private STARRY STARRY NIGHT [ kindlings ]

[PEBBLEPAW]

( ☼ ) pebblepaw can't help his guilt. as he pads through his first days as an apprentice, he cannot focus solely on his new responsibilities. there is an aching, echoing cavern in his chest where shellkit fits in. little sister, fledgling bird, so close to making her leap to fly, but held back. he finds her sorrowful gaze whenever he closes his eyes, hears her hacking coughs, the harsh breathing that hasn't gotten better since she was but a newborn. comfort does not come naturally to the dappled blue boy, but when it comes to his siblings, he will do his damnedest to make them feel as okay as they can. watching shellkit sleep her days away in the medicine den while riverpaw and pebblepaw are out training hurts, and peb doesn't know what he can do about it.

he isn't moonpaw, with her magical healing touch, nor is he ravensong, who would've known what to do. he isn't even lichentail or hazecloud, who can speak to smokestar, allow the girl to recieve her apprentice name at least! pebblepaw is only that: a 'paw, so he does what he can do.

it is night. above, the sky glimmers with crystalline light as a mellow crescent moon soars. soft grunts exhale from the boy's maw as he strains his muscles, dragging a floppy mess of moss and bracken out of the apprentices' den. behind him, he's ordered riverpaw to do the same with his own nest, and together the boys move their nests towards the medicine den. dropping his bedding as he reaches his destination, pebblepaw ducks into the den, ember eyes finding the smaller shape of his sister. "shelly!" he whispers, delight tinging his tone. "riv and i are gonna sleep out here tonight, so we can have a sleep over!"

his sister looks weak, small against the nest she has been placed. she looks lonely. peb scurries in and presses his nose to the girl's head for a moment before hustling out again. he can't let himself get sick, but he'll be damned if he doesn't do all he can to cheer his sister up. "we'll be right here, m'kay shell?"

I DO NOT HAVE WINGS, LOVE ☼ I NEVER WILL

• // sibling thread! @RIVERPAW @shellkit " speech "
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  
  
• 
  PEBBLEPAW ☼ HE / HIM, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. KINDLING x UNKNOWN, NEPHEW TO SMOKESTAR. 6 MOONS OLD, PENNED BY LAVS
  
  
  a large blue tabby with low white. pale blue fur covers the length of pebblekit's stocky body, sliced through with darker tabby stripes and spots. baleful orange eyes peer out of heavy set sockets, and his muzzle, paws, and tail tip are dashed with white.
  
  
  
  

​

 

[shellpaw]

tonight, the moss is cold underhead. cold and too big for her aching body -- she feels but a pile of plucked bones in this tangle of greenery, this herb - woven hatch of bedding she's to call her own. the air is still and silent within moonpaw's stone - laden denning ; a cool draft breezing over alabaster curls that makes her feel far lonelier than she had since her return from the meadows. she tells herself that sleeping alone is scary, but that's okay, because soon i would be anyway. she wonders, somewhere in her ill - hazened mind, if her littermates felt the same in their new nests.. though somewhere beneath the encouraging voice in her mind that sounded suspiciously like hazecloud, she doubted it. they had company. they have other apprentices to fill the space where their family once lie, like beepaw and cicadapaw and bumblepaw. it was probably warm, comfortable like the nursery, still feeling small in their nest but feeling much larger than they ever had. here, not even valepaw can get near her, curled off in his nest in his own recovery while she sleeps nearest the stony opening for the waft of crisp river air.

they were out there, and she was the same sick, in - trouble shellkit that she's always been.

she is turned against the moonlight, watching the steady rise - fall of a slumbering valepaw's curled flank through bleary, heavy eyes when she hears her name — her special name, that only pebblepaw used. frail body previously curled tight atop itself unwinds in a slow stretch, dovey tail coming flicking away from her bedding rumpled face to blink away the sickly film over her eyes. they’re still cloudy when she spots his nest, sloppily woven with bracken and moss but uniquely pebblepaws, riverpaw right in tow. there is a cold douse of guilt for the joy in his age - deepening voice, for the bitterness and the anger she only ever bit into the honeycomb moonpaw fed her. the burn of wildfire jealousy she tampers down like river foam, washing over brimming frustrations like cool water.

it thuds with rabbit - quick heartbeat as pebblepaw rushes in, touches his nose to her head and instinctively, rosen eyes flit to make sure moonpaw hadn’t seen. the spot he’d rasped sticks into an upward curl and she lets it be. this is the first night she would not sleep nestled between two flanks splotched in ivory - blue fur, clinging her tighter to any semblance of closeness she could get. frustration dies in their presence ; there is safety there, in her brothers. thin, cramping muscles relax beneath pebblepaw’s bright grin and she feels her own dance twitchily along purple - pink lips, ” hi pebs. “ fluttering vocals scratch just loud enough to be heard, head lulling onto its side to gaze out the crack of stone towards them.

her vision swims and she makes to blink it away again, squinting against the glare of the moon behind her brothers. she thinks it makes them look even more grown up — which is silly. they were the same age, regardless of how little she’d seemed to take after them and how much she did seem to take after her uncle. another pang of guilt hits her despite the pleasant buzz beneath her fur, how the company brightened her dreary spirits.. but wouldn’t they be missing out? her ears flick back on a ghostly wheeze, ” you guys aren’t, um — sleeping with the rest of the apprentices? i thought you’d be so excited to.. “ she certainly would’ve been.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𓇼 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒

• i.
  
  
• 
• 
  
  SHELLKIT 𓆉 SHE / HER, KITTEN OF RIVERCLAN. HAZECLOUD xx LICHENTAIL, NIECE TO SMOKESTAR. SIX MOONS OLD, SMELLS LIKE SALT & RIVER BLOOMS. PENNED BY ANTLERS -------------------------------------------- ° ❀ ⋆
  frail alabaster molly with lilac striping and watery amber eyes.
  
  she is pallid ; platinum splotched with ribbons of dovey lilac curls, wisped ends like memories of a distant shore and plush in a way seemingly similar to hazecloud's. tufted 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 rheumy, rosen amber. the anemic cold pink - purple at tender paws and nose tell a lifetime of sickness, further made obvious by the feathering weakness in half - whispered tones.
  

  currently HIGHLY INFECTIOUS WITH WHITECOUGH. this includes a running nose, wheezing, sluggishness, and labored breathing. please keep contagion in mind.

​