private MOTHERLY INSTINCTS // owlpaw

[SOOTSTAR]

Sootstar loved her children. If there was anything- any being she loved more than her clan, it was them.
If she played her cards right, this clan would be their future, this clan would be theirs to rule and take control of. She swore it to the stars she would give her children this clan.
Yet, even Sootstar could confess she has not been there for the both of them as much as she wishes she could've. It wasn't for a lack of trying, but somehow, someway, the duties of a leader were always grabbing her by the whiskers and yanking her away from them.

With Shirkepaw being her apprentice, she was trying with him... Yet for her dear Owlpaw, life still seperated them most of the time.
Not in this moment though, as she watched her sneak away from the scene. Though she tried to hide it, the mother knew her child, she could see in the way Owlpaw carried herself that something was not right. After a few moments, Sootstar gets up onto her paws and tails after her blue and ivory child.

"Owlpaw," She calls, "Where are you going?" A simple question to start. Perhaps it'd be enough to get the child to start talking without further inqury.

// @OWLPAW :D​

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[OWLPAW]

Her jaw clenched when her mother's voice called out to her. She did her best not to blame Sootstar for her lack of presence in Owlpaw's life. She knew that her mother had a lot of weight to carry on her shoulders. She led a Clan, she had other lives depending on her aside from Owlpaw and Shrikepaw, but sometimes she still found herself longing to be noticed. Now was not one of those times. Five seconds ago when Honeytwist had made her decision on her apprentice and it hadn't been her, there she would have appreciated it, but now she just wanted to be alone. She paused, the fur along the nape of her neck bristling. "Why didn't you say something?! Why didn't you tell Honeytwist she was wrong?!" she wanted to scream. But Sootstride was the last cat Owlpaw would treat with such disrespect even if she was so incredibly angry at her.

"I'm not feeling well," she opted for instead, blinking her eyes furiously to chase the tears away. She knew her mother would not want to see her cry. She did not want to cry, especially in front of her. But her hopes and dreams had been crushed in the blink of an eye, giving Owlpaw no time to process the fact that she would never get to fulfill her dreams and the destiny she so wholeheartedly believed StarClan had planned for her.

She started to turn around again, but it was as if, at that very moment, someone stabbed their claws into her chest and brought her heart out. Her knees felt weak and she buckled beneath them into a sloppy sit. She reluctantly let go of a few tears that brimmed at her eyes. "Why didn't she pick me?" she squeaked. Her throat ached as she swallowed a sob. "For the past two moons, I've been visited by StarClan every night. They told me I was special. I've been praying every night that Honeytwist would take an apprentice and I believed that it would be me. I thought StarClan thought the same. I thought they'd told her their plans."

She shuffled her paws because this was so incredibly uncomfortable and she had grown up believing that she should not show emotion like this. Usually, she was calm, quiet, obedient, and collected. Now she felt like she was coming apart at the seams. "I thought you knew, too. But... but you just let her take Dandelionpaw instead. And now I have to be a warrior... I don't want to be a warrior!"​

 

[SOOTSTAR]

I'm not feeling well, a classic excuse kits told the moment they exited the womb. Whether it was to get out of doing something they didn't wish to do or to shield them from revealing the truth about a situation. The mother only gives her daughter a look with a raised eyebrow, it spelled out I know you're full of it. Spit it out.

Sootstar isn't sure if it was the look that did it or not, but Owlpaw buckles and sits on the ground. Padding forward, Sootstar spots a few tears pooling out from her pretty yellow eyes. Sootstar's heartstrings are tugged slightly, yet she does not show it.

Why didn't she pick me?
Who? Honeytwist?! Why would Owlpaw have wanted Honeytwist to utter her name over Dandelionpaw's? Good riddance she hadn't called forth any of her children, she would've put a stop to it in an instant. They were meant to be great warriors, not flower collectors and carers of the ill... Sure, being StarClan's messanger was an honorable task, but both Shrikepaw and Owlpaw's true potential would shine as warriors. That is what Sootstar thinks.

"Visited by StarClan? Are you sure? How do you know?" How do you know they aren't just dreams? Owlpaw was still young, she was still prone to wild dreams and not distinguishing which were real and which were fake. As Owlpaw continues to sob the blue smoke settles down beside her and lightly wraps her feathery tail alongside her daughter. Her attempt at comforting, she isn't very good at it or expirenced, but she's trying nonetheless.

"You are special, Owlpaw. Both you and your brother, I've known it since the day you two were born." She begins with a light frown, "But you don't need to recieve dreams from StarClan to be special. You don't need StarClan to tell you you're special to be special. You don't need to be Honeytwist's apprentice to be special." It wasn't just words of assurance, but the truth to Sootstar. She knew her children were destined for great things... they just didn't have anything to do with spending most of their days with Honeytwist or collecting herbs.

"Perhaps you are right, maybe StarClan does speak to you. How do you know they speak to you because they want you to be a medicine cat? You can be special and be a warrior- there is nothing more honorable than being a warrior of WindClan, Owlpaw." She moves to try and give a quick lick to the top of her daughter's forehead. Praying that hopefully her words have given some reassurance, it was the best the stoic and emotion-hiding leader had.​

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[OWLPAW]

As Sootstar strode to Owlpaw's side and wrapped a comforting tail around her, the apprentice leaned into her mother's soft pelt. A shaky sigh left her lips as she swallowed down the remaining sobs that threatened to spill forth. She blinked the tears out of her eyes, an attempt to compose herself into the stony-faced facade she always put forth. Her paws shuffled along the grassy ground as Sootstar spoke her reassurances, questioned whether Owlpaw had truly seen StarClan in her dreams, and promised she did not need their blessing to be special.

But it wasn't that. Of course, she wanted to be special. She wanted to have a destiny and be as important as her mother, it was that her greatest desire had been ripped from her, given to someone who likely did not even want it - given to someone who, in her opinion, did not deserve it as she did. Regardless of whether or not her dreams were truly from her ancestors, she wanted more than anything to know the secrets of a medicine cat. There were only so few who knew how to perform Honeytwist's job, caring and healing the sick, studying herbs, deciphering prophecies. That was much more appealing than chasing rabbits and getting killed in war. Everyone could do that. Being a warrior did not make her special, as much as Sootstar liked to believe it did.

"Maybe it was just a figment of my imagination. The dream of a stupid kit," she hissed. And of course, that is all it was. Owlpaw knew it deep down. Deep, deep down where her ego had not yet rooted, she knew her dreams were only that: dreams. The kind everyone dreamt at night, only hers reflected what she wanted most in the world. Approval. To be set apart from the rest.

Owlpaw closed her eyes. "You say I'm special because you're my mother. All mothers think their kits are special." After all, she thought Shrikepaw was special too when Owlpaw only saw a weak and sickly kit who would likely always remain lesser than the rest. Sootstar went on, pushing the honorable warrior rhetoric she had heard a thousand times before. Her claws grasped at the dirt beneath the tall moorland grass as impatience struck her through the heart. "But I don't want to be a warrior. I don't doubt my ability to be good at it, but it doesn't exercise the mind the way being a medicine cat would. Having to learn all of those herbs, all those scenarios - what to use to heal in this situation or that one. Studying dreams and prophecies and learning how to speak with StarClan... that is much more interesting and fulfilling to me."

A fulfillment she would now never have because Dandelionpaw got to do all of that instead. And he would be apprenticed under Honeytwist for moons until she retired or passed, and by that time, Owlpaw would be a fully trained warrior and would be too old to begin her medicine cat training. She could kiss her dream goodbye for good now. The thought threatened to make more tears spill, but she held them in.​