STRAWBERRY BLOND \ pinkshine

[FEATHERSPINE]

There were hands clasped around Pinkshine's light. It shone through warm and rosy, bleeding through the gaps- but it was not the glow she had always known her to have, and that was enough to scrunch some disquietude deep within her gut.

Chill skittered brittle through the air- Featherspine occupied their nest, and made an effort to pull her mate close when she arrived to join her. An embrace would splay around a calico body, and her barbed tongue soon rasped a few gentle trails across Pinkshine's cheek. Maybe an unprecedented level of affection, spurred not by anything in particular, but... for all his talent with words, he could never seem to find exactly the right ones when he wanted to mend her mate's heart. It was all he could do to craft sun-touched actions... to help in a way that was not baring teeth on her behalf.

Featherspine sighed then, a deep, shaky thing. "It was never a thought in my head t-to leave with them," she murmured, softly. Perhaps it was not an assurance Pinkshine would need, but it was given as readily as if she had begged for it. "Never. I... I need to make sure you know that." He gazed deep into haloed eyes, refusing to falter. His face was always serious, but there was a stony graveness to it now that she hardly ever bore in this company- a desperation in the hard edges of her, a want to see her glimmering again.

\ @PINKSHINE <3​

✦ penned by pin​

 

[PINKSHINE]

Featherspine is a welcoming warmth that meets her when she rests her legs. She hadn't realized how badly she had needed it until she was here, leaning into the touch of a warm muzzle... Her shoulders ease. She lets out a breath that might've been a laugh a moon or so ago... A halfhearted smile tries to press at the corners of her lips... And it makes her more sorry that it isn't enough to make everything okay again. She really feels like it should be. Out in the moor, with paws smelling like blackberries... she probably would've said Featherspine could do anything before... And it isn't as if he didn't make her happy.

It was just... complicated. And Pinkshine isn't really used to complicated things.

Her mate's fur is coarser than her own. There's only a moment of blue-ringed eyes gone shut before Pinkshine is gazing at her, drawn by her words. It's sudden— but at the same time, it wasn't really. Pinkshine wonders if he felt the worry in the touch of her flank. Never. Pinkshine sees the sincerity when he says it. Obviously, she would believe him even if she didn't. Pinkshine says thank you with the press of her nose, only a few moments of quiet between them.

" I'm glad... " with a pang, she admits. And she thinks... even if that wasn't true. Even if Featherspine had longed to join them, or maybe even did, left for highstones without a further word to her... Pinkshine isn't sure if she could ever be angry at him for it. Would it be the worst thing in the world, to call her his mate, and leave her so soon after? She thinks that it might be... but her opinion doesn't change. " Does that make me a bad person? "

Her face falls. No more crying, she had promised, yet she finds her eyes getting glassy with barely a string of words. " I don't... " Eye contact is broken. She tries to find comfort in chocolate swirls. " I don't wanna make you choose between me n' your family... " Her breath shudders against Featherspine's whiskers. A loss she can't even understand pricks at her eyes. " I- I don't know what I would I do. ...I don't know what I'm gonna do. "​

 

[FEATHERSPINE]

A bad person - as if it could ever be true. Featherspine felt a familiar urge to scold her, though now it would be a lashing laced with affection, with an urging encouragement to turn her mind away from thoughts like that. That anything about Pinkshine could be bad- he shook his head, wordless all the while, the moment it had fled from her.

Oh, he had vowed to choke anything that would hurt her, but her own mind supplied the poison, now. And Featherspine did not know if she had the antidote within her- a pluming tail swayed gently against her side. "No." Verbalised, simple and quick- not a shred of explanation around it. Her voice was steady steel, but her eyes burned warm.

The film of tears across blue-ringed pupils lurched Featherspine's heart, speared fangs into his lip, piercing uncertainty. Eye-contact tumbled, and so did her smile- her pelt scorched and sizzled where Pinkshine looked. A deep sigh beat through Featherspine, a noise that bounced around the chambers of his skeleton. She was glad her mate was not blind to sorrow, not ignorant of it any longer- and yet, and yet- she wished to shine sun into her eyes and leave spots of happiness there, take away this pain, snuff it. No good, no teaching, would come of this... and no longer was he sure he wanted her to learn this way.

"P-p-puh... p-puh-Pinkshine," And it was a great struggle as always to say her name, and ever resented sffliction, but he managed it regardless. "You've never made me do anything." It was true, really... perhaps not of early, early kithood, but of every recent memory- everything important, every experience she held in love's regard. Mourning for cats who were not dead bobbed in his throat, but Featherspine choked it down, keeping her gaze steady upon her. Yes, he could say it for certain now. "You... you are the most p-puh... most p-precious thing in the world to me. Why should I have thrown that away?"

Her jaw sharpened with the force of tightening it. So much for healer's blood, for any princely charisma. "You- you don't need to know." His voice had dipped into such a softness that it almost sounded kitlike. It felt hollow, when he wished to know all the same. "Just... never doubt... I will help you see in the d-darkness. I will be there when... when you need me." She neared, tenderly pressing their heads together. "And even when you don't."​

✦ penned by pin​