private softened hymns // hyacinthbreath

[nightingalecry]

[ ummm backwritten to before the journey cats came back im so bad at making threads in a timely manner msncbvjshbcjshdbvj]

The scents of ShadowClan's medicine den are rampant yet she can hardly hold onto any single one. Her nose is clogged, her mind delirious, and every time she shuts her eyes she believes herself passing on. This time, too, she closes them and feels as if she's floating - the relief is minimal and not painless, but being asleep is better than wallowing whilst awake.

When she opens her eyes once again, she sees a pale, starry field. Her heart drops and she feels as if there's stones in her belly. "No... no," she whispers. Periwinklebreeze - he cannot come home to her dead. He cannot leave the Clan on a journey, believing himself to be some sort of hero, never even knowing that she had fallen ill - just to return to her gravesite. Her paw brushes the fur on her chest and she seats herself, wondering if she would be as tangible in death, or if StarClan walks no different than the living.

The grass rustles, and she tilts her gaze to find a familiar grey and white tabby. Her paws feel heavier than bricks, now. "Hyacinthbreath?" she asks, ears folding back, "I'm dreaming - it can't be you, this isn't StarClan. This - this isn't real..."​

 

[hyacinthbreath]

"You are dreaming, liebling." Hyacinthbreath's voice rings out like a melody as she speaks, thick accented tune sounding out in the misty, starry field. Tears bubble up at the corners of her eyes as she leans down to help her daughter rise to her paws, tail flicking behind her. Even in the safety of StarClan, her scars never disappeared- her lip trembles as she grinds her teeth together. Her poor darling daughter, sick with Yellowcough and on the doors of death. "You are not dead, not yet. Not if the journeying cats can return fast enough. You will live, my dear Nightingale." She gently presses her muzzle to her daughter's forehead, attempting to comfort her in her panic.

When she steps away, Hyacinthbreath sits before her daughter and admires how big she's gotten since she last saw her. "You've grown." And all without me beside you. She thinks bitterly, chewing the inside of her cheek as her star-kissed eyes peer to the side. Silence hangs between the two of them for a few heartbeats as Hyacinth tries to find the words to speak, and when she finally does, tears drip down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, daughter. I'm so sorry for not being there when you and Periwinklebreeze needed me most, when Wisteriapaw died." Her tone shakes as she peers downwards, paw combing over star-filled grasses. It is punishment for her to live in StarClan, to serve out and redeem herself for her sins in the living world. Murder, disloyalty, abandonment. Time ticks away in this frozen place, leaving her to never age further. But now wasn't Nightingalecry's time to go, so she would leave her with a good memory.

"You have become a strong, independent molly. But you must continue to depend on yourself and your brother. You two only have each other, and family.. Family is not something you take for granted." ​

LONER ✦ WARTORN SOLDIER ✦ 57 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[nightingalecry]

You're dreaming, she says, yet the ground beneath her feels all too real. She struggles to believe the tabby, to trust the other's starry form as anything more than a figment of her imagination. After all, would she prefer this realm to be so false that she would dream up a figment of Hyacinthbreath, or so tangible that the other is indeed herself, however only in a soul's whisper? Hyacinth helps her back to her paws and she feels her cheeks wet with tears, the cool press of starry fur reassuring her of the painful, painful truth.

She will live, if the journeying cats return home soon. If Periwinklebreeze comes home soon. But what is she to tell her brother? How can she open her gaze to the waking world once again - perhaps with a clear mind and her body lacking aches - only to tell her soft hearted sibling that they've lost their mother for certain? Nightingalecry struggles, and struggles some more. Coughs build up in her chest and she can only imagine that her body shakes in the living world, whilst here it's only a mild discomfort.

I'm still alive, she thinks to herself, a numbing, painful thought. "But you... you are not," she says finally, ears twisting backwards for a second. Air doesn't gather in her mother's lungs and she no longer hungers like her surviving children do. She's dead.

The conversation shifts and though she feels desperate and distraught, she cannot help the hollow laugh that tremors from her chest. "Yeah... yeah," she mumbles, "I've shot up, since apprenticehood. They say I'm a decent moor runner," obedient, quiet - perhaps if she were any bit sturdier and confrontational, Sootstar would welcome her into her inner circle. She's glad she's not.

The apology is met with a shake of her head, "No, Hyacinth - don't... don't be sorry." What use is guilt in the afterlife? Perhaps when they both stood earthside, Nightingalecry would've more readily accepted the apology. She's felt troubled and scared since Hyacinthbreath's departure and hearing the other struggle with her actions - it should fill her with validation and gratitude, however instead she feels impossibly greedy for ever wanting an apology to begin with. "It's over now. It's okay," she tries, but she, too, cries endless streams of tears beside her mother.

She leans forward, pressing her forehead into her mother's cheek, throat now hurting with soft but unheard sobs. She brings up Periwinklebreeze and she sighs, "What am I to tell him?" A beat passes and she pulls away, not angry, but scared, "He - he's cared for you more than I ever did. It shouldn't be me here to find you - I, you... you shouldn't be here at all. Hyacinth," she struggles and struggles and struggles, her mind racing but never quite getting anywhere. Eventually, she settles with, "I love you, and I miss you," bid to her mother.​