#spindlefleck

[taleofturtleclan]

Short story under the cut!

She heard him arrive more than she saw him. Quiet, muffled pawsteps brushing over the sand. "Why did you follow me?" Spindlefleck asked quietly.

"No reason," Tidechaser replied evenly. "But I know what it's like, to sit here, hoping that the cat you're longing to see will appear for you."

"And did they?" Spindlefleck thought she knew the answer.

"No," he replied, "and neither will Currentheart. Not tonight. Not to you."

His words stung, but she supposed they were true. Pearl and Currentheart had named Dustjump as the bridge between their worlds. They sat in silence for a while before she had the courage to break it again.

"I guess I hoped... that being here would help me make sense of it all. My life isn't turning out at all the way I thought it would."

"No cat's does."

Tidechaser didn't turn to look at her as he spoke. It was a simple statement. She supposed that most cats would find it insensitive. But she didn't think he'd meant it that way, and she didn't find herself feeling hurt or belittled by his words. No cat's does... Somehow, that made her feel a little bit less lonely.

[taleofturtleclan]

Additional Information:

Former Mentor: Foamfeather

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 13

“I smell blood!” Splashstone winced at the reaction his warning yielded in his two companions. Spindlefleck and Sandtail both froze, eyes blown wide. He’d only meant to alert them, not dredge up dark memories. 

“We’re not far from the Thunderpath,” Spindlefleck murmured, voice low. “Do you think..?” She trailed off into a tense silence, and Splashstone knew she was remembering the kittypet she’d found on the edge of the stinking black stone during her apprentice days.

“Relax, Spindle,” Splashstone did his best to keep his tone light but gentle. Carefree. “The blood-scent isn’t thick enough for that. It’s probably just a loner with a cut.”

Spindlefleck’s fur started to flatten, but Sandtail remained on guard, and Splashstone felt his heart break all over again for the cream colored tom. Even with Currentheart’s assurance that his death had not been Sandtail’s fault, he clearly still held himself at least partially responsible for the tragedy. “We still need to be careful,” Sandtail warned. “We have no idea what could have injured them. We’ll proceed slowly, and I’ll take the lead.”

Splashstone dipped his head to the deputy’s command, setting off after the tom at a creeping pace. They could’ve safely gone faster with Splashstone in the lead–he knew he had the best nose on the patrol–but this wasn’t the time or place to challenge orders, so he slunk along silently after Sandtail.

The patrol finally broke through the forest’s undergrowth to an open stretch of grass and mud in a dip beside the Thunderpath. As Splashstone felt his paws squish into the deep mud, he let out a quiet hiss of annoyance. No wonder he’d never been this way before–no cat in their right mind would ever come this way. So what was a wanderer doing here?

The blood scent led them to a stinking stone opening beneath the Thunderpath. Splashstone could just make out a cream colored ball of fur just inside the entrance of the hole–the source of the blood scent. Sandtail slowed their approach even further, and finally bade them wait with a flick of his tail when they were ten fox lengths away. Splashstone crouched down with an internal groan, his paws sinking deeper into the muddy earth as Sandtail approached the ball of fur alone. 

“Hello?” He called cautiously.

The pile of fur erupted into motion, a skinny cream colored molly leaping to her paws and scrambling a few steps deeper into the tunnel. “Please don’t kill me!” She wailed, “I’m leaving, I really am, I just needed to rest a moment, please give me another chance to go and you’ll never see me again! I-I swear it!”

“What?” Sandtail sputtered. Caution morphed into confusion, then concern in the face of the molly’s abject terror. 

Splashstone and Spindlefleck were making their way to their deputy’s side before he’d even finished signaling to them that it was safe. “We’re not going to hurt you,” Spindlefleck murmured, “we want to help. That injury to your paw looks painful.”

“I-I” The molly gulped in a few deep breaths, her trembling easing just a little. “You mean… you’re not with them, then?”

“We’re not sure what you mean,” Spindlefleck soothed, “we’ve been living here on the beach for a few seasons now, but we’ve never attacked or driven away any cat, and we certainly wouldn’t hurt you. Can you tell us your name? And explain what happened to you?” 

The instructions seemed to be soothing the jumpy molly, her fur was starting to flatten, and her eyes were no longer quite so wide. “My name is Quiver,” she began.

Quiver, Splashstone eyed the way that her three good legs were still shaking just a little. It suits her.

“I lived in a driftwood pile much farther up the beach,” Quiver continued, “I kept to myself, mostly, hunting along the shoreline in the tidepools. Th-then, a little over a quarter moon ago, this group of cats showed up. They were very strange, told me that I needed to leave–that–that I didn’t deserve to set foot on the sand, and that if I didn’t go, they were going to make me leave. They said three sunrises to find somewhere in the forest before they would remove me from the beach themselves. Now, I thought that was just ridiculous, I mean, I’ve never seen them around these parts before, I figured that they were just talking big, the way some cats do, and that so long as I cleared out for a few days they’d lose interest and move on, so I went to stay up in the cliff caves–you know the ones, lots of little nooks and tunnels?”

“We know it,” Sandtail confirmed, his tone just barely impatient. The cliff caves were past TurtleClan’s hunting grounds, but Splashstone had been up that way himself a pawful of times before they’d established boundaries, looking for other survivors. “Please, continue,” Sandtail prompted after the silence had stretched a few more heartbeats.

“Yes! Right! Well, they found me just a day later. Said they’d given me plenty of warning, and that now I needed to be taught a-a lesson, so one of them took my foreleg and–and–” Quiver broke off into a fit of trembling and panting. She didn’t need to continue–the rest of the story was obvious. 

“We’re going to take you back to our camp,” Sandtail said in a low, steady voice. “We have a cat there who can heal–a cat who can help you.” The deputy turned his striking green gaze to Splashstone. “Splash, could you run ahead and tell Dustjump to prepare for an injury? Tell her it looks serious, but that the patient doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger of death,” he dropped his voice to barely a whisper on the last word, but Splashstone still Quiver’s ear twitch nervously. “Spindlefleck and I will help her back.”

“Of course,” Splashstone murmured, feeling nothing but pity for the injured molly. “I’ll make sure Dustjump is ready for her.”

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 11

“Spindlefleck, we honor your integrity and strength of spirit, and we welcome you as a full member of our group."

"Spindlefleck! Spindlefleck! Spindlefleck! Spindlefleck!"

Spindlepaw-- no, she was Spindlefleck now-- Spindlefleck's eyes found Foam in the crowd. Her former mentor’s gaze shone with pride as their eyes met. Integrity and strength of spirit… those were the values that Shell had chosen to describe her. Values that she never would have developed without his guidance. She blinked her gratitude at him. Thank you, my teacher.

Shell leapt down from the Tallmast, striding forward to touch noses with Spindlefleck. “Well done, Spindlefleck,” Shell murmured, “and congratulations. We have all been looking forward to this day for many moons.” 

Not as much as I have, Spindlefleck added silently. 

“Now, there’s one final thing,” Shell purred, Guiding her over to where Dustjump was waiting, tail wrapped around her paws. Beside her lay a large, flat stone, caked with layers of old mud in varying shades.

“Have you gathered the earth you want to use?” Dustjump asked. 

“I have,” Spindlefleck meowed. “I gathered it this morning before hunting.” 

Each cat to make their right of passage selected and gathered earth from somewhere on the territory to use in mixing the mud that they would use to leave their pawprint on the passage boulder. From the corner of her eye, Spindlefleck could see Currentheart weaving his way through the crowd with the leaf-wrapped pile of earth she’d collected early that morning. She felt a rush of gratitude for her friend–she wouldn’t have wanted to step away from this for a moment. As Currentheart placed the bundle on the stone and Dustjump began to unwrap the bundle, Shell raised her voice so that all of the gathered cats could hear. “Whence comes your chosen earth?” Shell asked.

“From the tops of the cliffs upshore of camp,” Spindlefleck responded, her meow strong and clear.

“Why did you choose this place?”

Spindlefleck knew that some cats might have given a long, drawn out explanation. Not her. “I love the feeling of the wind in my fur. When I stand against the ocean breeze atop the cliffs, I feel strong and free.”

Shell dipped her head. “Well spoken. We will now mix your chosen earth with water from the sea upon this stone, where each of us mixed our own passage markers. The remnants of mud left here by each of us will mix with the earth you have chosen, binding you as one of us.” At her words. Dustjump squeezed out a sodden moss ball above the pile of earth, mixing it around with a paw until it congealed into a thick paste. 

Silently, Spindlefleck stepped forward, coating her paw in the mud. It was cold and gritty against her paw pad, and she repressed a shiver. It might be unpleasant, but she had to bear with it. This was her right of passage! She wasn't a kit in the nursery, mewling at the slightest discomfort. She was one of the survivors now. A full member of the group. An equal. Finally, finally she was an equal to all of the others. Finally they could stop treating her like she was too young or too inexperienced to be taken seriously. It had been a long time coming.

With her paw tucked up to her chest, she limped across the clearing. The crowd of onlookers parted for her as she went, with a few cats offering quiet words of congratulations or welcome. When she reached the Passage Boulder, Spindlefleck spent a moment scanning the striped face of the rock for where she would make her mark–there. Currentheart’s mark stood alone, towards the entrance of the den the adult cats shared. With a deep breath, Spindlefleck reached out her mud-coated paw, and pressed it slowly, firmly against the surface of the stone, just a little below her denmate’s mark. The mud squelched back between her toes as she pressed down, but she did not tremble: her heart was too full of joy for anything else to register. She had waited for this day for so long. Finally, she had caught up to her friends.

“We are proud to have you join us,” Shell meowed formally, “you may not wash the mud from your paw until sunhigh tomorrow. Bear it proudly a symbol of your new rank among us, and know that from this day forward, wherever your path takes you, your campmates will follow in your pawsteps to support you.”

Spindlefleck raised her chin as her campmates tilted their heads back to yowl their pride in her out into the sky once more.

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 16

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 11

Spindlefleck let sob after sob shake her as she leaned up against Foam, staring down at the body of her friend–of the cat she’d hoped would one day be her mate. Seeing the kittypet on the Thunderpath had been hard, disturbing, but she had been a stranger, at least. This was Currentheart. And that was both heartbreaking and terrifying. How could a cat so full of life and energy be reduced to this… empty shell in a single afternoon? It was wrong.  And all she could do about it was sit here and cry like a kit looking for its mother. She'd been wrong. She hadn't changed at all. She was going to be alone, left behind by the cats she cared about. Forever.

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 15

Short story featuring Quiver under the cut!

"Did... did that really happen?" Quiver gaped as Splashstone finished his song. It all sounded so fantastical, the spirits of dead cats appearing and speaking to their living friends... well, now that she thought about it, it sounded a little spooky. But the way these TurtleClanners spoke of it, they hadn't seen it that way.

"It did," Dustjump, the old molly who had bound her broken paw, confirmed, her chin held high and pride glowing in her eyes. "We were all there, we all saw them that night."

Quiver crouched down, flattening her ears. "Are they... going to appear again?" She wasn't ready to meet any all-seeing ghosts. What if they didn't like her staying with TurtleClan while she healed? What if they found her as strange and off-putting as most cats seemed to? What if...? She felt her heart rate starting to pick up, heard her own blood rushing in her ears.

"No," Spindlefleck's tail draped over her shoulders pulled her out of her head more than her initial words. "Currentheart and Pearl said they couldn't just appear at will, and they selected Dustjump as their contact among us, besides."

"Oh." Quiver felt her heartbeat slow back to an even pulse at Spindlefleck's words, and Dustjump's nod of confirmation. That was... good. Comforting. Safe. She thought she could get used to the idea of ghosts watching her as long as she didn't have to see them. And everyone was so kind here, she didn't want to let some silly ghosts put her off... maybe it was alright for her to finally relax for a little while, to catch her breath.

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 11

“It’s going to rain soon.” Tidechaser had been staring at the tiny patches of sky visible between the branches of the dense trees.

“Again?” Currentheart complained, tail high to show he was being lighthearted about it. “As though we haven’t had enough of that this past half-moon.” 

Sand had to agree with his former apprentice. In the time since Spindlefleck’s rite of passage, the weather had turned. Dustjump, Brokenmast and Shell had all commented on how shockingly mild leafbare had been, with only a pawful of freezes and no snow whatsoever. Sand couldn’t really comment on that–it was only his second real leafbare–he’d been born during leafbare, but the only one he remembered had been spent first inside his twoleg’s den, and then on the ship with the others before the storm. Tidechaser hadn’t seemed shocked by the weather though, commenting that it had been only slightly milder than normal. He had, however, warned that as they approached Newleaf, the rains would start to pick up, and on that front, the tides seemed eager to deliver. While it might not be cold enough to freeze, there was still a chill in the air, and patrolling in cold rain was no cat’s idea of fun.

“If we move quickly, we might be back at camp before the rain hits,” Sand suggested.

“Yes please!” Currentheart exclaimed, picking up his pace. “We can’t be far from the last scent marker now, but it’s so hard to tell with this weather. Everything just smells like wet dirt.”

“We’re close,” Tidechaser confirmed, taking the lead. Sand let him move ahead without contest. He might be Shell’s second, but Tidechaser had a knack for picking up on the faintest of scents. Besides, if he led, it gave Sand an opportunity to catch up with Currentheart. He matched his pace to the younger tom’s strolling beside him in comfortable silence for a time before speaking. “So,” he started. “I’ve noticed Spindlefleck has moved her nest nearer to yours.” Currentheart stumbled, and Sand let out an amused purr. “So there is something between you two!” 

“No!” Currentheart denied. “I mean, maybe… I don’t know. She’s nice, and I like her as a friend but… I’m not really looking for a mate right now, you know? I’ve still got a lot of growing to do before I’m ready to make a decision like that, and so does she.”

“That’s a very mature perspective to take,” Sand meowed. “But I hope she knows that’s how you feel about it.” 

“I need to talk to her soon,” Currentheart admitted. “But it’s hard to find the right thing to say. I don’t want to reject her outright, but I don’t want to lead her on, either.”

“You should tell her what you told me,” Sand suggested. “Be upfront. Honest. How she reacts is up to her, and it will probably give you your first real idea of whether or not she’s the kind of cat who would be a good match for you, someday.”

“That’s good advice,” Currentheart purred, pressing his flank against Sand’s. “All these moons later, and you’re still teaching me new things.”

“Only now you’re not required to listen to me,” Sand teased. 

Currentheart responded with a playful shove, but before they could continue the conversation, Tidechaser broke in.

“Sand, Currentheart, you should come take a look at this.”

Sand pricked his ears, focusing his attention back on the patrol. Tidechaser sounded cautious, though not afraid. He whisked aside his tail to reveal a pile of prey bones. Sand bent down to sniff at them. There was the faintest scent of cat clinging to the bones, but it didn’t smell like anyone he knew. “Someone has been here recently. Not today, but maybe yesterday or the day before?”

There were a few cats that hunted on and around the area the survivors had marked out–it wasn’t something Shell was particularly concerned about, as the boundaries were more to set limits on where the cats in their group ranged than to keep anyone out, but she did like to stay aware of who was hanging about. 

“It’s definitely recent,” Tidechaser agreed, “but that’s not why I called you over. Look at this.” Tidechaser kicked a sodden scrap of fur that Sand hadn’t initially noticed. It was a partially eaten bird, rapidly turning to crowfood.

“Ugh! They didn’t even bury it?” Currentheart meowed, his voice thick with disgust.

“Maybe they had to leave it,” Sand murmured.

“That’s the part that worries me. A catch this big? No cat around these parts would just leave it like this. They’d bring it with them, or bury it if they couldn’t.”

“So why didn’t they?” Currentheart wondered.

“Let’s spread out and look for signs,” Sand suggested. “Maybe they were just spooked by a loud noise, or maybe it was something more. If a threat has moved in here, we need to know about it.”

The three toms slowly worked their way out in different directions from the abandoned prey, combing over every inch of ground. It had rained hard the night before, so any tracks were long gone, but there might be other signs. Before long, Sand came upon a small tree with deep gouges in its thin bark. Sand narrowed his eyes, opening his mouth to try and pick up a scent. There was a touch of something strange… but what…?

Sand closed his jaws, swallowing before opening his mouth again to call Tidechaser over. As he did, a thick musky scent slammed the roof of his mouth, nearly choking him with its strength. What was that? Instinct kicked in, sending his mind into overdrive as he tried to match the smell to a creature, or to at least come up with something analogous in his scent-memory, something that would tell him if he should flee or stand his ground. Nothing. It bore no resemblance to fox or dog scent, but it was far too heady to be prey. Uncertainty gave way to fear, and suddenly his mind was telling him to–

“Sand, MOVE!” Tidechaser’s yowl was louder, sharper than he’d ever heard before, but the warning came too late.

 The undergrowth trembled, and a beast emerged from the brush, huge and solid and dark, covered with bristling hairs. Everything seemed suddenly vivid to Sand as the world slowed around him in the face of this new, foreign terror. He could see each thick, black hair on the creature, could see the gleam of saliva in its pink maw, opened wide in an enraged squeal to reveal what looked like two long, gleaming fangs on either side of its jaw. 

 It felt like he should have enough time to get out of the way. He didn’t. He was frozen, forced to watch as the rest of the world trickled by him at a snail’s pace. Sand knew he was directly in its path, knew it was going to gore him with those sharp tusks, knew that he was going to die right here, right now, if he didn’t spring out of the way. Why can’t I move? Why aren’t my muscles responding?

The beast bore down on him while his instincts screamed at him to run, to flee, to hide, all to no avail. Sand stared up into the gaping maw of his own demise, watching death inch closer and closer. The world caught up to Sand’s racing mind and he was tumbling away, pelt skidding across the damp earth. There was a moment of confusion. He was still alive… wasn’t he? Had the beast turned away at the last moment? No, something had definitely hit him, but the blow had come from the side, not from the front. Something had pushed him out of the way at the last second. Someone had… saved him? Realization crashed into Sand with the force of the storm that had slammed their ship up against the rocks all those moons ago, changing their lives forever. Sand shot to his feet, shaking his head to clear the mud from his eyes.

Bright ginger fur against the damp forest floor. Red blood seeping into the mud. No.

Sand was dimly aware of Tidechaser howling with rage, leaping up and on top of the beast that had attacked them, clinging to its back as it snorted with rage. But those things might have been happening in another world for all the difference it made to him. All of his attention was on the figure collapsed in the mud. He had to be okay. He isn’t moving. Sand crossed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat, skidding to a stop beside Currentheart’s side. Blood was spilling out of a deep gash on his side, staining his white patches red, pooling on the ground around him before soaking into the earth. There was so much blood. “No, no no!” This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. 

Currentheart jerked, coughed, tilted his head. He cracked open a single amber eye, and Sand dropped to his belly beside the young cat who he had watched grow from a spoiled, selfish kit into an ally, a friend, a warrior. “You’re alright,” he managed to choke out. “You’re going to be just fine, Current. We’ll get you back to Dustjump and she’ll fix you up, she’ll heal you like she healed Brokenmast and Foam. You’re alright. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.” Sand knew he was babbling, repeating the same words again and again. It didn’t matter. He had to say it, had to speak the words into reality, make them true. 

Sand fell silent as Currentheart drew in a slow, ragged breath. “Hope I… lived up t’… the name…”

Currentheart gave one final, painful wheeze and fell still, his head lolling to the side. Sand wailed. He wailed and wailed, his jaws still open long after his cry had petered out.

The clouds broke open, and the promised rain began to fall.

A/N: Sorry guys :(

[taleofturtleclan]

Additional Information:

Former Mentor: Tidechaser

Former Apprentice: Spindlefleck

[taleofturtleclan]

YEAR ONE (Moons 0-12)

Hey guys! I've decided that it makes sense for me to record allegiances and a general summary for each year in TurtleClan, so folks who are catching up on the story have a quick way to get up to date if they want to, and to keep track of who is alive when. First year info is under the cut!

ALLEGIANCES (as of Moon 12)

LEADER: Shellstar- A black tabby and white she-cat

DEPUTY: Sandtail- A cream and white tom

HEALER: Dustjump- A long-furred brown tabby and white she-cat

ADULTS:

Tidechaser- A large, unusually dappled pale tom with long, fluffy fur and unusual blue eyes

Foamfeather- A large, long-furred dark brown tabby and white tom

Brokenmast- A long furred, speckled golden tom with a broken back

*Splashstone- An unusually dappled dark brown and white tom

Spindlefleck- An unusually dappled creamy ginger she-cat

SUMMARY OF YEAR ONE:

After a terrible storm at sea wrecked the ship that they were travelling on, a small group of kittypets led by the former ship's cat, Shell, made it safely to shore. Not knowing exactly where they were or what dangers might face them, not to mention if there were any other survivors, the cats elected to remain near the area where they first came ashore, building a camp amidst the shipwreck after the storm subsided. While many of the cats decided to take new names to reflect the great change in their lives, Dustjump, an old kittypet unwilling to let go of her past decided to keep her name.

The survivors were quickly joined by a mysterious local tom named Tidechaser, quiet and stoic and somewhat distant, but a vital source of knowledge in this new land they found themselves in. Before long, the survivors had the beginnings of a real community. Shell, the de-facto leader, decided to pair young cats up with teachers so that they could learn to navigate their new home safely. Tidechaser was given the first apprentice to train, a tom named Foam who was already nearing adulthood. Shortly after, Shell began to oversee the training of a young tom named Splash, and assigned her young second-in-command, Sand, to train another young tom named Current. While Current and Sand initially clashed, they quickly came to care deeply for one another and grew into a very effective duo.

After a few moons of living on the beach, the survivors of the wreck decided to establish a territory for themselves, not so much to defend its borders, but to give their group boundaries in which to roam so no cat would stray too far and get themselves into trouble. While establishing these boundaries, the survivors encountered a familiar face: a badly injured tom named Sergio that had been on the ship with the rest of them. After being helped back to camp, Sergio revealed that he and another cat, Margo had come ashore further up the beach, and had believed themselves to be the only survivors for moons. While Margo did her best to help Sergio, who was suffering from a spinal fracture caused by a broken piece of mast hitting him in the storm, she was eventually killed by vicious rogues who drove Sergio out as well, not deeming him worth the trouble of killing. Upon hearing the story of the other survivors, Sergio decided to take a new name--Brokenmast-- to represent the great change in his life, and to dedicate himself to healing from his terrible injury. As moons passed, cats grew and changed. Foam and Splash both finished their training, and Foam began to oversee the tutelage of Spindle, the last kit from the wreck. Dustjump began to be plagued by strange dreams of a starry cat named Pearl who had died in the wreck. She initially thought little of it, but after hearing stories from Tidechaser regarding local legends, she began to wonder if they were true, and eventually shared her strange visions with him, though neither of them knew what it meant.

When Current eventually completed his training with Sand, he requested to have a second part added onto his name, as he believed he had changed quite a lot since his initial apprenticeship. Sand suggested the name Currentheart, reasoning that Current's heart was the strongest aspect of who he was. Everything seemed to be going well for the survivors: Foam briefly fell ill with greencough, but recovered under Dustjump's care, and Brokenmast's back eventually healed. Spindle completed her training and took the name Spindlefleck, eager to finally be equal to the other cats in the group. But the good fortune couldn't last. While out on patrol with TIdechaser, Currentheart died saving Sand from a charging boar. The death of their young friend shook all of the survivors, making them question whether or not they had any chance at a life here on the shore. On the night of Currentheart's vigil, when spirits were at their lowest, Dustjump received a sign: hundreds and hundreds of baby turtles hatching, following the reflection of starlight off the water to the sea. Remembering some of Tidechaser's old tales, Dustjump found meaning in the sign, guiding the other survivors to the starlit sea, where two starry cats appeared to them: Pearl and Currentheart. The two starry cats revealed that the strength of the community the survivors had built allowed the spirits of the dead to remain tethered to the world of the living, able to touch it under certain circumstances. After deciding that the survivors had become far more than a simple group of cats brought together by circumstance, the spirits dubbed them a Clan, appointing Shell as their first leader, and Dustjump as their first Healer. Dustjump suggested that they should be called TurtleClan, to honor the sign that led them to the spirits, and thus TurtleClan was officially founded. Shortly after, any cat that lacked a second part to their name decided to take one, to honor both Currentheart and the founding of TurtleClan.

[taleofturtleclan]

Lore Piece #1: Marking The Passage Boulder

A/N: Not sure how often these are going to be, but I'm going to occasionally post these when I have some lore that I can't or don't want to work into one of the stories.

The marking of the Passage Boulder is a tradition that developed organically within the group that would eventually become TurtleClan. When the survivors of the wreck made their den, they left their paw prints in mud on one of the boulders of their den as a sort of proof that they had survived. When Foam became old enough to join them, he added his mark to the boulder, and by the time Splash graduated, the beginnings of a formal ceremony were taking shape.

Though the first Passage Marking we see occurs immediately after Spindlefleck’s graduation ceremony, this is not always the case. For the Passage ceremony, each cat must gather earth from a place of significance to them on the territory. “Significance” is loosely defined–Splash selected soil from near his favorite set of boulders to bask on. Some cats will even choose to crush a favorite flower petal in with the earth that they gather. Regardless, some cats prefer to wait until after their Warrior ceremony to gather the soil they will use for their Passage Mark, treating it as a period for reflection on their new status. The marking of the Passage Boulder by a new Warrior typically occurs within a day of the ceremony, unless it is raining, in which case it occurs as soon as the rain stops. If the old layers of mud coating the mixing slab have been completely washed away by rain, the first ceremony to occur thereafter is sometimes called a “Lonely Passage” or a “Solo Passage”, because the freshly mixed mud will completely lack residue from any previous ceremony. Some cats interpret this as a bad omen for how the new Warrior will get along with their Clanmates, whereas others believe it is a sign that the new Warrior is destined to forge a path for others in some way, be it as a leader, a skilled fighter, or a talented mentor.

[taleofturtleclan]

MOON 11

Foam let Spindlefleck lean into his pelt, the way he’d done for her when they’d seen the dead kittypet on the Thunderpath. She needed him right now. It was easier to be strong when someone else needed him. Easier to stay calm when everyone around him was in a panic. Easier to be who, what they needed–a strong, solid presence in a churning sea of emotion. When was the last time he’d actually let himself fully feel his grief or fear or pain? Before the shipwreck, that much was certain. Was he being brave, or was he just finding a different way to run from his emotions? Maybe Tidechaser had rubbed off on him more than he’d ever admitted to himself before. Foam let his wide amber eyes flutter shut, breathing deeply as he let himself feel his own sadness and sense of loss for the first time in moons. Currentheart... it wasn't your time to go.

[taleofturtleclan]

TurtleClan Allegiances

This is kept up to date, so beware of possible spoilers! (Cats with an * beside their names are trans and are described with their preferred pronouns)

LEADER: Shellstar- A black tabby and white she-cat

DEPUTY: Sandtail- A cream and white tom

HEALER: Dustjump- A long-furred brown tabby and white she-cat

ADULTS:

Tidechaser- A large, unusually dappled pale tom with long, fluffy fur and unusual blue eyes

Foamfeather- A large, long-furred dark brown tabby and white tom

Brokenmast- A long furred, speckled golden tom

*Splashstone- An unusually dappled dark brown and white tom

Spindlefleck- An unusually dappled creamy ginger she-cat

Quiver- A rosy cream and white she-cat with a broken paw

APPRENTICES: