private MY ONE AND LONELY \ pinkshine

[FEATHERSPINE]

Their nest were rooted beside each other, as if it would be any other way ... moons ago Featherspine would have complained, but now she had orchestrated it. A space, saved beneath the stars. In truth, he had hoped her presence might have done something to intercept the dancing shadows in the corner of her vision. Always pulsating, tendrils flicking and keyholing his vision into one spot where something might be lurking- a remedy was all she wanted, all she needed.

It hadn't worked. All she worried for now was accidentally treading on Pinkshine when she was making her way out of the cat-cluster, to ground himself and let his pupils reflect the eyes of the stars, just for a few long moments.

Even on nights where sleep did come, where it stayed- now and again, a nightmare would strike. Given a fitting name, Nightmareface flashed there through the darkness- ready with tearing teeth and razing claws to tear apart everything Featherspine held dear. Be it carving another scar upon the ripple-striped canvas of his body, or raking talons through the flesh of everyone she dared care for, she was a recurring visage no matter what. Tonight, crimson spattered the white of a calico pelt, and Featherspine flattened her ears against the din of a childish scream that hewed the sky. Whether it tore from Pinkshine's throat or his own, he didn't know.

She awoke with a jolt, muscles curled to pounce- but she held onto the earth with grasping claws. In that split of the moment, he did not think about waking Pinkshine up- her tail flicked to brush against the tunneler's flank. Moonlight lit her eyes into pale lanterns as she searched the darkness for the rise and fall of Pinkshine's side.

"P-puh ..." And it wasn't just his stammer, but a wobble of emotion- of sorrow, so rarely surrendered- that caught on the beginning of her name. "P-Pinkshine, are you ... are you awake ...?"

\ @PINKSHINE ​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

She's nudged into wakefulness by the brush of a tapered tail, sharpened to a point. Pinkshine blinks blue - ringed eyes open. A smile is put on as quickly as she can manage it following her open - mouthed yawn. Legs stretch in the same moment that she turns to Featherspine with drooping eyes. " I am now, " she mews, not angrily, obviously... She could never be mad at Featherspine for something as silly as this. If she wanted to have some kind of nighttime adventure, Pinkshine would be so super mad to miss it! It's better this way, she thinks. Even shrouded in darkness, she can squint to make out the sun - yellow of Featherspine's eyes.

An adventure or something is what she thinks... Or maybe a late night mouse? But when she turns to Featherspine, smiling, she sees the sharp tug of his frown and pauses. Had his mew more wobbly than usual, or was she imagining that? A moment passes, and Pinkshine shifts closer, crossing the line that kept her nest from Featherspine's. Mimicking the gesture that had nudged her awake, she flicks a striped tail across Featherspine's flank before seeking to twine it with her own. Side to side, she settles down with her best friend.

She drags a paw across her face in a sleepy attempt to wake herself up. " What's up? " she asks. She's always fallen asleep pretty easily... And she suddenly felt like a bit of a bad friend for not being sure how easy it came to Featherspine. Was this a one time thing — a bad dream? Or was Featherspine often up this late? " Can't sleep? "​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

Staring straight forward, Featherspine tried desperately to steady his breath- even Pinkshine, the one cat he could wobble weak in the face of, could not see him weep. And yet they kept falling, starlight glinting along the lines darkened by tears into her face. I am now. Guilt and relief, a sickening concoction, dropped as thick as honey down Featherspine's throat- she swallowed the feeling, let it spit and bubble in her chest, bitter and needy.

The brush of her tail against his made him tremble, just a little- he resisted very little when ginger stripes founf white-tipped chocolate, spun them together into a tight hold. Trying to blink away the glaze of tears to no avail, Featherspine's jaw tightened- pain radiated through his skull from how much he was holding back, from the panic that thumped in his chest. What's up? Within, Featherspine desperately grasped for the words, but could find nothing at all. Nothing concrete, nothing that didn't make her sound pathetic. A kit having a bad dream, snuggling closer into a comforting pelt. She was a piteous thing, detestable - that she sought, now, to sink a little more into Pinkshine's side. Can't sleep?

Gently, Featherspine shook his head. It took shaking, shaking, shaking to finally let something out- a whispering, raspy mew. "No. I- I ..." And what was the best way to say it? I had this awful dream about you - thinking of your ghost standing in the corner of my vision makes me so sad I can't even talk. "Really b-buh... b-b-bad dream." Suddenly, but softly all the same, his head dipped down to bury the star between his brows in Pinkshine's clashing chest fur.

"Can you- can you just t-t-talk to me?" Featherspine couldn't look at her as she said it, keeping her head there, her eyes drowned in such an engulfing darkness that even her own malicious mind could not manage to conjure up something horrible. Maybe it was because this was good darkness, though... the obsidian splashes of Pinkshine's chest, warm and familiar. "T-Tell me a story, or... or what you're g-g-going to do tomorrow? I just..."

She'd never felt more as if she was exposing the beating red viscera of her heart to another. No one else would ever be trusted... they'd sink their teeth into that tender flesh, leave her turbid, extinguished. "I just need to know you're here."​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

She's not used to it — the wavering eyes or the twinkle of stars at the corners, only for them to roll down his face. For a moment, Pinkshine only blinks, bewildered. It's with a start that she realizes Featherspine's crying. Not spitting mad, lashing her tail... It's shocking and new and weird and oh – Pinkshine couldn't have expected how sad it'd make her feel to see it. She always smiled in the face of tears... but it was different. Because it's Featherspine it was different. Because it's Featherspine she had to smile even harder for the both of them, even if she suddenly wanted to rush forward with her own runny nose... She tries to do just that, fixing a wide, close - lipped grin to her face, but her eyes watch round with worry.

A smile stutters right alongside him, wavering with every tremble from a barbed tabby pelt . She really wants to be pushy, to shake Featherspine and insist, what's wrong? but she holds it behind clenched teeth instead; urges Featherspine to talk to her with a flurry of blinks. " Featherspine...? " she tries not to sound too worried when she says it.

It takes a long time — a long moment of shaky breaths and fur against fur before he speaks. A nightmare. She can only imagine Featherspine saw some kind of horrible beast... maybe with rows of teeth and a flaming head. Maybe it was the thing that had tore at Sunstar, dreamt to have returned to the moors for a second taste of Sunstar's blood... She isn't sure what to say. She isn't sure what you can do about a bad dream besides hope that the next one would be kinder... That wasn't really fair, was it? She thinks, thinks and thinks and thinks... and the crown of his head is meeting her now, hidden amongst calico fur.

" I'm sorry... " her head dips down to cover the top of hers, matching a gesture that Featherpaw had done for her some moons ago. Would it help him feel better the same way it had helped her? A pink nose nudges at auburn fur. she tries to wish him sweet dreams with the rasp of a tongue atop his head.

Can you just talk to me? That was all Pinkshine ever did, really, but it's this one time, in the dead of night that she had wavered, unsure. Of course, though, for Featherspine. Obviously. And with his last mumbled words, confusion leaves Pinkshine's eyes downturned, seeing nothing but Featherspine, and Featherspine only. " Of course I'm here, " she mews. To remind her, her tail pulls her just that little bit tighter. " I'm gonna be here for... for forever! " No matter how far away forever seems. " I'm gonna tell you the best story ever, okay? "

She's quiet for a few moments, doing nothing but resting her chin atop Featherspine's head as she thinks... Did she have any good stories? Probably nothing that Featherspine didn't know already... she'd just have to make something up! " Okay, um... Once upon a time there were twoo... flowers. No — rabbits! " she quickly amends. Rabbits were much easier to make up stuff about. " One of them was a very grumpy rabbit. And the other was a very happy rabbit! They were best friends, and they raced the moors together and played in the flowers and made drawings – um, is what I'd say if rabbits could draw, " she adds, hastily clearing her throat. " But the other stuff was totally true! " she insists.

" And um... some c– other rabbits might look at them funny, but the thing is... Even if the grumpy rabbit looks like a grumpy rabbit, I think — I mean, the happy rabbit thinks... maybe she's just a very worried rabbit... " She apologizes inwardly, if her sigh could be felt past thick tabby fur. " I dunno what she's worried about, but I know she's worried... Um, this is what the happy rabbit is thinking. " Pinkshine trails off, and in the empty space, she laves her tongue across sharpened spines once again... If she tried hard enough, could they lie flat forever? Maybe not... Maybe it isn't a problem that she can just... solve.​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

If he knew it was wrenching Pinkshine's gut by looking this wretched, Featherspine never would have shed a single tear again- as it stood, though, he kept his head buried in the warmth of her fur, spattering the black of her chest with roiling tears. I'm sorry, she said, like she would ever have anything to be sorry for- like she would ever hurt her. By now Featherspine was certain of it; she was safe, eternally safe, in this embrace. That feeling was locked behind the steel of her facade, and welded itself into an even stronger place as Pinkshine's nose brushed the top of her head, as her tongue flattened his fur.

And she had always been good at giving- Featherspine decided then, very simply, that she rather adored it about her. For forever, she said, undoubtedly a long time ... but neither would ever get rid of the other. They plaited together like woven wheat, proven in the knotted contentness of their tails. The best story ever ... he was ready for it, truly. Horned ears angled to every word. A deep, palpitating breath fluttered through his throat, sprawling backward- the sigh wove with Pinkshine's words and reached to touch her very soul. "Okay," she said, and his voice already sounded that tiniest bit steadier.

Pinkshine's story was not a work of genius, not a twisting narrative, not gripping in any way- it was barely a story at all, actually. It mirrored real life so thinly and so obviously that even through a riddled mind Featherspine could decipher it.

But he couldn't pretend that it mattered. That she cared at all that it was easy to tell who the rabbits were supposed to be, and that Pinkshine had therefore called her grumpy. The other stuff is totally true! Featherspine's body trembled again, but this time not with the jolt of a sob- no, a silent, breathy laugh shook her. Affection flooded through with that barely-audible puff of air. Best friends, she'd said, too... and was this a tale of friendship, truly? The rabbits, frolicking through the moors? The cats, pressed into each other in the night ... the grumpy one seeking comfort, the happy one giving it without a second thought?

And what had she ever done to repay Pinkshine for moments like this? For vowing to stay at her side forever, if forever was accessible to them? He felt Pinkshine's chest heave with a sigh, but the motion of it soothed Featherspine for some reason. Such a heavy breath meant that Pinkshine's heart had to be beating- though he wondered how it managed to fit in her tunneller-sized ribcage.

Yellow eyes drifted closed. Her voice was quiet as she murmured, a great softness etched there, her own addition; "I think the grumpy rabbit sometimes worries..." And there was something of a sly smile in her voice, past the snotty viscosity that persisted after you'd just stopped crying. "About the happy rabbit. She thinks someone might ... might t-take advantage of her happiness, and use it t-to hurt her." It was his own thinly veiled story, unintelligent and half-bathed in delirium.

Her head grew heavier, heavier. She rested now not against Pinkshine's chest, but upon her paws. "... what d-do you think happens to them in the end?" Void of bark and bite both, her voice croaked in the quiet. He asked ... but Featherspine believed he knew the answer.​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

A laugh. So... she's won! Won over the tears and the trembling words; took her breath away in the form of laughter. It's easier to smile then. Not so much something she had to do, but something that she really really wanted to. This is what she smiled for, to make it easy for others join her. Smiling isn't something you're supposed to do alone, after all... That curling maw rests itself atop Featherspine's head. The night becomes less daunting the longer they lay here... She can see more now, make out the soft rise and fall of Featherspine's breath, and maybe, just maybe... would she be able to glimpse a grin from somewhere...?

She focuses though, is attentive to the shutting of Featherspine's eyes... A mismatched set of ears stand tall at the addition. What was it that the grumpy rabbit worried about? About the happy rabbit... Her eyes crinkle at the edges. Featherspine so obviously sought to turn her silly rabbit story into something else; something deeper... Aww, hangs just at the tip of her tongue. Her eyes grow round with adoration now, rather than worry.

Someone might take advantage of her happiness. " How could that happen? " aloud, she asks. All happiness has gotten her are good things... Scorchstreak's praise, Sunstar's smile, countless friends, and of course this. Er — the bunny equivalent of all of those things, obviously. Pinkshine hums. She tries to see it, she really does... " The happy rabbit thinks her grumpy friend worries too much, " she tells him, smiling. " ...But maybe she can't help it. "

The tempting lull of sleep tugs Featherspine's head down to her paws, and Pinkshine feels it too... but she wouldn't — she couldn't possibly fall asleep before he did. The sight coaxes a gentle purring from her, and it'd certainly be felt by them both... Pinkshine blows a breath over pointed ears, watches them flicker in response. What happened to them in the end? " Well... " she says. " Maybe the grumpy rabbit will never really stop worrying... but maybe the happy rabbit doesn't mind, so long as she's there to remind him he doesn't have to be all the time... " she tells him. That'd been her mission from the very start: to make him smile... and she'd gotten that, but she realized soon after that just one smile wasn't enough. She wanted Featherspine to smile everyday, and if she had to stay right here to make that happen, that was more than okay with her.

" They keep spending their days together, " she mews. " And they're best friends forever, " said with a silent devotion, the bump of her head to a spiky mane. her body shifts, leaving forepaws where they are, but settling in a way that'd keep her comfortable long throughout the night. Never once do their tails untangle themselves too far... And she sighs, a white maw coming to rest upon her head once again. " And they live happily ever after, " she purrs. " The End. "​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

In darkness, usually an unkind thing, Featherspine kept his tail twined entirely with Pinkshine's - refused to loosen their hold. Tethered to reality with her touch, he allowed breath after breath to slip from him, slowly stilling his body and weighing down his bones with an unfamilar but welcome peacefulness. How could that happen...? In a drifting mind, Featherspine couldn't think of any examples. Were there any at all?

"Sure, maybe he can't help it ... b-but he always appreciates the effort," the chocolate tom croaked, nuzzled still into the soft plush of his fur. Another puff of laughter, brief but audible, left him. Heavy breaths began to pull through her nostrils ... and for once there were not beasts in her vision.

There were two frolicking hares behind her eyelieds. Bunnies, rabbits, Pinkshine would call them- honeycomb harmony sang this lullaby to her. Oh-so-familiar tones, woven into the air she breathed. Upturned ears twitched with the buzz of her breath. Within, there was a strange-and-wonderful feeling of her stomach dropping to tunnel through the earth as her friend brought their heads so close together. Featherspine leaned into the touch, very slightly. His eyelids grew heavier by the moment; with every word, with every degree of glowing fire-warmth.

Her voice had dropped to a near inaudible whisper, slurred by the strain of staying awake to say it all. "I think you're right ..." That sometimes there was nothing to be solved, but you could bare to face that which terrified you, in the right company. And Pinkshine was perfect company for it ... to think, there had been a day when he would have begged for anyone else. "Sounds like a p-puh... an ideal life to me." And she huddled closer still, settling comfortably upon where Pinkshine had just-slightly shifted. Happily ever after.

It was something no one else could get away with saying in front of him- he'd be bewildered if he could float out of his body now and look upon this curled vulnerability, the smile that settled very-slight upon a tan muzzle. But truly - Pinkshine was a cure-all like no other. She had healing paws and a passionate tenderness (quite oxymoronic really), and when she slotted her chin between Featherspine's ears it felt like the idyllic melody of a thousand singing birds, like the earth had come alive, like new plants were weaving through the mass grave of the moors. Daffodils could have sprouted from her spine-scar, her paws could have rooted upon the earth. Would that every moment of my life could be like this.

A childish thought... but for once, Featherspine did not squash it.

"Thank you." Her voice was scarcely even a whisper. The ghost of a nightmare, long forgotten, threatened to draw out of the shadows. A cruel mind sculpted tiny spots of light into grim figures, watching on- waiting to pounce, to tear twined tails in twain, to hurl them apart forever. Restless pupils steeled theselves - he was ready to be jolted fully-awake again, to have efforts wasted. But another figure, made of light itself, soon trawled out of the inky pitch.

The dark cowered in the face of it, whimpered and trilled, furled and hissed and begged for forgiveness. Figures turned- those who looked turned to dust, and those who didn't fled in all directions. The sunshine beamed through- did not come gently or quietly, and yet brought joy with its suddenness ... Featherspine could meet its eyes, though. There was a face. It gleamed with a grin, with flecks of flame and ash. Her eyes were shards of sun, but the seaglass-shade that surrounded spangled pupils stood out most of all. Darkness slithered into the gorse of this imagined camp, and Featherspine surged toward her saviour. Two pink noses nudged together ...

And his head grew so, so heavy now. She had been silent for a little while- long enough for Pinkshine to have thought, perhaps, she might have been sleeping. Featherspine moved only slightly.

Without thinking, he gently pressed his nose to whichever part of Pinkshine he found first.

Without thinking, he croaked, "'Night ..."

Without thinking, she added, "Love you."

Featherspine melted into sleep hardly a moment after she had said it.

Pinkshine's face, steeped in daybreak brightness, was a vibrant daub in her mind. His slumber stretched on, mercifully dreamless. Words soaked in sleepiness, drenched in the delirium, would be forgotten come the morning.​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

Her smile curves, giddy at the admission... Maybe the story wasn't only a story, she'd admit. Maybe she'd made it this way, hiding past a silly story of frolicking prey to speak easier. To tell Featherspine things she might feel weird about hearing if they were made to be real. Really, Pinkshine only realizes what she's saying the moment she says it, revelations that would be impossible for a mere 'paw to make. She couldn't ever fix Featherspine or anything like that, could she? There would never not be things to worry about... There would never not be things to smile about, either. They've both forgotten at some point. No one could be one way forever... She was old enough to know that now, she realizes.

Is it tiredness that softens his tongue, or was it something else entirely? Pinkshine would still do it — still be here even if it wasn't true, she thinks. It'd be the duty of a clanmate, to try and ease the worries of someone that clearly needed it. To try and punch a hole through the clouds, even if it didn't always work. To ask, are you okay? when she can... But it makes her happy anyways, to know she's wanted... liked. Was that a different duty entirely? One between friends once it was a back and forth... Once it was her head atop his and her tail tightening to comfort? Um, she's pretty sure that's how it works, anyways, even if the end of that sentence doesn't really seem like the end. It's like something's missing. Another flourish at the end of the story... but what was there to say besides The End?

She's right, says Featherspine, and sleepiness takes to him so easily now that Pinkshine couldn't risk drowning him out with giggles. Did Featherspine know it made her happy too, to see a peeking smile where she rests her head? To see her breathing slow and her spines dulled into something that can fit so comfily against her? At some point, Pinkshine had thought she might come away with scrapes if she ever got too close... When had that changed? Not that it really matters, so long as it stays where it is now.

Well, Featherspine probably did know it made her happy, but it was more than happiness. And this more-than-happiness thing is one she's struggling to name. Whatever it is, she hopes that it's forever.

" Of course, " she tells him, and she doesn't ever think she could be as quiet as Featherspine was now, but it's the closest that it could be in the name of well - needed rest. Breath grows slow... She wonders what Featherspine would dream of. With swipes of her tongue, she tries to plant images of frolicking rabbits... Of a moor fully green and grown, covered in flowers. Sunshine. Lots of it. When her friend falls asleep, shoulders slack, she hopes to StarClan that she would dream of something nice.

Or... she'd thought she was asleep, always. Featherspine stirs one last time. A pink nose sleepily finds the fur of her chest. Pinkshine giggles at gesture, purrs, " G'night, " and then...

That's the word.

Pinkpaw loved plenty of cats. She loved all of her clanmates... she loved all of her friends... So why did it feel so different when Featherspine said it? It seems kind of impossible, the way she felt even more like she was meant to be there, framing Featherspine in her own nest. There's not even a point in thinking of what to say. It flies freely, clearly, with a wider - than - wide grin. " I love you too, " she mews, and it makes her feel fuzzier than anything else in the world ever has. There were a lot of things that made her feel fuzzy too... but a lot of them were right in front of her.

She doesn't think she'll be able to fall back asleep the way Featherspine had, anymore... but she doesn't mind. She could still shut her eyes and just be with him, instead... Even if Featherspine couldn't see her smile, it was all his, obviously.​