how the heart stops like a car ✧ cherrypaw

[SCORCHSTORM]

It had been naive to think they'd get through the journey without meeting death along the way. Scorchpaw hadn't known Little Wolf well, but it is strange to travel one cat lighter; it is strange to see the grief on the ThunderClanners' faces; it is strange to see the brown scabs cutting through Cherrypaw's citrine-cream pelt. Scorchpaw tries not to stare for long. She steals a glance here and there when Cherrypaw walks ahead of her instead of at her side, or when the other molly rests in milk-pale moonbeams, but otherwise Scorchpaw makes a concerted effort not to let her piercing gaze reopen the wounds.

But even beyond the physical damage, Cherrypaw seems to have sobered. Scorchpaw wonders if she herself has ever been bubbly enough to become notably less so; and it isn't that Cherrypaw isn't warm or kind or fun, but there is a certain weight that she now carries that is about the size of Little Wolf strewn across the snow. It makes a part of her ache. She thinks that maybe, if she could reach her cream-dipped paw into the SkyClan apprentice's chest, she could cradle the sore heart within it and make her feel alright again– but StarClan knows that's impossible. So instead Scorchpaw tries something else.

They've been in the woods for a few sunrises now, but only today had she found something that reminds her sweetly of home. In flame-licked jaws she carries the delicate corpse of a butterfly, streaked with pepper-red and dotted with salt-white, its scales shimmering in the light that stammered through the trees. She finds Cherrypaw more easily now; she can pick the tortoiseshell out of any smattering of fall-flame leaves, she thinks, and she is glad for it. Scorchpaw approaches quietly, but behind the striking wings hides her trying smile. "Hey," she greets, if only to alert Cherrypaw to her presence, before sitting before her, white-tipped tail curling around her cream paws. "I brought you something. Can I put it on?"

/ @Cherrypaw

𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐈 𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐔𝐆𝐄 ✧ 𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙈𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙇𝙊𝙊𝘿

• 

• 
  
  — scorchkit . scorchpaw
  — she/they ; apprentice of windclan
  — short-haired tortoiseshell she-cat with low white and orange/yellow eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — chibi by giinya, signature by raphaelion
  — penned by meghan

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

The ThunderClanners bring her food, or the SkyClanners bring her food from the ThunderClanners, and it's all she can do to sink the teeth that had not helped at all into it. Cherrypaw recognizes the yawning pit of self-loathing for what it is, having seen it open even in the young eyes of her clanmates, but even so she struggles against its black hole gravity. The forest doesn't help. Little Wolf stalks her through the leaves and dappled shadows, her eyes glowing the gilded orange of two fallen leaves suspended in sunlight. The ghost follows her through a mirror of what should've been the home she returned to. Instead, she lies among the stars and the snow, so unimaginably far.

Scorchpaw would, too, be totally consumed by the forest were it not for the white tufts on her ears, silly things that wobble back and forth as the WindClanner fumbles her way through the foreign undergrowth. Cherrypaw likes them a lot, her ear tufts. The idea of losing Scorchpaw, even to the autumnal shadows that paint both the earth here and her pelt, makes her stomach twist. Orangeblossom and Figfeather don't (seem to) blame her, and neither does her WindClan friend. If she lost the support of any of them, then she'd really be all alone, and Cherrypaw has never been alone in her entire life.

The other girl unmelds from the foliage as easily as a droplet of water escapes a cloud. Burnished threads of copper in her face wink at her with the soft crease of her smile, tucked neatly behind a seeming gift. "Hey," she purrs. "Is that for me?" Her words are deceptively teasing, lilting; surprise flutters in another blink when the joke is confirmed. "Oh, it's really pretty. It kinda looks like you. Okay." Cherrypaw dutifully turns her face from her, presenting her charcoal-dusted ear and cheek to a face so much bolder and blacker. Ever since she'd draped her tail along her shadowed back in those caves (so, so long ago), she's felt far more comfortable nudging herself this close to a future WindClan warrior. "Thanks, Scorchpaw." The words feel as though they've come in a beat too late, so she adds, "Where'd you catch it? You know, one of my brothers wears a butterfly in his ear too," and smiles at the thought of Eggpaw.​

 

[SCORCHSTORM]

Scorchpaw tucks the wing behind Cherrypaw's ear just as she'd tucked it behind Luckypaw's before her, and Frostpaw's and Rumblepaw's too, and her own even before them– it is only now that she realizes how much the trinkets have pervaded her relationships. Not that she minds; they're pretty, and when she wears her own she feels prettier, and she hopes that when her siblings wear theirs they think of her. Now Cherrypaw will, too, she hopes, think of her when she catches sight of the red-striped adornment in a puddle of water. She can't deny the way her ears flush when the SkyClan apprentice remarks upon the wing– It's really pretty. It kinda looks like you. And when Scorchpaw steps back (though not by much) to admire the way it dangles there, fluttering as if life still breathed into it, she feels sheepish to realize Cherrypaw is right.

"I'm glad you like it," the molly murmurs, ears angling forward. "You, um.... It looks really good on you." The red was much more vibrant, much more bold than the dusky hues that painted Cherrypaw's pelt. It was a nice contrast. Their faces still close, Scorchpaw takes a few more moments to admire the scene, though she lingers for another reason, too. Ever since the caves, she'd missed the feeling of Cherrypaw's plush tail draped across her back, and she doesn't even realize how much she wants to feel it again as she sits with sweet tension pulled taut between them; she doesn't even realize how much the ache in her chest is pining and not sympathy.

Cherrypaw asks her a question, and Scorchpaw's smile creeps a little bigger at its corners. "Luckypaw has one too," she relays, pleased to have a little more in common than she'd thought. As for where she'd caught the wing, she continues, "it was just sitting on a bush when I woke up. Can you believe that?" Her whiskers twitch at the memory. "It was like StarClan put it there for me to give to you."

𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐈 𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐔𝐆𝐄 ✧ 𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙈𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙇𝙊𝙊𝘿

• 

• 
  
  — scorchkit . scorchpaw
  — she/they ; apprentice of windclan
  — short-haired tortoiseshell she-cat with low white and orange/yellow eyes
  — "speech" ; thoughts
  — signature by giinya, template art by ska-i
  — penned by meghan

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

A slight tug behind her ear; white-tipped paws work as gently as the kiss of dandelion fluff at the base of her ear. Cherrypaw takes a moment to wonder if the sooty back of it will rub off onto Scorchpaw, staining them in her charcoal dust for as long as she cares to leave it there. In her imagination, she hopes she would never wipe it off, this dreamed-up trace of Cherrypaw on her fur. She feels like she should give her something in return. Think of me, it would say, the feather, the flower, even the strand of fur.

Disappointment, faint and sweet, rises through her when the tortoiseshell pulls away. "You think so?" she giggles, face turning back towards her with the wing fluttering in its wake. She tilts her head into the dappled rays of light, letting it clutter the tri-colored hues of her face and cast them new in glowing, streaming shades. Her whiskers twitch up when she smiles; the longest of them feels Scorchpaw's bounce as well, their faces less than two whisker-lengths away. "That makes us, like, both really good looking then."

Cherrypaw doesn't think much of it. How could she? Ashenclaw and Orangeblossom, Dandelionwish and Butterflytuft, Blazestar and Bobbie. It only mattered if it was between a tom and a molly, and if everyone noticed it, and if they were in the same clan. Besides, she and Lupinepaw did this all the time: sitting close, touching cheeks, dressing each other up. When she catches Scorchpaw's gaze, gathered straight from the autumnal paradise they were chained to, she just holds it and giggles again.

She tips her head the other way when Scorchpaw responds in kind. How lucky it was that she should be blessed with one of her siblings on the journey. The jealousy that flares is tempered by unexpected relief. She feels...good. About it. Luckypaw's existence doesn't affect her at all, but she's glad he's here because Scorchpaw must be glad. Because she would be glad if any of her littermates were here. "Really? It sounds like a pretty dumb one then; you'd think it'd know that you're like the best butterfly hunter around," she jokes, lightly flicking her tail against the other's flame-capped shoulder. "Did you ever eat one as a kit?" The question is impulsive and honestly gross, but it come unbidden so easily with comfort, and Cherrypaw's smile simply turns teasing.​