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Description
This is for the Mothcats Library of Xandeera Event! Check it out here: [NEW EVENT] 2017 Library of Xandeera

I ended up being pretty busy with a trip to see my partner's graduation for something huge, but here's a prompt with Shackleton, as well as a short blurb about how she came to Aldora!

WC: 1183

“They have desert cats now? What’s next? Moon cats?” Shackleton said, not unkindly, but with a certain bemused look down her snout at Zoku as the cats approached the Xandeeran.
“Stand down, Oh Icey One,” Grinch said, giving the big Northern a friendly punch on her shoulder (or, uh, mid-arm). He had nearly gotten a black eye the first time as Shackleton, purely on reflex, swung back at him, but he was pretty good at ducking. “Z-Man is here to record Aldorans’ stories for his research. And that is what you are now, right?”
Zoku’s ears flattened at the very unearned nickname, while Shackleton bristled, her mouth slightly ajar, still testing out the word “Aldoran” and how it applied to her. Grinch barreled on, oblivious to their discomfort. “Myrrh said it would be, like, therapeutic or something? She was going on about ‘forging interpersonal bonds through divulging treasured memories but to be honest I kinda tuned out after the seco –“
“Alright!” Shackleton interrupted, causing the small green cat to jump in surprise. “Alright. I’ll do it. It’s not like it’s some big secret.” She locked eyes with Zoku’s mismatched ones, and they were silent for a long moment, both strangers, but from different sides of the world. Eventually, Shackleton relaxed a bit more, her one working wing leaving its locked position at her side and drifting to brush the grass. As if sensing her change in mood, Zoku’s quill floated to attention, poised, quivering, over a sheaf of parchment. “But only a bit,” Shackleton sighed, tersely, and began.
---
“I don’t know how much you know about the Nieven Mountains, but it’s an unkind place. Subzero temperatures, sheer cliffs, all wrapped up nicely with gale-force winds. It’s natural that these harsh conditions give rise to only the strongest Mothcats, and of those, only the strongest will ultimately survive (Grinch snorted at this, and was promptly cuffed in the head with an outstretched wing.). We’re organized loosely into tribes, and I belonged to one of the more prosperous.
‘My passion in those days was exploring – with my team, I wanted to chart all the then-unexplored peaks and rocks and crags of the Nieven Mountains. It was important work; exploration could chart safe passages through the mountains, or unearth important mineral deposits. But those were tasks for my cartographers and geologists. What I longed for” – she squinted, as if trying to peer through the darkness of the tight-clustered trees around Morel Hollow – “was the feeling of setting paw where no other cat had gone before. My team being the first to scale a peak and see the vista, and being able to recount it all around the fire. I was lucky… so lucky, that my tribe had enough resources to not only supply my expeditions but the Mothcats manning them. And I did achieve no small measure of success in my heyday, I’ll have you know,” she said, mane puffing up proudly.
“I’ll spare you too many details. One day, my team and I were passing under a well-travelled overhang of ice and snow. Something set it off – a crack finally giving way, a loud echo – and the overhang we thought was steady was crumbling around us. The next few hours… or maybe days?... was a confusion of pain and faces swimming in and out of focus, and my wing… my right wing was so cold, colder than I had been on the longest winter night in the mountains. When I came around fully, I was in a small enclosure back at my tribe, and it was gone. Nothing but a mess of broken feathers and bloody bandages. It was surreal,” she laughed. “My first thought was wondering whether I was going to be warmer or colder with it gone. How I would have to put in some orders for ropes and grappling… It was a couple hours later that, head down, one of my former expedition mates informed me that as soon as I could walk, I had to leave. I’ll spare you still the ensuing argument – how it wasn’t his fault, how he couldn’t look me in the eye. He was right. I couldn’t fly. And for all that I could do, that… defect could be the difference between the survival and the death of my team. The extra food needed to support me if I couldn’t hunt, the extra supplies needed to get me across a river or up a dangerous cliff – I was, in his halting words, a liability. And so a couple mornings later, I made the last trip across the icy river denoting the boundaries of my tribe.
“I hung around for a while, and spent most of my evenings glaring across the river. Northerns are suborn, and we think that with enough cunning and grit and effort, we can re-earn our place, back with our family and our tribe. We’re always wrong. With each daring feat or hobbled-together shelter, I came away with a little less than what I started with. So I left completely, seeking out others like me. I knew they were out there, I had seen them cross the river too – but never really thought about it until it was me, paw-deep in the water.
Over the coming weeks, I found them – cats from disparate tribes, united now by circumstance. We compensated for each other’s disabilities, helped each other across rivers and up cliffs, so to speak. But in many ways, life was harder than out by myself. Hunger, despair, anger… thoughts and feelings that I could barely beat back in my own mind were written plainly on the faces of others. Moreover, winter would be coming in earnest in a few short weeks, and our meager snow dugouts and meager supplies couldn’t last. We wanted to stay – we needed to stay, so that we could know that we were worth something, that we had what the other Northerners saw as valuable. But we couldn’t stay and keep our lives, and I convinced the others to make the trip southward. Some I had to drag, they fought me so hard on the way down. But that journey could be a few fireside tales by itself!
Looking out towards Aldora on that last ship ride was sure… something. I might have had some deep, thought-provoking words for that one, but I was seasick as a dog the whole time. Not pretty. After reaching Aldora, we’ve since scattered to the winds. Everyone has to find their own path here, I guess, though I keep in touch where I can. It’s blasted hot, I don’t know how you stand it. And everything is so… close (She said this with a slight shudder). I’ve made some acquaintances, or… friends, I guess…” she looked down at Grinch, who was absentmindedly picking dirt out from between his toes with a claw.

“I will tell you one thing, though,” Shackleton said, raising from her siting position and stretching her remaining wings, before shaking out her mane, as if she were shedding water. Her green eyes were fierce. “This is only temporary.”

Mothcats and all subspecies are owned by @/floramisa.
You cannot make your own!

Description
This is for the Mothcats Library of Xandeera Event! Check it out here: [NEW EVENT] 2017 Library of Xandeera

I ended up being pretty busy with a trip to see my partner's graduation for something huge, but here's a prompt with Shackleton, as well as a short blurb about how she came to Aldora!

WC: 1183

“They have desert cats now? What’s next? Moon cats?” Shackleton said, not unkindly, but with a certain bemused look down her snout at Zoku as the cats approached the Xandeeran.
“Stand down, Oh Icey One,” Grinch said, giving the big Northern a friendly punch on her shoulder (or, uh, mid-arm). He had nearly gotten a black eye the first time as Shackleton, purely on reflex, swung back at him, but he was pretty good at ducking. “Z-Man is here to record Aldorans’ stories for his research. And that is what you are now, right?”
Zoku’s ears flattened at the very unearned nickname, while Shackleton bristled, her mouth slightly ajar, still testing out the word “Aldoran” and how it applied to her. Grinch barreled on, oblivious to their discomfort. “Myrrh said it would be, like, therapeutic or something? She was going on about ‘forging interpersonal bonds through divulging treasured memories but to be honest I kinda tuned out after the seco –“
“Alright!” Shackleton interrupted, causing the small green cat to jump in surprise. “Alright. I’ll do it. It’s not like it’s some big secret.” She locked eyes with Zoku’s mismatched ones, and they were silent for a long moment, both strangers, but from different sides of the world. Eventually, Shackleton relaxed a bit more, her one working wing leaving its locked position at her side and drifting to brush the grass. As if sensing her change in mood, Zoku’s quill floated to attention, poised, quivering, over a sheaf of parchment. “But only a bit,” Shackleton sighed, tersely, and began.
---
“I don’t know how much you know about the Nieven Mountains, but it’s an unkind place. Subzero temperatures, sheer cliffs, all wrapped up nicely with gale-force winds. It’s natural that these harsh conditions give rise to only the strongest Mothcats, and of those, only the strongest will ultimately survive (Grinch snorted at this, and was promptly cuffed in the head with an outstretched wing.). We’re organized loosely into tribes, and I belonged to one of the more prosperous.
‘My passion in those days was exploring – with my team, I wanted to chart all the then-unexplored peaks and rocks and crags of the Nieven Mountains. It was important work; exploration could chart safe passages through the mountains, or unearth important mineral deposits. But those were tasks for my cartographers and geologists. What I longed for” – she squinted, as if trying to peer through the darkness of the tight-clustered trees around Morel Hollow – “was the feeling of setting paw where no other cat had gone before. My team being the first to scale a peak and see the vista, and being able to recount it all around the fire. I was lucky… so lucky, that my tribe had enough resources to not only supply my expeditions but the Mothcats manning them. And I did achieve no small measure of success in my heyday, I’ll have you know,” she said, mane puffing up proudly.
“I’ll spare you too many details. One day, my team and I were passing under a well-travelled overhang of ice and snow. Something set it off – a crack finally giving way, a loud echo – and the overhang we thought was steady was crumbling around us. The next few hours… or maybe days?... was a confusion of pain and faces swimming in and out of focus, and my wing… my right wing was so cold, colder than I had been on the longest winter night in the mountains. When I came around fully, I was in a small enclosure back at my tribe, and it was gone. Nothing but a mess of broken feathers and bloody bandages. It was surreal,” she laughed. “My first thought was wondering whether I was going to be warmer or colder with it gone. How I would have to put in some orders for ropes and grappling… It was a couple hours later that, head down, one of my former expedition mates informed me that as soon as I could walk, I had to leave. I’ll spare you still the ensuing argument – how it wasn’t his fault, how he couldn’t look me in the eye. He was right. I couldn’t fly. And for all that I could do, that… defect could be the difference between the survival and the death of my team. The extra food needed to support me if I couldn’t hunt, the extra supplies needed to get me across a river or up a dangerous cliff – I was, in his halting words, a liability. And so a couple mornings later, I made the last trip across the icy river denoting the boundaries of my tribe.
“I hung around for a while, and spent most of my evenings glaring across the river. Northerns are suborn, and we think that with enough cunning and grit and effort, we can re-earn our place, back with our family and our tribe. We’re always wrong. With each daring feat or hobbled-together shelter, I came away with a little less than what I started with. So I left completely, seeking out others like me. I knew they were out there, I had seen them cross the river too – but never really thought about it until it was me, paw-deep in the water.
Over the coming weeks, I found them – cats from disparate tribes, united now by circumstance. We compensated for each other’s disabilities, helped each other across rivers and up cliffs, so to speak. But in many ways, life was harder than out by myself. Hunger, despair, anger… thoughts and feelings that I could barely beat back in my own mind were written plainly on the faces of others. Moreover, winter would be coming in earnest in a few short weeks, and our meager snow dugouts and meager supplies couldn’t last. We wanted to stay – we needed to stay, so that we could know that we were worth something, that we had what the other Northerners saw as valuable. But we couldn’t stay and keep our lives, and I convinced the others to make the trip southward. Some I had to drag, they fought me so hard on the way down. But that journey could be a few fireside tales by itself!
Looking out towards Aldora on that last ship ride was sure… something. I might have had some deep, thought-provoking words for that one, but I was seasick as a dog the whole time. Not pretty. After reaching Aldora, we’ve since scattered to the winds. Everyone has to find their own path here, I guess, though I keep in touch where I can. It’s blasted hot, I don’t know how you stand it. And everything is so… close (She said this with a slight shudder). I’ve made some acquaintances, or… friends, I guess…” she looked down at Grinch, who was absentmindedly picking dirt out from between his toes with a claw.

“I will tell you one thing, though,” Shackleton said, raising from her siting position and stretching her remaining wings, before shaking out her mane, as if she were shedding water. Her green eyes were fierce. “This is only temporary.”

Mothcats and all subspecies are owned by @/floramisa.
You cannot make your own!