#falleniris story

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

The Welcome Committee (short story)

Bloomwhisker flinched back, blocking his throat. But it quickly dawned on him that the scenery had changed. No longer did he have Fringesong lunging at him, he was alone in a forest rank with the scent of blood. The trees were massive, littered with countless claw marks with roots the size of Bloomwhisker’s head twisting out of the ground like gnarled fangs.

He was surrounded by a cluster of sharp-edged boulders. He could feel them beneath his paws, rough and scraping even though he barely moved. Puddles of crimson-red mud–or what he hoped was mud–filled the hollow gaps in the stone.

As everything set in, sights, and sounds, and feeling, Bloomwhisker realized where he was. It wasn’t long after that that a tune reached his ears, a sing-song whistle like birdsong, only with a strange slowness, and as if the tongue was snagging in all the wrong places. It made Bloomwhisker’s hair stand rigid along his suddenly very icy spine.

He whipped around in time to see two surprisingly small warriors–apprentices?--leap onto one of the boulders. They stood in such a way that Bloomwhisker wasn’t entirely sure that one wasn’t the shadow of the other, movements so synchronized it made him dizzy. But one was spotted brown and black with yellow eyes, and the other was dark with a darker back and some spots, with blue eyes surrounding slitted pupils so intense that they had Bloomwhisker backing up until his back hit the wall of another large rock.

He jumped away when laughter sounded above him. He whipped around and saw a she-cat, definitely older than the two, but very similar in appearance to the black-and-white cat. Her eyes were multicoloured, one of them icy like the dark cat.

She raised her chin into the air and sniffed, shaking her head while smiling. “It’s been too long since I’ve smelled such terror, and we’ve only just started talking. Take it in, girls, you’ll miss it when it’s gone.”

That only served to make Bloomwhisker’s heart thump harder. He turned again, to the side this time, and slipped on one of the puddles. 

“Graceful,” a new voice chimed in. Bloomwhisker looked up, eyes bulging out of his thrumming skull. A brown tom with lighter forelegs stood on the highest rock, standing with his pads on the pointed stone as if it didn’t bother him at all.

“I–uhm, uh…” This was a trick, a joke. Bloomwhisker knew what to expect, Nettlefrog had warned him. “Where’s Ferndoe?” The kind she-cat. She was supposed to meet him, she meets everyone.

“Sorry, spotty,” the tom grinned. “We’re the welcome committee today.”

========================

--There’s no way Myrtle will just stop killing. But killing cats in Starclan, though he’s done before, is way too complicated, and he can’t do it often. If he kills soemone in the Dark Forest, cats throw a fit.

But if he kills someone new, too new for anyone to really be bothered by it beyond disgruntled annoyance? Most cats here are murderers, after all--they’re not going to be shocked by more murder.

--Aw, and look! He decided to bring his daughter and grandkits! He does kill with others, it was just their time today. Scab and Blight are young apprentices at this time.

--Yes, Fallen questions why she’s so evil, but she still does evil things.

--Bloomwhisker’s story is very vague, all I know is that they and another friend, Nettlefrog, were doing evil stuff at the same time. Nettlefrog died first and was visited by Ferndoe before going into Bloomwhisker’s dreams and telling him about it. 

That’s why Bloomwhisker expecting Ferndoe to greet him.

--Bloom is spotted, which is why he’s called ‘spotty.’

===========================

Taglist: @starfalcon555 @wills-woodland-warriors @elementaldeityoffood

@ambitiousauthor @liberhoe @umbranoxs other names just don’t tag

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Confusing Lack of Feelings (short story)

Fallenkit tried not to make her discomfort obvious, but her whole body was tense, ready to spring at a moment’s notice despite the fact that she knew–she knew–that she was safe in her dad’s embrace. She wasn’t discreet enough. 

Myrtlewing paused his grooming. “What’s wrong?” he asked, because he always has to ask when he notices someone of the Eye-Out Thorns is unhappy. Why does someone like him care? 

Pipitfeather died just over two moons ago. Myrtlewing hadn’t so much as shed a tear.

“Nothing,” she mumbled back.

“You lie as well as your father,” Myrtlewing told her gently. Too gently. “Would you mind not making me pry like he does before he admits that something is bothering him?”

Fallenkit sighed. Sitting up, she turned to face him, his paws still stretched out on either side of her. Her voice was scratchy as she spoke. “Was he really your son?” They had looked similar enough.

Myrtlewing’s eyes remained blank. “In the blood sense, yes, he was. I didn’t know he even existed until he arrived here as an adult, however.”

“Does that make a difference?”

Myrtlewing shrugged. “It does for me.”

“Would you not care if you met me as an adult?”

Myrtlewing’s eyes widened only a fraction as he realized his mistake. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But I would like to get to know you. And I love you the way you are now, adult you would be the same, only with more great traits for me to love.”

Fallenkit wished that what he was saying was helpful. She knew that it was kind, endearing, but she also knew her dad was a wonderful liar, and that everything he was saying could be utter dung. “Do you not love blood?” She still didn’t understand why she was so different, why Myrtlewing was so furious about seeing her hurt at the same time he stared at Pipitfeather’s decaying, dying form without a twitching whisker.

“I don’t think blood is everything,” Myrtlewing answered. “I didn’t love Pipitfeather, he never bothered talking to me. I did respect him, because if he is my kin then he is good, until he attacked you. There was nothing for me to love or respect then.”

Fallenkit wished that she could shake her head and have all the jumbled thoughts she had spill out of her ears, so that her dad’s words could fill the space and make sense. She knew it should, she knew it sounded reasonable, and she knew that her mind was so overfilled with confusion that more words only added to the collection instead of dispersing it.

She wasn’t even sure if her dad’s lack of emotion was what bothered her the most. It was her own.

She had been comforting by many healers–Myrtlewing, Fleathistle, Shiverrose, even Pumpkinpatch who also hates her father, every one of her kin from great ancestors to siblings, and her aunt Ferndoe. They had all said the same thing, that they understood she was hurt and confused, that it was okay to cry.

The problem was that Fallenkit only felt the confusion in addition to anger. She was angry at Pipitfeather and all those cats, most dead again now, for tricking her, for earning her trust and shattering it so that she looked like a fool. She was angry because they had hurt her and Waspkit for revenge they had nothing to do with. She was confused because that is the only thing she felt, and she was confused because Myrtlewing seemed to feel nothing, besides his concern for her.

Waspkit was still having nightmares. He still didn’t like talking about what had happened.

Fallenkit only had bad dreams for a few nights before they went away, and her reaction when she woke up was no where near as intense as Waspkit’s wailing. He cried about being attacked and witnessing Pipitfeather’s horrible death. 

Fallenkit didn’t think seeing it had been a huge deal until others started to say that it was.

What was wrong with her?

Her dad was the same. She knew that much, they were open about it, how he had trouble feeling things unless it was for those he already cared deeply for–that itself also confused her. How could you care deeply for someone and care nothing for another? How do you begin to care deeply for someone if you feel nothing for them to begin with?

Was it really a blood issue? Did she get it from him, or because he raised her?

If she talked to someone else in her blood, someone not on his side and who felt things, who was normal, perhaps she could be normal then, too.

She had been silent for a while in her thoughts, so Myrtlewing had resumed his grooming. After a while longer, he began to doze off. His chin rested on her back. Carefully, she slipped out and began moving through the thorns to the outside. She was almost there when behind her, someone spoke.

“Where are you going?” Wolfpool asked. He and his siblings, as well as their parents–everyone in the family, in fact–had temporarily moved back to the main den after the kits had been attacked. Fallenkit should be grateful for it. Yet she felt nothing.

Of course she should have known that they would be extra ditiligent. There were multiple guards keeping watch on each side. Fallenkit wasn’t allowed to leave without an adult. 

Wolfpool was an adult.

Debating on a lie, she decided to tell the truth. Wolfpool looked at her, then looked around them. “Okay,” he said more hushed, “duck under my belly so they won’t see you.”

Fallenkit did was told. It was difficult to manuver around the remaining branches that blocked their path, and to move as fast as her nephew while mud sucked all along her legs. She stayed hidden while Wolfpool asked anyone who passed them for directions, until at last they stopped at a large rock. It was tilted, leaning heavily against another, with vines draping down the entrance.

“Hello?” Wolfpool called.

A young, black tom with orange and bright flecks stepped out. He raised a brow. “Uh, yes?”

“Is Tanglestar here?” Fallenkit asked, stepping out.

The tom blinked at her. He turned to face the entrance. “Tanglestar! You have–uhm–visitors?”

There was shuffling, and a mumbling response, then a sleepy black tom with bigger orange and white splotches stepped out into the red light. When his eyes met Fallenkit’s, they stretched wide.

Fallenkit held his gaze firmly. “Are you my other dad?”

=============================

--Fallen calls Alder “father,” Myrtle “dad,” and Grouse “papa.”

--The Pipitfeather thing happened 2+1/2 moons ago. Fallen and Wasp are about 3+1/3 moons old, roughly.

Fallen is a ‘wise beyond her years’ kit while Wasp is a sweet baby.

--Remember how I said that Fallen feel nothing like Myrtle does, but questions it? Here we are!

--Taglist: @ambitiousauthor @wills-woodland-warriors @umbranoxs @starfalcon555 @liberhoe @elementaldeityoffood (if you weren’t tagged it’s most likely because Tumblr doesn’t tag some usernames for some reason, not because I forgot or don’t care!)

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Broken Bundles (short story)

Previous: https://www.tumblr.com/residents-of-the-darkforest/731013518657191937/the-sick-kits?source=share

=========================

Magpieshine wondered how many times a heart could break before its shattered remains became too brittle to piece back together. As a ‘paw, she would have expected not often, maybe just once, yet now every time she so much as spared a glance in the direction of her youngest siblings, she felt her heart squish into cold shards that pierced her chest and throat, choking it and making her hold back sobs. 

She never got to meet her little brother, Lionkit. He was buried before she was able to return to the Eye-Out Thorns once she was told of the situation. Part of her was grateful for that–she would have likely only seen his skeletal remains. Still, it pained her that she did not have the chance to see him. He was buried in the main den of the family, where her parents, Grousemane, Hootpetal, Alderstar, and Myrtlewing sleep. Uncustomary for many, but the family wanted him as close to them as possible.

Magpieshine gazed around numbly at the faded-green plants in the den around her. The family had relocated briefly to Myrtlewing’s medicine den with the three still-living kits. 

The tiny bundles were incredibly thin, even when they were coaxed to eat–which often took a good part of the day to do. It was hard enough finding herbs in good enough condition to be of use, even harder still to actually have the kits swallow them down. 

Magpieshine shuddered, seeing every rib of Sunkit as he stretched beside Hootpetal, who lay curled in the nest with them, encouraging them to suckle. Alderstar and Grousemane stuck as close to the kits and Hootpetal as possible. Perchclaw and Stonefern, like Magpieshine, had hardly taken their eyes off of the little ones. It was only because Myrtlewing warned against raising their  temperature with too much body heat that they didn’t curl around the kits as well.

Magpieshine doubted she had ever seen Myrtlewing so attentive before. He rarely ever removed his eyes from the kits, his nose always close enough to sniff out any changes immediately, and when he did move, it was to check on Hootpetal. Hootpetal thankfully didn’t catch the sickness, but ever since they moved to the medicine den, she had completely refused to leave the nest. Her fur was ruffled and in clumps. Still, she wouldn’t move. Alderstar was at her head now, grooming the fur along the side of her neck and gazing sorrowfully at his kits.

Archwing, Willowcloud, Wolfpool, Scabdrip, Redmask, and pretty much everyone else in the family had occupied themselves with gathering anything that was needed. Archwing, Magpieshine’s nephew and Myrtlewing’s grandson and former apprentice, had taken after healing, and was the one to gather needed herbs while Myrtlewing stayed in the den. 

Magpieshine frowned, thinking about her kin. The last time she had seen him, he had been panting, appearing as if he were about to drop. It was in the den and right back out with him. She didn’t think he had taken a single break from gathering herbs since the kits had been born prematurely. His littermates realized this too and chose to help, but without his experience, they weren’t always successful. 

Redmask and Scabdrip busied themselves with catching minnows or convincing–perhaps with teeth–StarClan cats to give them food to give to Hootpetal to strengthen her and her milk.

Willowcloud, Spottedtooth, Buzzardblaze, and Aspenlight would take turns collecting moss for water, while Wolfpool, Dusksong, Falleniris, and Waspbeak would search for it to change the bedding. Myrtlewing had told them that it was important to change the nest of a sick cat frequently, as it may hold some of the illness. It made sense, Magpieshine thought, seeing how much the kits’ tiny noses and mouths dripped with phlegm, though in the back of her mind she was admittedly surprised to know that Myrtlewing could actually be quite the knowledgeable, attentive, and caring medicine cat after all his murders. Then again, these kits were his as well–even if they were only Hootpetal and Alderstar’s biologically. Magpieshine herself hadn’t even been any of theirs until she was six–seven? moons old.

They are good parents. She felt that shattering again, the crackling and splintering of her heart. They don’t deserve this. The kits don’t deserve this.

She didn’t remove her head, but scented Archwing return again. She watched as he passed some yellow-orange berries to Myrtlewing. Myrtlewing still kept his eyes fixed on the kits as he chewed and Archeyes left again. He was already lowered on the ground. Coating a claw in the poultice, he gently opened Marigoldkit’s jaw. Magpieshine’s heart–shattering still–sank to the pit of her stomach as she saw that her sister didn’t protest, didn’t so much as lift a paw against him as Myrtlewing tried to get her to suckle his claw and gulp the medicine down.

It was a long time before he was able to manage it, and it was really only because the herbs got stuck on her tongue that Marigoldkit could do it at all. Myrtlewing looked like he was about to collapse with exhaustion, but he moved on right to Peonykit and then to Sunkit.

Yet even then, Myrtlewing didn’t shut his eyes. Magpieshine could see the dark lines beneath them, so clear she was surprised his face didn’t droop with their heaviness. Rising to her paws, she padded to his side and nudged him. “You need to rest.”

“I can’t afford it,” he told her simply, and it sounded like he was attempting to overpower a yawn.

“You can’t afford working yourself to death either. What good would you be to the kits if you’re too tired to focus on anything?”

“I can rest later.”

“She’s right,” Alderstar spoke up, his voice soft as Hootpetal began to snore beside him. “They need you at your best.”

Magpieshine frowned. Alderstar’s eyes looked so red, even where his sharp pupils didn’t touch. “I can watch them,” she offered. “While dad’s sleeping.”

Alderstar gave her a small smile. “Are you sure, dear? You may not know what to look for.”

“Any changes,” Magpieshine decided, thinking back to watching her father work. “Raising or lowering temperatures, struggling to breathe, struggling with anything more than usual.” She looked to Myrtlewing. “I will help them as best as I can, but if they really need you, then I will wake you. Swear it.”

Myrtlewing seemed hesitant. He frowned, grumbling. “Alright, fine. But you wake me if there’s anything at all, okay? If they’re fussy, if they’re too quiet, if they so much as sneeze, you wake me, got it? I can lose sleep but I cannot lose another kit.”

Magpieshine had to shut her eyes for a moment, willing the tears not to fall. She needed to be focused now, not emotional. She could cry later when her siblings didn’t need her. Opening them again, she met her father’s eyes. “Deal.”

================

Taglist: @ambitiousauthor @wills-woodland-warriors @starfalcon555 @frightnightindustries @liberhoe @umbranoxs

@elementaldeityoffood

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Talk With The Family (short story)

Under normal circumstances, if Fungichomp were to walk in sight of the Eye-Out Thorns, he would be looking over his shoulder continuously, and his heart would be thumping roughly. He didn’t hate nor dislike the family here–though he was certainly verging on it right now–but no one could deny that certain members especially could be unpredictable whether or not they had been friendly in previous interactions.

Now, he was too angry for fear. His entire body buzzed like a nest of enraged hornets, giving him the energy to fight off ten foxes if he so wished. 

He sat just outside of the thorns, facing Falleniris and Blackfinch–who had come from their Devour Cave den–as well as Myrtlewing, Hootpetal, Grousemane, and Alderstar, the parriarches of the family. The four didn’t seem to know what this call had been about, watching Fungichomp expectantly. Falleniris looked troubled, her gaze flitting to her paws, while Blackfinch pressed against her side. At least they were regretful.

“I understand some of you may not have heard of the tragic incident that had occurred earlier today,” Fungichomp began, his teeth grinding with the force of acting civil, when all he wanted to do was shout at these monsters for allowing their kits to become so horrible. 

Hootpetal’s ears pricked, her eyes rounding. “Tragic? At the Daycare?” Clearly, it had occurred to her that a kit must have been hurt.

“Yes,” Fungichomp told her. “Cookiekit, Alabiokit, Smewkit, Muscovykit, Vulturekit, Poplarkit, and Rhubarbkit all became very sick from Deathberry poisoning. It was for luck that Fleathistle was with us today and able to treat them.”

“Are they alright now?” Grousemane prompted, frowning. 

“They’re receiving treatment. But Frostkit, Barkkit, and Gadwallkit died.”

The group withdrew with one breath–all but Myrtlewing, of course not Myrtlewing. 

“Dead?” Hootpetal gasped. 

“Oh no!” Grousemane exclaimed.

“I’m so sorry,” Alderstar murmured in shock.

Myrtlewing watched motionlessly.

Falleniris and Blackfinch glanced at each other, then stared at their paws once more.

“How?” Hootpetal asked.

“I told the parents that it had been a mistake. We use berry juice to decorate sometimes, keeps them entertained and helps to train their paw-eye coordination. Someone–we didn’t specify who–brought in the wrong kinds, we didn’t see the kits eating them.”

“But that wasn’t the case,” Alderstar finished for him, sensing that something was going on. Why else would Fungichomp go to them directly, if his grandkits weren’t one of the sick?

“No,” Fungichomp replied. “Scabkit and Blightkit brought the berries. I didn’t realize it until it was too late.” Images flashed through his mind, of tiny writhing bodies, mouths filling with foam. The deaths had been anything but peaceful. He shivered when he remembered what came after, wailing cries so loud they still rang through his ears as they decayed while still aware, bodies liquefying and juices spilling from their mouths. The youngest of them was a single moon old.

Silence fell over the family for several long heartbeats. Then Hootpetal spoke, still shocked, but there was a touch of defensiveness in her voice. “How do you know it was them?”

“They told me to wait, and they will come back. Stars knows what that means. Whatever it does, it indicates that they knew something about those berries, and I trust everyone I work with. None of us would have brought in anything that shouldn’t have been there. None of us even collected berries today.”

“So what’s the point of this?” Myrtlewing broke in. “You got an agenda, get to it.”

Fungichomp bristled. The tom had just learned that three young kits died horrible deaths. Couldn’t he at least pretend to be sad? He also hated that the tom could see right through Fungichomp, and wasn’t afraid to let him know it. “Don’t you think something should be done?”

“About what?” Blackfinch asked nervously.

“Your kits brought in Deathberries to hurt their peers. Don’t you think that’s, I don’t know, bad?”

“Of course we know it’s bad!” Falleniris snapped. “You think we know how to fix it?”

“I think you should try,” Fungichomp responded with a growl. Was she too lazy to bother preventing the deaths of more kits?

“We know that,” Falleniris curled her lip. “What we want to know is your suggestion.”

“How about ‘act like normal parents?’” Fungichomp suggested, fury rising. “I doubt it’s a coincidence such callous kits were born into a family where a majority of their members kill cats for fun.” He glanced at Myrtlewing pointedly. 

Myrtlewing winked.

“Tell me honestly,” Alderstar spoke up. He stepped forward, authority edging his words. “Do you believe that we would be stupid enough to teach our young kits to hurt anyone they deem fit? Do you think that we don’t know that that would make them easy targets? Yes,” he added, “we teach them ways to fight, ways to defend themselves or go on the offensive, and we teach them how to kill if it is ever necessary. But we do not teach them to harm whoever whenever. Now, could you consider that maybe, just maybe, Scabkit and Blightkit heard from a story or eavesdropping that certain berries cause someone to feel bad–just bad, and wanted to try it? Or perhaps they simply wanted to paint, and found the berries themselves before their lessons. Maybe they thought it would be a tasty snack.”

Fungichomp’s skin began to twitch with doubt, but only by a twinge. “They told me to wait,” he repeated. “They said that they would ‘come back’.” A shudder crawled through his skin. Scabkit’s piercing icy eyes, staring through him, had looked like a crazed fox, smiling in amusement as the other kits wailed in agony. It was the most terrifying look he had ever seen from such a young cat.

“Meaning?” Grousemane pushed.

“Meaning Stars knows!” 

“‘They will come back,’” Myrtlewing repeated thoughtfully. “Seems to me they thought their friends would get better.”

The group was quick to nod in agreement. “We could ask them,” Hootpetal proposed. “Speculation can only get us so far, and who’s to say if we’re going in the right direction?”

“Alright, then,” Fungichomp agreed after a moment of thought. Part of him asked himself if it was a trap, if they were going to lead him to his death and silence him. The other part told him to shut up. “Where are they now?”

“Home,” Falleniris informed him. “Waspbeak and Sapdew are watching them.”

Fungichomp stood, sweeping his paw forward in a gesture. His jaw was still tensely locked. “Lead the way.”

===========================

--Featuring:

Alder being diplomatic,

Defensive family,

Myrtle being Myrtle,

Guilty parents.

--Wasp and Sap aren’t a couple at this point, but are starting to hang out a lot.

--’Parriarch’ is a gender-neutral word for the leaders of a family! Bella-May and Houndheart would technically be the ones, but everyone is more familiar with the poly, and the younger generations hang around them more (though they do visit the others).

--Remember how Scab survived and got better after eating the berry? He thought that that would happen to the other kits, and told Fungi such when they were dying.

Must have been really eerie for Fungi.

--Yes they do teach their kits to kill and stuff, but like it says, if their kits do that often, they gain many enemies. So when Buzzard and others kill cats in methods they were named for? They kill annoying or bad cats that everyone hates.

--Alder is as bad as Myrtle, but not when it comes to kits. Kits he would feel bad about.

--I mentioned before that Blackfinch came from a family that lives in caves, while Falleniris comes from a family that lives in the eye-Out Thorns. Both liked how they lived, so they put the environments together--now they live in a cave (different one, Black's family still occupies the original) and filled it with thorns. The thorns' placement seem random, but are in fact like a maze. It is easy for the unfamiliar to get lost in, never finding thier way out. In a sense, they are 'devoured' by the cave, hence the name.

--Fungichomp belongs to @wills-woodland-warriors

--Taglist: @starfalcon555 @umbranoxs @elementaldeityoffood @ambitiousauthor @liberhoe