[lone]

Originally Posted by RedHead

Quailpaw was a bit surprised at how open Mercurypaw was being with her. When she had first run into him when he was an older kit, a couple moons ago, he had been very standoffish to her. Now though, she was hearing things actually about him. He was telling her about himself. Quailpaw didn’t understand that. She listened to the story about his mother, her eyes still not holding his gaze. If she had not been treated so badly in her young life, then she probably wouldn’t have believed his story. She wouldn’t have believed that someone in a clan would be able to get away with things like that. But she’d experienced it. And her mother, although dead now, had gotten away with plenty of that. Flicking her ears a bit, she glanced over at Mercurypaw, unsure of how to answer his question. She could tell him no, she could close off the conversational topic, and keep herself safe from others. Or she could finally tell another cat what horrors she’d gone through as a kit. Does it really matter if he knows about my mother? That’s nothing about me, so it should be safe. Quailpaw wanted to so badly talk mouse-dung about her mother. Her impulse and wants took over her guarded logical sense, and she gave into telling the younger apprentice. “She was worse than a badger. A real piece of fox-dung. No good in that thin body of hers. And when she grew old and feeble with greencoich, I stood by and laughed. Because then she finally knew how it felt like to be weak and humiliated. But unlike me, she was old and spent. She couldn’t change herself, couldn’t train endlessly to strengthen herself and make herself better. Her life was over. And it ended in the best way for her.”
Quailpaw’s yellow eyes sparked with anger as she remembered this experience. The sickening joy she had felt when her mother had lay in her nest at her paws, coughing, depleting of oxygen at each feeble breath. “She never deserved the cats she had in her life. She deserved no one.”

Quailpaw had growled about her mother before Mercurypaw had spoke again. Her voice had been low and gravelly, so when she snapped out of her state she supposed Mercurypaw might not have heard her.
As he asked for help and “pointers” with his skills. Quailpaw instantly shook her head. “No.” Was her instant response, her tail lashing as she turned away. “I can’t teach in a way you’d understand. I’ve had to adapt.” She meowed, gesturing her tail to her clouded eye. Quailpaw had never wanted to teach anyone, and she sure hoped she never got an apprentice. No one understood the odd way she hunted and battled. This was just her adaption to her condition. And she couldn’t teach Mercurypaw, he seemed perfectly healthy to her.

Quailpaw’s story about her Mother forced Mercurypaw to actually try to remain calm. She sounded like a bad cat… there was a difference between weeding out the weak to make the Clan stronger, and simply taunting them until they could take no more. Now, Mercurypaw was not a typically merciful cat, but he preferred the former option. After all, the latter would take some time, and it was a waste of better-spent energy. ”That sounds horrible. Your Mother truly deserved to die, to go to the Dark Forest.” Ah, the Dark Forest. It wasn’t that Mercurypaw didn’t believe in a “good place” and “bad place,” as most kits were taught, but he preferred the Dark Forest to StarClan. After all, the Evil Era leaders had followed the Dark Forest, and although they had ultimately been taken down by the others, their reign had been one of power and change.

Mercurypaw wondered if there was even a chance that he could be the same way someday. He found it doubtful, the leaders were on the lookout for that sort of thing now - weren’t they? Or perhaps they believed all of Singenight’s followers to be gone by now. ”I believe that. My Mother was the same way - good cats all around her, trying to help her… me, for one thing. I was always trying to help her. But, cats like that, there just isn’t a lot of helping them.” This was even less true. Mercurypaw remembered his Mother, at least a little bit, and none of his siblings or his parents had liked her - he had gone with them, because why shouldn’t he? They were his family, they wouldn’t lead him astray. His Mother was simply a biological tie, not true family. He shunned her, left her be, pretended that she didn’t exist here - or in any world. Quailpaw’s hard “no” at his request left Mercurypaw stunned.

His eyes narrowed, and a harmful comment was at the tip of his tongue when he remembered his cover. Good cat. Play the good cat card, get her trust, get what you want. Then go back to who you are. Hiding who he was was not for fun. Mercurypaw liked who he was, he was comfortable with it. But you couldn’t manipulate and cheat your way through life if everyone knew that’s what you were trying to do. You had to be charming, smooth, calm… cats like that were charismatic. Eventually, everyone was drawn to them. ”Oh, I understand. You must have adapted extremely well to deal with that… I’ve never understood how cats with such harmful disabilities can stay in WindClan. Or be loners, for that matter. Is it hard, training?” Mercurypaw asked, feigning concern and curiosity. The one true thing that he’d said was that he didn’t understand how cats with disabilities like that could stay in WindClan. It hurt the Clan. They were useless, although Quailpaw seemed to have adapted surprisingly well - perhaps she would be useful, later on. Right now he was just testing her out. So far? She was passing with flying colors.

Originally Posted by spring

"I'm doing the best I can." Tawnypaw murmured bluntly, her eyes diverting down towards the ground as she stared down towards her paws. She was done with crying, after all- the only thing that remained was a sense of numbness, an empty feeling in her chest which hadn't gone away since the day her friend had been attacked, even before she'd died. Tail flicking across the floor of the camp almost restlessly, the she-cat kept her mouth shut for a few moments before finally snapping her head back up towards the other apprentice, eyes closing as she let out a long, winded sigh. "Life goes on, Aspenpaw." She murmured softly, though it appeared as if she wasn't intent on taking her own advice. She'd been closer to Moonpaw than her own family, but now... both things seemed to be gone. Both things except for a couple nieces and nephews she'd never even met, and a father who she hadn't talked to in what seemed like moons. "...How have you been?"

”But, you’re going to be okay?” He questioned, looking over his friend anxiously. Tawnypaw was one of those cats that made him nervous - he wasn’t sure she was telling him the whole truth, and his fear was that if she wasn’t, something bad would come of it. That same dull pain was still present in his eyes… it would go every once in a while, but for the most part, it was a horrible aching. It was hard, missing someone from his life. Missing a few cats, actually. It might go on, but it’s not the same! He wanted to shout, to complain, to do anything to see how badly she was actually hurt. Tawnypaw had been like this for a while, and Aspenpaw wasn’t sure how to fix it. There might not be a way to. He might just have to accept that she was… well, that she was gone. He had to think about her question before he could answer. ”I’ve been alright. Surviving, I guess.” That was pretty much all any of them could do in the end. It all came down to survival. And while Aspenpaw hadn’t felt like he needed to be much of a survivor before, now… now things were changing.