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Post by Fawn on Jul 25, 2020 10:12:15 GMT -5
curiosity is not a sin... ...but we should exercise caution with our curiosity Shadowchaser Hydrangeas were one of the only plants he knew of that had no medicinal properties. At least, none discovered. The floral scent was strong, strong enough to be a little bothersome to the sensitive nose of a well-trained medicine cat, but he soldered on. It was a minor thing, to carry a few stalks of the heavy-headed flowers over the LightningClan border; the cat he was going to see was carrying a much, much heavier burden.
News of Tigereye's demise hadn't reached him through normal means. Shadowchaser's dreams of late felt fine-tuned to Silverpelt, his rests turning into communes with the starry spirits, of which he would wake and try to interpret the at-times discordant, vague imagery they gave.
A glimpse of Tigereye's pelt across starry moorland had been a clear enough message. It added up with Kindleflare's private devastation, the older healer withdrawn during their last meeting. It didn't take much to put the pieces together.
LightningClan's territory was far enough away that Shadowchaser didn't feel comfortable going without an escort. Nettleheart was right on his tail, followed by Sablefoot; they could have easily overtaken him, their muscles well-conditioned with the demanding lifestyle of warriorhood. But they respectfully let him lead, and for that he was grateful.
Rabbit-scent and fresh grass slipped in around the overpowering hydrangeas, and before long they were greeted by a patrol, escorted to LightningClan's moorland camp. Shadowchaser's eyes wandered, curiosity sparking in golden depths as he took in the novelty of his surroundings. LightningClan didn't have much in the way of hills, and he couldn't say he was a fan of the openness of the actual camp, but it had its charms.
He was pointed in the direction of Kindleflare's den, and Shadowchaser's focus at once shifted to a softer, more respectful mein. Dark ears picked up the rustle of movement within. Shadowchaser didn't enter, but called gently into the den after setting aside the flowers. "Kindleflare? It's Shadowchaser. I apologize if I am intruding. May I come in? I've brought you these."
Shadowchaser's paw patted the flower stalks. "They're not for healing. They're... to tell you that I know you're grieving." StarClan, was he imposing too much? Was this rude, rather than thoughtful? Shadowchaser swallowed dryly, choosing to power through and risk offense. "I am here to grieve with you, as a fellow Medicine Cat, if--if you'd like." medicine cat of nightclan BlooRey DVD | jk rowling | background image | table by phoenixGreenleaf 13 - The humidity has spiked overnight, and the sun shines in the clear skies, promising heatstroke for those who do not find shade or water.
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GaleClan Medicine Cat
INVENTORY
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Post by BlooRey DVD on Jul 25, 2020 12:16:34 GMT -5
"Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing.” KIndleFlare She hadn't been herself. It didn't take a trained medicine cat to see that. Her eyes were dull, darkened beyond their usual deep coloration by a cloud of grief seated in the depth of her soul. She'd retired to her den at some point late that morning, and hadn't found the energy to leave since. For a brief moment, she'd attempted to make herself appear busy by sorting herbs, figuring out what they needed as the season trudged on. Yet... That too had failed to hold her attention long. Instead, she had opted to lay down in the solitude of her den, somewhere on the ground at the furthest reaches.
She hadn't even had the energy to return to her nest. Not when it was positioned so close to what had once been Tigereye's.
StarClan knows why she'd forbidden anyone to destroy it since his passing. It was looking rather bedraggled, in need of changing, yet... It was the last piece of him she had on this plane. And she hadn't found it within her to part with it. With her ears pressed to her skull, the ginger and white medicine cat stared blankly at the wall, a pile of chamomile laying just out of her muzzle's reach.
Even when a voice called to her from the entrance, it took the medicine cat a moment to realize this was not a voice she would normally hear speaking from within LightningClan's camp. Dragging her head from the earth beneath her took far more energy than it likely should have, shoulders tightening as the muscles adjusted to compensate for the weight. A half-lidded gaze oriented itself to the light filtering from outside, the LightningClan healer struggling to find her voice after a day or two without speaking.
"S... S-Shadowch-chaser..?" She croaked softly, white paws scraping against the earth as she hauled her body to something akin to a seated position. Blinking in bleary confusion, she continued in a rasping voice. "O-Of c-course... C-Come in." A flick of her ear brought some life back into her otherwise still body, the she-cat still bewildered at the appearance of ShadowClan's medicine cat in her den. She waited quietly as he ducked in, her amber gaze finally landing upon the bundle of flowers in his jaws. He had mentioned something not being used for healing, but she hadn't picked up on the strong scent of hydrangeas until she could see them.
Slowly, she convinced herself to step out of the darkest shadows, her ears still angled in her grief. Her coat lacked its usual healthy sheen, clinging to her sorrow-thinned frame. Surprisingly, she felt... Embarrassed at what she could only imagine she looked like. Having a ShadowClan cat see her this way somehow reached deeper than her own Clan having watched her descend into... This.
"Th.. Thank y-you." She mewed softly, though she couldn't quite manage a smile on her exhausted features. "Th-They're... B-Beautiful. I h-haven't s-seen th-them f-for a while..." Her haunches folded beneath her again, the she-cat struggling to find the strength to stand with her current state. Amber eyes avoided looking at the spot where Tigereye's nest rested next to hers, and instead focused on the medicine cat before her.
Her heart squeezed as he acknowledged her grief, her eyes dropping to her paws as she shivered beneath the thought. She wondered a moment if she should simply send him home. Tell him that she wanted to be alone. But the truth was... She didn't. She'd spent so long pushing away her own family, her own Clanmates... And she found that it did little to make her feel any better. In fact, it only helped to make her feel lonely.
"I-I th-think... I w-would a-appreciate the... C-Company." She managed, her eyes inching up toward the dark-coated ShadowClan healer as she struggled with her internal feelings once more. Medicine Cat of LightningClan 82 moons. ~650 words. Fawn
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Post by Fawn on Jul 26, 2020 13:35:02 GMT -5
curiosity is not a sin... ...but we should exercise caution with our curiosity Shadowchaser Grief hung about her like the shadow of some enormous, menacing creature. Her ears were tucked, her paws were leaden with the weight of having to carry on with so much still to carry. Shadowchaser set aside the hydrangeas, and gently brushed his muzzle against her shoulder in greeting; it was something of an obsequious gesture, what with her being far senior to him, but he meant it kindly.
"Thank you," he murmured and brought himself into the den fully. Tigereye's scent still clung to the air and the dried moss around him. It was easy to pinpoint the source; in absence of the real thing, Tigereye's nest was as solid a presence Tigereye could have in the living world now. Shadowchaser stared at it, sadness overtaking him like a storm he'd been waiting to arrive. Shadowchaser and loss were acquainted, well past the awkward phase and broaching something like lifelong companions. Without the warmth and reassurance that came with long term friendship, that is.
It was a cold courtesy between death and he. The understanding that it was inevitable, and the understanding that sometimes death was delayed through the muse of medicine and hope and swift action.
Shadowchaser slowly drew his gaze away from the lost healer's nest, focusing instead on the grief-stricken matron before him. "May I lay near it? To pay my respects?" He had sat vigils before. Shadowchaser's head cocked just slightly as he realized that medicine cats did not get the opportunity to hold vigil for each other. They were still separated by borders, by Clan obligations, in that way.
But I can still sit vigil now.
It was clear in the gentle curve of his smile and that fathomless patience he had for those in pain that he did not blame her for holding on to Tigereye's nest. He would have done the same, for Smokefur. He had done the same. "I kept a little of my father's nest, after he died. Greencough." Shadowchaser's gaze threatened to cloud with memories that still had teeth, still nipped at his heart as if a sliver of that pain would never fully go away. He shook himself to clear it, continuing in a stronger voice. "Not the nest he died in. The one in the warrior's den, that he shared with my mother. My sisters and I all took a piece and combined it with our own nests. Just to keep him close." medicine cat of nightclan BlooRey DVD | jk rowling | background image | table by phoenix
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Conquer the monster in your head, and then you'll fly |
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GaleClan Medicine Cat
INVENTORY
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Post by BlooRey DVD on Jul 31, 2020 6:28:23 GMT -5
Her motions were automatic, as though she wasn’t really aware of what she was doing. The LightningClan medicine cat was no longer young, or in her prime, and for moons now she had lived with a certain familiarity. There were motions her body would carry out without a thought. When Shadowchaser touched her shoulder in greeting after entering her den, the ginger and white she-cat’s nose pressed to his head briefly, between his ears. A part of her recognized where the younger healer’s gaze went next, her own dropping to her white paws so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Breathing in brought a hint of Tigereye’s scent with every expansion of her chest, and that in itself sent a quiver of pain to her heart. But the thought of getting rid of it, of no longer having a piece of what she had come to consider part of the den itself... Right now she could not fathom it. StarClan had not spoken to her since Tigereye’s passing. Any healer worth their mettle, and with their mind unclouded as hers, would guess it wasn’t StarClan shutting her out. Instead, the ginger and white healer’s grief was likely responsible for her lack of dreams or visions. She held within her an intense fear. A fear of running into Tigereye if she were to close her eyes and let herself dream. A fear of the drowning anguish and failure she would feel upon seeing him there so long before her. It should have been me.That single thought was something that had haunted her since news came of the tragedy. Tigereye’s had been so young still, with so much to see and experience. Why had StarClan taken him so readily when Kindleflare would have traded placed in a moment? Shadowchaser’s voice caused her to startle slightly, the dark coated tom requesting to lay next to it and pay his respects. Although his words lanced through her heart, the medicine cat agreed after stifling the flinch that had desperately wanted to seize control, as though Shadowchaser had moved to strike her rather than ask a simple question. “O-Of c-course. T-Take as m-much t-time as you w-wish...” She told him, moving to busy herself with the flowers at her paws. She listened quietly to the NightClan healer as he spoke of his father’s passing, one ear pivoted in his direction to show her attention even as she softly rolled one of the largest hydrangeas to see its petals more clearly. A piece of her wondered how Shadowchaser’s mother was doing; though she did not necessarily know the she-cat personally, with a son as a medicine cat, and a daughter as a leader, some infamy tended to follow. Echobreeze could not have been young, by any means. But the words never made it through her maw. Instead, the sentences she spoke aloud followed a different train of thought entirely. “I s-selfishly... H-Have kept it a-all. N-No matter the p-protests, I have y-yet to f-find the w-will t-to... To let it g-go. Though I d-do not s-sleep, n-not with it s-so close... I a-am painfully r-reminded of h-how he...” She stopped, her words choking slightly as she shut her eyes and swallowed, ears tilting back as her shoulders sagged in defeat. More quietly, in a voice no stronger than that of a newborn kit, the LightningClan healer admitted the fact that had been bothering her aloud for the first time. “I d-do n-not dream a-anymore, Sh-Shadowchaser. I r-rarely sleep m-more th-than h-half a night’s s-span of... D-Dreamless d-darkness... Because I’m s-scared. S-Scared that if I d-dream, I w-will see h-him. A-And h-how can I f-face him w-when I f-failed him s-so?”Fawn
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Post by Fawn on Jul 31, 2020 18:29:15 GMT -5
curiosity is not a sin... ...but we should exercise caution with our curiosity Shadowchaser "She's barely sleeping," Shadowchaser whispered under his breath, a deep-rooting melancholy unfurling in his chest. "Of course." Mourning the dead was par for the course with a medicine cat's life; but Shadowchaser couldn't help mourning the living, too.
Slowly, remembering how Kindleflare had lingered for contact when he'd first greeted her, Shadowchaser came up beside the bright ginger she-cat to act as her brace. "It's awful, isn't it? When we lose our loved ones, you'd think they'd take all the pain and hurt with them. But it lingers. As if by holding on to the pain, we hold on to them a little tighter. A little longer."
Holding on to guilt is like having an illness you can't shake free of. Shadowchaser hummed under his breath, something soft and in remembrance of his younger self. Of the difficulties he'd faced so early on in his time as a healer. "I was there, Kindleflare, when my best friend's father was mauled to death by a fox. He begged me to save his father, but I couldn't. Sunstorm was too far gone to save. I thought the guilt from that would kill me."
Even though wounds had mended in the past few seasons, Shadowchaser's head still hung with the lingering remnants of shame. "I thought I didn't deserve to be a medicine cat anymore. I'd let down someone I cared about, I felt like all that pain and sadness was my fault. Hurtful words were said, and for a long time, there was this divide between us. But... I missed my friend." Golden eyes lifted to find Kindleflare's, shiny with the emotions locked therein. "It was so scary, facing him again. I felt like I was made of ice, and that one false step and I'd just... break. But it turns out, Newtstripe missed me too."
Shadowchaser couldn't help it. He choked up at the crashing wave of relief that even now swept through him at the recollection. "He didn't blame me for Sunstorm's death. Sometimes life's cruelties aren't anyone's fault, Kindleflare. Newtstripe and I go on walks to gather herbs when we can, and I feel like I've gotten a piece back that I was missing." A gentle purr rose from Shadowchaser's throat as he slowly looked to the empty nest that had once been Kindleflare's apprentice. "I didn't know Tigereye well, I'm sorry. But... I'm willing to bet a season's worth of catmint that he misses you just as much as you miss him. Don't be afraid to dream, Kindleflare. I won't push you, but if you're afraid to dream alone, I will do my best to stay here beside you."
It felt wrong to walk away from LightningClan's medicine cat when she was so distressed. Shadowchaser tried not to look too intent. It had to be her choice, no matter how deeply he hoped she would take that first step.
medicine cat of nightclan BlooRey DVD | jk rowling | background image | table by phoenix
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Conquer the monster in your head, and then you'll fly |
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GaleClan Medicine Cat
INVENTORY
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Post by BlooRey DVD on Jul 31, 2020 21:07:12 GMT -5
"Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing.” KIndleFlare In the dim light of the den, leaning against the offered shoulder was almost instinctual. It was something she had yearned for since Tigereye's passing. She listened quietly as the NightClan healer spoke of loss to her. Loss, grief, emptiness... These were feelings of which she was no stranger. Much like Shadowchaser was revealing to her, Kindleflare had been forced to watch so many lives flicker out from beneath her paws, just out of her reach. It was as though the more determinedly you tried to hold onto those lives, the sharper the sting of pain that followed.
Dark amber eyes drifted closed as she contented herself just to listen. Listen and feel. It weighed on her, as if it truly was alive and pushing her shoulders into the ground. But at least with the younger tom here, she didn't quite feel so alone. She was reliving the losses, but somehow... It was cathartic, to hear she was not alone in pain. To share her pain with someone else. Her jaws parted, words clambering through her mind, desperate to get out, tumble from her maw to the waiting ears of anyone who would listen to her.
"I-I... H-Have lost f-family b-before... But s-some are a-always m-more difficult th-than o-others... M-My p-parents w-were... A-Aging. S-Somewhere in my h-heart, I kn-knew th-that they w-would s-slip away. B-But T-Tigereye..." She chocked slightly as she stammered out his name, a new surge of sorrow creeping over her. But Shadowchaser was there with her, and it suddenly didn't feel quite so suffocating to the ginger and white healer.
"I... It's n-not l-like... I l-loved my p-parents less th-than... Than I l-loved Tigereye... B-But he... H-He was the s-son I n-never h-had. Th-That I will n-never h-have... C-Considering m-my position a-and..." She stopped for a moment to let out something like a laugh, as though she wasn't sure why she was saying the next part. "A-And my p-preferences..." She swallowed softly, amber eyes opening to look at the nest before them for the first time.
"I-If I.. If I h-had a mate, I w-would have asked f-for her blessing t-to adopt h-him as our o-own in a heartb-beat. He... He w-was my w-world, and he h-had such a l-life he c-could have lived..." Gingerly, one white paw reached out to press into the material of the nest, watching as it bent beneath the slightest weight. "I... I owe h-him a d-dream, d-don't I... A ch-chance t-to... To tell m-me wh-what he thinks... But I can't... I c-can't do it a-alone. W-Would... Would y-you m-mind d-dreaming w-with me..?" She asked quietly, her eyes moving to look at him.
Some may have found such an ask strange. But medicine cats transcended Clan boundaries. Relationship boundaries. It hadn't been uncommon for she and Tigereye to share a nest, especially when the months grew colder or nightmares were prevalent. And currently, her entire life felt as though it were a nightmare, one she couldn't wake from.
Perhaps this would give her a chance. Medicine Cat of LightningClan 82 moons. ~500 words. Fawn
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Post by Fawn on Oct 14, 2020 22:44:55 GMT -5
curiosity is not a sin... ...but we should exercise caution with our curiosity Shadowchaser The ache in his heart flared like a fresh wound, and it was only when it calmed a little that he was able to speak to Kindleflare. "That's beautiful. To love someone so much you'd want them to be part of your family." That Kindleflare used her in reference to the hypothetical mate had not escaped Shadowchaser. It was a footnote on the bigger conversation between them, but it stirred something in his chest that he was going to need to address later.
"I would be honored to dream with you, Kindleflare. May I... groom you? I doubt it will matter in StarClan," he said it as gently as he could, not wanting to offend her, "but it may make you feel better." To be cleaner. To be more put together. Kindleflare's coat was short, but it lacked its lustre and could certainly use a quick bath; sharing tongues was common among Clanmates, but they were Medicine Cats. These friendships had to be nurtured just as strongly as that of the cats he immediately interacted with on a day to day basis.
Shadowchaser's golden gaze softened. "If that's too invasive, or something you'd rather have ...her do, I completely understand." Rather than make the first move towards Tigereye's nest, Shadowchaser took a step back with a gentle dip of his chin. He would find a place to rest beside her. It was more important that Kindleflare be comfortable; he was a guest, but Tigereye hadn't been his apprentice. Hadn't been the closest thing he'd had to a son. medicine cat of nightclan BlooRey DVD | jk rowling | background image | table by phoenix
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