private and that just feels so familiar || starlingheart

[betonyfrost]

Starlingheart’s scars have aged her—or perhaps time would have done so anyway. Standing before Betonyfrost now, she looks like someone Betonyfrost could have mistaken for capable. Behind Starlingheart: the medicine den. Betonyfrost’s eyes flicker there endlessly, but they never linger. Maybe, while Betonyfrost hadn’t been paying attention, Starlingheart truly had become capable.

“Jitterbug is in there?” It isn’t the first time she has asked—there is something like disbelief in her voice.

It is impossible for Betonyfrost to look at Starlingheart and not remember her stuttering and uncertain. She is supposed to believe that Starlingheart can heal her kit on the merit of someone—either Bonejaw or StarClan—seeing something in Starlingheart. She is supposed to believe that the herbs and flowers she knows as useless, decorative things have a hidden ability to heal by some unknown function of their being. She is supposed to believe that Jitterbug will be receiving the best care, despite the blight that Betonyfrost presents on eir reputation.

As always, Betonyfrost is expected to believe impossible things.

“Of all of the idiotic, stupid things,” It would be a comfort if her voice came out as a snap, but instead her words fall wet from her mouth, “After Comfreypaw, I can’t—” It would be nice, to be angry right now. Betonyfrost slams a paw down against the slick mud and the resulting sound makes her heart find a home in her throat. It would be nice, it would be so nice if Betonyfrost could find the anger in her.

“There isn’t anything…” Another false start—Betonyfrost shakes herself, “I can’t believe any of this.”

@Starlingheart
​

shadowclan warrior | blue mackerel tabby | 31 moons | tags​

 

[Starlingheart]

It's easy to remember, the day that Jitterkit Comfreykit and Yarrowkit had been born. She had been present for it after all, had worried and fretted and been so so afraid of having a repeat of what had happened to Viridianskies. Betonyfrost and her kits had been fine though and her worries had been unfounded. She had watched them grow, and sadly, had buried one of them. What is not easy to remember sometimes was that Betonyfrost was a mother at all. She did not act like one, or at least not like a mother that Starlingheart envisioned whenever she thought of the word. She had always been like this though, for as long as the monochrome she-cat could remember. Images flash to her mind of a gray form huddled out in the cold, her ears a testament to the harsh punishment that had been delivered after she had made the foolish mistake of raising a paw against one of her kin when Pitchstar still stood at the head of their clan.

When she sees that familiar frost-bitten form lingering outside of her den like a ghost, she at first wonders about it. Nothing seemed to be wrong so what could... oh. Right. Jitterbug. Starlingheart knows what it's like (better than perhaps anyone) to see your child in pain and want to take it all away. What mother wouldn't feel that way? But again, it was unusual to see such concern on the face of a cat who she never could imagine caring for anyone but herself. Maybe, just maybe, Betonyfrost had a heart after all.

"Yes. They're-they're resting. You'll be-be able to uh to see them soon I-I promise." She answers for what feels like the millionth time. She cannot fault her though, if she were in the opposite position she would surely be the same.

It is the sadness in the warriors voice, so usually full of fire, that takes her by surprise. In all of her life, she has never known Betonyfrost to be soft. "I know" she says, voice soft and remaining green eye full of sympathy. In her mind flashes the son she had to bury, the daughter who's whereabouts were unknown, and her Flintpaw as he lay dying from a sickness she didn't yet have the herbs to cure. She knew better than any other what it was to worry, to doubt. She would be a hypocrite if she said she never had. It is why Heavybranch had died after all, because she had been too afraid that one would not be enough.

( ‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚. ) fly me up on a silver wing

• 
  
  
• 
  STARLINGHEART SHADOWCLAN MEDICINE CAT; SHE / HER ; SISTER TO PITCHSTAR, CHITTERTONGUE, NIGHTSWARM, SKUNKTAIL, AND LILACFUR. MOTHER TO NETTLEPAW, FLINTPAW AND GHOSTPAW.
  

  A skinny she cat with short black and white fur littered with scars and one singular green eye.

  ✦ Easy in battle + has little to no formal battle training
  

​

 

[betonyfrost]

It's the difference between holding her breath and forgetting to exhale—Betonyfrost's immediate thought is that she doesn't want to see. She thinks of Jitterbug easily, she thinks she would know if a single faded stripe was out of place. She doesn't want to look at Jitterbug injured, just as she hadn't wanted to see Comfreypaw sick, just as she didn't want to see Comfreypaw—Betonyfrost's head shakes, minute and subconscious. Her body answers no while her mind is elsewhere. It might have felt like a betrayal, had Betonyfrost noticed it.

A recoil, done however gently, will never be anything but a recoil.

"Let me know when I can," Betonyfrost answers, as if her previous reaction hadn't happened. Beneath the din of her worry, it hadn't. She would puncture her heart with her own teeth if it meant she could stop feeling like this.

"I'll simply..." She looks about herself then, as if just realizing where she is. Suddenly, she is bereft of things to do. Normally, she would be perfectly fine with such a situation. Her paws move in small motions, near kneading, and her flickering eyes find Starlingheart once more, "I know everyone had there doubts in me, when I first moved to the nursery, and after—" Betonyfrost makes a vague gesture; after means a lot of things, "—how correct you must feel."

shadowclan warrior | blue mackerel tabby | 31 moons | tags​

​