[sleepyyjax]

 

Originally Posted by kenjaku

YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE SWALLOWED THE SUN

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ! ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

SALAMANDERKIT . 2 MOONS . SHE/HER . RIVERCLAN

DAY ONE : GROWING PAINS

 

The nursery is caving in. The ceiling is falling: heavy paws stomp it right through. Mean, heavy paws, talon-toed and bear-strong. They stomp it right through and the monsters fill the holes and the monsters seep in through the holes and the monsters make more holes for more monsters.

It's squeals and battle shouts. It's the smell from the inside of a slit prey-tummy. It's tiny bones crunching under mean, heavy monster paws. Fur pulled from skin pulled from meat. Monster mouths pull kitflesh from kitbone. What might the inside of her body look like in someone else's teeth?

Brother's jaw hangs askew, body a twisted shell. Brown and white and red all over. Mother's far away and she isn't coming this time. Where did everyone stronger go? Bitter blood-reek in her mouth, something hot and wet bubbling up in lieu of a cry for help. Silly. If they couldn't save themselves, why would she ever think they could save her?

Salamanderkit lurches awake from an early evening nap, stomach churning and pulse racing. She stands so fast she gets dizzy, spots shivering across her vision as she staggers up—out—away—!!

She's able to make it to cover (what she hopes is cover, anyway; it looks like privacy enough, but she doesn't quite check to make sure she can't be seen) before she's sick, retching up bile in small, pathetic heaves onto the grass.

( Salamanderkit has a nightmare and wakes up to be sick over it. )

She trudges back as soon as she's through, all awkward and shame-faced while her heart continues to punch a mean, runaway rhythm inside her chest. How stupid. Salamanderkit's ears are hot with embarrassment as she peers about the place, watching the older cats mess about and get settled while she waits to stop shaking. It feels like there's no shortage of work that needs to be done by everyone but her and other kits her age, and that does nothing to soothe that itchy, back-of-her-mind soreness. The monster-yuck, as she's taken to calling it, though remembering the phrase also has her remembering the nightmare she's just woken from with an unpleasant shudder.

Salamanderkit knows that they weren't really monsters, the cats who had attacked: they were just cats. From other clans (clans, plural, as she'd finally figured out from overhearing the talk; here Salamanderkit had assumed they were still only running from Windclan—to learn this was a far greater dispute than that...she couldn't name the feeling it left), but cats all the same. They had names and faces just like their own. Knowing that is worse than thinking of them as monsters, though, so Salamanderkit imagines them anonymous, shapeless, and many-fanged to ease the ache. Even after what she's just woken up from, somehow she knows it would be worse if she let them have names. If she let them be real, the way Riverclan gets to be real.

So they don't get to be. Not now and not ever.

She wants to do something about it, ultimately, but there isn't much that can be done by her. She doesn't know that she could walk half of what Tinytoad or Deerspark had walked that day alone, and even the relatively easy chore of balancing on her mother's back left her sore and fussy. She can't hunt for the clan, can't defend them on the journey, can't be called on to scout ahead for danger. All she can do is sit around, get scared, and be sick about it. And get carried like dead meat. Only the suckiest, weakest, and most boringest jobs, for her! Oh yes. Just marvelous. Exactly how it should be. Good call, life. Good call, Starclan.

Guh.

She hobbles back to where she'd been before the dream, where they'd all decided to hunker down for the night, flopping back into place with a low grunt. Fatigue has finally caught back up to her, but she sits there dreading a return to sleep.


DAY TWO : EYE OF THE TIGER

By their second stop, Salamanderkit has discovered a way to make everything, all of it, all better.

Kick-kick-kick. Bite-bite-bite. Foliage has never had a greater enemy than she. Kick-bite. Bite-kick. What is a twig? Nothing but a coward. Nothing but debris. And leaves?? Oh, don't get her started. Salamanderkit knows good and well how to put a leaf in its place. Smack-smack-smack. The hardest part is dodging the recoil, see, 'cause when you slap a branch really hard it'll first go one way before flying back the other way, right at you. She's gotten her nose flicked hard enough to make her eyes water about a half dozen times at this point.

What happened to the good old days, you roll up a bit of well-behaved moss and take it for a ride around the nursery, nobody cries and nobody gets hurt? Well, funny thing: stupid, awful, nasty monsters invaded and now there is no nursery and there are no well-behaved, simple mossballs and Salamanderkit has to resort to harassing each and every bush, shrub, and fern she comes across whenever they stop to rest in the name of training. It's something to do, some small way she can dupe herself into believing that she's being every bit as active and productive as all the grown-cats are. She can't tell if she's making any sort of meaningful improvements, but it's incredible stress-relief. There's something deeply calming in duking it out with the surrounding greenery until she's too smoked to stand. Salamanderkit's almost positive this would feel better with another cat, but she's still on the fence about it. Maybe she could hit Shellkit until she feels better but Tinytoad might have something to say about that, so she's been holding back. That's not a fight that Salamanderkit feels like starting right now, not with everything as awful as it's been lately. She might end up doing something stupid, like taking it all too seriously.

Slap-smack-wap—GAH! The bush she's bullying tonight scores a decisive revenge-shot right between her eyes after she carelessly forgets to duck. It's...highly likely she's not making any kind of progress at all, with how often this keeps happening. The shot stuns her into taking a quick break to paw irritably at her face.

@Desert Rain Frog ; TINYTOAD
@sleepyyjax ; SHELLKIT
@Marigoldwhisper ; DEERSPARK

travelband pings; the above doesn't all really need responses/acknowledgement, just what mander is up to on days 1 & 2

Day 1
Shellkit - 1 moon - he/him - RC

CWs: slight dissacociation, not extreme, mostly just daydreaming to cope. The type of stuff you'd go through if your camp was attacked at 1 moon old

Exessively bored, and basically alone with his thoughts, Shellkit found himself trying to sleep more often than not. Though Deerspark's presence was appreciated, he couldn't chat to him, nor could he see his face whilst clinging to his back. Salamanderkit was quick to climb up onto his mum's back, leaving him lacking the familiar comfort of mother or sister (well, mostly - they were walking right beside him the whole time). After a day though, he'd gotten used to it. Despite barely interacting with Deerspark, he began to feel like a familiar friend, and it was nice to get to know a warrior other than his ma. Everytime the kit felt worry and fear fill his stomach, it was easy to ground himself by feeling familiar fur beneath him.


Between naps, he noticed his sister was far more skittish than usual... It was hard to check in with her when the journey was so tiring - he could shoot a smile or words of comfort her way whilst they travelled, but each rest point was brief. The cats slept whilst they could, and once dawn broke, they set off again. Worry plauged his vision, yet he pushed it down - he wasn't sure what he could do.


On a more positive note, Shellkit was excited to see what lay beyond the camp. Great mountains, rivers, plains.. All things he'd never seen before, distant and near. He'd witnessed the camp outside the nursery less than a moon ago, maybe even days ago, so seeing the rest of the world was like a dream. His sadness surrounding the loss of his home was soon forgotten once he saw such things - keeping him in the new nursery was sure to be a chore. It's not as if he'd forgotten the clan's circumstance, it was far from it - he was just trying his hardest to ignore it. Sometimes, whilst he tried to distract himself he'd suddenly remember the things he heard and seen in the RiverClan camp - he'd quickly push it down, he'd gotten quite good at that. He'd imagine another situation, or whislt travelling he'd grab onto Deerspark's fur, and remind himself that he's nowhere near that place right now, he was in the mountains.



Day 2


Despite most of his time being spent napping, Shellkit felt fatigue fill him. He clambered off of deerspark, thanking him, then found himself a spot to rest. Constrastingly, his sister seemed vigourous, attacking bushes as if they were her real enemy. He longed to join in, but his body ached - why?? He was too bored for this, but it felt as if his body were glued to the floor. Warriors were rushing abiut the place, checking supplies or whatver warriors do; other kits were at leats playing. Yet still, he couldn't bring himself to move. Coping with past events had become easier, he just didn't think of them much. He could push them to the back of his head and watch his sister, or take in his surroundings. The mountains were huge, and he liked to look up at them, imaginging himself running aross the peaks.


Daydreams such as this often filled his mind, he preferred to think about them rather than what was really going on. When they took breaks, he couldn't calm himself down with fur beneath him - he was often alone, well, as alone as one can be in a bustling camp. It was nice though, he thought, living in his mind, imagining other worlds. Worlds where RiverClan won, worlds where they went to the mountains for fun, not for fear.


Tags -

Doesn't need a reply either !

@kenjaku - Salamanderkit
@Desert Rain Frog - Tinytoad
@Marigoldwhisper - Deerspark