private AND ALL ALONG I BELIEVED I WOULD FIND YOU \ brightshine

[POLLENFUR]

She feels like a phantom haunting the moor, and even as she carefully picks her way around clumps of heavily-marked heather, half-lidded amber eyes flick warily to and from every twitching shadow. The moon hangs nearly-full in the sky. It’s a yearning in her heart, nostalgic for a kithood long left behind, that has driven her fearful paws here. She’d woken alone, crying for the sisters she has been forced to abandon, sisters who once were as much a part of her as the tufts of fur between her paw pads, as much as the soil they wore upon their pelts.

Pollenfur knows what she’s risking by being this near WindClan’s borders, and she knows it’s all for naught. Her birthplace, her motherland, has been tainted by the reek of blood. Nothing looks familiar to her—she sees the moor now as a refugee views war-torn avenues.

Still, seeing Mallowlark has sparked something inside of her—longing.

She does not notice when the shining ghost of a calico crests a windswept hill—does not notice, still, that it is a living she-cat who looks at her with brilliant tear-filled eyes.

@BRIGHTSHINE!
​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

How long as it been since she’s seen her dear sister? She’s lost track of the moons. All she knows when she sees her is that she’s missed her so terribly much. One by one, her kin has been plucked from the moors like dead leaves in the wind. Some exiled, one a runaway to a forest beyond the gorge, and one disappeared like dew in sunlight. Slowly, her golden heart has begun to crumble. How much more can she take? How much more can she wear this dragging, broken smile and pretend everything’s okay? While her home, her birthplace is drowned in blood and sins, she is drowning as well. But it’s for her daughter’s kits that she remains. She can’t bring herself to run away to find peace elsewhere, not while they reside here. For them, she’ll stay.

“POLLENFUR!”

The teary yowl is nearly muffled as the calico collides with her littermate, ignoring any pain from soon-to-form bruises as she brings the other she-cat to the ground. They tumble a few fox-lengths downhill and as soon as they reach the bottom, the bouncy molly is on her paws and prancing happily around her. “What are you doing here?! I’ve missed you so much!”​

 

[POLLENFUR]

Pollenfur’s ears swivel at the sound of whispering pawsteps on the moor, but she’s too late to react. There’s a yowl—“POLLENFUR!”—and she tenses, her claws unsheating and her eyes darting wildly. Someone has seen her—someone has recognized her—and she knows she must flee to keep her life. But the WindClanner crashes into her, and it’s not until the two of them sit, dazed at the bottom of the hill, that she remembers the scent, the softness of her sister’s calico fur.

In her panic, she had not recognized Brightshine’s voice, but now that she’s bouncing around her—now that she’s here—Pollenfur rolls onto her stomach, tears clouding her amber eyes. “Sunshine!” She’s forgotten her sister’s StarClan-given name, but only for a heartbeat, and she corrects herself with a smile. “Brightshine. Oh, stars, I thought I’d never…” She allows a single tear to slip down the tufted white fur on her cheek before she scrubs it away. “I thought… how have you been? Are you… okay?” She rises to her paws, shaky with relief and flooded with emotion.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Pollenfur murmurs, reaching to nuzzle her bouncy littermate’s tricolored face. “But slowdown—talk to me. You know I never could keep up with you,” she admonishes, smiling a tired but loving smile. “How is everyone—Echolight, Lilacstem, Heavy Snow? How are Echolight’s kits?” She blinks, realizing Brightshine must not have seen her son in moons, and adds, “I have seen Mallowlark—he’s in SkyClan, Brightshine!” Perhaps she knew this part, but it’s still astonishing enough to her.

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — pollen . pollenfur
  — she/her ; loner ; windclan warrior
  — pansexual ; taken by Hyacinthbreath
  — long-haired chocolate calico with amber eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — pixel by Birdman

​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

It takes several moments of Pollenfur’s calming before she slows in her bouncing, but her wide grin doesn’t diminish. Her sister is here! After so many moons, they’re together again, no matter how temporary. She pushes her nose against hers, perhaps a bit too roughly, before skittering backwards in excitement. Her cheer only diminishes when her littermate asks about those that remain. Her daughter. The light noticeably dulls in her eyes as she glances down.

“Echolight…has gone missing. I don’t know where she is,” The calico admits solemnly. She’s cried many nights over the loss, not knowing if she’s alive or dead. But her grandchildren keep her going, because she can’t fail them. “Her kits are warriors now, though,” Brightshine is quick to add on, forcing a smile back on her face. She’s always been good at happiness, even when she doesn’t feel happy. “Sparkspirit, Morningsong and Larkfeather.”

When Pollenfur brings up Mallowlark, her grin grows a bit brighter. “So he made it?” She chirped, a bittersweet relief hanging heavy in her voice. She misses him so, so very much…but above all she’s happy for him. He is safe, and happy, and with his love. That’s all a mother could ever hope for. “And you? How are you?” She leans forward, green eyes locking with amber.​

 

[POLLENFUR]

Pollenfur sees the brilliance dim in Brightshine’s emerald eyes, and the calico dreads what her sister is going to tell her. “Echolight has gone missing,” she tells Pollenfur. Her heart feels heavy behind her ribcage, straining to burst from her mouth. “What?” She feels wetness prick the corners of her amber eyes. “Missing?” She sits, heavily, settling amidst the heather with a thud. The little kit she’d helped her sister raise—little lilac-spotted Echo, bright and curious and helpful to her brother who struggled just a little bit more. Grief floods her body now, though she cannot imagine how Brightshine must feel.

She presses her muzzle to her littermate’s. “You’ve lost so much,” she murmurs. “I hope you forgive me for leaving you in WindClan.” Pollenfur knows Brightshine has so little left—Heavy Snow, hopefully, and… Echolight’s kits. The tortie’s cheer returns, and she tells Pollenfur they’ve become warriors now. She listens to their names, realizing she had never heard them before. Sparkspirit, Morningsong and Larkfeather. “How wonderful. I would love to meet them.” It’s all they have left of Echolight now, after all.

She gives Brightshine a nod to confirm Mallowlark has made it. “I’m… I’m well,” she says, her gaze becoming heavy. “I’m with Hyacinthbreath. She was exiled from RiverClan, too, so the two of us travel together now.” She tilts her head. “I… I only recently realized… I’m expecting her kits.” She flushes, wondering how her sister would react to the information. The Hyacinthbreath Brightshine had known is so different from the one Pollenfur has loved—Sootstar’s soldier has cracked through layers of ice to become the loving, fierce, if sometimes mousebrained she-cat Pollenfur calls her mate.

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — pollen . pollenfur
  — she/her ; loner ; windclan warrior
  — pansexual ; taken by Hyacinthbreath
  — long-haired chocolate calico with amber eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — pixel by Birdman

​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

“I’ll bring them to you! I’ll…” She trails off. She’d been caught up in the excitement of her sister and her grandkids getting to meet, without realizing that could complicate things. Her grandkids are WindClan warriors. They were born and raised here, and don’t exactly have her…perspective. How would they react to this type of meeting. She forces another smile as eyes squeeze shut, head tipping to the side as she tries not to feel yet another loss tear into her. “We’ll see, hopefully one day!”

The calico does prick her ears in surprise upon hearing that Hyacinthbreath is now in the loner lands with her sister. It’s not the pairing she would’ve imagined…but love is unpredictable! She grins, she’s twinkling as she leans to press her muzzle affectionately into Pollenfur’s neck. “I’m glad you have someone out there. I was worried for you, being all alone.” When her littermate shares the news of her unborn kits, her jaw drops, emerald eyes blowing wide. “What? Kits?! I’m gonna be an aunt?!” She has to suppress a scream lest an unfavorable clanmate finds her. Instead, she settles for an excited, tippy tapping dance on swift paws before lunging forward to embrace the tortoiseshell again. “Oh, Polly, that’s fantastic!” She purrs into her pelt, affectionately calling her by the nickname she’s always had for her. “I can’t wait to meet them.” It’s an optimistic thought. How could she ever truly have a relationship with them, if they’re not in WindClan? This place would skin her alive if they knew she was even here meeting with her sister.​

 

[POLLENFUR]

Pollenfur can see Brightshine’s hesitation, and it puts a damper on their reunion. “They’re… they’ve grown up in WindClan, mentored by Sootstar’s warriors,” she murmurs in understanding. “Do you think they’d chase me away? Tell one of those wretched cats on her council about us meeting?...” Fear flashes in honey-gold eyes, and she suppresses a tremble that threatens to shoot through her fur. She is with child now, and though Sootstar would not know it, Pollenfur’s kits are sired by the she-cat who’d once been her closest confidante.

She blinks, trying to force the foreboding away. Brightshine’s energy has returned at the news of Pollenfur’s kits. “I will ensure you get to meet them,” she says, defiance setting her jaw. “We will be careful not to invite trouble, but we must remain a family.” There’s the hint of a tremor in her voice. “We must not let her take that away from us.”

The calico exhales, her tail beginning to swish behind her. “I want to see Heavy Snow and Lilacstem. I want to see my niece and nephews,” she says, determined. “When is safest for us to meet—and where? I will meet you until I am too heavy with kits to come.”

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — pollen . pollenfur
  — she/her ; loner ; windclan warrior
  — pansexual ; taken by Hyacinthbreath
  — long-haired chocolate calico with amber eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — pixel by Birdman

​

 

[BRIGHTSHINE!]

“I don’t know,” Brightshine answers honestly when her sister asks if they’d chase her off. “Morningsong and Larkfeather, I don’t think so…Sparkspirit is the one I’d be worried about. He was mentored by Weaselclaw, and that tom has…he’s changed him.” Her head dips pitifully, ears falling back against her head.
She does nod in agreement, though, that they must remain a family. No insane moorland queen and her followers will separate them permanently.

She picks up her head again, her own hope reignited by Pollenfur’s insistence. “In a half-moon, I’ll bring them here. Same time. We’ll be here,” The calico promises. “I need to get back before someone notices how long I’ve been gone, but I’ll see you soon, Polly.” Purring now, she leans forward to press her forehead affectionately against her littermate’s before stepping back with an earnest smile. Finally, she whirls around and races back to camp, unwilling to let anyone discover her sister’s location.​