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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Jun 27, 2010 13:37:37 GMT -5
All she wanted was to simply disappear. Just become invisible. Or maybe die. Well, no, not die. That was just stupid. Still. She felt pretty silly. A sifting shoal of thoughts swirled in their multiple layers as he laughed. The glittering, beautiful ones in the top layer were of joy and pride, that she had managed to make him, Crowpaw, laugh. She, pathetic little Juncopaw, had achieved such a thing.
But the darker ones underneath brooded their unpleasantness and worry like a bird sitting on her eggs. Embarrassment - why couldn't she have made him laugh in a cooler, more sophisticated way that didn't involve her idiot clumsiness? Worry - if she kept on doing things like this, would he ever take her seriously? Or did it matter? Oh, why did she care? Nothing would ever happen like that anyway, she should be happy instead of sad like the ungrateful wretch she was. The knowledge weakened her, but she welcomed it, for without she was nothing but an arrogant little brat.
Despite this, she still smiled a sad smile, for at least there was her small black-furred friend.
Who just got hit by a raindrop in the eye. Her own eyes widened. Was he okay?
He seemed alright...should she help him? But at least he'd said she shouldn't apologize...yet she'd felt like she'd needed to, terrified that she'd made a mistake, especially in front of him.
"Are you okay, Crowpaw? Can I help?" She asked concernedly.
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Post by glowlynose on Jul 1, 2010 19:24:25 GMT -5
"Hm, whassat?" Crowpaw mumbled through his paw, still trying to wipe his eye. "Oh, no, there's nothing you can do. I'm fine, Juncopaw. Really." The medicine cat apprentice dropped his paw and tried his best to make a normal face. The eye the raindrop had hit was still squinting a little bit, but the sting was almost gone. He would be right as rain within a few heartbeats, grinning like his normal self. Then Juncopaw wouldn't be so worried about him, which would be good.
"How come you worry so much, Juncopaw?" He really hadn't meant to put it that way. Honest to flowers, he didn't. As soon as the words left his tongue, they turned right around and mocked him for his stupidity and lack of tact. He really must teach himself to be more sensitive. Now Juncopaw was probably going to flip out because she thought he thought she was pathetic, and then he'd have to sigh and reassure her, and things would just keep going downhill from there because she wouldn't believe him.
Either that, or she would be caught completely off guard by his compassion and give a straight answer for once. That had happened with Bluefur. Speaking of Bluefur, he should go visit him soon. They hadn't spoken in a while, and he missed his warrior friend. To be completely honest, the bulky tom was the closest thing poor Crowpaw had to a father figure.
But, in any case, he really should think about Juncopaw right now. Why was she so worried and skittish all the time? Well, it wasn't that she was particularly skittish, it's just that the smallest thing would get her all in an uproar. All it took was a raindrop for her to go from confident and smiling, to a frightened kit who just heard thunder for the first time. Was it the influence of his sister working on her? Did she do things to Juncopaw that made her flip out over the smallest thing, or was she just naturally that insecure? It was strange, whatever the reason behind it.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Jul 8, 2010 11:33:45 GMT -5
"Uhhhhhh..." She really couldn't think of a more dignified response than that while her mind walked off cliffs and tripped over things as it scrambled in its mad attempts to answer honestly. What could she say? That half of her was utterly, truly paranoid?
Well, she had to say something. Might as well get it over with.
"Well, I...um...I dunno, when something happens a lot of the time I worry about the bad stuff that could happen because of it and whether cats'll be hurt...and also because...I guess..." She shuffled her paws. This was hard, but it was as far as she could go without telling the whole truth. Besides, it WAS pretty much the truth - he hadn't asked why she specifically worried a lot around him. Of course, she worried anyway, but extra around the black tom, for obvious reasons.
...hopefully he wouldn't notice that.
But time to fess up. Time to say what she'd never admitted to any other PineClanner, not even Willowpaw. Not that Crowpaw's sister had ever asked.
"...when I ran away from my old home, I was terrified. It wasn't because of bravery that I made it to the Clans. It was because I was running away. After that, I realized exactly what I'd done. And I worried, realizing how foolish and reckless I'd been. I could've died. So now I live in fear that I'll do something stupid like that again."
She finished with head hung low in shame, staring at the ground, mumbling barely audibly. What a fool he must think she was. A snivelling coward. A pathetic cat to ever befriend.
Let alone ever love.
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Post by glowlynose on Jul 17, 2010 14:46:35 GMT -5
"Juncopaw, I don't care how you got to be here. You might have been running, but so what? Some of the bravest warriors in the clan got to be here by running away from their old lives," he began, wondering why she was always so hard on herself. Nobody should be ashamed simply because they joined a clan and made a new life for themselves. It was one of the things he liked the best about living in a clan, all the rebirth that went on every day. You got to see lives changed and healed right before your eyes. It was a small kind of miracle, Crowpaw supposed with a smile.
"In fact, I think one of the bravest things somebody can do is to remove themselves from their unhappiness. It takes a lot of courage to leave behind all that you've ever known, your home, your family, and try to make things work for you.
"You might not agree with me, but I think you're very brave, Juncopaw. And don't say you're stupid. That's just a lie, and you know it." How many other lies did poor Juncopaw believe about herself? Did she think she was inferior to his sister, her closest friend? Did she think she was pathetic, or ugly, or a bad sort of clumsy? It must be the influence of his pernicious sister. She worked to make everybody else feel worse about themselves so that she could feel better about herself. He'd seen it when Juncopaw had come to visit her. Why the she-cat put up with his sibling, he had no idea. It wasn't like she got any affection in return from his sister.
"What you did wasn't stupid, Juncopaw." Crowpaw's jaws clenched, trying to contain all the reprimands that his brain was yelling at her. Reprimands for being his sister's friend, reprimands for believing herself to be inferior, and for being so dang scared all the time. She had nothing to worry about here. There were strong warriors like Bluefur to keep everybody safe, and to help keep them from doing "stupid" things. Juncopaw was so aggravating sometimes. Her self-pity train really needed to leave the station and make room for the Contentment Express.
Yeah, something like that.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Jul 30, 2010 16:31:35 GMT -5
She shrank back instinctively. He was angry. Crowpaw. Angry. It almost did not compute. But it was here, it was real. And it seemed to be because of her. She had to...she had to think. Amazing, that she could think.
It was strange...it was like he wanted her to be happy, yet he was angry...Juncopaw had never been good at figuring out what cats were thinking. All she could do was respond and hope for the best.
But before she did that, she had to puzzle everything out.
Running. She was a runner. She had always been a runner. Fear made you want to escape. It was one of the reasons why she kept it inside her - it protected her. Numbed her anger. Let her hide instead of facing things. For she was bad at facing things.
And this was probably the first time she'd faced even that. She really was that stupid. Not that she pitied herself and longed to be smarter - she didn't deserve that and probably never would. But of course, she was cursed with wanting what she could never have, including that.
It reminded her of her shame. Her idiot rebelliousness that so rarely sparked. Yet it had - and this was what had come of it. Maybe it was good she'd left, after all. Even if it had been bad of her to do so. It made her head hurt, good bad so mixed up. Until now, she'd thought of them as two completely different things. Black and white. Right and wrong. Do and don't. But what if there could be gray? Or, as a fanciful thought came to her, silver. She looked down at her own coat. Maybe, just maybe, the perfect amount of black and white made silver - like her fur. It was beautiful and silly - and she took hold of the idea immediately.
She was ready to talk to him now, even if she wasn't entirely confident.
"M-maybe you're right, C-crowpaw. Y-you're good to t-try and h-help me. I-it's better than I d-do. B-but" she added this on a whim , "d-don't think I s-spend all my time f-feeling s-sorry for myself. What I r-really feel...is s-sorry for others, s-sometimes. B-but, I'm not a v-very g-good fighter. I f-find it s-so hard to b-break away from unhappiness..." She trailed off awkwardly. She didn't want to go into too much detail in case it made him mad.
"I d-don't know if I'm brave, b-but m-maybe I'm not stupid...at least not most of the t-time, r-right?" Suddenly she hoped this wasn't all a horrible joke. No. He would never do something like that.
Maybe it was ridiculous, dumb, audacious in the extreme, but she padded wearily up next to him, sat down and leaned against him just a little, for once in life never thinking of her awkwardness in liking him - only looking for the comfort of a tom she hoped was her friend.
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Post by glowlynose on Jul 30, 2010 20:50:46 GMT -5
Crowpaw could think of so many things to say to her, but none of them seemed quite right for the situation. She didn't need encouragement, or words of wisdom, or even pity. All she needed right now was somebody to be there for her. It was incredible how quickly this little outing had turned from innocent fun into... well, what was this, exactly? Emotional bonding? That worked. He could only wonder why she was coming to him with this instead of his sister. After all, they were best friends. Isn't that the sort of stuff you told to your best friend?
"Oh, Juncopaw," was all he could manage after a few moments of silence. Not that the silence was awkward, he just felt like he should say something for Juncopaw's sake. He could have been quite content with the silence, but if he hadn't said anything, it would have just made her uncomfortable.
For now, the best he could do was just let her be. Should he lean in a little bit too? He was barely larger than she was, but maybe it would make her feel better somehow. Safer, more secure, he didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted to, so he did.
A breeze stirred around the forest, picking up the dandelion seeds and sending them into a flurry. Some leaves, eager to leave their branches now that summer was nearly drawing to a close, fluttered down and joined the little white seeds. Crowpaw smiled. This was what made the forest so beautiful. The breeze smelled warm, but also rainy, since it was still sprinkling a little bit. It would have been absolutely perfect, except for one thing. In a totally anti-climatic moment, Crowpaw sneezed.
"Uhb, 'scuze be, Judcobaw," he managed to get out between sniffles. He sounded so ridiculous that he couldn't help but laugh at himself. Grinning, he sneezed again. Ah, that was better. His nose wasn't congested anymore.
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Aug 1, 2010 10:13:14 GMT -5
She couldn't help it. In spite of everything she had relived, realized, and gone through in the past few minutes, she laughed long and loud.
"Heeheeheeheehee...oo...hoohoohoo..hahahaha...eheheheh.....giggle...snort..." She rolled over on the grass and grinned like a maniac.
"I'm sorry, but that was so....so...so...you." She grinned at him. This was why she liked him so much. His ability to make her laugh, smile, like no one else. Yet even in the space of such a short time since their...intense discussion, she felt a little better and a little less anxious. Good. Soon she could forget about liking him altogether. She felt a bit sad at this thought, but pushed it away and remembered what they'd been originally doing.
"Hey, so, where are those herbs, anyway?" Now her grin was a teasing smirk. A worry sprang up in her mind: would he think she'd forgotten what he'd told her? Oh, she was trying so hard. Hopefully he wouldn't see her as fake...because she honestly wasn't trying to be, she was just trying to be better. Better for him. Of course, she could only even BE this way around him - being it with anyone else - especially her best friend - would just be...wrong. It would make her feel like a rebel, an upstart, the very thing she feared to be punished for. But she could be like this with him. It would be their secret.
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Post by glowlynose on Aug 3, 2010 18:10:39 GMT -5
"Haha, of course it's me, Juncopaw," Crowpaw quipped, grinning. "Who else would I be? Bluefur?" That being said, he stood up, flexed his shoulders, poofed out his chest, and attempted to walk around like the big, strong warrior. His face adopted a stern, disapproving expression, and he turned sharp eyes on his friend.
"Young apprentice, what are you doing? Rolling around on the ground? It cannot be tolerated! Such ridiculous behavior will not be allowed on PineClan grounds. I must ask you to get up at once." He had tried to deepen his voice to sound more masculine, more warrior-like, but being only seven moons old, the effort was pretty much wasted. His voice had turned out sounding more like a pathetic new warrior, after the night of their first vigil, just barely out of apprenticeship. A smirk toyed with the corners of his mouth, and his tail started whipping back and forth playfully.
"Actually," he began with a mischievous grin, "That was more like Gingerstar." Eyes twinkling, he started creeping towards Juncopaw, who was still lying on her back. Crowpaw placed his paws on her chest, pinning her to the ground. "I'm your leader, and you have to do what I say," he crowed, now mimicking Gingerstar's voice. "You have to be happy. That's an order.
"By the way, I totally just pinn'd ya." Crowpaw cuffed Juncopaw's ears, then stepped back, smiling easily. Well, that had been fun! But she was right, they should start looking for those herbs now.
"Your turn to lead for a little while." The medicine cat apprentice stuck his tongue out at his friend, giggling playfully. A raindrop landed on it, causing him to flinch in surprise, and he looked up "crossly" at the sky. He huffed, "Well, how rude! Clouds these days, no respect for us cats."
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Post by Cloud of Diamonds on Aug 4, 2010 17:38:04 GMT -5
In spite of her forgetting her attraction to him, her heart still swooned when he pinned her and cuffed her ear. Oh get a grip! The PineClanner told herself. You're too young to fall in love. Forget about it, at least for now.
Try, anyway.
She snorted at his impressions of Bluefur and Gingerstar. Granted, she didn't know the two cats very well (they were terrifying, for goodness' sake!) but she could laugh, right? It wasn't like HE was. His voice was positively funny - and amazingly adorable. Not that she would ever tell him. Just grin, girlie, just grin, she told herself. No need to let any of that foolish adoration escape your face.
She tried to hide a sad smile at his mimicry of the orange leader, commanding her to be happy. It was funny in an oddly winsome way. Although, the odds of Gingerstar ever telling her that were nil. Not that she wanted her to - it would be intensely embarrassing - but also that she doubted the harsh she-cat cared for her at all. Not that she needed to. Juncopaw was just another cat, another average apprentice who used up prey and space and with luck would become of some use one day. Not like Crowpaw. He was special, extraordinary - his very presence seemed to make the surrounding area a better place. And he was a medicine cat, too. Granted, PineClan could have more than two at a time - but still, they were special.
When she'd first joined, she'd almost wanted to become a medicine cat herself, but quickly realized how complicated and mind-bending it was. Even if being a warrior meant she might have to hurt cats. She shuddered at the thought.
But then she laughed at his remark about the clouds. "Yup, darned if they don't spit wherever they please." And then realized how ridiculously DUMB that sounded and looked away, tail almost between her legs.
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Post by glowlynose on Aug 10, 2010 1:39:27 GMT -5
Crowpaw had just really been getting to enjoy himself. He really had. Things had been going really smoothly, he'd been having fun, Juncopaw had been smiling and laughing and having a good time too. She'd even cracked a joke. Then her stupid little self-conscious tick had to rear its ugly head, and she'd retreated right on back into her silly little shell. Couldn't she see that she was better without it?
She was really starting to get on his nerves
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Juncopaw, cut that out!" he snapped, all traces of a smile gone from his face. Like I said, she was really getting on his nerves. Crowpaw hadn't let the light of happiness leave his countenance but once before, and that had been when he'd seen the twolegs's destruction of nature. Just thinking about it made his blood boil. Filthy little twolegs, thinking they can just up and cut down any trees they want to! Birds had nested in those trees, and squirrels too. They had probably died, either from having no home or from being crushed by the tree's descent. Babies would have been especially effected.
But he needed to control himself. All he should appear to be with Juncopaw was irritated, since that really was the only problem. "I mean, honestly. Come on. All you did was make a joke. You shouldn't be that insecure to feel scared after TELLING A JOKE.
"In case you haven't noticed, Juncopaw, all you can do to make me think less of you is to be scared like that. So just cut it out, alright? I don't want to think less of you. It's not good for somebody to view their friend as a lesser being. Friends should be equal."
He knew that curing Juncopaw's emotional skittishness was going to take more than just a reprimand here and there. It was going to take moons of... he didn't even know. Ah, why couldn't she be as simple to fix as Bluefur had been? Why must she be so gosh darn stubborn? He had to contain a bitter laugh. He had probably just made the situation even worse. Way to go, chief.
"I'm not mad at you. Not really. I just wish you wouldn't keep being a turtle is all. Turtles aren't much fun, unless you're playing hide and go seek, which isn't what we're doing. This isn't a game of oh-let's-go-find-Juncopaw's-personality-and-see-who-she-really-is. Multiple. Times." Crowpaw smiled sadly at his friend, hoping that she could at least see where he was coming from.
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We have a cbox again and we're opening the place up as a closed, members only rp