private THE RAIN, MY TEARS ] thriftfeather

[BLUEFROST]

The roiling in her stomach is calmed by the mouthful of fieldmouse she carries between her teeth. It's a gift — a peace offering — she knows it by the tender way she grips its velvet flesh, the way she carefully lowers it to the space between her forepaws. The sun is merciless today, broiling her in her thick smoke-colored pelt, and she feels every heatwave. Her stomach does not protrude yet — not as it will soon enough — but her center of gravity is different, noticeably, and there's the tightest thickening around her belly that she's begun to feel. The unrest in her gut stirs, unsettled by the movement of her journey, by the relentless heat, but she maintains her composure well-enough... she thinks.

In reality, Thriftfeather will see the weariness on her features. She has slept poorly since Cottonsprig's confession. The idea that her sister will be punished for her crime — that she will be cast out or harmed — gnaws at her conscience like winged insects. Her own secret festers similarly in her belly, though her crime is concealable...

From them, at least. But him... I must tell him.

"Thriftfeather," she greets him, hastily pulling a smile onto her muzzle. She does not want him to see how unsettled she is, even if it shows in every flared hair on her pelt. "I could not catch a rabbit today. I am... a little slow, I think." She meets his eyes, searching their newleaf-green depths, and thinks, I could love you.

She does not say this.

Bluefrost says, "I am with kits." It's distended, formal, awkward. It's not the declaration of love she wants it to be. But she looks at him so softly, so intensely, that her gaze will be troubling to look away from.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: @Thriftfeather
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 16 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan warrior. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Thriftfeather could not explain the trepidation he feels immediately upon seeing Bluefrost. He doesn't note the differences in her, but he understands them on an instinctual level all the same. Every dormant worry in his chest flowers to life—someone knows or Bluefrost doesn't want to see him again, the distance she must travel is too great for a reward too little. He feels ridiculous in his own pelt: too well-groomed to be anything but painfully deliberate and a lizard dangling by its thin tail from his teeth.

But then Bluefrost feigns normalcy, and Thriftfeather understands his role. He settles into something like himself as Bluefrost speaks. He finds new worries: she might be ill, something else could have happened in WindClan and Thriftfeather will have no way of knowing. She levels him with a meaningful look and Thriftfeather feels his throat clench—he realizes he hasn't said anything yet. He realizes he hasn't dropped the lizard. Motion rigid, he does, and only dully catches the subdued thump it gives when it meets the ground.

"You already do so much for me," Too much—Thriftfeather could never repay the debt she is due.

And then Bluefrost continues, and Thriftfeather catches only noncomprehension.

His immediate reaction is to want to clarify if she means right now, and he only just manages to snap his mouth shut before he can ask something so hare-brained. His next thought is to ask if she means she is pregnant, if she is sure, if he is the father, if—?

"You're incredible," Thriftfeather says at last; he has never meant anything more, "How..." He cuts the idiotic thought off before it can fully leave him. Thriftfeather swallows hard enough that his dry throat clicks and amends, "How are you feeling?"

Thriftfeather reaches a paw for Bluefrost's flank and hesitates only a moment before touching. He never paid attention to the queens at camp, something that he regrets now. Bluefrost doesn't seem majorly different and Thriftfeather doesn't know what normal would be for this—he doesn't know how to detect if something is wrong, he doesn't know all the ways that this can go wrong. His meager knowledge amounts to this: Bluefrost is pregnant. Somewhere beneath his uncertain paw are kits, or what will be kits and—by some impossible miracle—those kits are his.

Wonder battles against worry; rather that switch between the two emotions, they mingle together in Thriftfeather as if they were always meant to coexist. He cannot stop the way his mind turns towards the future rather than the now, "I'll keep away if you don't want WindClan to know but—but..." His paw drops slowly and doesn't touch the ground, "Wherever—I'll be wherever you want me to be. I just need to finish things here, first."​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 17 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Their prey rests between them, symbolic without meaning to be, his thin scrubland lizard, her plump but paltry fieldmouse — she stares at the messy heap without lifting her gaze for a moment. His nearness warms her in a gentler way than the merciless rays of the sun. "You brought me something," she murmurs, and a smile cracks its way across her face. She lifts her eyes to find his boring into her's. "You're incredible," he breathes, and she blinks, surprised — so surprised that dew gathers in her eyes, an unpleasant and unwelcome wetness she cannot fight.

He is happy. Oh, Mother, was it like this for you? She lifts a forepaw and brushes against he dampness on her face, her smile trembling under the weight of her emotions. "I feel... tired, but okay. A little sick, but nothing I cannot handle. Soon, though, I will be confined to the nursery... you remember how it is..." She trails off, and some of the joy evaporates from her expression. She will be nestbound in only half a moon, and she has only just begun to consider the gravity of that. No more forays into the tunnels. No more patrols. No more training sessions with Brackenpaw. No more Thriftfeather.

"I want you to be their father, anyway you can," she murmurs, and she extends her neck so that her muzzle rests against his. "I will bring them to you as soon as they're old enough to walk. They will know everything about you before you even meet them." Her laughter sprinkles the air like fresh rain. "Stars, what should we name them? I am thinking Sootkit..." She pries her muzzle away from him, the thoughts catching up to her...

"What must you finish in DuskClan?"

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 16 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan warrior. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

An old habit keeps him overly aware of every tiny emotion shown—for a terrible heartbeat, Thriftfeather fears that his reaction was wrong, but then Bluefrost breaks into a wavering smile and Thriftfeather feels something tight in his chest unspool. This could be his future—Bluefrost could be his future—and the thought is enough to right something in Thriftfeather's world. Things make a little more sense, or things feel a little brighter. This will change everything and Thriftfeather's heart doesn't seize at even the thought of that.

"When do you move to the nursery?" He tries and fails to imagine Bluefrost confined and instead finds room in himself for a new worry that Bluefrost will somehow come to resent Thriftfeather, or that she'll resent the kits—contradictorily, this does nothing to sour his thoughts, "And when you—how long until...?" She'll eventually give birth and the kits will become more than a notion; Thriftfeather's thoughts stutter to a stop only to start again a moment later.

"StarClan," He says it like it is a conclusion to something, breathless and edging towards overwhelmed.

I want you to be their father, anyway you can, is what Bluefrost says as she presses herself to him, and Thriftfeather's eyes slip closed. He remembers to breathe before worry could tremble his ears, and he finds that he doesn't want them to meet him. He wants them born knowing him. He wants with a ferocity he hadn't known he possessed to see their first moments—anyway he can.

"That's... that's a big legacy to give to a kit," His voice isn't disagreeing, only uncertain. Bluefrost would want to honor her mother; Thriftfeather suspects he would find more encouragement in him had it been anything but a name a kit will carry for their lifetime.

It is Bluefrost to break the contact; Thriftfeather leans in tandem with her—it has become far too easy to feel as though any amount of space in unforgivable. He halts at her words, caught in a familiar guilt.

Caught.

"I didn't—I don't want to worry you about the going-ons of DuskClan," He reminds himself that he can take this risk. His voice dips low as he speaks, "I'm not—they made me deputy." He hisses the word; does Bluefrost even know that Granitepelt has passed? "I'm going to see to it that those kits are safe and..." Conviction is new to Thriftfeather. It isn't often that he speaks with his teeth, "And I'll bury DuskClan in the process if I must. Whatever life it is that Sootstar wanted for us after her death—DuskClan isn't that. It's just rogues and...and scraps."

He rights himself from his lean slowly but not hesitantly; Thriftfeather knows this to be the truth.

"And when I'm done—whenever this is done," He gestures sharply to encompass DuskClan; the hush has left his voice, "I'll see if Sunstar will take me back." It had felt like too uncertain of a course before and feels abruptly like the only course now.​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 17 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"When do you move to the nursery," he asks her, and she sighs regretfully. "In less than a quarter moon," she mews, curling her tail tight about her paws. Already, they itch, missing the packed earth of the tunnels, the tendrils of moorland grass poking into her flanks. "I will be giving birth just as leaf-fall begins. Just as the leaves begin to turn..." She remembers Cottonsprig's careful prodding, the blue in her eyes watery with sorrow and envy.

She gently shakes her sister's visage from her mind, as though she's dislodging a stubborn fly from her fur. This is her moment, her mate, her children, and there is nothing between Thriftfeather and her but a warmth so dazzling it rivals the sun.

"That's a big legacy to give a kit," he tells her. Sootkit. She searches his green gaze for a moment before murmuring, "I know. But I want..." She licks her lips as though she's thirsty for something. "I want to cleanse that name. I want it to be good." Her eyes lower, briefly, wondering if she'd misspoken.

But the thoughts of the possible Sootkit curled safely in the crook of her belly is dispelled when Thriftfeather answers her query. "They made me deputy," he says, hissing the word, and the easy warmth between them is sapped like a leafbare wind has caressed their pelts. Deputy. "Thriftfeather, you cannot," she mews, despair twisting her features. "What if there is another battle? What if..."

I could never raise my claws against you.

I could never ask our kits to do the same.

She bites down on her tongue, holding it in place. Thriftfeather speaks with conviction. "I'll bury DuskClan in the process if I must." He tells her Sootstar's legacy is nothing, nothing but a war-hungry band of rogues and stolen kits, and she lowers her face, relief palpable in the gesture.

"You will come home, then? You will come home and... and be a father to our kits?" You will stand beside me, after all of this? Her smile returns, and she reaches for him again, this time with an icy forepaw. She aims it gently toward his broad tabby chest, resting it there in his fur. "That is all I want. I want you."

I love you.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 16 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan warrior. sootstar x weaselclaw, gen 2.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh blue smoke she-cat with white and emerald eyes. aloof, dignified, poised, haughty, composed, distant.

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

Bluefrost says I want it to be good, and Thriftfeather feels his heart ache for her sake. Thriftfeather nods and allows the motion to dispel whatever reservations he may still hold towards the name or towards whatever it is WindClan may think of it. Whatever shadow that name may cast feels less important suddenly.

"Then it will be good." It will be good because it will belong to his kit—his and Bluefrost's. The thought doesn't feel real; a part of Thriftfeather fears he may wake up from this. He finds his eyes skyward as he imagines what name he might give a kit, and imagines the moor: not yellow-green and sun-weary as it had been when he first arrived in WindClan, but when it had blossomed to life at the end of Greenleaf, on the cusp of Leaf-fall.

A great inhale in preparation for the exhale of Leafbare, and Thriftfeather speaks it with a curl of a smile around his mouth, "Maybe Lavenderkit?"

Her reaction to the news of his deputyship is expected. Thriftfeather swallows his own worries and allows her the space to process—she doesn't hate him for it. Either Bluefrost finds peace with the idea or relief that it is only temporary. When she is done, Thriftfeather rests his chin to her shoulder and finds assurance there that here—wherever Bluefrost happens to be—is where Thriftfeather belongs.

"I promise that," His purr comes to him easily, easier than it ever has before. Life could be like this, always.​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 17 MOONS ✦ TAGS​