private ˙ ˖ ✶ our un-readiness ┊ lupinepaw.

[Cherryblossom]

From the fading splatters of orange light on the floor and the thicker shadows past the ones the hazel branches create, Cherrypaw knows it's getting late. The evening patrol should be returning soon. Distantly, she wonders what her friends are doing, whether her presence is missed. Surely it is—those are her friends—and surely it's not. The rogues and Blazestar's death had only served the widen the wedge their duties and mentored had driven between them. Slate, too, no longer left her to her own devices, so often apprentice chores to be easily talked over, in favor of his own free time.

Cherrypaw settles her head between her paws, a soft sigh escaping her lips. Today, as with every other day she's spent stuck beneath the hazel bush, has been uneventful. Save for the occassional visitor, with either prey or news in their mouths, nothing but the sun overhead has passed. It's easy to feel sorry for herself in the wake of recent events, a natural extension of the pervasive grief and paranoia the whole clan seemed to be infected with.

The entrance rustles. Cherrypaw looks up, but the delight only appears when she realizes who their latest visitor is. "Oh—Lu! Hey," she purrs, gesturing with her tail to the empty pad of moss-strewn dirt and dead grass besides her nest. "You finally visited," she meows with a good-natured roll of her eyes. "How's the outside world doing?" Cherrypaw leans forwards, her heart unfurling anxious, fluttery wings in her chest. "How are you doing?" she adds, softer. Dawnglare and Fireflypaw had corraled all their patients back into their den the moment they had regained their bearings, and Cherrypaw hadn't seen her best friend since that terrible night.

@LUPINEPAW​

 

[LUPINESONG]

❀‿ Lupinepaw has perhaps been avoiding the den for longer than was strictly necessary. Thinking about that day—that moment—twisted her stomach into knots that tangled her paws into the ground every time she had a free moment to spare and looked instinctively toward the hazel bush. In all fairness, things were something of a mess around camp since... that particular evening... but Lupinepaw was not exactly heading any patrols or anything...

Her hesitance would only hold her back for a few days at most, for as much as her fear tied her to the ground, her heart was tied to the patients within Dawnglare's den.

She enters quietly, sweeping her gaze around the den and taking note of Bobbie sleeping in her nest—she was getting plenty of rest, hopefully. This was all well and fine because the other cat she needed to see was awake and greeting her with a purr. The dark smoke molly meets Cherrypaw's teasing with a purr of her own, even though the last vestiges of guilt curl around her ribs as she moves to sit by her side. "I knowww, I'm sorry they're pulling my tail to go on, like, every patrol there is, I swear to Starclan," she sighs in hyperbolic frustration.

"Things are okay... It almost feels back to... normal. Well not normal-normal, but you know... Plus, Mallowlark said that it looks like leafbare's finally starting to let up. Which, like, honestly I can never tell if he's being serious or not because he's like, super weird about everything, you know, but Dogbite agreed and they're pretty serious so... I'm just glad it'll be getting warmer, I guess. " Lupinepaw decides. She wants this cursed leafbare behind her, she was tired of the cold.

She shifts on her paws, her muzzle drifting to groom at a patch of fur behind Cherrypaw's ginger-painted ear and she thinks idly of how much she'd missed that scent of her fur (something familiar and aromatic and distinctly Cherrypaw) in these past few days, and perhaps in what seemed to be a moon or more that they hadn't been able to sit closely and share tongues liked they always liked to. "I'm... doing better, I think. Thank you, Cher... so much." Lupinepaw recalls Cherrypaw pressing against her as she shivered from the effort of keeping herself from falling apart and feels so... grateful that she had her. And like she didn't deserve any of it. She was undeserving of Cherrypaw's embrace, of Edenpaw's comfort, of Crowpaw's brief breaking of their silence to speak to her softly... And Falconpaw's unshakeable kindness, comforting Drowsypaw and carrying Bobbie to safety when she couldn't.

She realizes then—or not so much realizes more than she is suddenly confronted by the fact that she's been avoiding realizing—that she hasn't told Cherrypaw yet about Falconpaw. It only happened so recently and with everything going on... there'd been no real time for them to sit down and chat about silly stuff like that (should she call it silly? Or was that disrespectful to the institution of relationships or something...?). Regardless, a new tendril of guilt snaked around her heart, was this delayed news a side effect of her neglecting her friendship?

"Uhm, actually, Falconpaw's also been a big help recently too..."

NOBODY YET EVERYTHING ⊹₊°❀‿ A POOL TO SHED YOUR MEMORY

• OOC: I WROTE TOO MUCH IM SORRY i prommy we can make this a shorter post thread moving forward fhdfjs
• 
• 
  — lupinekit . lupinepaw
  — trans she/her. 10mo apprentice of skyclan. mentored by dandelionwish, padding after falconpaw
  — bobbie x duke. littermate to crowpaw & drowsypaw
  — a tall, pretty, long-haired black smoke with low white and green eyes
  — smells like sweet lupine flowers and young pine needles
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — fullbody by pikaihao and chibi by rae
  — penned by eezy

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Cherrypaw props her cheek up on a paw as Lupinepaw spins about her days. Half-lidded, lazy sunglow eyes drift across the girl’s face as she talks, carefully turning over each of her features in turn as she notices them. She imagines running her nose down the taper of her browline into the slender bridge of her nose, gently parting the ebony curls of fur spilling down her forehead.

She doesn’t know she’s smiling until she opens it up to speak. ”Mmmhmm…yeah?” Her words come easy; she is listening. Sort of. ”Oh yeah, it’ll get warmer,” she muses, eyelids drifting shut as Lupinepaw’s muzzle dips behind her ear, the one Scorchpaw’s butterfly wing normally sat behind. ”I mean, what else is it gonna do? Wait, did you, like, go out of your way to ask Mallowlark?” Delivered through a surprised grin, Cherrypaw clearly doesn’t expect an actual answer. ”Oh, well, Dogbite, hmm…he could use more seriousness about the state of his fur,” she remarks soon after, eyes sliding towards the entrance. "I'd trust him though."

As Lupinepaw descends into her other question, she lowers her tongue to a section of the other’s upper flank. Her eyes, closed to focus on the rhythmic motions of grooming and the saccharine scent of smoky fur, flutter open at her friend’s answer. ”It’s okay,” she responds, almost instinctively. Cherrypaw doesn’t quite know what she has to thank her for, but she’ll accept it nonetheless. Being a pillar was too easy a thing; all she had to do was stand there and be leaned on.

A too-long second of silence passes. Beneath her whiskers, Lupinepaw’s side seems to still for a moment, as though holding back a breath. ”Uhm, actually…” Cherrypaw takes this news with no extraordinary reaction, only pausing to look up and furrow a brow at Lupinepaw. ”Falconpaw?” Distaste, ingrained over the past moons, itches at the space behind her right shoulder blade. She doesn’t let it creep up into her expression, not yet. ”How’s he helping you?” As long as he’s helping her… ”Do you remember how he smelled like the dirtplace when he first came to SkyClan?” She smirks wistfully.​

 

[LUPINESONG]

❀‿ "Well..." she begins, nearly saying it but getting lost along the way trying to figure out why she was having difficulty saying it. Her puddling pause is interrupted by Cherrypaw making a crack at their memory of the tom in the nursery. She snorts, despite herself, but defends his honor with a whining, "Heyy...! That was like, so long ago! He smells perfectly fine now, don't be mean." Lupinepaw giggles and makes a cursory couple more swipes at the fur descending toward her shoulder, the briefly lightened bubble of conversation coaxing the words from her.

"Like, emotionally...?" she tries to put a mature spin on it, but sniffs and relents to the plain version of the story she'd been tip-toeing around, "Me and Falconpaw are padding after each other, actually. It... hasn't been too long—less than a moon—I didn't mean to keep it a secret or anything, you're actually the first cat I've told outright." She doesn't like the feeling creeping in her stomach, and she's sure her brief secret-holding has been a breach of best-friend-code somehow.

"He's sweet, and he makes me happy... So, you know.." Lupinepaw shrugged with a sheepish smile.

NOBODY YET EVERYTHING ⊹₊°❀‿ A POOL TO SHED YOUR MEMORY

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — lupinekit . lupinepaw
  — trans she/her. 10mo apprentice of skyclan. mentored by dandelionwish, padding after falconpaw
  — bobbie x duke. littermate to crowpaw & drowsypaw
  — a tall, pretty, long-haired black smoke with low white and green eyes
  — smells like sweet lupine flowers and young pine needles
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — fullbody by pikaihao and chibi by rae
  — penned by eezy

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Cherrypaw’s giggle matches her companion’s. She admits the truth of the matter with a soft shrug, careful to not to dislodge the grooming upon her shoulder. Lupinepaw has always been the better of the two when it came to these low-toned conversations, always the devil’s advocate to Cherry’s eager persecutor. She finds it endearing and thinks nothing of it now.

'Me and Falconpaw are padding after each other, actually.” Cherrypaw’s smile slowly loses itself in the swathes of flowery fur, getting farther and farther with each word that follows. Something, small and hollow, just…keels over in her. Beneath the sudden rush of blood in her ears, she feels its pathetic impact against the bottom of her belly. ”Oh…really?” is all she seems to know how to say. ”...him?” ”He's sweet, and he makes me happy…” Cherrypaw supposes she would know…

Her tongue, which had been pretending to be entirely focused on its task, stills entirely. She daintily wipes the wisps of black fur from her mouth with the back of her paw and, still hidden from Lupinepaw's sight, presses her lips together into a fine, straight line. I’m the first one she told—she kept it a SECRET? ”Really.” A moon? Fire licks at the backs of her eyelids when she closes them.

Falconpaw, letting her collapse against his shoulder after training. Falconpaw, getting his cheek dotted with a tender nose. Falconpaw, whose pretentiousness she can see seething behind his little good-boy act, his everyday song and dance to keep them all from tossing him back into the sewers, that Falconpaw. ”Of course,” she says silkily, as though it was all a foregone conclusion.

She knows she can’t hide her rage from her friend for long, though she debates whether she even should. How had she not seen? How had Falconpaw gotten to her before Cherrypaw? Well, gotten to—that’s a strange word, one that makes her stomach twist, because Lupinepaw isn’t just a thing that can be obtained. She’s still the little girl that’d shouldered her through a thunderstorm. The one she’d spent a childhood in the trees with, giggles echoing like birdsong among the Greenleaf canopies.

Cherrypaw pulls away with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, that shows a little too much teeth. ”As long as you’re happy.” A silent wave of betrayal overcomes her every time she looks into her soft, sage eyes (for no reason at all, she realizes, because Lupinepaw had been perfectly free to make her choice, loathe as she is to accept it), but she doesn’t want her to turn them from her either. Not into Falconpaw and his waiting arms. They had so little time for each other already; who knew how much Falconpaw would leech? And that wasn't even a "I have a crush on you too," thing, that was a perfectly reasonable "you're my best friend," thing, right?

It's selfish, she is aware enough to know that. ”You know, I kinda have someone I’m padding after too…” she meows, dangling the news before her like bait.​

 

[LUPINESONG]

❀‿ Something strained and unlike them snapped and fizzed in the air between them, and a frown touched Lupinepaw's face properly for the first time that day. She couldn't see Cherrypaw's expression from their place focused on each other's pelts, but the quiet stretching out on her side said plenty. She was mad at her for keeping it from her. Lupinepaw mishandled yet another one of her dear relationships and she had only herself to blame.

Cherrypaw has enough kindness to handle it with silken grace, assuring her with a smile, ”As long as you’re happy.” And Lupinepaw's lip may or may not quiver as bright amber met her eyes once more. "I'm sorry I waited so long, really, it was just... With everything going on it... fell by the wayside... I guess..." She gave the tortie a weak explanation. Excuses. She just wanted this not to ruin anything. It would be fine, right? She would make the effort to keep her securely attached to her life from here on, she would not take her best friend for granted any longer.

And then Cherrypaw is speaking again, and it's her turn to blink in surprise, breath hitching in her chest as the other reveals that she was padding after someone too. She immediately recognizes the twitch in her diaphragm to be hypocrisy, so she tempers the sting as best she can. Is this what they were now...? Two denmates that checked in with one another every other moon? Lupinepaw pulls her tail to wrap closer around Cherrypaw, perhaps in an attempt to prove her closeness at least physically and says, maybe a touch too-airy, "Really...? That's great, uhm... Who is it?"

NOBODY YET EVERYTHING ⊹₊°❀‿ A POOL TO SHED YOUR MEMORY

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — lupinekit . lupinepaw
  — trans she/her. 10mo apprentice of skyclan. mentored by dandelionwish, padding after falconpaw
  — bobbie x duke. littermate to crowpaw & drowsypaw
  — a tall, pretty, long-haired black smoke with low white and green eyes
  — smells like sweet lupine flowers and young pine needles
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — fullbody by pikaihao and chibi by rae
  — penned by eezy

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Lupinepaw's realization, the internal recoil at whatever small, innocuous thing she'd just severed between them, goes unnoticed beneath the blur of Cherrypaw's emotion. "No, it's fine." Her reassurance is too brisk to be a proper one, whose faults she attempts to smooth over with a sleeker smile. The lense of unrighteous anger distorts her best friend's visage, smearing her lovely dark hues into things redder and uglier, and it sickens her to see her in such a way. She doesn't know if it was her who saw her anew, or if it was Lupinepaw who had chosen to become something else.

And when? This was her best friend in the world—it couldn't have just been busyness. It hurts to think that, maybe, she had lost sight of her in between the journey and the rogues and Blazestar's death and her mother's ascension, these events all shattering around her till she couldn't see anything but her own two paws, or perhaps she had just willingly closed her eyes. And maybe the things she had seen of her, the ones that made her heart pound and her ears flush so, had been nothing more than her paws running over the marble replica of Lupinepaw she'd carved into her heart, a memorial to the sunny birdsong days of no responsibilities.

It's all so sudden. Cherrypaw feels like nothing more than a series of reactions, a line of unstable chemicals queued up into the visible future, and she'd rather wait for another spark than try to sweep it all away.

Deserve—the word is so strong it nearly knocks her heart out of its cage. She deserves Lupinepaw. It hadn't been Falconpaw who had grown up with her, who knew her well-troddens spirals of thought and exactly when the hitch in her laugh would come, who had traced every inch of her pelt with her tongue and felt her do the same. It isn't Falconpaw whose body her tail tightens around now.

If she couldn't possess her love—if she wasn't deserving enough—then at least she'd have her attention. Her paw comes up with a frivilous flick. "Oh...you know..." Cherrypaw knew Lupinepaw would inquire after her, and still she hadn't prepared an actual answer. The paw comes down to twirl a strand of her long cheek fur as she pauses, making it seem more like an internal debate on whether she should tell her as opposed to what. "You'll find out soon," she giggles, a little too loudly. "Promise. You know I wouldn't keep it for long...but I kinda have to for this. You'll understand." The thought of Scorchpaw never seemed to linger too long alongside thoughts of Lupinepaw, and she'd since accepted she'd never be able to have her either. It was all so hopeless—she may as well pretend she was deserving of someone's love.​