private CAN I BE ELECTRIC TOO \ pinkshine

[FEATHERSPINE]

Featherspine wondered if her heartbeat would ever go back to normal- whether it would stop making her sick. Pinkshine had always been an open book, he'd thought- someone who would never hide anything from him. And yet, and yet- oh, there was no way she hadn't heard what he'd mumbled that night. An admission sparked in awareness only moments before it was uttered.

And oh, how it made sense- that he loved her. That for no one else she relented so easily. That with any other cat there'd be a scoff and a snarl, but Pinkshine only earned an eye-roll. Patchy paws mended in a way no-one else could- no friend, no family. It dried Featherspine's throat to think about- that she might know, might have seen his heart laid bloody and bare. She held it, and wasn't- wasn't telling him anything ...

Oh, Pinkshine had never made her feel fear before. And she shouldn't. They ran the moors together- loped to a berry bush, where pockets of ink lay waiting. Featherspine did feel inspired, she could not deny it. This fretfulness was making her more fleet on her feet, was bringing a little more light to yellow eyes, like- like there was something cleared out the way, at least, by acknowledging it all. But he felt sick, felt like crying, to think of it all for too long.

So he would paint. "D-Do you think I'll get an apprentice soon?" she murmured as she splashed a purple-coated paw against flattened bark, darkening the wood in a spiral.

"Won't b-b-be as free to do this stuff anymore, if I do..."​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

Featherspine had put that word in her mind: love. It was the thing that made Pinkshine leap to her paws whenever she saw her. The thing that twined their tails and butted their heads... It's what made moments like this perfect to her, nothing but the distant sounds of the moor and just them spending time together. Pinkshine hadn't ever known she'd wanted Featherspine to say something like that... If he hadn't, she would still be here, she's pretty sure. She would still be trailing Featherspine across the moor in her quest to keep her happy, but it was nicer to like each other than it was to just like him, wasn't it?

But the real question was probably something like... would she be leaning against her as much as she was now, if she hadn't told her? Would Pinkshine try to twine their tails so quickly? They've done it so often lately that it just felt weird not to... And she'd whooped when she saw where there were headed, and beamed as Featherspine scraped a piece of bark toward himself. Would Featherspine still be painting like this, if she didn't love her? It makes her happy to pretend that she knows the answer. She can settle down with the beginnings of a purr already, and relax at the touch of calico to swirling stripes. She's okay just watching today, and she's eager to see whatever Featherspine would make with her newfound splash of purple. Whatever it was would be amazing, obviously.

" I thought about that the other day, too! " Pinkshine chirps, her paws tucked beneath herself. " I was talking to... Who was I talking to? Well I was talking to someone, and like... Um, well it reminded me is what I'm saying! That I might have an apprentice someday soon... And you might have an apprentice soon! Isn't that crazy? I still feel like an apprentice a lot of the time, " she chatters. Now that she thinks about it, there are a few times she totally didn't correct one of her friends at that gathering, huh...

She kind of doesn't like the thing Featherspine says after that. She won't go so far as say hate... but it makes her chest a little achy, and maybe she leans into him just a smidge more... She felt the same way before, when she was still a paw and she worried that she couldn't hang out with warrior Featherspine anymore. Does this stuff mean painting? Or did it mean being together? She blinks, eyes round. " We're still gonna be together, " she insists, and there's a bit of a whiny note on her voice, like she might start sniffling if Featherspine tells her otherwise...

" Y'know the way Scorchstreak and Bluepool... " And there's this gap in what she says, a moment she takes to glance at Featherspine. It was better to mention Bluepool — to keep mentioning her than act like they all forgot, wasn't it? " The way they um, trained us together all of the time? ...I liked that. " Though, now that she thinks about it... was it training? Or was it just... patrolling together; existing together. And because Scorchstreak was where Bluepool was, Pinkshine and Featherspine just happened to be there too... but their mentors spending time together was never really an accident, was it?

She feels nervous all of a sudden. And Featherspine's never given her a reason to be nervous before, she doesn't think. " We— we should do that. What they did. " She can hear her heartbeat in her ears — and they flicker atop her head; flattening against her skull, only to prick again. There's a flip of her stomach. Her purr hitches in her throat. She doesn't really know what to do with herself... so she turns her nose to Featherspine's pelt, holding her thoughts there with her as she does.​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

She felt the slight weight of Pinkshine against her, a subtle press- and was it stupid to think it might be loving, too? It was the worst part of all of this, he thought... this hazy uncertainty, navigating through mawkish thoughts of a world where they might be more, and the horrifying thought that it was possible. In moments of weakness, Featherspine relaxed enough to think that maybe she loved him too. That saying something wouldn't wreck anything, wouldn't reach a claw through everything goos and tear it into ribbons, no...

There might be something else. A life, a good life. And Featherspine was terrified of it.

But the twine of their tails was a natural thing, and depite how much it made her heart thump in the moment, it fell into something natural, honey-sweet tangle of vines. When they parted, they were not too far away - a thread of glowing togetherness connected them. She was content to be watched; it made her feel wanted, not just needed, in the way Pinkshine could always manage. Thick daubs of berry-juice petered into something thinner, a swirl that looked like how the breeze atop the moors felt.

Ears flicked as she meandered along her tale. His smile was tight-lipped, small, steadfast; "C-crazy is the word for it..." Slender shoulders shrugged. Sometimes I still feel like an apprentice. "You certainly still act like one, sometimes." There was a distinct, teasing fondness in Featherspine's voice that would invariably enlighten Pinkshine to the fact that her playful manner did not bother him as much as it used to.

We'll still be together. An immutable insistence, and yellow eyes flicked toward her, a little wider than their narrowed, resting sharpness. She was about to interject of course we will, silly, but Pinkshine kept going. The mention of Bluepool made her heart lurch, and Scorchstreak alongside her made it even worse. He noticeably stilled, paw hovering atop the bark. But it was true, wasn't it? Their mentors, a tunneller and a moor runner. Two lead warriors, each with their own responsibilities, with their own apprentices. They'd always been together, and had made it so Pinkpaw and Featherpaw had been, too. Really he could blame his mentor for some level of trained codependence. But they'd been together in a permeating, purposeful, saccharine way... together in life, in love.

He felt ill again, and Pinkshine didn't look too good either. Her ears flicked wildly in a way he'd never seen before when she was with him- was it anxiety? Her lips parted again, fangs snapping together when her nose touched his flank. "We should, we ... we will," and it came out of her quietly, voice crackling against her throat, a low croak.

She wiped her paw along the grass, drying it of berry juice. A white-tipped tail found hold, cradled her, blandishing her closer. It was an intivation he thought nothing of, and thought everything of, all at once. Yielding to her impulses for once in her life, Featherspine spoke again. "I don't just... I d-don't just... mean it ... about apprentices." What was he saying? She shook her head, hoping that the right words might tip out if she jerked herself about enough. There was care not to sever Pinkshine from his side, though.

His blood rushed. Maybe, so close, she'd feel the drum of his heart. "I mean ... when you say we'd b-b-be together..." Oh, it was awful, awful- her gaze softened, her throat twisted, hitching her breaths. "Like buh- like B-Bluepool and Scorchstreak were. Do you ... think about sharing a nest?" There was an odd wobble in his words, like he was holding back tears. "Do you think about... being together... "

She remembered vividly the conviction with which Scorchstreak had told her, there is nothing unfortunate about me and Bluepool being in love. She's the best thing to ever happen to me. Invigoration whirled through him at the memory, and Featherspine bowed her head, and nestled it softly against Pinkshine. ​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

For some reason, the reassurance doesn't calm the beating of her heart. She keeps her thoughts bubbling behind closed lips, turns to the comfort of Featherspine's flank... and hadn't this been an impassable barrier, once? A long time ago, her paws had been too dirty to possibly prod him with. She's lucky, isn't she? To be able to sink into him fully like this... To seek out that touch, and for her to expect it to ground her.

Today it's different, though. Today, Pinkshine only feels her heart thump louder. The swipe of paws against bark draws still, and Pinkshine wonders if its a good thing that she caused. She repeats Featherspine's words to herself. We will. And her mind's voice is well - attuned; used to painting warnings with the voice of someone more worrisome than her... We will. This Featherspine listens to the rush of her blood, and she tells her, we will. Then Pinkshine is present again, comforted beneath a tail that seeks to soothe... And it's weird. Weird being the one to be soothed. It makes everything feel worse, and it makes everything feel right— and it quickens her breath; and she dips her head further, pressing thank you into Featherspine's fur.

Focus feels impossible, but she somehow manages it still, when he speaks. Pinkshine stands at the cliff - edge of something, some realization that sneaks up on her too quickly for her to accept straight away. Featherspine toes the same line that she does, their tails twined, and its Featherspine that noses her closer with a gentleness that's only for her. A prod that's only possible after moons of whittling; thorns that finally let themselves be felt without drawing blood.

Pinkshine's listening. Of course she's listening. There was nothing more important she could possibly hear, nothing else to feel but the press of fur and gentle thrum of a heartbeat matching her own. She isn't supposed to be quiet like this. Cats tell her she talks too much. She was a chattery apprentice, and— you still act like one sometimes, Featherspine said. Pinkshine should tell her everything she's thinking, but if she did that, Featherspine would get more word - slurry more than she ever would sentences. Pinkshine is quiet, and she's gawking without looking at her. Blue - ringed eyes are wide only against chocolate stripes. Her jaw is held tight, she thinks, only to bite down any noise she might make.

She hadn't thought about when she'd said it, that they'd be together, because it was as natural as it has always been. Because they've always seemed to be together from as early as she could remember. She never wanted that to change, is all. Silently, unknowingly, that togetherness had became something else, hadn't it?

Featherspine leads her to what she wants to say; guides her paws with his own into the obvious, a want Pinkshine had told without realizing. And her tail seeks her out just the same, ginger stripes overlain atop chocolate. Her nod isn't the fervent agreement Featherspine deserves. It's muted, hidden amongst fur, and with it comes her muffled answer, " ...I do. "

Her own bile is hard to swallow, but after a moment, she manages. " I— I wanna be just how they were, " In love. And if Featherspine told her no, she thinks she might cry.

How long had it taken her to realize? " ...I love you, Featherspine. " She finally lifts her head, and she hopes that Featherspine will meet her where she gazes. " Can we stay with each other? " Her eyes are pleading. " Forever? " Please.​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

Never had she thought herself good at mending anything, despite her healer's lineage. Pinkshine pressed closer to her, though, and it felt like light could pour from her mouth, felt for a moment that she was an unscarred and happy thing. Someone that poulticed marigold, gave wounds tincture. In that silence, Featherspine's words glimmered like a cluster of stars and dangled from the air above them, doing good instead of bearing spear and shillelagh, breaking skin and soul.

Their tails knit, in the way they'd always fit together ... purled, and gently asway. He didn't think Pinkshine had ever been so quiet, for so long. And how ridiculous was it that she made him nervous with her quietness, when her vivacity was what normally made him fret so much? Might her heartbeat burst out of her chest, coat them both in blood, wreck something that Featherspine never thought he could ruin?

I do, she said. And he was gawking too, now. Yellow eyes rounded, no longer sun-sharp but round as the moon- her nose twitched. She did. It was no coincidence that when their conversation dove into talks of the future, Pinkshine weaved a shared fate. Just how they were - and his lips trembled. Vision blurred and her throat began to oscillate. How, how could he feel so ill with anxiety, when she'd just said that? Said that she did ... that her mind wandered the same place that Featherspine's did.

Through the smudge of tears, she met blue-ringed eyes, of course ... an unavoidable thing. Featherspine's lips parted, took in a sharp breath- but purposefully, slitted pupils didn't leave her face. To be loved, to love- he knew it well, that warmth, but never in the way Pinkshine had offered him. It was a gift she gave him, to know what it was to fret so tirelessly for another, to want to kill for and care for. Long ago he'd made an internal vow that nothing bad would happen to Pinkshine, that she would be her shield for the hail. Beneath a tumbling boulder she would bow for the future thay had always murmured about.

"Really?" Featherspine blurted, and her voice squeaked into something embarrassingly emotional. If- if there was anyone, though ... a blink jostled a teardrop from where it lay in wait. He held her gaze as if it would kill him to look elsewhere. "I- I mean, I love you too," and she laughed, showed teeth in a grin at the absurdity of it, that after all this time he hadn't led with that.

Stay with each other, forever. It had been the plan anyway, really... but it felt new all the same. Putting a name to it all, that they were in love, that they ... "You- you make me happier than I ever thought I could b-b-be." On no uncertain terms, now ... if everything was being laid bare, Featherspine was prepared to reveal it. "I- I want... of course I want to spend forever making you feel that way, too."

He leaned his head forward, nudging their noses together- affection traced from the tip of Pinkshine's nose to the side of her muzzle, where Featherspine too rested hers. Her breaths trembled still, brittle with emotion, with love and laughter and tears. "Y-you c-c-couldn't have thought I'd say no..." he teased, voice tinted with disbelief still. "You're wonderful."

And there were so many other things he wanted to tell her, too. Like... had she ever told her how beautiful she was? The sway of the sunlight in her eyes when she smiled?

It didn't matter, now. She had forever to tell her.​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

It's a scary moment, the heartbeat in between her question and his answer. They hold each other's gaze in uncertain quiet. Featherspine's eyes are as wide as her own, lacking their usual narrowed sun - glare. Pinkshine would like to think its a face only she could pull from him, one that borders on silly upon Featherspine's face. There's a glassy sheen in her eyes too, one that makes the butterflies in her stomach swoop down in unison. She reminds herself that she's shed happy tears before; tells herself it wasn't possible that the annoying kit that'd stuck herself to Featherkit's side was still just a nuisance.

It's sudden when Featherspine asks, really? There's a flutter of Pinkshine's eyelids, the glimmer of a giggle, because it was the silliest question he could've ever asked, really. Pinkshine's smile is shaky, creeping upon her face. " Yes, really! " she tells him. And Featherspine loves her. Really, really loves her. His smile stops her heart just the way it had the first time she saw it, and soon Pinkshine is laughing too, the butterflies erupting from her mouth in a fit of giggles. Featherspine's face wets with a single, rolling tear that reflects the sun. Pinkshine feels the urge to press herself closer, even if his happiness is as clear as day. She wants to reassure him... and for the rest of time she always would. " I wouldn't lie to you. "

The admission has her blinking. It's like... a job well done, her mission since kithood now fulfilled. She wonders when it had transcended the kittenish desire of wanting to see a smile on a face she feared may be incapable... When had it become friendship, and further still, love. " You're gonna make me cry! " she mews, her voice shaking. She would do as Featherspine had told her, that day. Smile when you're happy. With loving determination, she would. Giddiness whips her tail into wild motions. Between the giggling, she tries to tell him, " D-don't think I've ever been so happy. "

She surges forward to meet the press of her mate's nose... and her heart flips at the designation, one that fell into her mind without a drop of resistance. Featherspine would surely feel her purr as much as she'd hear it, the sound bright and loud. " I... " Pinkshine tries to explain herself... she finds that she really can't. Her nose reaches for the side of Featherspine's skull. Blue - ringed eyes slip shut, bliss - induced, and despite her best efforts, she feels wetness beading at the edges. " I shouldn't have... "

With everything that she wanted to tell her, it made no sense how little she said. The giggling dies. Her mew is soft. Maybe one word is all she needed to tell it all. " You're perfect. "​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

I wouldn't lie to you. "I know..." she murmured, barely-audibly, smothered in softness. She didn't need the confirmation, really, but it was nice to have regardless. Featherspine gathered her words close to his chest, felt them pulsing with the beat of his heart. Sugar-sweetness burrowed into bone marrow, wrote messages there. Or maybe, maybe ... rubbed ink into words that had been slumbering for a long time, now.

There wasn't much imagination to be found in an overclocked mind such as hers, so she would always deny that it was destiny. No, Pinkshine ... she had sought her out constantly, bound them together with a red string of her own making. She'd ran circles around them, winding them closer and closer and closer until they could never be unravelled. This was a fate of their own making- it was want, it was joy, and there was nothing in thie world Featherspine found more fragile than desire.

She would protect it at all costs. A cat he wanted more than anything to be near, to be with, and a cat who felt that way about him too. And it was Pinkshine- wasn't that even better? Really, he couldn't believe his luck- that she was the one that seized him, that she was the one that found her heart within its cage, slipped scraps between the bars until steel had rusted enough to let her in. You're gonna make me cry, Pinkshine said- and Featherspine held her tighter, silently imbuing every ounce of love she could into the touch.

Their affection lingered, their skulls kissed together. Featherspine took in a deep sigh, basking in the cleansing comfort of Pinkshine's scent, of Pinkshine. There weren't many words between them, but he knew that in the long silences there stretched, luxuriously, more meaning than any other cat would ever be able to read. In nothingness, there was everything.

You're perfect, she said ... Featherspine sighed, shakily- thought I can't be with critical efficiency, but for once let happiness quash cynicism. Smiled, like she taught him to. So many words swelled on his tongue, and Featherspine felt them choked in her throat, desperate to say it all. "I- I love you," It came out again, as if he'd broken a dam. "We've- we've got to stop crying," the chocolate tom laughed, nuzzling the side of her face, a deep, rumbling purr sprawling from within her, stemming from her very core.

Reluctantly, she drew some distance between them- looked at Pinkshine with a newly-inspired gaze of yellow. "P-P-Puh... Pinkshine, will you ... will you draw something- anything-" and her voice still shook, "... on that bark? I- I... I never want to forget... t-to forget this feeling." She would look at it, and think of star-speckled eyes, a bright, ember-flecked pelt, a brilliant, beautiful smile- she would look at it and remember that Pinkshine loved her, and that the moment she'd found it out, nothing else in the world had mattered.

A smile spread across her face, lit up every nook. "We- we could keep it in our nest." And there was more excitement in his voice at that concept than he ever thought possible.​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

Trust, in the sigh of those words... Trust that Pinkshine had won through nothing but her poking and prodding, an insistence that had followed them both since they were kits... Her answering hum spells contentment. It eases her in a way she isn't used to. She hopes Featherspine knows— knows how he brought her comfort in ways more subtle than her own... Familiarity, in the thorns of her tongue, comfort with a mere presence. Stability in this world that's always changing. They wanted the same things, didn't they? To reinforce what is there; with smiles, with sternness...

I love you, comes again, and Pinkshine wonders if it'd make her dizzy like this every time. Days from now... moons from now, would she be used to it? Would she find a different kind of happiness in how it seamlessly rolls off her back? Or would it make her feel like this every time? Flying. A truth she knew, but that made her giddy anyway, set in stone like this. Her reply this time is teasing, like a brag: " You love me, " she purrs. Pink noses press together. And she realizes that even though she's never been more confident about anything else in the world, she hasn't told her yet. ...Not today, anyways. Not sweetly, not simply. " And I love you. " Pinkshine basks in his touch, tenderness in the nudge of his muzzle. How long had that been true?

" No more- No more crying, okay? " It's a command with no real bite... Before they parted, Pinkshine would rasp a tongue against his cheek, feeling the salt tinge of fading tears. There are whiskers between them now, but like this, they can see each other's eyes, the sun reflected in both... Both teary too, surely... but Pinkshine squints her eyes, tries hard not to let them fall. She just smiles, and she lets herself feel it more than she ever has before. She couldn't care about the stinging in her face right now.

Her ears are fully his, pert to attention. Blue halos hold that gaze as if she might lose it forever if she let go. A memento, another painting to keep... this one somehow more important than the first— and back then, Pinkshine had never thought that would be possible. She cherishes the twine of their tails. " Of course... " she says it like it's a secret— the kind you giggle about beneath your breath within the depths of the apprentice den... not an actual one, of course... What was the point in keeping such joy to themselves? It'd be selfish, she thinks.

A white paw smushes itself in berry juice, dyeing it purple. The tearing away of her gaze is fragile... and it lands on the picture Featherspine had painted. So far, a single spiral... It had been forgotten practically as soon as it had started, and the sight makes her giggle. It reminded them of their old drawings in the sand... It reminded her of the first time she had considered berries as paint, and when she had decided it would be their thing, and no one else's... Quiet contemplation lessons her smile, for just a moment. Featherspine lights it up anew. Their nest, a collective. Pinkshine's purr comes like thunder.

Beneath the wind swirl of Featherspine's mark, Pinkshine retraces her steps. A cat takes shape beneath the press of her paw, no less wobbly than it had been the first time, and not only is this cat tall and spiky, with a pointed tail on a smudge on her forehead... but she's smiling. Pinkshine's berry-smudged paw nudges Featherspine's own, a beaming grin on her face.​