LEFT A PEARL IN MY HEAD 𓇼 HAZECLOUD

[shellpaw]

since her return, shes uttered little more than wheezing breath and absent, childlike whimsy — hollow - mindest seemingly more preoccupied with the thoughts surely spinning like swan feathers in her mind, circling her skull in wild loops. her slow, lily lunged rasp seeming wetter as the weather warmed. she thaws, leafbare borne and built only for the frost that she’d been delivered in, meeting her first breath in the bitter wastelands outside riverclan territory. she’s aware of what that means more now than ever, the child supposes ; born abandoned and abandoned they should have stayed. her mother was not what she and her littermates had thought her to be and yet still, knowing that didn’t work to ease the ache she still feels when thinking about her. she doesn’t feel that with hazecloud — doesn’t feel the need to tuck her tail, stare silent and stony until told otherwise. as they collect the stones that long ago, lichentail had assigned she and her brothers to place, she finds a scrap of voice left in her. sudden ; cutting the silence like a songbird.

” i feel sad. “ she begins, ruddy gaze cast down towards the pebbles underpaw — they turn over neatly against her pads, gleaming offwhite against the still - healing surface. she is still new to this world, even in her moons lived, feeling lifetimes beyond her littermates in only days. her start is clunky, but precise, spoken with a kitlike whisper of hesitance. hazecloud had always encouraged her to speak her mind, her truths, but shellkit was.. afraid, now. unsure. about herself, mostly — her place, the glares that still linger on her and her littermates. less so now that leafbare had begun to relinquish its grip on them, but still caught in bitter side - eyes. guilt. after a pregnant pause, she continues with a breathy croak, ” when i, um.. think about my mom. “

rosen eyes stay shifted downward, busying her paws with the pebbles underpaw as if it were the most important task she’d been assigned. she wished it was, ” she was scary. i wished she — wouldn’t be, like how riverkit and pebblekit wanted. but she was. “ she’d never experienced such carelessness for her sake. nothing so barbed, and certainly not so draped in syrupy, oversaturated love. watery eyes do not tear further, ever bleary from running sinuses, but there is a tinge of sadness to her unwavering expression, downturned as it was towards the ground. when she continues, it is with a kittish pout — a warbling edge, like a child scorned. a confession, hidden beneath the youthful matter of fact statement of, ” you know if, uh — you were my real life mom, like twinklekit and horizonkit and eveningkit get to have, i don’t think anything bad would have happened. “ and why couldn’t she have been? she could have been normaler, and she wouldn’t have felt so awful. it wouldn’t have been all her fault anymore.

𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐍 𓇼 𝙎𝙊 𝙎𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙊 𝘾𝙊𝙇𝘿

• i. @hazecloud u know when a kid brings up the most abysmal horrible to respond to topics out of absolutely nowhere
  
  
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  SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING xx UNKNOWN, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. THREE MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS.
  frail alabaster molly with lilac striping and watery amber eyes..
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of shell - touched cream, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore. feather breath and elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined warm, sugared amber ---------- ° ❀ ⋆
  

  currently exhibiting symptoms of whitecough. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

  
  

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[hazecloud]

Maybe there was still a bit of naivety in the queen to believe Kindling wouldn't risk showing her face around RiverClan again. The night Smokestar had returned with kits from the snowbed, diamond frost encrusted fur and all, she could hardly even fathom a mother having a heart even colder than leafbare's bite. Let alone the lack of humility to show her face again, with the boldness of attempting to take even more from her.

It's a difficult path to lead, though. These kittens knew Hazecloud wasn't their mother by blood (as much as she would like to change that herself) but Smokestar also found no use in coddling them, protecting them from the truth. They knew Kindling left them behind, yet each of them still had their own twisted, tragic perspective of her that held a hopefulness only a kit could have. Pebblekit had been adamant that Kindling would return for them and Hazecloud's gentle redirection about the possibility she wouldn't (or couldn't) had been useless. If Riverkit held out any hope for her she wouldn't know, as he kept his feelings so close to his chest but he had taken to RiverClan like a fish to water. Perhaps it was Smokestar blessing him with the name of his new home that contributed. And Shellkit...

'I feel sad...'

Hazecloud blinked out of her trance and looked to the lilac-streaked molly, staying quiet in silent encouragement for her to continue her thought. Shellkit, despite reaching her fifth moon, still seemed so small compared to her brothers. She wondered how she would make it as an apprentice, expected to leave the nursery next moon. Already? It still felt too soon to let her go. To let any of them leave her nest, as crowded as it became.

"Oh-?" As Shellkit described how the time spent with her mother was not as she had once thought, she can feel her chest grow tight. It wasn't a reality she wanted any of them to see so soon, she wanted to touch the topic of Kindling again when they were just a bit older but the rogue had other plans, of course. She goes on to say more, comparing her other kittens and a sad sigh drew from her maw.

Hazecloud offered an extended paw to let Shellkit, an invitation to soft plush belly fur. "I know it's... hard to deal with. When your mother doesn't act how other mommies do." She thought of Dappleleaf now, perhaps for the first time in moons she's thought of her own mother at all. How bitter she was, disconnected from the affection she saw other mothers give their kits. She and Rosewater were just pawns, a means to an end for her and Pikeshade's own gain. They weren't much different from Kindling.

"My mom wasn't always kind to me, either. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong, that I wasn't doing enough for her to love me like other queens." She took Shellkit's paw in her own with a gentle grasp, feeling the mending cracks between her pad. "Sometimes, Shellkit, cats become queens when they shouldn't. I'm sorry Kindling was one of them, and it's okay to feel sad about it. I was sad for a long time, too... But I'm so lucky to give you the love a queen should. You, and your brothers, mean the world to me and Lichentail."

If she had to traverse the entire mountain peak again, face off that dreadful eagle another time, she would for them. For her younger three, too. The love she shared was no different between the six of them. "I know it's different, because you're Smokestar's kin and... I don't ever want to push you to do something you don't want to. But if you want to say we're your real mommies... you can. And no one will tell you different. The babies will always be your little siblings." She could feel her heart skipping beats in her pause. Hazecloud had always feared overstepping about this. Taking a place that didn't fit her in their mind, but now they had seen it, the kind of cruelty Kindling could possess. Was it still too early?​

 

[shellpaw]

still shudder - breathed, still young despite the way her brothers fill out long, leafbare - thin limbs, still scarred and frost bitten but well. the purity of youth clashes with the quickness in which she grew ; thick, black smog clouds of turmoil roll within her skull, cast a glassy sheen to faraway eyes. a haze has befallen her, a heavy mist like a recent memory of grey over splintering ice. she grows like her namesake — shell like, a cage of fishbone ivory turning snow bleached curls into armor. wisp lunged and ditzy still for a child grown as she was, rheumy eyes of burning amber lifting as hazecloud responds. a calm, pondering presence — the words still at her tongue and shellkit can tell, only because she did the same thing. a soft oh of acknowledgement, of beckoning.

from where the girl gazes at her against the light, veins of pale red come to cross her vision, leaving squiggling lines over bleary, wet eyes. she sees a silver paw extend from the halo of sun behind behind the lounging molly and takes it without the same hesitation she’d given kindling. her scent is strong of milk and fresh moss, clean like the water licking cool and calm at the shore. curls interlock, bird bones tucking close into the tender spot of hazecloud’s belly for comfort. the ache that her mothers memory recedes with it, but not so much the rousing jealousy in her chest. she noses into her fur, letting out a heavy breath because she is bigger now, however small she is compared to her littermates. apprenticeship would take the girl from her nest and though the thought is frightening, it feels alright here.

red - ribboned lids flutter closed, dampening blurry eyes, listens to the reverb of the molly’s voice through her chest as she had since the day she was brought home. familiarity.

and hazecloud understands. of course she does, because hazecloud had always made her feel normal in her abnormal world. nearing six months of time spent quelling her cries and protests, easing stomping tantrums with the same calm, lilting tone. hazecloud understands because her mommy wasn’t kind, either. it seems hard to believe at first — hazecloud was a good mother, and that sort of goodness had to come from somewhere, didn’t it? sometimes, cats become queens when they shouldn't, she says, and it is a big thought. she mills it over, looking out over the shuddering waters with nothing but wet, whistling breaths ; if hazecloud hadnt ended up like her mom, did that mean she didnt have to, either?

the queen says as such, continues, and velveteen ears swivel forward to listen. its okay to feel sad, and she does. but the girl hums a thoughtful, ” im glad you became a mom, though. youre soo good at it. “ because she says you mean the world to lichentail and i, and she believes it. because she knew kindling was bad from how much love shed already been given. because shellkit listens and hazecloud offers for her to call them her moms. for a moment, she merely blinks ; thinks of her blood kin, of a lineage already twined deep with trouble. sedge - crowned princess of the wetlands, singed and smoldering much like her uncles namesake in the wake of her mother's colony.. was she not fated to that? to sit with this guilt — to wait, to atone in breaths of salt and brack water? she feels too young and too old, too ready to be an apprentice and clinging thorn - clawed to the safety and love of her family nest.

paws shuffle, wraithlike arms wrappled tender with ghostly curls coming to shift beneath her, ” i can, just like that? “ just like that. as if anything would be different, as if anything but her avoidance would change. pebblekit did this already, didnt he? and this way.. she could pretend kindling wasn't out there. she could pretend her eyes didnt haunt the murky reflections of her dreams, ” like kindling never even had us? “ as if the babies werent already her siblings, as if lichentail didn't dote over her since saccharine eyes first awoke. as if it wasnt lichentail and hazecloud that were there for her first swim, her first first, her first breath. did it have to be a reminder of their loss anymore? from what she'd seen, kindling would have given them a life of sunken bellies and ragged, flea - bitten pelts. what had they truly lost?

the river babbles excitedly at her front and maybe, if hazecloud was her mom.. she would grow up like her, instead. slowly, shuffling paws begin to instead knead the ground beneath her, a sudden surge of tentative giddiness wriggling her still growing body ; popping into a lurch upward to bonk her head against the underside of hazecloud's jaw, lilac - ribboned spine arched and a tail still thickening with age coming to wave high in the air, ” pleeease, i want to. i feel happy with you, and the babies and lichentail. pebblekit and riverkit do too, even if riverkit is grumpy about it sometimes. “ did this absolve her of the red water's wrongdoings? of lightningstone, of oxbowpaw and clayfur? nearly lichentail? she wasnt sure — but it was a good place to start for her. a rickety purr thrums low in her chest, a delicate and crackling sound amidst the distant mourning dove where she nestles back into stormy fur, ” thank you.. for being so nice to us alll this time. “ because where would she be without hazecloud? half - conscious, more bone than fat or fur.. frozen, forever frostbit. thank you for saving us.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𓇼 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒

• i.
  
  
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  SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. HAZECLOUD xx LICHENTAIL, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. FIVE MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS.
  frail alabaster molly with lilac striping and watery amber eyes..
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of dovey lilac curls, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore. feather breath and elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined rheumy, rosen amber. the anemic pale pink at tender paws and nose tell a lifetime of sickness, obvious by the feathering weakness and crackling in whispery tones ---------- ° ❀ ⋆
  

  currently exhibiting symptoms of whitecough. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

  
  

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