pafp LITTLE BIT OF NOTHING [changes]

[BRANCHPAW]

𓆱 It rained last night, so now there’s a bunch of little puddles around camp. Most of the queens, of course, tell him to stay out of the mud puddles, to stay dry and clean so Needledrift doesn’t have to worry about getting his pelt clean again. He doesn’t like it when his mother grooms him, since she always licks his fur weird and it sticks up after, but he also doesn’t understand why she takes the time to do it when he’s just going to get dirty again anyway. So of course, Branchkit disregards everything that he’s been told, and the early morning finds him splashing about from puddle to puddle while all of the morning patrols are being sent out into the territory. He’s bouncing around and having fun, finally not thinking about Snowypaw, when his gaze catches on a strange part of his reflection in one of the puddles of water. He pauses, quizzical, and dips to peer into the small pool of water.

Instead of the blue eyes that had stared back at him for so long…

Amber. The color of the honey that Starlingheart had given him only a couple moons ago. The color of sunlight, of a golden butterfly’s wings as it flutters on by. His gaze shifts from his eyes at last, straying to the rest of his face. The kit-roundness of his cheeks has disappeared entirely, replaced by tufts of fur too spiky to be passed down from Needledrift. Maybe his other mother is their source, he thinks—but Ferndance isn’t his mom mom, so he couldn’t get it from her, could he? She doesn’t have the same fur as him, and she definitely doesn’t have the the spiky fur at the back of his neck that he’s just noticed. But a tip of his head tells him that the tabby-striped warrior is nearby, as he hears her voice ring out into the air of camp. She’s going out on a patrol, maybe, so he’s gotta catch her before she leaves!

Once-white paws, now stained a dark brown from mud and dirt, rush over to stand before his mother, putting his little form between Ferndance and the camp’s exit. If she wants to leave, then she has to get past him—and Branchkit thinks he’s super good at making his parents do what he wants. In a voice slightly louder than it normally is, the boy blurts out, "Wait, wait! I got a question! Why do I look so different from you and mama?" It’s a far cry from his usual short, halting sentences—even Branchkit looks surprised at the clarity of his own words. But bright amber eyes blink up at his mother all the same, confusion written clearly in the furrow is his brow.

𖠰𖠰 archers never made good kings

• ooc: @FERNDANCE
• 
  BRANCHKIT ❯❯ he/him, kit of shadowclan
  𖠰 fluffy lilac tabby with white spotting and amber eyes. quiet but cheerful, very naïve.
  𖠰 son of ferndance and needledrift ; brother to bonepaw, bloodpaw, shadepaw, snowypaw, gigglekit, morelkit
  𖠰 peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  𖠰 penned by foxlore

​

​

 

[FERNDANCE]

"I'll just be a moment!" The cinnamon tabby called out to her patrol lead as she worked out the second-to-last feather caught within her coarse fur. Only one would ever have the privilege of staying on her forever, a white-and-ruddy rectrice gifted to her by Bonepaw after his apprenticeship ceremony. As a white, curled feather was plucked from her hairs and spat onto ShadowClan's swampy earth, the warrior jumped to her paws and began trotting towards the exit. Behind her, she heard quiet steps sloshing in the earth, approaching her at a speed that suggested ambush - too used to being hunted by her little ones, she did not react, smiling absent-mindedly. Then, something stopped her from leaving camp. Instead of claws gripped into her tail or weight upon her back, Branchkit chose to rush out in front of her, urgency in his eyes and within his words. She stared down quizzically at her little kitten ('little' didn't feel accurate anymore, in a moon's time, he would share the apprentice den with his older siblings), listening to his revelation with a twitch of her whiskers. Had he... ever spoken like that before? As she tilted her head, she decided that it must've been another product of age.

But then came the question itself. It wasn't uncomfortable to the cinnamon tabby, her family's situation had always felt as natural as breathing, but... there was the question of his older siblings if Branchkit would recognise that they didn't exactly look like Needledrift. She'd always done her best to be honest with her kin, both to her detriment and theirs. Giving her patrol a once-over, Ferndance then sat on her haunches to the likely dismay of those already stuck waiting for her. They would just have to wait a little longer. "Mama Needle had two mates, her second mate was the one who sired you. He is your papa, his name was Chittertongue. His fur was so spiky... and he had a pale coat just like yours. But before you were born, he died. He's in StarClan now." She'd approved of the union even if she hadn't been particularly close to the tabby. He'd made Needledrift as happy as she made her and she could've never gotten in the way of that.

Her only wish was that his death did not hit Branchkit the same way it hit Needledrift - to be a bystander in one's grief was heart-wrenching. " I didn't give birth to you, but that doesn't change what you are to me. You're my precious little hedgehog, my son." She licked a spot between his ears, purring.

​

 

[smogstar]

Before they embark from camp's pine threshold, a bout of conversation between mother and son draws the outbound patrol to an unsought stand. Annoyance creeps into his regard for but a heartbeat; banished by a measured blink and a composed exhale, Smogstar merely edges a tad closer to the egress. Content to rest in wait until the current chitchat passes. He's in no rush. He isn't one to curb the kinship shared by these two.

This day promises continued sun. Beams shimmer through the canopy to cast golden slivers across the floor, captured in the patchwork of puddles that pepper the sodden ground. It stands in stark relief against yesterday's downpour. It brings peace to the entropy he's known. Thoughts elsewhere, he scratches distractedly at his cheek.

Fragments of Ferndance and Branchkit's exchange drifts over on the breeze. Snippets here and there, brief lulls in which the leader picks up their discussion and the words themselves. His brow knits while his brain parses, works the sentence pieces, reassembles them into something coherent. Like Branchkit, Smogstar isn't fully familiar with the twists and turns to that particular family tree. The roots sprawl and wind, worthy of tripping over if one weren't careful.

Somewhere down the line, the shadow-striped tom abandons his post by the borderline and plods a bit closer to the pair. His head, though held stiff upon its authoritative perch, wears a conceivably dreamy expression. "You do look like Chittertongue, Branchkit," Smogstar offers, tail-tip flicking to the wind. "Maybe just a li'l bit." ​

 

[SHADEPAW]

Shadepaw was waiting at the camp's end, yet another cat in the patrol that was halted by Branchkit's actions. While Smogstar took some moments to move closer to the pair, Shadepaw stepped closer only a heartbeat after Branchkit piped up. He didn't usually pitch his voice up like that, nor did his sentences usually flow so smoothly. Her ears twitched. Branchkit's question was the sort that she had never thought to ask as a kit, even with tufted ears that matched neither Needledrift nor Ferndance's, even with the dark-striped coat and the webbed paws that didn't either. With a few switches of names and descriptors, Ferndance's story could have been told to Shadepaw. Two cats, never meeting their fathers, sharing their traits regardless. Except Shadepaw would have a chance to meet Pikesplash someday, surely; he wasn't treading among the stars.

She tilted her head. Branchkit did look like what she could remember of Chittertongue- the tufted fur, the lilac tabby coat, the white that spilled down from his muzzle. Not an exact copy, but close. Her gaze softened as Ferndance licked the top of Branchkit's head, but the sun brought out a mischievous glint. "She calls you that because Chittertongue was half-hedgehog, y'know, so you're a quarter-hedgehog," She took Ferndance's sweet nickname and ran with the explanation. A win for Shadepaw being an annoying older sibling, a loss for their veracity. "Yeah, you really do look like him. Mostly because of the spiky hedgehog fur."​

 

[Gigglepaw]

If Gigglekit ever noticed that there were any stark differences between her, her brothers, and Ferndance, it was never something that had particularly phased her. Ferndance was her mother in the same way Needledrift was, and that was never going to change; not when Ferndance had always been right by Needledrift's side all throughout the time that Gigglekit had grown up.

"Do I look like Chittertongue any?" Gigglekit ran up beside Branchkit as Smogmaw and Shadepaw announced that her brother resembled their father. She wouldn't say that she would be jealous in any way if she didn't resemble Chittertongue, but it would sure be a nice thing to know. To have some part of herself look like the father that she'd never know... there was something about that that Gigglekit would rather enjoy.

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• !
  

• 

• GIGGLEKIT ✩ kit of shadowclan, five moons
  → blinks incessantly & uncontrollably.
  → peaceful and healing powerplay permitted.
  → penned by Archivist → .archivist on discord.
  

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