camp ROSEBUDS — teething, exploring

[FLUFFYPAW]

Fluffykit can see now, and although at first her vision had been cloudy and vague, things have sharpened into focus for her. The blazing reddish-gold of her mother’s pelt is a color she associates with warmth, with comfort and softness. Her father’s dust-colored muzzle approaches her gently, tenderly. The dark pelts of her littermates bring her a sense of familiarity that she cannot comprehend beyond vague, fuzzy feelings like sunshine in her tiny heart.

One morning, the little buds on either side of her head begin to open like flowers blossoming toward a nurturing sun. Awkward, off-kilter, and only partially triangular, Fluffykit’s ears stick out at strange angles on her tiny, fuzzy head—but things become sharper in other ways, now. Those distant murmurings are loud. Sometimes, things are scary, too, too-close for comfort, and they send her burrowing into Butterflytuft’s orange belly to hide.

This is when her main solace—the sweet drops of milk that coat her tongue—come into play, and now she has discovered that nibbling gets her more of what she wants, likely to her mother’s chagrin. There is a string of needling pearls strung across the roof of her mouth, and she uses them at every new opportunity.

On this fine, sleepy afternoon, she draws the baby-new teeth away from Butterflytuft and blinks unassuming, unknowing blue eyes up at her before she scooches away. Her legs bend at strange angles, and her steps are uncertain, toddling—but she takes them, going everywhere and nowhere. The nursery is immense, filled with other kits, other queens, cats coming to look at her and the other residents. It’s a scary place when she does not have her mother’s flank to bury her face in. She emits a tiny, bewildered squeal.

[ @butterflytuft @Daisykit @weedkit but no need to wait :) tl;dr baby takes her first steps away from mom and squeaks because she’s scared ]

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[TIGERSCAR]

BIOGRAPHY AND TAGS​

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He had been listening, of course. The chatter of SKyClan's camp was always full of fun little rumors and opinions that danced into his tufted ears. A Queen steps out of the nursery and moves quick to the side of a friend... the kit is walking, she says. Her very first steps. It's spoken like some grand achievement, something monumental. Tigerscar tilts his head, entirely curious. He hadn't seen the newest littler just yet, and it occurs to him that he's never actually seen a kitten as young as Butterflytuft's.

Would he get in trouble for poking his head into the nursery for a quick look? A smirk draws across his muzzle as one eye flits toward the fresh-kill pile. It is a devious expression, cunning and callous. He rises to huge paws and sweeps toward the corpses, snapping up a robin from the top of the pile. It seemed fresh, brought in recently from a patrol. Good enough, he thinks. Feathery tail snakes through the chilly air as the brute of a tom makes his way toward the den. With a brazenness that shone within his one eye, the half-faced warrior ducks his mangled head and slips inside.

He's so large that the edges of the den scrape against his thick coat of fur, and as his flaming vision adjusts to the veiling shadow, he sees the target of his fascination at last. Fluffykit. She was indeed walking, clumsily, but... kits were like that, weren't they? What Tigerscar is struck by is just how tiny she is. So tiny, in fact, that he wonders if he could crush her beneath one paw... would she crack like an egg? No, no... cats had multiple bones. It would sound like several eggs, cracking at once.

He grins, a wolf-like expression, the cruelty of the image prompting a malicious amusement. He could say it was an accident... kits did so like to roam beneath the larger paws of their clan-mates, after all. They were much too curious and adventurous for their own good. Ah, but after a long moment of silent staring, the scarred, collared tom shifts that piercing eye upon the mother. He watches her for a moment, as if he were a fox, before dropping the robin at her paws.

"I brought you a bird. The feathers will be nice for your nest." Spoken with such sweet honey, smooth and rumbling, like a gentle roll of thunder through a storm cloud. There's something inexplicably wrong with the kindness that seeps into his voice, as if it were poison. Most would not be able to detect such a thing, others might wonder if they were imagining it. Yet some... were more intuitive than others. "When do kits start to eat fresh-kill?" Tigerscar suddenly thinks to inquire, and this time, he is genuine, the curiosity in his voice filled with a sort of wonder.
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[DAWNGLARE]

The sun reminds Dawnglare of home. Of a lazy midday, spent with paws tucked atop polished wood; a single leg off the edge of some twoleg contraption. The way they bent natural was unnatural; immoral even, he would say; twisting Her earth into things unrecognizable, but such a sin was easy to forgive, when you benefitted from it so. If they were to beg... If the cat that was Valentine could continue to breathe freely upon their inventions— and certainly, he would— he'd suppose it could be forgiven.

Such a thing is why he finds himself outside now, even if his paws often felt stuck as they were. He seeks the sun— fake as it was during this dreary season. Dawnglare had always hated this. The way it shined no less brightly, even though it's warmth was long, long gone. It he concentrates hard enough, he can pretend there is something pleasant left within it. Or perhaps, rather, it was this thick coat of his.

Only the desire to warm his bones has him passing by such a place— and when he hears a rumbling purr; and sees a brutish body keeping any queen from their sun. Notably, he seems to not do anything at all for far, far too long. Acutely, and strangely, this has him frustrated indeed.

" A little while yet, " Dawnglare would tell him with narrowed eyes, just barely catching onto the question; and answering it at all is but an avenue for him to say what he really wants to. The medicine cat would thwack his tail against Tigerscar's barbarous side. " Move, you oaf. Allow the queens their sun. " Such a request could've been made lighthearted, but he does not bother.

A WISE WOMAN SAID I'M ALIVE 🍷 NOBODY'S EVER TOLD HER SHE'S WRONG

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• ( I'M AS ALIVE AS HER BEARD IS LONG ) DAWNGLARE Medicine Cat of SkyClan. Mentoring Fireflypaw
  𓆩♡𓆪 He / him , deeply confused by the use of other pronouns
  𓆩♡𓆪 Currently 59 moons old as of 11.20.23. Mated to Mallowlark
  
  Unsettling and strange, Dawnglare bears a unique perception to the world and stars above on top of a generally unpleasant disposition. Holds others to uniquely impossible standards and himself undeniably above the rest.
  Mood is decided by dice - rolls per thread, with the exception of some important threads

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[butterflytuft]

Oh yes, the new kitten teeth are indeed sharp. Too sharp for a new mother’s comfort, but she supposes it’s something she’ll have to get used to. The important thing is that her kits are growing. Their eyes have become clearer, their ears have unfolded and prick up at silly little angles, and today, the first of them takes her first steps.

As she toddles away from her mother’s flank, Butterflytuft lifts her head and blinks smiling eyes down at her. Fluffykit seems to be on a mission of curiosity, of exploration…until she isn’t. She squeaks, bristles as much as a young kitten could, and the queen chuckles softly at the sight. Just as she reaches a snow-spotted forepaw out to steer the child back, a shadow falls over her and she freezes, turning wide yellow eyes up.

There stands Tigerscar, a too-big grin on his face as he looks from Fluffykit to herself. The robin is deposited at her paws, but she can’t shake the dread she feels as she looks up into the hulking tabby’s eyes. “Um…th-thank you,” She whispers, ears folded back and head ducking as she swiftly pulls her daughter back with a paw. She doesn’t know the warrior well, and she feels bad for thinking such a thing, but…she doesn't want her getting too close to him. Call it maternal instincts, maybe, she doesn’t know.

She has never been happier to see Dawnglare there, answering the brute’s question and trying to heave him out of the den. The soft-spoken queen says nothing else, only dips her muzzle down towards Fluffykit again to nose her, give her a lick or two, yet her eyes still flutter back up to make sure Tigerscar leaves.​

 

[BLAZINGHEART]

THERE WILL COME A SOLDIER — Blazingkit was excited to see that Butterflytuft's kittens had opened their eyes it only meant that they would be able to play Lionclan warriors with him and his sisters soon, he notices Dawnglare and Tigerscar but doesn't seem to care for either of them. His green eyes locked onto the small squeaking form of Fluffykit whose drawn back by a paw that belonged to Butterflytuft, his feathered ears prick forward hearing that the mottled molly wouldn't have fresh kill until a little while or whatever that meant. "She's so little," He says with a tilt of his head to his denmate then turns his attention to the queen who had watched over him and his littermates whenever Howlfire needed to go away for a bit, the bridge of his muzzle wrinkles slightly and he peers over the queen's limb only to sit back a ways away on his rump "Will they be able to play soon?" He asks her, after all, he had to show Fluffykit and the rest of her siblings how to be good Lionclan warriors.

And it was a much more important question than Tigerscar's own, he can't help but giggle when he sees Dawnglare try to steer the daylight warrior away with a hit of his feathery tail. He supposes that the old medicine cat was okay sometimes.

WHO CARRIES A MIGHTY SWORD 𓆩✧𓆪 HE WILL TEAR YOUR CITY DOWN

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  ✧ longhaired red tabby tom with green eyes
  ✧ 3 moons old; ages the 28th every month
  ✧ sexuality unknown; too young
  ✧ son of coyotecrest and howlfire
  ✧ brother to wolfkit and hawkkit
  ✧ easy to befriend; will throw a tantrum if you call him filthy
  ✧ "speech", thoughts, attacking
  ✧ peaceful powerplay allowed

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[FLUFFYPAW]

Something massive blocks the light in the nursery. Another cat—she can tell, because there is fur, paws, whiskers, like her father’s, like her mother’s—but this cat towers above them, and he has only a single eye. The other is a horrendous hole, a darkness surrounded by torn flesh. She can hardly make sense of the colors, but then the cat speaks, and it’s low and thunderous. She emits a startled cry, stumbling away from the tom and just feeling her mother’s paw snake from their nest to rescue her. She allows herself to be drawn back toward Butterflytuft, her body trembling like a bird chick left in the snow.

Another cat enters, and he is tall, too, but less scary—his fur looks softer, and he has two eyes, but Fluffykit feels her taste for adventure has been quite satiated for the day. She buries herself into the soft fur of her mother’s chest, quivering delicately beneath Butterflytuft’s chin. She feels the comforting dampness of her mother’s nose press into her fur, the rasp of her tongue. It calms her slightly—some of the tremors leave her body, so that she only slightly shrinks back when one of the only nursery kits approaches her.

He is taller than her, but he is not so big as the other cats. He looks at her, and though she cannot explain why, she is not as afraid. He speaks to her, or about her, she does not know, and the words are meaningless, but they do not sound scary. She rests against her mother’s body, bluish eyes peering warily at Blazingkit as he examines her.

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