private WE DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE ANYMORE ✧ cottonpaw

[BLUEFROST]

Bluefrost knows better than to bumble about the moorland above ground, but the rabbit she’d been chasing had burst free of the tunnels and had gallivanted into the hills. She’d chased it, clumsier in brought sunlight, and had trod upon a patch of gorse; one of the thorns had broken off and embedded itself in her left forepaw. She returns to camp irritable, rabbitless and in pain; despite her best efforts to dislodge the thorn, it remains protruding from her paw. If anything, her fervent attempts to remove it had deepened the puncture. Weary eyes flick to Wolfsong’s den, and with a sigh, she pushes herself toward the cool, spiced air of the medicine cat’s lair.

It's emptier than she’d expected. Wolfsong must be tending to other things, or perhaps he’s gathering herbs. She finds only her sister in the darkened room, a smudged-gray shadow amidst greenery. “Cottonpaw,” Bluefrost greets quietly. “Could you assist me? I have a thorn in this paw.” She extends the foot gingerly. “The sooner it is out, the sooner I can return to work.”

Bluefrost settles, eyeing her sister as she sets about her task. There’s something deep in previously guileless blue eyes—is it wisdom? Is it knowledge? Has she walked with StarClan, or is she as damned as the rest of them are? The gray-pelted tunneler flicks a tattered ear, feeling self-conscious to be so close to her littermate again.

She remembers the last time they’d been alone together—it’s like bile simmering away at the back of her throat.

“How are you now?” An awkward question to ask a sister, but Bluefrost asks it all the same. “Are you… happier, now?” With Wolfsong here? With Mother gone?

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

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

​

 

[cottonsprig]

Cottonpaw is not immune to the obvious - her intuitive, curious nature often leads her to see all, especially in the wake of her crumbling family. What's left of them each have experienced the same terrible loss; their father, their mother, their brother. And now they slink around, narrowly avoiding the ghosts of one another, as if being seen in the same circumstance would allow space for suspicion. Cottonpaw does not think herself so flawed in such a way, but self perception is a horrid, mangled piece of reflection in itself. She does as she thinks herself not to - she avoids, sidesteps, finds excuses...

This time, she cannot.

It is not lost on her - not the way the air shifts slightly with a newer scent, nor the way the light filtering in is ever so slightly blocked - the mirrored situation. She's been greeted in this exact manner before however as she looks over her shoulder, she cannot help but feel the spike of fear in her chest. Bluefrost promised. But full moons have come and gone and they've slept comfortably underneath the same expanse of stars and her sister still has yet to keep true to that promise. Does she fear Bluefrost? Does she fear the end? She thinks no, but she also thinks of Shrikethorn, the mysterious fog in the realm of their ancestors - how after death, work still does not finish. Of Sootstar, and their mother's failed prodigy before her.

"You don't rest often, do you?" Cottonpaw pushes pass her discomfort with a twitch of an ear and a smile. A thorn isn't hard work and she can send Bluefrost on her way soon enough - yet as she works the stubborn thing out of her sister's paw with near-perfect precision... she posits a question.

"Are you?" she's quick to turn the question around, blue eyes flicking up to meet green. Her lips fall from their casual smile to a pressed thin line, though she relaxes the tension soon after. "I... I have nightmares sometimes. Sometimes I see her still, just... there, in camp," the thorn falls out unceremoniously, and Cottonpaw dabs up the few droplets of blood with a bit of moss. "I suppose you could say better - I'm better, now. Happiness... is touch and go for me, if that makes sense." Though the sentiment is expressed due to shared experience, she still struggles with issues beyond Bluefrost - though she is almost not empathetic enough to imagine her twin has troubles beyond her, too.

But again, she bids, "Are you ...?" with a slow following, "Better, I mean. Happiness is fine and all, but how are you feeling out of that?"​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Cottonpaw remarks that she does not rest often as she goes to work. Bluefrost’s mouth twitches, though the smile does not come to fruition entirely. “Just because we have finished the tunnel to WindClan does not mean there is not more work to be done,” she murmurs. “All the exits have to be shored up and neatened. And there is still hunting to do, after all.” Green eyes shift, narrow. “Perhaps in your time here, you have forgotten the life of a warrior.” It’s not said with outright bitterness, but there’s something with teeth buried in the words still.

Silence stretches between them. The thorn slips from her pad, and Cottonpaw soaks the resulting blood up with a dabbing press of moss. The question spans between them for a few heartbeats before her sister meets her probing gaze. “Are you?” She tells her she still has nightmares about her—skulking in camp, staring with acid-bite eyes. Bluefrost blinks. “I do, too. Dreams, I mean. I have… dreams about her in the tunnels with me. She is there behind me, and I can hear her pawsteps, smell her scent, but when I turn around…” She drifts. “…When I turn around, she is gone, and I am alone in the dark.”

Happiness. Cottonpaw does not entertain the idea much. Bluefrost thinks she understands. Happiness is relative, is elusive, is mysterious. “I am glad you are doing better. How is it with… Snakehiss?” She stares into blue eyes, searching for hurt, for pain, for malice, for… she does not know what. For something familiar, for something that will temper the hurt in her own heart.

“I am…” She hesitates, then exhales. It sounds and feels broken. “I am lonely, Cottonpaw. That is what I am.” Egregious to admit. Her mother would jeer in her face, say that loneliness is weakness, is cowardice. Her father would spit about useless emotions, about taking one’s place in the world by force.

She is a disappointment, though, and she must relish in that sometimes, she thinks.

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

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

​

 

[cottonsprig]

Bluefrost is quick to the offensive, however Cottonpaw does her best to shake off the discomfort that the other lays on her shoulders. The near final comment is one that lingers, however, and she debates on whether or not to let it be. It takes too-long moments before she offers, "You've been more than enough of a warrior for the both of us, Bluefrost." A compliment, she intends, but she doesn't follow it up so quickly with much else. Instead it falls flat, as if her sister's warriorhood is intended to shoulder her lack of one.

They share dreams (her sister insists that they are such, however Cottonpaw teeters on whether or not she'd call that a dream or a nightmare,) and there's a split second of normalcy, all before her sister brings up Snakehiss. And all of a sudden, she wishes they were talking of the tunnels once more, or the wretched corpse of their mother, mange ridden with maggots, limping towards them. She wrinkles her nose briefly and despite her reaction offers a quiet, "It's fine." Perhaps too short, too curt - and after a deep breath, she regrets her tone.

"It's awkward. We were never mates, thank all of the above," she has some cobweb in paw now, an aimless fixing to the other's pad, "But I still can't help and think what would life be like... if we were. He has those kittens now, and what if -" her voice stops in a sudden crash of a lost tune. She bites her inner cheek, clicks her tongue, and mournfully continues with, "Never mind." They would've never been hers, for medicine cat law forbids her from having a family of her own. "It's weird."

She wonders, as Bluefrost continues her sad profession, if the slow, discombobulated amble through her weird love life has influenced her sister to be a bit more open. Loneliness manifests in more than just love. It settles in lost friends and family, lost comradery and companionship. Forced distance, forced isolation. Sootstar singled out her remaining tunneler daughter and built her up in her own reigning image - only for them to abandon one another in the end. But Cottonpaw looks at her sister's eyes, and she does not see their mother - unfortunately she sees the hollowed out shell of a clone, one of which just learned that her heart beats on its own still.

"I'm sorry," Cottonpaw says, finally. Despite their past, she comfortably sits in beside her twin and offers her shoulder for the other to lean on. "I'm here. I'll always be here," she continues. "I won't run, I promise."​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Cottonpaw does not rise to the occasion after Bluefrost’s mean-spirited warrior comment; she instead tells her sister that she’s been more than enough warrior for them both. Bluefrost shakes her head, wondering. “I was not a warrior,” she murmurs, “so much as I was her soldier. Her attack dog.” The fluff that decorates her cheeks skims the fur on her shoulders as she looks away. Perhaps I can be a true warrior now, she thinks, though even her internal voice is drenched in uncertainty.

Her littermate tenses when Bluefrost mentions Snakehiss. There is something in Cottonpaw’s reaction that gives her pause—a wrinkle of the nose, a quiet distaste, but there’s longing when she speaks of his kits, of kits they could have had someday. Bluefrost is thoughtful for a moment, then says, “Is that something you still want, Cottonpaw?” She tilts her head to one side. “With Snakehiss?” She is genuinely curious and a touch tactless, but her question is gentle and genuine. Her sister is forbidden the luxury of starting her own family by the medicine cat code of honor, but…

Cottonpaw is a creature driven by dreams, not logic. Bluefrost has always known this about her. The possibility that the plush-furred gray she-cat still pined for something lost has her feeling strangely sad.

To her confession of loneliness, Cottonpaw shifts, pressing her shoulder to Bluefrost’s in a show of solidarity. The tunneler’s heart twists. “After all I have done, you would still be there for me?” She levels her sister with a bleak look—bleak, but hopeful. They were not raised with love, but with pride, with strength, put on display before their Clan and the others—but surely there is still love between those that remain, even if it’s unspoken?

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

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

​

 

[cottonsprig]

"That much can be said of most of the warriors here, in WindClan," she rebuffs. Cottonpaw cannot help the brief wonder of if she would struggle the same as Bluefrost, should she have remained a tunneler. Would she have been closer to Sootstar, and thus worsely troubled because of it? There's jealousy in the thought, vague memories of their shared kithood, of too many lost souls. What would have changed, if anything at all? She dismisses the rabbit hole of a thought. "You're a fine warrior, Bluefrost. Even if you don't think it." She says it with a sense of finality, as if she will not entertain the otherwise.

Bluefrost pitches a tactless question and at first, Cottonpaw holds her gaze, attempting to gauge which rules her sister still deems sacred and which - if any - are made to be broken. And then the molly says his name again, and the younger sister sputters a laugh, "No," in response. After a too long beat, contemplating the best way to word her answer, she continues with, "Not with him. I - I don't know who with, if at all, but certainly not him."

She's grateful that the conversation flows as it does, however dull and mournful it feels. She's still pressed against her sister, as if they're two pillars supporting one another. Cottonpaw doesn't waste time nodding her assurance, "You could hold true to your promise, Bluefrost, and I will still be here every time you pray." Her blood could thoroughly coat white paws with reckless abandon or careful precision, and no hate would bloom from the younger's heart. Maybe that isn't the way they were raised, but it's the way she learned to be.

After a long moment, Cottonpaw finally pulls away. "You'll be fine on your paw after a day or so. Light work is fine, but ease on the tunneling until the morning, okay?" She doesn't want to cut their conversation short, but as she said before - Bluefrost has to be enough for the both of them.​