Hand in Hand With the Damned (open)

[moonfire]

B I R C H P A W
"In my path to hell I shall have you accompany me."

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Some cats have a soul as bright as the yellow sun on a beautiful spring day, and some cats have a soul as dark as the deepest and most cold part of a cave. A darkness so black that when you enter, there is almost no way out. You find yourself lost, cold, scared, and worst of all...alone. One cat in particular had a rather black heart, and he went by the name of Birchpaw. It was hard for others to figure out what made him the way he was, so cold and heartless. Many had tried to figure him out, but as soon as his sinister eyes fell upon them, they were cast aside, with no hope of ever getting close to him. He was the epitome of darkness, a cat whose path you didn't want to pass. Even cats in his own clan tended to avoid him...not that he minded. If he really wanted anything to do with any of them, he could easily get his way. Or so his arrogant mind thought.

On this particular cold leaf-bare day, Birchpaw was feeling more arrogant than usual. The bitter bite of the wind had no effect on him at all as it rippled against his smooth pelt. He simply lifted his broad head to the sky, pale green orbs scanning the clouds for any sign on snow. He parted his jaws, checking to see if there was any moisture in the air. When he was certain that he wouldn't get caught up in some kind of snow storm, Birchpaw padded out of the camp, ignoring the looks of his clan mates. They were inferior to him, not worth a simple moment of his time. The only reason he even bothered doing things such as hunting for his clan was because it was part of the warrior code, and although he had no sympathy for the others, he did have honor. Honor meant doing his duty as an apprentice, and listening to those higher ranking than him...unfortunately.

Birchpaw did not believe that his thinking was wrong, rather he believed that everyone else thought the wrong way. He wasn't rebellious, and he did not wish to overthrow the leader of Shadowclan in any way, shape, or form. He simply didn't like having to take orders from anyone. He might listen to his mentor, leader, and elder warriors, but he would never once bow down to them. Birchpaw could never sink as low as that. Slowly he ran his tongue over his jaws as his pads gently landed on the hard soil. His thought had taken him far away from the camp, and way out into the vast territory of what was Shadowclan. He could do something considered "useful" by his clan and hunt for fresh prey, but he felt no need to do that. He was off from training today, and he wanted to enjoy himself for once, meaning that hunting wasn't worth his time, especially since he wasn't hungry at the present moment.

Birchpaw gently leaped onto a rotted log, hesitating for a few moments to scent the air. A slow smirk spread across his face, but he hid this reaction very quickly as he shook his head, continuing his adventure through the territory. He found it rather amusing that he was being followed, of course he had his suspicions that another cat had been following him from the very beginning. It was very rare that he ever got any true alone time. He sadly couldn't tell the gender of the cat, for whoever it was decided to trail him from a decently far length. After much more walking he got tired of the cat and mouse game. Birchpaw stopped in his tracks and without turning said in a cool calculating voice "I know you're there, so stop hiding and come out."

[jinxeh]

She hated the cold. She hated how the way the sun hid from the world so early, plunging the wet forest into nothingness. It didn't help that when night fell, so did her spirits. It never failed to cause her to feel empty, and broken, useless and like she would never be good enough for anything in the Clan she loved above all other things. Leaf-bare. Covering the world in ice, and snow, killing all living things, the beautiful mosses, lichen and fern, leaving the ground barren under the frozen blanket of frost. Terncall hated it, hated everything that it was, everything it caused, sickness, death, famine. It was a useless season in her opinion, much like her abandoning father. Breaking the surface of the undisturbed snow, her whiskers twitched and she continued to walk.

Recently, the poisonous disease that leached all happiness from the young warrior had returned, full force. The she-cat had been walking around with a cloud over her head, trying to act happy, and not show her Clan just how low she had fallen. Every day was a battle for her, from the time she woke up in the morning, to the time she went to bed at night. It was a constant, never ending struggle between trying to smile, and wanting to curl up in her nest and never wake up again. Terncall had started to get used to the feeling of being happy, the warm tingle that it sent through her body, and the smile that came on to her face easily. The black and white she-cat, hadn’t felt that in nearly moon. It was beginning to get frustrating for the warrior.

Out in the middle of the territory, the she-cat picked up the scent of one of her Clan mates. Perking her ears, she traced the smell of the cat, following apparently the same path they had travelled. The indents in the snow from where the cat had stepped made it easy to track, just another downside to the dangerous grasps of Leaf-Bare. Coming up and over a small hill in the pine littered forest, she caught sight of her Clan mate, the name instantly clicking in her intelligent mind. A touch of surprise did accompany the recognition; she had not been expecting an apprentice. She was relieved to see another soul though, and she picked up her pace to try and catch the cat. The she-cat stopped dead in the tracks however when the tom spoke, his voice cold, rather unwelcoming to the warrior. All of a sudden, this didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“Take you that long to realize I was following you?”

[/b] Speaking in her usual tone, hiding the feelings that were squeezing at her heart and gut, and weighing heavlity on her mind, she stated the question more as a comment. “That’s a rhetorical question.”[/b] A slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, though it did not succeed in taking over her face. Coming up beside him, her ears flicked at the sound of snow falling from a branch, snapping it and sending it falling to the ground. “What are you going out here by yourself, Brightpaw?”[/b]
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[moonfire]

B I R C H P A W
"In my path to hell I shall have you accompany me."

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Birchpaw stood silently, his head held high and proud, not very concerned with who the cat was that had been following him. Not much in his clan concerned him, he could care less if one of them died, they meant nothing to him. Many cats would look down on an apprentice like Birchpaw for secretly he did not believe in Starclan. When he was a kit he would listen to older warriors tell stories about Starclan, yet they never pricked his curiosity. A bunch of dead cats turning into stars and living in the sky? Heh, how stupid does that sound? Birchpaw would always think. He believed that when a cat died, it simply ceased to exist. There was no magical place up in the sky where the weather was perfect and prey was bountiful. That was just a stupid story told to kits and apprentices in order to make them obey the warrior code. Birchpaw shook his head sadly. These cats are so hopeless.

Many in the clan had been getting sick from both greencough and whitecough. The winter seasons took a toll on the weak, in Birchpaw's opinion they deserved it. If a cat was so weak that a simple sickness would reap the life right out of its' soul than it did not deserve to live and be a warrior in a clan. There were things far more worse than sickness, and that is something that every cat had to face. Living in the wild was rough, so it was a cats job to take it on face to face and beat it. Birchpaw would never allow sickness to take his life. If he was to die it would either be in battle or naturally from old age. He felt his tail gently toss some snow up in the air, and in that moment a she-cat's soft voice finally answered him, taking him out of his thoughts.

Her comment irritated Birchpaw slightly. Was she so dimwitted to think a cat such as himself did not know she was following him the entire time? Stupid she-cat. "Even so, I am going to answer it anyway. It did not take me that 'long' to realize I was being followed. I could feel your presence almost as soon as you began to trail me, and you did a horrible job of keeping downwind. Your scent was carried right to me. If you plan on following any other cats without being detected you might want to work on that." His voice was not as cool as it had been the first time he spoke, but it still wasn't very welcoming. He figured he might get scolded for lecturing a warrior when he was just an apprentice, but he no longer cared.

Birchpaw turned to face the she-cat, recognizing her at the warrior Terncall. His own pale green eyes locked with her leafy green ones, and he twitched his whiskers as he noticed a slight smile appear on her face. This was that she-cat that always tried to act like she was happy when she wasn't. Most of the other cats in the clan never seemed to notice, but Birchpaw was good at reading emotions, especially sad or depressed ones since he himself was never happy.As she came to stand beside him Birchpaw cocked his head to the side slightly, not really wanting to be bothered but knowing that now he had no choice.



"Why am I out here by myself?" He repeated the question out loud in a flat voice as he turned his head toward the sky, noticing how it was a very dull grey color. "I decided that it was a nice day, and I figured I would get away from the rest of the clan since I have off from training. The clan and all of its sick gets makes it rather draining to be around, I needed some fresh air." He paused for a moment "I wasn't expecting to be followed. Why are you out here?"

[jinxeh]

The young warrior did not know the apprentice very well, but she knew of him. He was one of those cats that walked around as if they had the world on their shoulders, and because of it, were angry all the time. He was just like leaf-bare, bitter and harsh. It made the she-cat sad to be perfectly honest. How could someone so young, so full of life, be so bitter towards the world? What was the point? Of course, Terncall wasn't exactly the happiest cat in the Clan, but at least she put a smile on her face and pretended she was happy, which was something that Birchpaw never seemed to do. If he carried on like that, he would turn into the biggest grump of a elder the Clan had ever seen. The thought warmed her slightly, but only for a moment, as the tom spoke, his cold words slicing through her pelt.

Terncall cocked an eyebrow at the tom as he began to chastise her tracking abilities. Well, first off, she wasn't tracking him like she would've if he was a piece of prey. Terncall wasn't the best hunter in the Clan, and she knew it too. But to be called out on it by an apprentice? She didn't care. It was not his place to talk down a warriors skills, and it was not her place to scold an apprentice that was not hers. There were much bigger things to worry about than what the apprentice thought of her. It was almost amusing how he was telling her how to better track him, when he had made it so perfectly clear as to where he was going. Surely a more skilled cat would've made his tracks less noticable? Terncall decided to keep that snide comment to herself.

"I wasn't stalking you, bird brain."

[/color] Terncall coo'd in a mocking tone. If he could be rude to her, she could give him the cold shoulder as well. However, Terncall wasn't a mean cat, she just didn't care what other cats thought of her, and she certaintly wasn't the kind of cat to sugar coat anything. "I caught your scent, and was curious as to who was out and about. Now I wish I hadn't followed you; I was hoping for a decent conversation." Shrugging her shoulders, she swatted at a small pile of snow in front of her, revealing a dead fungus. Looking back to the tom, their eyes locked and Terncall felt a shiver race down her spine. He seemed to see right into her soul with his eyes, and she quickly averted her gaze from him.

Ears swivelling as he responded to her, she shook her head at his tone. He was trying so hard to be miserable. When he spoke of wanting to get out of the camp, she could whole heartedly relate to that, it was one of the reasons why she had left the camp. Granted, the other reason why she left was because she felt the darkness begin to weigh on her mind again was the main one. But she wouldn't reveal that to the tom. Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his face was turned up to the sky. Cocking an eyebrow again as he adressed her with the same question, she hesitated before speaking.

"I was bored, and I hate being holed up in camp all day. It makes my paws itch." The usual tone of her voice returned, dropping the coldness that had grasped it earlier. She might as well try to lighten the mood, even if she wasn't feeling too overly happy herself. "Oh, and I was going to try my paw at hunting before you stench reached my nose." Speaking in her dry tone, the one she spoke all her humour in, she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't take it as a joke. No one ever took it as a joke. None of these cats took insults as jokes. They were all so gosh darn touchy about everything, and Terncall didn't know Birchpaw well enough to know how he would take her comment. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]