is this what normal feels like? // juno & adder

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Adder of bloodclan

THINGS HAD FELT SURREAL since the battle for the factory, even more so than they had after the fight with the dogs- the entire world had shifted, the planets had reoriented themselves, and now Adder felt like an asteroid hurtling through space more than a planet orbiting anything with any sort of order. And yet, in the aftermath, there were still dens to clean, mouths to feed, youth to train. He had been given his own apprentice, an honor that he wasn’t sure he yet deserved, but an honor nonetheless. It felt odd to him to be taking someone out to show them the ropes. But it wasn’t like the kits were going to stop aging, and someone had to get them outside so that they didn’t run amok in the camp.

AFTER MEETING HIS YOUNG CHARGE, he had spent the evening mulling over what they could do together. Were the borders safe enough for a run around the perimeter? They had taken out the collection of rogues, sure, but the anxiety still prickled in his fur about any outsiders, which felt ironic, considering his own history. Shadow would tell him not to worry so much, he was sure. He had tried to hide his anxieties while he shared tongues with his sister the night before, though he was sure that she could feel them pricking in his fur as they slept beside one another that night. In the end he decided that the tradition of the perimeter sweep was important and that he was feeling restless enough to take on any curious rubber-neckers meaning to see what was up with BloodClan following the shake-up. Anyway, he didn’t want Juno to go back to the apprentice’s den and not know the territory. It would be embarrassing for the both of them.

HE TAPPED HIS TAIL AS HE WAITED OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE to the warehouse, no longer very comfortable with the ground since the recent change in leadership. Tinsel had assured them that this was for the best, but he still felt uneasy. Something familiar had been ripped away from him on the night of the battle, and he still hadn’t managed to settle back into a sense of safety. He took a breath, hoping that training might change that.

words ♥ 379
muse ♥ good
other ♥ andromeda

i want them back, the minds we had,
it's not enough to feel the lack,
i want them back.

[andromeda]

 
 

juno

so we keep on waiting, waiting
waiting on the world to change

Juno slept fitfully the night after he was unceremoniously made an official apprentice, almost a full moon after his sisters' promotion. In his inexplicable dreams, feline forms morphed in and out of bizarre shapes screaming with psychedelic color. Their soundtrack consisted of ominous rumbling far more terrifying than any battle cry, and torrential downpours unlike any he had ever experienced touched everything with such permanence that he still felt wetness clinging to his pelt when he woke at daybreak. In the Eyrie, to which he now had a small claim, Maia and Hestia stirred in their nests a few tail-lengths from his own. There were not that many apprentices in the Clan this time of year. As the newest member of his rank, Juno slept nearest to the entrance that led out into the main warehouse floor. Newleaf, still a child, was evidently not fully up to the twin tasks of warming and revitalization. Cold drafts that ruffled his fur throughout the night meant that the cozy days he had enjoyed in the nursery were truly in the past. If he would ever garner the respect he wanted from his Clanmates and the enemies he would meet on the battleground, he would have to start here, in the Eyrie, as a lowly sentry against unseasonable chill. 

His eye had healed reasonably well, owing to Tinsel's meticulous care. He could still see in his left eye, although “see” was a generous word, for the images that it received were nothing more than blurry splotches capable of distinguishing only large shapes in high contrast. In all honesty, the ostensible reason for delaying his apprentice ceremony—the medical one, claiming that his injuries needed more attention, that he was not ready to go into training half-blind—had little standing. It was as clear as anything that the high ranks had much more urgent matters on their paws, not least of which were the recent attacks and counter-strikes, which had left indelible scars on the Clan in their wake. His own medical crisis seemed negligible by comparison, yet it was not, for deep down he knew that many BloodClanners resented his injuries for discounting the protection he would be able to offer the Clan when he grew older. This sort of made things awkward; Juno was not yet old enough to understand what it meant to be used, to be cared for but not exactly for the right reasons. In the same way his whiskers quivered instinctively at the presence of prey, his fur had been tingling with the sense that something was off ever since The Incident.

Indeed, the leader graced his apprentice ceremony with no adequate amount of pomp and drama, something to which Juno was actually looking forward. The Clan’s exhaustion was visible in the blanket of distress that smothered everyone in it. Not everyone was present for the meeting. Some were told to rest and nurse their physical injuries. Others were still too mentally shaken to continue, business-as-usual. Only hasty congratulations greeted Juno afterwards, and he swore he even saw pity in the eyes of a few warriors, those who must have deemed him unable to complete his training and were anticipating an “accidental” murder or his exile, whichever the Clan had time to plan and execute. Sure, he was a little hurt—there would be no point denying that. Nevertheless, he didn’t really take it to heart, and he was even confident that he would forget all about how uncool his apprentice ceremony was in a few moons, when the Clan would realize that he outshone all the other apprentices his age, or six moons later, at his warrior ceremony, the most epic warrior ceremony the Clan would ever witness.

Adder, this loping young warrior with a past mysterious to Juno, would take him on as his apprentice. He was there at the ceremony, sitting proudly in front of all other ceremony attendees, having probably been briefed beforehand. All Juno knew about him was that he was foreign-born, though the details of his story had been circulated within the Clan long before Juno’s birth and thus remained out of his reach, for no one really talked about where Adder and his sister, whom Juno had observed a few times before, were originally from. He was genuinely a part of the Clan and accepted for whatever foreign blood they carried, and his becoming a mentor was nothing if not the greatest testament to that fact. For all the Clan knew, they were as loyal as someone like Juno, whose BloodClan heritage traced back countless generations, would be, and he made sure the Clan understood that in the fight against the rogues. Adder and his sister held an unmistakable fascination for Juno, who yearned to understand the world that lay outside the warehouse into which he was born. Already, Juno felt excitement rushing through his veins at the prospect of spending six moons bound by mentorship to this handsome warrior.

Beside him other apprentices, including his sisters, were already up and getting ready for the day. Being careful not to disrupt anyone else, Juno stepped out of his nest and methodically stretched his hind-legs. The cold made him shiver, and he puffed out his ragged coat. He would have no breakfast today—he wanted to earn his first meal as an official apprentice, not because he so wanted to follow some unspoken rule of the Clan, but because, well, he had to work harder than anyone else to win the same respect, didn’t he? Still, his stomach disappointed him by rumbling as he slipped through some crates into the cavernous main floor of the warehouse. He prowled directly across the floor toward the entrance of camp, preferring not to skirt its edges because everyone else did the latter. Adder was already sitting outside. With all fragments of his terrible dreams forgotten, Juno bounded over to the gray-and-white tom and meowed his greeting as he stretched forward and upward to touch his mentor’s nose, “Good morning, Adder! Juno reporting for first day of training. What have you got in store for me?”

tagged [:ripples:]
please let me know if you'd like me to change anything!

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Adder of bloodclan

HE DIDN’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HIS NEW CHARGE. Adder had never been one to take a particular interest in the younger crowd- mostly because he had his eyes so focused on his goal of being excellent and worthy of being a part of BloodClan that he didn’t really find time to think about the silly games of kittens. He knew a little about the young tom because he had been kept back for a little longer than his littermates due to an injury from a rat attack that marred one of his eyes. He had asked Tinsel about it when he had heard that he would be teaching the youngster how to be a warrior, and she had brushed it off as something minor- he could seem movement well-enough in it, and the other one still worked fine. He had found himself disappointed with the lack of festivity at the ceremony, not because it was something he himself enjoyed, but because he felt that his apprentice (a tom who he did not yet know but for whom he now felt an air of protectiveness) deserved better than to be simply shoved into his apprenticeship with little more than a couple of words and a pat on the back.

BUT THIS NEW REGIME WAS DIFFERENT. No longer did he have the comforting presence of the leader he had come to know. Sure, he had been crazy, but he was familiar. Now he had to get used to something entirely new…

THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS APPRENTICE pulled him from his political musings and back into reality. The little tom looked eager to get started, and Adder found himself dipping to touch noses with his apprentice- a sign of affection that he generally reserved for his sister, but Juno seemed so expectant that it seemed wrong to turn down this greeting. It was not something that Adder had done with any of his mentors- he had treated them with fear at first and then later respect, at least in the case of Daze. But he found his heart warmed by the optimism in the gesture. He hadn’t said more than a few words to the apprentice the night before- just exchanged polite greetings and told him to meet at the entrance in the morning. He seemed bright and energetic as any young cat, and Adder wondered jealously if he had ever been so enthusiastic. Determined, perhaps. Maybe that was what Juno was, too. Determined.

“GOOD MORNING, JUNO.” He mewed, trying his best to seem friendly- Adder had always given off the impression of being prickly and stand-offish with anyone aside from his sister, and this was perhaps because he was generally rather prickly and standoffish. “I thought we would do a sweep of the perimeter today; it is a tradition, and it will give you an idea of the territory. On our way, we can stop to hunt. There are a few good spots near the borders where we can start practicing a crouch.” He mewed, not sure if he should explain further. That was that, right? He looked back at his apprentice, distracted for a moment by his droopy eye. Tinsel had said that it wouldn’t cause him much trouble. He looked away. He didn’t want the young tom to be self-conscious. He would just have to prove himself like everyone else did.

“LET’S GO. You can ask questions along the way.” He mewed, looking around to decide the best place to start. Maybe they could work up to the factory. First they would go in the direction of the old camp, he decided. He padded off in the direction of the ruin, knowing that his apprentice would follow.

words ♥ 617
muse ♥ good
other ♥ andromeda, so Axel isn't leader as of now, but I'm not sure how many details I can give you... just assume it's someone Juno doesn't know and don't think about it too much! This leader would have done his ceremony, so it makes sense that it would have been different than expected. Also, if you want Adder to know about the old camp, it would make sense for Tinsel to have spouted some lore about it in her den at some point.

i want them back, the minds we had,
it's not enough to feel the lack,
i want them back.

[andromeda]

JUNO

so we keep on waiting, waiting
waiting on the world to change

Adder didn’t even remotely bring up Juno’s run-in with the rats, and by corollary, the fact that he had already gotten a glimpse of BloodClan’s territory beyond the warehouse. For this, Juno silently thanked the powers that be. He didn’t particularly care for reliving that unfortunate adventure just when it was about to get overwritten by a new, more legitimate inaugural journey through his homeland. He did catch an ephemeral look of...well, he didn’t know what exactly, when his new mentor’s gaze passed over his left eye. (He would later discover that this ambiguous look, a potpourri of pity, shock, and disgust, would be something he would encounter frequently enough that he would be immune to its consequences, low self-esteem chief among them.) But, again, Adder did not dwell upon it. Instead, a simple invitation to begin their journey beckoned Juno to follow, which he did with anticipation tingling in all four paws.

As soon as they passed the almost imperceptible threshold only marked visually by the lack of obvious pawprints beyond it, Juno could sense changes in the scents that swirled around him, though apart from his native Clan’s familiar tang, he couldn’t recognize any of them. He opened his mouth to taste the air. Alongside BloodClan scent was an earthy stink with undertones of cooked meat. There was another unpleasant smell that, although rancid with the odor of trash, was still less revolting than the former. (He would later learn that these are rather stale scents of dogs and rogues, respectively.) Apart from these, his nose also twitched at nicer smells, like fresh scents of prey and the invigorating, albeit distant, aroma of damp earth. One scent in particular, an acrid one that he sometimes picked up inside the camp, puzzled him: this would be the remnant funk of industrial fumes, and Juno couldn’t immediately decide whether he liked it or not.

Adder walked with big strides that he negotiated with long legs, and Juno was having trouble keeping up. Muscles taut with energy, he broke into a trot to come almost level with his mentor. “Adder.” he called out, letting the name sit heavy on his tongue until he could not hold it there any longer. Juno thought that there should actually be more to his mentor’s name than the one word into which it had been abridged, but no matter how he tried, it would not break the surface of his consciousness. He made a mental note to make seeking it out an immediate priority. This was a name he would be uttering every day until he became a warrior, and maybe even frequently after that. He considered this with great delight. After spending all that time with Tinsel as essentially his only companion—his parents had been rare visitors, if that, to the medicine cat’s den, and his sisters only bothered to show up when they themselves needed medical attention—Juno was happy to rub shoulders with an actual warrior, one whose cache of knowledge certainly rivaled Tinsel’s.

“Adder?” He called out again, this time suffixing it with the first question of many he was entertaining in his mind. He thought he’d start with an easy one. “How big is our territory?” Without his permission, his thoughts meandered towards the Incident again, and he wondered where exactly it had happened, and whether he would recognize the place if they came upon it today. He also wondered about Sia. Though she had told him about her temporary home and welcomed his visit—in fact, instructed him to come at his first convenience, he had not yet gotten a chance to sneak out under Tinsel’s watch. Were her hunting grounds inside our territory? Would I ever get to see her again? Wasn’t she scared about me knowing where she lived? Did she know about BloodClan? Was she friends with the rogues that attacked us? A thousand questions, a thousand alternate realities within each one. Nevermind that. He didn’t know why he knew this with such certainty, but he would be okay with Adder there, whatever dangers should come their way.

tagged [:ripples:]
oooh so much mystery about the leadership situation! ok so i've changed my first post accordingly! would adder know enough to be discussing it if juno had questions about it?
also i'm SO SO excited for this thread to play out - it's gonna be an important worldbuilding moment for juno as he asks all of these questions about the territory!

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Adder of bloodclan

HE STOLE A GLANCE back at his young charge and smiled as his eyes met their path again. The young tom’s eyes were filled with excitement, the sort of joy that was reserved for those stepping out into a great new world of possibility, a feeling that Adder imagined he might have had when he first started training- or at least, he imagined he might have. He had been so serious even from his childhood, so serious that Stelmaria would often tease him about it (though her voice was usually laced with concern when she did.) Maybe he hadn’t had it on his first day of training, the innocent joy of discovering their territory. He imagined that he might have had it if he had been in the mountains with his father. He imagined that he would have felt it as he led his patrol of BloodClanners to discover the mountains, as he and Axel had discussed. So much for those plans. With Axel gone, he could not count on anything that had been hinted or promised. It was a whole new world, and he walked through it not with joy but with fear and discombobulation.

HE HEARD THE FAST-MOVING FOOTSTEPS of the small tom as he came up to speed with him and wondered if he was moving too fast. Adder had grown into a large cat, as would be expected based on his heritage. He didn’t know much about where he came from in the mountains, but he had heard the common rumors, that mountain cats took down eagles and ate them for dinner. He liked to imagine that he might have been one of those cats who could take down eagles, if he had stayed. If he had been able to stay. If the circumstances had been different. Maybe that was what his father did. He liked to think so. Juno, though, was small- at least, he was smaller than Adder. He slowed down just a bit, hoping that he wasn’t exhausting his apprentice already. When he thought about it, he supposed that he should be more worried about his ability to be a mentor. He hadn’t really done it before. Then again, it seemed like any idiot could manage it. He’d gone through multiple mentors during his training. It had been a time of high turnover in the clan.

AS JUNO ASKED A QUESTION, Adder looked down at the little tom. He seemed so eager, so excited to learn. Suddenly Adder did worry that maybe he would not know enough to answer all of the questions that Juno had, that he would not be adequate as a mentor, that Juno would be disappointed. He thought to himself. “Pretty big.” He mewed, knowing that this was not a really satisfactory answer. It was true, though. It was pretty big. He didn’t really remember the time before they moved- he had been so small, and the old camp had been in the dump. He was told that things were better now in the new camp, and he could hardly imagine how anything would fail to be an improvement over living in literal garbage.

“IT GOT BIGGER WHEN WE MOVED to the Warehouse, I guess. We only really really enforce the areas closest to the warehouse, I mean we enforce all of them but those are the strictest, but we have scent borders all the way to the dump and to the edge of the factories and to the park… but we can go wherever we want. I guess you’ll see how big it is today. It’ll take us the whole day to walk around the perimeter. Honestly it’s pretty impressive. We kept a lot of ground under Axel…” he drifted off, thinking of the leader. The old leader. He shook his head, not wanting to talk about his death, about the one who had taken his place. No one could really claim to have liked Axel, but Adder had… placed hope in him. And now it was gone. He took in a breath. “Anyway… here’s the dump. The old camp. I don’t really remember much about when we lived here, but you can kinda see where some old dens were. Be careful, though, the humans messed it up with their machines, so it’s not as safe now.”

words ♥ 719
muse ♥ good
other ♥ andromeda, HMMM, I think if Juno asks then Adder will be unwilling to talk about the leadership situation, at least for now, particularly because he's feeling conflicted about it and is no longer sure about his loyalties and what should be said or not said. He will probably just change the subject. And BTW I meant that JUNO could know things about the old camp because of Tinsel if you want him to (typo lol). Actually he could have a lot of random knowledge if you want him to, from hanging out with Tinsel.

i want them back, the minds we had,
it's not enough to feel the lack,
i want them back.

[andromeda]

JUNO

so we keep on waiting, waiting
waiting on the world to change

The pair had covered significant ground already. I’d better keep up, if the territory is really as big as Adder said. Juno found himself heaving audibly to sustain a level of exertion he had never previously attempted. When Adder slowed his pace, Juno was, for the second time this morning, thankful for his mentor’s sensitivity. When they were going slow enough that he could spare some of his attention to observe his surroundings, he noticed that this part of the grounds was wholly unfamiliar to him. It didn’t smell anything like what he remembered smelling when he was curled up with Sia fussing over him. Here, the air still bore hints of the area’s previous occupants, them having occupied it for so long. Though it was thick with the smell of rot, death, and disease typical of most garbage dumps, Juno could scent prey and kits, signs of Clan life before it was interrupted. If he had been near this trash heap before, he would have remembered. Her hunting grounds must be very far from here, he mused, a sense of relief creeping gladly, albeit a bit furtively, up his chest.

He looked around, letting images settle in his good eye but not really paying them full attention. It was already mid-morning, but he could feel no warmth or light falling upon his fur. The trash piles were not quite big enough to be blocking the sun, but a lot of things around them, mainly Twoleg buildings, were. In their own ways, however, the trash piles looked a lot like those Twoleg buildings. Against the light, they appeared to be an indeterminate color somewhere between gray and beige. Even without disturbances in the environment, it felt as if they could come tumbling down at any moment. In fact, things which were apparently not as central to their structural integrity were already scattered on the ground, a mixture of organic detritus and Twoleg artifacts with purposes beyond the comprehension of any cat. The whole area buzzed with a creepy energy that raised Juno’s hackles and sent chills down his spine. Or perhaps it was just those stinking flies.

At the mention of Axel’s name, Juno pricked his ears. He had to admit that he only had the faintest impressions of the former leader. Really, he didn’t know him at all, and now he would never have the chance to know him. Juno thought about this with zero sentimentality but great curiosity; he couldn’t see how regime changes at the tip of the social pyramid might affect his life day-to-day, but still he could wonder about the kind of cat Axel was, whether his parents and grandparents approved of him, whether life was good with him in charge. He couldn’t recall a single moment when Tinsel spouted anything about Axel, and he never dared, or had the occasion, or felt any urgent imperative, to inquire. Maybe Adder would know something about life before the new leader, or about how the new leader came to power. By the way his words trailed off and a distant look fogged over his eyes, Juno ventured that he had opinions, and strong ones at that, about the changes taking place within the Clan. He put his thoughts into words, hoping to confirm that theory, “What do you think about the new leader?” But Adder, momentarily lost in his own thoughts, seemed not to hear him. Perhaps it was a cue for Juno to drop the matter for the time being, but he did then make up his mind to ask about it again, if not today then sometime in the future.

Juno didn’t need to be told not to approach these looming mounds of refuse; he would never have set foot anywhere near it if he could help it. The stench in his pads would have taken days to disappear, and he certainly didn’t fancy being the one to lick it out. Instinctively he craned his neck around to sniff his own fur, afraid that the dreadful scent would already cling to him in the two heartbeats it took for them to pass by. He was far past trying to hide his distaste out of decorum; even if his eyes were kind, his lips had definitely by now curled in disgust. Deliberately veering so he wouldn’t come into contact with anything that might have belonged to the heaps, he spoke through gritted teeth so to avoid breathing in the smell through his mouth, “So you’ve——we’ve——lived here?” The unspoken: how on earth could we have lived here?! “Tinsel’s told me a bit——not that much——about the old camp. I’d just always thought it was...nicer, the way she made it sound so homey. I guess it was good that we found the Warehouse, huh?” Juno wasn’t exactly sure whether their current home was voluntarily found treasure or a refuge they inhabited out of necessity. What he did know came in bits and pieces too fragmented for his young mind to assemble into a coherent picture. Whatever happened happened before he was born, and the stories about it felt as real as lore.

When the stench of garbage eased up and the piles were receding into the distance behind them, Juno drew a huge breath to circulate fresh air into his lungs. He kept thinking about something Adder said a little before, about having to enforce the borders. If this was one boundary of their territory, it seemed highly unlikely that other cats would be attracted at all to coming here. It seemed to Juno that the presence of the trash heaps themselves already provided perfect deterrence. But he didn’t know better. The hostilities in this forest existed in the elders’ stories, surely not in real life. Battles in a history book were exactly that: history, their bloodshed looking quite tame when they’re just words on a page. He voiced his concern, “Who do we enforce our borders against? I know there are cats who are not a part of BloodClan...” There could have been many directions in which to take that thought: were they dangerous? How dangerous could they be? Does enforcing our borders work against them? Why would they choose to be by themselves? He decided to let Adder shape his question into anything for which he felt up to providing an answer.

tagged [:ripples:]
dam i always have so much muse for this lil guy — lmk if you want me to change anything! feels like i'm toeing some v sensitive topics

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Adder of bloodclan

ADDER DID NOT SPEAK when asked about the new leader. He had thoughts, but he was not yet sure how safe it was to speak them. Tinsel seemed to be more relaxed with the regime change, Tinsel who had butted heads with Axel on many occasions, who had stayed by his side as they grated on one another not for any kind of affection but because she loved her clan. Tinsel who had managed to outlast the leader who had come crashing in at a time of turmoil for the clan… if she was calm, then it all had to be all right now, right? But Adder was not so sure. Maybe for those who had loyalty to Axel, it was different. Maybe this new cat was just like Axel and he had spies making sure all of his warriors were loyal. Adder was not about to take that risk. He pretended not to hear the question. It was something that he had yet to address himself. So far, the most he could say about the new leader was that he was an unwelcome change to a reality that Adder had grown comfortable in.

HE ANSWERED THE QUESTION as they looked out on the garbage. “Yeah. The whole clan used to live here. I don’t really remember much, I was only here for a little bit right after they found me and my sister, and then the clan moved, so I got to grow up in Haven, just like you. It was quite the production, though. I guess we moved because the monsters were coming to destroy the camp. I like the warehouse, though. It can’t have been easy to live here, especially when it rained.” He thought to himself that Tinsel, grizzled as she was, could probably make the literal depths of hell homey if she felt like it. She was a tough old bird and more likely to yell at you for complaining about garbage sticking into your side than to actually be bothered by the garbage. Although he had to imagine she liked the easy access to water afforded by the warehouse. Adder was fond of the fact that it didn’t smell like a literal pile of trash.

HE LED THEM THROUGH STREETS and down alleys, making their way past M’s Salvage Yard. It wasn’t a place they needed to stop and, being that it was a bit inside the borders, Adder felt it less-than-important to actually visit as they made their way to the park. He had also avoided Tryptich Alley as they made their way to the old camp- not because it was unimportant, but because he didn’t really feel like getting into a fight with the odd rogue who might be spoiling for battle after their defeat at the factory. The last thing he needed was to drag Juno home to Tinsel with avoidable injuries. It seemed like a good way to get clobbered. The young tom’s question came up just as he was thinking of the sort that might be waiting for a patrol passing through the alley, and Adder found himself a bit vexed by the apprentice’s timing. “Well. Rogues, mostly. The forest clans don’t come out here. But there are lots of groups of Rogues who would love a slice of our land. Groups like the one that set those dogs on us and tried to take the factory. That’s who we’re really worried about.” He mewed, looking over at the scrapyard and indicating with his tail.

“TO THE RIGHT you’ll see M’s Salvage Yard. There’s a lot of good stuff there and everybody wants it, but we have the biggest presence so it’s ours. C’mon. Not too much to look at, really. You’ll like the park, though.” He mewed, trotting forward so that Juno could catch up and leading them to the parts of the city that the humans used for reasons other than to discard the things they no longer wanted.

words ♥ 662
muse ♥ good
other ♥ andromeda, gave you a nibble to ask about his past

i want them back, the minds we had,
it's not enough to feel the lack,
i want them back.

[andromeda]

JUNO

so we keep on waiting, waiting
waiting on the world to change

Juno flashed his mentor a look of surprise when he put forward an effusive response to his rhetorical and, in all honesty, somewhat rude question about the place BloodClan used to call home. Adder didn't seem too bothered by the insinuation that the Clan had been somewhat too incompetent to find a decent place to live; in fact, he even appeared to share the same preference for the new camp, a sentiment that, to his great credit, he let on with the subtlety of a grownup who had seen worlds bigger than the stretch of territory they had already covered. In the same even breath, Adder had talked about not just his fondness for the current camp and the terrifying reason behind the big move but also how he had came to be a part of the Clan, all in the tone that one would use to talk about the weather. Juno squinted as he peered up at the trash heap, feeling his mentor do the same beside him. Without a word they moved on, and Juno hoped that it would be a long time before he would have to see this trash heap again.

Their journey through the veritable maze of streets and alleys was silent. Adder didn't say anything about them, either because he thought they spoke for themselves or because they were truly unremarkable. Whatever the reason, Juno didn't question it. His mind had long since wandered away from the minutiae of different parts of BloodClan territory and towards the lurking ferocity of the surrounding forest. When Adder answered his second question, again with more detail than Juno hoped for, the tabby apprentice nodded and, as an afterthought, added a small grunt as verbal acknowledgement.

Juno's eyes followed Adder's tail to the object of its aim. M’s Salvage Yard, Juno recited in his mind without really understanding. It didn’t look too unlike their first point of interest—the haphazardly arranged hills, by any estimation homes for all lost things in the world, reaching towards the sky, their darkened faces taking up most of the viewer’s visual field. Nothing contained within these heaps looked like they had any business being surrounded by the natural world. The leaves were dull gray instead of green, and no breeze seemed to be able to rustle them into movement. If Juno were to touch the rod-like objects holding the piles together, he would find not the supple bounce of a tree branch but would discover in its place something cold and unyielding. Yet, these objects were not unfamiliar; Juno might have even found a touch of home in these towering mounds.

He spent a few extra heartbeats gazing into the clearing before he peeled away, not wanting to contradict Adder’s dismissal of the interest M’s Salvage Yard was capable of holding. In any case, it seemed that their next destination was much more promising. Juno flexed his paws and ambled forwards. When he came almost level with his mentor, he asked with quiet meows, “Tell me more about the forest Clans,” and then, in an even quieter voice, “Did you and your sister come from one of them?”

tagged [:ripples:]

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Adder of bloodclan

THE YOUNG TOM’S CURIOSITY WAS UNSURPRISING, though Adder found his fur prickling uncomfortably. He had never been to the forest, personally, though he had heard enough about it in his days as a BloodClanner. For some the forest clans held a certain fascination, though Adder found himself somewhat disinterested in them compared to the allure of the mysterious mountains from whence he’d came. He knew that they were groups of cats just like BloodClan but that there were four of them, each comfortable in their own piece of nature, and that they believed in some thing called StarClan where all of their ancestors went when they died and that they were very old, much older than BloodClan. He wondered for a moment if his tribe had believed in anything like that, if there was a place that they would go when they died where they could be with their ancestors. Would he and Shadow be able to go there, if it was real? Or would the fact that they had been forced to leave the tribe before they could even make the choice mean that they were forever forbidden from whatever afterlife they were meant to have.

THE NEXT QUESTION STARTLED HIM out of his musings. He looked away for a moment, making sure that they were still on their way to the park. They had to wind through buildings and down alleys and roads to get there, crossing the human streets, avoiding feet and cars. It was simple enough if you just waited for the humans to cross, and Adder did so without much second thought. Out here in the open, there was less danger from rogues because it was dangerous to fight in front of people. They might call the ones who came with the gloves and the trucks to take you away.

“NO, I’M NOT FROM THE FOREST. They have clans there, four of them, who like to live out in nature or whatever. They fancy themselves something special because they have been around for a long time, and they believe in this thing called StarClan where they all go when they die. They even think that their leaders are granted nine lives and everything. It seems a little silly to me. But you’ll probably meet a forest cat one day. Sometimes they pass through the city.” He mewed, looking both ways again before leading his charge across the street. They slipped between the bars of the park fence into what was a beautiful scene of greenery and lawn, with a lake in the middle and interspersed benches and flowers and trees of all kinds. “Here’s the park.” He mewed without ceremony, looking at his apprentice to see his reaction.

words ♥ 453
muse ♥ good
other ♥ andromeda

i want them back, the minds we had,
it's not enough to feel the lack,
i want them back.

saved by [:ripples:] at request of andromeda on may 10, 2020

[andromeda]

JUNO

so we keep on waiting, waiting
waiting on the world to change

Out in nature…StarClan…nine lives…forest cat…

Hold that thought.

Juno followed his mentor through some cold, upright branches, ones that, on account of his poor depth perception, took him two tries to squeeze through, and emerged into a vast, lush landscape, worlds away from the Warehouse Juno had believed was the whole world. Though kithood memories were capable of programming strong preferences for shadowy spaces permanently untouched by the harshness of sunlight, the park’s grassy scent awakened something deep within Juno’s primeval psyche. His jaw fell slightly ajar without his awareness, and the full-bodied scent of fertilized soil washed over his tongue.

He licked his lips, realizing that much more lurked beneath the earthy aroma. Stale trails of foreign cats told of the infrequent presence of non-BloodClan cats—understandable now why they would be drawn to this place, even though they would invariably meet the same stern warning from a BloodClan patrol. Mouthwatering spoors of prey known and unknown swirled about, and Juno’s claws, barely sharp enough to catch anything, unfurled in response. Other scents perplexed him; they were animal yet also contained sharp scents of metal and other things alien to the natural world of wild felines. They seemed to be coming from large beings walking upright with pelts of never-before-seen colors. They padded at leisurely paces around the tiny paths criss-crossing the lawns; Juno dared say some of them even looked friendly. “What are these?” An answer, his own, sat waiting in the queue of his brain, but he wanted Adder’s confirmation before he could be certain of his own assumption. He’d never seen one live before, of course, and he knew of their capacity for pandemonium and cruelty. But now, bathed in the indiscriminate warmth of a late-spring sun, it was near impossible to feel threatened by anything.

But Juno really didn’t come out to dilly-dally. The pair had moved at a reasonably swift pace, and though Adder’s nonchalance about exactly every single place they’ve visited so far kept them moving, what Juno really wanted was action that didn’t involve his swerving around a rubbish pile to avoid soiling his freshly-groomed coat. “I like this place. Will we hunt?” He flexed his paws expectantly, readying for a task for which he, in all possibility, was woefully unprepared.

tagged [:ripples:]

ooc