private MISSTEP INTO CYBERSPACE — ferngill

[iciclefang]

The moon is descending now. Iciclefang departs from Sunningrocks with shining eyes, missing the warmth from Stormywing’s body already as cold begins to settle in. She’d never get used to being away from her now—but she pauses amongst the reeds, sitting and extracting her tongue to groom the ThunderClan scents from her fur. They lay on her tongue, thick and nostalgic now—oak leaf, the shadows of a dense undergrowth, the breath of a squirrel, bracken and moss. She savors the flavors of the forest even as she strips them from her pelt. Would that I never had to wash you off of me, she thinks with a stifled frown.

A snap! interrupts her thoughts. The tortoiseshell lifts her ears, her face crinkling into a startled expression of mingling panic and aggression. “Who’s there?” She’s too close to the border still, and though she’s washed most of the worst of Stormywing’s scent from her fur, it’s too obvious where she’s been. She tenses, waiting for the inevitable, when she sees bright ginger peeking through the reeds. Her eyes round with relief—relief, and anger. Had he followed her here? “Ferngill? What are you doing here?”

[ @FERNGILL ]

, ”​

​

 

[FERNGILL]

The possibility of running into anyone hadn't struck Ferngill at all when he'd groggily risen from his nest, too cramped by warm bodies and enclosing walls. River waters, alight with a million little eyes, had been his respite until the moon was cut from its string of suspension, and with its fall Ferngill figured it best to head home. And... anyway, even for a talented swimmer, lingering too long in Leafbare waters could never be a good thing.

To head home, and nothing else- that had been his intention, But he'd heard movement, thought he caught a stranger's scent- and it had pulled him toward the source, meadow-green eye narrowed in suspicion. Was ThunderClan greedy for yet more territory, smothering their pelts in... in mud or something to suppress their scent?

Decidedly, it wasn't the doing of ThunderClan. "Iciclefang?" Dumbly, he replied to her recognition. What are you doing here? For a few moments all he could really do was stare at her, sighted eye glazed over with surprise. What was she doing here, near Sunningrocks, ThunderClan scent lowly suppressed beneath her fur. Was she... re-marking the borders, while no one could see? Rubbing herself against every rock, like ThunderClan wouldn't overwrite it all in the morning... oh, let that be the reason. But his sister wouldn't waste her time like that, would she?

"I- I was just out for a swim. I couldn't sleep, and then- I thought I could smell an intruder. What..." His voice gave way, heavy bafflement completely crumpling his fiery face. There was a reason cats came to the border in the dead of night, he... he wasn't stupid enough not to know that. Silently, he begged her not to give him any reason to worry as he asked, "What are you doing here?" ​

✦ penned by pin ✦​

 

[iciclefang]

"Iciclefang?" Her brother returns her short, terse greeting with confusion evident in his mew. His expression falls as he studies her, trying to place any semblance of reason in their meeting. He tells her he was out for a swim, and she almost relaxes—it's an easy excuse, fallen neatly into her paws—but then he mentions an intruder, and her tension returns, sharp and bladed. Iciclefang's muzzle creases into a snarl. "An intruder? Where?"

But the question he asks erases her false hostility. What is she doing here, indeed, with the oak forest on her pelt, with dreams in her eyes, soft and distant as stars she had attempted to grab. The tortoiseshell's mouth falls flat, into a firm line she cannot move. Ferngill knows something is up. He knows she was on ThunderClan territory. As minnowbrained as her brother can be at times, the guarded curiosity, the way he's looking at her, it tells her everything.

After a long, quiet heartbeat, she mews, "Did you see her?" And then an icy cerulean gaze narrows, darting from reed to reed. "...Are you alone?"

, ”​

​

 

[FERNGILL]

Her snarl was gone as quick as it appeared- as if she knew the intruder was nothing to worry about. He weakly gestured, here, to answer her question... but it was wordless, limp, confused. There was something wrong, here. For all his weaknesses, Ferngill could tell that much- could tell there was something about her. Surprise, wariness. Everything was silent for a moment.

Did you see her? Iciclefang's question answered his own- there was no intruder here. "Her?" Ferngill's throat was dry. His voice felt as granular as sand, as... rough, hoarse. Brittle as a tower of the stuff. Are you alone? Another question, but- but this one didn't answer anything. His eye flicked between her two, icy but star-dewed. Through her cold exterior, he knew his sister, knew...

Then, his eyes squeezed shut. "Stars," he muttered breathlessly, woozily. Where before his voice had been normal but confused, it was now suppressed into hushed murmur. "Yeah, I'm alone. Wh... who was it, then?" Ferngill pulled a face as if she was about to strike him. There was something inevitable approaching either way.

A Thunderclanner, her- or a loner. A loner who'd walked on ThunderClan's territory. Her. Or just a Thunderclanner. Let it be for a fight, let it be for anything else...​

✦ penned by pin ✦​

 

[iciclefang]

“Her?” Ferngill stares at her, his voice rough at the edges, jagged. Iciclefang could have slapped herself for this transgression—he hadn’t, he hadn’t seen anyone, and if she had just continued to lie… if she could have thought of something, anything, to satiate his curiosity, then she could walk him home, and this mess would be forgotten, a bad dreamwalk under tilted stars. She can feel something searching in his questions; he wants to believe her. Wants to believe there’d been something else, then, and when he asks who it had been, there’s something flinching in his posture, as though afraid of the answer. Afraid of everything that comes with the answer.

Iciclefang stares at her brother for several heartbeats. Crickets chirp. Cicadas rattle. Somewhere, a fish splashes in and out and then back into the river. She forces herself to blink, and she realizes, as she does, that she’d been holding her breath in. The trapped air smells claustrophobic.

“Stormywing.” She gazes at Ferngill, and something soft enters her expression—whether for her lover or the brother who’d discovered her secret, it’s unclear. “It’s… it was Stormywing. I was… I was seeing her at Sunningrocks.” She forces herself to sit; her tail brushes against the thick stalk of some riverland foliage. It trembles beside her, as shocked to hear the news as anyone else. “I—stars, you can’t tell anyone or I’ll lose everything, Ferngill. Do you understand that?” A hint of desperation creeps into her tone. “I’m… she’s my mate.”

And now, impossibly, she flinches from him, from his judgment, from his inevitable stupor.

, ”​

​

 

[FERNGILL]

Stormywing, she said- Ferngill felt at once like he'd been body-slammed in the stomach, and a great weight lifting off his shoulders. The surprise did not come with the cat herself (and in later hindsight, he was sure he would reflect on even more), but with the very concept- his sister, meeting in the night with a Thunderclanner. Ferngill held his tongue for a few long moments, single sighed eye trained on her face, on every twinging expression. It hurt her to admit it, he could tell- like she was giving away some part of herself, like she had spilled something that was only ever meant for her.

Like. It wasn't like at all, was it? This- this had been a special night that he'd crashed into clumsily, and he'd broken the screen between him and everything his sister had for herself.

She's my mate. He didn't even need to hear it, really. Incredulity still flooded his gaze, but then- oddly, genuine humour first dawned in his eye and then curved his lip. "Of course I won't tell anyone. Why would I do that to you?" Unlike their argument on the mountains, Ferngill's voice did not bear any sort of offence. It was questioning, probing, genuine. Did she really think he ever would?

Ferngill released a long, shaky breath. He lowered his voice. "No- no. You went hunting. I woke up, didn't see you, was worried. I- I found you fishing, and I brought you back to camp because I didn't want you to overwork yourself." It was made up on the spot, shambled together, but it was a story for anyone who might ask. For the possibility. His breaths still trembled with the revelation, with the implication. But he could convince himself, act like it was the truth, if she agreed. ​

✦ penned by pin ✦​

 

[iciclefang]

Shock may color his expression, but Ferngill’s lip twitches skyward as he admonishes her. “Of course I won’t tell anyone,” he says. “Why would I do that to you?” Iciclefang’s shoulders sag with relief, the tension leaving her body spent and loose. It had been a long night—she had spent it with Stormywing, splashing about in the shallows, chasing her through the boulder-lined path, sand crunching under their paws, and then huddled together against the cold, stargazing and reminiscing about mountains reaching for the moon, about their tails twining in the comfort of a sturdy pine.

And now this. The tortoiseshell’s exhale is soft and breathless. “Thank you.” She dips her head, gratitude causing sapphire eyes to glow like blue moons. “Yes… I went hunting, but I wasn’t successful.” She grimaces at this lie. Why did the cover-up story have to present her as incompetent? She supposes she could go back to the river and try to fish in earnest, but the sun is beginning to warm the horizon now, and she knows she needs at least a few hours of sleep before the dawn patrol begins to stir. She sighs, resigned. “I’m glad it was you, Ferngill.” She feels strange, to share this secret with her brother, but… it’s almost a relief, to have another cat know the enormity of her feelings, of her shame.

After a few heartbeats, she mews, “Let’s go back to camp and try to get some rest.” She passes by him, letting the tip of her tail rest briefly against his flank before she continues on.

, ”​

​