private Take a break ♔ Cherryblossom

[Tawnyclaw]

*+:｡.｡ Tawnyclaw did not take his duties seriously when he was an apprentice - did you honestly think that'd change when he became a warrior? Honestly, it was lucky that he'd been such an overachiever in the beginnings of his apprenticeship, or else he'd have had about as much knowledge on clans, politics, rules, the land, and its workings as a house-locked kitty-pet! Only by the skin of his teeth did he pass his assessment, although it could be surmised that he'd only passed thanks to his ties to Orangestar as well as the pity points he got with Ashenclaw's passing.
Cherryblossom becoming deputy would not be enough to change his negligent ways.

One might observe that it worsened.

"Look at you go, patrolin' like there's no tomorrow" Tawnyclaw would purr, arms swinging from the branch of a tree just outside the camp's entrance. It was late afternoon, patrols were surely slowing down as cats transitioned from productive daylight hours to a more mellow sunset time. Tawnyclaw had managed to successfully avoid chores today by whining about a stomach ache and then promptly vanishing before Fireflypaw could diagnose him with stage four faking it. Now, he waited cheerily for his sister, most likely haggard from duties she most certainly couldn't avoid anymore - did she ever? - with a smug smile.

"How're you likin' all these extra duties?" he asks pleasantly, resting his chin on a paw. Although his tone remained airy with jest, the question was one he'd wanted to ask for a while now. Did she like it? Being so ungodly responsible seemed to suit her, despite being so young and inexperienced. However, after her journey, she could hardly be put on the same level as the rest of those in her age group. There was no way she wasn't exhausted, though.

@Cherryblossom <3

*+:｡.｡ Updated 3/15/24

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ♔ Tawnyclaw
  ♔ DFAB— He/Him — Unsure
  ♔ 12 moons — Ages 1 moon every month 28th
  ♔ Skyclan — Warrior
  ♔ Son of Orangestar and Ashenclaw
  ♔ Brother to Cherryblossom, Eggbounce, Glimmersun and Owlheart
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ♔Physically hard | mentally medium
  ♔ Attack in bold #bf8924
  injuries: None currently

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[Cherryblossom]

Her dear brother looks far too fresh for a cat that should've been hunting today, on a patrol she had sent out. Cherryblossom stares incredulously at his flapping limbs, furry vines just swaying in the wind, with no purpose in life other than to leech off of its host. His smarmy smile isn't out of place on familiar features, but staring into a mirror of the past just makes her blood boil. Even though he hasn't provably done anything wrong, he's her brother━of course she knows.

His chin makes itself snug on the branch while her tail wrestles with the muggy Greenleaf air behind her. "What do you think?" she huffs, almost stamping a paw down but at the last second backing out, resulting in a weird little flicker of forward motion. "It's hard enough without your own kin, like, what, drooling on a tree all day."

Suddenly, she's far more upset than the situation calls for. Naturally, it's Tawnyclaw's fault. She can't help that she relaxes just at his scent, the sight of soft amber eyes she used to pummel into shutting. She relaxes, and the walls around her relax, and out comes oozing all the disgusting, squishy feelings that'd been barricaded so well behind them. "Can you, like, not?" She fights for, against, and with her next words. "Can you stop being, like, so useless all the time?" The calico stares at him with pale imitations of his own gaze, desperation creeping in at the angled corners.

"Like... what happened?" They had never talked about it. There was just never any time, and Orchidpaw was always off somewhere or being disciplined, or Cherrypaw was dealing with her own trials, and now they were warriors and they just... still never talked. "You used to be so... so..." As much as she wants him to finish her words, she already resigns herself to just fighting him over them instead.

skyclan deputy | "speech." | tags​

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[Tawnyclaw]

*+:｡.｡ Back and forth, back and forth, his tail swings. He wonders, not for the first time, how it is that when his leg is over the branch, the blood rushing to his digits starts to hurt after a while, and yet his tail never seems to be bothered. Strange how that works - although maybe it had something to do with his head laying on his shoulder, cutting off flow? That's a question for the medicine cats, though. He yawns, batting at his ear as his sister barks at him from the tree's roots. Is it bad that it makes him smile? Her frustration is so kit-like, it reminds him of their time in the nursery. Tragically, he can't remember anymore what sorts of things little Cherrykit threw tantrums about - probably things that are so incredibly small and foolish in hindsight. How much he wishes mountains were the size of molehills again...

"I think..." he meows after she's finished, "That you need a break" He smiles down at her, he has to fight the urge to add a 'like' in between his words. Like, that you need, like, a break, like? You gotta traipse the line between annoying younger brother and just straight up a bully, although judging by how thing her patience is with him today, perhaps he's already kicked sand over that line long ago. "The day's over, prey has been caught, you're clearly going through it - c'mon sis, take a break" back and forth he flicks his tail, resting his chin on his paws again from a safe distance from her claws, "You're way too young to be so full of grey hairs already"

He pauses after a moment, back and forth he flicks his tail, until, finally, it stills.
"Why did you even accept the promotion?"

*+:｡.｡ Updated 3/15/24

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ♔ Tawnyclaw
  ♔ DFAB— He/Him — Unsure
  ♔ 12 moons — Ages 1 moon every month 28th
  ♔ Skyclan — Warrior
  ♔ Son of Orangestar and Ashenclaw
  ♔ Brother to Cherryblossom, Eggbounce, Glimmersun and Owlheart
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ♔Physically hard | mentally medium
  ♔ Attack in bold #bf8924
  injuries: None currently

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[Cherryblossom]

Cherryblossom walks her brother's gentle smile like a tightrope, fearing the fall of one side into abyssal anger, and the other into something far sweeter and scarier. How could he- at a time like this- when- when there was nothing at all happening, really. There could be something happening though, and that's just all of it, isn't it? SkyClan's remaining fox would swallow someone, or ThunderClan would dig farther into their borders, and everyone would use it as an excuse to keep muttering about her under their breaths after they were finished being sad about it━which was laughable, the idea that the sentiment wouldn't be at her nest by nightfall!

Tawnyclaw, Orchidpaw, whatever name the genial golden tom before her went by, he was her brother. The same bundle of fur she'd napped besides lounges before her still, only burlier and somehow more annoying. He points out their youth, encouraging a snort from the deputy. "Like you'd even be able to see them on me," she huffs, drawing a paw through her pale locks.

The warrior's puffy tail stills, meaning Cherryblossom should brace herself for something unexpected, for Tawnyclaw was always in motion as expected of a cat with too much unused energy. The question silences her for a moment too. "Dunno." She shrugs. "What else do you do when your mother asks you to be deputy?" What else do you do when a patrol needs to be sent out after a predator? What else do you do when the rampant plague forces a part of SkyClan to search for its cure? Backing down was never an option, and besides━if Twitchbolt could do it then why couldn't she?

skyclan deputy | "speech." | tags​

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[Tawnyclaw]

*+:｡.｡ Despite his high vantage point - or perhaps because of it - he can see the clear turmoil in his sister's pale gaze. Tawnyclaw can feel the corners of his smile, still pulled into a stubborn sneer, loosen somewhat as he grimaces. What happened her question chimes in his ears again, his voice echoing alongside hers now. Although he couldn't tell you he and his calico counterpart were ever close, he still loved his sister. Vain, bossy, blunt though she may be, Cherryblossom was still Cherryblossom, and he'll never quite be able to unsee the little scrap of fluff that tumbled in the dirt when first getting to know her footing. When had they gone from twins wrestling for the warmest spot in the crook of their mother's belly to sitting leagues apart now, a distance far greater than that between branch and earth that separates them now?

How they got here was a difficult question to ask.
How they might breach that void was harder.

The snort he earns from her makes him smile. He makes a big show of squinting, craning his neck down over the branch to get as close of a peek as he can without falling off. "Hmm...yep" he announces after a moment, lifting his head back up and releasing a yawn he hopes comes across as aggravating, lest he strains the muscles in his cheek for nothing, "right between your ears, over your left eye? Grey hairs. Clear as day." Teasing her like this rarely elicits a laugh, but when the goal is a reaction, any at all, he's rarely dissatisfied. Silence, on the other hand, is most certainly not a worthy payment for his efforts.

Tawnyclaw's smile is gone as he regards his sister. Truth be told, he can't actually see grey hairs from where he's perched - that'd be virtually impossible. What he can see, however, is no less monochromatic and dull. The color doesn't sit beautifully in his sister's bright citrine gaze.
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Working his jaw thoughtlessly, he can only bring himself to squint at his sibling.

He casts his gaze briefly skyward, before training it back down.

"Come up here" he meows finally. Assuming she might resist, he pats the spot beside him with his tail, adding, "I promise not to avoid my duties for a..." a whole moon would be a lot to offer... he considers, "a half-moon" he nods his head before resuming his smile, " Just come up, just for a few moments, I promise"


His plan, should he manage to convince her, was a simple one. Through the break in the leaves, the sun was beginning to set. Although streaks of gold were beginning to slither through into the blue, it wasn't fully sunset yet. The best part of the show was yet to begin - and Tawnyclaw would know, he'd snuck out to see a million sunsets before. They never quite grew dull.
It'd be nice to share one with his sister.

"A full moon if you beat me to the top!"

*+:｡.｡ Updated 3/15/24

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  GENERAL:
  ♔ Tawnyclaw
  ♔ DFAB— He/Him — Unsure
  ♔ 12 moons — Ages 1 moon every month 28th
  ♔ Skyclan — Warrior
  ♔ Son of Orangestar and Ashenclaw
  ♔ Brother to Cherryblossom, Eggbounce, Glimmersun and Owlheart
  
  
  
  COMBAT:
  ♔Physically hard | mentally medium
  ♔ Attack in bold #bf8924
  injuries: None currently

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Tawnyclaw's yawn works: the mulitcolored hairs on her spine twitch with renewed irritation. She believes him for a second too, pupils snapping to the upper left as though she could truly discern the color of the fur on the other side of her eyelids. Of course he chooses one of the few spots she can't see. As a common frequenter of still puddles though, Cherryblossom thinks she would've noticed anything amiss like that. The helpful remark earns him an eye-roll and little more.

The same finicky blood courses through both their veins: Tawnyclaw was surely no stranger to his own visage either, with his lovingly coiffed fur and gosling-soft pelt. It's one of the few things she appreciates about her brother, vanity a quality neither Ashenclaw nor Orangestar seemed to pass down to them. But surely she wasn't as annoying as him, though cats did seem to gravitate more towards Tawnyclaw than Cherryblossom if given the chance.

She's staring off at a point just past his shoulder when he invites her to sit next to him, shooing away the silence that'd descended without her notice. She's about to snap at him when he makes an amendment, a whole half-moon of doing what he was supposed to do. Cherryblossom doesn't believe him, but she accepts the offer nonetheless. "Mmm... okay," she meows, shouldering her way onto the tree branch and dropping into a dainty seat besides him.

Unimpeded by conversation, Cherryblossom begins to notice the liquid gold seeping between their bodies and spilling onto the branch, dripping off of the pine needles and misting the distant air. For a moment she breathes in pure warmth, swollen with the scent of the bustling forest and birdsong. Even when her brother opens his maw, she only regards him with a honey-blunted stare and a pause. "...alright. You're on...!"

The young deputy hops to her paws, a playful scowl on pale jaws. "Play fair, flea-brain," she huffs, lashing her tail. "Ready... set... go!" That first leap up feels a little lighter, somehow.

ooc: if you wanna continue/use this, i rolled a 68 for how well she did/how far up the tree she got!

skyclan deputy | "speech." | tags​

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