private up the green slope | sootspot

[downyfur]

Bluefrost's arrival and Thriftfeather's reappearance have once again cleaved the camp in two. News, and gossip masquerading as news, spread faster than yellowcough ever did. Downyfur can't imagine their old mentor is pleased with yet another blemish on his family's image, whatever is left of it anyway. The originals, Sootstar and her sisters and Weaselclaw, are long dead. It's up to their children to preserve their name, or restore it, or cast it off entirely as Downyfur would if they were so unfortunate. But she is not Sootstar's descendant, and so she could never hope to understand their plight, as @SOOTSPOT used to remind her on occasion.

They approach the tom with an offering in their jaws, as though he were some minor deity to be appeased before asking things of. "My old mentor," they mew, depositing the rabbit at his pristine paws. "Eat with me, please. If you're not busy." When he acquieses, she curls herself into a sitting position alongside him, a bit closer than most would when with him. "How are you? And your kits?" they ask, after a pause to take some first bites. "It's been an eventful few sunrises..."​

 

[SOOTSPOT]

His gaze shot up towards Downyfur as the other made herself known to him, their title for him feeling like a barbed compliment, the type only he could have taught her. Their time together had been cut short by Rattleheart, the Moorland monster that had dared take the closest thing he'd had to a child (at that point) away. The offering of a rabbit soothed its sting and, though there was a moment of time where he may have rejected it on principle, the pinch of hunger within his belly made him abandon such logic. He would dine knowing that each bite was another spit on Rattleheart's grave. "I have a spare moment," he mewed.

He shifted slightly so Downyfur would have more space, a smile appearing on his muzzle as he did so. Sootspot watched her take the first bite (offered it with a simple paw gesture, even), and waited until they'd swallowed before he relaxed his shoulders. "I am well, as are the little ones. It is odd to think that they would have been apprentices a lifetime ago. I think I would have preferred that for them. Too many outsiders are within the Nursery, too many of them carry or have carried Yellowcough." It was a dangerous place to be, more dangerous than the Tunnels or the moors. If it was not a plague that threatened his kittens, it was Bluefrost's presence, threatening to poison his children against him. It was also Thriftfeather's presence, threatening them in general.

If StarClan's curse damned them to die, then he hoped it would at least be to something less... personal, something that would not know it had scored a victory against him. Like a cave-in, or a fox.

But then anger stirred in his heart at the thought of any of them dying. "It is a messy affair, yet somehow, you have drifted by, blissfully neutral." Again. He took a bite of prey to excuse himself from speaking and looked expectantly towards Downyfur as he chewed.
​

 

[downyfur]

A faint wisp of annoyance rises in their chest as Sootspot prattles on about his children. She knows why she cares, even if its just the smallest singe of caring. They'd been his first daughter, of-sorts. Once. To think he cares so much for others now, to the point of having carried them to the WindClan nursery himself and declared their queen—well, Downypaw had to have been foisted upon him by his own mother in order for him to care.

Lightly, they muse, "I should be glad to be apprenticed when I was. Thank StarClan none of them have fallen ill yet." Whatever Sootspot's attachment to his adoptive charges were, it's not a big deal in the end. She has real, loyal kin in Brightshine and Heavy Snow and Pinkshine, and that should be enough. "They're very cute; I'm sure they're a pawful," they purr, waving off the more dismal topic of plague with a bit of levity.

His judgement stings. Downyfur doesn't know why; neutrality is the best option until it isn't, and the situation here isn't so dire they feel as though they must stand up for Thriftfeather and Bluefrost or else drive them out themself. She thinks Sootspot taught her that, but after the past few sunrises she's not so sure if he did, or if she simply assumed his wishes and ran away with them. It's all too common with Sootspot: dancing to the tune of his beat, trying to predict where he'll step next. "What would you have me do?" they protest, gaze flicking to meet Sootspot's and darting away just as quickly.

"I wouldn't be able to chase them out myself—and, besides, Sunstar himself heard them out. Surely there's a reason for everything. Just like how he let Junco stay—even let her have her freedom, great StarClan—even though she did this to me. If it'd happened today, I would've only been a few sunrises out of the nursery." She gestures to the scars beneath her eye, now faded with a few seasons, trying not to look too consternated. It's of little use though; Sootspot would've already known their distrust for their glacial-eyed leader ever since he separated them.

A sigh escapes them, one too small to make even their whiskers flutter. "I know you don't trust them, I just—I'm not saying we should let them roam wherever they want all the way back to DuskClan with our secrets." Downyfur stares at the nursery, thoughts of all manners pressing up against the backs of blue eyes. "I'm not going to make enemies of them just because I don't trust them." She feels as though she's said too much. But with Sootspot, anything at all seemed to be too much. And at any rate, they can't help their curiosity and the trust they've for some reason kept with him.​