private I FIND HER NOT — bluepaw

[Thriftfeather]

Now that the thought has crossed his mind, Thriftpaw cannot put it away.

He's normally fine enough at pushing the less than desirable thoughts from his head, or else his mind is fine enough at leaving his body to do its very own bidding in order to avoid thinking altogether. The only times that Thriftpaw's thoughts linger are when they surprise him: those days when they come on too sudden and cannot be shaken by firmly turning the other way. But then Thriftpaw had thought the corpse and he has been able to do little else but pick at the thought — pick at the memory — until he feels overwrought and exhausted.

It feels like an inconsistency. Thriftpaw is aware of the little inconsistencies in his memories. No memory is as perfect as it had happened in the moment, but an entire body being unaccounted for feels like too large an imperfection. Thriftpaw considers his options with the same careful precision he considers everything else and then, as soon as he spots Bluepaw, Thriftpaw's plans fall out of his ears, and he hurries his steps to catch up with the other apprentice.

"Bluepaw," Thriftpaw comes to a stop besides her, his voice strained as if out of breath from such a short distance, "Bluepaw! I was wondering — I wanted to ask what WindClan, what uh, we do, when there are trespassers."​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 6 MOONS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

“Bluepaw!” A voice whips through the air, distracting her from her single-minded jaunt. The blue-gray she-cat halts and half-turns to stare at the cat accosting her. Golden-furred and breathless, Thriftpaw approaches on hurried paws, words all atumble. “Yes? What is it?” She regards him coolly. He’s one of the moor runner apprentices, one who’s always being shadowed by Ghostwail’s creepy, stinking skeleton. She thinks she can detect a hint of corpse on his pelt even from this distance. Unfortunate, really.

His question causes her eyelids to flicker, but otherwise her expression reveals nothing. “What do we do?” She repeats. “You’re a moor runner—shouldn’t you know?” Her father is always preaching about WindClan’s borders, their boundaries, how it’s a moor runner’s honor to defend them with claw and fang. She shifts her paws, sitting so that her feathered tail neatly covers her paws. “We drive them away without mercy,” she says in a patient voice. “We do what we must to protect WindClan’s integrity.”

After a moment, her green eyes narrow just slightly. “Why are you asking me this and not your mentor?” Surely Gravelsnap would have told the young tom the same thing, she thinks curiously.

ooc ✧ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓈

•  
•  
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  — bluekit . bluepaw
  — she/her, apprentice of windclan
  — bisexual ; single
  — long-haired blue she-cat with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — art by Meg

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Bluepaw gives the answer that Thriftpaw had been expecting — he tries and fails to not shrink under her scrutiny, and offers her a strained smile in a poor attempt to conceal his discomfort. He doesn't ask Gravelsnap for a number of reasons, namely because Gravelsnap would have questions of his own about what Thriftpaw plans to ask about, and also because he'd seen Bluepaw first. Impulsiveness doesn't suit him, but he's here now, and Bluepaw has already sat down.

"This isn't about uh — training things," Thriftpaw mirrors Bluepaw, folds his own white-tipped tail over his paws, "I just remembered something that was, I remembered something odd from before I was here, and I was just trying to sort it out." He manages to sound far more casual than he feels, settles into himself, or settles into what is expected of him.

Does removing trespassers ever end in a body?

Thriftpaw doesn't ask. He doesn't know which of the possible answers would be worse, and he doesn't want Bluepaw digging into what should remain between himself and Ghostwail. He protects her and, in her own way, she protects him. Thriftpaw's eyes flick about rapidly as he thinks before they end back on Bluepaw, "Do you think you could help with something like that?"​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 7 MOONS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Bluepaw watches Thriftpaw shrink away from her, his smile nervous. She is not sure why that would be. Had she said something unintentionally threatening? The gray she-cat lifts a navy-socked paw and idly licks a streak of mud from it. The grit burns her tongue. “What did you remember?”

The girl isn’t in the business of helping. She is Sootstar’s daughter, her protégé, made and now molded in her image. She is the princess of these moorlands. One day, the forest will tremble before her and her littermates the way it does for their mother and father. And Thriftpaw is nice enough, but he’s…

Green eyes bear into golden fur passively. An outsider.

“Very well,” she says. Thriftpaw is her subject. It is benign of her to help him.

ooc ✧ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓈

•  
•  
• 

  — bluekit . bluepaw
  — she/her, apprentice of windclan
  — bisexual ; single
  — long-haired blue she-cat with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — art by Meg

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

It was normal, expected, that Bluepaw would ask about what Thriftpaw remembers. He moves as if it has caught him off guard; his rabbit-heart catches speed. It isn't as though Thriftpaw can be truthful, but he could tell Bluepaw just enough to get the information he needs. She doesn't seem so interested that she'll pursue anything more for her own curiosities — Thriftpaw sighs, and it's something like relief.

"It was before I was here," Thriftpaw reiterates, holds his paw above the sand in an approximation of his height at the time, and then lets it drop, "But I was, we were, me and my mother were here, in the moor. She seemed nervous and —" It's harder for Thriftpaw to talk about than he expected. He's never spoken about it before, not at length. Any of his attempts with Ghostwail were shut down before they could become anything more, "And... and I was only this big."

Thriftpaw holds his shaking paw over the sand again, glares at his previous smallness, and realizes that he is angry. He wants someone to share in that anger, to feel it on his behalf. He wants agreement: yes, you were so small, then, and that was too small to see terrible things. He isn't going to get that from Bluepaw.

"Sorry," he says, "I won't — I'll try not to get distracted again. My mother made me hide in a gorse, and that's — that's when," Thriftpaw touches his paw to his torn ear, an idle motion, "I saw Ghostwail. She was..." She was so fast, and Thriftpaw could only see so much from between the branches. He doesn't finish the thought, "They fought, Ghostwail and my mother," A lie, it was over so fast, "But Ghostwail won, and my mother ran off, but her fur was everywhere."

He's still touching his ear, he realizes. He drops it, overturns his paw and expects for however brief a moment to see it bloodied, "That's when I tore my ear on a gorse thorn, and Ghostwail noticed me. When she brought me back to camp she didn't — she didn't mention any of that stuff, and no one else mentioned —" Thriftpaw looks away from Bluepaw, "—the fur, or smelling a trespasser, or seeing any signs of a fight. A patrol would — that's weird, isn't it? Wouldn't a patrol mention that sort of thing?"​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 7 MOONS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Bluepaw sits in silence as Thriftpaw stutters through his memory. She watches him through those narrow, half-lidded green eyes, as though she is more interested in the grass beneath their paws or the heather scenting their fur than his story. She is not, though—because the golden tom tells her of his origins, of the day he’d been brought to WindClan.

“I was only this big,” he tells her, a bright yellow paw hovering over the earth. Bluepaw’s impassive expression does not give way to sympathy, and Thriftpaw continues. “Sorry,” he tells her, promising not to get distracted again. She likes that, likes that Thriftpaw respects her enough to show her that courtesy. She dips her head in a mimicry of a curtsy, encouraging him to start again.

“My mother made me hide in a gorse, and that’s—that’s when I saw Ghostwail.” Bluepaw’s ears flick forward. The silvery-pale cheek fluff caressing her cheeks tilts with them. “They fought?” She echoes him, finding herself a touch disappointed by the story. So Ghostwail came upon a trespassing queen and the two of them fought. It’s a story as old as time, except the blood-eyed rogue had thought to check for nearby kits.

But his next comment catches her attention all over again. “A patrol certainly would have seen such a thing, yes,” she murmurs. “There would have been a struggle. Blood, as you say. Fur. Yes.” She tilts her head. “Your mother never came back for you.” It’s an observation. It’s also a question.

ooc ✧ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓈

•  
•  
• 

  — bluekit . bluepaw
  — she/her, apprentice of windclan
  — bisexual ; single
  — long-haired blue she-cat with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — art by Meg

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

He gets what he needs: confirmation of his suspicions. If signs of a battle would be reported, certainly a body wouldn’t go unmentioned. Thriftpaw doesn’t know what to with such information, doesn’t know where he can take it from here. The possibilities feel so small — something like this was unlikely to go unnoticed. Before Thriftpaw could be pulled too far into his head, Bluepaw speaks again, and Thriftpaw understands the question underneath the statement.

For a long moment, Thriftpaw considers honesty. He considers what the truth could do to him, to Bluepaw, to Ghostwail, and feels so momentarily queasy that he is forced to shove the idea elsewhere.

“How could she have?” Thriftpaw says instead, gently. In this scenario, had his mother been capable of returning to him — what would have happened? Would WindClan have let him go?

Would it have been so simple?

"That’s how I remember," Thriftpaw adds, because he would rather do anything than dwell on what-ifs, "Ghostwail said she found me abandoned, called my mother careless, and nothing, nothing else about it." He wishes he could remember a location, but when Thriftpaw had been carried to camp for the first time non-comprehension had whitened his world into nothing. Before that, he remembers ground that had been full of pebbles and that the immediate area had been all gorse and tall grasses, hardly a unique sight on WindClan's territory.

He looks at Bluepaw properly then. This would be easier if she would give him some sort of sign as to what she was thinking — but it is either that she is holding herself back or she is truly impassive to Thriftpaw's words, "What I remember — what I remember is so vivid, but, I don't, I don't —" Thriftpaw swallows thickly, and tries not to think about it, "Please don't, uh, mention this to anyone else," He says instead.​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 7 MOONS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Thriftpaw quiets in the face of her question. Bluepaw can see his hesitation, but she still feels out of her element trying to decipher his feelings, his story. She longs for her mother’s perceptive skills, for her sister’s easy charm, Harrierstripe’s cunning or Addervenom’s intimidation, but all she has is herself. An ear flicks, the fur tickling her nose as she turns her head. “How could she have?” He speaks softly, gently.

Bluepaw responds, “Do you think she is dead? Or do you think she would die if she tried to come back for you?” WindClan’s way of life has been bred into her; the brutality her mother commands and her father enforces is in her blood. But Thriftpaw isn’t from WindClan, and something about the idea of his mother being attacked—something doesn’t seem right about it. She is not sure if this is because of the careful, shy way he speaks to her, if he is ingratiating himself to her, but she finds herself faintly, vaguely troubled nonetheless.

He tells her, “Ghostwail said she found me abandoned, called my mother careless, and nothing, nothing else about it.” Bluepaw stares at him unblinkingly. “And you know this to be a falsehood,” she says, matching his soft tone. “But you are the only one who knows.” After a heartbeat, she murmurs, “You… and now, me.”

There is power in this knowledge, but she does not know what kind or what use it is. She only knows she feels grateful Thriftpaw has confided in her, and when he tentatively asks her not to mention this story to anyone else, she waves a paw, half-dismissively. “Fear not. Who would I repeat such a thing to? It would not do either of us any good, I fear.” She smiles. It is lazy and bland, but becoming on her features. “I will guard your secret with my heart, Thriftpaw.”

Again, she feels the power—power over him—and her smile turns a touch richer on her muzzle.

ooc ✧ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓈

•  

• 

• 

  — bluekit . bluepaw
  — she/her, apprentice of windclan
  — bisexual ; single
  — long-haired blue she-cat with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — art by Meg

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Bluepaw doesn't hold back in her questioning. Thriftpaw is stuck between many things: what he wants to say, what he can say, and the great unknown of what Bluepaw would be willing to hear. Would she take it as an insult or a point of pride if Thriftpaw told her just how dangerous he thought WindClan was? It could paralyze him, if he lingers on it. So many things could.

"I don't know what happened to her," His mouth feels ashy around the lie. It isn't an answer to Bluepaw's question; Thriftpaw catches himself quickly, "But — but I think that had she been capable of it, she would have come for me." It's the most middling response Thriftpaw could make, with just enough truth to not strengthen his guilt. Whatever that means for his mother's assumed fate, Thriftpaw will let Bluepaw speculate on her own.

It's Bluepaw's faith in Thriftpaw's memory that surprises him. Really surprises him, as opposed to the surface level startles that jolt through him at the smallest of things. She doesn't suggest what Thriftpaw quietly had worried she would: that it had been some time ago, and that he had been young. That the reason none of this makes any sense if because he'd confused some imagining for reality — (but why would he imagine something so terrible?) — and that he was simply unwanted and left behind.

She reassures him of their now shared secret instead, smiles in such a way that Thriftpaw cannot help but return. His own comes trembling and hesitant and terribly genuine, "Thank you," He breathes and then, louder, "Thank you. You don't, you can't possibly know what a big help you have been." Because even though the inconsistency remained, it was still information — still something Thriftpaw could work from, as soon as he figured out how.​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 7 MOONS​