private please don't let me down // sunflower

[cottonsprig]

Cottonsprig sits poised over a little stream. Her paws dip uselessly into the cold, cold waters, trying to find reprieve in the way the ichor slicks off of her and stains the trail red. Peonybreeze has yet to return - it's difficult to hunt on these lands, for that she's certain. She does not begrudge him for being late, but she does find distaste that she must clean herself of blood and viscera all on her own.

"Please, please just wash away," she whimpers, her tail lifted to keep out of the current. Her maw, her chest, her claws - stained with the blood she hopes to never see again (she bitterly humors herself in the thought that if they were to meet again, he would only see her half as well.) The taste of gore is too heavy on her tongue and she can't bring herself to commit to want more.

Days in, and she has already risked her life. Days in, and she suddenly thinks the ridicule of the Clans is better than this.

The dry grass cracks with steps and blue eyes flick up, a feral look in them as she glares upon the beast who approaches her. Belly too round, fur too stained - Cottonsprig meets familiar eyes but does not move so quickly.

"Sunflowermask?"

@SUNFLOWERMASK​

 

[Sunflowermask]

⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊ Wandering suits them.

The once-warrior has become a vagabond, a creature of no home. Restless paws trail across hills and mountains, pawpads growing calloused. Each day, they drink in a new sight with all the hunger of a starved, wild thing. It soothes the clawing thing that has made its home within their chest, a beast born of isolation and surveillance.

They have shed the hardened shell that Sootstar's WindClan had made of them. It clung to them still, surrounded by cats who has not changed nearly as much as they pretended. For the first time in seasons, Sunflowermask is beginning to feel whole again.

Peace is is a piecemeal thing, found in sunsets and wind in their fur. It is found on cliffsides and valleys, found in pebbles and feathers. They wear pieces of memories in their fur, tattered butterfly wings and wilting flower petals.

They try not to think of what they left behind. It had not been an easy thing, break away from the home they had made in other cats. But it had been gradual - diverted gaze, quiet voice dissolving into nothing. Sunflowermask had been gone long before they left WindClan. There was no loss left to mourn, surely.

And yet - here comes a ghost, impossible to ignore.

Nostalgia bleeds quickly into horror, red soaking soft dove-gray fur. "Cotton," they breathe, the word slipping out feather-light and dissipating into the air like nothing more than vapor. She shouldn't be here. This place is beyong the wandering grounds of their once-friend, and they feel frozen at the wrongness of it. Her eyes, always crinkled with mirth in their memory, now flash with the fear of a cornered fox, violent and as wild as anything this far from the clans.

They stumble back, eyes trained on the blood that darkens her fur. Soft ripples of water lap against it, but do little to hide the stain. "What...?" Their voice comes just barely louder now, shaky and worried.

‎‎┌── BROKE MY HEART TO SO MUCH AS TRY ☀︎ TO LIVE THE LIFE THAT LAY BEFORE ME ──┐‎

• 

  
  
  "SPEECH"
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• 
  SUNFLOWERMASK ☀︎ they / them, moor runner of windclan, twenty-three moons.
  ➳ lithe lilac tortoiseshell with messy fur and bright golden eyes.
  ➳ rarely speaks & has very muted expressions. dislikes physical touch.
  ➳ walks with a slight limp & tends to hold left forepaw off the ground when idle.
  ➳ rain x npc; half-sibling to vulturemask & littermate to goldenstrike & shadowrunner.
  ➳ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ➳ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

​

 

[cottonsprig]

A ghost. There is a realm of being where Cottonsprig would wish herself the livelihood of a ghost - which is to say that she wishes to have not lived at all, if such means avoiding disasters like the one she's in. Death is not what she craves, but to simply dissipate into the stars for long, waning moments until Sunflowermask moves on... she desperately wants that.

But alas, such is not the case. An old friend sees her at her lowest, blood soaking her dove grey fur and giving her no reprieve. She must look insane, out of place - meanwhile the tortoiseshell looks perfectly where they must be. Among the yellow grasses of the outerlands, Cottonsprig would not have noticed them if not for their unused voice cracking the air. She does not flinch, does not lean away or try to hide. She has nothing to lose after being seen at all.

"Don't -" she starts with a painfully soft, weepy demand, "- be scared of me, please." A long drawn breath, and the she-cat feels as if she may sob as she tries again, "I... I would never hurt you, Sunflower. I..." They owe you nothing, she knows. But their disappearance was so quick, and without even a goodbye? She tried to bring them joy and companionship but it was never enough. In the light of everything, she tried to not let it hurt her. But in the fragility of the moment, in the time where her heart threatens to shatter, she whispers a quiet, "... Did I hurt you? Is... is that why you left?"​