private IT'S GREENER SCENERY | cottonsprig

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

The medicine den is warm. The world outside is overcast; cold gray light spills from the den's maw, barely breaking through the cloying miasma of herb scent, but the soil-packed walls are well insulated. Cottonsprig is beside him, swiping at his wound with a clump of wet moss. He'd relish the warmth against his frigid, frost-nipped pelt, but the icy glower she pins him with is enough to keep Sedgepounce frozen through.

It wasn't so long ago that Sedgepounce was on her bad side. They'd just made amends—now, on her home turf, he's balancing tripwires not to stumble back there.

The silence is suffocating. He tries patience, sitting stock-still as she cleans the wound and only wincing a little when it needles him. He hopes, with enough time, she'll take pity on him. But after several long minutes of rumination, Sedgepounce decides he either has to say something or explode.

"Um. Is it...healing okay?" he asks in a small, hopeful voice.
​

 

[cottonsprig]

The coolness of her actions are methodical. Cottonsprig normally prides herself in her warmth and casual processes, hoping that her softer demeanor will invite comfort in her den. But as Sedgepounce sits before her, his wound her priority, she can't help the locking of her joints and the neutrality in her expression. She's already unleashed on him and Scorchstorm once for being so foolish - it'd be unfair to prattle on once again.

But even now, even as she grimaces at a corner of his wound, the silence is stifling. Most of her is relieved when he breaks it, though a part of her admittedly wishes he had suffered through more of it. You know I'm upset, she blinks, a step back as she assesses him in his entirety. "It's doing well enough," she decides, "It's good that you're more often on top of the moors - the tunnelers have it worse with keeping injuries clean..." Though it'd be a tangent in itself to express how many WindClanners simply struggle in cleanliness and vanity both, regardless of their profession.

She leans back on her haunches, and after a moment says, "You shouldn't need any more from me, if you keep up the way you have." Cottonsprig ignores the ache in her chest as she says it, for even if she detests his ill gotten injury, she enjoyed the brief stints of company it got her. (And then it's frustrating, then, that she had to endure them with furrowed brows - and that's another unnecessary tangent that she quiets in her mind.)

A pause. She opens her maw to say something, and then closes it to say nothing more instead.

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

• ooc //

• ❥ MEDICINAL KNOWLEDGE
  ♥♥♡ WOUNDS ; can confidently stop bleeding and mend lacerations. will often request that you keep your injury clean and wait it out first.
  ♥♥♡ INFECTION ; as a side effect of likely her own doing, very dutiful with technique and treatment shortly thereafter.
  ♥♡♡ ACHES & PAINS ; will defer to a dark tunnel and rest. if pain persists, maybe she will offer something.
  ♥♡♡ BROKEN BONES ; has never dealt with a broken bone. likely will ask that you never move. ever again.
  ♥♥♥ TRAVELING HERBS ; learned well from her previous mentor. will pile even too many remedies to tough the wilderness with.
  ♥♥♥ KITTING ; having kittens of her own and helped several others with their litters, she is very well versed with calming techniques and quelling pain.
  ♥♡♡ POISONS ; she knows what they are... but that isn't enough, isn't it?
  ♥♥♡ ILLNESS ; having worked through two yellowcough bouts, she is confident in her remedies. much else... she's operating on trial and error.
  ⸻ cottonsprig is a dutiful and excitable medicine cat. she enjoys company and loves conversation. she'd rather not have too many curious noses snooping around her den... but who is she to quell curiosity?

• 

  ⸻❥ cottonsprig is the primary medicine cat of windclan. a former princess to the moors, she harbors many guilts for her actions throughout her short life. she has no consistent partner, unwilling to commit and settle, and she is training celandinepaw in medicine.

​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

Her clipped responses are met with wide, round eyes, and a burgeoning hope that feels almost childish to keep. He knows he messed up. Volatile emotions and distracted sparring a bad match make—he and Scorchstorm deserve to have their hides tanned, but the thought that this slip-up could culminate in a deeper fissure scares him to his core. Dumbly, Sedgepounce nods along to her words.

She gives him the clear to leave. That's good. Except it's not, really. Some ominous cloud obviously hangs over Cottonsprig's head when she says it. Maybe it's code for "leave and never come back here"? "Uh...cool, cool," he hedges, shuffling his paws in lieu of breaking for the exit.

Another tense moment of silence passes. Is it crazy to believe that they used to be close?

"If you want, I could, like, go try to find some of those herbs you used on me? Maybe some of 'em survived the coldsnap?" If he replenished the supply, it'd make his injury a net neutral. It might take some of the weight off her shoulders. "You'd have to show me what to look for, but I'll pick it up quick." He smiles at her. It's a little funny and lopsided with his wound, but it's earnest.
​

 

[cottonsprig]

She draws a tongue over a snow white paw, feigning disinterest beneath a veil of vanity as she all but dismisses him. Silence hangs in the air, only disrupted by his own shuffling paws. Cottonsprig deems her behavior childish and petty, but she still cannot stop herself from pressing forth in her dissipating frustration.

His offer, however, pulls a short laugh out of her. A sudden breath expelled, not quite in shock but not necessarily expected, either. Blue eyes crease around by the corners for a moment whilst she observes him, his awkwardness hardly waning as he strives to close the distance once again.

"Coming for my job now, huh?" A tease, pressed with a newly clean paw to his chest, "I'd prefer it if you practiced with claws sheathed going forward," she chirps. She cannot bear to impart on him that the freeze would make it too difficult to bestow him even the basics; training Celandinepaw in this weather is already hard enough. "And... a rabbit," Cottonsprig says, and she lightens more, shaking away the debris of agitation. "One for us to share. You warriors have to fatten up before there's nothing to eat..." A fear they no doubt share with the aforementioned cold snap.

The silence doesn't draw on long. Whether he breaks it first, delving into chatter with her as if she hasn't afforded him the silent treatment before, or she does - jealousy sparks in her chest and she tames it with a quiet, edging inquiry, "We could invite Foxglare, too; I fear he's missing meals."

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

• ooc //

• ❥ MEDICINAL KNOWLEDGE
  ♥♥♡ WOUNDS ; can confidently stop bleeding and mend lacerations. will often request that you keep your injury clean and wait it out first.
  ♥♥♡ INFECTION ; as a side effect of likely her own doing, very dutiful with technique and treatment shortly thereafter.
  ♥♡♡ ACHES & PAINS ; will defer to a dark tunnel and rest. if pain persists, maybe she will offer something.
  ♥♡♡ BROKEN BONES ; has never dealt with a broken bone. likely will ask that you never move. ever again.
  ♥♥♥ TRAVELING HERBS ; learned well from her previous mentor. will pile even too many remedies to tough the wilderness with.
  ♥♥♥ KITTING ; having kittens of her own and helped several others with their litters, she is very well versed with calming techniques and quelling pain.
  ♥♡♡ POISONS ; she knows what they are... but that isn't enough, isn't it?
  ♥♥♡ ILLNESS ; having worked through two yellowcough bouts, she is confident in her remedies. much else... she's operating on trial and error.
  ⸻ cottonsprig is a dutiful and excitable medicine cat. she enjoys company and loves conversation. she'd rather not have too many curious noses snooping around her den... but who is she to quell curiosity?

• 

  ⸻❥ cottonsprig is the primary medicine cat of windclan. a former princess to the moors, she harbors many guilts for her actions throughout her short life. she has no consistent partner, unwilling to commit and settle, and she is training celandinepaw in medicine.

​

.

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

The first laugh that breaks from her is like air in his lungs, the first thaw in the ice. She finally pities him enough to smile, and the feeling of relief in his chest hits him with tidal-wave force. Coming for my job now, huh? "Aw, 'course not," Sedgepounce chimes bashfully, following the paw at his chest with warm brown eyes. Briefly, the levity wanes, and he fixes the medicine cat a solemn look. "Me too. I really am sorry, Cot. I know it's a huge waste." He's not usually this irresponsible anymore, but he looks back to the spar and the whiplash of injury and thinks: At least it was just me.

Scorchstorm nearly shed a tear at her mistake. Had their roles been swapped, Sedgepounce thinks he probably would have sobbed.

For his crime of wasting valuable resources, a meal shared with a friend is a merciful punishment. His heart sings; then at her hedging addition, it sinks. "You think so?" the tomcat echoes. He and Foxglare have always made an odd pair—opposites attract and all. Everything Foxglare does is filtered by a candidly stony expression. A sharp glower here, a half-lipped smile there. Sedgepounce, on the other paw, cannot help but to show his every inner thought on his face. He looks at Cottonsprig now with another somewhat devastated look, glum, round eyes and all.

"He was..." Should he say? Sedgepounce knows that Cottonsprig and Foxglare are close, at least on some level. At some point he thought they were sweet on each other, but that was back when he was still mad at her, so that was a possibility vehemently ignored. "He was really torn up when you were gone. I just assumed he was worried about you, but...d'you think something else is bothering him?" Maybe she's got some idea he hasn't thought of. Maybe she knows something he doesn't.
​

 

[cottonsprig]

A softened, "I know you are," spares itself from her lips as he apologizes, likely for the tenth time since he's gotten hurt. A huge waste is the least of it, and like Sedgepounce, she thinks of gratitude in that the slip up was only the rugged scar across his nose now. If it were any worse, or if Scorchstorm were here instead... It's a fleeting thought of if the roles were reversed. Her anger would've been stronger, even days after the incident. Grudges would be held for the fire-burned molly. But for the tom... she laughs, she waves it away, and suggests a meal instead.

Mentioning Foxglare dredges up a perfectly familiar expression on Sedgepounce's countenance; sorrow. She'd seen him wear this pitiful look more times than she can count, and it has never brought warmth to her chest. The comfort that lies in it revels only to know that little has changed between them despite their seemingly moons apart. He's vulnerable with her, and she sits before him settled in her discomfort and jealousy. A bid to spend time with friends and think no more of their bonds (only to dwell and feel worse when the night was over.)

His sadness burls into uncertain words. To the watchful eye, Cottonsprig's demeanor shifts noticeably. She looks away from his amber gaze when he mentions the time of her disappearance, of Foxglare's worry and grief. Her pale paws tuck closer to herself, her belly, and instinctively she checks, as if it's grown round again.

It's a long pause, between his words and her own. It's dreadful and she desperately wishes that he would just... take it back. She cannot lie to him, however. And his vulnerability... deserves to be rewarded.

"I have a lot of secrets, Sedgepounce," she murmurs with a new, startling quiet. "You... You know one. Foxglare knows another. The Clan... the Clan knows neither," and there are more that remain unspoken, hidden beneath her bitten tongue. "I... I trust you," it almost hurts to admit it; but as she does, she thinks that she would've said it at any moment. When they were best friends, when they were angry with one another... Her trust was always his to hold.

"Do you trust me?"

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

• ooc //

• ❥ MEDICINAL KNOWLEDGE
  ♥♥♡ WOUNDS ; can confidently stop bleeding and mend lacerations. will often request that you keep your injury clean and wait it out first.
  ♥♥♡ INFECTION ; as a side effect of likely her own doing, very dutiful with technique and treatment shortly thereafter.
  ♥♡♡ ACHES & PAINS ; will defer to a dark tunnel and rest. if pain persists, maybe she will offer something.
  ♥♡♡ BROKEN BONES ; has never dealt with a broken bone. likely will ask that you never move. ever again.
  ♥♥♥ TRAVELING HERBS ; learned well from her previous mentor. will pile even too many remedies to tough the wilderness with.
  ♥♥♥ KITTING ; having kittens of her own and helped several others with their litters, she is very well versed with calming techniques and quelling pain.
  ♥♡♡ POISONS ; she knows what they are... but that isn't enough, isn't it?
  ♥♥♡ ILLNESS ; having worked through two yellowcough bouts, she is confident in her remedies. much else... she's operating on trial and error.
  ⸻ cottonsprig is a dutiful and excitable medicine cat. she enjoys company and loves conversation. she'd rather not have too many curious noses snooping around her den... but who is she to quell curiosity?

• 

  ⸻❥ cottonsprig is the primary medicine cat of windclan. a former princess to the moors, she harbors many guilts for her actions throughout her short life. she has no consistent partner, unwilling to commit and settle, and she is training celandinepaw in medicine.

​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

His eye isn't particularly watchful. Sedgepounce scans the medicine cat's face, not for clues or subtle slip-ups, but for some semblance of connection—of understanding. The scorn he felt at her closeness with Foxglare is a cauterized wound. Sutured, burned, healed. If she knows some way to dissipate that dark cloud above Foxglare's head, he's not too heartsick to hear it.

So he thinks so pitifully, painfully little of the way Cottonsprig seems to shrink beneath the weight of the den around her. He expects some confession about her rogue run-in. How scary it was—how Foxglare fought and failed and how it burdens him even now. That's something he can fix, maybe.

Everything else fades away until it's just the two of them, Cottonsprig's burgeoning confession the pindrop in a dull and silent world. She looks at him; pins him beneath sharp, unblinking blue eyes like a moth to tackboard. At first it's startling. His heart squeezes and it feels like she's going to launch another earth-shattering revelation at him. Fear strikes him for a moment, then he thinks: Oh.

They are sweet on each other.

He's not sure why they wouldn't just...tell him. Or anyone for that matter. He understands that it may have been awkward during their period of silent treatment, but Foxglare's everything to him—he could say he'd fallen in love with Snakehiss of all cats and Sedgepounce would still try to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In any case, it's news he can deal with. News he can celebrate, even! And for now, it grants him a semblance of peace despite the inklings of dread that still linger in his chest.

Cottonsprig stares at him with the bluest eyes in the world.

"Of course, Cottie," Sedgepounce murmurs. Despite everything, he means it.
​

 

[cottonsprig]

She feels as if even the gorse is listening, pressing closer for whatever revelation she is to offer the tom. Sedgepounce, her close friend - a bond once broken but now steadily put together once again. Cottonsprig knows, as she searches his eyes for uncertainty, of fear or trepidation (or perhaps to see if anything of her own mirrors to him,) that if circumstances were different... he would already know. He would've been among the trusted individuals she held close. She had told Foxglare, Juncoclaw, Bluefrost... and they each reacted to different degree of disbelief, but him...

She supposes, in the brief moments between her inquiry and his admission, that she would have a show of his reaction anyways. Maybe it is delayed, maybe with droplets of confusion and misplaced anger for how late it is - but it'd be the same, would it not?

Don't hate me. She thinks of how Juncoclaw looked at her when she admitted the secret, how the then-prisoner demeaned her for not being exclusionary - for not knowing how the other felt for her. How her sister, too, was incredulous over the fact that she couldn't name the sire. Foxglare had been kind about it, though she can only imagine how he felt. Had he been upset, too, to know that they were not exclusive? To not know if the kits she bore were his or not?

If he did... he never said. Even to this day, he remains a shoulder for her to lean on, regardless of the details that can never be shared between them.

She lets out a breath she did not know she was holding, a shudder to it as she looks to her paws. The words are harder to place, even though she had said them before. Cottonsprig supposes that it will never get easier, even if her trust lays so broadly at his paws - her heart to be splayed and ready for him to score, should he deem it right to.

The medicine cat leans closer to him, as if her whisper is still too quiet to be heard from a mouselength away. Her tail curls tighter around her, and she swallows the knot in her throat.

"I had kits," she murmurs into the foreboding silence. Cottonsprig by instinct wants to explain further, as if her moons of woe and fear could assuage her sin at all. As if her anger, sadness - the fact that she lives mere foxlengths from her children yet she can never call them such... as if all can be understood in a few rapid fire words. But ultimately, her voice dies with the attempt. She can't look at him - she can't recall if she had watched the reaction of any of her friends when she told them. Strength is something she rarely holds; weakness and vulnerability are her more common companions.

"He knows," she says, eventually, softly. "He..." a longer pause, for again so much could be said, but she struggles to string the words together. "He knows," a sense of finality trembles in the words.

𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

• ooc //

• ❥ MEDICINAL KNOWLEDGE
  ♥♥♡ WOUNDS ; can confidently stop bleeding and mend lacerations. will often request that you keep your injury clean and wait it out first.
  ♥♥♡ INFECTION ; as a side effect of likely her own doing, very dutiful with technique and treatment shortly thereafter.
  ♥♡♡ ACHES & PAINS ; will defer to a dark tunnel and rest. if pain persists, maybe she will offer something.
  ♥♡♡ BROKEN BONES ; has never dealt with a broken bone. likely will ask that you never move. ever again.
  ♥♥♥ TRAVELING HERBS ; learned well from her previous mentor. will pile even too many remedies to tough the wilderness with.
  ♥♥♥ KITTING ; having kittens of her own and helped several others with their litters, she is very well versed with calming techniques and quelling pain.
  ♥♡♡ POISONS ; she knows what they are... but that isn't enough, isn't it?
  ♥♥♡ ILLNESS ; having worked through two yellowcough bouts, she is confident in her remedies. much else... she's operating on trial and error.
  ⸻ cottonsprig is a dutiful and excitable medicine cat. she enjoys company and loves conversation. she'd rather not have too many curious noses snooping around her den... but who is she to quell curiosity?

• 

  ⸻❥ cottonsprig is the primary medicine cat of windclan. a former princess to the moors, she harbors many guilts for her actions throughout her short life. she has no consistent partner, unwilling to commit and settle, and she is training celandinepaw in medicine.

​

 

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

She leans in close. There are shadows beneath her eyes, a scrap of some leafy green herb stuck to the fur of her cheek. The minutiae of subtle differences in the Cottonsprig he knew and the Cottonsprig that is leer only whisker-lengths away, but Sedgepounce still tries to glance away from them. She's just tired. Why wouldn't she be? Life's been difficult, and it hasn't been so long since rogues chased her away from the meadow, left her stranded for a moon. He knows how difficult it was to readjust after he'd been gone. There are still some days that he doesn't feel fully himself. If nothing else, he can understand her for this.

So many things have changed. He often wishes they hadn't.

She looks away, confesses another terrible secret, but the world doesn't end. The den is just as quiet as they'd left it—no claws pierce their little bubble for having said anything.

He should be more surprised. But all those forlorn looks, the stories that don't add up...it's not shock that strikes through him. His heart squeezes anyway.

"Cot..." Sedgepounce whispers. The thing in his chest flip-flops around his ribs. A million-and-five things jumble up in his brain and die before they can be expelled from his tongue.

On behalf of his clan, of the codes they keep, he should feel some indignation. He should blame her for her treachery. He should hate her for this, more than he ever should have hated her for the con of her position in the first place. But not even a lick of anger flickers through him. No surprise, no scorn. The earth stays rooted beneath his feet.

It's just...acceptance. Cottonsprig admits the truth with terrible, soft deprecation, and Sedgepounce feels the cold, worn, stone-hearted peace of it settle over him with barely a thought. Okay, he thinks. Okay.

Cottonsprig had kits. Foxglare's kits. They...scrounged up some plan for her to have her kits where no one else would know, and then...

"Did you..." he stops before he can bring the terrible thought to light. His voice is gentle for the agonized molly before him; his friend. His tail rests on her own, wrapped tightly around her paws. He tries again. "What...happened to them?"
​