Vampire's gaze flicks back to the silent sprawl of the pocosin, moonlight coalescing and breaking on the stagnant water.

" I have never known them to be quite so proactive as that, after all. "

​

 

[Wolf]

AND I AM SORRY MY CONSCIENCE CALLED IN SICK AGAIN​

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Wolf didn't mind the muck and dampness of their new territory, more than at home in the shadows and dense underbrush of the waterlogged pocosin. It didn't hurt that the marshlands were pleasing in their own way– underneath the mud, the smells, and the weird food, there was a lot for a cat to take advantage of if they weren't prone to shying away from the less pleasant things in life. The weather alone had Wolf practically purring in his nest each night.

No snow. No ice. No freezing temperatures. Even now, with the sun and its hold long gone on the territory, the cold was not bone rattling. While the wind held its bite and their words were punctuated by tendrils of smoke to mark the drop, he didn't fear frostbite as badly as he had in places where the cold gripped the world in ice and flurries. The days were even better. Dreary, no doubt, wet, for sure– but on the afternoons where the sun managed to break through the murky clouds overhead, it was almost pleasant. Winter was mild in this place compared to others he'd experienced, and from what he'd seen cats were having no trouble finding food, even if said food was a little strange half the time.

"Hm." a sound of agreement. "There were a few I thought might act independently," like Quell, who he was sure was not alone in their desire to silence Sable. "but it seems they aren't keen on seeing what's beyond the thunderpath. I'm not entirely surprised, given they wouldn't even hunt the lands surrounding their camp properly."

Cats content to sit around, wailing and whining for change to fall into their lap- they were one of the few things Wolf felt true irritation toward. Those who deserved to survive were those who were willing to grab life by the throat and take what they needed. If Shadowclan failed to live up to those standards, the scarred feline wouldn't waste his time with it, not willing to waste his energy dragging around dead weight. He'd already told Sable as much, only willing to invest as much as the next cat.

And if he did start putting in that extra effort to help make this place something worthwhile– well, he fully expected to have a say in how things were done. And it would be nothing like Frays reign on the colony.

"Did you know the others well?" he asked, tone not betraying any sympathy if it existed. Marble had said she was born to the colony, and he wondered just how many others were born and bred from the group that'd been torn apart.

How many were outsiders like him, who'd come looking for opportunity?

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loner/future shadowclan - male - a large, monochrome chimera with mismatched eyes and several scars​

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