Dark Forest HELL IS COMING WITH ME ────── ♰ dark forest meeting

[Fleecefur]

She can feel the tangled undergrowth shift, the earth barring its heart and secrets, a thousand claws scrambling to break free from the torment of eternal wander and hunger. Her own ribs show through curled white fur marred in mud and blood-stained and tarnished since her first day falling into this pit. Fleecefur had dreams once, when she first realized they did not need to sleep she would do so for the sake of losing herself in the comfort of memories, surrounded in a blissful fog of ignorance and reminiscing of days long past. She stopped when she realized it only made the ache more pronounced, only widened the hole inside her that grew with every ragged breath and dying gasp. The point molly had witnessed cat after cat descend into madness, lost and gibbering, mindless little ants circling with no escape; but there were few who still held even after all this time. The trees bowed with a wind she didn't feel, a chill permeated the air and the brush constricted as if to deny them the grace of movement; she can not even begin to count the number of thorns she has picked bloodied and deep from her paws to spit into a pile. The sliver in the divide she had used to reach out to a heart as heavy as her own was closed for the time, barred in bramble and secluded from prying eyes who might usurp her plans, ruin what she was trying to build. The former ShadowClan cat tilted her head up, eyes shining with predatory grace as she smiled in a way that was too sincere for the blood and ichor that dripped from her pelt,

"Good morning, everyone. Have I got news for you~"

BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP HAVE YOU ANY SOUL

NO SIR, BY THE WAY, WHAT THE HELL ARE MORTALS

• 

  FLEECEFUR

  
  — Dark Forest Denizen | Former ShadowClan Deputy
  — She/Her
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  — A tall black color point molly with blue eyes.
  #b84d47
  

 

[HOUNDBELLY]

↟ ⋆｡° It isn't her nose that alerts her to change rising on the wind she cannot feel. Iron and salt and viscera cloy the air too heavily for the feline to rely on scent, a cacophony of slaughter that wafts from sources near and far. Nearest being her own stomach, the spilling entrails perpetually too fresh to turn toward the awfully sweet smell of decay. The scent thick in her nose. Iron. Salt. Viscera. Unchanging. Eternal. No, what tells her that something is changing is the clear ring of a voice.

Houndbelly's head raises, ear flicks, tail lashes, at the sound. She couldn't recall if Fleecefur had arrived in this darkened plane before or after herself, and had never found the distinction to matter when measured against the sheer scale of time they were bound to prowl the forest's floor. That they once hailed from the same clan in the world of the living mattered more, if it mattered at all. Paramount to all was the prospect of an announcement on colour point's lips. Had Houndbelly's son finally been welcomed into the dark's embrace? Had her foes and their bloodlines finally been eradicated, a scourge cleaned, a loss avenged at last? Or, as a warrior had babbled from what remained of his maw when the night guard had first stepped into the twilighted trees, had time remained unchanged from her moment of death? "What news?" She asked, tone not unkind despite the growl beneath it, as she stalked closer, her expression open and encouraging despite all that roiled behind it.

 

[blacksnow]

Blacksnow can hear footsteps, breathing, fur brushing against undergrowth. It is not her own. She is not sure if they even need to breathe here, in this place where there does not seem to be air at all, but the few of them still clinging onto consciousness do it regardless of whether or not they need it. Old habits are hard to kick.

She gets up, flexing her claws against the damp undergrowth. In this place where the stars' long fingers cannot reach, there is no light to hurt her eyes as she blinks them open. She had not been sleeping– they do not need to sleep. And she had slept enough when she was still alive, she knows all too well what hides in the corners of her mind. Death. Pain. The face of her lover. No, she does not sleep anymore. There is no cold comfort to be found there.

Dipping under the thorny branches of the bramble she'd been sleeping under, she works her way towards the noise. The ground beneath her large paws seems to be perpetually either soft and wet or rough and jagged. Blood seeps from the gaping wound in her chest, and as she settles in the clearing next to Houndbelly, she lowers her head to lick it, blood sticking to her tongue like metallic honey. A familiar black point she-cat speaks up, speaks of news. Blacksnow's ears flick, lip curling.

"News?" She snarls, not necessarily unkind in tone, but with a roughness in her voice that comes with not having spoken out loud for many unseen moons. "And speak plainly, Fleecefur. Not all of us are fond of riddles."

 

[Ghostwail]

GHOSTWAIL

, dark forest resident / former windclan deputy
A skeletal dingy white she-cat with burning pink-red eyes
Notably attached to

FLEECEFUR

Tagging

FLEECEFUR, BLACKSNOW

---

It settles at the edge of this depravity, slavering in its awful way. Its eyes (always burning, always staring) lay fixed on the caller, hunger drawing the lips back in an eerie approximation of a smile. A wolf's snarl disguised all too poorly as a harmless grin. It spills into the coagulation, the congretation, and lifts its skullish head above the rest. Always above the rest, always leering down at those she deemed beneath her... and that list was as long as the forest they resided in was barren.

Blacksnow may not have been one for riddles, but Ghostwail had never been anything but loquacious... if it were words that she used rather than teeth and claws to lay into her victims.

"One speaks with confidence. Oh spin, spin, little spider, tales of web and woe, tales of the undaunted... the joyous?"

 

[honeysong]

Great. What does this one want. Faded eye rolling in the miasma of smog, and guck, as a familiar voice crept upon worn ears. It was always a cruel joke how well Homeysong's ears worked but his throat remained clamped shut and his jaw swung as he sluggishly moved through inky overgrowth. Squash yellow and battered coat sticking out like a sore paw as he settled near Ghostwail's own stark pelt.

Huffing audibly with a sickly gurgle, he leans on his side to stare owlishly at the Shadowclanner. Despite his lack of words obvious irritation radiated from the former Thunderclanners gnarled frame. Get on with it already. In a place where time neither seemed to move nor wait it was ironic to feel such a need to hurry. Yet his pelt itched as though fleas nibbled at him whenever he had to give others any inkling of mind.

His head swarmed to life as his left paw restlessly scratched at the ground below. Skewed vision tainting his foul mood even more bitter, as he caught the pale cats crooked grin, from the corner of his remaining eye.

 

[Froststorm]

———— I awaken with the thunder, a bold statement to end my slumber. ✦

That chill, the deep freeze that set into his bones, the permafrost that had replaced what he once was, whoever that might have been. Froststorm doesn't recognise the cat that once breathed the sweet air of the clans, who sought something more. Who looked to the stars for guidance. Once he had dreamed of stars, of a life blessed by those who lived before him, those dreams were dead in the snow with his mate and kits. Who had long joined the stars and had since looked away from a cat so devoted. Devotion only gets you so far when those you seek for strength leave you floundering. That chill of the forest was not unfamiliar to the cat, though his shaking form would betray that. He could not soothe the chill that had become one with his spirit or whatever remained clung to this place; some days, what was his reality and a daze was inexplicable to the tom.

It was the other cats here that reminded him this was not some mindless, endless nothing where he had to ruminate on the cruelty of a punishment he was fervent was not suited for the task he believed the stars had set him to enact. Ears flicked, hearing approaching steps, eyes darting down at cats in the clearing from his tree perch, and Blacksnow emerging from the undergrowth settling beside Houndbelly. Seeing Fleecefur push through the thicket to the clearing, his ears perked up, jumping down to join the group, a thin veil of fog following and settling near Honeysong, who lolled on the ground, staring up wordlessly.

"News?" He enquired - voice crackling with water dropping from his maw with every uttered syllable - taring at the she-cat with a curious gleam in his eyes, though squinted incredulously. "What could you possibly have news about.". It was seldom rare anything of intrigue occurred, so Froststorm didn't have high hopes for whatever Fleecefur considered "news". He couldn't help but huff at Ghostwail's unneeded poetry, though he couldn't deny the small glimmer of hope for some kind of good news for once for the misfits.

- I want sacred, I want final.

I'm seeking it wherever I go. -

• 
  Froststorm
  ✦— Dark forest warrior
  ✦— He/Him
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦— A skinny, grey speckled cat with amber eyes and various frostbitten wounds.
  #CD807A

 

[STAGJAW]

Mud clings to Stagjaw's pelt, chains of briar weighing down the tom where he lay. Where he had lay for… a long time, time uncountable in the forest where night never seemed to end. Belly-down in the muck, thorns lodged in shaggy brown fur turned black as the earth's wellspring with clots of mud. As Fleecefur's pointed paws come into view and a crow's cacophony of voices begin to rise, off-hued eyes crack reluctantly open, nearly aglow amidst the thick bed of mud in which their owner lay.

" Say what you mean, the lot of you. "

His voice is hoarse as he frees himself from the mud, thick beads of muck dripping from the points where his dense fur lay heaviest. Patience for social habits, for the prettying up of one's meaning, had not been his virtue even in life; his freckled tail lashes once or twice impatiently as he regards the circle of cats. Survivors of the ages, the lot of them; time unknown has passed since the fall of the ThunderClan he knew.

The hypocritical stars knew he'd seen enough cats stumble, raving and mad around the eyes, past his thorn-laced resting place. How long had it been since he'd felt the compulsion to rise? Not since the last of his searches for the other; if his partner in crime, as it were, walked these forests, it was somewhere he'd yet to see. The thought makes him grind his canines—is he avoiding me?—and then he refocuses on Fleecefur with no small effort.

Dessicated petals and withered leaves free of any medicinal fragrance drift from his pelt, heavy-lidded blues driving flatly into the pointed she-cat. His neck swivels loosely on its hinge as he lets his hind legs settle back into the muck, looking at Fleecefur without meeting her gaze.

" Tell us. "

​

 

[TIGERFURY]

┍

He did not expect to hear the voice ring out through the sickly woods. It was the sound of a ghoul, haunted and ghastly, and it summoned from the depths something hellish. Shadows which crept from the muck, smelling of decay. Each of them appeared with the flames of damnation glowing within their eyes, blood for stripes and bones that poked free of skin. Tigerfury was no different. He rose like some wretched creature from the void, one eye glowing with flame while the other sat empty, a vacant nest of tangled gore within the brute's head. He sniffs, recoils, recalls it all, and huge paws find their footing in the dead leaf-litter, each print in the mud rimmed with an oozing and eternal bloodshed. He had slumbered, though for how long he wasn't sure. Only knew that the pain was back. And a voice was singing through the trees. Tigerfury answers the call. He does not speak, as the other voices rise in chorus. No, he watches.

A macabre figure in the dark with an expression like stone.

‎┙

 

[RUSSETSTAR]

(𖤐) good news within the swampy forest does not happen often. russetstar isn't sure she remembers a time it has ever happened, nor has she seen such a large gathering of haunted felines in moons, a lifetime even. dull green eyes flit to the pale form of fleecefur as she dances into view, and moss covered claws slide out, slicing through peat and mud. "go on," she prompts her fellow former shadowclanner, head tipped in vague interest. the goddess's fur glints in the low light, neat and groomed despite the hellshow she lives within. no mud clings to her mottled coat, no blood oozes from most of her scars. aside from the gaping wound in her throat, the former shadowclan leader looks pristine.

awaiting fleecefur's continuation, russetstar turns her head, seeking out the familiar dappled fur of her lover. pumpkinglow is never far from her queen, and upon locating her, the tortie beckons the fanged warrior to her side. "darling, our... clanmate... has news for us," she murmurs, bending low to rasp a rough tongue across mud strewn fur tufts. around them, others rise from the earth, fellow lost souls, damned to this dark forest. russetstar doesn't particularly mind her endless torment - her love is here, all she needs in life or death. velvet eyes flick back to fleecefur, waiting.

IT`S BLOODY AND RAW 𖤐 BUT I SWEAR IT IS SWEET

• // @chuffera <3 " #856375"
• 
• RUSSETSTAR 𖤐 SHE / HER, DF / EX SHADOWCLAN LEADER, PENNED BY LAVS
  
  
  a shorthaired, scarred tortoiseshell she-cat with green eyes. soft, charcoal fur coats the wiery body, small flecks of flame and caramel blending smoothly into darker fur. leaf-green eyes peer from her patchy face, usually glaring with a baleful judgement. several scars litter her muzzle, one in particular scouring through her right eye, although it has not left her blind. other nicks and scratches appear on her flanks and paws, a sign of a seasoned fighter.

​

 

[Fleecefur]

There are mixed responses to her declaration ranging from interest to impatience as well as some indifference but she launches onward without much thought with an almost gleeful expression as she saunters forward, her long black brush of a tail swiping under Ghostwail's chin in passing,

"We have a path forward, my friends. StarClan has revived and is attempting to rebuild the clans once more but before they could stick their claws into it I have taken ShadowClan under our wing. There is a breach in the thorns, a way to get outside though I warn it is taxing and not to be too heavily indulged."

The last thing she needed was her meddling to be found so quickly, to have those bright and glorious lights to start shining down upon them to cast them out before they even had their moment in the sun. Fleecefur had high hopes for ShadowClan, that it would reject the stars interference and forge onward anew and undaunted, that they would become the most powerful clan in the forest through sheer virtue of rejecting the guidance of blithering fools who allowed weakness to seep into every crevice of their rule. No, she demanded strength, she wanted capable cats, the bleeding hearts could simply bleed out and spare her having to end them with her own claws, those unable to hold their own were worthless in the greater scheme of things. Sablestar had the potential, the merit to become something magnificent, but his heart was still coiled in tender strings, tightening to choke him and tug him from his goals. If only she was capable enough to kill a cat on her own, she'd have dealt with the chocolate tabby that so burdened his soul herself, but alas - their presence in the waking world would be one of shadow and subterfuge; the quiet presence of a cold chill. For this brief moment she knew they would have a moment's respite to engage the living before being drawn back to the darkness and she would not waste a moment.

"Come if you are willing, why not familiarize ourselves with the world we once new yet again."

BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP HAVE YOU ANY SOUL? NO SIR, BY THE WAY, WHAT THE HELL ARE MORTALS

FLEECEFUR

— Dark Forest Denizen | Former ShadowClan Deputy
— She/Her
"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
— A tall black color point molly with blue eyes.
#b84d47

 

[PUMPKINGLOW]

The forest stirs, and with it, Russetstar and Pumpkinglow do too. She is never too far from her queen, her mere lady-in-waiting, and its easy to heed her call like a dog when shes called forth. Russetstar offers affection and she happily recieves it. She presses further in to the grooming of her pelt, her tail brushing against the others side in a gentle manner. "For us, for us!" Pumpkinglows teeth chatter together excitedly, thin tail lashing behind her as she coils around Russetstar much like a snake would, pressing against her. Oh, how cold her love is, but to Pumpkinglow, this is the closest thing to warmth she has gotten since they were reunited in this hellhole. She is ever gorgeous, day and day she finds herself smitten; Russetstar bares less wounds than she, but she wears her own proudly. In defense of her mate, she got these... It have been the first task she had failed, manipulating Starclans signs was easy, but fighting a cat who had such rage in his heart...? Well, shes just glad Russetstar doesn't blame her.

She swipes a pink tongue over sharp canines, eyes trained on Fleecefur. "Us? We can leave?" see the sun again? See the Clan that would rightfully be beneath the forests paw? As it should have been from the start? Oh, Starclan wouldn't know what was coming! Her tail wags behind her akin to a hound, nose lifting to sniff. She can only smell rotten flesh, decay as normal, but the thought of something new drives her up the wall, pupils dilating as she crouches, brushing against her darling, "Home," she rasps quietly. "We can see home again." teeth flash as she pulls back to contain her glee but it is all too evident on her face. "They'll listen to you again, my love, they will," but she does not move closer, instead letting her everything step forth after Fleecefur first. Vengeance was a long-term waiting game that she was willing to play, to avenge her mate, to have them know her, to make them listen- and now, the two will finally reap the benefits of such... And how she cannot wait to see those star-crossed idiots faces when they learn of such.

 

[TIGERFURY]

┍

Awoken for this? Tigerfury listens, expression unchanging. He is the ice that creeps through their veins to churn against their once beating hearts, and though his one eye reflects fire, it burns with a frigid ice cold. He has never had much interest in ShadowClan. Still... the other goes on, and the brute's tail flicks with a sudden interest. A breach in the tangled thorns that hold them. A way out.

Perhaps a way to see SkyClan again. Tigerfury doesn't know what Fleecefur has planned for ShadowClan, and he doesn't much care either. But perhaps, at last, the one thing that did matter to him would finally be within his grasp. He steps closer, mangled face darkened by the shadow of their haunted wood. He would follow Fleecefur out of the thorns. For now.

‎┙