Story
Moonview and Marigolds were found abandoned on the Maplelands’ territory when they were a few weeks old, and were taken in to be raised as Maplecats. Marigolds, extroverted as she was, found it hard to get used to the other cats; her loud, sometimes obnoxious personality made others avoid her. Moonview was better at making friends once he actually worked up the courage to talk to them, which only happened if Marigolds began the conversation with the other cat. When he was 7 years old, King Smokey approached him and asked if he would like to be the next messenger; Moonview was incredibly excited at the opportunity, but was told to keep it a secret until his nameday. He spent the following years enthralled with the idea of being able to explore every single territory, to see snowy peaks and rushing rivers, lowlands and highlands, the fjords and the wolves that inhabited their forests. At 10 years old, his eyes began to fail rapidly. He noticed one day that everything was a little foggier, and a year later everything was gone. All he can see through his cataracts are the vague, indistinct difference between the light and the dark. His dreams of being a messenger were crushed, made worse by the fact he still could not tell anyone what his role could have been due to the strict privacy rules around kits chosen for special roles before they are named. He was utterly moonbroken by his lost vision; now, he would never see anything again, let alone all the strange and beautiful places he would have seen had he become a messenger. But, life went on. At 13 years old, he and Marigolds were named, and to his ever-growing despair she was chosen as the next messenger, and she despised it. Moonview was forced to listen to her rants and ravings and to offer a shoulder for her to cry on, all the while thinking how lucky she was that she would be able to see more in a month than most cats will in their whole life, and more than he would ever see again. He kept these thoughts to himself, wishing her good luck on her journeys as she set out that night to The Ironvale, where she would be given a compass and taught how to use it.
Months passed with Moonview growing more distant from every cat in the Maplelands. He began developing a friendship with Maplefall, the messenger for the BoundaryCats whom Marigolds had been spending a lot of time with. As Marigolds and Moonview grew apart, Maplefall and Moonview grew closer together. One night, Marigolds confessed her romantic love for Maplefall, a love which he did not appreciate nor reciprocate; he had actually been trying to distance himself from her, not get closer. The two were just inside the Maplelands, and so Maplefall trekked the short distance to where he knew Moonview had been living while trying to convince Marigolds that no, he wasn’t playing hard to get; he really wanted space from her. She eventually seemed to back off, leaving him alone when he finally made it to Moonview. Moonview and Maplefall spoke together for the rest of the night, with Maplefall confiding all that had happened between him and Marigolds. Moonview and Marigolds had had a bad fight a few days prior, leaving him feeling bitter towards her, and causing all his old emotions of her being a messenger instead of him to boil to the surface. He told Maplefall of this fight, and confirmed that he thought Marigolds annoying as well, and they would be better off together, without her. At this, Marigolds revealed herself, leaping from the bushes she had been eavesdropping on them from. It quickly escalated, Maplefall and Moonview calling Marigolds obnoxious and histrionic. She said many foul things about them as well, and the fight left Marigolds on her own once more, and all of them in tears.
It has now been a few years since that night. Moonview had tried to reconcile with Marigolds, but she never cared to respond to any of his attempts. Very recently, they had one more interaction in which Marigolds finally spoke with him again. Moonview tried his best to apologize for the things he said, and encouraged her to do the same; this could all be in the past. He reminded her of good times they had as kits, which almost seemed to work. Almost. Marigolds turned and left, leaving them both to face yet another day angry and resentful. They have not spoken since then. Now, Moonview spends his days catching little meals for himself, and standing out in the wind, imagining the silvery breeze and browning, cooling landscape as best he can with the memories of sight he has from when he was a kit.
Moonview is shy and soft spoken with most cats, but loud and excitable with his friends. He has become more introverted in the past few years; as his eyesight has failed, his ability to trust cats has also gotten worse. He finds it very hard to tell how the cat feels about him from their voice alone, and cannot see if they are about to attack him (a paranoid thought, but somewhat grounded in reality given his disconnect from the others, and inability to defend himself). He has taken to wandering by himself in the northernmost reaches of the Maplelands, sitting upon rocky outcrops in the foothills, enjoying that, from up above the dark trees, he can still see the light dancing across his eyes as he faces the sun. He enjoys it when Maplefall passes by on his way to deliver messages, usually walking with him until they reach the edge of the Maplelands’s land and Maplefall must carry on without him. Moonview enjoys sunrises, taking joy in the fact that he can still see the lighting difference in day and night through his cataracts. He hates the rain, fearing that a flood will start and he will be unable to see it and drown, or that lightning will strike a tree and he will run into its fire as he tries to flee. Maplefall is helping him learn to fight, which has significantly helped his fears of being attacked.
