late night musings (lo)

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It was still dark outside; the moon hadn’t even begun sinking towards the horizon and the sky was still a smooth black pelt of solid ebony. The stars were still far-off pinpricks of in a lonely sky filled with empty promises and rain and clouds. Cedarclaw was curled uncomfortably in his nest, hating the thick scents all around him of too many cats in one place. He hated hearing all the different breaths of each one of them, all those slow inhalations and huffed exhalations all at once. There were too many exclamations from unsettled dreams and an excess of movements as cats tried to escape their nightmares. Sleeping was an uncomfortable experience in general for the brown tabby tom, whose mellow green eyes were no wide open and staring out through the tightly woven reeds and whatever else made up the walls of the den.

Cedar desperately missed his solitary den back in his kithood home, from where he and Cypress and Larch and Hemlock and Poplar had lived all together until the incident. Although his family hadn’t all been together when he fled RiverClan to live as a loner, it had been peaceful living alone. At night, he slept under the gnarled roots of an old oak tree. It was funny that he and his sisters were all named after trees he had hardly ever seen in his life, and he doubted Cypress had seen them either. The sounds of the forest had filled his ears each night, and Cedar wondered (not for the first time) why, if his father just had to be a Clan cat, why couldn’t he have had a ThunderClan father? At least he might feel at home there.

But no, now he was stuck forever with Shallowstripe who would never let him leave. Anyways, he could hardly bear to leave Poplar’s grave even though there was nothing of her life left anymore. She would never know or care what he did or where he went because she was dead.

He couldn’t make himself go back to sleep. Now, he was completely keyed up and couldn’t seem to block out the shifting sounds of the RiverClan warriors. There was just too much, and now there were so many thoughts on his mind. His green eyes stayed open and he stared emptily through a gap in the walls, gazing absently at the black sky and the one shining star that he could see. He wondered what made the Clans think StarClan actually existed. He wondered if they had reason, or if they just had wishful thinking and hoped that their dead loved ones went somewhere they could follow. If they just needed some sort of beautiful promise for after the struggles of living in the Clans.

The Clans were so pointless. Whose idea had that been, anyhow? Who thought it was a good idea to stick a whole bunch of quarreling, disagreeable cats together into a unit and make them live side by side? The Clans had only caused strife and killed each other; things would be so much more peaceful—and rather easier, too –had he refused to go with the black-and-white tom the day he came to fetch Cedarclaw. He supposed he owed it to Poplarleaf now to actually live in the Clan, since he had given up so readily before. He was repaying her slowly now. I guess, he thought doubtfully.

Some day, he would gather up the conviction to leave. He certainly couldn’t live like this forever.

word count // 586
ooc comments // well, maybe they can go outside the warriors den and talk quietly when duskfire wakes up and finds cedar staring creepily at nothing xD
tags // lo

[Lo]

DUSKFIRE

The dark she-cat yawned as she padded into the Warriors’ den and prodded the tom who was supposed to take over guard duty that night. She didn’t speak to him because when she jabbed him in the side with her paw, he woke with a start and regarded her with wide eyes. With a flick of her tail, the Tom got the message and padded out into the main part of camp, but not before giving the tortoiseshell she-cat a dirty look. She paid no mind as she carefully stepped around another warrior and made her way to Oakspirit, for her nest was next to her brother’s.

She stepped into her nest and was about to curl up when she saw another clanmate of hers staring into the abyss. He was a tom that she didn’t know very well but whose nest was almost next to hers. She knew his name, but his past made her uncomfortable. He was not a Riverclanner by birth and as such Duskfire struggled to trust him as completely as she trusted some of her other clanmates. He’d already left the clan once and had only returned because his sister had died. Duskfire wondered if he really belonged in the clan.

“Cedarclaw?” She asked in a whisper as she stepped into her nest which was right next to his. Was he thinking of leaving the clan again right now? Duskfire certainly didn’t count that possibility out. Cats that weren’t born into the clan never fully fit in the clan as their clan-born clanmates did. And she would always doubt their loyalty. “Why are you still awake?”

She didn’t normally stay up late talking to her clanmates, although mostly because her tongue and temper made many of her clanmates uncomfortable, and she almost never willingly socialized with cats she would always consider outsiders. She socialized with her brother and her parents often, but other than the clan deputy, Hawkfeather, and recently Nightbreeze, she seldom socialized with anyone else. Well, she’d started a friendship, albeit a rough argument-filled one with Nightbreeze recently. Maybe she should branch out more? Pfft, not likely. But still, she was tired and curious.

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A fresh scent came into the den to clog up the air. Cedar hadn’t bothered to learn most cats’ scents, because he didn’t particularly want to know who was coming to bother him. If he didn’t know who was going to bother him until they actually were bothering him, then he had no time to form personalized angry insults that would surely upset the Clan. He had, of course, learned a few scents by now—for example, Patchfur’s, Leopardstar’s, and Mudfur’s. He needed to know the scent of his only friend, and the scent of his leader, and then, of course, knowing the medicine cat’s scent was helpful. The newcomer prodded someone awake—someone who groaned just the littlest bit, irritating Cedarclaw. Can’t they tell I’d rather not hear them? he thought grumpily. “Cedarclaw?”

[/I] It was still so strange to hear his Clan name spoken to him rather than his birth name (which, by the way, he preferred over the tacky suffix stuck on the end). Sometimes, he almost didn’t respond. All these moons, and he still wasn’t used to hearing others say it. “Why are you still awake?”[/I] That was Duskfire’s voice. She was a hot-tempered little tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat, and she was rumored to despise anyone not one hundred percent RiverClan. So why must she decide to talk to me? wondered Cedarclaw morosely.

He closed his eyes but snapped them back open again after heaving a sigh of resignation. Since he wasn’t going to be going back to sleep anytime soon, he supposed he could talk to her. There was nothing else to do, at any rate, and the tabby tom was desperately bored. Great, now I think like a Clanner. I was never bored when I was on my own! He carefully turned around in his nest to face Duskfire, whose nest was almost directly next to his. He had never really spoken to her before. “I wasn’t still awake,” he clarified, “the den is just too stuffy. All of them breathing woke me up.” He sounded so very grumpy that it was no wonder he seemed to constantly hate everyone. He didn’t hate anyone, though, he just preferred solitude over company and was unable to disguise that fact. He flicked his ear as an insect buzzed quietly near it. “Anyways, I never sleep well,” he admitted.

It was just too hard to sleep with so many strangers around him. It didn’t feel comfortable or secure to sleep surrounded by the RiverClan cats—and not just because of the fishy smell that always hung faintly about them. He hardly knew them, he knew they barely trusted him, and that feeling was mutual. There was just a general uneasiness—much of it was probably perceived, although Cedarclaw would never realize that fact. However, much of it was very, very real.

He snorted. “Guard duty uneventful as usual?” he asked. It was so pointless. Everyone else in the forest would much rather sleep than go attack another Clan. Besides, everyone was in camp at night. The Clans all posted guards at night because they expected an attack at night. How ridiculous was that? Who would possibly want to attack when everyone was expecting the attack and everyone was around?

word count // 539
ooc comments // none
tags // lo

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