Post by ghostpaw on Jul 7, 2009 22:44:19 GMT -5
[/i][/color]idon'tlikeyou
His face was perpetually stuck in a frown. If ghosts were supposed to be the eternally-upset spirits that left their decaying organic forms to haunt amongst the still-breathing, then Ghostpaw was appropriately named. Not only did his face seem incapable of producing a smile, the young tom was quite a sleeper. His clanmates had long since given up assigning him the dawn patrol because he simply wouldn't wake up. Waking the tom early was more difficult than waking a bear in the middle of winter. He slept like a rock: barely among the living. His sister teased that the only time he was ever happy was when he was sound asleep. It seemed at least partially true, considering his face (usually darkened by a scowl or smirk) was remarkably relaxed when he was curled up warm in his nest.
When he was forced to wake, though, the apprentice was a rather unwilling ghost. He made nothing easy. Going on a patrol cost at least a dozen good complaints. And if he was asked to go training, he repayed it with a sarcastic, sassy attitude the entire time. It was easy to assume he learned nothing during any of his outings.
But there were a few rare moments when the young tabby tom seemed to come alive. His pale blue eyes would suddenly sharpen and focus, his body becoming stiff, yet graceful. He almost never spoke when he was like this. One such time had been when he was a fairly new apprentice. He had just happened to be a part of the patrol responding to a series of loud alarm-yowls. By the scent of it, there was a fox in their territory. They'd arrived to find the warrior Poppytail very nearly dead and another apprentice, Wolfpaw, holed up in a tree just out of reach. The bright-furred catastrophe looked up, it's jaws still clamped on the tortoiseshell fur of Poppytail's scruff. Ghostpaw had fallen into a half-crouch, eyes sharpening and body tensing. If anyone had spared him a glance, they would have assumed he was freezing. Many young cats did in the heat of their first real fight. Instead, though, he had leaped forward just as all the others had, moving at once to aid his clanmate.
Ghostpaw was alive again. He sat in the middle of TealClan's camp, the light of the still-full moon shining down on him. His pale blue eyes were sharp as if focusing on something far in the distance as he stared upward. His long-furred tail was arched through the air near his flank, still as the night stars. Although most of his clanmates hadn't noticed yet, this was one of Ghostpaw's more frequent "haunts". In the middle of the night, when the moon was high above, the tom often found himself a seat in the middle of their camp, gazing up towards the stars. At that moment, the Ghostpaw TealClan knew was floating in a sea of thoughts. He blinked his gray-hinted blue eyes and a scene unfolded behind them.
his tiny paws padded over the ground faster than he ever recalled moving. he was looking for them- looking for her. the world around him seemed on fire, but it was only the blazing light of a scathing red sunset. there seemed to be cries everywhere around him.
the forest had come alive with demons.
a voice made him freeze in his tracks. "ghostkit! ghostkit, help!" he turned, and there she was. admittedly, she wasn't the one he really wanted, but he couldn't ignore her cries. his tiny tabby body shot for her. her gold eyes were glued on him as time seemed to freeze. he was staring right back at her, but he could still see them starting to move forward in the trees around them. her gaze was pleading, begging. he read it as if he were staring into his own reflection. don't let me die, it called to him. he felt his flaring fear calm at once. it was as if his emotions had suddenly fallen dead. all he knew was her. in a flash, the world came alive again. he landed beside her, standing beside her and trying to hide her tortoiseshell body with his tabby stripes. he turned back to face the shadows, a hiss slipped from his drawn lips. then he heard a strangled cry, and they looked, both of them.
a big brute of a demon with fur ablaze like fire beat her down with one charcoal paw. his muzzle dove forward, and the tom-kit felt his very soul freeze. his eyes flashed wide in shock, horror, dismay. the creature pulled slowly back, his body silhouetted by the sky behind him. liquid dripped freely from his open jaws. his canines looked like more than incisors- more like swords of bone and death...
Ghostpaw blinked lightly, letting his gaze fall to the ground at his paws. A second later, a warrior had found them and taken them to safty where the rest of the clan had gathered. They had all whispered about Crimsonstar. How brave Crimsonstar had stayed behind while her clan fled. What about her? he had tried screaming, but the words never formed. Now every time he thought her name all he could see was the silhouetted image of the massive fox pulling away from the still form of his beloved mother. So while everyone in any clan would always recall the tragic and courageous death of the leader Crimsonstar, precious Seadrop's death was only recalled by two tiny kits shaking in their pelts.
He sighed, and Ghostpaw's mind fell back into his usual half-comatose state. He stood, stretching each dark gray paw forward to loosen his limbs. His fur was mid-length, not so long as the warrior Wolfstep's, but longer than Loststar or Sunstreak's. He shook his coat out, dark stripes falling perfectly into place. Seadrop used to say how much he looked like his father, a tom named Wraithstone with a defined dark gray tabby coat and haunting blue eyes. He had been a good warrior, she used to tell their son. He had died hunting for the clan, lost when a landslide had thrown him into the ocean.
As he took a seat again, Ghostpaw snorted quietly. Nightpaw was the lucky one. While at a glance she looked almost nothing like their mother either, she still held some similarities to the dead queen. They were both calicoes, Seadrop a mottled torbie(tabby-ginger-white) and Nightpaw a traditional tortoiseshell. Their eyes were the dead giveaway, though. Both had the same shade of sharp, solid gold. Seadrop's daughter was also like her father. It was the genes of a tom named Shadowlight that ran in Nightpaw's veins. He had been a rough-coated, black tom with haunting gray eyes. One day he had simply disappeared, leaving without a goodbye nor backwards glance.
The young tom stood again, turning back towards his den beneath the ledge of the large boulder. He didn't like thinking of his parents very often. Wraithstone and Shadowlight he had never known, but the pain of loosing Seastone still ached every now and then.
Best be get some sleep, he thought to himself, slipping into his nest. Beside him, Nightpaw shifted in her sleep, turning so that her chin came to rest on his flank. If it had been daytime and the two were fully awake, Ghostpaw would have pulled away and snapped something rude at her, but, for now, he let her lean against him. They'd had an odd relationship since Seadrop's death. Their relationship was tainted black compared the pearly white family ties of Eveningrain and Inkpool's kits. He and Nightpaw never showed each other affection. The closest to having heart-to-heart chats they ever got was not insulting each other each and every day. The two never got remotely close to admitting their actual feelings to each other.
The dark gray tom let his tail briefly curl up to touch her ear before it relaxed, and he lowered his head, ready to let the peace of the night sweep his mind away.
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