Pathstride

Pathstride is a long-furred, white she-cat with gray tabby markings on her head, a stripe going down her back, and a gray shelled tail. Her eyes are green.

## Personality

Pathstride is much like Otterleap - she's playful and constantly happy, she gets attached easily, and she can be very agressive when she wants to be. Unlike Otterleap, she can pick up on hints and signals easily; when she actually bothers to pay attention.  She has a horrible time with phrases, as she takes everything literally, and she is a very excitable she-cat who tends to talk about all of her daydreams at length.  She seems to have too much energy for her body to contain, is constantly in need of an activity for her to do.  She also tends to get very defensive of her family, friends, and Clan, wanting to make sure that everyone she cares about is always as happy and healthy as phsically possible.

## History

Pathstride was born to a loner named Little, and given the name Paws.  She was born along side her littermate, Ice. Looking at the two, none of the older siblings could believe that they had the same father, but their mother reassured that they did (although, if this was a lie, no cat has discovered it yet).

Little died from greencough. When she had the disease, she had separated herself from her kits. North, Spots, and Ice were the cats who found her body. The six kits buried her, but stayed where they were living. When a wildfire occurred, the six were split up. Shade, Spots, and Ice found a home in WaveClan, becoming Forestpaw, Splashpaw, and Streamkit. North, Otter, and Paws found a home in MarshClan, becoming Northpaw, Otterpaw, and Pathkit.

## Long Posts

### breeze dies and path gets sad about it

Warm, orange light bathed over the MarshClan camp as sunset came, but Pathstride felt anything but. She was sure that if she could have felt something, it would have been cold; but she didn't feel anything. The thought of being cold was something distant, like some other cat had implanted it into her mind, but obviously that couldn't be true, could it?

Even as she contemplated, her mind was barely moving. There was none of the usual barrage of strange thoughts that she could blurt out at any moment, thoughts that would make Northwater and Tawnyfang poke fun at her, would make Otterleap (oh, *Otterleap*) laugh at her, would make Breezeflight—

Well.

It didn't matter what they did to him, because he was lying motionless in the center of the clearing, not even the gentle rise and fall of his flanks that came with every breath able to be seen.

But… it couldn't be. It just couldn't. That was a thought that came to Pathstride loud and clear, and she agreed wholeheartedly.

Because her and Breezeflight hadn't even been mates for a year, yet, so how could he be gone? He couldn't be, was the answer. It just wouldn't be fair.

Because he was just so charming and kind to her, and if anyone deserved to keep on living past the illness that had struck all of the Clans, she was sure that it was him, so obviously StarClan couldn't have taken him from them — from *her* — just yet.

Because she loved him so much that every time she let herself dwell on the thought of him too much it felt like her heart would burst; like whenever they spent time together, they were the only cats in the world that mattered; like she didn't have to worry about anything because as long as she had Breezeflight with her, everything would be okay.

She hated to try and rationalize her sister's death, the reasons StarClan had for taking her, but she'd settled down with a family and, despite dying fairly young, had lived a pretty full life. Breezeflight only had her for a mate, no kits to be seen, and they'd barely had time to get settled into the *idea* of being mates, either.

So he couldn't be gone. Obviously, he couldn't be.

Northwater appeared at her side all the same, silent as anything, and gave her a look that was just so *sad* she couldn't bear to look at it for more than a heartbeat. Couldn't she see he was going to be okay? Couldn't she understand that?

She was directed towards Breezeflight despite her silent protests, heard Northwater murmuring about how *you can't stay with him for long, we don't want you to get sick*, found herself looking down at his far-too-still form.

*He can't be gone,* she repeated to herself, firm as she could. *He can't be.*

...But he was.

Oh, StarClan, he *was*.

Pathstride buried herself into his pelt as much as she could, letting the sounds of her sobs be muffled by his pelt. She felt like her heart had just been crushed like it was a delicate fish bone, leaving nothing but fragments and dust behind.

### the saddest "congrats you're pregnant" ever

Pathstride felt like she was drowning.

It was like she'd fallen into one of the waterways in the territory, the cold water sinking into her fur and gripping her tight. It pulled her down, down, down — so far down that she wasn't sure if she'd hit the bottom, that she wondered if the bottom even existed. But it did, and she hit it. The surface felt so far away that she couldn't even imagine summoning the effort to get back to it, but she knew that it existed and she could get back there; but what was the point? Breezeflight and Otterleap were gone, now. Most days, she could barely get herself to get out of her nest, let alone convince herself to try and go on any patrols that might have been sent her way or just go hunting for the fun of it.

And she was just so *tired*. Sometimes, without even realizing it, she would have slept through half or even all of the day without even realizing it, and still felt perfectly fine with sleeping through the night, so that was what she'd do. If Northwater and Tawnyfang weren't there to drag her out of her nest, then she simply wouldn't get up, and would be perfectly content (well, not *content*) to sleep the rest of her life away.

And eating was an entirely different matter. She didn't have the effort to drag herself to the fresh-kill pile, and even if she did, the very *thought* of eating made her feel nauseous. If it were up to her, she'd never have to eat again for the rest of her life — maybe she could find out how plants survived, since they didn't have to eat, but she didn't have much interest in doing that, either — but again, Northwater and Tawnyfang stepped in. She found that the nausea got worse after she ate, but she never actually got sick.

"I think you should see the medicine cats," Northwater told her after she complained to her.

"I don't *wanna*," Pathstride whined, tired and sad and with less than half of the effort that would have been in it before the death of Breezeflight and Otterleap.

"*Go*," Northwater ordered, her tone sharp and her expression stern to match.

So here she was.

At one point, Palesky had been a kindred spirit — a cat that others found hard to understand and was so clearly lost in her own world half of the time. Not to mention that their names started with the same sound. But now Pathstride just felt tired and sad and, of all things, worn out. She would have been affronted by that before, but that was before, not now, and she was in the now.

Palesky directed her to lie down in a nest that looked to be very inviting, so Pathstride lied down in it. She settled her head on her paws, watching as the medicine cat moved around the den on clumsy paws and with quick lashes of her tail to balance herself.

"So you've been really tired?" Palesky checked, once she'd pulled away from her and declared her lack of fever.

Pathstride nodded the best she could.

"And not hungry?"

Again, Pathstride nodded.

"Well, that could just be grief…" the tabby tilted her head. "Any nausea?"

The warrior nodded.

This time, it was the medicine cat who nodded. "Okay," she meowed. She lifted her paw, and with no warning, she set it on her belly. Pathstride's eyes widened and her head lifted quickly, and she lifted her paws to bat Palesky's away from her with more energy than she'd felt since her mate and sister had joined StarClan. She kept her now-narrowed eyes on Palesky's paws, even though the other she-cat seemed to be keeping them to herself now, and scooted as far away from her as she could while still staying in the comfort of the nest.

"Well, guess what?" Palesky asked. "You're expecting!"

Pathstride felt like her world was crumbling. She burst into tears, burying her face into her paws, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. She curled into as tight of a ball as she could, wishing that the ground would open up under her and swallow her whole — would she end up in StarClan that way? Would she still have her kits (her *kits*, she was having *kits*) that way? Could she even raise kits in StarClan?

"...Aren't you supposed to be happy?" Palesky asked. She sounded wary.

"Breezeflight's *gone*," Pathstride sobbed.

Um," the other pronounced, "yeah?"

"They'll be just like him!" she wailed.

"Okay…"

"They won't have a dad!" *He would've been such a good dad*, she thought.

"...No," Palesky meowed. "Maybe you should talk to Northwater, or someone?" she suggested, sheepish and high-pitched.

Pathstride sniffed. "Okay," she meowed, climbing to her paws and padding passed her out of the den, allowing her tail to drag on the ground and collect dust in her shelled fur.

She didn't have to go looking for her sister, because Northwater found her as she was going to enter the warriors' den, her amber eyes narrowed. "Why are you crying?" she asked, her ears angled backwards.

"I'm *expecting*," Pathstride informed, not waiting to ask for permission before she buried her face into the other she-cat's shoulder.

"...Oh," Northwater pronounced after a moment, leaning her head against hers before she steered them out of the way of any cat coming and going from the den, settling down in a secluded corner of camp and not raising any complaints as Pathstride cried for all she was worth into her shoulder fur.

"Breezeflight's *gone*," she told her, because she was sure that she could get better responses out of her than she could out of Palesky.

"Yeah," Northwater agreed, "he is."

"They'll be just like him!"

"Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll be just like you, StarClan help us all."

Pathstride sniffled, and tried to picture another cat like her running around the MarshClan camp, and her ears twitched at the thought. She could deal with that.

"And even if they are like him," Northwater added, "that just means he's not going to be forgotten, right? No matter how much any cat tries."

She sniffled again, then decided she could deal with that, too. No matter how much reminders of the fact that her mate being gone being given to her everyday would hurt.

"They won't have a dad."

"We didn't," Northwater pointed out. "We didn't have a mom most of the time, either. We turned out fine."

Pathstride lifted her head, then looked down at her belly, sniffling.

Breezeflight was gone. That wasn't okay, but it was just something that was, and it was something she'd have to learn to accept.

Her kits might be like Breezeflight, but they might not. Either way, that was okay, but it would still hurt.

They wouldn't have a dad. That would be okay, because they would have a mom.

They'd be hers, she decided as she curled her shelled tail around herself, and they'd be loved, and that was more than okay.