- Apr 30, 2023
- 227
- 93
- 28
Thriftfeather has a thin routine that he has attempted to maintain even in the too-near walls of the nursery. He wakes just as the first veins of honey-colored dawn touch the narrow band of sky he is allowed to see through the mouth of the den. He breathes the morning air and catches a scent that is only definable as Leaf-fall beneath the coalescing scents of milk and warmth.
Gratitude chases Thriftfeather throughout—he is here in WindClan and he is unharmed. His arrival with Bluefrost could have, should have, gone wrong in a countless number of ways. He should have needed to pay an unacceptable price. Instead, Thriftfeather’s yellow-green eyes flick over to his nascent family and an overwhelming admiration stalls his breath for long enough to make his chest ache. Every morning for the rest of his golden life could be like this.
But then Thriftfeather rasps his tongue over his thin flank and feels the way disuse has already dwindled his lean muscles. He pushes such observations from his mind and closes his eyes as he completes his morning groom. It goes quicker than it had before; life in the nursery doesn’t tangle his pelt as stalking through scrub-briar had.
Camp wakes in tandem with Thriftfeather. His ears twist and perk at the muffled bits of conversation that find their way into the nursery; most are too indistinct to be understood beyond the achingly familiar voices that speak them. The fragments that can be understood are nothing more than the usual chatter that comes from the start of the day: a mentor warning a still-sleeping apprentice that they are expected for training, a meandering explanation of last night’s dream to an uncaring audience, tittering gossip exchanged between yawns.
Thriftfeather tries not to listen. His life is here and it is wrong of his greedy heart to ask for more than the ample he has been offered. He isn’t in DuskClan. He should be thankful for heavy ceiling of gorse branches that hangs over his head—he is grateful, enough so to ignore the thorns. Thriftfeather just needs to remind himself of that once reality encroaches in his still-tired mind. Thriftfeather rises and stretches the pops from his joints, doesn’t poke his face from the depths of the nursery. Rather, he walks a tight circle and lays back down in the same spot he had just risen from.
He is near enough to lean his weary body over his litter, to touch his nose to each of their small heads in turn. Thriftfeather has memorized their scents and their tiny, uncomprehending faces. Already, he cannot imagine a life where he hasn’t had this opportunity to know them. Perhaps selfishly he hopes that, should Sunstar turn Thriftfeather away after this time, that his kits will know his scent and process his lack through this repeated ritual.
WindClan has already offered Thriftfeather so much. Like settling back into the crease his body has made into his nest, Thriftfeather finds that he fits perfectly into reminding himself of this fact. Distance or DuskClan had made him forget this habit—now it is once again a part of his routine as fundamental as waking.
Unspent energy has always made Thriftfeather jittery. It takes an effort to not use every available space he has for movement or to not work his claws against his mossy nest until it is shreds like as he had done as an apprentice. He folds and unfolds his paws and shifts into different positions only in the unobtrusive space he has allowed himself, until frustration and some emotion uncomfortably close to regret hitches his breath against his ribs.
A thought that has followed him since his kit-hood and that has been buried a countless number of times surfaces: I want to go home.
It is once again stifled. Thriftfeather has thought it dozens of times when in DuskClan, so often that he had forgotten that DuskClan was not its origin. He had forgotten that his longing for home stretched like tap-roots down into his life, earlier and deeper than he had known; he had forgotten how unacceptable the want to reach for it had been. Home couldn’t be anything but this quiet place here—to feel otherwise is a betrayal with depths Thriftfeather cannot begin to comprehend. Thriftfeather evens his inhales before they can become gasps and clings to the previous gratitude, just as he has done each morning before.
He doesn’t allow his mind to linger on such nasty or hollow thoughts—or he attempts to disallow it. They occupy the space around him, overlaying one another like discarded gorse needles.
There is a point in his confinement to the nursery where the intensity of his emotions become mundane.
Every morning for the rest of his golden life could be like this. It isn’t a comfort as it had been before, nor is it a condemnation. A heart-filling love and the animal-want to feel sand grit against his calloused pads, an undercurrent of helpless fear that bites at the most unexpected times but surprises Thriftfeather regardless: his emotions touch at the fringes without mixing. This too is routine.
Gratitude chases Thriftfeather throughout—he is here in WindClan and he is unharmed. His arrival with Bluefrost could have, should have, gone wrong in a countless number of ways. He should have needed to pay an unacceptable price. Instead, Thriftfeather’s yellow-green eyes flick over to his nascent family and an overwhelming admiration stalls his breath for long enough to make his chest ache. Every morning for the rest of his golden life could be like this.
But then Thriftfeather rasps his tongue over his thin flank and feels the way disuse has already dwindled his lean muscles. He pushes such observations from his mind and closes his eyes as he completes his morning groom. It goes quicker than it had before; life in the nursery doesn’t tangle his pelt as stalking through scrub-briar had.
Camp wakes in tandem with Thriftfeather. His ears twist and perk at the muffled bits of conversation that find their way into the nursery; most are too indistinct to be understood beyond the achingly familiar voices that speak them. The fragments that can be understood are nothing more than the usual chatter that comes from the start of the day: a mentor warning a still-sleeping apprentice that they are expected for training, a meandering explanation of last night’s dream to an uncaring audience, tittering gossip exchanged between yawns.
Thriftfeather tries not to listen. His life is here and it is wrong of his greedy heart to ask for more than the ample he has been offered. He isn’t in DuskClan. He should be thankful for heavy ceiling of gorse branches that hangs over his head—he is grateful, enough so to ignore the thorns. Thriftfeather just needs to remind himself of that once reality encroaches in his still-tired mind. Thriftfeather rises and stretches the pops from his joints, doesn’t poke his face from the depths of the nursery. Rather, he walks a tight circle and lays back down in the same spot he had just risen from.
He is near enough to lean his weary body over his litter, to touch his nose to each of their small heads in turn. Thriftfeather has memorized their scents and their tiny, uncomprehending faces. Already, he cannot imagine a life where he hasn’t had this opportunity to know them. Perhaps selfishly he hopes that, should Sunstar turn Thriftfeather away after this time, that his kits will know his scent and process his lack through this repeated ritual.
WindClan has already offered Thriftfeather so much. Like settling back into the crease his body has made into his nest, Thriftfeather finds that he fits perfectly into reminding himself of this fact. Distance or DuskClan had made him forget this habit—now it is once again a part of his routine as fundamental as waking.
Unspent energy has always made Thriftfeather jittery. It takes an effort to not use every available space he has for movement or to not work his claws against his mossy nest until it is shreds like as he had done as an apprentice. He folds and unfolds his paws and shifts into different positions only in the unobtrusive space he has allowed himself, until frustration and some emotion uncomfortably close to regret hitches his breath against his ribs.
A thought that has followed him since his kit-hood and that has been buried a countless number of times surfaces: I want to go home.
It is once again stifled. Thriftfeather has thought it dozens of times when in DuskClan, so often that he had forgotten that DuskClan was not its origin. He had forgotten that his longing for home stretched like tap-roots down into his life, earlier and deeper than he had known; he had forgotten how unacceptable the want to reach for it had been. Home couldn’t be anything but this quiet place here—to feel otherwise is a betrayal with depths Thriftfeather cannot begin to comprehend. Thriftfeather evens his inhales before they can become gasps and clings to the previous gratitude, just as he has done each morning before.
He doesn’t allow his mind to linger on such nasty or hollow thoughts—or he attempts to disallow it. They occupy the space around him, overlaying one another like discarded gorse needles.
There is a point in his confinement to the nursery where the intensity of his emotions become mundane.
Every morning for the rest of his golden life could be like this. It isn’t a comfort as it had been before, nor is it a condemnation. A heart-filling love and the animal-want to feel sand grit against his calloused pads, an undercurrent of helpless fear that bites at the most unexpected times but surprises Thriftfeather regardless: his emotions touch at the fringes without mixing. This too is routine.
DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 19 MOONS ✦ TAGS