Closed The Colony π™‹π˜Όπ™π˜Όπ˜Ώπ™Šπ™“ π™Šπ™ π™‰π™€π™€π˜Ώπ™„π™‰π™‚ β—ˆ [ π™ƒπ˜Όπ™‡π™π™” ]

This tag is specifically for The Colony prior to the clans forming. It can still be used for any backwritten plots!

Smogmaw.

RAIN WILL FALL
ShadowClan
Colony Clan Founder ShadowClan Night Guard
38
5
Freshkill
135
Smoky is a creature of urge and impulse. Instinct guides his paws, where conscience does not, and rarely does he cease to wonder whether that was more a virtue than a vice. Those intrusive, vague and obscure notions are in part, what compelled him to remain in this colony for as long as he has. There is safety in numbers, there is stability in camaraderieβ€”intrinsic guarantees that the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts.


Something he's come to realise across this moon, is that not even this is true. Their collective is brittle, a mockery of itself, and has by now robbed him of the only justification he'd clung to in all the time he's spent here. He realises, now, how swiftly he'd abandon it all in pursuit of something better for him and his family. Nowhere within him is there an urge to see the colony's crumbling remains. To lay there with the rest of its ruin, once the wreckage finally caves in.


How long must they fester in this living decay? Chained to a corpse, resigned to rot alongside it?


Bronze-coloured eyes roll across the perimeter, tracing the first beams of moonlight through the forest canopy. Colony-mates are scattered in a flotsam about the camp, some tucking in for the night, some setting out to hunt in the wee hours. His line of sight seeks out and lands on the unmistakable presence of Halfyβ€”instantaneously, there is relief puncturing that malcontent building inside.


His muscles spring into action. Without prompting, Smoky steps over into the reach of the gloom-ridden pines. On the way toward camp's boundary does he pass by his mate. Long enough to lock gazes with her, silently inviting her to follow.


⁂

"I don't wanna be a part of this much longer, Halfy." In a burst of hushed and delicate emotion, Smoky lets slip. He does not speak angrily when he glances at his mate. He never does. "I don't care for Fray. Don't care for this colony. We stick with 'em, they're just going to drag us down." And the tom knows he isn't alone in that regard. It isn't even a difficult choice to make whether or not to abandon these cats. The question is when, and where they might go from here.


Not with whom, though. Smoky is quick to stress that point. "I love you. I'll follow you anywhere you want. We go the other way. Doesn't matter where'n particular you lead me." A little twitch to his lip is suggestive of a smile that wants to appear there. All that escapes is a thoughtful and protracted sigh. "Just so long as we get somewhere safe, far away."


// @Halfy
 
YOU'RE WELCOME BITCH, THE SHOW IS FREE
I DON'T DO THE WALK OF SHAME - I STRUT

β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”βŠ°β™₯βŠ±β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”β€”
She is quick to follow at the glance, there is not much privacy nearer to the base of the tree where cats huddle and prepare for the long leaf-bare with the meager dens hollowed out around the larger central one that currently occupies Fray. She thinks of how many bodies can fit in there, the younger cats would be better served that spot once the chill began to seep in and she has the same resignation as her mate. They were being buried alongside this corpse, this tom seconds from his last breath was choking the very air around the rest of them and his foolheaded offspring was letting him do it.
She tries to be empathetic, Halfy is not cruel without merit, but even she finds that she would rather snuff the flame herself than struggle to keep it ablaze. If it were your mother... A small voice whispers, pleading kindness, and she shakes it off. If it were her mother she would do what needed to be done, but she wasn't a softheart like Hawthorne was. He was too gentle, he was not the sturdy branch needed to support all their weights. Halfy is afraid he will snap the second the brunt of it is placed on his shoulders and they will once again be left astray and lost.

Smoky's comment snaps her from her morbid thoughts, she flashes a smile that does not meet her eyes before dropping it immediately - there is no point in false pleasantries here, not with the two of them. She knows he knows her better than that and the same was said in reverse. It was one of the things she liked most about him, his honesty even when it was blunt as a stone to the head and sharpened at the edges.
"I don't care much for sticking it out myself, but our chances aren't much better out there alone." Well, with their kin, of course - she thinks of Maisie, usually so lighthearted but also suddenly morose now with the coming change of season and the current tension in the air. At least here they had help, even if the generosity of some cats was straining due to the obvious shadow looming over them. "You've heard how Sable has been talking, I can't help but wonder if letting Hawthorne lead us is even the right thing to do when Fray finally goes. He's already proven to care more for a dying tom than all the living ones around him."
The torbie can not help but be bitter about it, prey caught and wasted on a withering husk while she watches cats like Leopard barely scrape by to feed their young and what of Serpent? Round and unable to contribute, only adding more mouths to their growing collection in the worst time of the year for rearing offspring. If she didn't know any better she would say they planned this to spite them all, but she knew the two were just stupidly in love. It was hard to hold it against them really, wasn't she also once foolish in the head when it came to the blue tabby next to her? Thoughtless, careless. She shakes her head, a headache forming from the stress, she has no time to reminisce.
"I think-" She pauses, chooses her words, "I think we should stay. For now...something has to give soon right?"

  • OOC can go here.

  • 57579335_p9YlQrA6TBwZVwB.png
    Halfshade
    β™₯ β€” ShadowClan
    β™₯ β€” She/Her
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    β™₯ β€” Blue Torbie w/Blue & Orange Eyes.
    #FEA8A8β€”#8087BD


 
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Something's got to give soon, she says. Something's been given. It is called patience, and in this case, Smoky's is at its limit. A brittle, thready thing, which has long snapped and torn, leaving him to operate on naught but a thin wick of self-restraint. But it is there. He is keeping his temper in check, for the moment. The last of his fraying willpower holds him back from outright exploding.


"I can't wait any longer," he utters. There is no anger, only quiet despondence, a grief that finds itself in the tone he adopts. "Can't." He repeats that, and a shudder racks him from stem to stern. "Not sure how I've waited this long, frankly." A nervous chuckle, a feeble attempt at levity that he fails to commit to. It trails off. It is not within his capacity to disagree with the molly who holds his heart's entirety, the keeper of his every devotion. Even now, Halfy could ask of him the world, and he'd make it so.


His brows furrow. There is a glint of concern which his bronze eyes cannot seem to shake, where they fall on the contours of Halfy's face. Smoky does not allow his gaze to stray from her for long. The pines around them loom over the pair, and beneath their bristles is a hollow darkness. Moonlight spills into it from up above, yet it is difficult to see the same light that she has foundβ€”particularly in Sable.


Sable is not a bad cat, Smoky concedes. But the image of a benefactor is lost on him, overshadowed by what may simply be a naked bid for power. "Look, I just- I don't think Sable's been sayin' nothin' that no one else's been thinking already, but-" He pauses, and then there's a sharp and decisive bob of his head. "I got your back. Always." A firmness sets in his voice, a resolve. The tom's broad shoulders roll in a lax shrug, and his ears splay back a ways. "If you're stayin', so am I. I ain't leavin' you 'n Maisie behind in this mess."


For all his strength and grit, Smoky is not so strong that he could ever leave Halfy. She's a flame. Not one that burns, or scalds, or sears. But one that warms him, that keeps the cold from seeping too deep into his bones. And if Smoky is a creature of the wilds, then it is only so that he can be close to her. That is where he belongs. Wherever she goes. That is something which outlasts his self-restraint. That is a vow.


 
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YOU'RE WELCOME BITCH, THE SHOW IS FREE
I DON'T DO THE WALK OF SHAME - I STRUT


Sable was a lot of talk as of late, little action, but the tuxedo was a tom she'd known for a while now and deep down she knew this was only the ripple on the surface of the water, eventually it would rise up and he would, as he often did, come crashing in.
"If Sable doesn't put his claws where his mouth is then I'm tempted to do so myself."A cruelty, but a necessary one, she was hardly the leader material herself and she acknowledged as much given her selfish desire to put herself and her family first above others - not quite befitting a cat who was meant to lead the colony equally. But she also doubted Hawthorne was either, the second those kits were born she suspected his mate would be prioritized above all else, he favored her over the colony and though she would do the same it was exactly her point. The cat to lead them should not spare his heart for one alone and as much as she would loathe to admit out loud Sable was a cat who liked making hard choices that not many would dare risk their soul for. Halfy wondered if Juniper would fall in line with their mate or stand against him, not that it mattered - the Sable she knew would make his stance regardless of support which is why she wanted to offer hers. Hearing the defeat in Smoky's voice had her whiskers quivering with unease and she lowered her head to gentle bump into the side of his cheek, "A little longer, if the tides do not shift favorably then we'll go. We'll find somewhere else." With their family, if a leader worth following did not stand up and take charge and prove they were capable of keeping them all alone then they would go. Halfy doesn't have a lot of faith in their ability to make it out there alone, but she would take the risk to spare his heart if the colony proved to be unstable. She had hope, at least, that soon something would happen and it all came down to a single thread being frayed...

  • OOC can go here.
  • 57579335_p9YlQrA6TBwZVwB.png
    Halfshade
    β™₯ β€” ShadowClan
    β™₯ β€” She/Her
    "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    β™₯ β€” Blue Torbie w/Blue & Orange Eyes.
    #FEA8A8β€”#8087BD


 
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