#scabpaw

[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.”

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--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.’

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

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

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Duckkit (short story)

“I thought you said you told her,” Fleathistle sighed as he stopped beside Fungichomp. His shoulders slumped.

“I did,” Fungichomp responded. He didn’t need to ask who Fleathistle was talking about.

“Were you clear enough?” Fleathistle asked. He indicated with his tail toward the clearing entrance, where Duckkit was watching excitedly as parents were beginning to retrieve their kits. “She still expects them to take her home.”

“She’s two moons old, Fleathistle,” Fungichomp pointed out roughly, the terrible situation making him easily irritated. “I told her that her mother and father died, that they can’t come back, that she won’t see them again, everything. I thought she understood. She cried for the rest of the day, no one could console her. But then it was as if she forgot that she was ever told anything, and just kept asking when her mommy or daddy were coming, or if they were coming soon. I don’t know how many more of those questions I can take. I know I can’t tell her a tenth time that her parents are dead. She’s so innocent.”

Fleathistle bristled. “They both just died? You believe that? Maybe someone did something. I wouldn’t put it past Myrtlewing, or those twins.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Fungichomp agreed, remembering when Scabpaw and Blightpaw were under his care, and shuddered. “But Clawbear saw it, and he’s a terrible liar. The ground was too dark to tell grass from cliff.  She fell, he tried to grab her….it was a tragedy. Funny. We should be used to those by now.”

Fleathistle slumped to the ground. “What do we say, then?”

Fungichomp shook his head, feeling utterly lost. “I don’t know what we can say that she will remember. Looking for one’s parents is an innate instinct hard to ignore, especially for a kit that doesn’t understand death. All she knows is that her parents leave her here when they need to, and that they pick her up when business is finished. She just…she can’t understand why they’re not picking her up.”

As he spoke, they watched Duckkit. Her tail had stuck up eagerly, bouncing around the parents as she searched them for a familiar pelt. Gradually, her smile faded. She sat heavily, and once again, tears began to well in her eyes.

“I’ll talk with her,” Fleathistle offered, rising. 

“Thank you,” Fungichomp told him. But sorrow continued to weigh in his chest like a frozen stone. He had had kits in his care without parents before, but never before had one been with him after their parents had died. What was he to do, now?

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--both Fungi and Flea belong to @wills-woodland-warriors

--Flea and Myrtle, and I think Fungi are on good terms, but with the situation, their tense. Also..reasonable to not put it past Myrtle.