smoldering embers [Ebonysong/Smokespirit]

ShadowClan had always been her least favorite territory... too marshy, too dark, too wet. That hadn't changed since her departure from ThunderClan, but still, she found herself at their scent markers, pausing to check the freshness as the sun began to peek over the horizon. They hadn't been here in a while, so they were due soon, and they would find him. Rainstrike had come to the drier part of the territory, both for her own benefit and the kit's. She no longer wanted anything to do with her offspring, but some instinctive part of her still demanded they be left in relatively safe places when she abandoned them. If she wanted them dead, she would have killed them herself... so it seemed pointless to leave them in places where they were likely to wander into a bog and drown. Instead, she'd found a cluster of rocks with a space just enough to put him there safely in the center - he was still very young, less than a moon, and it was unlikely he'd be able to scale free from his stony containment. It wasn't warm and probably not comfortable, either, but if ShadowClan was studious about checking their borders, they'd be here soon. What they did with him then was of no concern to her. She'd done her part.

She stared at the kit for a moment, his coat, like her own, stained with ash and smelling of smoke and embers. She'd passed along the edges of SkyClan's territory to get here. This kit alone resembled she and Jaydream the most, and the former ThunderClanner was unsure how that truly made her feel. Her single ear flicked back to lie against her head, and her eye narrowed. Rainstrike turned and left.

To him, the world had always been warm. He’d spent much of his short life sleeping near that warmth, secure in the belief that it, and food, and shelter would be there when he woke. There had been other shapes beside him, jostling him as they ate, their squeaks piercing his partway-folded ears. They were warm, too. True, he didn’t have the luxury of den full of kits from other litters, a Clan from which to pick his family and future friends, even something as simple as a name to call himself by—but he didn’t know enough about those things to miss them. He was fed and protected, and so he was content. Nothing else mattered.

He remembered being lifted. That hadn’t seemed worth waking up for, so after giving a single mewl of protest, he’d slipped back into a fitful sleep, still dangling from his mother’s jaws. They’d gone through a place that made his eyes prickle and water, then a place that rumbled much, much louder than his mother’s heartbeat, then a place with a thick, murky scent that clogged his nose. There, he’d drifted off again.

When he woke up, it was cold.

He couldn’t see far; everything he could see was new. New…and empty. Young as he was, he couldn’t put words to it in his head or beyond, but he knew with a deep and crushing certainty that something was wrong. Fear sparked in his stomach (which, he noticed, was woefully empty). His mother was gone. The others were gone… Wide awake now, the nameless kit huddled against the stones, letting out a dismayed cry as he realized they had no warmth to offer him.

OOC: WE LOVE PARADOXES DONT WE. Technically Smokony hasn't happened yet however because of paradox they are mates in this topic.

Ebonysong was out patrolling the borders with her mate, Smokespirit. Staying close to him as they marked their scent around the territory, Ebonysong's ear twitched as she heard a small cry. Curious, and a bit nervous, the dark-grey warrior tried to track the sound down. "Smokespirit do you hear that?" Parting her maw to scent the air, the she-cat smelled something...familiar. "Rogue." She hissed, before taking off, following the scent towards a...pile of rocks? Confused, she turned back towards her mate, before suddenly realising that she had missed something. Turning back, her blue ice widened as she spotted a tiny kit before her. It (he?) was a tortoiseshell with a ginger patch on his face. His blue eyes reminded Ebonysong of her own.

"Darling? Oh dear he looks like he had been abandoned here..." Gently picking the small, hungry kit up, she set him onto the ground and carefully sniffed it. "So you were the rogue I scented, hm?" He smelled like embers, smoke, rogue and...a hint of ThunderClan. Confused, thinking that the little tom-kit's parent must have passed through ThunderClan before arriving here, Ebonysong started grooming the poor kit. "Could you please bring some prey for the poor kit, Smokespirit? He looks like he hasn't eaten for a moon." While cleaning its' fur, Ebonysong suddenly came up with a name for him.

"Emberkit. In memory of my dear friend, and also how you smell." Touching her nose softly to the newly-named Emberkit, Ebonysong stood up and looked at her mate right in the eyes. "I'm adopting him. I'm adopting Emberkit."Smokespirit won't mind...will he?