Description: She is a black and white molly with hazel eyes.
Personality:
Quietly confident, she is fine with living life normally and not rising to attention for particular greatness. She loves exploring and having quiet time alone or with a few friends and kin, and enjoys wandering and being out of camp for patrols, no matter the weather. In camp, if she’s unoccupied, she finds herself too easily led down dark paths of anxiety about illness, wounds, and death. She still avoids the medicine den due to this. Her belief in Starclan follows that of her mentor, Lostface: some distrust and disdain. She enjoys helping others and is humble about it, more concerned with doing the job well than getting thanks for it. She’s a little gruff and not very talkative. Her favorite duties are in hunting and tracking, because she has great skill with them. While an able fighter due to her solid build and training– though she only of average size– she’d prefer to try talking things out or bluffing first. After all, all wounds are dangerous, and she’s seen and heard of enough violence as it is. She has a serious and thoughtful mind, but keeps most of her musing to herself. She feels somewhat disconnected with others, but one on one, is a sympathetic and supportive cat.
Option 1: “She’s a prodigy, that’s for sure. No cat better for the job. But she’s started…well…experimenting. Nobody knows what to think.”
Day 5 of Sparrowminder’s writing challenges! I just let this one go where it wanted to...
“She’s a prodigy, that’s for sure. No cat better for the job. But she’s started… well… experimenting. Nobody knows what to think.”
“Experimenting how?”
“Messing with plants,” said Palepelt. “Like, instead of just licking at wounds, she puts things on them.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She says she thinks they could help heal. That she’s talked to Wanderers and they’ve told her about stuff like that.” The blind tom scratched his side with a hind limb, and then flopped down.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know Wanderer stories. And those cats are just…” he searched for the right word. “Strange. With their ‘herbs’ and their rituals. And they don’t stay in one place, or live all together, but they all have their own—Glarings, they call them?” He shook his head.
“I’m sure they find us just as strange,” said Boulderpelt.
The scrawny tom huffed, hunching his bony shoulders. “I just think she’s hoping she can impress Morningsky. You know… Blizzardtongue and Lightningclaw have never really gotten along. Jealousy and stuff.”
He licked a white forepaw.
“And now that Lightningclaw’s the successor…” He trailed off, thinking of his mentor—the previous successor’s—death. She’d saved Stonekit from a hawk, only to get an infection from her wounds. She’d never shaken it.
He had a feeling that had been a prompt for the Ridgeclan seer to start playing with plants.
“You’re never jealous?”
The new patroller huffed. “Why would I be? They do their things, I do mine.”
“I don’t know… it just seems like you never get noticed. Lightningclaw’s a great fighter and now she’s the successor. Blizzardtongue is a great seer and now she’s… experimenting. Brightface turns every head in the clan and Morningsky adores him. And Patchedpaw’s always in mischief and even if xe annoys everyone, xe makes everyone laugh.”
Palepelt licked his white chest. “Doesn’t matter much. I do what I’m good at: I patrol, I help mark the borders, I kit-sit, I clean the dens. I went the other day with Duspelt to get more of those plants Blizzardtongue likes. I gave Patchedpaw and Pebblepaw and Sootpaw and Cloudpaw a history lesson.”
“Do you want more?”
“More what?”
“More than that.”
Palepelt blinked. “What more could I have? I have my clan, my family—and Morningsky said I’ll get to mentor Firekit. Since she’s blind as well, she thinks we’ll work well together. She’ll be a good first apprentice. She’s so enthusiastic, but she listens really well. If only Patchedpaw wasn’t encouraging her to be a mischief-maker. You’d think xe was spawned from the Trickster zirself!”
“Maybe so,” murmured Boulderpelt. “I hope you really are as happy as you say, Palepelt. I’m so sorry I had to leave you, and the clan.”
“I’m sorry too,” he whispered, though he didn’t know quite what he was sorry for.
He raised his white muzzle to the clear sky, closing his eyes as the sun swiped a warm tongue over his face. But the heat of the day didn’t soothe the chill inside.
Pretending didn’t keep him warm for very long.
Among the rocks, a short distance away, a calico head popped up, green eyes wide. Patchedpaw stared a long time at the solitary tom, sprawling in the grass, staring blindly at the sky. Xe remained motionless, watching, ears pricked. Palepelt had been speaking to someone—yet no one was there. Not even a spirit, and the little calico always had a gift for seeing them…
