Are You Alright? Can You Hear Me? [P]

[Alchemist Kitsune]

https://warriorcatsonline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=5125&pictureid=41664
| Lightningstorm |
27 Moons - WindClan Medicine Cat
Flock Together [Tier 3] - Active | Mind Reader - Active | Dreamwalker - Active | Katty Krueger - Inactive


It had been a couple of moons since that dreaded nightmare. The one that had left her speechless. Had coincided with the loss of her apprentice. Had made her all but openly admit to the others that her memories had returned. The one silver lining she'd seen to all this was that at least she had never tried to hide the fact that she remembered it all again. It had merely never come up, and as she believed the fact changed nothing concerning her position within the clan, she never made a point of making it a topic of conversation. The leader and deputy had remained without comment upon her own tangents during the night of that last prophecy, so she had to assume they shared her view on the matter and let it rest as she had before. Besides, she had more important tasks at paw.

Ever since that night, she had been trying to reach her former mentor, attempting to cross the barrier into the Dark Forest and find him. This was easier said than done, especially when, despite having evidently been to the Dark Forest before, she hadn't gone there of her own accord. She had been pulled there, and much as she would like to bring Cowtuft to her she had a feeling that would be even harder than attempting to find him herself. She hadn't yet forgotten the look of the other who had swiped him away from her before. When she had called out her fond name for him by instinct despite having no clue who he'd been at the time. It made her sick with worry now that she knew, or rather understood better what had happened. Was he alright? Could he hear her as he was being dragged away through the mud?

She wasn't sure if that very thought was what brought her here. The memory of the moistened earth. The dank, dark place they had met before. Would this be their dance for the rest of time? Him being ripped away from her through forces outside of their control while they were left with little more than empty days feeling lost and alone? Lightningstorm loved him. She knew this. It did not matter they were not related. He was family, and it hurt her to think that he had met such a lonesome, regret filled death so as to have her feet now wading through flooded misery. One so familiar it almost felt like home to her as well.

"Tufty?" the lithe calico finally called, darkness encompassing as yet another step taken echoed the water her paws were now submerged in. "Did I finally make it?"


wolfie [Cowtuft]

[wolfie]

https://i.postimg.cc/xC51vP7x/cowtuft-headshot-header.png

✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚ [ COWTUFT ‼ ] ˚｡⋆ ༘˚✧
┆彡 THE MARTYR| DARK FOREST RESIDENT | 28 MOONS (AT DEATH) ✮✮✮
✩｡°°｡✩ he . . him ➔ massive white tom with black splotches and floppy ears. scars cover his neck. x-marks on his shoulders and his left hindleg is covered in burn scars
╭₊˚purrks﹕monkey's paw, the collector, herb knowledge, kitty softpaws ₊˚੭
✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

⌦ .｡.:* ✮ Alchemist Kitsune
Time always left him when he laid within the darkness that wrapped around body like a suffocating smog; resting beneath the rotting ground that dripped water onto his fluffy fur. He knew above ground would provide no solace. The sky was always just as starless — void of light. Instead, Cowtuft had his mind playing loop of his last previous moons alive. Always fragments, things that left him more confused than before. It left him grasping at what was absent.

He had spent moons — ages where the role of medicine cat became a second pelt. He could wrap wounds in his sleep, the majority of injuries had became second nature. (KNOWLEDGE LET TO COMPLIANCE; CALAMITY.) In a sense it was hyperbole, but he knew the lost of control he experienced during his rest was all the unnerving. It was the unknown that truly ate at the medicine cat. He took responsibility all the same, but he needed to know the sin as well as he had once known his faith.

He did not know how else to repent. His connection with the living world felt out of his paws; he understood the afterlife as little as before. It left him in the cycle of running from and chasing the horrors that haunted him.

It is no shock to say how utterly flabbergasted Cowtuft was when felt a familiar voice tug at him. Pulling him somewhere else; away from the past. Water met his paws, and he couldn't see where she was within the abyss but ever so slowly did he follow the sound of her voice. His pawsteps were cautious, as if stepping with too much pressure would cause it to all break.

She had called him Tufty again. It made him overjoyed; terrified.

"L..lit..little l-lily..?" came his cracking voice, floppy ears perking up. (Was this a red herring? Would it crumble into a nightmare?) His feathery tail hung low, but his mismatched irises shone with a slimmer of hope. (It all came with a price.) Oh goodness, he had never imagined this would how it would be. Never.

[Alchemist Kitsune]

https://warriorcatsonline.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=5125&pictureid=41664
| Lightningstorm |
27 Moons - WindClan Medicine Cat
Flock Together [Tier 3] - Active | Mind Reader - Active | Dreamwalker - Active | Katty Krueger - Inactive


The corners of her eyes stung as the orbs grew moist with unshed tears, the name that only he had ever called her feeling like a warm embrace she never thought she'd every get to know again. It took her complete willpower to not thrust herself forward and run to him at that very instant, understanding that this was not a place of safety. She still remembered their last encounter. The way he had been torn from that meeting. Would that vile creature be here again? Determination made her heart pound harder within her chest as she decided that this time... she would be ready. She had shredded precious little Cindersky back to whatever corner of StarClan she had come from, and the former ThunderClanner had not dared intrude upon her dreams again. She would do the same to this assailant if he dared try to come between her and Cowtuft again.

With this, a surge of bravery - or idiocy, as she was fond to call it - flowed through her, coaxing her to place a step forward, lapis hues finding those glimmering, hopeful, mismatched eyes of his before she finally spoke, her voice far more wet and feeble than she intended it to sound. It was, evidently, hard to keep that composure she had worked so many moons to accomplish when she got to see him again for the first time since that cursed day when she had promised him she would stay. Not for them... they didn't deserve his love, devotion, and loyalty. But for him. Because she had always known his heart, and knew he was too kind a cat... too good a cat for what he had been judged of.

"Tufty! It's you! Stars... I was starting to think I couldn't breach... Should have known my stubbornness is stronger than any barrier. I... Oh, to hell with it!"

And just like that, her mask failed her, tears leaking out freely as Lightningstorm rushed forward, attempting to cling to the cat she so dearly thought of. The family she had lost. The one that had left a gaping hole in WindClan that could never be replaced. Perhaps her clanmates had no idea what they had lost, but the wound felt far too fresh once again at the sight of him. She had a reason to be here. She knew as much. The medicine cat had no idea either if they would be able to hold on to this meeting for long... but for once, selfishness took over. She would question Cowtuft over what he knew in due time. But no meeting with family long gone should ever start without a proper showering of love.


wolfie [Cowtuft]
| Poor Cowtuft about to get a storm of questions tossed at him in the next post... but for now, he gets a hug. :nuggle: |