private I AM ASH FROM YOUR FIRE ⚜ SCORCHSTORM

[BLUEFROST]

Foxglare had, perhaps, been made to feel as though he had to accompany Bluefrost into the moorland. She uses this same power on a familiar ember-streaked dark pelt, pinning the lithe warrior in place with her green gaze. "I need to stretch my legs," she'd said, her tone just a hair commanding. "Would you accompany me?" In truth, she's exhausted, visibly so; there is darkness steeped under her eyes from nights fraught with nightmares, with worries, and her movements are slow and ungainly from the moment they leave camp.

Still... this is the first time Scorchstorm has done so much as glance her direction. Part of her revels in the authority that allows her to command the tortoiseshell to be in her vicinity, even when she would rather not. Another part of her is still drenched in shame she cannot shake. I want you to want to be here. Is that too much to ask?

Yes. Yes, it is, she tells herself.

"You have not come to visit since I went into the nursery." Bluefrost's voice is cool and distant, as though she's making an inconsequential observation, but she's careful to avoid Scorchstorm's gaze. "In fact, I have had... few visitors. I keep thinking Cottonsprig will come to check on me..." She trails off, surprised at how raw the grief is still in her voice. She bites her whims off before they can escape from her.

"...In my dreams, she still does," she murmurs. She halts, catching her breath, and finally turns her face toward Scorchstorm's. Since Rattleheart's death, the Moor Runner has been reserved, distant. I wish I could give you comfort, but even if things were different... She remembers the lost look she'd given Sootstar after Weaselclaw's death, remembers the way her mother had shunned her kits and withdrawn to her den to grieve alone. I have never known how, but...

She swallows, suddenly afraid she's treading on unsteady ground. "...How are you?"

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and queen. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.
  
  

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[SCORCHSTORM]

Truthfully, Bluefrost's command was a pleasure to obey. Scorchstorm would not have minded obeying once, twice, as many times as she asked, were she not pregnant with someone else's kits. It really threw a wrench into things, didn't it?

Still, she accompanies Bluefrost now into the territory, the both of them moving at a snail's pace compared to normal. Bluefrost is heavy with kits; Scorchstorm is heavy with grief, as though still carrying Rattleheart's weight on her back. Their eyes are ringed in matching funeral black. It is the closest they have been in a while, and still the farthest apart.

Initially she had told herself she would accompany the new queen out of sheer pragmatism and deference to authority, but Scorchstorm lacks the patience with even herself to entertain that lie. She wants to be close to Bluefrost. She can feel the desire snaking beneath her legs as they walk the moor together, and she would like to cut its head off, but she does not. If nothing else comes of it, then at least it is something to feel. Scorchstorm has run short on feeling since she had put her aunt in the ground.

"You have not come to visit since I went into the nursery." What she feels now is a cold shock, an icicle stabbed through the vertebrae, a plunge beneath frozen water. The chill spreads through her, a rime on beach sand, until it is washed away by black, foamy waves. She is silent as an ocean spire while the other warrior mentions her few visitors, one of them only in dreams.

Scorchstorm's jaw tenses until a stabbing pain slashes through her right temple. "I am sorry," she rumbles, and means it. For all of the heartbreak she had gone through, picturing Bluefrost lonely does not soothe her. But she does not elaborate on her own absence. Her gaze brushes through Bluefrost's silky fur once, twice, and then casts away, out to where the horizon terminated.

As she looks away, she can feel Bluefrost's eyes on her. She hadn't meant to turn her cheek on the molly in such a way, but she is reluctant to correct it. Still, she turns again. Their eyes meet for what feels like the first time in moons. They both wear weariness deep in the creases on their faces. Scorchstorm's expression remains stoic, but it is tired in the way that the bearing of a bridge grows tired, holding the weight of everything that relies upon it.

"How are you?"

She thinks of Frostwind, of the trailing paw that explained away all that ailed him, and thinks briefly of doing the same. But she is not so obtuse, especially not with Bluefrost. For as much as she has tried to scorn the other molly (if only to save herself the heartbreak), she cannot do it, not fully. "Not good," she decides. Rattleheart is dead. She has drilled a gorge between Frostwind and herself. Rumblerain is estranged, or dead, or worse. She is envious of every warrior with an apprentice, and she is more envious of Bluefrost if only because the molly is living a dream that Scorchstorm can no longer grasp and it's her fault (it's not, but it feels that way).

And of course, there is more she cannot will herself to think of. Gravelpaw, Beefang, Roepaw. The mourning faces of Rattleheart's children, who she can hardly bear to look at. Scorchstorm blinks, and only then does she realize tears have rimmed her smoldering eyes. She does not let them fall.

"I am sorry. About not visiting. I...." A breath in, then out. She does not want to sound erratic, but her thoughts have not quite been in order since before... everything. Panic constricts her ragged throat. Should I really tell her? Should I tell her what I wanted all along? She will think I am wanting something still. She will hate me. "I thought... I did not realize, maybe, that you were so close with someone else. I was... hurt." She pauses, and her mouth becomes a frown. It still hurts, but for as much as it hurts, she would like to keep enduring. Maybe it isn't good for her, but she cares little about that now. It's like pressing on a bruise. When she continues, her tone grows flat: "And then everything else happened." A paw waves frivolously, as if it were an apt supplement for words. It feels distinctly unlike her, after all, but she has not been herself very often lately.

"And you? You look tired." She does not say it to be cruel. Scorchstorm's orange ear flicks, idly waiting for Bluefrost's response.

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐌 ✧

• ooc.
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 16 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

• 

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[BLUEFROST]

"I am sorry," Scorchstorm mews, and for what, she doesn't initially specify. Is she sorry Cottonsprig had disappeared? Is she sorry Bluefrost still has few friends in the Clan of her birth, of her inheritance? Or is she truly sorry her paws have not graced the nursery since Bluefrost had moved in? The green-eyed queen searches her friend's expression hungrily, but little is revealed. I am not owed your friendship, she thinks, but there's a petulant part of her that wants to scream that she is! This is a part of her instilled by glorious birth, by rain-pelted heritage; this is a part of her she still cannot shake, even as motherhood clouds her horizon.

Bluefrost's ears flick backward as Scorchstorm answers her. "Not good." She aches to press her protruding flank against the wiry figure of her moor runner friend, but she catches herself before she can. Would I still feel fire there, sparking between our pelts? Would she? Bluefrost's mouth twitches; her whiskers tremble in the slight breeze.

"I am sorry," she murmurs. "I owe Rattleheart my life." Her teeth feel in the way of her words; she maneuvers her tongue, guilt clouding her green gaze. "If not for him, I... I would have run to DuskClan or died. He showed me mercy and he brought me back to WindClan. I will never forget them." She chances a glance at Scorchstorm, wondering if the warrior will rebuke her for her paltry eulogy.

"I am sorry. About not visiting," Scorchstorm says, her breathing in, then out. Bluefrost stiffens, keeps her gaze away. "I thought... I did not realize, maybe, that you were so close with someone else. I was... hurt."

Bluefrost exhales. It's ragged, tattered. "I should not be. But I..." She closes her eyes against the wind that buffets her thick fur. "I cannot see him now." The truth comes out as an admission, blunted and sad, and she fixes her tortoiseshell companion with a look full of grief. "I feel I have lost everything. I do not want to lose your friendship, too. I am sorry." Her heart stings as she says it.

Do not push me away, please. Not now.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 18 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and queen. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.
  
  

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