EVEN DISTILLED ITS STILL AN EVERGREEN ✧ tree sap

[CHALK]

⭒✧ So keen to make discoveries on a patrol, Chalk was both a help and a hinderance. The fawn cat was quick to notice anything unusual, but when he did it slowed him significantly. Sun slimmed by unfettered cloud cover, his pace that morning was brisk for fear of being caught out in the rain. Until- what was that? The detected oddity had him careen from the trail immediately.

Heady pine scent smoked his nostrils, sharpening each breath. A pine tree slouched beside a mossy boulder, one branch shorn from its side. Along the exposed wood pooled amber droplets. Cast in sun-speared bubbles, the sap looked molten. A rap with Chalk’s marble mitt confirmed otherwise, the material gelatinous beneath a thin surface film at softest. Best to avoid those ones. Easier to damage, harder to observe.

An odd splinter caught his eye, further inspection highlighting a fly that had been swallowed up by the amber. Chalk rearranged himself, nose pointed, to get the best view. Variegated with debris and air bubbled the picture wasn’t clear. The imperfect nature of the specimen did little to dull his excitement though.

The tip of the daylight warrior’s tail pulsed. Projected diagrams of twoleg innards, cyclical arrows and the drone of the Learningplace mentors swam in his mind. "It’s like they’re bleeding… clotting the wound. That can’t be right though- it’d be more common to see…" Trees were scraped so often by all sorts of mediums, sometimes even falling clean to the floor. There was no outpouring of sap when a trunk was felled like the case of an animal’s limb. Then, remembering his patrol mates with a snagged breath, he rasped "Come, look. Do you know why trees do this?"​

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[DAWNGLARE]

Only recently has he been able to trod through the undergrowth without a permanent scowl etched on his features. It would be a leap to expect him to give the trees such undivided attention, when he could just barely stomach their very existence past skin he may sink his claws into without receiving a scolding in turn. White paws tap idly across the forest floor. A tongue swipes hungrily across his maw as he ponders his next meal. Eyes watch the ground lazily in search of herbs, but truly, he is readying himself for a sunlit lounge he would settle down for soon after.

This one– who were they? For the life of him, Dawnglare cannot remember, but they are poking about the trees as if they are worth poking about, and in a sudden bought of awareness outside of his own bubble, he is pivoting toward the pale tom, head craned inquisitively. " Who's to say? Certainly not– " A stutter, then a wrinkle of his nose. Belated discomfort in words, there was no beck and call he would answer to quite so readily. Sharply, he says, " I am not here for you. Who is– who is woun-ded? Oh. "

The tom goes cross - eyed, and right before him, liquid gold beading along the sides of a tree. Why, he's winded– but recovers quick, smile snapping suddenly upon foxlike features. His tail curls behind him, exhilarated at the thought of finally - wrought justice. Why, he could sing his praises; shout in his delight! " Oh! Blood, sweat, and tears, " he explains breezily, eyes not leaving the sun - soaked pearl budding over bark, the thing repulsive in comparison to its golden friend. Who knew that trees bled so prettily? Though– he's never seen gold like this pool beneath his claws before... Perhaps their skin is that much thicker, to protect blood infinitely more precious.

" Their deadening comes soon, they certainly know it. Don't you? " he questions the flaking trunk, and perhaps the question is not so rhetorical. He'd swipe up a clot of sap with a claw, and in a moment of curiosity, lick from it. Without bias, the taste would not be too dissimilar from water– with a hint of sweetness, perhaps, but knowledge of what it was, what it meant, made it all the more sweeter.

OOC 𓆩♡𓆪 7.18.2023 𝘚𝘠𝘕𝘖𝘋𝘐𝘊 𝘚𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘖𝘕 𝘛𝘖 𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘌 𝘖𝘜𝘛 𝘖𝘍 𝘏𝘐𝘋𝘐𝘕𝘎

• OOC: —

• 

• ( 𝙒𝙃𝙔'𝘿 𝙄𝙏 𝙏𝘼𝙆𝙀 𝙎𝙊 𝙇𝙊𝙉𝙂? ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  —— He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  —— Currently 54 moons old. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  

  Currently in an era of questioning; upset and uncomfortable by things he should not be.​

  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

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[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar does his best to ignore Dawnglare’s presence, decisively standing beside Chalk to examine the scraped bark he presses a paw to. “I’ve seen the trees do it before, but I’ve never thought to touch it.” Intellectual curiosity is not Blazestar’s strong suit—not like it is Chalk, who taught him about the Learningplace and continues to express his curiosity about the world around them. The flame point looks at the paler tom admirably for a moment, before he brushes a golden foot against the liquid. It’s sticky, unbearably so, and Blazestar tentatively tastes it. It’s redolent with spice, the flavor of the forest, something he might have tasted traces of when eating a particularly luscious squirrel.

“Is it really because they’re dying?” He hates that he has to look at Dawnglare, but his alarm is apparent. “Hopefully it’s just this tree, and not a lot of them, then. Leafbare will be here before we know it.” He sighs.

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — blaise . blazestar
  — he/him ; leader of skyclan
  — pansexual ; divorced ; single
  — longhaired flame point Ragdoll with blue eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Mercibun

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[CHALK]

⭒✧ The air in his lungs grew a little stale as Dawnglare approached, but Chalk's need to share his findings kept it from crystallizing within his expression. The pendulum swing of the medicine cat’s words always took a little longer to settle into his mind, it unsettled him. The maroon-soaked tom appeared rapt to the amber at least, hopefully enough to offer some insight.

Dawnglare hooked a frost-gloved paw into the substance and licked it. Chalk’s face went perfectly blank. That seemed- a sliver of apprehension fled across his blue eyes, like a bird’s shadow. Ill-advised. He was the expert though, a medicine cat. The daylight warrior’s head retreated into his shoulders slightly, widening his view of the other cat. He wasn’t dying. Not poisoned. Good. "You speak to trees. And taste their... blood?" Sweat, and tears, his mind sang. "Are all medicine cat’s the same way?" Was he missing something? Another layer of awareness gone untapped, perhaps.

Chalk turned to Blazestar, seeking the ragdoll’s normality, just as the saffron-nosed tom followed Dawnglare’s example. Aspen lids were planed flat with exasperation. Blazestar trusted his judgement on edible and inedible plant life. Noted. Unable to forgo a learning opportunity, the pale tom did the same. The scent alone seemed to chase the oxygen from his throat. It slunk through the senses sedately, lingering on the tongue even as Chalk ran teeth along it to purge the aftertaste. ”Distinct."

He doesn’t match the leader’s worry for the forest but he does pull an ear back at the suggestion of a ‘deadening’. Trees were strong, long-life species. ”Twolegs will amputate whole limbs from trees- I have yet to establish why, aesthetics, safety?- and they survive. I assume this one will too." A contemplative, perhaps cautious, eye glided over the medicine cat. He welcomed correction from a reputable source but hoped it would be comprehensible.​

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[Fantastream]

Chalk is a cat that Fantastream likes a good deal, he was a friend, a familiar face within the confines of SkyClans camp as well as out of it, in the twolegplace. The way he talks is sometimes a bit too fancy for her tastes but that was alright! Even if she didn't always understand him he still made good company. And besides, he was much more comprehensible than SkyClan's medicine cat, who was a puzzle to her. She never seemed to be able to figure out what it was exactly he was trying to say, it was as if every sentence out of the toms mouth had a hidden meaning.

She comes to stand next to Chalk now, inspecting the tree in question. Though Blazestar's presence makes her feel itchy under her fur. What if she looked like a fool in front of him? Would he send her back to her twolegs, tell her to never come back? She hopes not...

She nods to her friends words "I've seen my twolegs trimmin' the tree in our yard before" she confirms, remembering the strange device they had used that had allowed them to get closer to the branches. She also remembers the terrible buzz of their machine, the crack as the branch separated from the tree and fell to the ground. It makes her shudder to think about so instead she looks at Dawnglare, who seems to have a strange understanding of the subject in question. "Can ya heal it?" she asks, curious. Perhaps if he could then the tree would be saved and Mr.Blazestar would have nothing to worry about.

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