Private straight to the core ──✩°｡⋆⸜ owlbark

[juniperstar]

juniper

the task of even lazily dragging her tongue across her fur to tidy it feels like it takes bottomless amounts of energy... sapped, tired, calcifying to stone. she pauses only because a shadow looms like a threat against the warm tones of chocolate speckled tail, signaling the arrival of company she didn't know she ought to be expecting. lashes lift in languid slowness, rimmed red from exhaustion or something more miserable- "Is everything alright?"

the assumption that others might want her company just for the sake of having it feels foreign and faraway, a fairytale or a memory of a time dead to her. maybe someday it wouldn't feel like thorns dug into her pelt... "I'll be going hunting as soon as I'm done," the spotted she-cat promises, as if compelled to reassure him that she would not rot away as Fray had. that there was no reason to sink his teeth into her throat and spit it out onto the floor to take her seat, covered in dust and limestone growths.

──✩°｡⋆⸜ ✮

• juniperstar leader of thunderclan nine lives remain

  ignore me

 

[OWLBARK]

He sleeps with others in a den. He hunts for mouths not his kin. He wakes in the morning to pace around a new territory he shares with others. The colony, when he joined it, felt foreign and he thought nothing could feel more foreign to him. Living here in this clan topped even that.

The most foreign feeling was following Juniperstar instead of Hawthorne. When he fought - and killed - a short time ago, he did it knowing Hawthorne was going to be his leader. The tom had won his trust and promised full bellies. That was who Owlbark had chosen to follow. When Juniperstar came to camp alone, shaken, and with the burden of leadership, he felt betrayed. Not for long. He had trusted Hawthrone enough to know his judgment was wise to sit Juniperstar atop the throne of ThunderClan.

She had given him the name Owlbark. It still felt odd to add an extra syllable to his name. Owl was a name he chose for himself. One low syllable to drawl out when he felt like sharing his name. Owl. Now he was burned with an extra syllable. It was a reason to speak his name clearer to others. He had to give Juniperstar credit for that.

The tom had sidled up in front of the fresh leader, eyeing her with tired eyes. He held no ill-will to her, but felt the pang of loss for what Hawthorne could have been. He saw the same exhaustion in her. "You look terrible," he huffed, turning his gaze away to scan the rest of camp.

They all milled about in awkward tides, seemingly unaware of how exactly this was all supposed to work out. Cats shied away from conversations with each other or they were too eager to finally cement their place in the clan with an over-exuberant conversation. It was too much. "I'll come to. I need to take a break from... this." He didn't gesture at anything specific, but he hoped she caught his drift.

i turned 'round and there you go *ੈ✩‧₊˚

• ooc: -
  
• 

  ☾ OWLBARK
  ☾ THUNDERCLAN WARRIOR
  ☾ 51 moons, ages every 1st of the month
  ☾ open to peaceful interactions
  ☾ "SPEECH"
  ☾ penned by muddly

• toyhouse
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[juniperstar]

juniper

her autopsy of his character had been painfully accurate- like a dagger he cuts through thin skin to watch it bleed all the while unwilling to watch the crimson pour. a tired gaze follows his own's aimless wandering, trying not to simmer under the surface to be insulted like there were not bodies freshly buried. like she didn't have enough to mourn without tacking on her abysmal appearance.

"Thanks..." a voice that bleeds insincerity, offered confirmation with the flattening of tufted ears. she draws her tongue over a knotted piece of fur at the base of her tail before giving up. she would not fix her unsightliness fast enough to avoid further scrutiny... it was a task that would have to be finished in private. alone. her new normal.

his general lack of confidence regarding the reformation of their structures wasn't wholly unrelatable. Juniperstar was older than even Owlbark... had seen the heights of the Colony's successes and had to suffer their slow decline. "Right... We'll be going then..." her paws scarcely leave the earth in their slow meandering pace, striding out of the rocky outcropping that held their camp. a cursory glance told her they ought to do more to fortify it... needed to be sure their scent trails were not so simple to follow that Sable's group could trace them.

it was something to organize for later...

"Have you had better luck out here...? Hunting, I mean..." they'd crept deeper into the forest, a change of scenery and hopefully a change of luck...

──✩°｡⋆⸜ ✮

• juniperstar leader of thunderclan nine lives remain

  ignore me

 

[OWLBARK]

Owlbark could not care less if she was thankful for his comment or not. At the end of the day, all he cared for was if he had a full belly and a lack of claws on his throat. He doesn't watch her disregard the knot of fur she had been worrying and he doesn't offer to help her with it. That isn't who they were.

Owlbark flicked his eyes, as piercing as his namesake's, to Juniperstar. She stood and moved from camp and he followed. What a pair they would seem to the average eye. A worn, freshly coronated queen to a crew of unruly strays and one of her foot soldiers. A foot soldier she inherited from a murdered monarch.

"We're finding some more promising locations," he reported like a good foot soldier. That was their dynamic, was it not? Juniperstar said jump and Owlbark was expected to ask "how high?". She would find that the question would come after several harsh looks, but it would come none the less. Ah, but they weren't there yet. For now, they had to work out the kinks that came with a young kingdom.

Owlbark looked at her similarly brown fur, knots included. How could he hate her? How could he stare at her and only think of the tom that came before her? Juniperstar was in the same vacuum he reeled in. Hawthorne (he would never call him Thornstar) had promises he could not refuse. The same things he promised Juniperstar. Now, he was gone and she was left to fulfill them. The weight that must put upon her. "Juniperstar," he started. The tom looked over his shoulder and checked for anyone to have followed them. They would not live to retell what she was to hear from him.

i turned 'round and there you go *ੈ✩‧₊˚

• ooc: -
  
• 

  ☾ OWLBARK
  ☾ THUNDERCLAN WARRIOR
  ☾ 51 moons, ages every 1st of the month
  ☾ open to peaceful interactions
  ☾ "SPEECH"
  ☾ penned by muddly

• toyhouse
  playlist
  pinterest

 

[juniperstar]

juniper

his dutiful report is enough to ease some of her fears. a resolute promise that things were easier, even if only marginally. that promise would have to be good enough to reassure them... there was not much else to be done but wait and hope. they nod, "Excellent... I'm glad to hear it... It's hard to believe this spot was here all this time and we never explored far enough to find it." that reminded her they should do more to investigate their surroundings this time. no more holing up in one spot and never pressing the boundaries. maybe that was the secret- sending out big parties of hunters far off to collect a huge bounty and-

"Juniperstar."

surprise colors the small mrr that sounds from her, blinking wide eyes to look back towards Owlbark. his gaze is not presently fixed on her... wandering back towards the way they'd come as if in dire search of something. her brow furrows, confused by his paranoid display- "Is something wrong?" or was he just checking there were no witnesses to some more sinister plan? the knot of discomfort in her chest is stuffed down, trying not to humor the suggestion that he had only stayed this long as one of Sable's more devious thorns, well-hidden... embedded where least expected.

"I don't think anyone is following us..."

──✩°｡⋆⸜ ✮

• juniperstar leader of thunderclan nine lives remain

  ignore me