private marie, hold on tight | edenberry

[Cherryblossom]

It's past moonhigh when she finally finds their garden. Cherryblossom lands noiselessly on the foreign side of the fence, amidst a spray of floral color washed out by the moonlight and the odd, manicured turf. She isn't even sure if they'll be out so late. Their waking hours are in the name, the "daylight" of "daylight warrior," and as such it's not like she's owed their attention right now.

But there is attention owed. She can feel it building in her chest, a pad of wet moss begging to be wrung out. "Eeeedennnn..." she warbles to the dark, watery walls of their den. Insects sing just beyond the fenceline. Distantly, she can hear the grumble and ache of the gnarled SkyClan pines beyond the pretty tree-things of the Twolegplace. "@edenberry ?! ! Come out; it's me." For all her enthusiasm, she says it quietly.

When their black crown peers over the windowsill—she knew they'd show up, they always do—she smiles at them. It's a half-thought-out, fleeting thing that flits off her face as quickly as it comes. "I've got news." Only earlier that day, she'd sat down with Owlheart and the ghosts of her kits-to-be. "I told Lu already, but I couldn't find you until—well, anyway, Owlheart's expecting kits. More like Oddgleam is expecting kits, but... still." She stares at the smaller feline, expectantly awaiting the shock to bloom in emerald eyes. "Like... like that's crazy. We've only been warriors for, like, a season." It doesn't strike her the same sentiment could be applied to her rise to (and fall from) deputy.​

 

[edenberry ?!]

This place is haunted by quiet... it isn't spelled out so plainly as loneliness, not when they have sisters to fill the empty spaces. But it is hollow in a new way, one that couldn't have been fathomed before recent moons. So sleep doesn't come as easily as it had once, as it had before the weight of a warrior's name rested on their shoulders. The open sky on the other side of a thin pane of glass serves as an empty canvas for memory to run rampant... silent and free of interruption- except for the trill of a girlish call. Had Cherryblossom ever come out this way before? They are reminded of awkward conversations, of moments Slate had encouraged her to draw her lips back in disgust to consider Twolegplace as a home for some. Had Lupinesong told her how to find them? What alleys to follow? Which fence posts smelled most heavily of them?

The memory of monochrome fur coming to crest the top is more recent and far more familiar... surprise colors their stare as it peers from the sill to the dappled she-cat that looks up at them with bright, sleepless eyes. They clamber out to join her without hesitation, feeling as if they shed the skin of someone else the moment they draw closer. "News? To share at moon-high," they ask, teasing as they reach forward to touch their nose to her ear in greeting.

"I told Lu already," it shouldn't surprise them... her friendship with the smoky feline had always been close. (It does little to quell the anxious jealousy that whirls in their stomach.) She chirps up about her litter-mate, delightedly and as if she were the first to hear of it in the recent sunrises... It strikes them that the calico warrior might not even realize Edenberry's involvement in Oddgleam's unfortunate discovery. That they'd been there to witness a miserable spilling of guts, had been the one to prompt that suggestion in the first place; they bite their tongue, wary to admit such a thing and the implications of their knowledge.

"Wow," they beam, sincerely enamored by the sweet airhead that stands with them under the starlight to talk about her growing family.... How oblivious she was. It was endearing, in some ways... never far from the gossipy, nosy apprentice they'd padded after moons ago. "It's hard to believe... We're so young still," they agree, stifling the way it makes them nauseous to lie through their teeth. What did Oddgleam know about being a young parent that Edenberry didn't? Bitterness stains their tongue, swallowing past it to encourage the other's excitement, "Are you excited? You'll have tiny versions of your sister to pester soon."

---

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 〰 i want no more than this

• -- edenberry / skyclan daylight warrior / any pronouns / 17 moons
  -- mostly white with black pinstripe and green eyes / scarred face and back
  -- color #728c69​

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

The thought that she'd never bothered to visit Edenberry's sickbed, while it had been their sickbed, never strikes her. She knows the path through no experience of her own, only the landmarked directions of well-meaning, politely baffled clanmates, whose guidance was inevitably punctuated with some form of, "How do you not know?" It'd been a foolish decision to enter the labyrinth of the Twolegplace on her own, in the pitch-dark. She holds the feat as proof that she does want to see her mate-to-be after all.

Pearly whites gleam eagerly under the strange echos of light around them, and their seeming sincerity is infectious. The absence of any real surprise in green eyes, if betrayed at all, flies unnoticed in the shadow of her own pride. "Look at me," her ruffed chest and gleaming gaze say. "I know things that you don't—again!" Cherryblossom nods along, fatuous and buzzed on the gift she thinks she brought them. "I know, right? That's what I said to her..." She leans against them as she talks, eyes straying to the empty sky of the Twolegplace.

Some of her smile slips off her face when she tilts her head at the question. "Mmmm... sure." She shrugs into their slimmer shoulder. "They're just kits. I mean they're related to me too, I guess, but they're not, like, mine. You know?" she sighs, sweeping her tail around herself. Dim yellows fixate on a speck of dirt on her pawpad; if her partner shifts at the comment, she doesn't notice. "Could you imagine?" She chuckles dismissively. "Having kits? An apprentice is already enough for me." She shakes the bit of dirt off with a flick of her wrist.​

 

[edenberry ?!]

It goes unmentioned, just how she managed to make her way all the way out here and she seems more pleased with herself than ever as they poke fun at the time of day itself. Oblivious too then, to the fact this is not Edenberry's original home; not unless Lupinesong had broken her promise to keep that bit secret. She seems enamored with her accomplishment, her knowledge and her opinions, bumbling right into their suggestion that youth should be a significant hurdle to contend with.

The pressure of her weight against them is a familiar relief, something melted into with a contented exhale. Her dedication to being involved in these kits' lives seems surface level at best and not... quite what Edenberry expected. They cling to Spicepurr like she is a burr in their pelt, they crawl after Hazelbeam whenever they can afford to. Perhaps the luxury of having family makes Cherryblossom blind to it... maybe her loyalty runs in deep silence while theirs remains loud and fickle. They could choose and she couldn't. "It could be worse, it could be Tawnyclaw having kits," they joke... He is a far more aloof sort that didn't strike them as very... responsible.

But the wind is drawn from their playful sails the moment the former deputy continues, pressing on about the empathetic imaginings of being in that same situation. Their throat runs painfully dry suddenly and they find that making eye contact with her grows difficult, leafy-stare becoming far off and away. She thinks an apprentice is a handful and dotes about how much more significant a litter must be- their stomach rolls uncomfortably. "Mmm..." A small noise is the best affirmation they can offer for a few beats before adding, "Butterflytuft was saying that just Budkit alone keeps her busy."

They pretend their focus is stuck on a moth that flutters about a glimmering light, rather than just avoiding her, "Hopefully I'll have an apprentice soon... You'll have to help me with teaching battle moves; you were always better at that. How's your apprentice doing anyways...?"

⟡₊ ⊹ i ll betray you like a man

• 
• -- edenberry / skyclan daylight warrior / any pronouns / 17 moons
  -- mostly white with black pinstripe and green eyes / scarred face and back
  -- color #728c69

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Tawnyclaw and kits wasn't an egregiously bad pairing. Kits probably loved him, but more because he's like one of their own than like one of their queens. "Ewww." Cherryblossom giggles. "You're right. That'd mean him committing to someone first though," she adds, a wispy fondness seeping into her breath. Her brother seems to have remained unchanged since their mother flung her from the deputy's pedestal, his promises to her-as-deputy going unanswered for in the end. One could say she's becoming more like him these days: staying out of camp, dismissing her greater duties, brushing off the tentative concern of clanmates who would eventually stop wasting effort on her.

She only catches a whisper of disquiet in their forest-dark gaze, gone as soon as it flickers back upon her. "Did she?" It's an idle remark, made as though she hardly really cares about the going-ons of queens who are not her sister. "She's Daisypaw's mother, isn't she? And... oh, right, she had kits with Dandelionwish." The name is a little sobering. Applefrost never got the chance to pass on her legacy. Though, if she really thought about it, she couldn't imagine her carefree aunt a queen either. Maybe she just found it hard to imagine anyone as other than what she knew of them.

Silken strands fly around her face when she shakes her head. "She's gotta have some experience though... you go to the nursery a lot, huh?" She blinks at the ink-lined cat, a thoughtless tease glittering on exposed teeth. She thinks nothing more of the conclusion she's apparently drawn; her needs for it extend only as far as the end of her sentence.

Edenberry's got their face twisted towards one of the false suns scattered near their garden. Through her lashes she traces the swan lines of their neck and the careful slope of their jaw, the scarred side of them obscured by the angle of their face. They're beautiful—it's an odd realization in that it's a realization at all.

The porcelain facade cracks again to talk. "Oh, I will, don't worry." Well, she wasn't going to deny it. She was simply better at fighting. "Orangestar'll give you one soon, I'm sure of it," Cherryblossom replies emptily, reaching over to brush a tiny flower petal off their leg. "Ricepaw?" She frowns a little, but it's contemplative and not disapproving. "She's alright. It's, like, coming together." She's sure Slate talked about her in the same way if Orangeblossom ever prodded him about it.

"What about you though?" She pokes them with a paw. "What kind of apprentice would you want? Ooh, who would you want?" The nursery wasn't as full as it'd been during Cherryblossom's kithood, but maybe that was for the best. "I could see you with, like, Budkit." Edenberry would surely be a Butterflytuft-approved mentor: friendly, kind, a little like Blazestar without his heft to back them up.​

 

[edenberry ?!]

It was a miracle sometimes that Cherryblossom could even remember half the names of her clan-mates... as aloof and inattentive as she could be sometimes. Identifying Butterflytuft as Daisypaw's mother is... funny... if not for the fact that particular kit was found out and about with Dandelionwish and not her own litter. "Yeah uh... Fluffypaw too," they add, noting how sore they were they'd missed out on a chance to mentor that particular child. They thought she was cute... and had been there for her first words. It felt like a great rapport for a mentor-apprentice pair.

The dappled she-cat asks after the similarly colored queen and they think to laugh politely. "Uh yeah she's got practice now... I popped in a lot when we were apprentices still." Their paws shift nervously, confused how she couldn't remember that... How she'd walked into the nursery at one point with them to bring prey. That Howlfire's litter had been tiny themselves at that point. Her lack of attention grows more painfully obvious... but they ignore it. They shove it down.

The reach of one of her paws flick a petal off of their foot they hadn't noticed they'd practically strangled, glancing towards her as she hums a wishful, kind thought about their chance at being a mentor soon. Ricepaw... They realize they don't remember that name at all and reconsider if maybe Cherryblossom isn't that inattentive after all.

The prospect of mentoring Budkit is... enticing, knowing the girl for her excitable nature and how it mimicked their own at her age! It would be cute.. and would fulfill their promise to Butterflytuft to keep an eye on her little ones as they got older. "I dunno! Budkit's a sweet kid... I think Oleanderkit would give me a run for my prey.... I wouldn't mind mentoring that new one- Snowy, the one that got dumped out of Twolegplace..."

"Do you think maybe I could... sit in on your training sometime? Get a head start on being a mentor... or.. something?"

⟡₊ ⊹ i ll betray you like a man

• 
• -- edenberry / skyclan daylight warrior / any pronouns / 17 moons
  -- mostly white with black pinstripe and green eyes / scarred face and back
  -- color #728c69

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Maybe it's the eerie way the twoleg nests distort the night breeze, but Cherryblossom thinks Edenberry's voice quavers on a note when they speak of Butterflytuft. A white-gloved paw flaps in the air, shooing the feeling away. "Oh, yeah, well—" Memories resurface like bubbles filled with fog, regurgitating hazy shapes that slowly slip back into the churning abyss of mind. She knows she's visited Snowpath's grave plenty of times before; it'd been a core duty of apprentices to care for the infirm and the imprisoned. "You just seem like you talk to her more than me." The calico shrugs. Nevermind the fact that they'd been gone for a whole two moons, two-thirds of a full season's turn, and hardly would've had the time or presence.

A yawn bubbles up her throat as Edenberry talks of SkyClan's current kittens, and she doesn't bother stifling it with a polite paw. "Uh huh... I guess any of them would be nice to handle." None of them seemed as particularly headstrong as she, Doomkit, and Plaguekit had been. I wonder if either of them are in the Twolegplace right now? The last time she'd seen (more than seen) Doompaw was just before her warrior ceremony, like some sort of disgusting omen.

The thought that Edenberry, who joined their ranks just before apprenticeship, had never known them as squealing babies makes her feel strange. They've never truly known the crowded nursery Cherrykit had to trample through every morning, nor the experience of gazing at the moon through a cacophony of snores and a web of holly branches overhead. They stay the occasional night in camp, but no self-respecting forestborn would ever confine themselves in a Twoleg den for even one night.

The unjustness of her presence is begining to unsettle her. It's not exceedingly obvious that her mind had been wandering, but her eyes do refocus a little when the ink-brushed cat asks her a question. "Uh, maybe. Sure!" Her smile is cold in the artificial light. "I'll tell you when I have, like, a sparring session. I was planning on doing one next sunrise... er, this sunrise, I guess," she amends, blinking at the dipping moon.

She stands with a subtle shake of her pelt, loosening most of the garden dirt and clippings off of her. "It's getting late; I should really go back," Cherryblossom meows, turning to her to-be mate. "I'll see you tomorrow, Edie," she purrs, abruptly but affectionately pressing her nose and cheek into the smaller cat's. Then she's off and over the fence wall, the last of her in her orange tail hairs flickering into the darkness.​