sensitive topics FAILURE GIRL // granite

[LlLACPAW]

Days had gone by since the incident with Betonyfrost, and despite the attempted ushering of her patrolmates, Lilacpaw never did go see her sister to have her wound checked out. Just scrubbed her face with snow until the minor blood had gone from deep brown to bright red. It made the side of her face numb in the process, and she'd come home and collapsed in her nest hours later.

Its guilt that draws her closer to Bon-Starlingheart's den one particularly frosty afternoon.

Guilt that if she really did end up with an infected wound, Starling would end up with more work on top of trying to fill the gap that their aunt left behind far too soon. Guilt that she'd make Betonyfrost look worse than Chilledgaze and her brother already had with their outbursts. But maybe....maybe she just wanted to spend time with her sister like they did when they were kits. Like when times were better and Starling didn't feel a world away, higher than she could ever reach. Too high for her to catch her sister if she fell.

That thought has her ears folding, and she's so caught up with it that she doesn't notice the cat whose blocked her path until she nearly runs into him, for once catching herself before the collision.​

 

[GRANITEPELT]

( ¡! ❞ ) Spending his evenings with Starlingheart in her den is better than even he could have imagined. It's their private world, safe from the prying eyes of their former denmates, the nosy looks the warriors had once given him as he'd padded after Briarstar's quietest daughter. He has never been so close to a cat before, not even Siltpaw, and he's enthralled with the newness of it.

He steps away from her curled in her nest, catching a quick nap before she's back to herb gathering. Granitepaw himself is on the dusk patrol, and he knows he'd better eat before Pitchstar makes him trek all the way to the Carrionplace in search of frostbitten rats.

He nearly collides head-on with Lilacpaw. She just barely stops herself from smacking into him. Granitepaw glares at her, startled out of his thoughts of waking Starlingheart so they could share a brief, sparse meal together. Lilacpaw has come to interrupt their privacy, their little world, and he lifts his lip into a sneer.

"Can I help you with something, Lilacpaw?" The gray tom's eyes are colder than the snow blanketing their territory. He squares his shoulders and straightens, hoping to cut an imposing figure. He blocks any attempt Lilacpaw might make to peer into the den.

With a flick of his tail, he realizes he doesn't want any of her family in there bothering them. She wouldn't want that either. Her family ... they're all the same. Traitors. Granitepaw says, "She doesn't want to see you right now. She doesn't want to see any of you. Starlingheart is very busy." His smile diminishes into an expression of extreme importance.​

( TOOK YOU HOME, PUT YOU ON THE GLASS ; I PULLED OFF YOUR WINGS, AND I LAUGHED )

 

[LlLACPAW]

Granitepaw had always been off to her, a weird enigma even among Shadowclan's more eccentric personalities. At least they had a mild algorithm, Granite was just weird. Normally, she'd bow out at this point, try again a different day under different circumstances. She never really wanted to cause trouble for or with anybody. It wasn't really how you made friends after all.

But who in their right mind would ever want to be friends with Granitepaw?

"That's nice. I don't believe you." She remembers her mother standing upon Clanrock when she was young, narrowing those same green eyes at her fellow apprentice, making herself stand taller, nobler. Perhaps not more than he, but more than she usually would. Her voice sickeningly sweet for someone looking like she was growing a whole thorn bush out of her neck with how her fur was spiking. "If my sister doesn't want to see me, that's all fine and dandy, but I'll hear it from her mouth, not your snake of a tongue." ​

 

[GRANITEPELT]

Insolent, she is. Lilacpaw is Granitepaw's technical equal, but she is not Starlingheart's, not anymore, and the gray tom narrows his eyes at her spirited response. "That's nice. I don't believe you." The rosette tries to make herself bigger, tries to glare him down as though she's suddenly taken her wretched older sibling's place upon Clanrock.

Granitepaw gives her a cold, tight smile. "You don't have to believe me, but you do have to leave, unless you're injured." He makes a big to-do of scoring his green eyes over her spotted fur, over every inch of her tabby form, before bringing them back up to glare into her own eyes. "I don't see any injuries. Didn't see you limping. There's plenty wrong with you, I know, but there's nothing Starlingheart can fix."

He squares his shoulders again, matching her posture, her stance. "Starlingheart knows her family is full of traitors. She can't count on any of you. Spare her the grief of having to tell you to go away herself, if you really care about her. You know how hard it is for her." His smile vanishes, replaced by a look of deadly sincerity.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

​

 

[LlLACPAW]

"Gotten awful big for your pelt now that my sister shows you a little attention huh?" The formalities she usually takes with other people, the push of emotion into her voice, the clearly written body language, the need for positive connections....it all starts to fall away as Granitepaw too shows his true colors. Her voice becomes its disinterested, nettle wrapped monotone, as the fire in her eyes dwindles down to ice almost like the apprentice before her isn't worth the trouble anymore. Anxiety still builds in her brain, screaming at her that she shouldn't do this, that its going to ruin everything she's worked so hard for.....but with a single word, a scathing utterance of traitors, she no longer gives a rat's ass.

"She can't fix what your mommy broke in you either. Can't fix the fact that she decided you weren't worth sticking around for." There's no heat to her voice, no spitting of thorns and stepping forward to intimidate, just indifference. "I only wanted to make sure my scratch was fine, that it wouldn't get infected and give Starlingheart more work to do on top of picking up Bonejaw's slack." It hurts to admit that thats the truth, that her aunt left them, left her darling little bird to pick up the pieces of a steadily breaking clan, of a steadily breaking family while she got to go off and fix her own as if they didn't exist anymore. It hurt, but Bonejaw was still family.

"A two minute visit, if even. That's what you, an untrained git, just as unfamiliar with the ways of medicine as I am, think you are entitled to refuse me. When you are no more entitled to that decision than I would be to make it for you." Stars why is she being so mean to him? What if he's right, what if Starlingheart doesn't want to see any of them anymore because she's afraid they'll all leave like Bonejaw. But isn't that all the more reason for her to try? For her to assure her sister that everything will be alright, that she'll never leave her like their aunt did?

'Insulting one of her only friends like this won't help you.'

She knows that's true, but the words keep coming. "You hoard her attention like a star-forsaken magpie, swooping at anyone who gets close. Cats are not meant to be monopolized like some prize." She feels sick, stomach turning and her brain starting to fuzz over. She wants to reach out and shove all her words back into her mouth, take them back and try again but she can't. Her fur feels awful, its too itchy and the ground under her pads is making her paws go numb. She means all of it, but she doesn't want to say it like this, no matter how freeing it is to speak her mind.

Yet on the outside she is calm, none of her anxieties breaching the surface. That numbness is a concern in and of itself, but no one present cares enough to notice that. Granitepaw even less so than Lilacpaw herself. ​

 

[Starlingheart]

In her barely conscious state she knows Granitepaw has left his nest, she watches with half lidded eyes as he quietly gets up from his place near hers and goes to the entrance of the den and she thinks nothing of it. Perhaps he had a patrol, or perhaps he was going to go and fetch her some prey to wake up to. Granitepaw was kind hearted like that, always taking care of her, watching over her. He made sure she was okay and he kept her sane in the moons that had passed since her mothers death. He had stood by her.

The same could not be said of her littermates.

Since Briarstar’s passing they had all grown distant. Each kit backing into their own isolated corner to grieve in their own ways, leaving Starlingheart to pick up the pieces by herself. When she needed them most, she had found Granitepaw in their place.
The faint sound of arguing coming from the entrance of the den is what finally arouses her from her half slumber and while she does not hear what had been said by Granitepaw prior, she heard the foul words spoken by her own sister, and it makes her fur bristle.

"Do-do not do not speak to-to him l-like that" she says, putting extra effort into not stuttering, not speaking in broken words. Her green eyes shine in the dim light with anger. Anger towards Lilacpaw. How could she be so cruel? Her eyes dart to the wound on the other apprentices muzzle and for a second she does worry about her sister, but she cannot get her words out of her mind. “She can't fix what your mommy broke in you either. Can't fix the fact that she decided you weren't worth sticking around for.” What does Lilacpaw know about Sandra? What had happened was not Granitepaws fault, he shouldn’t be made to endure such unkind words. "You-you’ll be you’ll be fine" she says, her tone cold and hard "Ju-just keep it keep it cl-clean don’t don’t bother me a-again unless unless your your nose is f-falling faaaliiing off" her words are punctuated by a small growl before she flicks Granitepaw with her tail in what is meant to be a comforting gesture, a way of saying that she had his back just like he had had hers time and time again. "co-come with me t-to look for h-h-herbs?" she asks gently before sending one final warning look at her sister, as if daring her to speak before she turns and walks towards the camp entrance, motioning with an ear for the gray furred rom to follow.

// in and out!
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