private birds of a feather // bluefrost

[cottonsprig]

"... Wait."

She says it pained, quiet and beneath her breath. Her friend looks at her solemnly as she looks instead towards the nursery, only a few paces away. The moon watches them through wispy clouds, the stars dancing beside it. Cottonsprig feels as if every second she spends in camp is another chance at being exposed, but - but... she can't leave just yet.

She slips away from Foxglare, leaving him to stand as a pseudo guard on the outside of the nursery. The she-cat seeks out her sister, certain the other would linger as close to the open air as she could. She didn't seem happy to move, after all. Cottonsprig neglects to think that she doesn't seem happy at all. They're both troubled by their separate demons, and as she finds her sister, she wonders if she's strong enough to learn of the tunneler's, too. Bluefrost has held her secret closely to her chest, has she not? And so why hasn't Cottonsprig asked for trust to do the same?

She knows the reason - her own issues feel insurmountable to the extent that she cannot shoulder those of another's. It's a pitifully selfish realization but she settles on it for moments longer, disturbing her sister's peace with a brush of her tail. For not the first time, they will be separated. Cottonsprig can already feel the tears in her eyes.

"Bluefrost..." she whispers, kneeling down beside the other, "I... I'm going. I wanted to say goodbye," she continues, her lips pulled into a thin line. ​

 

[BLUEFROST]

A shadow darkens the spill of moonlight just outside the mouth of the nursery. Bluefrost is, indeed, awake, stirring noiselessly in her nest. Her sister's scent fills her nostrils, but she is not comforted; she feels alarm. Why has she come here now, at this hour? Bluefrost scrabbles in the moss; some pills up from semi-exposed claws. She has no time to rise; Cottonsprig kneels beside her, her blue eyes troubled, her whisper hushed.

"Bluefrost. I... I'm going. I wanted to say goodbye." She straightens, stills. "You cannot," she says. She hates the way her voice lilts at the end. She hates how desperate she sounds, how desperate she feels. "The Clan... the Clan needs you."

She fights the moisture that comes to touch her eyes. She fights the grief that begins to pierce her like claws.

"I need you." She has never said it before, and she may never say it again, but in this moment, this moment where she stands to lose Cottonsprig forever, for a second time, she wants to reach for her with flitting paws —

Draw your claws over me again, she wants to ask. It would not be worse than this.

There is silence between them.

"Where will you go? What will you do?" She lowers her voice. It is flat, defeated. She knows the look in her sister's eye. She knows the determination that lies behind her twin's stubborn heart.

She will go. She will leave her, leave WindClan, and she will have her kits somewhere the law cannot touch them. Bluefrost wants to sink her nose into her littermate's plush smoke-colored fur and beg, but she does not.

Bluefrost blinks away her tears until they dissipate like rain on a searing day. She stares at Cottonsprig. She waits for her sister's response, as final as it may be.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and 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.
  
  

​

 

[cottonsprig]

Cottonsprig's forced neutrality morphs too-quickly into a sorrowful frown. Her sister's usual monotone-to-stern tone lilts differently, a sad air to her words as she realizes what's happening. The younger twin could've anticipated anything of Bluefrost - anything, but this. She almost jests - I thought you'd be happy to be rid of me. A problem lost to the wastes, she would be. But instead, her sister pleads, begs even for an outcome that cannot exist. "The Clan has Wolfsong -" she tries to reason, but Bluefrost's trembling words break her heart.

"I need you."

Cottonsprig feels colder than she did in Weaselclaw's domain. Outwardly, she stiffens, staring into green eyes with saddened astonishment. They were littermates, their blood runs in the same exact manner - their affection is unspoken more often than it is. She tenses her jaw as tears disobey her and stream down her cheeks once more, and it takes more than she'd like to admit to not ugly sob before the queen. Cottonsprig thinks for too long on how to reply, if she should say anything at all - before sighing.

"I wish I had the luxury of needing you, Bluefrost." Mournfully, she moves to stand. Cottonsprig feels guilty to compare herself to Bluefrost, and yet, she can't help it. Her perception of the other is too plain - the elder sister need only want for her youngest sibling to stay around, in case something happens. Meanwhile the runt must run to maintain herself, must hide to save herself - Cottonsprig cannot need Bluefrost more than she needs to survive.

She swallows her sorrows but they still spill down her cheeks uninhibited. "I... I have friends, just outside the borders. They will help me," Just one, she does not say. A former DuskClanner. Peonybreeze, do you remember him? She wonders if she does, but she does not have time to play games such as that. "I will... kit on my own, and - continue from there." Cottonsprig knows that her sister must hate the ambiguity but she cannot will herself to be any bit more firm. Her tail twitches, and she opts to lean over, pressing their cheeks together just as Bluefrost had done weeks ago.

"I'll miss you," she says, softly. She pulls away too fast. "I have to go. I don't have much time."​

 

[BLUEFROST]

As predicted, her words are like rain, dripping wetly from their whiskers, streaming down the sides of their silver-smoked pelts. Cottonsprig's expression is tight with the pain that wrenches her, but she does not relent. "The Clan has Wolfsong," she murmurs, and yes — the Clan has Wolfsong, Wolfsong who'd been permitted his kits, Wolfsong who had raised his litter to strength and maturity, who had seen his family thrive.

Cottonsprig would not be afforded that same chance. Bluefrost stares at her, her heart twisting obliquely. "I wish I had the luxury of needing you, Bluefrost." Cottonsprig looks away from her. She stands, putting distance between them, and the warrior stifles a wordless noise of grief. "I have friends, just outside the borders. They will help me." She thinks of Thriftfeather, golden even under the sightless moon, and she thinks she might break. "If you do not need me, then forget me," she mews, the edge creeping back to serrate her words.

Bluefrost turns her face away. She cannot bear to look upon Cottonsprig any longer.

Forsaken. You have left me before, and you would leave me a thousand times to do whatever it is you feel you must. Cottonsprig is a creature of whimsy, but also of will. She is her mother's star-kissed daughter; she is her father's spoiled kit. She is Cottonsprig, and Cottonsprig will guard the children in her belly with her life, whether that is without their family and their Clan or not.

"I wish you luck. Wherever you are." She bites down on her words. "I will not speak of this again. Go."

Go, she tells her, the way that she had that first time, blood streaming from the wound on her shoulder. Go, and I shall count before I sound the alarm. But she will not do that today. She will awaken tomorrow with her heart in her stomach, a stone in the river. She will face Sunstar with her secrets buried like bones.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and 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.
  
  

​

 

[cottonsprig]

Sharp tongued she is, Bluefrost does not take well to her lack of necessity. Cottonsprig feels as if she's been cut just above her nose with the way the queen's pleading tone shifts, and she feels she deserves it all the same. No apology can assuage the words she says much less the actions she's committed to - and so, she takes the edged tone with a meager flinch at best.

"I won't," she says. Her paws shuffle her away from the nest, "I can't." You've done so much for me, Cottonsprig has no time to say, peaking out of the nursery to look towards Foxglare. He waits with impatience but does not press her to move. Bluefrost does, however - bites for her to leave before the sun finds the sky again. She hesitates, her lips in a thin line. I wish things could be different. I wish I could stay here and we could raise out kittens alongside one another. I wish I didn't have to leave. She swallows her grief forcefully, her ears folded to her head. Her sister will not look at her and she does not begrudge the other.

"I will never stop. They will know of their kin, of you, Bluefrost..." she has no time. Cottonsprig grits her teeth together. Her cold, stone faced sister has a legacy to bear with her own children, but Cottonsprig with her supposed whimsy will not let it rest there. The stories, she thinks as she lingers for moments more, will be fanciful, will be grand - maybe she may even make Bluefrost smile in a few. She cannot find warmth in the dark, delaying her thoughts for weeks ahead.

"Thank you," she says. The world around her wavers, warbled by misted eyes, and she steps away. "I'll miss you. I love you."

And she's gone, slipped through the gorse tunnel in the seconds following her departure.

​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"I won't," Cottonsprig promises, even as Bluefrost refuses to meet her eyes again. "I can't." No, she can't, can she? — She can't forget the moments they spent nestled in the womb together, the days nursing from Kestrelsnap's flank, their moments in the tunnels, the day Cottonsprig had fled their home in flaming ruins. Bluefrost's throat fills with stones; she wants to say something, anything. She wants to convince her sister to stay, but it's fruitless. Cottonsprig is leaving.

Cottonsprig is gone.

"Thank you. I'll miss you." Bluefrost does not say it back. Her sister's tail tip disappears from the nursery. She stares after it, her teeth clenched as though she's enduring a severe wound to her middle. She puts a paw to her stomach, half-expecting to draw it away red with blood.

"I love you."

Bluefrost's ribs shake. She wants to shriek, but all she does is murmur: "I love you. You fool." Cottonsprig cannot hear her now, though. Foxglare has taken her away, away beyond the borders of their mother's domain, beyond the home they've always known together, grown up together in.

I will tell my kits of you, too. I will.

"Cottonsprig." Her whisper tears her apart. She puts her face in her paws and bleeds.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and 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.
  
  

​