Earthly Attachments, Release

[Laughing]

She found it impossible to forget, to let it go. She could not forgive or forget. This was not something so easy for her. Others might have been able to do it, to just give up on the grudge that some found useless of her to hold onto. She, however, did not know how one could achieve piece of mind through just releasing such a powerful emotion. How did they let the memory fade? She simply could not find a way to let it escape her every thought. Her mind churned on the events of her childhood over and over again, a bad dream that she could never, ever escape. But, impossibly so, they words never surfaced in her dreams. She was free from the reality of her life in her dreams, yet when she woke up they were back again, pounding on the inside of her skull like a heart beat. If using such a phrase were true, then she was dead in her dreams. No matter, she did not like to dream. She liked reality. She liked it, didn't she?

Just smile, her thoughts carried her through life. Just smile, laugh when necessary, make sure that they don't see. She was the perfect apprentice, loyal and easily taught. She was obidient, no one cared to reprimand her because she didn't mess up. When she did, it was on purpose, to make sure that her facade did not become too good. If her disguise was too perfect others would get suspicious. She was already forcing it, it was almost to the point of breaking on most occasions. When the tom apprentices would flirt with her, or even get close to her like they were friends. She was friends with no feline, especially not a tom. Especially not a guy that she grew up with. When they came close to her, she had to keep from flinching or hissing or showing any signs of dislike. Yet her mind slipped and she asked herself, what do they want? Why are they approaching me?

Whitepaw, her name, they would ask her what was wrong when she would accidentally let the mask slip for a moment. She would quickly repair her mistake, smile sweetly and say that she just remembered something important, could she go do that? And they would look disappointed but let her go because when was it there right to keep her here? She realized that none of them were pushy enough to make her stay with them long, they would never insist that she abandon her duties to stay with them. Perhaps that was because her image, their ideal, was her behavior towards her work. She had such a good work ethic that they admired her. This was, maybe, the reason why they did not keep her long. Maybe they just knew that if she was to stay she might eventually learn to dislike them, because they all just wore charming expressions to please her intially. What was beyond that might frighten her. She already knew, though, so their tries to keep her uninformed were failures. She knew everything about them because they had been the same men who had teased her as a child.

She would never forgive them, ever.

"Thank you for letting me outside of camp. I think it would be great to get to learn a few things myself," the snow-kissed girl smiled greatfully at the warrior who was guarding the enterance and exit to the camp. Her paws slipped her past the warrior, her tail flicking in appreciation as she made the last length out of the gorse structured tunnel, her eyes narrowing at the influx of light that spilled throughout the moorland. In camp there were the shadows of the boulders to keep her from wincing like she was now. She prefer to be in the shadows anyway, the darkness of them somewhat hid her white coat against the stretch of the moorland. Then again, as she glanced out at the moor this day she was delighted to see that it had been coated in a fine layer of snow, something that would protect her appearence against the prey. She adored days like this. Maybe she would enjoy herself for a while.

Her dirty-white form dashed over the snow-covered ground, her outline clear against the clean slate of the snow. She didn't know what she was going to do, what she was even doing outside. She wasn't going to be trying to teach herself anything. She just wanted to get out of there, away from the eyes and the others in the Clan. She dashed across the moorland without a care in the world, though soon she would be approached by yet another annoyance in her life. Someone would bother her, she was sure of in the back of her head, though she did not allow it to become a thought in the front of her mind just yet. She wanted to have some peace. Some time to just do simple things like... hunt.

"I can smell you," she smirked, her paws pausing mid-step, one of them dangling uselessly in the air. "How lucky of me. I didn't think that anything would actually be out in this cold. Thought it'd all be frozen by now..." She flicked her eyes across the moorland in the direction where the mouth-watering smell was coming from. And then she saw it, another white outline in the snowy terrain, also known as her lunch. She grinned softly, trying not to release the chuckle of amusement that was edging out of her throat. This was too easy. Why was it so easy? She wasn't even disappointed, she was suddenly hungry. "I want to enjoy a hunt... I haven't done so in a while," Whitepaw mused, placing her paw down onto the frozen earth.

Immediately the rabbit perked its head, ears leaned forward and whiskeres twitched. Whitepaw felt that grin growing wider. She knew that this would be a good one to chase. She jolted forward witht a suddenness that caught the rabbit off guard, her dirty marble form careening forward, slightly off balance. The rabbit blinked out of its stunned state and dashed forward, large feet carrying it away. "This is so fun!" Whitepaw exclaimed, her paws racing across the snow coated earth. And then... she felt the usually compact snow fall beneath her, causing the she-cat to ungracefully plop face-first into a snow drift, looking like an idiot. And who was there to watch? None other then one of her Clanmates.

[sunni bells]

The easiest part of her day was that very moment as she let her muscles uncoil and let her legs crumble beneath her, to the ground. Her heart beat in an unsteady beat for no apparent reason. Nothing seemed apparent anymore. She just wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and cry, even though nothing was wrong. The thought of going back into camp and acting normal, and perhaps even herself seemed like to much of a hassle. She took a long breath in, a shaky breath in. It quivered as she let it out as well. The thought of even considering her next pawstep seemed to much as her head throbbed. Cold, wet snow seeped through her fur and stung her pawpads. Feisty winter wind nipped at her tail. She leaned her head against the few oddball rocks that meandered their way through the territory. Her claws slid in and out, in and out. She was so cold... Her green eyes seemed to dull slightly, they held no game as she stared at the world through the bleak, cloudy orbs. Though slim, the Windclan muscles hidden away in her powdered pelt seemed to be no use, trembling at the slightest gesture. Perhaps she was just to tired, to tired to do anything. She would lie out here and freeze to death and not wake till the spring thaw. Her body was limp up to the firmness of her shoulders, her head cocked sleepily to the side, so far over it almost slammed her shoulders to the ground in useless effort to remain alive. Pant, pant... somewhere in the near distance she heard the thunk! of a rabbit's foot, she heard snow lifting off the ground with each step and falling back to earth like rain. Rain, rain. Her body convulsed in a telltale shiver at the breezy frost. brr... brr...

She could continue this forever in mindless sense. Sitting, just sitting. Lying, just lying. Both ways. She slumped against the ground in an almost dead faint. Her eyes squeezed shut, so she lied, she was not a bad liar if she did say so herself. She lied that she was slightly bubbly, happy and sometimes even shy. When you stripped away the lies, the mangled, supportive web she had made for herself, the act she had to remember to keep... All she had left were her small insecurities. She felt bare, and ashamed. Ashamed, ashamed. And what she feared and longed for the most was someone who could see through her sparkling web down to the core, the core where she shook, sagged, and let loose. To be there right with her and no the truth without darling Ivypaw having to fall on her knees crying, stripping herself of her glamorous mask, the petty cape and the glass slippers. Shiver, shiver... Mindless, mindless.

Thunk! thunk! pounding, pounding. The daring steps of a fleeing rabbit, right, right into her paw. Not a smile but the thankless thought of the bloodshed, though it was one of an animal she preyed all the time. Unusual fellow. she murmured, out in the thankless, thankless cold. Why should it be fleeing to her? Why, why? The unhopeful glimmer in her eyes as it appeared over the brim off the pit like slope that roped around her, sweeping her long frame in it's embrace. It saw her and shook in surprise, it slid and tumbled, and rolled, crashing forward. It landed inches from her sunken in face. No ones ever told a story like this before. she sadly lagged forward, sinking her small, pearly fangs deep into its snow-coated neck. Blood rushed into her mouth, filling her with a dim spark of life. She sank them in far more than she needed to, far more than she was suppose to, aloud to. She didn't care. She didn't care if she hadn't done half of the work chasing this creature down. It was her, and only hers. The eyes had remained open as her teeth sank into it's nerves, perpetually freezing it. She grimaced in delight.

Slowly her need for the hold on it's never subsided. She released it, and it fell to the ground with a dead sound. She swung it up into the air, relishing the taste of blood that lingered in her mouth, and even more so, the blood that stained it's innocent fur. It reminded her of herself, she stood quickly, catching it in her jaw by its cool scruff. She climbed so nimbly to the top of the dip to see what had lost its grasp on the hare's life. She saw no one, no one. Deserted in the cool grounds. Everything looks so gray and dismal that she did not give it a second thought to why she took it upon herself today to consult her faults. Her heart sang a sad song to her as her eyes continued to prey for another sign of life. She followed the rabbit's footsteps. Tracing them back. Little snowflakes began to dance on her pelt, falling, falling. And then they would subside and die onto the ground, molding in with the rest. She closed her bright eyes and shuffled forward, her frame almost completely washed out against the whitened background. Ah... So I fit in somewhere. she mumbled through the thick winter fur of the snowy foot fellow. That I do...

OOC:Sorry for all the angst... Being insecure really gets her down...

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[Laughing]

"Did you think that that was funny?!" Whitepaw suddenly exclaimed, struggling up from the snow drift that she had fallen in. Her dirty white fur was clumped uncomfortably with the heavy, compact snow that she had just been gracefully flying over on her paws moments before. Now she was nearly frozen and angry, losing both her rabbit and her dignity in front of a Clanmate. "Did you think that this was hilarious, huh?" The grey masked she-cat felt her shoulder fur rise in irritation and through the action her whole coat flurried up, shaking some of the snow from her form. The white substance slid from her shoulders, her muscles twitching to allow more to fall. Her anger was obviously more of a concern that her frozen appearence, her stiff body from the freezing temperature not easing the flame of her infuriation. She would nearly kill anyone who saw her in an embarassing position such as that. She was Whitepaw, graceful, friendly and sweet. Her mask would be ruined by this occurance and she realized by getting so undeniably angry that she was only making her appearence worse. She was allowing her carefully constructed disguise falter in front of a Clanmate. They were going to find out and her behavior was the reason why.

The one that her eyes landed on was the apprentice, Ivypaw, who she knew well enough. She was aware of all of her Clanmates, painfully aware. The she-cat was around her age, perhaps a moon or so younger, and as mentally insecure as the next cat that was born from two cousins. She had judged the young, snow-kissed girl as someone that she didn't have to communicate with, and so her kindness to the youngling was as formal and fraud as any sweetness she revealed to anyone. Yet, now, with her stupid move revealed to the girl, she did not know if she could project that feeling of warmth and comfortablity that she shared with others. It was the situation she was in, the frustrations that rippled her fur into a straight position, she did not think that it was possible to go back to the nice behavior she showed in the Clan. She didn't remember her interactions with Ivypaw before, it there had ever been one. She was known to be forgetful of minor occurances, though she knew each Clanmate's name by their face. What words they had spent with her before were often an erased thought. She did not know what Ivypaw thought of her.

"And what is this? You caught my rabbit! MOUSE-BRAIN, that was MINE!" Whitepaw nearly screeched, incapable of holding in her frustrations anymore. "Do you know how long I've wanted to get away from the Clan to go for a nice hunt? And then here you come, probably not even TRYING and steal my rabbit. IT WAS MINE! I don't understand how you didn't realize this. You could probably smell me on the breeze, the wind is blowing in YOUR direction! And then the rabbit comes bouncing along and you think that you can take it from me? Are you stupid?!" Whitepaw nearly roared in her anger, but kept in the primal urge. She was not, however, about to let the ivory girl opposite of her get away with taking what was her's. She had enough of being nice for now. And besides, this was one young apprentice? Who cared if SHE didn't like her? "Hey, Ivypaw, why don't you give me that rabbit and hop along and have another cat's lunch? I would dearly appreciate if you would just give me what is mine. Give it to me now. Drop it at my feet. Now."