Google dot com says the traditional gift for a four year anniversary is fruit & flowers?? How festive! In honor of our fourth year on the world wide web, we are requesting bouquets and fruit baskets or cash donations to the whip-a-rain-fund 😌 Oooooorrr we guess...alternatively...we can put on a big, month-long celebration featuring a warm-and-fuzzy event, scavenger hunt, a raffle drawing, and a freakin' prize wheel??! See the September Announcements for more information, and don't forget to check out the September Patrols too!
The Apostles is a warrior cats roleplay based in northern Wisconsin. On Lake Superior, the wild cats have made the Apostle Islands their home. It is on these islands - Rocky Island and South Twin Island - that the clan and tribe cats have lived in a peace and harmony that ebbs and flows with the tide.
But as the tides turn, so does the truce that binds them to one another; and as the water raises, a darkness follows, an evil that will end in bloodshed and violence.
Mosspelt ground her pearly whites together in frustration—she’d been excited to join the ranks of Lichenclan’s warriors at first, but now, as the duties and responsibilities of maintaining a warring clan built up heavily upon her shoulders, the bicolor found she wasn’t enjoying her newfound rank quite as much as she’d expected. This dull, drizzling morning had been no exception; the well-groomed molly stood at the entrance to the apprentices’ den, once again relegated to working with those that fell in her age range, despite their current difference in status. Mosspelt had not yet learned the value of her peers, starry-eyed for the pomp and circumstance that she’d naively assumed she’d gain alongside her suffix.
Instead of heady displays of grandeur, she’d been assigned to what she considered a completely pointless task: remarking the borders. Not only that, but she’d also been assigned what was likely the most useless partner: the unseeing apprentice Perchpaw. “Hello,” she spoke hesitantly into the dark mouth of the apprentices’ den, “I’m here for Perchpaw.” However, Mosspelt didn’t receive so much as a rustling of bedding in response. With a soft sigh, the she-cat ducked backwards out of the den, only to feel fur brush against her tail tip as she did so. The warrior whirled, her nape bristling in panic as she found herself nose to nose with the very apprentice she’d been searching for, the molly's unnerving green eyes staring unseeingly into her own. Stars above, how did she sneak up on me like that—she can’t even see! Mosspelt thought to herself, alarmed, but, attempting a purr, managed to choke out, “I’ve been looking for you."
In the absence of winter, new-leaf bore forward with its tendrils of soothing warmth. Away from the stone of their docile hunting grounds did it bid the cold, nipping upon its heals with the hallowing light of its pitying sun, melting the cold drifts and coaxing the green things from the earth. And with days and nights of ceaseless work, winter relinquished its hold, leaving no hint of it but in the rare cool nights when the cold would creep upon the stones to be warded off come morning once the sun grew privy to its sneaking in. And so the cold nights yielded to warm mornings, and this morning the sky was thick and heavy with an oppressive weight which Perchpaw, without eyes, could feel. And she had roused from her den early, sat there before the entrance and listened, pricked her ears to the sound of rain as it trickled off the walls of weathered stones. She had listened to it for some time, and as she listened, she drank the air, she smelled the damp, muddied earth, the green things as they thirsted for the spring water, and felt all at once the relief of spring as winter at last left in her naught else but its bitter impressions.
Here is warmth, she thought and rejoiced in its name from where she sat, head canted, in her exuberance forgetting the purpose with which she sat and so not minding the cat that padded past her, though she knew her… and took note of her long after she had passed. And she roused to her paws, remembering the task at hand, the borders which would need remarking, and the cat with whom she would go, one who seniority had left the times spent in one another’s company rare.
And as she came upon her, she who had come in search of her and heard her call out her name—and for a moment, she stood there, held in silence until Mosspelt backed from the den and her tail brushed against her, followed by a whirling, a quick turning that filled the air with the frantic scuff of paws. But then the order was restored, the words came, and they were strained, choked, and starting. “… I’ve been looking for you.”
“Apologies,” Perchpaw murmured softly, bowing her head, letting her chin brush gently against her bosom’s short, soft furs. “I was only listening to the rain… I’ve grown so used to winter gales, I… I could not help the indulgence.” And with the formal words, she blinked, flushing, for she felt foolish. A lady does not idle and gawk at things as silly as rain! Quietly she swallowed. “Shall we? I don’t wish to keep you waiting any longer, and… the air… it may not drizzle so kindly for long. I can smell a storm,” she murmured ominously, padding past her company, moving and not waiting but hearing her paws at her heels as they came for that yawning cave mouth.
Out there, the rain fell more loudly; she could hear the drops as they pattered against the growing puddles, making their homes in the knocks of the stones. And she peered over her shoulder at Mosspelt; her expression, as it so oft was, spoke nothing of the inner giddiness that delighted at the muggy morning which her company so abhorred. “Remind me again, which border were we meant to mark?”
apologies the apprentice mewed, her head bowing so low as to brush the downy fuzz of her chest, and then continued with such formal language that Mosspelt tilted her head in bewilderment. shall we ... i can smell a storm, the bicolor warrior took pause for only a brief moment before falling into step behind the apprentice; her foul temper had been subdued by curiosity, and, perhaps, a heaping pinch of pity, "you can smell that?" Mosspelt had huffed the air immediately after Perchpaw had mentioned she could smell the storm, but for all the scents that flooded her tongue, she found it hard to distinguish between the rain that was currently drizzling outside and any more rain to be expected.
Perchpaw asked for a reminder of which border they were meant to mark, to which Mosspelt curtly replied "Redwoodclan," she hoped her scent hadn't lingered there, the rain had surely been a welcome relief, erasing any trace of her near the border.
On the heels of her reply came more words, soft and inquiring, "You needn't be so formal Perchpaw, we were denmates but a few moons ago!" Mosspelt followed in the smaller cat's footsteps, trying and failing to shake some of the condensation off her pelt, "how are you?"
And Perchpaw gave her a wondering look, for oft she forgot how in her blindness all other matters had grown keener—how she need only feel the earth to tell which way it would rise or drop, how to drink in the air was to know the tempers of clouds before they had yet darkened and swelled with the flushes of rain. She need not have eyes to tell such things, just as she need only ears to know in the intonation of breath and the softly uttered words the feelings behind them—how a pause spoke as proudly as the dipping or rearing of lip corners. But she did not go so far as to express such things. She only nodded her head and held fast to her tongue, for she knew how uttering such matters made others grow quiet and for their thoughts to darken with the judgment.
Too often had she bore witness to such changes, and she was no great lover of them.
So, with some relief, she felt ease the tension as the matter of the border was brought back to her and she again gave the quiet nods and the gentle glances. And then came the questions—ones she did not expect—and she turned her plain face, and for a moment, the unease betrayed itself in the trained stillness.
“…needn’t be so formal…"
“Oh.” And she flushed slightly, for there was some truth to it.
“…how are you?”
Again came the unbidden touches of color at her cheeks and ears. Her ears flicked, and her blind eyes shifted restlessly. “I… am well. My training is well.” And the words felt awkward, for she was so rarely asked about herself, even when her mood grew dark and brooding, when her temper flared in that docile way, and she felt too tired to leave her nest. They would only utter of feminine habits and never trouble to ask beyond such lines of thinking. And she thought of it only as such, that it was only in her femininity did such weaknesses clasp upon her—that perhaps if she had been born a tom, the stars may have gifted her eyes and the consideration of others that would allow for better presumptions than those such as that. But she had been born a she-cat, a daughter, and a cripple, and there was no more unfortunate thing to be in her heart of hearts.
She swallowed softly. “…and you? Have you been well? It must be… oh-so-wonderful now that you are a warrior. How freeing it must be!” And she feigned the uplifted lilts, never minding how her brow seemed to clash with the forced prim smiles.
