she sells sea shells at the {lake} shore

[»__Laughing]

ooh la, she was such a good girl to me

"We're proud of you, sweetie, but don't get too over stressed. We don't want your head feeling like its been smashed."

Larkpaw had simply smiled at her father and commented on his strange choice of words. The affects of Clan life had not yet oozed into him completely, the way that his voice still carried the accent that he had grown up with, one that she had avoided learning through her mother. It was a wonderful taste of his culture though and she couldn't help but always grin when he said something that was part of who hadn't adapted into being completely changed by the Clan. She was glad of this, so very glad. This was why she loved her family, this was why she valued them. Because they were different, they were not the same cut-and-paste children that came out of the Clan. She dearly hoped that she was not going to be exactly akin to everyone else for when she glanced around these days she wondered why the unique stood. But she always had her mother and father to fall back on and their smiles to light her face.

She supposed that it wasn't her choice to leave the Clan, though, her position was too demanding to sudden pick up her things and leave. Though, she had to eventually realize, that Lakeclan was made of loners and those who had no other place in the world. It was under the kind eye of Springstar that they had gathered together. She was ignorant, however, to the origin of this random Clan. She could not begin to understand it if she tried. Who would care to bring all of those together? To have them join as one? To challenge Horizonclan? Larkpaw would have no place in wars or battles, her watchful eye would take the wounded and her paws would treat them. She would not be in threat, unless some genius finally got the idea that killing the medicine cat left the other side vulnerable to injury. But, it was not an aspiration to help someone discover this from the other Clan. She preferred herself living at this moment in time.

"Dear thing, you should really get used to the Clan. I know that you think being a loner had suited us better, but look at the life we lead now. We have something to protect, something bigger than ourselves. Look at you, we're so proud."

When her mother had dared to spew such things to her she had wanted to explode. Something bigger than themselves? Where was the woman she had been? Hadn't being a loner taught her anything. These cats, these ones that had welcomed them had only a smidgen of her trust. They could bend back their invitation and hurt them at any moment. Still, the young girl did not understand the reason that her mother was so friendly around these folk. She wished that she could just return to being Lark, her mother and father back to their greater names, and return to their loner lives. That was no way for a medicine cat apprentice to think, but the rebel inside of her stirred on many occasions now-a-days. She sometimes wished to escape, if only it was possible. But to commit such a treachery would be to turn her back on Starclan, and though she might find the cats of the living Clan tiresome she could not turn her tail on their spectral ancestors. It would break everything.

So she lived on, carried the duty of being the next medicine cat with a proud head on her shoulders. She was, perhaps, a bit too cocky in her actions and this often ended up with her stand offish appearance leading her to a lack of friendships. She wasn't curious as to why anyone didn't want to be around her, she knew the way she behaved not exactly the dignified presence that she longed for. So she had to practice, simple as that. She would become a role model eventually, someone that one young kit would look up to and respect enough to attempt to enter the same field as her. Then the cycle that she was going through now would be pushed upon another's shoulders and she would do it with a smile. For there was another one who loved their connection enough to pursue it, and she was glad with anyone who respected Starclan.

She really had nothing but love and affection for her parents, but even she had times where things got a bit to hectic with her. Camp became suffocating, the minute noises and the voices echoed through to her despite the position that she sat in. Even at night, when the crescent moon could not be seen from within the den she slept, she was awake, listening. There were so many little things that kept her aware most of the time. She hated it with a strange passion. She just wanted things to go by quicker so she could move around freely. She still did not trust herself enough to depart from the Clan in the night, for though she adored the star-wreathed afterlife cats, that urge to flee still came to her veins.

She found herself a place to go when she was feeling these things but could not stand it within camp any longer. She had been on the urge of escaping the territory once when she found the splash of shoreline that caught her attention the most. The smooth rock edge nearly shined in the current light, dazzling her gaze to the point where she was frozen. Then she didn't want to leave, she wanted to explore. Her small, delicate steps drew her to the shore where she sat and looked across the lake that separated Horizon from Lake. She wondered what they were doing over there, that generations old Clan that stood on the other edge of oblivion. What they thought, and how they lived. Her heart stopped its race for escape, and her body lay still against the rocks that surrounded the shoreline. Perhaps she could get used to it, only if she could remain on these rocks without any true disturbances. Perhaps Clan life would not always be so bad.

Larkpaw had opened her mouth to no one about the small part of the shoreline that she had began to think of as her's. It wasn't, it was the ownership of Lakeclan and its members, but she wished to believe that the small overhang over the lake could be considered part of her territory when no one else was there to reprimand her for such stupid things thought. Her mother always asked her where she was heading off to when she did leave camp for the patch, but she usually just smiled and left leaving her mother to sigh and shake her head. For what could she do? Ban her from leaving camp? It was not in her place, and the way that Larkpaw smiled just showed that she wasn't about to tell, no matter what the circumstance. It would be easiest if she just kept it to herself, anyway, others would just want to invade on her private space when she was alone. To this point in her occasional visit there, no one had come in and disturbed her. This made Larkpaw a perfectly happy camper.

It was in this current moment that she sat against the rocks, lazily lifting her head from where it had been strewn across their smooth surfaces moments ago. Her body rolled until her thin fur could feel the cool set of stones beneath her stomach, a small convulsion rippling and setting the rest of her hair to its end. It was strange, just sitting here in the empty silence. It was like there was nothing in the world but her.

[SPR!NG]

and the SPREE'S invaded the earth
^{need i say who won?}

[/sup][/center][/color]

Animals scurried to their homes, not wanting to get wet. But other creatures were just walking about, not caring about the approaching rain. Those animals embraced the rain because they loved or they didn't care about it. The slender black and white femme strolled around the forest, taking a nice walk. It was showing signs of rain, but she didn't care. Springstar loved when the rain came pouring down, cleaning away all the wrong and evil that was spread. Cleansing. Thats what it was. The rain made things clean again, it let the earth have another chance of life, and it gave who wrecked mother nature another chance. Eyes closed and she stopped, lifting her face toward the heavens above, expecting at any moment to be washed by the water falling from above.

Eyes opened, letting her shining blue eyes gaze upon the world around her. Paws padded against the ground again, leading her anywhere they willed. Black paws splashed in puddles, spraying mud and water on herself. Springstar didn't mind, she actually liked it, it made her feel like an apprentice again. She smiled and inhaled a deep breath of air.

In the distance the she-cat heard a loud caterwaul, her onyx ears twitched, eyes narrowed in confusion and interest. As quick as she reacted to the noise, Springstar sprinted to the origin of the noise. What--or who--made that sound? She came the the place where the caterwaul came from, and came face to face with bushes. The female stopped, and peered over the bushes, and looked down to see a cat talking to a stick. Eyes glue to every movement of the she-cat, watching her pounce back and forth at the stick as if it were real live prey. Pity and sympathy emotions mixed together as she watched the strange female break the stick and start to chew on it. Mouth opened on protest, but she realized that she was foaming from the mouth, her eyes blank. Was this cat dangerous, or did she just need help? Springstar didn’t know, but all she did know was that the stranger needed serious help. Though, the LakeClanner was scared to reach out for her. Was she capable of hurting her? The Lakeclan leader knew that the stranger was in a fragile state, both emotionally and physically, but she wasn’t sure if she could speak to her. Because she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and offend the she-cat, because of course, she didn’t know what strength she possessed. Nose twitched, as usual as the stale odor of HorizonClan poured from the pitiful cats glands. Ugh. Almost forgot she was right next to the border..

Escaping the entanglements of the bush, she raced away toward the lake, hoping the cat didn't see her. She paused after a portion of running, breathing heavily as the adrenaline cooled, blood calming. Head flicked back to try to see if anyone was tailing her, and heavy relief flooded her as there was no trace of any cat. One last breath, and she noticed how far she had ran in panic. Hm, not to shabby. She managed to almost fall in the lake from her agility. Ears flickered as the sound of silence reflected her meaningless thoughts. Where was Pip when you needed to break the silence? Sure, Pip couldn't talk, but he was quite the joy to have around.

She flipped on her back, boredom nagging at her paws. She began to swing her paws in the air, as if there was a piece of string hovering that she fancied to bite. In reality, she was anticipating the rain. A New York minute after she started flinging unnecessarily, a pellet of water landed on her plush nose. Her turquoise optics met in the middle, penetrating the drop. In a matter of moments, a light drizzle was settling on her dirtied coat, wiping away the mud. Ah, wonderful how the rain lessened her cleaning time with her rough tongue.

[»__Laughing]

Ooo la, she was such a good girl to me

When the rain began it was an abrupt thing to the girl who was splayed along the shore rocks. She had not been expecting it, green-yellow eyes missing the chance to glance at the sky in her entire time she had been resting on her side. She had been day dreaming, even as she stare at the sky, and when the clouds rolled across her vision she could not see them. The world that her inner mind invisioned was always blessed with green, the springy grass beneath her steps and the trees in a great emerald glow. If that world could keep her forever, within its warm embrace she would remain. She would run along its hills and suck in breath after breath of sun-heated air. It would be so much better than this dreary season that had begun in reality. The rains would begin sooner than she thought, the errant thing that crossing her mind being that it'd have to be another week before a drop fell from the sky. But the weather was as unpredictable as a friend suffering from adolescent-disease, and so without Larkpaw's prediction hitting the spot, the rain began.

Plink.

Larkpaw's eyes widened when her a dot of moisture appeared on her paw, the wet seeping past her thin coat and onto her skin. A shiver released across her pelt, like it had when her stomach has slipped across the cool stones. She looked up to the sky to see if more would soon accompany that single droplet, hoping that it had been some kind of fluke of the clouds. However, when she was about to twist her head back down to settle beneath her paws with the satisfying thought that no more would drench her before she came back to camp, the clouds gave away their load. Water from lakes, rivers, oceans miles away from the Clans spilt from the sky, droplets pelting down on the unsuspecting felines above. Ones like Larkpaw, who were so ready to be happy that there would be none.

"Mouse-brained rain," she screeched out as it did more than dampen the young she-cat. She was unprotected from the elements, the small overhang only giving the rain a better chance to fall upon her. "Couldn't you at least wait until I was inside of camp?" She nearly bit her tongue clean off at the way she felt, her eyes flashing their annoyance. She did not look directly above, fearing that the cold wetness would ooze into her eyes. That was the last thing she wanted after this. Going back to camp blinded by rain would be the stupidest she would look.

The silence that had claimed her ears before had been covered with the sounds of the rain slamming against the stones and the shuffling of birds as they settled into branches that would protect them. She scrambled off of the rocks, her hardened pads giving her more of a grip as she attempted to make it down without slipping into the lake and only aiding in the season's attempt to give her hypothermia. The only other problem was that she had not wanted to be drenched to the point that her vision was obscured, too bad for that. She blindly stumbled across the rocks, a feeble attempt to discover the path that led her to and from camp. There was, however, no winning for the young and irritable she-cat today. She could not relax in camp nor in her little spot. What a bothersome chain of occurances.

She stumbled across the stones, her claws unsheathed to find a good spot to grip against the hard surface. But there was no yielding of the rock, her nails just scraped uselessly and painfully, leaving the girl feeling more sick than anything. Her gaze could decipher, finally, another shape lying along the stones. This confused her, wouldn't most of the Lakeclan cats want to be outside of the rain? Really now, what fool had come out of camp into this kind of weather.

"Hello?" she meowed out when she had gotten out close enough, but still she could not make out anything but a blur and faint colors. "What is the way back to camp?" Not even asking for a name, how charming of her.