◤ dolphinpaw ◥

♔ agender. they/them. ♔

♔ white cat with blue markings on their head, lower back and hindquarters, a blue tail and amber eyes. ♔

♔ calm. patient. faithful. high willpower. loyal. easily gets attached to others. takes betrayal very seriously. hates liars. likes hunting. power battler. crafty. very cold and cynical when angry. diligent. intuitive.♔

◣ ❝ life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints ❞ ◢

❦ story ❦

dolphinpaw would probably expect their life to be something out of a story, something idyllic and utopic and peaceful, after their parents got their happy ever afters in their turbulent stories.

but nothing in their life was so much as normal.

dolphinpaw was named after one of their fathers' mentors, dolphinsplash. they'd inherited her intelligence, and his fathers' aggression in battle and calmness in most other situations. this made dolphinpaw a great asset to the clan.

but assets meant nothing when they lost the motivation to use them... lost the will do to anything, really.

dolphinpaw had many friends, but his closest were a pair of siblings named sparkpaw- a fiery ticked ginger tom with a temper to match his name- and peachpaw- a pale cream tabby and white she-cat who was nothing like her brother.

dolphinpaw, sparkpaw and peachpaw were inseparable. they spent every waking hour together, and unless their mentors made them go their separate ways, they stuck to one another like burrs in a cat's pelt. all three were promising future warriors, and all three were highly commended by their mentors.

then, a storm struck the clan, and heavy rainpour made the river swell. the clan was stuck in camp, and without food, they would starve.

peachpaw would not allow this, and convinced dolphinpaw to follow her to the river to fish. sparkpaw, however, refused.

but swimming was harder than the apprentices had anticipated. peachpaw was swept away by the current, and though dolphinpaw jumped in to help, they couldn't reach her. peachpaw drowned, and dolphinpaw barely made it out alive.

the very next day, the storm ceased.

sparkpaw blamed dolphinpaw for his sister's death. he was driven by grief, dolphinpaw knew, but that didn't made his friend's words hurt any less. days of pointed comments and outright blows- both physical and mental ones- made dolphinpaw snap. they told sparkpaw that he hadn't seen the river, he hadn't seen how dangerous it'd been. sparkpaw wasn't there and would never know what happened. sparkpaw was the one who'd refused to go, and if he kept blaming dolphinpaw, they were no longer friends.

a week later, sparkpaw was killed in cold blood in a battle with trespassing rogues.

dolphinpaw now held the grief of never being able to save peachpaw, and the guilt that their last words to sparkpaw had been that they weren't friends anymore.

dolphinpaw began to slip away.

the weight of their friends' deaths was too heavy for dolphinpaw to handle, and everything inside him was quashed. each little ounce of life in dolphinpaw drained out of them, slowly, then all at once.

dolphinpaw felt numb.

they felt... empty.

they just didn't care anymore.

they couldn't care.

they wanted to see the point of it all, but no matter where they looked, the grief over peachpaw and sparkpaw's deaths swamped everything.

why?

why did it have to happen?

why was everything dragging on?

...