Foreword

Just a fancy title so I can say “Okay, let's get into it!” Side note, this takes place after my catto got in a fight with one of her besties.
Future quotations are actually English lyrics to “Glassy Sky”.
Also, trigger warnings for mentions of gore, violence, and potentially sensitive mental topics.





Story

“ how many days have passed like this ”

Lavenderpaw stood silently at the FlurryClan border, mind reeling, eyes locked on a crimson-splashed patch of ground on that side. One of her cream paws planted in a patch of her own blood. Pale green eyes clouded and filmy, she glanced up over the border. The world swam. For a moment, Pigeonpaw's scarred face and flattened ears flashed in her sight, veir narrowed eyes and angrily bared teeth forming words that made her flinch harder every time she heard them. Echoing with tones Phantomsoul's had shared.

“ the city, the crowd is fading, moving on ”

She turned away from the border, recalling both Muttpatter and Peahenstar's deaths around the same time. Her leader and medic, gone. Her friend, gone. What was she to do now? Who was she when it came to this? Lost… her friend, her role model, gone. Another cat gone, fallen to StarClan's whims. Her claws dug into the ground, scratching at it, tears stinging in her eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen! MossClan wasn't supposed to be falling apart like this, losing the majority of their highranks at once! She wasn't supposed to be this weak right now, emotionally unstable. Unsure. Who was the cat she was supposed to rely on at this time?

“ sometimes I have wondered where you've gone ”

Padding silently to one of the scarce trees, she looked up at the bark, remembering training with Inhibitorpaw. Glancing back at camp, she could see her memories there, Pigeonpaw playfighting with her and Peahenstar calling her over for her ceremony. At the medic's den, where Furrykit had gone before she'd died. At the camp wall, where she'd sat with Phantomsoul as a kit, watching time pass. At the prey pile, where Pigeonpaw had planted prey and where she'd seen plenty of things happen. Where were they now? Wandering the Dark Forest? Stalking StarClan's silvery lands?

“ story carries on, lonely, lost inside ”

Looking back to the tree, sorrow welling in her chest, she turned and strode toward the UrchinClan border, hesitating there, gazing across it. Where did she belong? Pigeonpaw was in FlurryClan, Meadowpaw and Boompaw in MossClan. But in UrchinClan there was Sweetpaw. He was a good friend, a good medic apprentice. But… that life wasn't hers. She wasn't the type of cat to leave simply because she didn't belong. She thought. Her pale green eyes closed, face wrinkling in on itself. She didn't know where she belonged anymore.

“ I had this dream so many times ”

She padded back to camp in a haze of thought and curled into her nest, immediately falling into a nightmare she'd been having since she was a kit. Her subconscious manifesting and voicing some of her most dark, terrifying thoughts. Losing herself, turning on her Clanmates, having the cats she wasn't sure she could trust turning and offing the cats she did care about.

“ the moments we've spent have passed and gone away ”

She woke with a jolt, Transmitpaw and Inhibitorpaw's flanks comforting where they lay beside her. Lavenderpaw closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, remembering past days of them playing and training as kits and apprentices. Tears came to her eyes. Why couldn't her life go back to that easy part? That simple time?

“ could there be an end to this, what I'm feeling deep inside? ”

Carefully extracting herself from her nest and placing her pet hermit crab within the moss, Lavenderpaw turned, padding from the den with sorrowful eyes and turning to the forest. She was so empty, the forest seemed so cold, dark, closing in on her but stretching away at all the same time. Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. And no cat knew what she felt because she'd never said anything. Never wanting anyone to know how she felt now that she wasn't sure which cats would support her anymore.

“ you know there's no looking back ”

Pigeonpaw had turned so easily on her, Meadowpaw shoved her aside because she'd done something for the Clan's benefit, Boompaw attacked her for talking about faith. Would this loss inside leave her eventually? If it would, when? This only made her feel so much more broken.

“ glassy sky above ”

Standing in the forest, she looked up at the sky. Cloudy skies even as dawn broke, dying them beautiful colors off in the direction of the loner borders, darkening the further back it got. Her own sky warring in those dyed, free colors and that bleak gray. What was she to do? She took a breath, gazing out across the borders.

“ as long as I'm alive, you will be a part of me ”

Lavenderpaw started up one of the scarce, scattered trees, settling into the nook of the branches and sprawling in the crook. Stretching out one cream forepaw to the sky, white-dipped toes and dark cream-banded forearms shadowed, pale green eyes hollow as they took in the clouds. Perhaps that was the only stable thing in her life, these continuous clouds, the things that were always there no matter where she wandered. Stability. Something to support her should she need it. Beyond those clouds, which defended her from her ancestors' eyes, watched Phantomsoul, waiting to swallow her up in another dream.

“ glassy sky, the cold ”

Closing her eyes, she quietly lowered a paw, cold sinking into her pelt and numbing her pelt. Her mental eye forged an image of those woven, beautiful clouds cast over the loners' territories… “Perhaps one day I'll find your end,” she whispered, referring to the sky as she curled up, tail wrapping around her paws, falling into a sleep without nightmares now that the sky was open above her head.

“ the broken pieces of me ”

ahhh sweetpaw mention

…how is an srp a collab?

It's not exactly a collab, more of a space for me (in this context) to use as an extended roleplay space where people can give feedback on it or advice, since in a normal roleplay studio my ramblings would take up most of the space and leave none for that. In addition, few people usually come to me after the thread's out to share their opinions.

Thus, I use a forum, for I can further express myself and/or my character and allow for more people to see it. It's also a sort of way to get people to come to the roleplay; If they see it and they find it interesting, they could potentially look up the roleplay and look into joining it. So while it's not the most conventional, that's my reasoning.

In addition, it can help make specific things more distinct in writing such as emphasis through italics to define thought or bold to suggest a mental debate (where, also in italics, the bold voice could indicate one thought train while the other represents the original). In addition, since I and many other roleplayers use forums to make roleplay applications and notably roleplay as some of them, I don't see why it's not applicable here.

Also, there's the note that I didn't spot any other noteworthy tabs I could stick this in and when learning how to use forums I was introduced specifically to collaborations, thus it is easier to simply post as a collaboration and let other people pitch in where they desire/wish to.