private a student of clouds | orangestar

[Cherryblossom]

A few sunrises ago, Cherrypaw had passed her assessment. Now, shrouded in the faint twilight sun and shadowed by elderberry branches, she pokes her into her mother's den. "Ma? I want to speak with you about something." She'd not thought about what to call her mother ever since her ascension. Calling her by her name when it was just the two of them seemed too formal, but maybe she should've done that, because this might be a formal matter. Cherrypaw wouldn't know: she'd never asked for this before, and she knew no one else who had either.

She gives her chest a few swipes, relishing the familiarity of silken fur beneath her tongue. A leaf brushes her newly-scarred ear, and it twitches. Her shadow falls long into the den, shattered by the tangles of foliage in the way.

@Orangestar ​

 

[Orangestar]

Orangestar has never been prouder. With the half moon drawing closer, each and every one of her kits had passed their assessments; any SkyClanner would be able to see her practically inflate with pride whenever one of the five passed across her vision. Passing those assessments, however, came with the notion of names. She's getting used to awarding them now, former loners earning their full warrior titles, but to bestow them upon her own kits (and their peers, of course) would be a different matter entirely.

It's when she's pondering Lupinepaw, one of her last names to settle upon, that Cherrypaw's voice reaches her ears. Her eyes soften, just as they had for her littermates. Orangestar beckons her kit closer, glancing at the camp behind them; no shrieking, nothing visibly wrong ... good. She relaxes somewhat, and retreats into her den with the expectation that her eldest kit would follow.

"I have time. What's wrong?"

ooc ✧ 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦

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  ORANGESTAR ✧ she/her, leader of skyclan | nine lives
  " a scarred white-and-ginger she-cat with brown eyes."
  
  — single ; mentoring springpaw
  — speech is in #E3B2A9
  — tags | art by pin
  

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[Cherryblossom]

Brown eyes, shaded dark as teakwood, lift to meet hers. An assumption falls from scarred lips, maybe built up by moons of leadership practiced and genuine. "Nothing's wrong," Cherrypaw meows, slipping beneath the flower-laden branches into the den. She remains standing, chin held high despite the low roof. "It's about my name, like, my warrior name." Why is she delaying this? The calico doesn't feel nervous, not that she's ever truly felt nervousness before. Orangestar is her mother before her leader.

Her tongue passes once through her chest fur, just in case. "I want your name. Er, your warrior name. I...would like you to name me after you," she meows slowly, covering up the bit of awkwardness with a flick of her tail. Sunlit eyes scan the worn plains of her mother's face, searching for signs of questioning. To know whether she'd have to justify it, this bolder than brass request. She hadn't rehearsed it at all. Somehow she didn't think she'd need to, but there's a soundless fly buzzing in the back of her skull that suggests otherwise. "I want my name to be Cherryblossom."

Having said it aloud for the first time, it just feels right. Her mother no longer carried the weight of deputyship; she had moved on to bigger and better things. Things that would paint a larger target on her back, so large it could be seen from the stars; things that would spell her downfall just as it had Blazestar's. In the deep of her mind, Cherrypaw knows she can't stop it. But she can shoulder the torch, as she had for Spiderpaw, for Little Wolf. She will live for no one but herself, and yet continue the life Orangestar will never see again.​

 

[Orangestar]

Nothing's wrong, and yet it's about her warrior name. Orangestar thinks immediately of Orchidpaw, so happy to throw away his past for reasons still mystifying the leader. Cherrypaw's reassurance that nothing is wrong does little to make her feel better in the wake of that conversation. She sits and sweeps her tail around her paws, eyes narrow in curious expectation.

I want your name. Cherrypaw's mother must be honest, she thinks of her kit-name at first: Cherryorange crosses her mind unbidden and she suppresses an amused noise. Cherrypaw quickly clarifies, desiring the name Cherryblossom, and Orangestar exhales, feeling like she's just taken a claw to the gut. She hasn't heard it in a while. Blossom is a part of her name that she hasn't realised until now that she misses. Unlike Cherrypaw, who was born Cherrykit, Orangestar had already been bequeathed her full name when she was young.

Orangestar is quiet for longer than she expects to be, thoroughly taken aback by the request. She doesn't feel protective over the name; in fact, she's honoured that one of her own kits has requested it. A secondary idea begins to tick away in the back of her mind, not for Cherrypaw but for her most troubled littermate ...

"Are you sure?" She has to ask, though it seems Cherrypaw might have already made up her mind on the idea. The calico truly had inherited her stubbornness. "This isn't something you can change on a whim if we have a fight someday." StarClan forbid.​