HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT - flower petals

[Rainecho]

Rainecho has been sitting in camp for a while now, a pile of flowers next to her. Methodically, she takes one out of the pile, plucks all the petals off while muttering something to herself, then casts what is left aside, only a stem and leaves with the petals strewn around her. Her eyes narrow with thinly veiled frustration and disgust but still, she reaches for another, plucking another poor flower from the pile to meet the same fate as the last. "He loves me, he loves me not" she mumbles as she goes about her business, each petal being ripped off one by one until she is down to the last one. "He loves me not..." she says with a disappointed sigh. It didn't matter which way she started, the flowers kept telling her the same results. Perhaps at this point she should give up, accept her fate. It seemed to be written in the stars, after all.

She was wrong for catching feelings, she sees that now. No amount of plucking flowers would ever change that. Her crush just simply did not see her in the same light. that's what the flowers were practically screaming at her. Still, in some sort of desperate haze she reaches for the next one and goes back to the same routine, foolishly hoping for a different outcome this time. If she could end on just one 'he loves me' she would be sated.

// theme prompt #1!!
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[Needledrift]

He loves me not. Needledrift frowned, her tongue sticking out of her mouth ever so slightly, accentuating her dismayed concentration on her clan-mate. She had never played that game with herself - she hadn't ever really held an attraction so strong that she felt the need to - but she empathized for the she-cat in front of her. Unrequited love... that sucked. Surely, there was something she could do...

She looked around, scouring the immediate area for some impossible macguffin to make things better for the pitiful cat before her. Her eyes snapped to a fallen flower, a renegade that seemed to have been forgotten in Rainecho's initial gathering. Needledrift made a noise in the back of her throat, an idea coming to her - a rather simple, maybe stupid, idea, but an idea nonetheless.

A moment later, she strode over to her dejected clanmate, the renegade clutched awkwardly between her broken jaws, her tongue wedged over the stem to hold it better. The head of the flower had been plucked bare, all except for one petal. She dropped the stem and its singular flower with some difficulty, but straightened with a crooked smile, motioning for Rainecho to pick up where she left off:

He loves you.​

she smells like lemongrass and sleep​

 

[COYOTECACKLE.]

WOMEN IN TOTAL CONTROL OF HERSELF​

---

coyote had fallen in love many times before, but like most things in her mind, they seemed to be fleeting. it wasn't anyone's fault– the crazed feline just hadn't found anyone who caught there attention longer than a few days. besides, who was gonna love someone like her? that is the question, isn't it? who would love us? not that we need it! we love us! we love us pretty damned well! a giggle leaves them as they listen to their inner voice, before they watched both rainecho and needledrift. her head tilted to the side, nose twitching as her eyes zoomed in and out of focus for a moment before laughing as she skipped around the two.

just for a moment, they'd forgot what they were doing, stopping and turning back to rainecho who defeatedly mewed about the lack of love. oh. that was pretty sad.

"who lovesss youuu not, darling? anyone who doesn't love you seems like more of a fool than i am! you're lovely to look at, echoed rain, and quite the catch! any silly feline would be soooo lucky to have ya!"

her voice was softly like honey as she moved to gently nudge the she with her muzzle, against her shoulder. she pulled back with a genuine smile upon her face, turning their attention to needledrift.

"whatcha smiling about?"
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[ROOSTERSTRUT]

❪ TAGS ❫ — "What're you doing to that poor flower?" Roosterstrut comments, a playful purr rumbling from his throat as he approaches next. He is genuinely puzzled for a moment as to what Rainecho is doing; perhaps just bored and fiddling with flowers? Coyotecackle offers more context, however, and he puts the pieces together. "Wait... do you have your eye on someone, Rain?" Roosterstrut had never personally tried that "love me not" game (if it could even be considered a game), as he was never really preoccupied with the idea of love and relationships. The only major crush he's ever had was, funnily enough, Rainecho. Not that she wasn't still one of the prettiest cats in the clan, in his humble opinion, but that had only been a silly phase in his awkward teenagehood.

It seemed so long ago now that Roosterstrut's adolescent infatuation had come and gone, and now here they all were, fully-fledged adults dealing with adult problems. Betonyfrost had her own children now, even. Time sure did fly by.

Settling onto his haunches, a smirk growing on his maw, Rooster inquired toward the she-cat, "Well now you gotta tell me who." He finds himself immediately invested in the thought. Not that it mattered to him- at least he doesn't think so. It would be nice to see more love in the air in ShadowClan... besides Smogmaw and Halfshade, that is. Maybe another couple stealing the spotlight wouldn't be such a bad thing.​

 

[Rainecho]

Cats inevitably flock to her and for a moment, her curled ears flatten to the back of her head. Usually, she loves the attention but right now... well she had been hoping that she had picked a time where mostly everyone had been out of camp. Her face feels hot from embarrassment. Needledrift's attempt to help does make her feel touched but she shakes her head. "Thanks Needles but if I didn't do it I dont think it counts" she takes the flower in her paws anyways and gently plucks the petal off, her gaze wistful.

Mismatched eyes look up at Coyotecackle as she is the next to speak she nods, appreciative but only shrugs in response "Toms right?" is all she supplies, with a small laugh.

And then he's here. She's known Roosterstrut her whole life. He's older now, bigger, but so is she and she knows at one time he had known her better than anyone else. Him and Bets both. She knows there is no hiding anything from him but still she tries. She averts her eyes, choosing to look at the stem that she twirls between two paws instead. "It's no one you know Roo, just a silly crush is all" her voice is uncharacteristically soft in this vulnerable moment.
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[COMFREYPAW]

Comfreykit follows Roosterstrut around camp like a faithful shadow. She scampers after the ginger warrior as he approaches Rainecho, his good nature spilling over like nectar from a bursting flower. She curiously eyes the ravaged flower Rainecho had been toying with, then the one Needledrift had offered in response.

"Poor flower," she says quietly. A dark paw pats at the petals; they're silky to the touch. She doesn't understand why the adults are talking about love. Coyotecackle says, "Anyone who doesn't love you seems like more of a fool than I am!" Roosterstrut asks Rainecho if she has her eye on someone.

Comfreykit blinks in confusion. "She has her eye on you right now," she explains to Roosterstrut. Because, well, Rainecho had been looking his way, before her downcast eyes had fallen to her flower.​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[SHARPSHADOW]

† Petals slowly fall to the ground, plucked from their home by ivory paws and scrutinized by a mismatched gaze. Mumbling Mumbling of love. Like a game, it almost seems, and Sharppaw lingers, curious. Wouldn't that be intrinsic, to linger in places where you shouldn't? His ears are flat against his skull, perking with the lilt of her voice, only to lull again directly after. Sharppaw lifts her eyes. Feels something caught in her throat, along with the ideal. Judgment steadily sizzles in the back of her skull, traces of that lesson she's learned. How deeply did she indulge. Was it like this for everything that she did?

Newleafs new blooms are doomed to fall for this. Sharppaw supposes they would've met their end soon, either way. An act of kindness, then. Inherently silly. A flower rigged for Rainecho's pulling. But she was already past that, wasn't she? Silver eyes linger on Needledrift, perhaps just a bit too long.

Nosy. the voices bounce between them now; prowling faces making their way for the sake of gossip. One consistency amongst many of them, the desire to hear word, and the following urge to spread it. It doesn't count. The rules were strict for a game like this. Sympathy, for the buds. "T-they won't feel it." Though, she supposes they couldn't speak up to say if it did.

It's awkward, then. It's awkward. Her voice is a demure murmuring. Comfreykit decides to speak for her. The connotation is lost only one way. Comfreykit spoke no falsities. And suddenly, it felt strange to be here. What did flowers have that allowed them to decide these things?​

 

[ROOSTERSTRUT]

❪ TAGS ❫ — While some cats like Sharppaw and Comfreykit were more concerned about the wellbeing of the flowers and the petals being forcefully extracted from their centers like some sort of cruel torture method, Roosterstrut was more intrigued on the secret that Rainecho was intent on keeping. The orange tabby scoffs when the she-cat plays his question off like it wasn't anything to pay any mind to. "No one I know? How would I not know one of my own clanmates?" Unless... The thought of Rainecho slipping out in the middle of the night to meet with a cat across the border prods his mind briefly. Roosterstrut has never taken the she-cat as someone who would betray her clan—and, even if she did, why would she expose such a secret?

No, Rain was just playing coy. She was ever the flirt, always letting smooth comments and playful giggles roll off her tongue, but actually catching feelings for someone was different. Would she really not tell anyone, not even him? Now Roosterstrut can't stop thinking about the fact that someone was walking around completely oblivious to her feelings for them. Who could it have been? Swiftclaws? Chittertongue? Surely not Dogfur.

"She has her eye on you right now," Comfreykit suddenly points out. Instinctively, Roosterstrut's set of pale green hues flick upward and meet a pair of mismatched eyes. A sudden intensity of heat sears his pads, so much so that he lifts a paw off the ground and nervously wipes it across his soft fur. "Yeah," Yeah, she does... He feels like a smitten teenager again.

It is only a few moments before Rainecho averts her gaze, and it's probably for the best that does. An awkward grin quirks at the corner of his maw though Roosterstrut manages to wrangle his composure and quickly resumes a cool level-headedness. The warrior looks down at Comfreykit again now, a light chuckle escaping through an airy (perhaps even nervous) purr, "But what I mean is... Well, you can ask your mom about that." Roosterstrut doesn't want to cross a line with Betonyfrost, as kits were so naive and innocent and he wouldn't want to expose young Comfreykit to concepts that she didn't need to know about just yet. She would figure it out in due time, if not from Betonyfrost then naturally through observing her clanmates. Rooster had learned about romance simply by watching the loving interactions between his parents, though he knew that Comfreykit and her siblings didn't necessarily have that.​