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.
It was a rare moment that Smokestorm left his nest for more than a patrol. More often than not, he held himself within his den, drinking in the scent of her, cradling his kittens close to his chest. They were perfect, sweet creatures of pure hearts and true spirits. There were few things that might ever take his attention from them, that could distract him from each need and want of them. In regards to the care of his kittens, she was his greatest diversion. Always, she lingered, haunting his mind.
With the slow arrival of newleaf, his duties had begun to pick up in turn. His second obstacle.
It was several sunrises before the tom finally realized he could not do it alone. His children deserved constant attention - a keeper most attentive. With his ever-present urge to distract himself from the great weight in his chest, the restlessness that often followed him when unable to work, and the ever-present desire to escape the pain.
He was not the type to ask for help. But he was desperate. His kittens deserved better - they deserved more than what he could give them.
The tom slowly made his way to a familiar den, his head lowered and eyes stern and serious. Within the dim tunnel, he saw the blue tabby tom, eyes connecting for a moment amber to leaf green. He blinked in an attempt at greeting, lowering himself to the ground, and gingerly maneuvering into the entrance of Fernheart's den. The broad tom lay before the young tabby, observing him closely.
"Fernheart," He muttered, waiting for the tom to speak or make a move. He did not want to stress the cat out - Fernheart had enough struggle in his life for Smokestorm to cause undue harm to his nephew. And yet, there was truly no other he could put his faith in. His brother was gruff and uncaring, his sister was in mourning of her own kits. None could pull away from their own struggles.
There were few he trusted as much as Fernheart.
"I don't mean to bother you," He meowed softly, his rough voice low and almost bashful. "But if it's possible... Do you have a moment?"
As an apprentice, he had wanted no thing greater than to be alone. A place of his own to rest his head, an empty burrow in which no eyes might follow him. Yet, as a warrior he found he hated the solitude of his new rank. He loathed his den and his moss nest. He loathed how wholly his it was, and yearned for his peers’ sniffling, snoring closeness. Even if Bearblaze and Oriolemask had dug their dens close to his own, it did not feel as it should have, when the hum of Bearblaze’s snores had lulled him to sleep, and if sleep could not find him, the two might speak to one another until it did. Here he could only lie alone, to possess his mind with thoughts of the past and those simple moons of his apprenticeship.
How far away they seemed, and yet he longed for them. If only to have their closeness back, to have someone to talk to. But Bearblaze was far too busy, and his evenings and nights were spent by Meadowpaw’s side; even Oriolemask could not be called upon. In her newfound freedom, she sought great mysteries in the forest and did not return but for the dawn patrol, only to vanish promptly after. And then there was Lionthroat… but to think of him was to feel that pang of heartache still as he recalled how even now the tom would not meet his gaze.
Neither will Foxclaw. And the stars only knew he could not bear to be in his mother or father’s presence. Or even his mentor, who fawned over the father who for moons had known his nature and who he felt she had deceived.
Leaving him with no one at all. Or so he thought, until a shadow reared before the yawning mouth of his burrow entrance, and a face swathed in dark blue furs bowed inside. Dark eyes of amber met his own. A voice gruff and get gentle barked toward him, made softer, Fernheart thought, in the wake of his children, small and helpless as they were. He knew it had softened his uncle—as had the grief, having lost his mate so soon into their kithood.
Rare was it to see the tom away from them, and so he looked toward him curiously and with wonder at what might have drawn him away from their side.
“…have a moment?” Smokestorm wonderd and Fernheart nodded that he had.
He shifted aside to make room for him among the cramped confines of his nest. Eyes of green ferreted anxiously over his uncle in all his hardened broadness. “Of course.” He blinked quietly, abashedly. “Nothing…. nothing’s the matter, is it?”
Smokestorm shook his head. "No, no, everything is alright." He spoke. The tom's tail swam to curl around his body, pulled tightly in a comforting sort of manner. His joints ached as he drew himself a mouse-tail further into the den, scooching across the floor. The damp cold of the beyond bit into his back, but the humidity of the interior, one warmed by the sleep of a body, was a pleasant heat on his face.
It reminded him of her, how her fever had made the den hot. How his paw pads had sweat just being close to her. How he held her despite any discomfort, for the feeling of her flank pressed against his was worth any overheating he might suffer.
He blinked, knowing that the pause held in the air held weight more than he was willing to carry across his shoulders. So he went on, eyes cast to the floor. "If I'm being honest, the kits are taking it better than I might've expected. I can hardly imagine how impossible it might be to lose a mother when one is so young." He took a deep inhale of breath, shifting where he sat. "But... no, they are alright. I fear that I am the one who is not doing well."
Smokestorm had never been the type to acknowledge his feelings to others. He held them deep within, only revealing his internal landscape when the pain was only a memory. He was shocked himself at the belatedness of his statement but tried to go on.
"I am doing what I can, of course. I am providing them with food and attention, and Firfoot has eased my patrolling duties. But I... I am just -" He feared what Fernheart might think of him, should he be honest. I need to get away from them. They were his world. His kits were why he carried on as he had. And yet, he was not the type to be bound to a nest. He missed his nights living under the trees and under the stars. When no roof might bind him within the earth. Yet, with no mother to tend to them, his time buried beneath the world was exponential. Even a trip to the dirt place left his kits abandoned.
They deserved better. "I cannot do it - I'm trying, but I'm no queen. I am not made for this - for sitting on a nest like a bird. But I cannot leave them either... I don't want them to be alone." He glanced up towards Fernheart, unwilling to say the words out loud and hoping that, despite his vagueness, Fernheart would understand his meaning.
[attr="class","next"]Even in the half-light, those mournful furrows could be gleaned. Even in the stillness, the minute pauses and thoughtful considerations on what to say, Fernheart’s ears jumped and rattled over the grief-stricken words and came upon the weariness in them, for such sounds were all-too familiar to him. He had heard such things before—not only in his father, but his mother, those notes which came about moments before they hung their heads in defeat and sprawled out their paws in surrender, for all about them was too much, and they had no right way of handling it. And here was Smokestorm with little ones and no mother to nurse or coddle them, cramped in a den that still smelled of his dead lover and torn away from the duties which he knew too well, making quiet and vague requests in those softly uttered words.
Words that meandered and prattled this way and that. That settled on one matter and then the other before striking true at last with the guilty admittance, that quiet and muttered abdication. He could not do it. Despite everything, despite his love, he could not, and so he told Fernheart, who listened in silence and did not interrupt him, and he spoke woefully of his want to be away, to find the old life he had, but not if it meant they would be left alone. Not if it meant they might be untended.
And Fernheart understood, for he had felt such ways before. He had felt that urge to be away from even his duties when his grief was on him and all the duties clambered up. That selfish desire that did not feel wholly selfish for some freedom or respite. Yet where his uncle yearned for open spaces and his old ways, Fernheart found solace in the monotony of idleness. He’d come to his mother and nursed her and found purpose there, and when her kits had come, and her grief-stricken mind grew too addled for the act of thumping their backs and cleaning their wetted rumps, he had taken to the task and found he quite like it; the sounds they made and the adoring stares they gave them. He liked how quickly they grew and how many questions they asked—never about that dreaded occurrence in the clearing but the questions he could answer, things like hunting and the forest and gatherings and the stars.
Already he was recalling those things with fondness, and sat before Smokestorm, he glanced at him knowingly. “…so you came to me…” he blinked and glanced around in the muted darkness. “I… I would have to speak to Firfoot,” he rattled out after a moment’s consideration. “Of course, I wouldn’t mind, it’s just…” he blinked and faltered, looking for words, finding he had none, and so, pressed for time, asked a question abruptly and with a newfound curiosity. “What about Cinderfeather? You didn’t ask her?”
Smokestorm watched as Fernheart reclined, an understanding watchfulness about him. Smokestorm struggled to look upon him, that child that so resembled his sister, that perfect, innocent child he had drawn deep into the wilderness to speak of frogs and love and anything but the struggle between his mother and her then-mate. Of how, despite his attempts at distraction, the conversation always circled back to that hot, confrontational household, the screaming and sobbing of a mother, the dismissiveness and absence of a father, and a sister that did all she could to distance herself from everything and everyone.
It was with a gentle intake of breath that Smokestorm dipped his head in humble thanks when Fernheart responded, a complexity to his answer that Smokestorm took as a warm enough reception. The question though, left Smokestorm once again swamped with guilt. "I... have not." He conceded with a sigh, gaze turning distant. "She is also mourning." They both knew of the death of her child and of her adopted child both. They both knew that, as her family pulled away slowly, she had begun to unravel. That her mind was no longer gentle and kind but spiteful and filled with pain.
"I will not ask her to look after my kits after she has lost her own. She has other things to worry about." He nodded, almost as though he believed his words. In truth, he feared her and what she would do to his children. As much as he spoke of his children needing a mother, he did not want any she-cat to wipe their faces or pat their backs with a thumping tail. He did not need the image of Mistflower to grow muddy, replaced with the visage of someone decidedly not Mistflower at all.
But he did not speak of such things, not wanting to besmirch his sister in her mourning, especially to her very own son. "No, and if not her, I have no one else to ask but you." Weary amber eyes finally found Fernheart. "I will speak to Firfoot. For better or for worse, he pities me. I will be able to convince him. But..." He trailed off. He needed Fernheart now. His kits needed Fernheart. And yet, he could not ask it of Fernheart if the young tom did not want it. "Only if you are sure you do not mind." Please, Fernheart, His mind echoed words he refused to say, Say you will.
[attr="class","next"]“Right… right, I forgot.” Ever since the blizzard had ebbed, Cinderfeather had been grieving. Attacking her Clanmates, drawing the eyes of their higher-ups. It had shamed him almost as much as her outburst in camp to see her again drawing the eye and ire of their Clanmates. And he failing not to do the same—to look at her with the same derision and discomfort. To want no part in it, and so never visiting her except to sit alongside the fresh-dug graves and pay his silent respects. And even then, such visits felt long and arduous.
And so he listened, and he nodded. He drank in his uncle’s words and heard the twinges of pain, the careful consideration over each one, and the reluctance buried further down at making such requests—for it was rare for him to ask such things. And he found her understood, despite never having any children of his own and despite never having known or loved anything quite as dearly. Not even the little ones he called brother and sister, who he fed stories of old and took on intrepid treks through their pine forest.
Even those who bore his blood so closely he could not look upon with such mindlessly doting eyes, for there was always a part of him loath to forget what had bred them.
So he listened—listened to the trailing words, the insistence, the need—and he peered into those amber eyes, and he bowed his head. He stretched out his neck and brushed his cheek against his uncle’s own. He breathed in the smell of the forest that clung to his furs. The lingerance of pine sap and other earthier scents. “Of course, I’m sure.” He purred softly, meeting his uncle’s eyes, shifting between them with that budding warmth in his chest. “They’re family.”
And he watched a weight lifted from his uncle’s visage. The lines of worry receding to smoothness. A sigh echoed faintly, easing the tension from those broad shoulders and stern face. And he was almost the image of the tom he had met moons ago in the medicine den, sick and clinging to old stories. Fernheart did not realize until then how heavily he leaned upon that face throughout his moons as a kit and ‘paw. How desperately and secretly he had wished to replicate it and how even now, in a way that shamed him, he wished he could have looked upon him and called him father.
“…what about you?” he whispered softly. His eyes were searching. They sought the subtle things he had always found in his mother when sadness claimed her, and yet the smiles broadened on her face. He looked for the failings in that façade of composure. “Holding up alright?”
