Moonstar Boutta Crash Out After The Last Update

Moon 6

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Cold wind whistles through the rocks Moonstar and Fogfreckle are hunched under, bringing the crisp scents of first leaf-fall. With a shiver, Moonstar presses closer to Fogfreckle for warmth, but startles back as he lets out a pained hiss. She rests her gaze on her brother for a moment, eyeing the bristled, spiky fur of his pelt that sticks up around the cobwebs she did her best to wrap him with, stiff with dried blood.

The talon marks that are sunk into his back worry Moonstar. She wishes she had listened better when she was an apprentice, when their old medicine cat, Loudtalon, had been rambling on about herbs. She doesn’t want to try mixing a poultice for her brother in case she gets it wrong; she wouldn't even know where to begin. The most she can do is change his cobwebs when the blood starts to soak through and pray to StarClan that infection doesn’t set in.

She’s been doing her best to keep his wounds clean, but he’ll need new cobwebs soon. With a heavy sigh, she rises to her paws as much as the rocks crushing in around them will allow, her shoulders brushing the ceiling. Her ears have been pinned to her head for so long now that she thinks they may get stuck that way.

Moonstar moves towards Fogfreckle to give his ear an affectionate lick before she leaves, but he ducks away from her, wincing at the movement.

Moonstar halts and pulls back, chin wobbling.

Puffing her fur against the biting wind, unseasonable for this early in leaf-fall, she squeezes her way out of their makeshift den in search of three thing: cobwebs for her brother, fresh-kill for the both of them, and someplace they can finally call home.

With Fogfreckle injured, her search is limited.

Moonstar pads across the mountain, eyes sharp for the movement of prey but mind elsewhere. Before Fogfreckle was confined to his nest to heal from the eagle attack, they were constantly on the move. So far, they haven’t found anywhere that would make for a good camp. They’ve slept in abandoned dens, up in the branches of trees, tucked under scrubbly, thorny bushes – but a place big enough for two cats to sleep is nowhere near large enough for a camp.

They will rebuild NimbusClan. StarClan decreed it – StarClan chose her as leader. It has to be for something, she has to have something, some trait or destiny or something that StarClan can see that she can’t, or they wouldn’t have chosen her. Her stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought.

Her mind strays to worse thoughts, the sharp glide of golden wings slicing through the air a constant in her mind this past moon. She can’t shake how odd it was – sure, it’s not strange that a mother would want to protect her eggs – but the way it shifted its beady black glare from Moonstar to her brother seemed tainted with something more than just a mother’s protection.

With effort, she shakes the subject from her mind and sets to canvassing this section of mountain. She doesn’t want to stray too far from where Fogfreckle is, so she’s been going out in a different direction each day in the hopes she’ll find something suitable. Today, she pokes her head into a shaded clearing of pine trees, only to be met with the blinking eyes of several racoons peering through the needles – sniffs around the opening of a fox den that smells very clearly occupied (hurrying away as quickly and silently as her paws with allow) – and shrinks back into the shadows of a leafy bush when a pair of twolegs turn a corner onto a twolegtrail, speaking loudly in their foreign tongue and likely scaring away all the prey in the area.

She only manages to catch one meager mouse – but that’s fine, because it’s Fogfreckle’s favorite, and with a cobweb-coated twig cradled carefully between her teeth, she doesn’t think she’d be able to carry more than one piece of fresh-kill at the same time, anyways.

Fogfreckle stirs as she presses back into their den, her head angled awkwardly so she can get through with the stick clamped in her jaws. He glances at her as she pushes the mouse towards him, and then looks down at his paws as she sets to working clearing the old cobwebs from his fur. She tries to be gentle, but she’s no good at this medicine cat stuff. Fogfreckle grimaces the entire time and lets his mouse go cold, not sharing a single word with his sister as she rasps a tongue over his wounds, cleaning the dried blood from his fur.

Moonstar goes to sleep when she’s done, stomach rumbling, and tries not to cry.

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moon 16 part 1.

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🦋 ✧ • Prologue Part 2 • ✧ 🦋

Prologue p1 || Prologue p3 {TBA}

🦋 ✧ • ~-------------------------------~ • ✧ 🦋

Fun fact ingame Bugclan and Pondclan were called Lowclan and Brindleclam, but that gave me like nothing to work with so i based them on their icons instead. In general I tried to work with what the game gave me as much as I could

If anyone’s interested in a $10 Commission of their OC, hit me up! Looking to do some drawing over the weekend!

🍁 Moon 2

Lynxmane is really living up to his childish nature

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Moon 5 Part 4

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Fogfreckle’s body hits the ground hard, rolling halfway down the slope as Moonstar slides down after him, pebbles skidding out from under her paws as she rushes to his side.

“Fogfreckle?” Moonstar’s voice wavers as she reaches him in a spray of stones, hovering a scraped paw gently over his bleeding body as she hesitates. He’s just lying there, chest rising and falling shallowly, as blood oozes from thick punctures along his back that stains his pale fur red. Should she roll him over? What if his bones are broken? He’s not dead, by the grace of StarClan, but she’s no medicine cat – she has no idea how close he is to death or how much worse she’ll make it if she tries to move him.

The circling shadow of the eagle drifts over them with another ear-splitting, screeching cry, and Moonstar’s fear makes the decision for her. She grabs Fogfreckle by the scruff of the neck and begins to haul him farther down the slope. She doesn’t want to injure him more than he already is, but she knows it’ll be worse if they’re caught out here on the open mountainside once the larger predators in the area catch scent of his blood and come to investigate.

Fogfreckle doesn’t make a single nose of pain as she pulls him through the dirt. She drags him as far as a tumbled collection of boulders and stones, squeezing into a space between the rocks that is just big enough for Moonstar to fit her body through and drag Fogfreckle in after her. The space is tight, without a lot of room to move, and Moonstar has to swallow panic and bile as the walls seem to press in around them. 

“This is best,” she says aloud to herself, “foxes or fishers can’t reach us in here. It has to be here.” The self-soothing doesn’t do much to abate her claustrophobia, but Fogfreckle makes a pained noise in response to her voice and all thoughts of herself vacate her mind.

Fogfreckle whimpers as Moonstar licks his wounds clean, flinching as she clears dirt from the punctures with her rough tongue. She doesn’t say anything while she works, but she nearly sags in relief with every flinch and whimper from her brother. He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s alive and he’s okay.

“Stay here,” she says at last when she’s cleaned most of the blood and debris from his fur. It’s still oozing sluggishly from his wounds, bright and wet. “I need to find cobwebs. Do you think you broke anything?”

“I don’t think so,” Fogfreckle murmurs, voice weak and faint with exhaustion. 

“Reckless,” Moonstar murmurs back, licking his forehead once. “Alright. Okay. Stay safe. Please, please, stay safe. I’ll get us help, okay? I’ll find someone to help.”

Moonstar scrambles out from under the claustrophobic press of rocks and pelts back up the mountain, swerving trees and boulders and leaping roots as she climbs higher and higher. Panic and grief strangles her thundering heart, pushing her to run faster and faster until her legs are burning. She reaches a break in the pines, a ledge buffeted by the wind, and yowls at the top of her lungs until her voice runs ragged.

“HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP! PLEASE! HELP!”

Her voice echoes back to her across the mountain, mimicking her fear. When it fades, there is only the sound of the mountain. Wind in her ears, the rustle of leaves in the trees, insects that hum in the sun. A sob escapes her, then a full blown wail, and her body collapses beneath her as the lack of response presses against her.

They are alone. At sunrise, she awoke as the leader of this clan, and at sundown she is so terribly, horribly, awfully alone.

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Moon 5 Part 2

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Moonstar gasps awake, sitting up so fast she rams her head into the thick underside of a low-hanging branch that she and her brother had spent the night taking turns sleeping under. They’ve been doing that, taking turns – who knows what things are lurking out here in the dark, so far from home.

If they can't go back, does it still count as home? 

“Ow…” Moonstar groans, a sharp throb pounding against her skull. What a way to start the morning.

Fogfreckle ducks his head underneath one of the branches, sweeping past the leaves to gaze curiously at his sister. He tilts his head questioningly, mouth open to ask what’s wrong, when the words die on his tongue and his eyes widen.

“Fogfreckle!” Moonstar mews excitedly, leaping to her paws. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

“Your– your forehead,” Fogfreckle croaks. “You… were visited by StarClan?”

“What about my forehead?” Moonstar asks, confused and distracted. She presses a paw against her head to see if perhaps she’s bleeding, but her paw doesn’t come away warm or wet. The rest of her brother’s words filter to her slowly through the dull throb of pain and the fog of the early hour. She pouts. “Yeah, Star– how did you guess so quick?”

“There’s– your forehead. You have a star. A leader’s star.”

Moonstar’s pout deepens. “Well. That kind of steals my thunder.”

“Moonpool, what happened?”

“Moonstar now, actually.” Moonstar grins. “StarClan visited me in my dreams and granted me my nine lives. Isn’t that crazy? I didn’t even have to– there was no–” Moonstar’s tongue can hardly keep up with everything that’s swirling in her brain, the experience of her leader’s ceremony playing back to her as if memory and not just dream. “NimbusClan lives on, Fogfreckle. In us, just like you said. We’re to lead NimbusClan into its new future.”

“‘We’?” Fogfreckle asks weakly, jaw slack with disbelief.

“Of course, ‘we’!” Moonstar laughs, bounding closer to her brother. She feels so full of life, coursing through her like the widest, wildest river. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you, you know that. Besides, what’s a leader without her deputy?”

“Deputy?” Fogfreckle repeats, dumbstruck.

“What are you, a raven?” Moonstar laughs. “Yes, deputy! As leader, I’m appointing you as deputy of NimbusClan, Fogfreckle.”

Fogfreckle swells with pride, pale chest fluffed out as he inhales a shaky breath. “I– yes, Moonstar. Thank you.”

“Don’t get all formal on me, now. You’re my brother first, deputy second.”

“So, we really are still a Clan.” He grins, then the expression fades from his face somewhat. His eyes take on an earnest shine. “Did you… I know you’re not supposed to talk about the ceremony, but… when you visited StarClan, did you… did you see our parents?”

Moonstar smiles gently, heart squeezing painfully in her chest. Dad had told her to tell Fogfreckle that their parents miss him, too, so surely StarClan won’t be displeased if she shares just that much? “Yes. I saw them. Mom and Dad. They told me to tell you they miss you.”

Fogfreckle hiccups, stepping close to push his head hard against Moonstar’s.

“I wish you could have seen them too,” She adds in a whisper, nuzzling into his dawn-warmed fur. The sun is just starting to crest the side of the mountain on its way up, crawling lazily into the sky. Greenleaf heat creeps on silent, soft paws across her pelt. It’ll be humid later, but for now, it’s pleasant.

“Maybe they’ll walk in my dreams one day, too.”

“I hope so.” Moonstar presses one more smile into his fur and then pulls back, squaring her shoulders in what she hopes is a leaderly fashion. It’s only her brother, but she may as well start getting used to playing the role. “Alright, deputy. What’s our first order of business?”

Fogfreckle grins. “How about breakfast? I could go for some eggs.”

“Perfect idea.”

Both cats stretch out their paws and take off, bounding up the mountain.

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Updated the refs for our now-adult MCs!

Moonstar: A pale tabby she-cat, eyes of sunlit ice, medium fur length. Nervous, steady paws. 13m old.

Fogfreckle: A white, unusually spotted (rosette) pale gray tom, cobalt eyes, medium fur length. Daring, good mediator, den builder. 13m old.

>mundanity / stress

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