#boragebud

[dawnclan-duskclan]

For the first time in four Suncycles, Boragebud felt warm.

Raindrops sparkled across the grasslands, harsh highlights and deep shadows striped by the bright Sun at her back. The Caverns felt more real, more alive, than it had in a long while and Boragebud thought she could run forever.

Indeed, neither of her companions showed signs of slowing down as the patrol raced across the pale scrublands, scaring off a flock of partridges, but no one tried to chase after them because there would be plenty of prey wherever they stopped. Life sang through her blood. Boragebud could feel MoonClan's laughter every time her paws kissed the ground, a joyous purr that lent speed to her paws and clarity to her thoughts.

Fireglide reached the gnarled willow first, of course she did, but Boragebud was surprised that she wasn't far behind the fleet-footed warrior. She stretched out beside Fireglide, who rolled in the sedges that caressed them. A few moments later Plumstripe arrived, having opted for a steady, effortless pace, and unlike the two mollies, he wasn’t breathing heavily as he sat a tail-length away, gazing over the marshes. Sunglow sparkled across the open patches of water, trapped in mirror-reflective stillness.

"I'd really love some duck for dinner," Fireglide mewed, rolling over to face them with a long stretch that made her ginger legs quiver at the apex. "Maybe a muskrat?"

Plumstripe tapped his dark tail against her flank. "Careful, muskrats fight back."

"Sure, sure. That's why I'll have Boragebud to help me with it, right?"

The cinnamon molly rolled to her paws, shaking the grass from her pelt. "No! Muskrats taste awful, if you want one, fight it yourself," Boragebud argued, wrinkling her nose. She thought the foul creatures tasted like dry pond muck smelled. "But I can help you find a duck, if you help me fish out some crawfish."

Fireglide grinned. "Deal!"

Plumstripe sighed. "I'll be over here then, catching whatever I can, making sure DuskClan actually has enough food." He sounded put upon, but Boragebud knew that was his way of making a joke.

Still. She met his pale eyes with a slow blink, a silent question, asking if he really did want help, but the russet warrior shook his head minutely with a smile and, confident Plumstripe was okay with the arrangement, DuskClan's deputy turned back to Fireglide. "Alright then, let's find our duck."

It took several hours and many tumbles into the water (some accidental, most of them not) before the two mollies secured their prize: a fat, oily bird they brought back to the willow and stashed inside a hollow between the roots, carved out by DuskClan cats many years ago for that exact purpose. Already there were plenty of shrews and mice and water voles piled in the burrow, and Boragebud was glad that Plumstripe's hunt was going better than their wild goose--or duck--chase had.

It was too nice a day to take seriously, so after quickly snagging a pair of crawfish from their muddy burrows, Boragebud and Fireglide threw themselves into the pond below the willow, paddling about in the open water to get the muck off their fur. It felt great to let down her guard and play, and both mollies were grinning ear to ear by the time they grew tired and dragged themselves back to the shore.

Plumstripe was waiting for them, an easy smile on his face. His dark ginger fur was dry and well-groomed. "If I caught any more, we wouldn't be able to bring everything back in one trip," Plumstripe called out. He flinched and fled the spray of water as Fireglide shook out her fur, and while the two mollies worked to get their pelts tolerably dry in the bright Sunglow, he went to work splitting their catch into piles for each of them to carry.

His catch was impressive, with no less than seven rodent tails between his jaws. They should have brought a basket. Fireglide carried another two mice, plus their pair of crawfish, while Boragebud was stuck wrangling the duck, whose oily feathers slipped between her teeth and whose wings constantly threatened to trip her paws when her neck grew tired and she allowed it to drift too close to the ground.

Still, having too much prey was hardly something to complain about, and though Boragebud was tired from the long day, it was a good kind of tired. The warmth of Sunglow on her back made her flush with contentment.

<< 0.6 || FIRST || 0.8 >>

[dawnclan-duskclan]

Mothpuddle hated the Season of Waterwings. She hated the clouds of grey mist that frizzed her long fur, hated the splattering of chilled droplets drooling from heavy leaves, she even hated that she had no one to keep her company, no cat to complain to.

She was alone.

There were some missions she simply couldn’t trust warriors to help with, not without hurting themselves in the process, and that was a risk Mothpuddle wasn't willing to tolerate. 

Because Mothpuddle was on the hunt for deathberries.

Yes, those deathberries. They did have some medicinal use in the right doses, like any other herb in her stock. Because in a way, all herbs were poisons and therefore, all poisons could, potentially, be cures. She liked to have some deathberries around, just in case, hidden in the far reaches of her herb stores, behind a boulder that was horrible to remove or replace, but that ensured that the more dangerous substances she kept weren't in reach of curious kits, or warriors, or any other cat stupid enough to poke around where their nose didn't belong.

Not that Mothpuddle allowed any cat to poke around her herbs for any reason.

So even if the rainy groves made her bones ache, she pressed forward, wrinkling her nose when mist-drenched leaves tipped water across her ears as she shouldered her way through the dense underbrush of the Daylands.

She scowled. Another clearing, bare of anything useful.

The fog pushed down on her like a physical force, growing heavier and heavier the further into the Daylands Mothpuddle ventured. The pelt on her back kept some of the wet off, but the sodden thing also added weight and so did little to help her mood. She spotted a Waterwing flying her direction and had just enough time to duck under a cluster of dense palmetto before a deluge of cold raindrops

The water would be good for the plants--even this early in the season, the deciduous trees glittered with dewy buds, nearly blinding where Sunglow hit them, and many of the bushes were flush with soft, green leaves. Supple sedges cushioned her paws, keeping them blessedly free of mud so long as she picked her way carefully from tussock to tussock.

She was drawing close to the Horizon, the Sun crystal directly over her head. It was impossible to scent anything in this weather: not only did the wet fog muffle smells, but the overwhelming perfume of rich, wet soil ached on her tongue, so bitter she could taste it. She wouldn’t be able to scent if a DawnClan patrol had come by recently, but she did keep her eyes towards the east, scanning the undergrowth for movement each time she found a vantage to do so. Even in this dismal weather, the lone healer really shouldn't go further, not without an escort. If Boragebud knew how close she'd gotten now, she'd never hear the end of it as it was.

With a defeated rumble, Mothpuddle gave one last glance for the late winter berries, then turned around. Water carved rivulets of her scowl.

She could have plotted a new path back (slightly north, perhaps, where the soil was wetter) in hopes of covering new ground and potentially coming across the berries she sought. But she opted to follow her own paw-prints to DuskClan's camp, as she'd mentally mapped a few minor herbs she could bring back. It was a consolation prize at best to gather a few shoots of tansy near the edge of the forest, hardly enough to fill a single pouch on her side, but if that was all MoonClan deigned to offer her, then that's what Mothpuddle would take.

At least the golden molly left the heavy fog behind in the Daylands. Only a few stubborn tendrils of mist and a scattering of heavier rain drops from solitary Waterwings made it into the Dusklands, where the layer of soil grew thinner and thinner, unable to support the deep roots of large flora that dominated the Daylands and its wealth of eternal Sunglow. Trees, then shrubs, and then even grasses and clovers fell away as her paws transitioned to smooth stone and occasional drifts of moss that made up the Twilight. 

Home.

FIRST || 0.2 >>

[dawnclan-duskclan]

Who is Plumstripe

A chronically tired man that takes responsibility for too many things. Other than Boragebud, who he thinks has enough on her plate being the Clan's deputy, he often feels like the only responsible adult in DuskClan and so feels pressured to take on every important task himself, to make sure it's done properly. A good but stressed boy.

DuskClan's allegiances have more details of all the cats!

Also thank you for pointing out that his description was incorrect! I accidentally copied Fireglide's twice (oops). I double checked the rest and they should be fixed!

[dawnclan-duskclan]

Furledstar tried to keep his frustration from showing. He stilled his twitching tail-tip, spoke calm and slow. But Tulippaw wasn't hearing a word he said, the apprentice's grey eyes dull as stone. Furledstar snapped his jaw shut, biting back the next part of his lecture on how to find crawfish burrows, and it was his mentor's sudden silence that finally brought his apprentice to blink to attention, his ears twitching.

"Would you rather be picking burrs from Cloudheart's pelt?"

Tulippaw shook his head quickly, as if ridding it of bees. "Uh, no. No."

A pause.

Furledstar's eyes narrowed and Tulippaw wilted under his gaze. Boragebud was better at reading cats, but Furledstar was a fair hand at it himself and if he looked closely, he could swear Tulippaw was nervous. His breathing was uneven, his ears pinned back, and his white tipped paws flashed with curling claws, as if he was unsure whether to fight or flee. Unusual, as Tulippaw rarely hesitated on anything--it was something Furledstar appreciated about his apprentice. This floundering was unseemly on him.

Furledstar padded away from the muddy stream bank, searching out a dry, moss-covered ledge to sit on, and curled his tail over his paws. Tulippaw looked meek as he followed and Furledstar's frustration with his apprentice quickly turned to concern. "Tulippaw?"

Another slight hesitation before he replied: "…yes?"

Furledstar slowly lowered himself onto the moss and stretched on his side, trying to look relaxed, approachable. He took his eyes off Tulippaw, peering instead at a lilac-hued Star crystal behind the apprentice. Of course, he was actually watching Tulippaw out of the corner of his eye. He decided the best way to go about this was to face the Nightbeast in the cave with his fangs. "Something is bothering you. Is it something I can help fix?"

Tulippaw's grey eyes went wide at that, his tail suddenly going still. For a heartbeat, Furledstar thought his apprentice might flee. He didn't allow his own muscles to tense at the thought of having to chase his apprentice down, and through effort, kept his posture relaxed. Furledstar took a deep breath, prompting Tulippaw to subconsciously follow his lead, and when he let it out, Tulippaw broke.

"Ivebeenhavingnightmaresand-"

"Tulippaw," Furledstar interrupted, his voice soft. MoonClan bless, he wished Boragebud was here to deal with this. "It's alright," the leader said, soothing. "Deep breaths, and we'll figure this out, alright?"

The dark tabby nodded, followed Furledstar’s prompting with another calming breath. "Sorry," Tulippaw mumbled, but Furledstar waved his apology away, asking him to continue, slower this time. "I've just… I haven't won any spars yet and--" he paused, closed his eyes. The leader didn't mind, if it helped him draw courage. "I've been having nightmares. I--I'm on patrol, and a Nightbeast is there."

Tulippaw opened his eyes wide, searching for Furledstar, who gave him a slow blink and a small nod. "Nightmares of Nightbeasts are common," he reassured the young cat. "It's good to have a healthy dose of fear for them."

"Yes but…" Tulippaw hesitated again, but the fear was mostly gone from his eyes and posture, replaced by nervous embarrassment as he licked at his shoulder. Furledstar gave his apprentice time to collect his thoughts, grooming his own silver tabby fur while he waited. "It's not the Nightbeasts that make me afraid, I don't think. It's… In the dreams, I'm there with Foggypaw, or with Mothpuddle or… Yarrowflight, and the Nightbeast is there and I jump forward and it just--it hits me away and I'm stunned and I can’t do anything--" Tulippaw choked up, a sob trapped in his throat.

Furledstar's paws moved before he made any conscious choice, wrapping around the young tomcat and pulling him close, licking over his head with long strokes of his tongue. Silent comfort, a communal urge to defend a member of his Clan. "I haven't won a single spar yet," Tulippaw said, his voice softened by Furledstar's shoulder, muffled a bit by the leader's purr. "I don't feel ready."

"That's something we can fix," Furledstar mewed, resting his chin on the apprentice's head. "Though learning to fight, it takes time, Tulippaw. You've only been training for one moon."

"But Foggypaw can do it! He beat Gingerstorm yesterday!"

Furledstar knew the molly was going easy on him, they all did when training with new apprentices, but he felt that information wouldn't help Tulippaw feel any better right now, so he kept it to himself. "And you caught twice as much prey the day before," he said instead, and was pleased when the black tabby's purr joined his own.

"Yeah, I did," Tulippaw said, sounding much more like himself.

Furledstar gave one more lick over the apprentice's ear before unwinding, stretching, his claws popping through the carpet of moss. "We can do more battle training, if you'd like. I don't want you to push yourself too hard, but practicing the move Gingerstorm taught yesterday wouldn't hurt."

Tulippaw lit up, hopping to his paws, his anxiety forgotten as the prospect of battle training eclipsed his fear. "Really?"

"Yeah. Though I'm going to test you on the crawfish hunting method after." He was teasing, and twitched his whiskers as Tulippaw's face went bright with shock.

"Uh, I--"

Furledstar turned and started towards the training grotto, grinning once his face was hidden from Tulippaw's sight. He'd let him stew in that mundane fear a little, to distract him from his anxieties, while "accidentally" allowing their training session to go too long and graciously extending the test until tomorrow. After all, he was still a little upset that Tulippaw hadn't paid any attention to his carefully crafted crawfish hunting lesson. Furledstar had spent half the night working on it!

<< 0.2 || FIRST || 0.4 >>

[dawnclan-duskclan]

DuskClan Allegiances -- Year One

LEADER: FURLEDSTAR - A silver tabby tom with a white dapple on his back and yellow-green eyes. Troublesome, clever, natural intuition. 54 moons. Troublesome Furledstar. The rest of the Clan would have preferred his sister, Boragebud, to take the position, but they needed Furledstar's clever battle strategies and ruthless nature to overcome the focused Nightbeast attacks that decimated the Clan and killed their old leader, Sneezestar. In times of peace, Furledstar's boredom prompts him to make rash choices. The only cat that can talk sense into him is Boragebud, which is why he made her deputy. He has a massive crush on Gingerstorm, and has since they were apprentices. APPRENTICE: TULIPPAW

DEPUTY: BORAGEBUD - A medium-furred cinnamon classic tabby molly with yellow-green eyes. Wise, good speaker. 54 moons. Her brother has the strategic intellect and the ruthless nature to follow through, but no cat denies that it's Boragebud who runs DuskClan. Her steady insight can be seen in the Clan's minutia and she thrives on managing patrols, inter-Clan disputes, and ensuring DuskClan runs smoothly.

HEALER: MOTHPUDDLE - A long-furred golden agouti tabby molly with dark blue eyes. Strict, fantastic healer. 112 moons. A snappish molly who rules over the healer's den with an iron paw. She is the best healer the Caverns have seen in generations and she knows it. No one can question her cures without a cuff over the ear. For a long time, she's refused to take an apprentice, not wanting to sully her kingdom with clumsy paws, but now that her counterpart in DuskClan retired, she's almost regretting not forcing Foggypaw into the position (being the only one of the two she could tolerate). WARRIORS: FIREGLIDE - A medium-furred ginger and black spotted torbie molly with copper eyes. Daring, steady paws. 90 moons. A thrill seeker through and through, Fireglide is a free spirit who struggles with taking responsibility for her own actions. She does what she wants, when she wants, and it's hard to direct her towards a task. However, when she puts her mind to something she will do it to obsession. She has a habit of occupying her paws with fiddly tasks to keep them busy. PLUMSTRIPE - A medium-furred dark ginger sokoke tabby tom with pale yellow eyes. Bold, great hunter. 89 moons. A quiet but steady tom, Plumstripe is the only real dependable warrior in DuskClan and he carries that responsibility with a tired humor. He often wears himself thin on patrols, picking up after other cats' slack, and will cover for them and make excuses even if he probably shouldn't. GINGERSTORM - A long-furred dorsal striped dark ginger molly with faded white points and green eyes. Gloomy, talented swimmer, great storyteller. 59 moons. Gingerstorm is a cat that's nearly always in a bad mood. She carries pessimism around her like a shroud and always gripes that she's not a good warrior and that she shouldn't be trusted. She resents Furledstar for forcing her to be responsible for an apprentice, and resents Foggypaw even more for being so damn likable. APPRENTICE: FOGGYPAW

APPRENTICES: FOGGYPAW - A long-furred grey ticked tabby tom with heavy white spotting and sage eyes. Charismatic, lover of stories, oddly observant. 7 moons. Foggypaw is smarter than he looks. He seems playful and easily excitable and he is those things, but he plays it up because he knows other cats talk more around him if they think he's a brainless young cat. He has a secret friendship with Fluffypaw of DawnClan, teasing her that their mothers were only a whisker away from picking the same name. He knows his mentor, Gingerstorm, doesn't like being chained to an apprentice and is trying desperately to get her approval. TULIPPAW - A black tabby tom with white stomach and paws and grey eyes. Childish, splashes in puddles and constantly climbing. 7 moons. He's quieter than his brother, but causes much more trouble. Tulippaw is rather impulsive and Furledstar does nothing to curb his reckless behavior, even goes so far to encourage his habit of climbing trees and jumping into the river without checking for Nightbeasts first. Tulippaw thinks himself invincible and no cat can tell him any different. He looks up to Foggypaw and hangs onto his brother's every word. ELDERS: CLOUDHEART - A pale grey rosetted tabby molly with yellow eyes. Troublesome, great hunter, talented swimmer. 143 moons. Cloudheart might have retired a few seasons ago, but she refuses to stay in camp, wandering the Twilight and hunting as much as she pleases. She figures that if she feeds herself, then the other cats don't have to work so hard and she gets a chance to quell her boredom. Everyone wins. She loves putting her paws into the stream by the waterfall and is always trying to convince some warriors to take her on a patrol to the lake.

MAPLESONG - A medium-furred dark grey sokoke tabby molly with crow feathers and yellow-green eyes. Confident, good mediator, natural intuition. 122 moons. Mother of Furledstar and Boragebud. A sharp-minded molly, she imparted her eye for strategy to Furledstar and her confident, people-reading skills to Boragebud. She's very close to both her kits and can be a bit smothering at times. She has a beautiful voice and loves finding small nooks and crannies near DuskClan's Rockfall in camp that have the best acoustics.