private IT'S TOO LATE TO FIX WHAT PROGRESS WE MADE [scorchstorm]

[BLUEFROST]

She has sullied things for herself and her kits, she knows; she should never have exposed their lineage to the Clan. Had she been in their position, she would have done the same as them — bared her teeth to the sky, cried out, "Traitor!" — but it is quite another thing to be on the other end of their scorn. Sunstar, who takes an interest in all Clan kits, especially those born to his councilmembers, has not visited the nursery at all since he condemned her here. Wolfsong is ill. Her sister and Celandinepaw are busy fighting the creep of contamination still within their camp walls.

Rimekit is with them. The blue-smoked queen looks with quiet grief at the four kits who remain curled against her belly. Foalkit and Comfreykit seem oblivious to their littermate's loss; they suckle and sleep, as ever, just as her trueborn daughters do. If she dies, they will never know that loss. Not like I will. Not like...

She pushes the thought of her sister away from her mind. As if on cue, the twigs barricading the nursery's entrance tremble. It is not Dimmingsun, as she'd expected; two blazing golden eyes sear into her pelt, a scarlet-marbled body squeezing through the opening. The air becomes thick and hard to breathe. "Scorchstorm?" Bluefrost stares at the other she-cat; something like acid begins to rise in her throat. "Have you come to... to see..."

Bluefrost's tail twitches. She pulls its bulk away from the four remaining kits. This is their first proper visitor. Even their father cannot look upon them now. She tears her gaze away from Scorchstorm's face, not liking what she sees there, not wanting to feel the heat from her former friend's gaze.

She has not come to see them. She has come to condemn them.

Still, Bluefrost tries for some semblance of normalcy. "This is Foalkit," she murmurs, pressing a pointed pink nose to the darkest kit, "and this is Comfreykit." Even as young as he is, he is beginning to display coloration like her mother, white in the cheeks, gray in the pelt. "And... these are... Asterkit," she murmurs against her youngest daughter's blue-gold fur, "and... and Sootkit." She noses the gold-streaked smoke.

It is not until afterward she realizes this is the first time she has revealed her children's names — the first time anyone has even feigned interest in them. Sootkit rings between them like a thunderclap.

After a painful heartbeat, Bluefrost closes her eyes and murmurs, "There is a fifth. Rimekit. She is with Cottonsprig. She is... ill." Her jaw twitches, but she does not reveal anything further. "I heard you were ill, too. Are you..." Better? Are you better now? Are you here to claw my fur off, or something worse?

Bluefrost has always feared the judgment of others — her mother's, explosive and poisonous; Sunstar's, wrathful and just — but now she faces Scorchstorm's, and she finds herself recoiling from the edge of the flames.

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

• ooc: @SCORCHSTORM
• 
• 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 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.
  
  

​

 

[SCORCHSTORM]

It would be an understatement to say that Scorchstorm was shocked by Bluefrost's little family. The pregnancy alone had hurt her deeply, had crumbled the foundation that she had built foolish dreams upon. But even days later, she cannot get the image of Thriftfeather out of her head, two kits delicate in his jaws, his egg-yolk pelt made golden in the dying light. He had been her friend, once, but he had forfeited that relationship when he had chosen Sootstar over WindClan. She would not make the mistake of giving another DuskClanner a second chance.

Maybe she should have seen it coming. The betrayal, the inward collapse of hope for love. If her own series of failed romances were not enough of an omen, then Bluefrost's own actions should have augured the ill outcome of their twining hearts. Scorchstorm has stewed upon their previous interactions and spats. The way that Bluefrost, then Bluepaw, had decried Scorchpaw's support for Badgermoon on the eve of his faux betrayal. The way that she had turned claws against Scorchstreak when Sootstar had exiled them to horseplace. She should have tasted doom in the bitter ash, but she was too blinded by opalescent, beautiful blue to realize.

It is against her best judgment that Scorchstorm visits the nursery now.

She should not be here, she thinks, not when she is yoked with spite so readily. But a morbid, discomfiting force pulses her paws forwards. She looms in the den's entrance for only a moment, molten eyes flashing as they land upon Bluefrost. She looks different, of course. Not the same as before her pregnancy, but not not the same, either. Aside from the obvious lack of a rounded belly, new emotions weigh down the skin of her face. Is it sadness? Is it grief? Is it guilt? Scorchstorm could wager her guess, but she does not think she can read the other molly any more — is not sure that she ever could in the first place.

"Scorchstorm? Have you come to... to see...." The break in Bluefrost's voice gives the crusader pause. "Hello," she chuffs, hoarse not for the illness from which she has recently recovered, but for the way her throat has been constricting since she set paw inside the nursery. She has come to see the kits, though she cannot say why. Maybe it is pure schadefreude. A black twist of metal in the pit of her soft stomach. Maybe it is the last thing she owes her friend before renouncing that title completely — but to think she owes Bluefrost anything after all that they have put each other through....

Scorchstorm's expression is not kind or even neutral. Rocky consternation sits in the creases of her frown, her furrowed brows. The thought that this is the first face to look upon Bluefrost's brood outside of their own family does not sit easily, but neither does it change her. Bluefrost's names are beautiful, except for one. Sootkit. A final claw in the face, after it all. Scorchstorm cannot prevent her lips from parting in sordid shock. "Sootkit," she repeats, and it makes sense. If Bluefrost is intent on offending other WindClanners' sensibilities, then Scorchstorm can concede that she does her job well.

It is with a rough swallow that she finds the patience to hear out her former friend to the end. Rimekit is ill in the nursery. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, because she is, truly. It must not be an easy thing for a new mother to weather, and Scorchstorm is not so far gone to wish illness against a kitten, especially one who cannot possibly know the extent of her mother's sin. But her condolences end there. As do her congratulations, it seems.

"They take after you," Scorchstorm decides. They are beautiful. And they are Thriftfeather's. Her frown twists deeper, a fishhook in her lip. "I heard you were ill, too. Are you...." But Scorchstorm is hardly listening. Her eyes rest upon the small, wriggling bodies, not daring to meet Bluefrost's eyes quite yet.

"Yes. I am well now," she offers, cursory. Her questions have become too much to bear. They fall from her tongue in great oozing bursts, coagulated blood from a rotten wound, and finally she has the courage to look Bluefrost in the face. "I just want to understand," she prefaces, "...why? Why Thriftfeather? There are... there are cats here who love you. Would have loved you," she corrects, hasty, frigid. She does not name herself, but it is not difficult to understand her meaning. "And I feel... you told me that you have lost everything. So why lose it for him?"

She does not feel the way her shoulders bristle, ever so slightly. She does not seem to notice the agitated flicking of her tail. All Scorchstorm sees as she interrogates the queen are the two seaglass eyes that stare back at her.

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• 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 / 17 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
  

• 

​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Scorchstorm's expression is marred with her judgment, and every word is stilted. She echoes the name of Bluefrost's daughter — Sootkit — and the queen finds it in her to bristle. Scorchstorm says little about the name, but Bluefrost can hear every WindClanner's reproach in her response. "She is a true WindClanner. She will be..." She falters, wondering if she is slipping into her father's verbage — you will rule this forest!. She settles for, "She will never feel out of place in this Clan." Her grandmother's blood had seeped deep into this kingdom; her mother had made mistakes, but everything Bluefrost has done, she has done for her Clan — right?

Suddenly, she tires, thinking of all she has done for herself. She is no different from Cottonsprig, truly, and that... We are our mothers' daughters. The idea is repulsive, and she does not want to consider it further.

"I'm sorry," the tortoiseshell murmurs when Bluefrost speaks of Rimekit. She blinks, grateful for the sentiment, even if it is false. "They take after you." The queen runs her tongue along her muzzle, considering this. "They do, do they not? Me, and..." She lets the unspoken linger, shimmer, disappear into the air between them.

And Scorchstorm does not intend to let her speak of Thriftfeather. Not in that capacity. The moor runner's blazing gaze settles on her and she demands, why? Why him? "There are cats here who love you. Would have loved you." Bluefrost recoils as though Scorchstorm has stricken her with exposed claws.

"Thriftfeather is... he..." She flounders; the ground between them has become quicksand. What can she say? "He told me his secret. He was my friend. And I felt so torn when he went to DuskClan, and I stayed, and... when I found him again..." She speaks of things she has not even acknowledged; she hides from them, unable to verbalize what has flowered in her chest.

"Would have loved you."

Bluefrost looks upon her kittens with despair.

"I never wanted to hurt you. I am sorry that I have." She is so, so tired.

"Why lose it for him?"

"I was always meant to walk this path, I think," she murmurs. Her gaze flicks from the kits at her belly — her daughters, Cottonsprig's sons — and she is convinced more than ever that she speaks only the truth.

"This is what StarClan intends, for better or worse." She smiles. It is worn and taxed. It is doubtful. It is youthful in the way only a fool can smile.

『 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 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.
  
  

​

 

[SCORCHSTORM]

Something rotten crawls into Scorchstorm's throat and stays there as Bluefrost ripostes. Sootkit is named for the feline who would have seen the moors razed to bare dirt if it meant maintaining her grasp over them. But her ears are closed to WindClan's history — her eyes are closed to the scars that her clanmates now bear as a result of her namesake's tyranny. She is a kit. An infant. She cannot know what she will answer for, every day for the rest of her life — will not know it, if WindClan's warriors can find it in their hearts to change for her, to spare her the mercy her grandmother sorely lacked. Scorchstorm swallows. The lump is still there, stubborn to change, equally stubborn to remain the same.

Would it not be easier to let it all go? To look at these kits and say, well, it is done, so I must surrender to it. But her anger is what she has — it is what rules her judgment. Choices made in compassion or hope have only withered her. Can she truly afford to continue hoping when reality lies so plainly in front of her, snoozing at their mother's belly? And when Bluefrost recoils from her, she can feel the heat again, the ever-devouring flame lapping up the last shreds of hope for something else. Not something more, but something... mended, maybe. If it is even possible.

Bluefrost unravels the thread of history between her star-damned mate and herself, and Scorchstorm listens. He told her his secret. What secret? He was her friend. Was I not, too? But slowly, it sinks in. She feels suddenly like a reaper at the door. There is something heavy at stake here — something that will die if they don't save it, but she cannot figure out how to save it; she cannot figure out if she even wants to. But then the apology comes, and it douses her. Scorchstorm, once a raging fire, becomes little more than damp kindling.

And Bluefrost sounds so defeated. Resigned to her fate in the nursery — to her new path as traitor. Weakly, a part of Scorchstorm agrees: she ought to. She broke the code. She threw away her chance. And it is all true. But she has seen the despair before, the harbingers of this self-destructive path. Scorchstorm is not without empathy, no matter how much she pretends to be. For each time she tries to school it out of herself, it comes back tenfold.

"I am sorry, too," she bursts, hoping that it will dispel the rotten thing in her throat; the thing that has spread its ashen fingers down into her chest, and her lungs; the thing that makes her cold. "I did not come here to... to be cruel." Maybe it is a lie, but not anymore. The thing in her throat does not budge all the same. She wishes she could relieve herself of it.

"I cannot pretend to understand your choices," she prefaces. She cannot imagine StarClan would guide the paws of a warrior who has broken their code — but she would not like to imagine Bluefrost being barred entry to those endless hunting grounds, either. The agitated twitch of her tail has stilled. She curls it around her paws now, hunched in the den, almost penitent. "And I... I cannot see what you see in Thriftfeather. But I...."

A breath in. She finds Bluefrost's eyes, cheeks aflame. "You are not my enemy. I am sorry, for... for what I have said in anger to you. I was wounded. I was very fond of you." As if she hadn't known already. Regardless, Scorchstorm continues. "I... in time, I would like to be your friend again. If you think it possible."

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• 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 / 17 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
  

• 

​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"I am sorry, too." Scorchstorm sounds as though she hadn't meant to speak, and Bluefrost's tired green gaze jerks back up to her amber-flame face. "I did not come here to be cruel." "I know," she agrees, quiet. "It is not in your nature, despite everything, to be needlessly cruel." But is it in mine? She thinks of the glint in her mother's slender eyes, thinks of the moon shimmering from her smoke-colored pelt, and suppresses a shiver.

And what of that cruelty have I imparted to these kits — has Cottonsprig?

She has been cruel. She can see it in Scorchstorm's wounded face. She can see it in the betrayal her Clanmates wear on their facial features. She had been cruel in her blind youth, in her foolishness, in her desire to love, to be loved in return, without strings, without legacy. She had thrown away something rare and precious, but hadn't she gained something in return — hadn't she?

"I could have loved you," Scorchstorm had said. Bluefrost allows herself, for a brief moment, to picture it — a tortoiseshell body curled around hers, not a golden one; racing through the moors with the deputy's daughter, not holed into the nursery with a known traitor. She exhales. Even to imagine it feels like a second betrayal, this time to her kits, for if she had not chosen Thriftfeather, they could never have come to fruition.

And Cottonsprig would be gone, somewhere in the lands beyond WindClan with Peonybreeze.

For better or worse, she thinks, she has made the choice that has saved WindClan. Scorchstorm will never know this — and neither will Thriftfeather, neither will Sunstar — but she believes it in her heart. If she had not fallen for her golden friend over Scorchstorm, Cottonsprig would never have returned to WindClan.

"I am glad to hear you say that," she says. "You are not my enemy." "I was... if things had been different, I..."

She looks away.

Even just saying it is a spit in the face now.

"I would like that. To be friends. I never stopped... wanting that." Something in her stomach burns. She tries to quell the fire there.

『 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 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.
  
  

​