private LESSONS I HATE TO LEARN [starlingheart]

[MARBLEPAW]

"When you go to the Moonstone with the deputy..." Marblepaw's voice is low, whispery. She and Starlingheart have finished their tasks for the day; her mentor is tucked into her nest, tail curled around her scarred body, and she has burrowed into her own bed. The den is devoid of patients today — it is just the two of them, and Marblepaw's breath is quick in her throat, as though she can't contain her thoughts.

"When you go... what do you see? Do you see them — you know, when they speak with StarClan?" She props herself up in her nest on an elbow, gazing intently into the white-streaked fur in the opposite nest. She feels a little guilty, bothering Starlingheart's well-earned rest, but... perhaps the ebony medicine cat can't sleep, either.

They both have plenty of reasons not to want to, don't they?

Marblepaw waits, and then she says, "Hey, you know, um — you know Cottonsprig? In WindClan? She and Celandinepaw told me they'd be happy to help ShadowClan if we needed it." Something small and warm stirs in her chest as she recounts this, the starlight clipping Celandinepaw's golden fur, the determined hum of the tabby's mentor, the hushed mews stirring from the Gathering. She feels a little giddy, all of a sudden, and sits up; bits of moss flee from her joints. "That's good, right? That they... they want to help us?"

But her brain won't shut off. Marblepaw does a circle in her nest, as though she's intending to sleep, but before she sinks into the bedding, she murmurs, "Hey, remember when... remember when you told me that we can't heal all the wounds?" It had been a warm greenleaf day, and they'd been out by the Burnt Sycamore, collecting cobwebs... Marblepaw shifts, her mouth numb with nerves. "I saw... Needledrift. She's really... um..." She doesn't have the word for what plagues the gentle gray warrior, but settles for, "Sad. She won't leave her nest, and she won't clean her fur, and she won't eat... Bonechill asked me to help her, but I didn't know what to do..." One of many failures, she knows, but it weighs on her narrow shoulders.

"Can we... can we heal someone's sadness, Starlingheart?" It's her final question. It's the one she'd been leading up to all along.

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

• ooc: @Starlingheart
• 
• Marblekit . Marblepaw, she/they w/ feminine and non-gendered terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 9 moons old, ages realistically on the 1st.
  — mentored by Starlingheart ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a
  — shadowclan medicine cat apprentice, formerly a rogue. siltcloud x lilacfur, gen 3.
  — currently mated to n/a.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  sh fawn tabby with dull green eyes. courageous, curious, introspective, observant, judgmental, snarky.
  
  

​

 

[Starlingheart]

Life as a medicine cat meant long hours. It meant checking and rechecking herbs to make certain they had enough of this or that nothing important had gone bad in the night. It was combing the territory carefully looking for useful herbs, it was knowing when to take and how to leave enough behind so that you didn't decimate the entire stock. It was long hours hunched over a clanmate after doing everything you could for them and praying to Starlan that they would make it. Starlingheart had never known anything else, her stint as a warrior's apprentice had been short and Marblepaw's was nonexistent.

As if her niece knew her thoughts had drifted to her, she speaks, the sudenness cutting through the quiet of their cave like a claw through a leaf. Her single green eye glows softly in the moonlight as she regards her apprentice, nothing but patience in that loving gaze. Other cats might be annoyed by the questions, especially in the late hours after a long day, but not her. She could never. She merely pauses a second, thinking of her response. "No" she answers quietly "We don't- we can't see the nine lives ceremony it's-it's private... but you can feel it. If that makes any sense." It is hard to describe, the sensation of knowing how many lives a leader had. Does Mirestar know this, she wonders.

Her next words bring a smile to alight her features. "I think medicine cats should always help one another" she answers honestly. Its the way she had always felt, ever since she had first heard of the others turning on her aunt when she declared she no longer wished to walk their path. No medicine cat should ever turn against the other, not when they all shared a common goal, not when they had all promised the same things. To heal, not harm. "But yes it's- it's good they want to help us too..." she says, mind briefly drifting to a different time, other medicine cats she had once called friends...

Another long pause stretches out between them. She can tell by her apprentice's breathing that the young molly hadn't found sleep just yet. That was okay, Starlingheart couldn't sleep either. Sleep was hard to come by these days for her. Especially when she closed her eyes and nightmares followed close upon her heels like the snapping jaws of dogs on a rabbit. Hey, remember when... remember when you told me that we can't heal all the wounds?" Starlingheart says nothing but merely glances her way, patiently waiting for the question she knows is coming. It is a question she had asked before too.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't-I don't wish we could" she admits after a long second, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she picks with her nest with her claws. "But sadness... It's not something we can-we can be rid of so easily. It's not a physical wound not a- not a cough or the sniffles. It's something deeper and the only thing that can-that can heal it is time. Time and- and understanding and love. And even then sometimes- sometimes it never really goes away but it-it isn't as bad anymore. You can learn to live with it because it-it becomes a part of who you are. It's not always a bad thing to be sad Marblepaw," her gaze once again flits to her apprentice. She can just barely make out her features in the shadows, and she's certain it is the same for her but she smiles anyways. It is a fleeting thing, one that slips from her maw as she continues speaking. "If something makes you sad it means- it means you cared about it, and if you cared about it that means it was important and maybe-maybe that you had it makes it worth the sadness..." Her mind flashes to cinnamon colored fur, bright blue eyes, to a black pelt stained with red, to a kit bundled in her den muttering nonsense as he fights to stay here on this earth with her. "Is that.. do you understand what I'm saying?"

( ‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚. ) fly me up on a silver wing

• 
  
  
• 
  STARLINGHEART SHADOWCLAN MEDICINE CAT; SHE / HER ; SISTER TO PITCHSTAR, CHITTERTONGUE, NIGHTSWARM, SKUNKTAIL, AND LILACFUR. MOTHER TO NETTLEPAW, FLINTWISH AND GHOSTMASK.
  

  A skinny she cat with short black and white fur littered with scars and one singular green eye.

  ✦ Easy in battle + has little to no formal battle training
  ✦ Easy to befriend but doesn't trust easily
  ✦ Mentoring Marblepaw
  

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[MARBLEPAW]

There's a quiet shifting in the darkness. Her mentor's shadowed pelt stirs, and a white-chinned face lifts to greet her, single green eye gleaming with moonlight. Marblepaw meets Starlingheart's gaze, and the trepidations that had plagued her initially begin to crumble, fragile as old cobwebs. There is nothing but patience in the older she-cat's expression — there is nothing but tenderness, and she grasps it eagerly. Sometimes, wisdom is sought only at the quietest hour; a fellow healer must know the draw of a star-filled sky provoking questions.

"No," Starlingheart tells them. "We don't see the nine lives ceremony; it's private. But you can feel it, if that makes any sense." Marblepaw kneads the moss in her nest with restless white paws. "You have seen so many," she murmurs. "Or — I guess, you've felt so many. Were any of them different?" Starlingheart had been almost her age when she'd followed Chilledstar to the Moonstone that first time, and now...

Is StarClan disappointed with us, the way we cannot hold onto our leaders? Marblepaw lifts her gaze to the roof of the cave, frowning. She does not want to speak for her ancestors, but how could they not pity the weakest Clan, the Clan who had been abandoned and abandoned, again and again?

Their first pause stretches between them; afterwards, Starlingheart answers with warmth. "I think medicine cats should always help one another," she tells her apprentice. Marblepaw's ears twitch. "Even... even when our Clans are fighting, you think?" ShadowClan and WindClan are not actively at battle, per se, but it had been close in the past... she does not like to think of what this would mean for her tenebrous friendships with the moorland she-cats.

But their final topic settles like dust on stone. Starlingheart's single eye settles on Marblepaw with renewed interest. Needledrift. Starlingheart tells her it isn't always a bad thing to be sad — that with time, it settles within you, becomes a part of who you are. The dust-hued apprentice's eyes narrow. She does know what her mentor means. She has carried her mother's abandonment, her death, her treachery, since her kithood; she has worn her mother's shame since Betonyfrost had slapped it onto her like a blood omen, since Dawnglare had read it through her fur.

"Is that how you feel, too?" It's the most personal thing Marblepaw has ever asked Starlingheart. It's probing, even if it's gentle. "About... the father of your kits." Her detestable uncle, her shadowed kin, Flintwish's murderous father, Siltcloud's littermate.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Marblekit . Marblepaw, she/they w/ feminine and non-gendered terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 9 moons old, ages realistically on the 1st.
  — mentored by Starlingheart ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a
  — shadowclan medicine cat apprentice, formerly a rogue. siltcloud x lilacfur, gen 3.
  — currently mated to n/a.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  sh fawn tabby with dull green eyes. courageous, curious, introspective, observant, judgmental, snarky.
  
  

​