Howlcinth - I Love All Cats Forever

Hey guys! Australia is still on fire! It's getting worse every day! Our country is burning and nobody seems to care!!!!

Every single one of those symbols is a fire. Every single one could take a life. This is what our country looks like.

These record breaking fires are worse than the Amazon rainforest fires, yet there is little to no coverage on it!!! Don't believe me? Look it up for yourself!!

Our koalas are now functionally extinct!!!!

(Edit: that has been debunked but koalas are still in very real threat of this becoming true.)

Scott Morrisson cut the funding to the rfs (royal firefighter service) by 50% and refuses aid.

(Edit. Link to a post about where you can donate)

me listening to foreign music and not understanding a single word of it

I'm nothing if not a woman of my word. Now we wait.

“do you believe in destiny, featherpaw?”

the molly clicks her tongue and looks to the starry-eyed skylight, mulling her brother’s question. it was one of those spur-of-the-moment questions that children ask and then forget about, their tail brushing for a moment against something greater than their skin and then slinking away.

“i don’t think i believe in destiny, stormpaw. but the stars up there are pretty anyways.”

-

stormkit is thrust into the world with his mother’s blood on the back of the ears. he cannot see, but through his muffled ears he hears commotion, and he feels a brazen tongue clean him as he wails for something he cannot describe.

for a second, in the darkness of his newborn blindness he sees something shimmering before him. he barely manages to tilt his head up and sees the thin outline of a starclan cat, presiding over a warm body that smells of milk.

this is destiny, stormkit. this is purpose.

another moment and the shimmering shape that smells of the forest’s whispers disappears, and stormkit only knows that something is missing. he wails again, and again and again, into the pit of blackness that he will forget about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

do you believe in destiny?

- 

death has many scents. some are haunting yet serene, daring at a world beyond, like at the moonstone. some can only be described as thick and earth-shattering, like the mist of a battlefield cleared.

but the bonehill’s smell of death was one of rot and finality. it had no grace except for that possessed by the tabby tom who sat at the top, his eyes glittering with control and a speck of fear.

stormpaw’s eyes are transfixed on his mentor, watching as the rubble-colored tom stares down the tabby. his skeleton is on the outside looking in, and his eyes look as if they have a ripple’s rings about them. he knows that stonefur will be ordered to kill him, and yet he hopes against hope that something else will happen, that the bonehill will fade away and stormpaw will wake up in the apprentice’s den with featherpaw beside him like it was all a nightmare that lingered beyond its time, and yet-

‘you’ll have to kill me first, tigerstar.’

the area becomes a blur as two cats, and then three and then one, fling themselves at each other. he could hear stonefur mutter something about being the captain of his own soul- or something, stormpaw could not hear above the roar of blood and the growling sound of claws ripping through fur- and then the tom was gone, his body splayed out across the grass, . stormpaw felt dizzy as he saw a spot of blood that had flown an odd way across his leg.

and then- he saw a thin outline of starclan, and he knew he had seen it before but could not name the place or time.

this is the chosen life. remember it, stormpaw.

-

stormfur’s only dream is of that destiny. he seeks it like a kitten seeking mother’s milk. 

sometimes his clanmates make fun of him for it. “you shouldn’t be so hung up on being starclan’s chosen one,” jokes heavystep. “you young whippersnappers are always lookin’ to be in a prophecy. between you and hawkpaw all i ever hear about is destiny! if you want to know what prophecy really does look at firestar at the next gathering. poor bastard’s already getting white hairs.”

but stormfur hopes. he isn’t sure if it’s the debt he must pay to stonefur, or atonement for his mother’s death. but he knows he wants even a drop of destiny on his pelt. he wants to prove himself.

one night, he sees that familiar thin starry figure again, on a night where his den is just a little too misshapen to sleep on, and he approaches it, his eyes brimming with awe and a haunting sense of- what was it- nostalgia?

but the spirit does not notice him.

its tail brushes against his sleeping sister

and then it is gone.

-

the journey is, stormfur admits, not as difficult as he thought. sure, he would not have believed it if he had told himself a moon ago that he’d talk to a badger and  walk through a mountain, but compared to other things in his life he could never predict it certainly isn’t the most unpleasant- the smell of the bonehill still reeks in the back of his mind.

but somehow he is no longer sure of whether he trusts starclan.

feathertail acts different now. gone was the spark of rebellion and the flame of defiance in her eyes- now, bland starlight peppered them. her fur, which she once prided in for its shagginess, is now uncharacteristically silky. she felt… sterile? stormfur wasn’t sure how to describe it.

she always talked of destiny now, and of fate. she was always eager to see what her fate ultimately was.

the spirits also keep leading her to that windclan boy. there’s something about the windclan boy that stormfur doesn’t trust- perhaps it’s the three odd glints of white light in his eyes or the scent of holly on his breath.

but still, stormfur grasps in the air for that concept of a destiny beyond, something so powerful and profound he struggles to describe it. and when the tribe cats look at him like he’s a messiah- the clan-saving silver cat the stars told of- he finally thinks he’s about to feel it.

but something tells him this is not the feeling he wanted.

-

the sharptooth looks like a caricature. its claws and teeth are grotesque- something perhaps a particularly daring queen would make up for a story to keep her kits from wandering into the woods- and scars cover its shoulders and nose like nettle. its growling sounds almost like feline speak, but so distorted that its exact words are never clear.

“i think if we corner it-” stormfur began to instruct, but he stopped once he looked up to see fetahertail, at the top of the cave, focused on the spikes above, her ears flicking as the spirits whisper into it, and one of them pushes on  her side and another kicks at her feet, and then, and then-

she is falling, and time is fast yet slow, and she slams into the spikes, and she is falling, and she is falling, and she is falling, and then there’s a crash, and the sharptooth falls to the floor, and then-

the only thing stormfur remembers, next, is standing over his sister’s dead body. her chin was ajar, blood pooling around it into a perfect circle.

the fur was silky.

stormfur looks up. the spirits. they were here now. so many of them, each carefully examining the body like a hunter analyzing its catch.

stormfur does not have the energy to think. but he has the energy to speak.

“DOES THIS SEEM RIGHT?!?” he challenges them, his face dripping with tears. “IS THIS DESTINY? TO THROW AWAY YOURSELF JUST TO GET A TASTE OF THE CHOSEN LIFE?  BECAUSE IF IT IS, I DON’T WANT IT.” 

You must, Stormfur.

“DOES THAT FEEL RIGHT?!?”

Stormfur, this is destiny.

“I TOLD YOU, I DON’T WANT IT. LEAVE.” he is surrounded by spirit after spirit, begging him, pleading with him, and then he shuts his eyes- and when they are open, the spirits are gone and the air smells clear.

the air, he thinks, has not smelled clear for a long time.

-

“do you believe in destiny, dad?”

the tom clicks his tongue and looks to the starry-eyed skylight, mulling his daughter’s question. it was one of those spur-of-the-moment questions that children ask and then forget about, their tail brushing for a moment against something greater than their skin and then slinking away.

there’s a haunted look in stormfur’s eyes, but it is soon replaced by a bittersweet warmth. he clutches a plumy gray feather under one paw.

“i don’t think i believe in destiny, lark. but the stars up there are pretty anyways.”

Immensely powerful thrift shop find, google drive to follow

what’s everyone’s favorite manga artstyle of all time i’ll go first demon slayer and haikyuu are freakishly exaggerated and I LOVE it

THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN

mæpleshade