private i can’t handle change // cemetery visit

[butterflytuft]

// @FIGFEATHER @GREENEYES @FLUFFYPAW @weedpaw @Daisypaw @SANGRIAPAW

The sun hangs low in the sky, casting a soft golden light over the graveyard as Butterflytuft walks with her family through the familiar clearing. The air is crisp, tinged with the scent of earth and rainfall. Each pawstep feels heavy as they approach the resting places of their fallen kin, yet there's a sense of warmth in the gathering - the comfort of kinship in shared grief. She glances back at her kits who walk close together. She smiles gently, hoping to offer them some reassurance amidst the somber atmosphere. Beside her, her brother walks with his niece, Sangriapaw, Figfeather naturally ahead of them and leading the way. When Budkit is old enough to visit, she will be sure to bring her, too.

"Here we are," Butterflytuft murmurs, her voice soft as they arrive at the first grave - a gray stone where she lays down the wildflowers in her maw. "Your grandmother’s grave." She crouches down, placing her paw gently on the stone, feeling a familiar ache in her heart. Her body isn’t even here, she must remember with teary eyes. They didn’t even get the chance to bury her. Her thoughts drift to the memories they shared - laughter echoing in the nursery, the warmth of her tongue, and the love that flowed so freely before tragedy struck. Drawing in a whisper of a breath, she glances up at her siblings, mourning clouding her gaze. Even after so much time, she misses her terribly.

Taking a deep breath, she turns to her kits. "Why don't you each say something to her? It can be anything you want." She knows how important it is for them to connect with their lost kin, to keep their memories alive. "We can honor her spirit together. We can honor all of their spirits," The queen goes on to encourage, hoping to create a sense of familial unity in the experience. Snowpath, Violetnose, Dandelionwish…they’re all here.
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[Daisydrop]

He had visit the graves of clanmates before, helping to bury his father and making sure to tend to them, but never to speak to those that had passed. It felt morbid to stand above the bodies that had long since been buried to speak to them as they watched over everyone that still lived, so any time he had come here to tend to the graves and make sure they looked fine he had opted to do so in silence, so when the family had finally reached the site of Daisyflight and his mother turned to him and his siblings and they were asked to say something to her, he was surprised at first.

Maw opened for a moment before shutting, eyes glancing over to the other graves around the area before they landed on Daisyflight's once more, a grandmother that he had been named after but had never met, kin that he was named after but didn't know anything about other than the stories that had been shared. Throat was awkwardly cleared before maw would open once more, Hi grandma, he'd begin, eyes glancing to his mother for just a moment before they focused in on the rock once more, "I'm gonna try hard to be like you, brave and helpful... and I wish I could have met you." He was going to try to make her proud, so that his name meant as much good to SkyClan as hers did.

ooc ♡ careful now with my head

• --
• 
• DAISYPAW ♡ he/him / apprentice of SkyClan
  
  
  ♡ born november 8, 2023. ages realistically
  ♡ adopted by Butterflytuft and Dandelionwish
  ♡ brother to Weedpaw, Fluffypaw, and Budkit
  ♡ mentored by Figfeather
  ♡ speaks in #708abb
  ♡ peaceful powerplay allowed
  ♡ penned by tikki
  

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[FIGFEATHER]

It wasn't often Figfeather got to gather with her kin, let alone all of them, or almost all of them. Coffeepaw was off doing StarClan only knows what. His mother may have nabbed him before she could. Sangriapaw was with them though, at Greeneyes' shoulder. Though she knew little of how to communicate with her daughter, the red tabby felt comforted by her presence.

With each passing moon, SkyClan's graveyard expanded. More and more graves were dug, and Figfeather had forgotten the image of what it looked like back when only several bodies were buried here. Her whiskers twitched with discomfort as she stepped aside to allow her kin room to gather.

Butterflytuft went to Daisyflight's grave and encouraged her kits to share words. She stiffened, realizing she had never asked anything of the sort from Coffeepaw and Sangriapaw. Should she have? Her eyes flickered to her daughter's pelt, and she gave her an awkward look of approval in case she decided to say something as well.

Figfeather's gaze drifted to the grave that belonged to Snowpath, his young and youthful face flashing abruptly in her mind. She often forgot how young he truly had been when he died. Despite his warrior name, he had never physically made it out of the apprentice's den. She looked at Butterflytuft's kits, and then at Sangriapaw. They were about as old as he was—as he had been. She drew in an uncomfortable breath as a woozy feeling washed over her.

Wobbly, she sat down next to his grave, looking as if she had seen a ghost as Daisypaw's words to his grandmother echoed through her ears.

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[FLUFFYPAW]

Fluffypaw matches Weedpaw and Daisypaw's stride, though her posture mimics Butterflytuft's in her youth: low shoulders, lowered skull, ears close to her crown. She lets her tail drag behind her, disturbing the pine needles and the long-settled dust of the graveyard. Figfeather leads the procession, while Greeneyes and Sangriapaw are nearby. It feels odd, to be grouped together like this, to be with kin who she largely feels she's outgrown; it makes her sad, and she's sadder yet when she faces Daisyflight's grave.

"Why don't you each say something to her?" Butterflytuft smiles at each of them, gently encouraging. Meanwhile, Figfeather is silent, her amber gaze fixed on the mound of earth that contained Snowpath's body.

Daisypaw goes first. "I'm gonna try hard to be like you, brave and helpful..." And Daisypaw is like her, she thinks; her brother is brave and helpful and he takes on his apprenticeship with fire in his blue gaze.

Fluffypaw clears her throat. Her green gaze drifts, locating graves: Snowpath's... Dandelionwish's... Daisyflight's... who to speak to, she wonders? She misses her father every day, but would be proud of the she-cat she's become — a mishap waiting to happen, cowardly, a burden? She thinks of Candorpaw in the woods that day, his reddish coat bristling as he put every ounce of ferocity he had into driving that fox away, and she feels sick.

She does not deserve to honor real warriors who had overcome real hardships, who had died saving Clanmates, who had died giving service to their Clan.

Still, she murmurs, her voice soft: "I wish I had met you, too." Her whiskers tremble. "I wish you could have shown me how to be as brave as you. I promise I would have learned."

I will try without you, she thinks forlornly, but I know it won't be enough.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Fluffykit . Fluffypaw, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 11 moons old, ages realistically on the 8th.
  — mentored by Greeneyes ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a.
  — skyclan apprentice. butterflytuft x dandelionwish, gen 3.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  lh chocolate tortie/cream chimera with jade eyes. frightened, clingy, anxious, gentle.
  
  

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[SANGRIAPAW]

✧ The tone of this family outing is a bit somber, she thinks. They’re going to a graveyard though, so that’s a given, isn’t it? Sangriapaw walks alongside the rest of her kin, fluffy tail fluttering behind her. She hasn’t really felt close with any of her family for moons now—since she became an apprentice, and everything started feeling so unfair. But somehow she’s ended up agreeing to go to the graveyard with them, feeling like the odd one out since Coffeepaw isn’t here. Figfeather doesn’t really say anything to her, and so Sangriapaw doesn’t say anything to the lead warrior, either. Instead she nods in response to Butterflytuft’s suggestion, joining her cousins at Daisyflight’s grave.

"I bet you were awesome," she says, because I wish I met you is a good sentiment, but it’s been said already. Surely Daisyflight doesn’t just want to hear the same thing over and over again. "I wish you were my mentor. We coulda had so much fun together, I bet—you’d show me all the coolest climbin‘ moves." She thinks of Johnnyflame, and how he’d been so patient when he taught her about climbing. He’d shown her the best way to shimmy backward down a tree trunk, and how to find her balance and then keep it. He’s taught her so much… yet he still chose dumb Silversmoke over her. Over SkyClan. Daisyflight would never have chosen to give up her responsibilities just for a tom who isn’t even nice.

She sighs, focusing on the matter at hand. Her grandmother’s grave rests before her, definitive proof that Daisyflight is gone forever, and Sangriapaw is just talking about what could have happened if she were still alive. "But for now, I’ll just… wait to see ya someday." Her muzzle lifts in a halfhearted smile, trying to appear positive despite the implication that she won’t meet any of her lost kin again until she herself is gone.

can’t stop us ♫˚.⋆⭒ gliding down the rainbow

• ooc: —
• 
• SANGRIAPAW ❯❯ she/her, daylight apprentice of skyclan
  ⭃ wild-furred cinnamon torbie with white spotting and vibrant leaf-green eyes. bold, bright, and curious.
  ⭃ daughter of fantastream & figfeather ; sister to coffeepaw
  ⭃ mentored by johnnyflame
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  ⭃ penned by foxlore

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