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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 1:04:46 GMT -5
Moonshine
The deputy was feeling alone, even after all her patrols and meetings with her clan mates she still missed the safety of having a mate, the comfort of a soft lick goodnight and the feeling of another being sleeping beside her in the nest. She had downsized to a smaller nest when Ashfoot had died, not willing to feel the empty space where her beloved mate used to lay. Today was a new day, the feeling of fresh life that Greenleaf always bought forward.
Moonshine had long decided that Greenleaf was her favorite season, while some of clanmates preferred the harshness of Leafbare and the heat of Newleaf, Leaf Fall and Greenleaf were often forgotten about. Moonshine made her way down to the river, gazing at the shimmering water as it smoothed to form a mirror surface where she could see her own reflection, staring sadly back as a few small ripples of passing fish only rarely interrupted the serenity.
A few hours later and there was quite a collection of fish on the bank beside the lilac tipped female, she had exhausted herself and after a refreshing drink and a small swim she was walking towards a rock, the sun heating her fur comfortably as she found a nice flat rock to lay on and eat a couple of fish.
A noise had her on high alert, she was alone but camp was not that far, with the whispers of a family of foxes moving into the valley had all the clans on alert, keeping apprentices closer to camps while hunting was good to avoid leaving a trail back to defenseless kits and queens and the elders, who had given the prime of their lives to the clan and deserved the rest. " Hello?" Moonshine risked calling out into the reeds that stood beside the river, her ears perked and claws unsheathed ready for a fight.
Tag: Fawn ( Brookfall mention) Words: 316
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Post by Fawn on Jul 21, 2018 7:07:28 GMT -5
Brookfall 37 Moons Tom RainClan Warrior "Hello," was the calm, smooth answer to Moonshine's call. The creature that stepped through the reeds had silver fur speckled with black, not red. A wide, square muzzle, not long and pointed. And it was a smile beneath his whiskers, not a snarl, that greeted RainClan's deputy.
Restlessness had brought him back to the river's edge. The wet, gray-brown hue to his paws indicated his morning spent scooping fat-bodied fish out of the water like any respectable warrior should have been doing. Brookfall, as always, was a model citizen of RainClan; his apprentice, Pipitpaw, was coming along nicely. He was polite to his Clanmates, charming and easy to be around.
But something over the last half moon had changed.
"I apologize if I startled you," said Brookfall, observing her unsheathed claws and alert posture. He chuckled, the sound quiet and distant to his own ears. "May I join you?" The yellow-eyed warrior was in no mood to entertain company; that was the game he played, however. He kept his own thoughts and feelings hidden, and he did the opposite - keeping up that careful charade so many moons in the making.
There was no malice behind this false lifestyle. He was not out to hurt his Clanmates.
Hurt them? Never. Keep them a foxlength away? That was closer to the truth...
Brookfall made sure not to disturb her pile of fish, or to step on the bones of Moonshine's recent meal. He almost brought it up - the tinge of surprise he felt over seeing the Clan's deputy so relaxed on such a humid, muggy day - but thought better of it. Instead, Brookfall maintained a respectful quietitude, his eyes on the water as he sat near its edge.
"Fine day to fish," he said, making small talk. "Terrible for anything else."
Brookfall lowered his paws into the water, rinsing away any remaining dirt. Darkrose is dead, the reeds whispered at him. She is gone, murmured the river, loud enough to penetrate the numbed layer he had built up over his heart since he knew. I know, he replied, And she took something with her when she left.
Something he couldn't name. A part of him. A piece he had given her that she had never had any intention of giving back. Brookfall was no fool; his former mentor had been fond of him, but there was no love in her eyes when she'd looked at him. Only the satisfaction of his obedience, and he, the fool that he was, allowed that to be enough.
Yet the trouble with shallow waters, Brookfall knew, was that they did not last long. His enraptured heart had not floated on a current, strong and certain; now, it dragged along the bottom, catching every rock and sinking into the dust and mud of a riverbed empty of life.
We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry. 471 Words || @kahani || Notes: xD Sorry he's not very talkative.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2018 21:21:38 GMT -5
Moonshine The deputy immediately resheathed her claws and relaxed her posture at the sight of Brookfall, satisfied that no peril would come to her or the clan's prey pile, which she had dutifully gathered in preparation for the coming Leafbare. Fish froze well in the icy earth if one remembered where they had hid it. " Of course Brookfall, it has been to long" she spoke both as a answer to his request and to lament on the fact that she had been a horrible friend in the midst of everything else she had done to secure her place as the clan's deputy. Moonshine had always prided herself on being an empathetic cat so when Brookfall's approach to the water did not seem like the tom who had taught her to fish all those moons ago, her curiosity piked, it seemed to her that Brookfall had not been himself,though it was often hard to tell he always seemed so put together so Moonshine could never really gauge if there was a problem or not. That bothered her immensely and frankly, hurt her feelings. If her own friends could not trust her with their problems, what about the rest of the clan?
"Is something is bothering you Brookfall? You look like someone died" Moonshine often did not mean to be as blunt as she was. After everything that happened with Ashfoot and Wrenstrike, she had never be taught the art of tact, she spoke her mind and while that may endear her to some, it ostracized her from others.
However it had taught her that her clanmates were capable of so much more emotion than they let on, and with time she had learned to recognize the true emotions of other cats. She was not always right though and often times she thought she had nailed the problem, only for another to arise in it's place. The lilac tipped senior warrior nodded to her pile of fresh fish, " Have one and please talk to me" she almost begged him, keeping the pleading tone in her voice to a appropriate level as she met his yellow gaze with her blue one, inviting him to spill all his problems onto her capable ears.
Tags: Fawn ( Oh how little she knows, poor Brookfall) Words: 381
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Post by Fawn on Jul 24, 2018 6:25:41 GMT -5
Brookfall 37 Moons Tom RainClan Warrior He saw it plain as day. Moonshine was reaching out to him, in her honest and empathetic way, trying to coax him into lessening the burdensome thoughts piling up inside his skull like river mud. Brookfall smiled ruefully; when was the last time he told the truth? When was the last time he told the truth about Darkrose? It was so far back, only the faintest recollections of Gorgepaw asking him why he was so infatuated with Darkrose came to mind. They had been in the cove, then. Isolated from their family.
He had denied those feelings then, and they had been far less risky in those days. The truth would not come out now, no matter how much Brookfall might consider trading his silver tongue for honesty.
"Thank you," Brookfall yielded to her offer of a fish, the extra toes on his paw evident as he reached for a dace, hooking it just under the gills to pull it to him. He did not start eating right away; rather, he formulated his answer. Something believable, maybe with a shredding of half-truths, while keeping well away from fully disclosing everything.
"A short time ago, I found a body outside of RainClan territory." Brookfall's tail flicked, before he caught himself and willed his demeanor into a calm one. "No one I recognized," he lied. "But I buried them. The isolation of dying alone... Largely forgotten, remembered only by one or two cats, if they were lucky..." White whiskers twitched, melancholia in his tone. Just enough, not too much.
It was grief he felt, or something like it. But he could not reveal it.
Darkrose had died alone, in that little den near the edge of the mountains that he had brought fish to on many separate occasions. Blood-soaked moss and glassy, lifeless eyes. What had she thought about, in her final moments? Had he crossed her mind? Had she regretted casting her lot with the Purists? The fox had not eaten her. There was a dark irony there, somehow; the she-cat who had sided with murderers and bigots, had in turn been murdered.
Brookfall's heart shredded, the layers peeling back to expose a raw, conflicted center underneath. "Perhaps if they had considered approaching Silverstar about joining, they would not have found themselves dying so pitifully." Yellow eyes found Moonshine's face, and he dipped his head in apology. "Forgive me. You must think me quite grim."
We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry. 403 Words || @kahani BlooRey DVD (Gorge mention) || Notes
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2018 4:39:16 GMT -5
Moonshine The deputy nodded solemnly at Brookfall's words. Her opinion was that death was such a final part of life, but for every life that returned to Starclan, another rose in it's place continuing the never ending cycle of life that governed all the creatures and was ruled by Starclan themselves. Moonshine watched as Brookfall took one of the fish she had caught and pulled it towards him, purposefully keeping her gaze on his face rather than the extra toes. After all, it was not in her nature to judge, in fact she had always thought they were unique. Even handsome perhaps but any of those feelings were swashed under the weight that Ashfoot had left her when he died. She had been a queen then, content to continue to grow her family, but life was cruel and he had been taken from her. She always attempted to draw comfort from the fact that it was all part of Starclan's plan for her, but that did not mean it did not hurt. The brief mention of Silverstar had her coming back to reality, Ashfoot was gone and Wrenstrike was a grown tom with his own life to live, though with high expectations, with his mother being the deputy and all.
"Perhaps a little, but I find much true in your words, but in my experience it's best not to dwell on the what if's and move forward with things that are certain in life, for example, My friendship with you is something I am grateful for" She offered her advice with a hint of reservation in her tone. F eelings like her's would only mess up all she had achieved for herself after Ashfoot's death. Moonshine was a beautiful cat, but she had spend her life relying on other's to fill the gaps in her knowledge rather than bothering to learn it herself.
" I have never known you to lie to me so I wonder what has you so sad at this stranger's parting. Is it you thinking that you may end up in the same fate? with none there to mourn you because I promise you that is not true" she offered, in an attempt to understand why he was so .... torn by this death.
Fawn - Brookfall 375 words
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Post by Fawn on Aug 19, 2018 15:15:48 GMT -5
Brookfall 37 Moons Tom RainClan Warrior If the cause of his sadness he'd outlined for her had been true, Moonshine's words probably would have been a comfort to him. Brookfall did not fear dying alone and going unmourned; at the very least, his grave would earn a passing glance from Gorgeleap, and at most, the rest of family would feel his loss significantly. Brookfall had no mate and kits to leave widowed and orphaned, so this was something he did not dwell upon often. There was still much of his life to be lived - even if Darkrose could not be a part of it.
In spite of his dishonesty, Brookfall's mood began to lift at the edges, like wilted leaves after a rainstorm. Even if the medicine given to him was for the wrong ailment, so to speak, he still felt the beneficial effects of confiding in someone else.
"I am grateful for our friendship as well. This is a dark conversation to have over a meal; we can move on." The silvery tom forced a chuckle, having yet to start in on the dace. He did not have much of an appetite, but Brookfall had long ago become an expert on doing the opposite of how he usually felt. Such was the game he played.
"Gorgeleap and I have a brooding streak," said Brookfall, yellow eyes showing a small tinge of humor to match his river-stone smooth tone of voice. "We're cursed to think too much of small things, and occasionally miss what's right in front of our whiskers. Why do you think he frowns so much?" Dragging his unwilling littermate into a conversation had (over time) become a favored distraction tool of Brookfall's.
He benefited from his brother's taciturn, downright hum-drum personality. It didn't create any guilt in him; Gorgeleap wouldn't care one way or the other if he was spoken about over lunch or if someone forgot his name. Gorgeleap cycled through life with all the grim surrender of a trout; claws would one day catch him, he could not change the course of things, so why get upset over it?
"How is your son? He seems to be adapting well to warrior life," said Brookfall, thinking of the deputy's spirited offspring. The days he'd spent mentoring Wrenstrike were long gone, but that did not mean the young tom did not cross his mind from time to time. It was good to talk about other things; just as he distracted others from examining his words too closely, he distracted himself from his current grief.
We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry. 420 Words || @kahani BlooRey DVD (Gorge mention!) || Notes
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2018 20:21:10 GMT -5
Moonshine The solemn atmosphere was broken by Brookfall soon after it had settled and Moonshine immediately perked up at the mention of her son. Wrenstrike was an interesting tom, often causing trouble for her to clean up. Moonshine was aware that the days of her son assuming something between her and Brookfall to be long gone, but something inside her almost missed it, the fact her son thought her beautiful enough to attract another tom after Ashfoot had left them both to join the stars. Was it that selfish of her to want to be happy? Brookfalls question bought her back to reality as she realized she had just been staring off into the distance.
" He is young and so stubborn I am sure he learned that off you" she joked, knowing full well that her son's stubbornness was nothing compared to the lilac pointed deputy's. Wrenstrike was her son and he had some of her good traits and some of her bad ones, his boorish ways, and pig-headed stubbornness being prime examples. "He has developed an interest in she-cat's recently and I have heard all the tales from distressed young females, he doesn't seem to understand when no means no, he thinks it means not now" She spoke calmly, pausing only to check if Brookfall was still listerning before she continued "He has stopped asking me if I am going to give him a little sibling, mentioned something about my being to old and ugly for it" S he chuckled fondly. She had taken offense to his old and ugly comment, her vanity prevented her from seeing herself as anything less than perfect, but she had learned to control herself very well in front of her clanmates.
287 words Fawn
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Post by Fawn on Sept 16, 2018 19:35:50 GMT -5
Brookfall 37 Moons Tom RainClan Warrior Brookfall's eyes widened a fraction, but for the most part he was able to dampen his surprise over Wrenstrike's less-than-thrilling behavior. "I imagine it's hard for him to see you in any other light but motherhood," Brookfall replied. Wrenstrike had been a stubborn, opinionated young tom with a deep grief over his father's death; it surprised Brookfall, then, that Wrenstrike would even pester his mother at all for a younger sibling.
Ah, well. Toms at that age were often foolish, cocky cats who were self-assured in their new ranks as warriors. Brookfall had seen plenty of toms that fit Wrenstrike's pattern of behavior; Lionstride, and his own Pipitpaw were promising to be cut from the same cloth.
"I'm sure once he's told the importance of boundaries, you'll have a fewer distressed females on your paws." Brookfall spoke smoothly and with a soft chuckle beneath his reply. One lesson he had learned early on was the importance of respecting another's space, and their wishes. Wrenstrike would be fine, provided he didn't get himself into too much trouble in the meantime.
We all eat lies when our hearts are hungry. 168 Words || @kahani || Notes: Super short, sorry!
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