private soothe yourself // foxglare

[cottonsprig]

Cottonpaw spends hours of her day, now, tending to the ill and fragile. Kittens come first, if not those inflicted with burns. Those who've sucked in enough smoke to damage their lungs... not long after. She had, at some point, settled her white-and-ginger friend within a makeshift nest and promised to return to him in time. Perhaps there was a subtle threat beneath sweet words, ensuring he would not try to escape with the other warriors heading across the bridge. Heroic, he does not think himself, yet she can so easily picture him as one.

"Thank you for being patient, Foxglare," she greets him, dragging along a too-large leaf with a few bits of leaves and honey still left on it. She sits beside him, her tail casually resting against his flank as it always does, "How are you feeling...?"

@FOXGLARE ​

 

[FOXGLARE]

⁀➷ "'Course." Foxglare has little say in the matter of whether he stays or goes, which should bother him more than it does. Granted, Cottonpaw was correct in her assumption that he would've hopped right up and marched back across the bridge to keep working with the rest of the clan, had she not witnessed him keel over with her own two eyes. It still pissed him off knowing that his lungs couldn't handle a little bit of smoke without trying to pull his own paws out from under him, but he'd decided against making himself a difficult patient for the sake of some bruised pride.

Besides, it probably would've been Cottonpaw that had to go looking for him, had he fallen over wheezing again, and she had enough in front of her paws already. So there he sat, twiddling his tail and doing occasional kitten head-counts from where he was positioned. The number mostly remained the same. Mostly. (There were a lot of 'em.)

"Feel fine. Like shit. But... fine," he murmured through an aching throat and broiled brain. He wasn't about to die, that would've been the more accurate response. Territory was on fire, but he'd transported a couple of wily kittens to safety. Fine. He feels the tail resting on his flank and he allows it to stay there, as he always does.

"...How're you?"

SOMEONE WILL SAY ⁀➷☾⁺₊ WHAT IS LOST CAN NEVER BE SAVED.

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — neza . sun . fox . foxpaw . foxglare
  — he/him. 18mo moor-runner of windclan. currently mentoring sunlitpaw.
  — a large, scarred white and golden tabby tom with gray eyes
  — smells like dewy oak and sedge
  — sounds like leon kennedy, with a vague drawl.
  — the straight-faced and taciturn adopted son of houndthistle, lived as a twolegplace loner until 6 moons old, now a moor-runner of windclan. steadfast and reserved, in an era of attempting to forge bonds with others and create a future to look toward.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — fullbody by antiigone, hs by tropics
  — penned by eezy

​

 

[cottonsprig]

Were she any bit aware of the mental work Foxglare continued to do despite his forced-rest, she would laugh. Cottonpaw feels that counting the heads of bouncing kittens is a job better left to their minding queens, not the select few that've breathed in so much smoke that they trouble in righting themselves. Yet, she watches his blue-grey gaze as it flits from one tiny set of ears to the next before falling on her again, and she decides against chiding him for whatever he may be doing. They're all a bit frazzled by their circumstance and despite everything, she cannot blame him for wanting to feel, in some way, useful.

"I saved some honey for you," she chirps after his initial words, nudging a comb further up the leaf, but not letting it fall into the copse sand. "You can eat the whole comb, if you want, but I promise you it's not very easy to chew..." some kittens learned that the hard way. Even when she warned them, they chomped away, as if it was a bet to win.

He speaks again, and visibly nothing changes about the she-cat - but internally, she's relieved someone has asked. She's fussed over kittens and has had queens fuss over her, she's meddled with warriors much like Foxglare who would rather burn with their land than sit helpless and watch it suffer. None yet have bid for her attention, for her feelings. Cottonpaw plays it off, "My throat tickles, but nothing like yours. It sounds like you have a flame still going in your chest, honestly," she jests with him for a moment.

Blue eyes pull from him again, and over the gorge towards where the fire rages. Her ears fold back, "I'm a little scared, though. Do you think it'll ever stop?"​

 

[FOXGLARE]

⁀➷ Foxglare nodded affirmatively and ate the honey provided, heeding Cottonpaw’s suggestion and avoiding chomping on it outright as he listened to her light jesting. His maw twitches and slowly, he responds in turn, ”I’ll… remember next time. Don’t eat the fire.”

Dark clouds lingered upon the edge of the horizon, like hunters crouched in weight. If he were the superstitious sort, Foxglare would bemoan their hovering, praying out like those faith-scorned for relief to come from the powers above. As it is, he pulled his eyes back to rest on her for a long moment. The fire rages on, coloring them both over in an orange haze, like the sun was setting for another time they sat against the backdrop of their own desolate golden hour.

Cottonpaw’s focus is elsewhere, back over the river and toward the home they shared that may or may not be standing by this time tomorrow. He’s quiet for a long moment, not one for offering useless reassurances—especially not in cases such as these, and especially not to individuals he respected. Finally, he says, ”...Never heard of a fire that keeps burnin’ forever. It’ll stop, and things’ll grow back like they did after Leafbare.”

How much would be left was not a question he could hope to answer. He thought of those still working on protecting camp and wondered how much they could do in the face of a hungry flame besides feed its insatiable hunger.

SOMEONE WILL SAY ⁀➷☾⁺₊ WHAT IS LOST CAN NEVER BE SAVED.

• OOC:
• 
• 
  
  — meztli . sun . fox . foxpaw . foxglare
  — he/him. 19mo moor-runner of windclan. Mentored by shalestripe. formerly mentored sunlitpaw.
  — a scarred, hulking white and golden tabby tom with gray eyes
  — taciturn, vigilant, reserved, self-righteous, restrained, independent, humanitarian, unyielding
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by eezy

​