private THE PURPOSE A BODY MANUFACTURES WHEN IT STOPS TO LIFT THE LILY, ITS PETALS — bluefrost

[Thriftfeather]

Although Thriftfeather has previously mistaken better for good, he knows not to confuse the slackening of Leafbare's grip for a promise of good days to come. He knows the snow-slick ground and the biting winds are not a good day, but that language of comparisons hasn't left him. It is better than before—better than a blizzard—and so when Thriftfeather had cajoled Bluefrost from the relative warmth of the nursery it had been with the promise of a day that was good rather than one that was better.

Now as Thriftfeather guides himself and Bluefrost towards the harsh rise of Outlook Rock, he cannot help but regret his word choice: the trodden snow blankets enough of the familiar vegetation to make the whole of the moor look barren. The sun does nothing to warm him despite the burn its reflected light leaves against his eyes. Thriftfeather had missed Bluefrost—missed her company—but the words that rise from Thriftfeather are too rote or too uninteresting to spark into conversation that lasts more than a few exchanges.

Thriftfeather slips into unease with the selfsame simplicity as exhaustion slips into sleep.

Outlook Rock is before them now. The wind swirls previously-settled flurries from its peak and, for a brief moment, Thriftfeather remembers why he had wanted to bring Bluefrost here, remembers the plainness of noting something as frivolously pretty as falling snow without the weight of a storm, of wishing to share that. And then he turns once more to Bluefrost and forgets that beneath the comparable inadequacy: had he made himself and her trudge through the cold for nothing more than the wind moving snow from a place higher to one lower?

"It's a bit like it's snowing," Thriftfeather needlessly explains, if nothing else than to fill the quiet.

On a good day, a truly good one, perhaps Thriftfeather would have jumped after the flurries, would have known that even if Bluefrost's exterior didn't break enough to join him, she would have at least been amused by the antics. Too caught in worry, any attempts at fun don't even occur to him.​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 21 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

The promise of a day spent away from needling teeth and nettle-sharp sets of claws had successfully lured Bluefrost from the nursery. The storm had settled, and Pinkshine had almost too-cheerfully accepted the task of monitoring the brood she shares with Thriftfeather while the two of them stretch their limbs. It had been too long — moons, at this point — since the queen has seen the moorland, and even like this, blanketed in snow and eerily silent, she cherishes the sight.

The two of them walk, side-by-side, toward the Outlook Rock. They do little to break the silence. There are times when it seems Thriftfeather will say something, but then he will tamp it down, hide it away from her. She spends much of her time observing him without thinking about how unnerving her gaze must be. Is he regretting this?

Regret. It's something Bluefrost has thought about since Thriftfeather had helped her carry five cold kittens to WindClan's camp. She'd wanted to ask him — had thought to ask him, at least — numerous times. Do you regret taking your walk, that night? Regret finding me with Cottonsprig and the kits? Regret following me back to WindClan, so you could be a prisoner in the home you swore you'd never return to?

She stares at him unblinkingly, trying to read his thoughts and coming up empty. "It's a bit like it's snowing," he says, and she tears her eyes toward the flurries swept from the peak of the Outlook Rock. Her ear flicks. "We have had plenty of that already." Bluefrost has no mercy for his awkward demeanor, for his hesitation.

Still, Bluefrost presses her flank to his; she can feel the snowmelt seep into her fur, can feel the flutter of his heart behind his ribcage. Is he nervous? "It is nice. To be out here." Her breath mists before her muzzle. She fixes Thriftfeather with a pressing look and murmurs, "Do you think we will ever..."

Be trusted again? Be warriors again, true WindClan warriors who race the moors and hunt for their Clan and defend their borders?

But she falls silent. A snowflake lands on the tip of her nose and begins to melt from the warmth.

… ❞​

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[Thriftfeather]

The end of whatever Bluefrost was going to ask trails away from the both of them. Thriftfeather leans as if to follow it — as if the reason he hadn't heard the conclusion was an issue in proximity rather than lack. The gap of silence that follows from Thriftfeather is one purely made of expectation: the waiting before the realization that Bluefrost isn't going to continue. The responses that crop in his mind are made of assumptions, caught in the wondering of what could be too heavy to be spoken.

"I don't know," Thriftfeather murmurs at last — the honesty of his uncertainty has always stung. Will ever... could lead to a countless number of things: the same unknown as the weighted future the question is surely about.

Thriftfeather nearly lets his words settle there, nearly lets himself close his eyes against the cold and unfasten the worries from his mind in favor of the warm press of Bluefrost's flank against his own, silence be damned. But there isn't any satisfaction in a question without an answer or a thought without a conclusion; this will linger if not spoken of. It may remain, even after.

"You mean if things will be — if it will ever be like it was before?" Or more likely an idealized version of that — the version they would have thought they were to earn when first made warriors. Those glossed memories of easy days had been an invention of want moreso than experience, "I think — I think it will take time. I don't know but it's... things are better than they had been before."

Outside of confinement, stretched away from the ache of disuse. A slow climb of better until it might be someday acceptable.​

WINDCLAN QUEEN ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 22 MOONS ✦ TAGS​