#fringepaw

[whisperingclans-torment]

Moon One: Grim Sunset

TW: mention/discussion of death

Snowypaw's ears flicked as Fringepaw darted through the camp entrance, ears flat against his head sand-colored eyes wide. "Made it!" He cried out as he skidded to a stop in the clearing, gray and white fur bristling.

Beside Snowypaw, Yellowpaw lifted his head from his untouched mouse, springing up to touch noses with his fellow apprentice. Greenkit and Deerkit immediately stopped their conversation (which involved much ear-twitching and purring from both kits) and scampered over to greet Fringepaw as well, while the remaining kits lurked at the edges of camp. Snowypaw continued eating his mouse, shaking his head tiredly as the chatter returned to the clearing.

"Quiet for you?" Yellowpaw asked, looking beyond Fringepaw as if expecting a Fogtwist to rip through the entry tunnel after him.

Fringepaw nodded, making a face. "Yeah, but I smelled something awful on the way back. Something like garlic and rot. I can still sort of taste it." He looked around, tail high. "Is Valleypaw back yet? I think I smelled him too."

Yellowpaw shook his head. "He's not back yet. Robinpaw isn't either."

"They're dead." Snowypaw called from where he was still eating.

Both the other apprentices whipped around to stare at him, as if unsure they'd heard him correctly. "What?" Yellowpaw finally asked, looking unsure.

Snowypaw flicked his tail. "It's true. They're not back, and it's past sunset," looking at the sky above camp, Snowypaw started counting the stars that were starting to make themselves known in the darkening sky. "Valleypaw and Robinpaw are dead."

"How do you know?" Snakekit challenged from beside her brother, where she had ignored Snowypaw's directions to sit. Wigglekit stirred from his rest, looking blearily around the camp.

Snowypaw indicated Fringepaw with his tail. "Fringepaw said so; he smelled Fogtwists, and Valleypaw with them. If Valleypaw's not dead, I'll be shocked. And Robinpaw was the next one out after Yellowpaw, so if anything he should have been home right after him."

Silence fell over the clearing, the celebrations of Fringepaw's return cut short. Then Deerkit threw his head back and wailed, his tiny voice echoing above the walls of camp. "Valley!"

The other cats started to wail too, for both their fallen friends. It was giving Snowypaw a headache. Folding his ears flat against his head, he scooped up the mouse he'd been eating and carried it into the slight reprieve of the medicine cat den.

Inside, he curled up beside his nest and finished off his meal, trying not to think about the grisly work of tomorrow; someone had to follow the trails to what was left of Robinpaw and Valleypaw, and bring them back to camp for vigil and burial.

He wanted to scream. But Snowypaw didn't have time to dwell on it. Ryemask had told him as much when she chose him as medicine cat: "You must put aside your own emotions; if you break, the Clan breaks with you."

"Hey." Snowypaw jumped at the deep voice, the shadow falling over the entrance of the medicine den. Yellowpaw slipped inside, his eyes flashing in the half-light. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Snowypaw hissed. "Go handle the others."

"I want to help you," Yellowpaw said insistenty. "The others have each other for now."

"For now," Snowypaw echoed, lashing his tail. "Until they die too."

Recoiling as if he'd been struck, Yellowpaw took a moment to stare at Snowypaw before he spoke again. "I don't think they will. We didn't know what we were doing, and Robin and Valley paid the price for it. When the others go, they'll be more careful." He tilted his head towards Snowypaw. "And if they get hurt? You'll patch them up."

"But I'm not that good yet," Snowypaw protested. "I can barely keep up already. Wigglekit's already sick."

"He'll get better," Yellowpaw settled beside Snowypaw, close enough for their fur to brush. A quiet hiss escaped Snowypaw at the contact, but he didn't pull away. "You're the best medicine cat I know."

That got a laugh out of Snowypaw. "You've never been outside the territory; you literally started training today. I swear once we go to a Gathering, you're not going to be impressed by me anymore."

Yellowpaw shot him a look. "So what if the others are better? They're not helping us. You say we can't let them. So we're just going to work with what we have, and what we have is you."

Snowypaw shuffled his paws, looking away. He didn't think he deserved those words, not with everything Ryemask had told him to prepare for, but with Yellowpaw staring at him with such hope in his warm green eyes, he couldn't bring himself to argue.

"Thanks, Yellow." 

[connor6ballin]

floodclan: moon three

rosebuzz [she/her] - reddish-brown tabby she-cat

sneezeheart [he/him] - tan and white tom with brown dorsal stripe

stormpaw [he/him] - ginger tabby tom

puffpaw [she/her] - white she-cat

dreamstar [he/him] - dull-brown tabby tom

fringepaw [she/her] - gray speckled she-cat

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[diaswarriorcats]

[r1verwater]

2 in 1 special

[koolaidcatley]

[gooseclan]

so many cool things my gawsh

[letyachan]

390.Frigenwhisker

Daughter of Mintfur and Nettlesplash

As if Tigerstar would believe me. I've just joined the Clan. Nobody's going to take my word over the word of three Clanborn warriors. I don't want to hurt Spireclaw, or I'd be fighting those cats now. How can I challenge his mother?"

[jayietheriverwarrior]

Fun fact, today is my birthday! ^^ Still can’t believe I’m 27. o.o

After finally getting all those ref sheets done, I was in the mood to try out another illustration. With the recent release of Sky, without giving away too much in the way of spoilers, I'll just say that I loved Spireclaw and Fringewhisker's relationship in River and I continued to love it in Sky, so I decided to use this urge to illustrate as a way to give these two some art. So here are our newest forbidden lovebirds, Spireclaw of ShadowClan and Fringewhisker, formerly of SkyClan, now a ShadowClan warrior alongside her mate.

I decided to draw them having a quiet moment to themselves in ShadowClan territory not long after Fringewhisker won her place in the Clan, before Berryheart's rage against the pair really started rearing its head and put the two on their guard. It's a moment of relief and joy, so much dizzying joy, now that they can finally just be together without having to constantly look over their shoulder, always having one ear pricked, always ready to move away from each other at the slightest hint of an approaching patrol. All of that hiding is behind them now. For better or worse, their secret is out in the open, and they can face whatever comes next together.

I had a lot of fun with this one, and I'm actually really proud of the result.  I'm especially proud of Spireclaw, and of the background, which while not perfect, does look better than previous attempts.  I used this image as a reference for the background. I'm super proud of Spireclaw's shading, and especially of how the shading turned out on him. Fringwhisker I'm still a bit unhappy with, something about her face just doesn't look quite right (I was trying to show her looking up at Spireclaw with an adoring smile), but it looked way worse before, and I did a lot of tweaking and playing around with it, and while it's still not quite right, it looks a lot better after all the work I put into trying to fix it. I used this image as a reference for Spire and Fringe.

Overall, while Fringe's face is still bugging me a little, I'm still really happy with how this whole thing turned out.  The title for the piece is a reference to a line from Dark River, where Heatherpaw said that there would be no borders between her and Lionpaw in StarClan. Things obviously didn't work out between those two in the end, but I feel a lot better for Spire and Fringe's chances... I hope, anyway.