show me where my armor ends ( tinsel, piper )

[DELAWARE]

Piper woke to the sound of caterwauling. In the early days, some odd number of moons back now, the day-break wailing had brought him into consciousness with a pounding heart and blinding sense of panic. Morning after morning he'd scrabbled out of his itchy, hay-lined nest, biting down so hard on his tongue it bled, barely able to make sense of his surroundings: the high wood walls, the trembling rumble of huge beasts shifting somewhere beneath him, the scent of cats and leather and polish and humans all blending together into something so terrifyingly unfamiliar that his fear-scent reeked of it. Inevitably, he'd be found in his frantic panic by the other residents, incredibly alarmed themselves until they realized the unfounded nature of Piper's fears. They did a good job talking him down, that first week-and-a-half. Piper had to give them that, was even grudgingly grateful for it. No matter how poor his fighting ability, not many cats were willing to look past the flailing claws and spitting fury-fear and recognize the trauma-twisted instinct underneath.

Which is not to say that he liked the cats that had, in some feat of truly motley magic, found themselves living - in his more ungracious moments, Piper liked to think 'hoarding,' considering the state of the place - together in a random barn at the outskirts of the mountains. How they accomplished it, Piper had no idea; each of the five cats were each so singularly different from one another that they could have barely coexisted in a Clan. And, yet, the tranquil and respectful peace they'd managed to broker amongst one another was something that Piper, in all his experience, had never seen before, much less ever been a part of. It was fascinating, the way they simply accepted one another's faults and quirks with easy-going humor and tolerance. Piper could not relate. Take this early morning caterwauling, for instance: he hadn't been able to believe it, the first few times they'd told him that there was no cause for alarm. "It's just Yas," Satchi had explained patiently to a dumb-founded, fresh-out-of-a-panic-attack Piper. "He jus' likes to get up an' greet the mornin' with the roosters, is all. Don't pay him not no mind."

Piper, once he'd digested that bit of grammar, felt strongly that regardless what Satchi said - a stringy, older she-cat with such blow-away fur she always looked like a walking bird's nest - it was worth paying mind, until he met Yas. The ensuing conversation had to have existed on another plane of reality, Piper was sure of it; but nothing changed the fact that the slow, ambling, ditchwater-colored tabby tom truly believed he was a rooster for the first half of the day and then a cat from noon until the sun rose again next morning. Hence the 'crowing.' And that was only two of Piper's barn-mates. There was another she-cat, Melanie, who seemed to drift through life in a perpetual but pleasant daydream; then a tom named Creed, who Piper rarely saw but often smelled, on account of Creed enjoying the company of cows more than cats; and finally Kozmic, who, despite his name, proved himself down-to-earth enough that Piper could actually stomach having a conversation with him longer than five minutes (as long as he avoided the subject of aliens). All in all, they were the sort of cats that people would call Characters, and by the second day Piper was certain that Tinsel had moved him here as a punishment.

Not that he wanted to go back to the cold mountain cave where he'd been living. Between the isolation, the physical entrapment (even after all his physical therapy, Piper had never been able to traverse more than thirty minutes through the rocky mountain terrain), the boring and malnourished prey, the ice-cold water, the lingering presence of Moss and her dead kits in every howling wind, the snow, and Piper's own mind, he'd been certain he'd gone mad until arriving here. Though he was now mostly reassured of his own sanity, it did make Piper slightly uneasy how well he had resigned himself to living here, all said and done. Once it became clear that Tinsel would not take him anywhere else, he'd simply... settled in. And it was not an uncomfortable life. Stockwood Farm - as a nameplate hanging outside the barn read - provided everything that Piper had been without, up in his mountain cave. There was company, fresh and plentiful food, warmth, freedom of movement across flat ground. He couldn't quite escape Moss - she lingered on the edges, not really a ghost but ever-present (perhaps because he'd gotten so used to talking to her imaginary form in the cave that he couldn't shake the habit now) - but at least he'd left the dead kits behind. The entire time he'd spent in the cave, he'd never gone into its back, to where Moss had buried them.

In the barn, on the farm, there were no such restrictions. During the daytime Piper stayed away from the things that made him uncomfortable, of which there was a very long list, but for the most part - and during the night - he felt free enough, and safe enough, to wander around where he pleased. Navigating into the upper level of the barn, where he had his nest, had been difficult at first, until Kozmic, Satchi and Yas had pitched together one afternoon to knock a few boards around and make him a ramp. Piper had tinkered with it to make it more stable, and now used it all the time without even getting tired. He'd asked the three barn cats to set up a few other ramps elsewhere, which they were happy to oblige, and in the process Piper also managed to streamline a couple of other things that were driving him crazy - moving their drinkable water away from the cows and closer to the barn entrance, where the humans were more likely to see it and remember to refill it, for one example. It had been a shock, about three months in, to realize that he was becoming the de facto 'leader' of the barn, insofar as they had one. He wouldn't have had it at all, except that one day a rogue was passing through, and instead of Yas or Satchi going to speak with the stranger, they looked to Piper. It unsettled him, and then, when the situation had passed and night had come and he was curled in his nest, moonlight shafting through the window onto the floorboards, it hit him like a freight-train.

He thought of BloodClan, of course. He remembered every scrap of information that Tinsel had told him, had put together even more pieces since arriving at the barn and grilling his (mostly unhelpful) roommates. Creed provided the greatest source, surprisingly; he'd spent some time in the city, but got out when "That crazy red-eye began gettin too big for his boots." From further digging, Piper surmised 'crazy red-eye' was Axel, and that the boots in question was expansion of the BloodClan territory, but couldn't come up with much more. The overall consensus shared by all five of his roommates was disheartening: the city, in large part because of Axel's BloodClan, was a dangerous place to be. Tinsel's rare visits, growing ever rarer, seemed only to prove this point, and Piper couldn't decide which was worse: getting drip-fed information with no chance of confirming anything himself, or giving up on the idea of BloodClan altogether.

Because he would never survive in the city. Would never even make it back to BloodClan. The exposure to the mountain cold had caused extra nerve damage in his already-injured limb, paralysis creeping further up, and so despite all the physical training he'd done, all the patient and teeth-gritting months of rehabilitation, he could only drag his left leg, not truly move it except in little jerks and starts. Putting weight on it for longer than thirty seconds was out of the question; on bad days, even just rolling over made a stab of pain travel through his nerves. He was mostly okay otherwise, only some mild scarring, but it still required a whole new way of navigating the world. He couldn't hunt unless he used traps; he couldn't fight effectively; he couldn't make high or wide jumps or maneuver long distances without assistance. He had to be careful, always, of where his leg was. He couldn't feel anything at all from the knee down, and more than once he'd sat on it, or ran it into something, or simply abraded it from dragging it around. While the barn cats accommodated his disability, Piper knew that the same would not be true in the city. A city cat would look at someone like him and see only weakness.

Piper couldn't blame them. Once, in another lifetime, he would have done the same.

Yas's caterwauling ended, which meant that day had well and truly broken. Piper curled deeper in his nest and snoozed on-and-off for the next hour or so, but eventually got up, the scent of fresh-caught mouse luring him out. It was Melanie, who had brought him breakfast today; he recognized the little leaf of peppermint she put on top of the bite-wound, as if to hide the evidence of her violence from the world. Piper found it more morbid than beautiful, but he didn't complain. The mouse was good. After washing up and getting something to drink, he started on his daily routine. There were some variations to the order he went in, but generally he always did the following: physical training and rehab, rest, a walk outside, patrolling the barn and nearby areas, more rest, and then a few long, comfortable hours on a swinging bench next to a huge oak tree on the barn's right. If the sun was out, it struck the bench perfectly just after lunch, warming the wooden slats. It was always a scrabble to get up - Piper had fallen, the first few times he'd tried - but once he'd gotten the knack of it, he could almost always make it on the first go.

He was here now, lazy and full, watching a butterfly flit around the early spring beds of crocus and daffodils, when Kozmic's head appeared out of the barn, gaze locking in on Piper immediately. The tom waved at him, which Piper did not return - he had definitely mellowed, but he was not that mellow - and yelled out cheerfully, "Hey Pipes! Sorry to disturb, dude, but your girlfriend is here! Y'know, the fierce lookin' one with all the drugs? She's hangin' out front, should I tell her to wait?"

Piper was scrambling off the bench before Kozmic even finished speaking. "Tell her I'll be right there," he called back, unnecessarily; Kozmic nodded and retreated. Tinsel had only visited twice, once when she'd dropped off Piper and once close after, to see how he was settling in, but her status as a medicine cat had left quite the impression on all of his barn-mates. Or maybe it was the fact that in order to get Piper down the mountain, she'd had to drug him up to his ears, meaning he showed up at the barn higher than a kite. Whatever it was, Piper didn't care; these days, he was always half-afraid when Tinsel appeared, because he never knew which visit was going to be her last. He limped to the front of the barn as fast as he could, in his rush not even bothering to stop and Have Words with Kozmic about the girlfriend bit (he'd do it later), and felt a wave of relief breaking over him at the familiar sight of the she-cat - the last tether to the individual that he used to be, of the world that he used to belong to. And maybe could belong again, one day, a traitorous voice whispered in his mind, but he pushed it away with almost dismissive ease. He'd had a lot of practice, doing that.

"Tinsel," he called out. "I was beginning to think that Axel murdered you." Ah, humor. "What brings you to the countryside? Not our thriving nightlife, I'm sure. Maybe a bit of rural risk? You may be disappointed there, too. I'll have you know that I've been nearly squashed by a cow only twice this week. Positively pathetic. These bovines need to step up their game." He stopped in front of her, sitting down and pulling his paralyzed leg towards him, so it was tucked against his body and half-hidden behind his front paws. A simple gesture, but one that gave a lot away. Still, the green eyes that regarded his former medicine cat were more clear, calm and alert than they had ever been. Despite his many complaints, there was no doubt that the farm life had been good to Piper. And, perhaps, everything he had been through, too; though it was hard to qualify the ways that Piper had changed, and the foundations of their personality were the same, there was no doubt that the tom who had been brought into the mountain cave, and the tom before Tinsel now, might as well have been two entirely different individuals.




[ ooc [:ripples:] UGH im sorry its so long but i had to bring everything up to speed... my thoughts:

- moss left the cave about a quarter of the way through piper's stay, since she was healthier. tinsel helped her out of the mountains but then moss went off on her own and hasn't been heard from since.

- piper's left hind leg is totally paralyzed/numb from the knee down. he retains minor feeling from the knee up, more so the higher it goes, but it is very dulled and he has very little functional control over it (enough to make it move in little jerks/etc., but nothing else).

- otherwise he is fairly healthy. physically speaking, except for his leg, he could easily pass for a warrior since all the training/rehab he has been doing has been paying off. he moves a bit stiffly and he loses stamina very quickly, and he's naturally on the smaller/leaner side, but he's put a lot of work into himself (nothing else to do!) and it shows.

- he's a lot more mellow, chill, and laid-back than he used to be. still proud and arrogant and a bit of a duck ofc but he ate a BIG slice of humble pie and has basically done a 180 in terms of maturity. im still exploring it, so. however, it makes sense that tinsel might not recognize the change until now, because up until this point she's a) only seen him when he's hanging out in the cave, totally isolated, talking to an imaginary moss ala tom hanks in cast away, b) very very infrequently, and c) he gets sassy/a bit lippy when he talks to her - not in the same way as his old self, but definitely similar if you aren't looking deeply.

- anyways take it where you want! i was pretty vague about timelines because uhhhh i don't know the exact one off the top of my head but let's say it's been 2.5 years. i know that's longer than we originally planned but.... our timeline lol. you can also be vague if you want so we can both be vague together and figure it out later lol

- i imagine this takes place in the early to mid-fall, before the dog attack. he'll need at least a season to get used to the wheelchair and make up his mind about returning so it makes sense to put it so far away. ]

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Tinsel of bloodclan

IT HADN’T BEEN PUNISHMENT. Well, not solely punishment. Really, she had made the move because it was in his best interest. While things after the fight had been dangerous enough all around the city to warrant shipping her secret charges to the mountains, the only place she could think where they could be safe from discovery, time had now passed, injuries had healed, and, more importantly, Tinsel had made time to scout for possible recovery locations. She loathed keeping Piper in that cave not only because she hated making the journey there so frequently, but also because she could tell that it was driving him crazy. She hadn’t necessarily thought that he and Moss had been good for one another during their confinement, but after she had left, he had only become more strange. While she would have liked to see him healed more, she had to satisfy herself with the fact that she had dragged him out of the factory alive. The damage to his leg, worsened by the cold, was now an unhappy side effect of the interventions that resulted in his currently being alive.

STOCKWOOD FARM was out of the way enough that it didn’t attract city dwellers. It offered open fields. The loners who lived there had struck her as friendly and completely disconnected from the mess of what was going on in the city. Other bonuses- they could feed him for her, and she could get back to worrying about the clan. With the birth of (most) of Axel’s children, he had both softened and hardened. He was a father, which meant that there was a tenderness within him and a new ferocity. She understood, of course, but it put her on her guard. After she had made sure the barn cats had not unexpectedly let Piper die, she had left him to them to care for. They were good-hearted enough that they didn’t seem to mind, in spite of the mystery surrounding their circumstances.

TODAY, SHE HAD BUSINESS. Usually, she would not have visited him, even if there was something she had to do concerning his… anything. But this particular issue was one which necessitated a good fit. She would need his body (which was, unfortunately, attached to the rest of him), if things were going to work, and god damn it, she had put so much into him at this point that she was going to make things work if she had to fucking break them to make them fit.

SHE NEVER HAD TO TALK TO THE BARN CATS, though she was sure that they were riveting conversationalists. She would see them poke their heads out of the barn, and all she had to do was sit and wait for Piper to appear. It was the same today. She wondered what they thought of the situation, but only passively. It didn’t really matter what they thought.

HE GREETED HER WITH… STRANGE HUMOR. Piper had never really been the same, not after Moss left. Most of the time they had spent together since then had been when she dragged him to the barn, and he had been under the influence of multiple sedatives, and thus appropriately loopy. She had preferred to avoid him, for his immense suffering was painful to experience and while she had a duty to him, she also understood the meaning of healthy boundaries and not letting yourself be consumed by someone else’s struggle. That and her routine meditation was all that kept her sane, these days. She let a smirk cross her features. He wasn’t going to get a laugh out of her, but she’d give him something. At least he was attempting to use healthy adult coping mechanisms to deal with his current situation. It was a good sign for his health.

AND IN TRUTH, HE LOOKED GOOD. Better than she had ever seen him in the cave. His leg was ruined, yes, but she could tell that he was strong from working out. He looked better fed than he had been since before she took him to the cave, and it struck her that she felt as though she were looking not at some pathetic lump of emotional disaster area, but at someone who was making the most of what life had given. That was good. He would need it if he was going to succeed.

“TALKATIVE. I see you’ve missed me. I can hardly blame you, though I’m sure the cows are excellent company.” She looked around at the peaceful venue. She had chosen well. “Come on. We’re going on a field trip. Here’s a little something for the pain and something for strength. Unfortunately I’m going to need you awake, so you’ll mostly have to grin and bear it. Let’s go.” She mewed and motioned with her head in the direction of the city. It was early enough that she hoped they could get there by closing time, even with Piper’s leg. And then, the real fun would begin…

words ♥ 833
muse ♥ great
other ♥ DELAWARE, lets do this shit! + JAMIE HR post. If you wanna skip them forward to when they are in the city/around the area of the warehouse where these things are kept, that's cool. Maybe they don't talk much, or he talks a lot and Tinsel is a lot of one-word answers because she's tired. They can talk more while he's getting fitted.

regrets collect like old friends,
here to relive your darkest moments.

[DELAWARE]

"Seeing as cows were my only alternative, of course I missed-" Piper began, and then the rest of her words caught up to him and floored him flat. "A field trip?" He faltered, ears flicking uncertainly, tail lashing once, sharply, against the ground. He watched her lay the herbs out in front of him, old names that he thought he'd long since forgotten floating unbidden to his mind. Sorrel, for strength and to suppress hunger. Chamomile, for calm without weariness - burnet - and then a few he didn't know, ones Corvus had never used. But they all added up to the same thing. Piper looked back up at the medicine cat, emotions chasing themselves across his face. For a long moment, they stood in silence, the contented lowing of cows and the distant buzzing of a tractor their only accompaniment.

There were many things that could be said; could have been said, or were perhaps said, in another timeline or another reality. A million words trampled over themselves on the tip of Piper's tongue, forming quickly into sarcastic phrases and disbelieving scoffs and poorly formed jokes and dry observations, and then dissolving just as fast, for anything he could possibly say would only be hiding one thing: fear. A multi-faceted fear, a fear with a hundred faces and a thousand ways to come true, but a simple fear nonetheless. He was not strong enough for whatever she planned for him, not resilient enough to face failure once more, not ready to leave this place of safety, however boring, and travel back to vulnerability; not ready for the city, for uncertainty, for reshaping a new existence, again, for the possibility of that existence crumbling, the ways the others had -

In a sharp, decisive movement, he dropped his head down. The herbs were bitter and harsh, or maybe it was his own grim resignation making them so, but he forced them down nonetheless, swallowing the last few pieces down a painfully dry throat. He straightened back up and this time rose to his paws, strong enough but not quite steady as he faced Tinsel. She'd seen everything, he knew, could probably name every emotion, in order, that he had felt. He had not tried to hide it from her, a thoughtless trust that had emerged, naturally, from the long periods of isolation broken only by her visits. It was intimacy closer than love, far away from friendship, and powerful as hate.

He did not look back at the barn. He knew, instinctively, his resolve would not survive it. "Walk slow," Piper said instead, quietly; and in the morning light of a new spring, he let Tinsel lead him back into the city.


[ ooc i was going to time jump into the city but this ended up being a natural stopping point... take 'im wherever, no need for journey details since, well, he has to make it lol [:ripples:] ]

[[:ripples:]]

♥ Tinsel, bloodclan medicine cat

IT WASN'T SO MUCH A SURPRISE as a reminder of the necessity of their mission, the length of time it took them to get to the city. The piper who had ruled BloodClan before had been vital, strong, tricky enough to keep her on her toes. The Piper she had dragged out of the cave had been a shadow of his former self. This new Piper, farm Piper as she referred to him in her mind, was different. No longer so broken, but not so cocky as he used to be. They were both older now, no doubt that helped. They didn't speak much as they picked their way through the fields and then the streets, partially because Piper seemed to be working so hard, and partly because Tinsel, while sometimes, unkind, didn't really see the point in kicking a dog while it was down, so to speak. Piper's leg was doing enough kicking for the both of them. Or rather, it wasn't. That was the problem.

THEY ARRIVED IN GOOD TIME, and Tinsel silently patted herself on the back for her excellent skills in estimating how long it would take Piper to drag himself here. He looked exhausted by his walk, no surprise to her. She would have spared him if she could- she wanted him strong. But if he was ever going to be somewhat independent again, then she needed him here for this. The buildings stretched above them as they padded through the narrow alleys of the city. When the familiar warehouse window came into view, she sped up her trot again. The lights were off but the window was still cracked, left open by the careless worker trying to clear the stuffy air out of their office. It wasn't a large window, but it was definitely big enough for a couple cats to clamber through. She was hoping that it would also be big enough for a decent set of wheels. She leapt up onto the dumpster that was closest to the window, and jumped up to sink her claws into the mesh that protected the warehouse from intruders through the little opening. It came off easily when she applied her full weight to it, and clattered to the floor as Tinsel landed on the lid of the dumpster, feet first. She smiled down at Piper.

"ALL RIGHT, the coast is clear. Let's get you suited up."

♥ DELAWARE, ready for some comical window entry cat-burglar style.

oh where do we begin,
in the rubble of our sins?

[DELAWARE]

Piper did not grin, but he bore it. The first part of the journey was easy, relatively speaking, since they took the flattest route possible over the already flat countryside. Piper surprised even himself by keeping a steady pace - not fast by any means, but not slow either - and only beginning to breath harder as the minutes stretched closer towards an hour. The rhythmic plod of his footsteps, the sight of his paws against grass, against bare earth, was almost hypnotic, and he could feel the herbs he had just eaten gradually beginning to take effect. Were it not for the thrill of anticipation, of fear, of something like hunger, that struck him every time he lifted his eyes from the ground to the steel city beyond, glittering in the morning sun, Piper would have almost been relaxed. As it was, he didn't look up often. It was an act of self-preservation; consciously or unconsciously, if he was openly confronted with the fact that he was returning to the city for the first time since his 'death,' he knew he would never make it.

But then grass turned to earth turned to tarmac turned to concrete, and the scents of farm and forest were replaced by cooking food and diesel exhaust and human life, and the sounds of birds and wind became the rumble of cars and the creaking of buildings, and Piper could not ignore the truth anymore. The city settled over him like a second skin, welcoming him home with its familiarity even as it tried to push him out with its strangeness. He felt off-kilter, disoriented. He flinched at the squawk of a pigeon but barely blinked as a car raced past; he cowered at the sudden tumble of a plastic bag, but felt no fear when a swarm of pedestrians passed, chattering loudly. His pace slowed as they advanced into the streets, and though he drove himself to keep up with Tinsel, never letting more than a few feet grow between them, he begin to noticeably lag, exhaustion and overstimulation beginning to take their toll. Still, he kept his eyes resolutely lowered. He'd looked up once as they entered the city proper, greedy, unable to resist, and it had been such a mistake, and yet also so correct, that he couldn't do it again. Luckily, his growing physical discomfort was starting to make it easy to ignore his emotions.

He lost track of the time they'd been walking, each step getting more tiring, each breath more labored, and so it was a great relief when he heard Tinsel stop in front of him. He managed to draw level with her before collapsing gratefully onto the ground, dropping his head onto his paws and shutting his eyes as he panted hard, fighting against a rising tide of dizziness and nausea. His leg throbbed; his head, too. Somewhere beyond him, he heard Tinsel rattling around. Not even the clunk of something landing nearby disturbed him; it was only when he heard her voice floating down to him that he finally, reluctantly, looked up, flanks still heaving as he inhaled dumpster-flavored air (ugh). Nevertheless, it only took him a moment to put two and two together, and his expression went from complete exhaustion to exhausted, disbelieving indignation. "You're kidding," he panted. "What am I, a bird? Do I sprout wings and fly? I know you're insane but I've already done my time in your crazy circus, thanks." With great effort, he gestured vaguely and unnecessarily at his leg, then again at his whole body for good measure. Then, with more resignation, since they both knew Tinsel would get what she wanted and he was just protesting for the record, "You're going to have to pick me up and carry me. Any way you knock me out first? Solid punch to the bad leg should do it, though I might throw up on you."


[ ooc [:ripples:] FARM PIPER lmao. he's going to hate this so much lol ]