SOME DAY ILL BE 𓇼 KINDLING

[shellpaw]

she has long since run cold. if she follows the water back, she could probably find riverclan camp again, but then again, what if she doesn’t? she was supposed to be out here with her mentor, someone old and who knows these twining paths of meadowland like the back of their paw. shellkit barely knew anything outside the nursery and elders den — after she and pebblekit’s incident with the snow - in, she’d not been allowed in or near the warriors den without reason. she sits hovering over a small tower of shells and pebbles, her forced game of stacking and sorting until she was rescued was beginning to become.. distinctly unfun. maybe she shouldn’t have gone out when everyone was lying down for a rest, but she would have never gotten out of camp otherwise, so what else was there to do? the she - kit curls against the sand, her trinkets poised between two alabaster paws. this had been a bad, terrible, awful idea. the trouble that she’d get into wasn’t even worth it, not now. not when —

something crunches lightly along the sand downwind.

shellkit nearly leaps from her pelt, finding her paws beneath her. her fur puffs out in a way she hopes is threatening and not the bristle of fear coursing through her body. there is a blessed warmth that befalls her in the wake of such sudden panic, and the brief feeling returning to her pads helps even her wobbling stance, ” hello? who — who’s that? “ she wheezes, because it was cold, and she had no nest to curl up in and catch her breath. the air is too frigid, but she stands her ground, watery amber eyes fixated on where the undergrowth rustles. her mind whorls — was this a rogue? a fox? maybe even an eagle, like hazecloud had fought so long ago ( she wasn’t sure what they looked like or what they did, but it could be. ). she trembled, and she can’t even cry too much, because she’d done it to herself. regardless, a single tear wets her cheek, ” this is, um — riverclan territory. you should get out.. “ there was no certainty in her voice but she tries, because she was old enough to be an apprentice, she was. regardless, her lungs do not seem to catch the memo ; her breath ends on a harsh cough, born from the seep of chill into her bones. she had to go home. she had to get somewhere safe, and warm.

𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐍 𓇼 𝙎𝙊 𝙎𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙊 𝘾𝙊𝙇𝘿

• i. @Kindling
  
  
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  SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING xx UNKNOWN, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. TWO MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS.
  delicate lilac - striped molly with sugarplum eyes.
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of shell - touched cream, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore. feather breath and elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined warm, sugared amber ---------- ° ❀ ⋆
  

  currently exhibiting symptoms of whitecough. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

  
  

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[Kindling]

It was almost as if she is being looked down upon fondly for her boldness, offered a rare gift in the form of a proper bargaining chip to obtain what she wanted. Kindling had no care or love for the offspring she had left behind, huddled and cold upon the ground, rejected with as much of her heart and soul as she could have possibly pushed away. This one is the same color of her sire was. She looks nothing like her and it is a fact that makes the molly's fur bristle slightly, the lack of the blue pelt she considered her most stunning feature made it more than a little difficult to speak with levity and sweetness as she intended because her mind was already rejecting the tiny scrap of lilac fur but it was for a better cause that she bite her tongue and not show her disdain.

"My poor kit, do you not remember me? Do you not know who I am? Do you remember when they took you from me? I'm your mother, can't you tell?" It was almost mocking in a way, the resemblance ended at the lean body and curled fur while she knew her sons both carried the river gray pelts that were more close in color to her own. She approaches lightly, movements careful to avoid startling or sending the kitten running though she was confident she could catch her if so. The moment she was within range her tail flicked out, curling delicately and offering a warm shroud around the shivering bundle in a way almost maternal if she could have hid the sneer curling her lips she masked as a smile; a kit might not notice the subtlties of her gesture but an older cat would be far wiser to her manipulations. She wasn't exactly trying very hard.
"You're going to freeze out here, come with me. I know some place warm and comfortable out of the snow." If met with no resistance she would attempt to usher Shellkit along with her, heading back to the abandoned shed she had staked her claim upon when she first ventured out to the forest territories only to be so cruelly cast aside. "You're brave for venturing out alone, what name did they give you my little one?"
​

 

[shellpaw]

soft, curling fur. the same river - kissed shade as her brothers, deep blue ribboning up a face she’d seen only in her own reflection. she doesn’t know if, somewhere deep within her, she knows the molly as she slips from the curtain of sedge and rotted willow, or if the realization is crushing enough for her to imagine that she’d known the entire time. im your mother, the molly says, cant you tell? and shellkit wants to nod her head until her brain rattles because of course she could. of course, even if she didn’t, she would say she did ; she says cant you tell like the lilac child should, and who was she to disappoint her kin this soon? suddenly, she is embarrassed. her ears flick down, body curling instinctively downward as kindling approaches her in a way she always had when approached by her queen. it feels different, but in her haze, shellkit could only assume that’s what if it felt like to be around her real life mother.

but it felt.. uncomfortable, to be this close to anyone but her foster mothers. still, the same billowing tail she was shaping every day comes to wrap around her, bathing her in swathes of minnow silver and the girl forces her nerves down, drinking up the gentle - voiced coo, sap thick despite its tight, razored edge. in a life filled with nothing but gentle voices and warm, encouraging smiles, shellkit believes her. strangely, she expects to be swaddled in hazecloud’s scent instead, to breathe in milk and thistle and her little kin until her heart calmed its desperate tick-tick-tick. her mothers is different. there is a mossy scent there ; something watery and green, wild like the stretching meadows around her. the girl finds comfort in it, if only for the flush of warmth spreading over her skin as she drinks it in, tucking her nose into the soft swathes of looping fur at her side.

her lashes billow sleepily, limbs growing heavy at the sudden relief and shift of freezing body temperatures, too malleable in the paws of her elders — inherent safety. there wasn’t a big cat who would ever do her wrong, not her. she was only a baby. do you remember when they took you from me? her mothers says, and shellkit doesn’t remember. she shakes her head, ” hazecloud says i wasss.. too little to remember. littler than the babies, even. “ the babies were growing up now, though. she wanted to go see them. but she says you’ll freeze out here, and it doesn’t really sound like the playful nip of a warrior nudging her back into the nursery. it sounds like a fact, and the lilac child lets out a low keen of a whimper at the prospect ; paws lift to thread into the fur along kindling’s haunch for comfort as she did hazecloud, but the molly shifts — inching forward in shuffling pawsteps, as if that was what she was supposed to do. so shellkit does that instead, finding her four paws again and easing along down the riverside with her tail tucked.

you’re brave for being out here, she continues, and that seems to perk her up, if just a bit, ” yeah, i am — everyone tells that. im going to be the bravest warrior in, uh.. ever. “ it was mostly lichentail and hazecloud, though being too brave was a fault she’d been chastised for before. she would be again, surely, once kindling walked her home. it’s lost on her, young as she is, that the molly doesn’t know the way ; even moreso that even kindling wasn’t allowed past territory lines for simply being her mother. her tail lifts a bit, because she was asking her questions she did want to answer now. there was so much she’d missed out on! ” uncle smokestar called me shellkit — but um. “ it’s a quick thought. maybe a dumb one, but she deserved it, she thinks.. for coming all the way out here, finding her mom. she was nearly three moons anyway, ” but i’m shellpaw, now. that’s the name you get when you’re training to be a warrior. “

𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐍 𓇼 𝙎𝙊 𝙎𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙊 𝘾𝙊𝙇𝘿

• i.
  
  
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• 
  
  SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING xx UNKNOWN, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. THREE MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS.
  delicate lilac - striped molly with sugarplum eyes.
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of shell - touched cream, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore. feather breath and elderdown fur conceals a body worn fragile by tumultuous youth, too thin in some places and round with baby fat in others. her face is short - muzzled, framed half mast by eyes coined warm, sugared amber ---------- ° ❀ ⋆
  

  currently exhibiting symptoms of whitecough. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

  
  

​