just set me off || distracted patrol, reintro

[betonyfrost]

There is no place that deals in ugliness and beauty in such an equal measure as the marsh. It is something in the way delicate grasses dance under the wind, something in the way corpse-colored mushrooms stick like saplings from the mire. There isn't a dry place to stand, and yet the murky waters stand as perfect mirrors to the star-filled sky. It could make one believe that StarClan is here, that the dead and gone are as close as curious minnows flitting through the unseen silt--

Laughter cuts through Betony's thoughts.

The hunting patrol is a ways off. Somehow they've lost Betony, or Betony had gotten so distracted that she had forgotten to follow. But Betony can hear them just fine. She imagines them as a part of some greater whole, and Betony as the flea that just happened to have found them as a host. She hastens to catch up, but the patrol hasn't moved and for a hopeful moment Betony thinks: they are waiting for me! but then she comes near enough to find them trying to catch crickets.

Had they even noticed that Betony wasn't with them? Betony wouldn't, if she were them. Truly she has no reason to actually be this hurt, this annoyed, but--

"Are you serious?" Betony asks, but she's never known how to be loud, and she's never known how to take up space, and one of the hunted crickets has jumped directly onto one of her clanmates noses which as turned the previous laughter into something uproarious. Betony can't compete, not with her clanmates, not with the crickets, and she gets it. She understands. She just wishes she knew how to understand without the whole of her heating with the desire to claw something up.

shadowclan apprentice | blue mackerel tabby | tags​

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[Firedawn]

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH​

---

Fire was watching as the other members of her patrol took a break from their hunting to catch some crickets. She found the scene before her charming, but her ear was also turned as she listened for the sounds of Betony to catch up.

The younger molly had appeared to be daydreaming and had fallen behind, but Fire had left her to her thoughts and was reassured by the knowledge that if she did not join them soon she would turn back to look for the blue mackerel tabby herself.

But, it would seem there would be no need, as Betony hurried into the scene but the molly appeared more annoyed than relieved to have found her patrol. Fire would chuckle softly as a cricket landed on one of their clanmates' noses before turning and smiling in soft warmth towards Betony, "There you are, Betony. I was about to come looking for you if you hadn't caught up. Want to give catching a cricket a chance? It's great pouncing practice, plus it's fun." ​

 

[BONERIPPLE]

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Her own thoughts on this patrol is one of slight annoyance. She's been wanting to get this over with for a while now and suddenly they have stopped to catch crickets. Her whole idea of it all is definitely one that looks slightly pissed off. Yet she doesn't say anything and she has her gaze turned to view the marshes as they stretch out in front of them. One of their party has lagged behind and her ear flicks as the young molly finally catches up. The words that have fallen from her maw is not heard by the medicine cat but if they had been her own aggreance would have been there. Perhaps not for the same reason but still.

Twisting her figure she looks to Betony and then to Fire with ill set on her muzzle. It is clear as day how she feels and she sighs with a dry tone. "Shall we get going now that our straggler has caught up?" She is less than enthused and probably her mood has more to do with current events and the changes she has to deal with personally. Rising to her long pale limbs she flicks her tail as she looks towards tall standing pines.
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[FLICKERFIRE]

Truthfully, Flicker hadn't even noticed Betony had disappeared. Her mind is entirely elsewhere, not focused on her paws on the marshy earth, not focused on the cats surrounding her, not focused on anything in particular at all except the way the Thunderpath had felt beneath her paws, the shade the oak leaves had cast over her and Emberstar's pelts.

The lightness she'd felt in her heart for the first time since her sister--

She perks up, reddish eyes losing their glaze of disinterest. Bonejaw and Fire seem to have found their straggler. Flicker lifts an idle paw and a cricket with a jagged, broken leg hops from where it'd been pressed into the mud. "Oh, there you are," she mews with blatant disinterest. "I thought a swamp monster had gotten you."
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PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[betonyfrost]

POST CODE

• It's Fire to notice Betony first. She's all gentle eyes, gentle voice, gentle soul; and Betony never knows how to settle with her. She doesn't know how Fire can live with the softness of her heart exposed. Betony doesn't know how to not reject it all outright. There needs to be something fake about Fire, something that stops her from becoming hard and blunted.
  
  But as much as Betony doesn't know what to make of Fire, all Betony has ever known how to do is to is hide. Her annoyance folds, and its many-barbed sides settle somewhere in Betony's chest. She shouldn't assume, should she? It's wrong of her to think so poorly of her clanmates; they aren't all her after all.
  
  She smiles, something soft and fragile, and her eyes avert down to her paws.
  
  "It's nice of you to offer," Betony says, her voice a hush, "...but ...but we'll be expected back soon, wont we? We should carry on if... if it's alright with the rest of you,"
  
  It's in Betony's voice, she thinks. She doesn't know how to have fun, and she doesn't know how to speak without sounding like she doesn't want to take up the auditory space with her very own sound. Betony doesn't know what to say to Bone; rather she hunches over herself as if she could keep folding herself into invisibility. Had she held them up? Had they actually, truly, waited for her?
  
  Flicker jokes, and Betony startles a glance up at her, then back down, down. Her paws flex against the loamy ground, and Betony can see the way the bone shifts beneath her skin. That swamp monster hadn't gotten me for long, Betony thinks, because a part of her wishes to joke too; but she doesn't give voice to it. It's a stupid thing to say.​

• "[color=#ddafeb][b]speech[/b][/color]"

shadowclan apprentice | blue mackerel tabby | tags​