Fandom A Bird's Last Song

[Chill Alley Cat]

The sky was white for the sun's fiery blaze, Greenleaf's heat unmerciful on the poor group of lean and wiry cats. The sun scorched their thin pelts, the smallest cream tabby of the group, RunningFrond, having to take breaks to pant hot air before she could catch up with the other two warriors. A tall ginger tom led the patrol during their last stretch of the border as they began to near the wooden fencing of the twoleg place, his jaw agape in a failed attempt to cool off.

RunningFrond stopped for about the fourth time under the cooling shade of a fenced willow, her round bottom plopping onto the grassy earth. The ginger, LeapingBrook, groans at her laziness.

"We're almost back to camp you know." He huffs as he sits down under the shade, the branches' sway relaxing sight easing the tension from his form. A more squared-out she-cat, SilentBreeze, lay on her back under the soft patch of shadow, a sigh escaping her as she stretched between her clanmates. The ginger rolled his eyes at the two before settling down in the tall grasses, his chin resting on the dirt.

The two she-cats seemed at ease to simply close their eyes and enjoy the sounds of Greenleaf before continuing on their harrowing border patrol. LeapingBrook looked about the landscape, the grass yellow in the sunshine's heat and the wind blowing over his pelt like hot breaths as ants crawled between the weeds.

He huffs a puff of air as he watched the line of red specs march in great numbers, using his curiosity to motivate him to move. He hugged the splitting wood fencing, the seams between planks wide as the paint faded in the sun. He hears behind him the protest against the movement as RunningFrond and SilentBreeze groan for his return and begs to rest a moment longer.



The lean tom ignores the two, keeping his eyes on the ground as he followed the peculiar little bugs, his paws stumbling across the dirt in the heat. He turns his attention away from his surroundings, not noticing the returning clouds casting away the sun. The shadow makes the entirety of the plains shaded and change hue.

He neared where he would turn to head back to camp, the spot marked by the pawprints of many patrols before him. He listened in to hear from his group only to find nothing. While he did stray a bit far from the two resting she-cats, he couldn't hear anything. Not a sound.

He observed his surroundings, suddenly unnerved by the sudden silence, hearing no birds or the bustling of prey in the grass. The only thing that accompanied him was his own breath. He felt his heart quicken just a beat as he eyed the scape once more, the tall weeds still and of no variation in color under the clouded sky.

LeapingBrook felt his pelt prickle at the disturbance, unease ready to consume his entire form as if watching him from behind his back. He could hear it licking its lips. He jumped a foot into the air when he felt something brush along his back, a yelp leaving his throat.



"I know you're jumpy but for Starclan's sake-" Silentbreeze snorted, having to cover her muzzle with a paw to control her laughter as RunningFrond giggled behind her. LeapingBrook's entire pelt felt red in embarrassment, huffing some sorry excuse under his breath completely flustered for having such a noise leave his mouth.

"Wait- I really didn't mean to scare you-!" The pale she-cat coughed, her laughing now clear as day. RunningFrond steps beside him to comfort the tom, who was absolutely frozen as he turned back to them. The cream she-cat struggled to control herself as she shook the tom's shoulder. He stared right through her. Her smile faded slightly as she shook LeapingBrook once more, only getting the ghost of a stammer to leave his pale face as patrol turned to see what he was looking at.

A single black eye stared through the fence's spacing, completely still and containing no recognition, only shifting to take a breath. Its pupil so big you couldn't tell who it was watching as it shifted its weight, it crouching to reach eye level. It only hovered between the weak fencing's gap, pressing against the barrier in a weak attempt to reach out as you could hear the parting of its teeth.

"It's just one dog." Ordered SilentBreeze, guiding her younger clan mates away from the fence as they stepped backward. It almost lagged to register their walking away, before a spark of intuition finally reached the deepest pit of its socket. In its throat gurgled a weak ruff almost testing its voice box as the vibration rumbled throughout the patrol's bodies, realizing its power.

It barked. It barked again and again and again, the noise almost cackling through the air to ravage their ears as it horrifyingly splitted into a cacophony of guttural noise that shook you to the core. Many, no, dozens of eyes now pressed against the woods fencing, canines poking between gaps, as they lashed about to be free.

SilentBreeze despite trying to remain calm, turned her tail and ran blindly into the plains of open space and carried by adrenaline. RunningFrond was quick to follow, her steps clumsy in the panic as she scatter about to get away from the danger.

LeapingBrook watched at the wood splintered under their might.












WisteriaPaw yawned as she laid on her back in the clearing, her long ear flicking in boredom as she watched the clouds move. She eyed lazily as her clanmates moved their maws up in down and groomed one another before closing them again with a groan. The white apprentice often found herself at her wit's end after she rushed to finish up her apprentice duties, always forgetting how much she hated her free time.

Her long tail swats against the rounder molly beside her, opening one eye to smirk as she imagined MagpiePaw's chest hitched and expelled with a huff of annoyance. The albino closed her eyes again and swatted her wispy tail against the she-cat's face again.

It may not be much entertainment, but messing with MagpiePaw was enough fun.

 

[cuzn]

It was too hot.

Magpiepaw was in that strange place between being awake and being asleep, although it was made just as groggy by the deliriousness that the glaring sunlight left her in. Baking underneath her pelt. Eyes slightly open yet only registering color, the first feeling of awareness entered her at the obnoxious swat of Wisteriapaw's tail. And then again, this time at her face. Annoyance set in. Hazily rising to her paws, the disheveled molly sniffed, then huffed, then shook her pelt and gave Wisteriapaw a squinting glare. Ugh!

In contrast to her friend—she suppose they were friends by now, weren't they?—Magpiepaw picked up on the chattering of clanmates and the sounds of the field instantly. The rattling of dry, golden flocks of overgrown grass, and the happy buzzing of bees hovering near dandelion patches, and the gentle sighs of the sky and its breathing... Magpie stood there hearing for a moment (not quite listening, but simply experiencing it all) before her chestnut brown eyes again focused on Wisteriapaw. She seems bored. But it's not like I have anything for her to do.

Attention now drawing towards the medicine den, she wondered vaguely if anyone had something for her to do. Morningsage hadn't called for her since she had been tasked with sorting through the recent herb stores that morning, and even that had only taken a little while. The only affliction that this season brought was thirst, and there was no herb that could cure dehydration better than water could.

Subconsciously, she licked the roof of her mouth. Dry. Had he been half-asleep with her mouth open or something?

After a full stretch that bristled the splotched fur along her spine, Magpiepaw began with slow pace towards the camp's entrance. If nocat needed her, she could at least head out for a drink. If only the camp had a pool of water in it, thirst wouldn't always be such a long walk to quench. Those RiverClan cats really were lucky.

With a tiny spark of curiosity, Magpie turned, and glanced over her shoulder in Wisteriapaw's direction. Her stub tail perked up, and her head tilted to one side as if to ask, coming?—before she slipped out of camp and began downhill towards the lake's glittering blue surface. At sunhigh, the sparkles were so bright she thought they may blind her, and yet despite the mild headache and the heat underneath her pelt, Magpiepaw was now in rising spirits.

 

[Chill Alley Cat]

WisteriaPaw felt the pelt besides her stir, the albino turning to rest on her haunches for her red gaze to scan MagpiePaw. Her stubby tail wagged, pulling the apprentice up to her feet as she examined the cat closely.

With her mentor and half sister, SilentBreeze, had gone on a border patrol leaving her with nothing to do. Her red eyes rested on the apprentice before her, focusing on the way she had to lip her lips to understand their destination.

The two always seemed to end up the last of the bunch, tending to be the last picked for patrols and training sessions. WisteriaPaw sometimes wished she knew the cat more but MagpiePaw was hesitant to open up, especially to a brazen cat like her.

To unfocus from wistful thoughts that haunted her as she trotted out of camp she bounded up besides the Molly, her tail swatting across MagpiePaw’s ears with a playful flick. She made a motion with her paws, her claws shaping to be a single straight dash to challenge the apprentice to a race.

Not bothering to see the quieter cat’s response, she dashed forward running to lake’s blinding surface.

 

[cuzn]

Medicine apprentices weren't trained for speed like warriors were. Speed simply wasn't required for the job. Still, she took the challenge immediately and pushed off on her back legs to bound after her leaner, much more athletic friend. The greenleaf season brought warmer, drier colors to the moorlands; patches of dry grass dusted green fields gold, and the remaining patches of wildflowers from newleaf's bloom now only contained the petals of dandelions, buttercups, clovers, and ragwort. It had the open fields looking like they had been kissed by the sun.

The air tasted like grass. Mounting another hill, Magpiepaw quickened her pace as the path sloped downwards, her paws feeling like they were flying with every leap. Even so, Wisteriapaw was much stronger, and much faster, clearly the product of training that Magpiepaw had never received. She travelled with the wind at her face, the clean scent of the lake and the golden reeds and the sandbank washing over her even while she was still a ways off; the Twolegplace, far to their left, was barely an afterthought in her mind.

Magpiepaw had lost. That wasn't a big deal to her though; she wasn't the competitive type. She had just enjoyed the run. When she neared the lake's edge, she slowed to a trot, still feeling light on her paws when she touched down onto silky pale sand littered with broken shells. She only gave Wisteriapaw a passing glance—though she didn't smile—before lowering at the shore to begin gulping down water.

The sand bank only appeared in greenleaf. That was probably why it was so uncomfortable and littered with shells and slimy green lake-plants. They weren't quite suffering from drought yet, but chances of it were high for the next two moons. She didn't know what she would do if the lake's water level kept lowering at the rate it was now.

 

[Chill Alley Cat]

My notifications absolutely suck. So sorry for the wait//

WisteriaPaw bounded forward, her eyes hardening as they focus on the sunlight dancing on the lake's surface. Her vision blinded by the scenery, she chooses to zero in on how it felt when her lunges caused her paw to hit the earth beneath her. Her stride parted the way through the tall grasses, her fur tossed about with her motion, feeling long blades occasionally brush past her pelt.

The albino was so entranced by the feeling of power expelling out her pads with every leap forward, she almost tossed herself into the shallowing lake. The apprentice had to skid to a stop, her claws unsheathed to drag across the dirt leaving long stretches of talon marks in her wake before her paws sat safely on the edge of the bank. Her chest expanded and expelled, the run finally allowing her to enjoy the breeze that washed across the lake to cool her face.

As WisteriaPaw looked back to Magpiepaw, she couldn't help but hope the apprentice was impressed by her sprint. She felt her pelt heat up in embarrassment at the need to show off her warrior training to a medicine cat apprentice, now turning her attention to her long tail that dipped into the lake to distract herself from the hope the molly didn't notice how hard WisteriaPaw tried. She grimaced as green muck stuck to her white fur when the algae followed the she-cat's testing tug on her tail.


As the colorful she-cat sat beside her, a peculiar bounce in her step informed WisteriaPaw of her enjoyment. She smiled at the apprentice's joy, MagpiePaw's calm presence resting her bubbling thoughts for just a moment longer.

She waited for the she-cat to get her drink, parting her way with a gesturing nod to invite the cat to the waters. As she waited, she felt her pelt prickle under the sun's screaming heat that tickled her sensitive skin. She peered into her reflection, her dull red eyes facing back at her. If her friend had spoken to her she wouldn't have heard it.

WisteriaPaw got this weird feeling that struck her heart and poisoned her gut, the sourness of shame tingling inside her for no apparent reason. It felt familiar and unwelcomed, remembering its presence visiting her whenever a cat spoke to her by accident or when SilentBreeze gave her a smile of encouragement laced with sadness. Her eyebrows pinched together as her reflection rippled, turning to MagpiePaw instead.

The apprentice seemed not to notice her as the albino turned to her tail, the stub cut short with nobs and nooks of teeth marks. WisteriaPaw hid her unpleasant feelings, but a weight lifted off her shoulders as loneliness left her. She looked back down to the lake's surface, her mirror image disputing as she lapped at the drink quenching her.



She did however think back to what had taken SilentBreeze so long during her patrol.

 

[cuzn]

// no worries, mine are bad too ^^;

Wisteriapaw was easier to get along with. Other apprentices were so talkative, and warriors always seemed in some way blinded by their authority over their juniors for them to hold a proper friendship. But Magpie didn't need to speak to communicate with her; it left her feeling, for the first time, slightly less alone in her affliction, which Wisteriapaw likely didn't even know that she had. The mute didn't need to apologize for her silence to a deaf cat.

Finally quenched, Magpiepaw stood up and took a better look around the lake and the territories surrounding it, as she wondered rather passively if there were any herbs in particular she should go and gather. Medicine cats were allowed to go where they pleased for the sake of gathering specific herbs, and for the most part every clan was aware that she was WindClan's medicine cat, but if someone were to question her at the border...

Magpiepaw's attention eventually found the Horseplace. Just west of it was the Twolegplace, an area she hadn't visited since she had been found by Morningsage as a kit. Magpie had been born a kittypet, and while the sequence of events that led her into WindClan were buried deep into her subconscious memory, she could very vaguely recall the taste of vanilla milk from a saucer and a collar's little jingle every time she moved. What would she have done with herself if Morningsage hadn't found her that day?

She definitely wouldn't be enjoying the lakeside breeze with Wisteriapaw, that was for sure.

Returning her gaze to the lake, Magpiepaw sat down and studied its blue-green surface in comfortable quiet. The reeds rattled in the slight breeze, and after her drink she no longer felt like she was burning under her fur, but now that she was simply pleasantly warm.

 

[Chill Alley Cat]

Her paws shifted, a content sigh escaping from her as she sat up tall on the lake’s bank among tall reeds and cattails. She looked to Magpie who already satisfied her thirst, following her gaze to the bordering twolegs, Windclan cornered by the large barn and wooden fencing of their nest.

She observed as the soft apprentice was absorbed by her thoughts, the healer in training's face a mellow calm. WisteriaPaw’s short attention span replacing the restful coziness that blanket her pelt with stinging boredom. She lifted her tail from the lake, swiping the mess of green on the other’s pelt in a gross smudge. The immediate disgust entertaining her greatly.






Terror paralyzed the ginger tom as he layer splayed under the heaving chest of beasts, circled by their scrapping talons and dripping maws.

Laying perfectly still as his breath caught painfully in his throat, the action forcing him to focus on the sneering pains in his back legs. He couldn’t look anywhere but into their black eyes that hover above him, looking anywhere else beside him would force him to address their power as blood that wasn’t his splattered against his fur.

A drip of saliva pooling upon his breath caused him to seize up for just a moment, a jolt of utter panic spreading to his very core. They felt it too, their reaction immediate.






WisteriaPaw bounced in fount of MagpiePaw, her ears peeking and tail flicking about in playfulness. She allowed her self to enjoy her time with the apprentice, the bank of the river shinning with the fiery life that surrounded the hills and plains.

The albino’s coat shined in the sun, the odd ends of her fur catching the sun as she bounded about around the Molly. Crows circled out of her vision over the opposite side of camp, the she-cat faced away from the tornado of black as she couldn’t hear their calls.