after the glitter fades | butterflytuft

[budpaw]

Its perfect.

Clasped tightly in giddy maw, Budkit scampers into the nursery with the roundest mossball she has ever made. A perfect specimen that had taken the child quite some time to create. Minutes of rolling it beneath multitoed paw, stopping to poke wayward strands back in, and adding more moss a little at a time to make sure it remained dense and spherical.

A true labor of love that the point child was itching to show her mother.

"Mama! Mama wo-look!" Budkit announces loudly, dropping the moss ball near her mother's nest, much too enveloped in her own excitement to notice the tortoiseshell permaqueen hushing overly tired kittens. Her boisterous volume stirs the young kittens, wails and flailing limbs following suit. It makes Budkit's ears fall back in equal parts disgust and surprise. But they are not her intended targets, so the gangly kitten disregards them and fixes her attention on her mother. "Mama, look at this moss ball I made! Can you come try it out with me?" Her cerulean eyes widen with delight, her kinked tail flicking excitedly.

@butterflytuft ​

[ penned by kerms ]​

 

[butterflytuft]

Butterflytuft is exhausted.

She never truly realized how much work it would be to raise multiple litters of kittens at once. Between Budkit's need to play often and Orangestar's kit's needs to frequently feed and sleep, she is pulled in so many directions she is shocked she isn't as lanky as a ShadowClanner by now. She lacks sleep, and peace, and sometimes even food. Who has time to eat when all of your time goes to the many lives in your care?

So, she flinches when Budkit bursts into the nursery, her voice cutting through the fragile peace she had only just managed to coax out of Lambkit and Ramkit. The twins' wails rise immediately, tiny bodies wriggling and flailing against her side. She hushes them frantically, her tail curling tighter around them, but her patience, already stretched impossibly thin, snaps before she can think better of it.

"Budkit!" Her voice comes sharper than she means for it to, and the sound of it startles even her. "Not so loud! Can't you see I'm trying to settle them down?" The words hang heavy in the air, and as the noise from the younger kits grows louder, the sinking weight in Butterflytuft's chest grows heavier. Immediately, guilt comes crashing over her as she stares back at her daughter, who has been her first priority for nearly two full cycles of seasons. For the first time, her priorities are split.
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