camp A REAL SIXTH SENSE // nursery

[cottonsprig]

And despite it all, the world still spins.

Cottonsprig wakes the final day of Rimekit's residency. She feels tuckered out, exhausted despite her night of easy sleep. Many of the symptoms her daughter has had in the weeks prior have tapered out to near-nothing - the occasional cough, maybe, but don't all kittens huff and wheeze on occasion? She sends a warrior to the nursery long before she, warning those within it of Rimekit's impending return. Should the child last the morning hours without a single cough or sneeze, then she's free.

And the medicine cat spends those hours hoping she would. Sickening herself, she almost wishes that Rimekit would fall ill once more, just to stay with her for longer. However instead the child unknowingly upholds her end of the bargain. The sun reaches its highest point in the sky, and Cottonsprig abandons her brief task to attend to her heartbreaking duty - returning Rimekit to her mother.

She holds her emotions down in her chest, scooping up the fluffy kitten by her scruff and announcing to Celandinepaw that she will be out for a moment. It's only a few strides before they're in front of the nursery, and with a deep breath, she slips into the threshold.

"As fit as a rabbit," Cottonsprig murmurs around the child's scruff. She gives Thriftfeather a wary look, then her sister one almost devoid of attachment (only to withhold her own sadness, only to obscure the pain and tears behind her actions. Forgive her, please.) "Rimekit will be a little behind her siblings, but once they're grown it won't be as noticeable..." she promises.

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

• ooc // no need to wait for anyone! @rimekit @BLUEFROST @Thriftfeather @FOALKIT @Comfreykit @Asterkit @sootkit.

• ❥ MEDICINAL KNOWLEDGE
  ♥♥♡ WOUNDS ; can confidently stop bleeding and mend lacerations. will often request that you keep your injury clean and wait it out first.
  ♥♥♡ INFECTION ; as a side effect of likely her own doing, very dutiful with technique and treatment shortly thereafter.
  ♥♡♡ ACHES & PAINS ; will defer to a dark tunnel and rest. if pain persists, maybe she will offer something.
  ♥♡♡ BROKEN BONES ; has never dealt with a broken bone. likely will ask that you never move. ever again.
  ♥♥♥ TRAVELING HERBS ; learned well from her previous mentor. will pile even too many remedies to tough the wilderness with.
  ♥♥♥ KITTING ; having kittens of her own and helped several others with their litters, she is very well versed with calming techniques and quelling pain.
  ♥♡♡ POISONS ; she knows what they are... but that isn't enough, isn't it?
  ♥♥♡ ILLNESS ; having worked through two yellowcough bouts, she is confident in her remedies. much else... she's operating on trial and error.
  ⸻ cottonsprig is a dutiful and excitable medicine cat. she enjoys company and loves conversation. she'd rather not have too many curious noses snooping around her den... but who is she to quell curiosity?

• 

  ⸻❥ cottonsprig is the primary medicine cat of windclan. a former princess to the moors, she harbors many guilts for her actions throughout her short life. she has no consistent partner, unwilling to commit and settle, and she is training celandinepaw in medicine.

​

 

[FOALKIT]

˗ˏˋ ✶ ˎˊ˗　Moonbeams creep out of the camp on gentle paws, and sunlight comes to take their place. Foalkit wakes as his siblings do, letting the bustle of movement stir him to life.

Rimekit returns. All is right with the world.

He is beginning to notice things like this, the changes. The presence of soft squirming bodies against his had once been ubiquitous, but the feeling had lessened. Something had changed. Now, it is set right. The kitten rolls over to let his paws knead at his sister's side. "Mrahh," he greets her jovially. He does not know yet what fondness feels like, this mawkish display born of instinct rather than sentimentality. He feels her pelt, and it is a reminder that this is how things were - before she was stolen away.

He does not know the weight of Rimekit's return. It is propitious, it is comforting. He cannot feel the bittersweetness of his true mother, the gravity of what she has admitted. That sense of wistful longing is alien to him, a kit who has known nothing but warmth and contentedness in the short length of his life. Cottonspring speaks in an empty voice. Her son paws softly at his sister.

‎‎┌── IT❜S MY ALL-TIME LOW ✶ AND I JUST CAN❜T WAIT! ──┐‎

• 
  

• 

  
  
  "SPEECH"
  ​

• 
  FOALKIT ✶ he / him, windclan kit, zero moons.
  ➳ a freckled black smoke with bicolored eyes.
  ➳ cottonsprig x foxglare (unknowingly); littermate to rimekit & comfreykit.
  ➳ adopted by bluefrost, adopted sibling to asterkit & sootkit.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

​

 

[BLUEFROST]

The warrior who visits the nursery addresses Bluefrost and Thriftfeather with news that shakes the sleep from the queen's body. "Rimekit is better." There is no love lost between herself, the father of her children, and their Clanmates, but Bluefrost ignores the susurrous chants trilling through camp so she can focus on what matters. Her daughter is healed. There will be five kits at her side once more; she will be here, safe, within the confines of the nursery, beside the littermates she will grow close with, beside the mother and father she will always know.

Cottonsprig's arrival is tense. She spares Thriftfeather a look before turning her blue eyes onto Bluefrost. They are blank. Perhaps purposefully so. Her sister speaks through Rimekit's scruff: "She will be a little behind her siblings, but once they're grown it won't be as noticeable..."

Bluefrost nods. "Thank you for everything." Her brittle gaze softens as they focus on baby blues, opalescent, peering from Rimekit's tiny face. "She has opened her eyes," she murmurs. "Just like the rest of them have."

It is bittersweet, this moment — for the warmth in her heart at having Rimekit returned to her, healthy, battles with a twisted jealousy she could not have foreseen. It had been her sister to spend those precious first moments with Rimekit. It had been her true mother, though the words no longer feel right when Bluefrost thinks them.

I am her true mother. She is mine.

Bluefrost pulls her tail away from her flank, sparing a spot for Cottonsprig to place Rimekit. She will blend right in with the rest of her smoke-smeared siblings; she will latch, and she will belong once more.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 18 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan queen. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.
  
  

​

 

[Comfreykit]

There has been so much to take in since the opening of his kitten-blue eyes, and Comfreykit has taken to a rhythmic mewling whenever he has his eyes open. Fuzzy colors dance in and out of his vision and he is still getting accustomed to everything that this new world has to offer. A shadow falls over him suddenly and he starts, surprised by the big change.

"Mrap!" He complains as he is shifted to the side, leaving a gaping space where he would have otherwise kneaded the white belly for milk and wrestled aimlessly with his siblings for a space to feed. Before he can correct this emptiness it is remedied by another small body, and everything has come full circle, so he calms down. He doesn't realize that this small body next to him is his blood-sister, just as he was hardly perturbed by her leave in the first place.

One day, Comfreykit will hold his siblings in high esteem, do everything in his power to protect them from the nature of the world. But for now, he is unaware of any threats that might be waiting outside of where he resides now, at Bluefrost's belly. Now, as Rimekit settles back into the fold, Comfreykit closes his eyes once more and quiets.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎OOC ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ .ᐟ.ᐟ INFO ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

• !
  

• 

• COMFREYKIT ✩ kit of windclan, zero moons
  → walks hunched over.
  → peaceful and healing powerplay permitted.
  → penned by Archivist → .archivist on discord.
  

​

 

[rimekit]

She has done as her true mother has asked. She has done as her adoptive mother has wished. She is given a clean bill of health.

She is to rejoin her family.

Rimekit squeaks softly, a hair of a rasp still evident in her voice, as the blue smoke molly lifts her from her sickbed. Bright afternoon light briefly blinds the small child as she is whisked away from the medicine den. It is mere seconds the sun bathes her pale body - blurs of color and life filling her newly opened eyes. It is confusing and wondrous, just as the face of her true mother had been confusing and wondrous the day before.

And all at once everything dims once more. Familiarity wreaths the dappled child. She smells the sweet fragrance of milk and warmth - closeness she has craved ever since she was taken from her siblings. “Reee,” Rimekit trills roughly as Cottonsprig places her at her mother’s belly. Like the missing piece of a puzzle, she fits in just right. Her flanks become battered with the paws of her brothers in mere seconds. It thrills her to be crowded once more.

With a content purr, Rimekit draws herself closer to Bluefrost and latches. Here she will drink her fill and drift off to sleep, no longer afraid to wake up alone.​

[ penned by kerms ]​

 

[Asterkit]

Asterkit had not been aware of the missing sibling. She gets jostled enough by the three other bodies squirming by her side and her mind is not developed enough to understand that there should have been four by her side. Even seeing another body does little to help her understand that Rimekit had gone missing for a few days, recovering under the watchful gaze of their aunt - her true mother.

As Rimekit is deposited next to her siblings, Asterkit writhes awkwardly, her limbs kicking out at having another body put so close against her. "Mreep," She chirps softly. After a moment the movements of all the kits stills and Asterkit settled close to Rimekit. She nudges a patched head close to the returned sibling, making it appear as though she was affectionately greeting the other, when in reality it was a simple, innocuous movement. ​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Some errant part of Thriftfeather had continued to worry even after Bluefrost and he were told that Rimekit was healed. There were a countless number of ways her health could turn in the time it took for Cottonsprig to deem her near-ready and the time of her planned return. Relief and excitement come only after he sees Rimekit held in Cottonsprig's gentle teeth, when she is at last pillowed against Bluefrost and surrounded by her littermates.

She's grown so much. She still looks so small.

"Welcome back," His voice holds the same warmth as laughter.

Rimekit adjusts immediately, as if she had never been gone. Her littermates shuffle around her and settle in the space of moments. She is truly back, truly well, as if her illness and absence had been nothing more than a terrible dream. Just like that, there is one less worry to weigh over Thriftfeather's back. He looks back up to Cottonsprig with appreciation that withers into uncertainty when he sees her lack of expression.

Thriftfeather looks between Cottonsprig and Bluefrost, recalls the face Cottonsprig had worn when she had first set her eyes on him, and feels distinctly like he is missing something. He hadn't sensed disapproval from Cottonsprig before but he was still isolated from much of WindClan—Cottonsprig could have changed her opinion for any number of reasons.

"Thank you," Thriftfeather's echoes Bluefrost and finds that once he has spoken the words, they don't feel like enough, "Really, thank you. The both of us—we were both worried."​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 19 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[THISTLEPAW !]

---

Bunnypaw was lucky to already have settled in with the apprentices. Sharing a den with two traitors was awful. They shouldn't be here, in the nursery, in WindClan. Sunstar had shown them kindness Thistlekit would not have were he in his position. It's not — it's not right to house those two and their children.

It was not fair, either. That they got to be a happy family while he had lost Rattleheart.

Their selfishness is rewarded. He thinks, icy gaze narrowed as he glares at Thriftfeather, at Bluefrost, at their newborn kits. They should be raising them in DuskClan. Where they belong.

Cottonsprig too — who had brought that kit into camp and gotten everyone sick; gotten him and his littermates sick, then abandoned them with just Wolfsong ( who was now infected with Yellowcough ). Welcomed as if nothing happened. Of course they were Sootstar's children. A traitor ( Bluefrost ), a coward ( Cottonsprig ). Selfish, all of them.

𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 *:･ﾟ✧ 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓

• 
  ooc. —
  
• 
  

  LH Seal-point with low white​

  
• 
  
  
  THISTLEKIT he / him kit of windclan
  son of Rattleheart x Venomstrike, brother to Bunnypaw, Crunchykit, Vinekit and Splinterkit.
  Lissom seal-point prickly-furred kitten with white markings on his face, chest, belly, paws and tail. His tail is long and has a tufted tip.
  "speech" thoughts all opinions are in-character

​