faintshadow x;; riverclan

[,hateh?]

[name]faintshadow
[gender]she-cat
[rank]medicine cat
[clan]river

[description]few words could describe such a being. Flawless. Surreal. Fake. Fake, for the bleached-gray fur that hides the scars oh-so-carefully. Fake, for a personality that could break hearts. Fake, for eyes that could break minds. In any way, Faint is perfectly incomplete. Thick silver fur spreads over her outwardly flawless body and is framed in thin, black, tabby markings. Her head is finely sculpted, with triangular black-tipped ears as a crown. Sympathetic amber eyes shine softly from their place, surrounded by black fur. The tip of her only visible scar touches one of her amber eyes, where the contact of the disfigurement has turned it to the color of melted butterscotch. The pupil is smaller than it should be, as if Faintshadow has entered a patch of bright sunlight. And yet, her other eye remains the color of ocher, untouched by any scar.

As her head runs into her neck, and her neck into her chest, the silver fades to white. Black spots are the only thing to disturb the pure snow-white. They continue down her chest to her stomach, where they eventually fade into the dark chrome that spreads across her fur. Her legs are long and thin, seeming easily breakable. In fact, a hind leg was twisted in her kithood, leading to a slight limp. Black paws are average-sized, seeming to be the only normal thing about the femme. Delicate claws extend into perfect curves, free of damage.

[picture]no picc-charr.

[personality]faint only earns on glance a day. Nothing, besides her flawed beauty, catches anyone’s attention. She’s only a piece of the everyday scenery. Only sometimes, if she’s lucky – which, in her book, means if she has an injured or ill cat – she’ll get a second glance; a double take. She’s slow to react sometimes; her body grown so used to sitting still and silent. Most think little of her, as if she’s rarely there at all. But, oh, Faint is always there. She watches from her den, tucked away in the outcrop of the rock. As looked over as she is, she can’t help but love the others around her. Most of the time.

Those few occasions are rare and almost never witnessed. She can’t take the strain of being treated as if she’s not there. She tends disappear into the surroundings, wandering far away from the borders. There, she has almost no chance of being found. She stays by herself for hours, sometimes days. Only when the nausea of no food overwhelms her will she find her way bay. And even then, she’s barely noticed. But Faint doesn’t seem to mind. She’s over it, for the last time. So she seems to think.

The pretty femme is withdrawn and quiet. The shy air around her seems to get the best of her. She wants nothing to do with death, and yet she winds up here, in the worst position possible. Though the she-cat is almost always alone, she can’t stand sleeping by herself. Always, she needs someone beside her. Many times she leaves her den to sleep near the nursery, listening to the soft mews of kits through her sleepless nights. Her many fears tend to block her mind sometimes, and she retreats, dazed, to her den. The fear of death, being left alone forever. Dreading the end, Faint can’t sleep at all sometimes. What is she dies in her sleep, like they say? The unanswered question has eventually led to insomnia. On the times she’s able to sleep, she dreams. And Faint hates her dreams. Tales of death – only nightmares for her.

[history]

KITHOOD

faintkit felt the warmth beside her withdraw and fade. It was only the early spring chill that flushed through her veins, left her shuddering with each breath of wind that wound its way through the small gaps in the nursery walls. A faint mew found its way from her open maw, a sign of distress that no one would hear or understand.

Her mother was dead. Two kits died, stillborn. Only Faintkit and her sister, Lostkit, remained. But by the time Faintkit was able to open her eyes, take in the surroundings, there was a replacement. The foster mother could have left the kits at any time, but for some unknown reason she didn’t. As if she couldn’t. And so the kits never strayed far from her side, no matter how useless she made them feel.

Faintkit was never involved in the other’s games. Instead, she preferred to sit quietly in the cool shadows, watching cheerfully. It never once occurred to her that the kits thought her to be different, odd. She could never understand the strange glances they gave her every few minutes, as if checking to see if she hadn’t died or passed out. Faint always seemed to be weak, scrawny. Where most kits grew rapidly, she remained small-framed and thin.

The kit’s second winter, she developed Green Cough. Although she survived, it left her ravaged and weaker than before. She would often be overcome by a sudden dizziness, and seemed to be a target for smaller, less deadly diseases that the other kits seemed to avoid. Once, while on one of her forbidden trips outside, she was overseen. A senior warrior stumbled onto the kit, twisting her leg awkwardly. As she aged, she would favor her left hind leg and would carry with her a permanent limp.

Her foster mother thought her to be too weak to care for. Faintkit detached herself from the queen, and quickly grew closer to her only sister. Her father vanished. The only explanation to give to the feeble kit was death. A second warmth faded in her mind. In reality, her body became easily cold. Several moons passed. Faintkit became Faintpaw.

APPRENTICESHIP

It was the day after her apprentice ceremony. The night before had been spent sitting a silent vigil, curious ocher eyes flooding every inch of the camp. But today, they opened warily. Something was missing.

The usual warmth of her sister, now an apprentice as well, was gone. The apprentice sat up. Lostpaw was gone.

The next several moons were spent by sitting silently at the gap in the thick RiverClan undergrowth that served for the nursery entrance. Her eyes remained closed most of the time, the apprentice trying to remember the familiar scents. The foster mother that had grudgingly taken care of her for so long was ailing. She would often stop breathing in her sleep, waking Faintpaw from the light sleep. The senses had heightened, hearing the best from closing her eyes so much. She developed insomnia, preferring to glance around the nursery. She had strongly refused moving on to the apprentice’s den, wanting to stay near her foster mother and wait for her to die. Faintpaw became secluded, watching the lives of others closer than they could tell. Each day, she would open her eyes a bit more. They went from narrowed slits, where she would look up through the feline lashes to watch her ‘prey’, to wide-open orbs that would stare indifferently at them. Slowly, Lostpaw became only a sliver of a memory in the back of her head. It seemed that all she knew how to do was breathe. She had come so close to giving up talking, her jaw cramping quickly whenever her mouth yearned to open.

And then she was back.

Lostpaw, now old enough to be a young warrior, limped into the RiverClanners’ camp. The sight of her sister’s wasted body recreated the fears of death she had carefully pushed away for so long. A gasping breath fled her lungs, and as soon as she was at her sister’s side, she collapsed in a heap.

WARRIOR

The muscles in her jaw had been renewed. Her step carried more bounce in it than it ever had. A burst of warmth supplied her newfound energy. Faintshadow became noticed. Many of the young apprentices couldn’t remember where she’d come from. Her younger litter mates began to look up to her.

And then, winter fell.

Her old kithood-curse came. As young as she was, the warrior developed white cough. She remained in the warrior’s den – where she had agreed to move to when Lostflicker had abandoned the apprentice’s den – her eyes becoming darker each day. She lost her new strength. And she relived her younger days. Faint became nothing more than a midday shadow, cast by the weak winter sun. Again, they forgot her. When she was finally cured, no one noticed. And Faintshadow began spending more and more time out of the camp, as far away from the other cats as she could. There, in the middle of the vast RiverClan territory, she would starve herself. She would remember that there were those that didn’t have as much luck as her. She would then laugh weakly, half in doubt and half in amusement, and turn back home.

At first, the Medicine Cat – A wise, dark tabby tom named Darkheart - was the only one worried about her health. They grew closer. And Darkheart became something like a father to the young warrior.

Faintshadow was shaken at his death - dragged from his den by a fox in the middle of the night. It was a new moon, no light to guide the warrior as she made her way towards his den. She’d had nightmares, bad enough to cause her frail body to shake with each step. When she entered the overhang where the old tom slept, nothing but dark patches of near invisible blood was left.

A patrol found his body the next day. They wouldn’t have been able to tell it was him after all, but when his hoarse voice came from a destroyed mouth, he spoke of Faintshadow. His last breath was spent telling the mourning patrol that, instead of his apprentice, Faintshadow would be the new Medicine Cat.

As she had no mentor, Faint learned slowly. At each Gathering, she would be taught more and more by the other Medicine Cats. Sometimes, she would be lucky. One of the cats’ apprentices would come to her den – where she still kept the remnants of Darkheart’s blood – to give her herbs and tell her their use and names.

Faint became lonely at the loss of her only friend. She began secluding herself from the others. The trips outside the camp became more and more frequent. She reluctantly chose an apprentice; it would mean that Darkheart was truly gone, and she was his replacement. The small tom she chose was like her. Bad luck, and often overlooked by others. Firepaw quickly attached himself to his mentor, the way Faint had done to her sister. They grew closer. Eventually, Faintshadow was the apprentice’s only friend.

While Firepaw, who Faintshadow had planned to name Firedance once the time came, was steadily growing to match Faint’s expectations, the tom seemed to be troubled with something. And, all too soon, his death came.
The pair had been sitting atop the highest hill in RiverClan territory, Faint only tail-lengths apart from her apprentice. The last signs of the storm were fading away, along with the lightening. Firepaw’s pale amber eyes lowered, staring bleakly at the ground. He whispered her name. Faint would raise her head, smile at him. And he would only tell her of his dreams. Of his death. And in that moment, the last lightening spiraled down. She was watching as it touched the tip of his now raised muzzle, watched as his small body quivered, watched as his eyes closed and the lightening pulled away.

Watched him die.

Silently, Faintshadow stood. She made her way to his body, slightly burnt around his muzzle where the electricity had made its mark. She lay beside her apprentice, maw resting on his side.

[ic]haha. funny.

[password]secrets


long. yeah. sorreh xD

[the day the world went away]

:3 good job, hateh-wuvvvv....-hugs-

a c c e p t e d

exceptionally well. o.o i lyk aplawdz u. :DD -klapz-

WELCOME TO THE HIGHER RANKS OF RC. :3