[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

Having your clan's leader also be your mentor was an honour, Icepaw had gathered, but it came with many consequences. Mostly, Cloudstar had other things to handle than to train them. They wouldn't have minded, usually, but they were anxious to complete training which they'd barely even started. Cloudstar was, at least, trying his best even when he couldn't be present. He'd told Icepaw that they could go on the dusk patrol, 'if they felt well enough for it,' with a warrior Icepaw only barely knew the name of.

It didn't much matter that Icepaw's legs ached and their chest felt tight. They hauled themselves out of their den and waited by the entrance of camp before the sun had set, eyes on the rounded clearing. At this time, most of Shadowclan's cats were still asleep. Only a few early-risers stirred in their dens, preparing for their day or crossing to the freshkill pile.

Icepaw took a ragged breath, tail-tip twitching. Their partner for the patrol, Mallowshade, they'd only seen once or twice while they were sick in the medicine den, bristled and hissing while the medicine cat padded their scratches with cobwebs. She'd gotten into a fight with an older cat, or something along those lines. She seemed like a lot-- and Icepaw had a little seed of resentment buried somewhere in their chest for her. A kittypet who joined the clan got her warrior name before they did.

Starclan must have thought they were being funny with that one.

The apprentice twisted their head back and licked the bristled fur on their shoulder to flatten it. It wouldn't be a long patrol, at least-- around the border, sure, tending to scent-markers, but it shouldn't be that bad. The sooner Mallowshade got here, the better.

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

"Good evening," Mallowshade meowed as she trotted towards Icepaw, ears perked and tail held high. She was perfectly awake; she had done her best to adjust to being only nocturnal, but it was still vexing to be expected to sleep in the day and not simply whenever she liked. She was not about to complain, though, especially not to an apprentice, so she privately thanked her fortunes she'd been able to sleep decently today and thought no more of it. If she had woken a little too early, well, she was just preparing for the patrol.

If she had taken scars from the spat that had brought her to the medicine den alongside Icepaw, it did not show. The light orange and white fur was thick enough to cover any but the deepest or widest scars. In fact, she looked much the same as when she had arrived to Shadowclan a few moons ago, only larger and somehow even more outrageously fluffy; fastidious grooming was another habit she had not shaken, though she did not really intend to, for surely there was no harm simply in being clean - and moreover she intended to put forth a proper impression just in case she met any other clan, and the fur did help her look a great deal bigger than she was.

"Icepaw, right?" she said, flicking an ear in the apprentice's direction. "Is it still Icepaw, really? You must be earning your name very soon. No matter, let us be off." She did not wait for Icepaw to respond but padded off along the patrol route.

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

"Hello," Icepaw said, but they'd barely gotten more than that out before Mallowshade pointed out the exact thing they'd been thinking about. Their jaw tightened into a thick line underneath their fur as they pushed up to follow, the fur along their spine sticking up like it'd been disheveled by wind. They had to run, a little, to keep up-- and by the time they were a nose ahead of the warrior they were already wheezing through their exhausted lungs.

"It's not really something I want to talk about," they said after an insecure pause. "I bet you wouldn't want to talk about being a kittypet."

They pushed by into the marshland, keeping to the thick roots to save their belly from getting wet. Their legs ached already, all minute and a half into the journey, as they navigated and leapt from dry wood to dry wood. If it wasn't evident in the way they bent their head to relieve their hind legs of pressure, it was evident in the increasing, rhythmic rasp of their open mouth.

Keep it together, they told themselves. Their head felt hazy like they were being swept down a rushing river.

Coming to one of the scent markers, Icepaw brushed their shoulder into the tree it was attached to to refresh it. They eyed Mallowshade through narrow eyes. "Why did you come to Shadowclan?"

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

Mallowshade bristled, ears turning back. "I cannot see how that has anything to do with anything, at all. I am a warrior," she hissed testily, standing back while Icepaw refreshed the marker. Her fur still stood on end as she stepped forward and sniffed at the marker, to double-check it as well as familiarise herself with Icepaw's scent. She might have looked intimidating, except that she resembled a seeding dandelion slightly too much to take entirely seriously.

She mellowed a little as she looked back to Icepaw and noticed how badly they were struggling; when she set off again it was at a leisurely walk. They were not in that great a hurry, after all, and there was hardly any sense in needlessly tormenting a clanmate.

"It was the first clan I found," she admitted. "I wasn't sure they'd let me stay, but the medicine cat - Dusklight - she had had some strange dream about it." She tried to keep doubt out of her voice. Her mother had told her once that there was no higher power than the twolegs, who brought food and medicine but could also take your kits away, and Mallowshade was still not certain about all the business with Starclan, whom she had never seen and who did not seem to bring anyone anything except omens. "She thought it was a sign that I was meant to be here, so she spoke for me."

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

Icepaw turned to follow, though what was a leisurely walk for Mallowshade was still largely a struggle for them-- and they still had a lot of territory to go. They put their head down and tried to think about anything other than the pain that shot up their spine.

"I know who Dusklight is," they said with some quiet resentment. Six moons in the medicine den had been rough, and it had been rougher spending most of that time coughing up their lungs and listening to Dusklight mew in her sleep. "She's had dreams and signs and omens about everyone. Even the new kits." That said, if the medicine cat had ever had a dream about Icepaw, she hadn't told them about it. Maybe Starclan thought I'd just die, too, they thought bitterly, whiskers twitching.

Windclan's stench filled their nose when they came up to one of their markers, heady and sour like the rabbits that ran their moors. Icepaw paused to mark next to it, too, staring out into the rolling hills. There was only a single tree as far as Icepaw's eyes could see -- no wonder Windclan was Like That. They must have felt unsafe all the time, without any shelter covering their backs.

The apprentice shook themselves out and walked along the border. "Why did you leave?" They asked absent-mindedly. They could not comprehend, really, leaving their family in Shadowclan behind.

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

Mallowshade paused to stare as well, and kept staring as the question raised memories. It was a question she had answered before, of course, but something about the wide open space made an especially keen reminder. It was so very far from the house and the little yard. One day she would explore the moors as well, Windclan be damned.

Belatedly she realised that Icepaw was moving again and hurried to follow.
"If you'd lived in a twoleg den, you wouldn't need to ask," she snorted, light-hearted to cover for more conflicted emotions. It was difficult to answer without thinking of Caramel - without feeling the sting of being left behind - and that was not a line of thought she was about to share to an apprentice she barely knew. Instead, hoping she wasn't too easy to read, she went on: "There is hardly any space to run as one likes, and if you move about too much at night they'll complain. I suppose I was bored to death, with no hunting or anything else to do, and my twolegs never really paid enough attention to be good company. There was nothing to do but lie about uselessly - not that there's anything wrong with resting when one needs it," she added hastily, sidestepping Icepaw's sore spots with all the grace of a newborn moose, "but I wanted to at least have a chance at something else."

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

"I guess that makes sense," Icepaw said thoughtfully. For the sake of civility, they decided not to think too hard about Mallowshade's off-handed comments, focusing instead on putting one paw in front of the other. Their tail flicked, black tip buzzing like a bee behind them. A chance at something else seemed like it could be nice.

But... "Don't you miss your twolegs? Your parents? Your other... two-leg... mates?" What did kittypets have, if not clanmates? (It was neighbours, but it's not like Icepaw knew that word.) Icepaw knew, at least, that they'd miss Wrenfeather and Cloudstar-- and Rosefur and Berrythorn and Dovetail, too, even if they weren't as close to them. In fact, they'd miss all of Shadowclan. "Do you ever visit?"

Would she even be allowed? Maybe the twoleg code was just as strict as clan code, especially if Mallowshade weren't even allowed to hunt.

A pause. "What did you eat? Are only twolegs allowed to hunt?"

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

Mallowshade was quiet a little while, ears flicking about restlessly as she pondered how to explain things that had been plain facts of life to her until recently.

"Well," she began eventually, as she trotted up to the next scent marker, "First of all, they never let me leave the den. Some twolegs let their kittypets out but some don't. Mine didn't except when I was very small, and if I went back they'd certainly shut me in again straightaway." Rough bark against her shoulder; she nosed at it to make sure her scent had stayed, then walked on. "So you see, there's no one to meet and nothing to hunt at all. I have no idea where twolegs hunt. They don't give you freshkill - the food is all in little pieces so that you can't really tell what it is."

"And as for family," she added, "I haven't seen my parents since I was a moon or two. They live in another den and their twolegs don't let them out either. And if I had kits, I expect they'd be taken elsewhere too when they were old enough."

She said this without thinking much of it; it had never even occurred to her until she had come to Shadowclan that the separation was anything out of the ordinary. If anything, the numbers of the clan had seemed almost decadent. She had asked Dusklight about it when she had first arrived, wide-eyed, and had scarely believed it when told that none of the cats were guests or visitors.

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

Icepaw followed with a frown, ears pinning back into their skull. The first part sounded very familiar; maybe Mallowshade was sick with something and her twolegs didn't want her to spread it around? Their eyes flicked to the warrior refreshing the scent marker, pausing to sit and rest their legs for a beat. Windclan's moors was starting to thin out, moving uphill to the Five Maples ahead. Shadowclan's tree sat atop the incline on their territory, scarlet leaves rustling quietly.

Their eyes narrowed, fur bristling uncomfortably. "Crowfood?" They asked. "Or... dirt?" Little, unidentified pieces sounded like rabbit droppings, and Icepaw had made the mistake of sticking their nose into them before, on their first outing around the territories as a much younger apprentice.

Something else that Mallowshade had them pausing, however-- the mention that Mallowshade's parents had their kits taken away after a moon or two brought back a memory, and although Icepaw couldn't explain why they remembered it now, it made them uncomfortable. They remembered rain stinging their face; another cat carried them by the scruff of their neck. They couldn't remember who it was, or where they were, or how old they must have been, but they remember the overwhelming feeling of... sadness. Loneliness. They remember wanting to go home.

Dense, white fur fluffed out in all directions as they tried to dismiss the memory, throat clogged like they'd swallowed thorns. "Why?" They asked. "What would they want with kits?"

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

"It was not crowfood, or dirt," Mallowshade said, fluffing up again. "It was just in little pieces." She would not admit she didn't know what most of it was - she'd learned to identify the taste of fish and some birds lately, but nothing tasted quite like the dried food she'd eaten most of the time.

She paused a moment to admire the scarlet tree, feeling a slight swell of pride. It was Shadowclan's tree, which meant it was also her tree.

"I don't know," she admitted to Icepaw's latter question. "What does any twoleg want with a cat? You're assigned your den as a kit, unless something is wrong with you that no one wants to take you in, or your twolegs are moving or die or something such."

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

The more Icepaw sat, the more pain their legs were in. Another ha-ha funny joke from Starclan, they assumed. They slunk closer to the tree to lay flat on their belly for a time, head angled to the maple in the distance as their pale chin lowered to the grass.

"Prey shouldn't be in little pieces," they decided. "It's disrespectful." Sure, they ate prey, but the clan code told them to give thanks for filling their bellies. They buried the bones like they buried their clanmates after they died. Leaving bits of prey around was grounds for punishment.

The tip of their tail flicked. "What happens when your twolegs die?"

Their paws curled in under their chest. "It sounds like the medicine den," they said. "They keep you in there and get upset when you leave, but it's because if you cough all over everybody the whole clan will get sick. Maybe you were sick."

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

"I know that now," said Mallowshade a little testily. It was not as though she'd been able to bury the bones. She had not even seen any bones in her food, ever - in fact she had not really known that food came from other living things until she left the house and had to hunt for herself, and suddenly her lifelong urge to chase the little birds that perched outside the windows had made sense.

"I don't know what happens when they die," she continued a little quieter. "I'm not sure they die at all, because my mother's twolegs had her mother too, so I know they don't age. And I was not sick. I've never felt sick at all, except the first time they took me to the medicine twoleg, but that was long ago now. They just took me inside so that I wouldn't run away like my sister. Why are you crouching like that?" She interrupted the steady stream of statements and looked up and around, ears alert, suddenly wary in case Icepaw had seen something she had not.

[viv]

icepaw

any pronouns ○ shadowclan ○ apprentice

anyway, i would do anything for you if it meant i'd get a small hint of warmth
all i wanted was to be a part of your life

"Why are you standing like that?" Icepaw responded defensively. It only slightly distracted from the thought that twolegs don't die. Even Starclan cats, after moons and moons, apparently began to fade away and stop existing. If twolegs lived and existed forever, did that mean they were more powerful than Starclan?

Icepaw really didn't want to think about that, in particular.

Despite the pain, the apprentice started to push back onto their paws. Their joints felt stiff like old trees, old and hard and unmoving. They forced them to move anyway; they planted one paw in front of the other and started to ascend the sloping incline up to the maple tree.

"So, you were just like a prisoner? And your sister? Is that why you both ran away?" They asked, trying to focus on anything else.

[lilja]

   MALLOWSHADE

Mallowshade's ears pinned back as she realised she'd let a mention of her sister slip by.

"I don't know why Caramel left," she said as she followed. "And I don't care, not in the least; he left me behind, so I'm sure wherever he is he is getting by just fine. I left because I did not like being shut in all day and night."

She paused to look around, and pondered the surroundings a moment.

"It is nicer here, even if it's more dangerous," she said more quietly. "And this far from the dens there are no cars or dogs that smell."