private here in the garden ✧ cherrypaw

Well... when in the presence of your greatest ally, it was always in one's best interest not to mess that up. Edenpaw.... was not the most tactical in the charisma department. Apparently some of the adults thought they were 'loud' and 'obnoxious' and 'rude'. The bob-tailed apprentice did not understand where these summaries came from nor why they were deemed accurate; Edenpaw was nothing short of an angel! A... a messenger of StarClan or something like that! Yeah... a gift to SkyClan. Nodding reassuringly to themself as they carried a bundle of various flowers (they had stolen a good many of them from their Twoleg garden, the ones out there were much prettier and easier to find than out where the Sky Cats wandered), they pranced confidently towards the familiar dappled pelt of their den-mate. They'd agreed to hang out today! And Edenpaw had practically been vibrating in their fur since then, anticipation gnawing at what little calm they kept in reserve.

"'errypaw, I got suh' flowers," they announce, struggling to enunciate without damaging the delicate stems between their lips. Lilacs and white carnations... a few tickseed flowers (their season was coming to an end anyways, not that the fool-hardy apprentice would know that); an array of bright colors they thought might suit the demeanor of their new friend! And maybe it'd impress her to see some less common flowers!

The crop-tailed cat squinted their eyes in a smile their teeth couldn't show, hoping they hadn't caught the other at a bad moment between trainings. "Wha'd ya brin'?!"
 
"Hanging out" was a foreign concept to the average clan cat. Cherrypaw saw most of her friends every day, though she didn't always get as much time with them as she wanted. They fell asleep to the sounds of each other breathing and woke up to empty nests or still-slumbering bodies, depending on when their mentors took them out. They would get paired together for patrols or training sessions, or more rarely left to almost their own devices laden with apprentice chores.

If it weren't for Edenpaw and their existence out of sync with the SkyClan rhythm, Cherrypaw would hardly have thought of just...taking some time for the sole purpose of spending it with a friend. Knowing he'd probably and inexplicably cave in the presence of her mother, she nearly had to drag Orangeblossom into the conversation with Slate just to convince him to give her "apprentice chores" that afternoon instead of yet another sparring session.

Seeing the bushel of flowers crammed into her friend's jaws, Cherrypaw considers it worth it. "Wow!" she purrs, tail shooting up. "Those are, like, really pretty." Behind the sprays of color she catches the grin-squint of her eyes and grins back. She's never seen these kinds of flowers before, not even on the very edges of the territory. Edenpaw must've gotten them from twolegs! "Iiiii brought," she meows, drawing the words out as she waves her paw over her own collection. "These!" An assortment of natural items: coneflowers lolling around on their oversized centers, nearly flattened asters, a couple of bluejay feathers, more wildflowers, and the big beautiful blue-ish black feather Auburnflame had given her.

Glancing at all of Edenpaw's lavishly ornamented flowers, she almost feels jealous. Almost, she swears. "Okay, to start, we should put some of these into our nests to show everyone else. You know how to weave, right?" Cherrypaw had turned towards the apprentice den and was about to pad off, but she chances a glance back at the bobtail at her own question.​
 
Tawnystripe was maybe like.. less strict than most of the other mentors. He was perfectly charming and friendly and didn't immediately get his tail in a knot when Edenpaw made jokes or teased or did... typical Edenpaw things really. They'd tried some tree climbing since that was supposed to be THE SkyClan selling point but that had been a private embarrassment (how had they messed that up, they climb the fence of their garden all the time!) and one they preferred to pretend hadn't happened. It was times like these that the best distraction was a face who hadn't seen you royally screw up!

Cherrypaw had found the time to do it, a means of sneaking off from Slate (a far more rigid, kill-joy of a tom) and his incessant training regime. The supplies returned felt like nothing special to their friend but Edenpaw was pretty much instantly starry-eyed, delicately dropping the flowers held fast in their mouth to get a better view of her collection. She had a much broader variety... it was kinda like a tortie of options (tee-hee...) to match!

"You got some feathers!!! Already hunting birds, Cherrypaw? Tawnystripe hasn't taught me that yet but I think I could probably get one if I tried," they ramble, living in the fictitious world their own confidence created for them, one where they could succeed just through sheer belief of it.

The dappled molly is already saying something about how they should use them and for lack of all their creativity, it seems the other girl makes up for it in leaps and bounds. "Weaving," they repeat, green eyes glancing away nervously as the topic moved towards the capability to do so. Anyone who gave a long hard stare at their nest might be able to deduce that was not a talent on their (imagined) long list of skills. "MMmmmmmmm~ Not really! But that's alright, you can show me and you can take some of the flowers I brought as payment, sound fair?" It had always been their intention to share but... maybe repurposing them as a bribe would work just as well!​