TWO CLANS BLOG

Ivyclaw: Silence smothered the camp in thick binds, choking out the passing conversations that bellowed in the mornings and sang until the evening. No crickets or frogs dared invade where the silence was a smog - they, instead, sang to the stars from the riverbanks on either side of the small island. The only sound that pierced the quiet was the sharp edge of the wind, poking holes through the silence's façade, chipping away at its barriers breeze by breeze.

The wind whispered just quiet enough to hide the words of the woods and the wisdom of the skies. Even Ivyclaw's ears, praying for a voice to guide her, could not make out the sound of the breeze. The black-pelted she-cat sat still in the midst of the camp, her head tipped back to watch the stars as they danced and played just out of reach - she knew, for she had reached for the stars and fallen among the fields, bound by the grass that tangled her limbs. Her lungs swelled with the breath of the forest - of stories lost to her yet told by the land itself. She exhaled her own story with every breath she took, every step she made and every word she uttered...

Green hues, clouded with confusion and squinted in desperation for a sign or a clue, watched the night as though it was the last thing she'd ever see.

Tremble little Lion Man, you'll never settle any of your scores.  

Her breath grew shaky as her mind wandered not through the forest, but through the smogged memories of the city - of her family. Soft, yet kind eyes, with a loving smile and a tender purr - a memory of what she could only describe as "mother." A hearty laugh and a twinkle in his gaze - "father," she recalled. Gnashing teeth and snarling lips, the scrape of claws and the yowls of cats: "Willpower." She remembered every fight she raged for a scrap of prey for her parents or a rat for her little siblings. She remembered every loss, every hungry mewl, every look her parents gave each other as yet another kitten stopped mewing. She remembered every failure.

Weep little Lion Man, you're not as brave as you were at the start.

She had came here for her parents, who had urged her to go and seek her own life - a better life than they claimed they could give her. She had came here to seek success, to seek a victory of some sorts - a way to turn surviving into living, a way to grow and provide for a family where she couldn't provide for her own. She came with confidence and bravery, yet fell short of every task. Fishing, combat, even speaking. Failure after failure built a shroud of anger and hatred not for her clan, but for herself. It hid how terrified she was, but even that was a failure.

Ivyclaw wasn't sure how long she had sat out there in the quiet of camp or how many tears she had silently shed - as though her own body was afraid of breaking the vow of the noiseless night - yet, she did know one thing.