private WE SANG TO THE MOON [birth] AND IT SANG BACK

[BLUEFROST]

[ cw: descriptions of birth ]

Bluefrost's paws had itched since the first stirrings in her belly; they had begun sometime around sunhigh, when some kind-hearted cat had brought her a piece of prey she could not eat. She steps around it now, delicately, the nursery's lone denizen, and slips through a camp clearing draped in twilight shadow toward the heather tunnel. If any cat notices her, they do not stop her to ask where she is going, and she does not readily offer an explanation. If stopped, she'll smoothly give some response about visiting the dirtplace; she will not let her Clanmates hinder her plans.

Seasons ago, when the snow had been high on the banks, when the sky had been clear and cold, Sootstar had left her Clan with her mate in tow to deliver her kits in the depths of her kingdom. Bluefrost is no leader, no deputy, but every pawstep she takes sends a surge of determination through to her chest. I am as much a part of these moors as any cat. More than some. And you will be, too, my kits. Your first breath will be free from illness. You will be born under clear skies.

The stars are beginning to protrude through milky purple. She lifts her muzzle and tastes the air, her pelt prickling wearily. Her Clanmates should not be outside of camp at this hour, but there had been badger sightings not terribly long ago, she'd heard, and she wants to be sure she does not encounter some ill-tempered beast as she travels. Her nicked ear flicks sideways. There is nothing, nothing but the sound of the wind sweeping through the meadow, nothing but the world opening up before her and her unborn children.

I wish I knew where you chose to settle, Sootstar, she thinks, but does not entertain the thought long. Her mother would curse that place from whatever shadowed corner her spirit festered, now. Her mother would spit and hiss at the sight of Bluefrost's children. She would, too, at her sister's kits — and oh, that thought leaves her more breathless than before. Cottonsprig. Have you given birth yet? Are you alive? Are they?

She pauses, her rounded flanks heaving. A twisting has begun somewhere in her core, as if her innards are seizing. She has come to a small opening in the earth, a tunnel that would protect her and her kits from the elements, but she stubbornly nestles right outside of it. StarClan will see you. I will not hide you in shadow. Bluefrost flicks cool green eyes onto Silverpelt, challenging them. They will know you as trueborn WindClan kits.

Her middle tightens. She gasps, unprepared for the depth of the agony, but she sinks her claws into the moor and anchors herself. Sootstar endured this. Cottonsprig, stars be good, endured it. I shall as well. She longs for Thriftfeather, longs for the comfort of her sister's pelt brushing against hers, for the company of what few friends she has managed to make since joining Sunstar's WindClan, but she has made her choice.

My kits will be born here. They will not smell of sickness. They will look upon StarClan, and StarClan will look back. Determination steels her, and through the hours of agony, she endures. It is not a labor like her mother's, extended into the dawn, but by the time her kits are born, the moon has risen high, and she is trembling with weakness. The scent of blood is on the air, and she fears to look to see how much she's lost. But the first mewl has her fears ebbing away. She nudges the first kit toward her belly, her tongue scraping away debris. My daughter. This first kit has wispy fur, fur that will thicken with age and nutrition. She is a deep gray, bearing the same smoke-colored pelt her mother does, her grandmother, but to Bluefrost's joy, she perceives flecks of gold scattered throughout.

Thriftfeather, she's perfect. Bluefrost touches her nose to her firstborn's head and, with a twist of her neck, guides the kit toward her belly. She does not have long before her middle is wracked with spasms once more, but her second daughter arrives almost before she can process the first. Another she-cat, this one with broad patches of her sire's gilded tabby fur, this one wearing subdued gray rather than smoke. My love.

By the time both kits are cleaned and secured at their mother's belly, the skyline has begun to lighten. Bluefrost can still see stars, though, and that is what she looks at when she murmurs her firstborn's name: "Sootkit." Nevermind her brother's fury; nevermind her mother's. "She will take that cursed name and bring honor back to it." She remembers Thriftfeather's hesitance: "That's a big legacy to put on a kit." She does not disagree, but it does not deter her. Sootkit, welcome to the world.

To the second daughter, she murmurs, "Asterkit." A field of violet-flecked flowers, the tenderness of a gently-held lizard, the softness of Thriftfeather's fur against hers, sunwarmed and dense. That is what her second child represents. There is no legacy here — there is only sweetness, missed opportunities, a wide open, star-filled sky.

Bluefrost lets their names linger over their tiny bodies for just a moment. Sootkit. Asterkit. Her daughters, her children, are safe with her.

When her ears catch the thud of pawsteps beyond the hill, her tenderness is replaced with a steely, maternal anger. Her lips lift, her teeth exposed to their roots. "Who is it?" Her pelt begins to bristle along her spine, her tail lashing behind her, even as she uses it to shield the newborns at her side...

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

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

​

 

[Asterkit]

The warmth and security of the only home she had ever known, came to an abrupt end as the newborn kitten is brought into the world, quick on the heels of her biological sibling. Like her mother before her, she is born not in the WindClan nursery, but in the vast openness of the moors. For a moment after her birth, she does nothing but squirm, before she starts to mewl indignantly once Bluefrost has cleaned her. There is so much room now and her legs kick out uselessly, not entirely sure where to put them or what to do with them on account of her young age.

Other than the newfound space she finds herself in, the newborn is unable to perceive much else other than nagging hunger pangs. Luckily, Bluefrost guides her and her sister to her side, and soon the newborn kitten finds her discomfort alleviated when she finds purchase at her mother's belly. She kneads away contentedly, finally settled, and was blissfully unaware of any approaching strangers.​

 

[cottonsprig]

With the shift of seasons comes a shift of predators. Peonybreeze told her he scented something off in the wind - and though fresh from labor, it did not take much for Cottonsprig to be mobile thereafter. Her body has found a new ache, something monotonous and dull, and when she's resting she feels none of it. But on the move, with her children dangling from her jaw... she feels too much. She's taken a break, nestled at a knoll whilst Peonybreeze hunts not far off. The tall grass obscures her, but the wayward scents are not obscured.

Blood comes to the forefront. Metallic and tangy, it makes the skin beneath her fur itch as she stands steadily over her litter, willing them with her tense silence to hush. (If they do not, then she does not take further action.) Laden in the blood-soaked air is milk, and though Cottonsprig still holds to her apprehension, a pang of worry hits her harder. She had not feared her own birthing because she's a trained professional - she's aided queens in their kitting for moons even before her own name. But this... she swallows thickly as Peonybreeze returns. She speaks with him briefly, offering him the place by her kittens while she explores the brush.

I'm an idiot, she knows, her paws not soft enough as she parts the tall grasses. Exhaustion may make me hear things, but scent cannot be faked, a pause, and she looks back at her sentry, steadily sat beside her kittens and obscuring them from the wind. Can it? And yet, she presses forward.

"Who is it?" The queen calls, and Cottonsprig stiffens, but her pawsteps only move quicker. Moons of separation have happened before and never has the she-cat forgotten the sound of her sister's terse tone. The blood she reminds herself, diving through the undergrowth without saying much of a word. You're scaring her, Cottonsprig aches to call out, to greet Bluefrost with something extreme and jovial - and yet she remembers the threat of predators, and so only when she sees the other, does she finally speak.

"Bluefrost," she says, breaking the threshold of wildflowers and grass with her shoulder. She sees her sister with two lumps of fur settled beside her. She's kitted alone - beneath the stars, maybe, like their mother had. Like she had. She swallows and though she had moved quickly, she stammers in her steps. "Bluefrost," she echoes her own voice, as if the other is a mirage, a hallucination of her own making. Her paws take her a step closer. "Are you okay? Why are you..." Cottonsprig imagines that her sister finds the wilderness comforting, in the same way that their mother had. But must she be alone? Must she endure the same painful hardships that Cottonsprig had done unto herself?

"... They're lovely," she murmurs, filling the air. "Little, too. Tunnellers no doubt..." she wants to embrace Bluefrost so badly, but she holds the distance with a breaking heart. Her tail flags above the grass, signalling to Peonybreeze that she is okay. She does not yet return to their temporary place, however, blue eyes still warily looking towards the other.

[ @PEONYBREEZE mention but dw about replying king :3 @FOALKIT @rimekit @Comfreykit too <3 ]​

 

[sootkit.]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯ ️️️ ️️╱ ️️️ ️️ ️️️ The child comes to life in, for a moment, sheer silence. A small, wet lump of fur in the moor grass shadowed by her mother's body, guided by her tongue. It is not on the first rasp, or the second, that she wakes from her pitiful half-slumber. In fact it takes a good half-dozen more before the slight squirming of her frame gives way to audible displeasure. A tiny, "Mi!" of alarm. But she settles in quickly. The warmth of Bluefrost's belly contrasts sharply with the hint of cool night air across her wispy pelt and the child burrows in. Flailing paws find her mother's softness as she latches on to knead.

It's desperate, clinging. The brush of her sister's pelt against her has her tilting away. The softness, stifling — just one sibling, and already Sootkit takes to her name with grace. Cottonsprig's presence, at least, goes entirely unnoticed. All that matters is mom.

THE CAGE IS OPEN ( 𝙒𝙃𝙔 𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝙎𝙏𝙄𝙇𝙇 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙀?) ₀₉.₀₇

• ✧₊⁺ ️️️ ️️ ️️️ OOC. —
  

  

• 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘬𝘪𝘵 ️️️ —————— ️️️ newborn kitten of bluefrost and thriftfeather
• "speech"

​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Bristling, Bluefrost curls tightly against the protesting bundles of fur at her flank... but the paws that part the grass are spotted with white, and the blue eyes that blink weariness from their surfaces are achingly familiar. Her sister's body has thinned considerably, though her stomach is soft, the unmistakable belly of a recently-kitted queen. Bluefrost's eyes round like the moon. "Cottonsprig?" She stares almost stupidly at her littermate, almost as though she's a specter. She might as well be, she thinks with some trepidation.

She is silent, though, as Cottonsprig moves closer. The scent of milk hangs from her sister like a miasma — so, too, an aura of exhaustion. "Are you okay? Why are you..." Bluefrost's ears twitch, and though the hostility fades from her eyes, there is a coldness there.

"I could not kit safely in camp. The child you brought into WindClan before you left us carried yellowcough." She stares at her sister, searching her blue eyes, the lines of her face, and though part of her yearns to grasp Cottonsprig and draw her close, she does not.

There is too much between them.

Bluefrost allows Cottonsprig to see the kits, just barely shifting her tail so their kin can peer at them. "They're lovely," the former medicine cat murmurs. Bluefrost blinks, but maintains her silence for a few heartbeats longer. When she finally breaks it, it's to ask: "You have kitted, too. Where are they?" She tastes the breeze, unsettled by the unfamiliarity that infiltrates her senses now. She draws her tail back over Sootkit and Asterkit. "Did they... do they live?"

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

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

​

 

[cottonsprig]

There is a slight incline of her head as the other breathes out her moniker. Yes, it's me, she doesn't say. The moon between them has only softened her features yet weathered her paws. Calloused they are, with the arid atmosphere and sharp grasses of the lonerlands. She holds the distance just as Bluefrost does, noting how aggression fades but the chill of the other's namesake remains. Bluefrost speaks of the littleling before she left - "Lungwortkit -" Cottonsprig says, but her own voice cuts short.

That can't be right, Her pupils pin slightly, the lump of sorrow in her throat only growing. I... I gave her herbs. I healed her before I left, I did my just work. Who had seen her, then, before her symptoms faded? Kittens, apprentices - curious noses who Cottonsprig hadn't batted away. And now, the sick infects the camp to such a degree, her sister no longer feels safe within its walls. An apology doesn't leave her lips, an admittance of guilt hardly spurs her tongue. She simply stares.

Bluefrost allows her to see the kittens, but with the breeze her tail moves back, affording them warmth once again. Cottonsprig's eyes flick back to her sister's verdant ones, and she lets out a shaky breath. "They - they do, Bluefrost. Three sunrises old, already," At what cost? Remorse somehow eats her, "I've three kittens now. Two sons and a daughter... There were badgers near our den, so we were moving -" her mind races and she finally swallows the fear that's made home in her chest.

"Sister," she addresses more firmly, but her voice wobbles, "What of Wolfsong? Is he... If the Clan is sick..." Is he doing all of this on his own? He had been pregnant before, like she was mere days ago. She had helped him, freshly minted but with paws excited to work. She cannot form her thoughts properly, and frankly isn't sure what she wants to ask. Something negs her in the back of her mind, a new pain, a new sadness. The inevitable rises like the sun on the horizon line but she cannot say it with her own tongue. She needs the other to beg the command, to state what may be obvious to the stars.

I cannot be out here any longer, she looks back over her shoulder, at Peonybreeze, at where she presumes her children are. And within seconds, she's peering back at Bluefrost once again, tears pricking her eyes. I have to go home.​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"Lungwortkit," Cottonsprig tries to interject, and Bluefrost grimaces at the kit's moniker. Irony, star-driven irony. She watches the concern crease her sister's features, watches the horror begin to dawn on her face just as the sun ripens the horizon. Bluefrost's frown softens as Cottonsprig tells her the kits live, are three sunrises old. My kin. Two sons and a daughter, healthy, thriving. "I am glad to hear they are well."

Cottonsprig tells her she and her rogue companion had been moving the kits to a new location, and Bluefrost's pelt crawls. Badgers. With newfound anxiety, she reaches for first Sootkit's head, then Asterkit's, touching her nose to their plush gray fur before her sister addresses her again.

"What of Wolfsong?" Bluefrost lingers over her daughters' bodies, inhaling their scent, before she murmurs, "Wolfsong named Celandinepaw his new apprentice. She has no real training yet. They have done their best, but Quietcrow has died, and now..." She exhales, her breath warming the tiny bodies before her face. "Wolfsong has fallen ill."

Bluefrost finally tears her gaze away from the kits nestled at her side. She looks at Cottonsprig, her green eyes bleak. "The Clan needs you, Cottonsprig. It is not just me this time. We may die if you do not return."

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

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

​

 

[cottonsprig]

The details of her sister's expression matters little in the face of tragedy. The lines between sincerity and distaste blur tremendously, even as a sense of warmth twitches Bluefrost's whiskers. I've damned them, she tells herself. Cottonsprig cannot regret her litter nor the actions she took to protect them - but to know that in her folly to right some sort of cosmic wrong, she's squandered the safety of her whole Clan...

Everything in her shatters.

Bluefrost acts motherly to her daughters and Cottonsprig feels her limbs want to buckle beneath her. She stutters out Wolfsong's name, hoping for some sort of answer (although the definitve question is still uncertain,) and she's served with only a step up from the worst case scenario. He has picked a new apprentice, but someone died. Quietcrow... She whimpers and withholds her gaze from pointing skyward. Do you see me here? Are you watching? Suddenly now, more than ever, she hopes StarClan can't. But then, with her sister's gaze downturned and her nose pressing to kitten soft pelts - "Wolfsong has fallen ill."

"No," she eeks out almost immediately, as if denying the statement will render her sister's words a lie. Bluefrost then begins to plead with her, and Cottonsprig looks to her nieces, to her paws and over her shoulder again. "I can't - Bluefrost, I -" Selfish. It's a painful, booming thought. She tenses her jaws and the reality of it all holds her, claws digging into her frame. As much as she has tried to run from the narrative, or twist the story into her own favor... She cannot. It is inevitable.

"What of my kittens?" she asks. Her tone speaks of defeat, yet understanding. Her gaze falls to her sister's litter and with tears trailing down her cheeks, Cottonsprig asks, "Can... Would you nurse them, Bluefrost? I cannot leave them out here, I cannot part with them so readily. You - you can call them your own," she trembles as she speaks, her world falling to pieces as she scrapes what she must together. A story, a tale. A means to keep her little family together, even if they must be apart. "I've named them. Let them stay as they are - a final gift from myself, I suppose..." She thinks of the parsley, of the world she prepared herself for yet never truly understood why. More tears crest her cheeks ans she looks down at her white tipped paws. "I... I'm sorry, Bluefrost. I ask too mch of you," and yet, it's all she asks.​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Bluefrost watches Cottonsprig break apart in realtime, and she has to turn her face away not to see it. StarClan has sent us both here, she thinks. She will become mother to her Clan, and I will become mother to her kits. WindClan will thrive. That is StarClan's will. And what of her sister's will, to raise the children she'd carried, the children she'd labored to bring into the world?

"I've named them. Let them stay as they are," Cottonsprig pleads, and Bluefrost's gaze flits from the daughters resting at her side to the bleak, grief-drenched blue gaze her sister pins on her. The sorrow there is enough to drown them both.

"Bring them to me," she murmurs. "Tell me their names. I will..." Her throat becomes thick with emotion she cannot dislodge. "I will take them." Kits born from a code-breaking mother, an unknown sire, kits born in an impossible shadow, kits who will never know the softness of their true mother's flank, the sweetness of their true mother's milk, again.

Stars forgive us both.

"I am sorry, too." She extends her muzzle, reaching for her sister's white-freckled nose, hoping to hold her just for a moment before the medicine cat must retrieve her kittens. Just for a moment, before she must give her children up to resume her rightful place as WindClan's healer, as StarClan's chosen. "This is StarClan's will. I know it is."

She will wait for Cottonsprig and Peonybreeze to approach with them, three bundles of fur, all anointed with the sweet smell of Cottonsprig, with the unfamiliar tang of the wilderness beyond their border. They do not look out of place as they are tenderly laid against her belly, against their ill-gotten sisters. The daughter is mostly-white, flecked with gold and smoke; one son wears the deep blue-gray fur of his mother and grandmother, the other darker, deeper. They blend in. They belong, and even in their confusion and displeasure at being moved, they latch without being guided; they find their place as instinct drives them.

My kits. Bluefrost gazes wearily at the collection of gray-smudged bodies at her side. I will raise five, as Sootstar did before me. I will raise you with all that I have. That I promise. The phantom of her mother blankets her in darkness, but there is light from the stars above — and now, as the dawn approaches, there is warmth from the sun at her back.

"I should not linger here, if there are predators," she murmurs after what seems like seasons of emotionally-heavy silence. "I will need help taking them back to camp, but you..." Bluefrost's eyes sweep over Cottonsprig's mother-soft body, her nose twitching at the lingering scent of her milk.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 18 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan lead warrior and queen. 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]

Hunger is a dog biting at Thriftfeather's sheep-heels. It has pressed him on a wilding path overnight and now, head tipped towards the starlight sky and nose flaring like a rabbit's, it pauses his weary steps. Blood, he recognizes and in a jolt-quick moment, Thriftfeather mistakes it for something he can make a meal of. Realization follows in the immediate after; a familiar scent meets Thriftfeather among the bronzing world.

His paws move before he can think. The previous moons had been empty and painful in more ways than Thriftfeather could ever understand. And yet, at once, those tiresome days and lonely nights melt into nothing more than his hurried steps and the way his head swivels: searching, searching, until at last he finds her.

Bluefrost is just as much herself as Thriftfeather remembers her to be, even folded like a young fawn. Her absence had been a wound and now, now that Thriftfeather sees her, he remembers what it means to be healed into wholeness. At her belly are kits—the kits!—and Thriftfeather does not recognize his own bewildered joy until he sees their small movements. These kits are alive and Bluefrost is alive; the slow-dawn thought that Thriftfeather has never loved anyone or anything more does not frighten him.

Regardless, his heart thumps in staccato.

“You’re here,” Such small words encompass everything Thriftfeather feels in the moment.

He approaches as if attempting to be unobtrusive, more like an apprentice nervously sidling nearer to a crush than a warrior of many moons witnessing for the first time his own kits. Thriftfeather lowers himself before Bluefrost and before them. There are five—Thriftfeather counts them as many times to confirm. There are five tiny bodies that might someday learn to stand prouder than Thriftfeather himself is able. They contain worlds within them, and Thriftfeather has never been so blessed as he is now, with the opportunity to get to know them.

“How are you—are you alright?” His words are a hush; it feels inexcusably wrong to offer more of his voice to the quiet.

It is then that he realizes another presence. At once he has pushed himself back into standing, his fur bristled from surprise rather than anger. There stands Cottonsprig; half-formed worries rise and crumble in his mind, and Thriftfeather doesn't give voice to any of them. Instead, he wills his fur flat and swallows his instinct to come up with a stuttered excuse. If Cottonsprig hasn't already assumed what Thriftfeather is to these kits, then whatever hurried justifications he can come up with would only make it all the more obvious.

Deliberately, Thriftfeather raises his tail into a hook-shaped greeting and settles back into his pelt. Cottonsprig is here—that means Bluefrost hadn't needed to birth alone.

"Does everyone—" He speaks only a little louder now, only enough to allow Cottonsprig to hear him, and his voice wavers around the words, "Do they have names?"​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 18 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[cottonsprig]

Bluefrost agrees, though her sister wonders if either really has a choice in the matter. Her mouth feels dry as she cannot say much more - the only words that threaten to spill from her maw are apologetic. Sorries for the families thrust into yellowcough and fear of death, sorries for her mentor, now ill, and his apprentice, likely struggling with the world on her shoulders. Sorries for Bluefrost and the family she's furthermore cursed to have. Cursed. She grimaces and banishes her father's voice to the recesses of her mind.

StarClan's will indeed. Weaselclaw must be amused from the darkness he resides. Cottonsprig closes the distance briefly, holding her cheek to her sister's whilst he sobs softly. The moment is gone and she murmurs something incoherent before turning and leaving the small clearing.

She finds Peonybreeze in the grasses far off. She's crying, and he doesn't take it well - after all this work of the both of them, she's simply to return? Is her duty more important than the family she birthed? But what of the families I'll kill? She must've whimpered in reply. She doesn't wait for his approval, grasping the scruff of one of her kits. She would return twice, and a third time if she had to - but the tom tugs along her smaller boys. With pain they are rested at the round of Bluefrost's belly, and Peonybreeze sinks into the wildgrasses again, watching out for the aforementioned predators.

"Peony could help you..." she says, her tone distant. She sees the stem of parsley lost to their old nest, left behind in the hopes that her premonitions were wrong. "I... I will follow you in a day or two. Trust me," she says. Cottonsprig will not eat more than that stem in the interim - she will force her body to only survive. Her milk will dry one way or another... She wonders, mournfully, if her sorrows will play a part in it.

She scents the wind and something vaguely familiar with it. Her many run ins with Rumblerain have taught her to square her shoulders and narrow her eyes - the threat over her own kin meekly pushes her claws into the dirt. Instead of creams and coals, a tom the color of the wheatgrass around them emerges. His eyes are only for Bluefrost, taking in her subtle glow, the five well fed babies by her side. Cottonsprig tenses her jaw and she looks between the tom and her sister, and then to the two kits that were hers... theirs? He looks at her with the same dedicated infatuation as Weaselclaw once did Sootstar. She'd be callous to suggest something so bluntly, even as his fur ruffles with surprise and he offers her a wave of his tail. She cannot begrudge her sister for the unspoken truth, but the sadness in her eyes does not wane as she looks back at Bluefrost. Not a word, she shares in silence. Bluefrost has done more for her in the entirity of their lives... she can do this for her sister.

"Oh," her tone pitches up, and she feigns her tears as those of joy. It's pitiful, painful, but she does her best. "Bluefrost was just... telling me of their names. Let me - let me try and remember..." Cottonsprig outwardly treats it as a guessing game, though the broken pieces of her heart clatter and clang in her chest. Her paw reaches to hover over the kits one by one - "This little guy is... Foalkit," she acts as if its difficult to recall. "And this little man is... Comfreykit! Like the little purple flowers you see around." There's more to their names. Tears drop slowly, and she presses her lingering paw to her cheek. Will they ever know? "Sorry, I'm a bit emotional," she laughs, and its hollow. Quiet, even. She looks to the final of her kittens, her daughter. Bluefrost's daughter.

"Rimekit," she says. She swallows thickly, and smiles. "For her mother, no doubt. It's lovely..." Cottonsprig holds her gaze to her sister's. There is no peace, there is no calm. Her sadness threatens to break her more and she's quick to try and move on. "The - the other two, oh, I forgot their names. I'm sorry," another hollow laugh. Her gaze falls over her shoulder briefly, then back to Thriftfeather. He seems comfortable beside her sister, and she confident beside him. Her tail twitches.

"I have to... there's some - chamomile, yeah out here. The change of season makes it hard to find in WindClan. So, um -" she waves her paw noncommittally towards Thriftfeather. "He - he can help you into the border some, yeah? And... leave, before others find you?" Would you stay? For her? As much as she trembles and cries, she wants the world for her ever giving sister. She lets out a shaky sob, not waiting for an answer. "I'll leave you two be, then. See - see you at home, Bluefrost."

Cottonsprig is too quick. She stands to her paws and presses her nose to her sister's forehead before turning. And just the way she came in, hope and warmth in her gaze, does she leave - broken and lost.

[ out :( ]
​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Before Cottonsprig can tell Bluefrost the names of the three new bundles of fur at her flank, the wildgrass parts again, and Bluefrost's breath catches in her throat. Though he is thinner than last she'd seen him, though his golden pelt hangs on his toughened frame, though it has been almost a season since last she inhaled his scent — her purr begins to rumble in her chest almost immediately. She forgets, momentarily, about her sister's presence, about the grief that shatters the air between them, because he's here. He's here to see his kits, and —

Thriftfeather's kits. Her gaze falls, falls to Sootkit, to Asterkit, then flits back to their trueborn father. She looks to Cottonsprig then, and something cold and distant begins to fill her limbs. Steel. Determination. If this secret is to be kept, it must be kept from them all... even from him. The lie snares in her mouth as the DuskClan cat lowers himself before her, as he begins to take in the mixed, milk-numbed scents of the five kits.

"Five," she confirms; she does not spare her sister another glance, even as the tears begin to burst like newleaf seeds on her gray cheeks, even as she begins to name the kits she'd just given up. To Bluefrost, and to Thriftfeather, she introduces them: "Foalkit," for the black-smoked kitten, his limbs thin and knobby; "Comfreykit," for the gray, feathery-eared; "Rimekit," for the little she-kit, her pelt so pale amidst her siblings'.

"Rimekit, for their mother," Cottonsprig chokes, and Bluefrost swallows against the treachery building in her throat. Cottonsprig does not stay; her sister's voice trembles, her gait is unsteady, and as she turns away, the false cheeriness in her voice breaks into shards sharp as glass. Bluefrost watches her littermate go, knowing the heartbreak she carries and feeling helpless that she cannot mend it.

Foalkit, Comfreykit, Rimekit. Bluefrost reaches for Thriftfeather with her muzzle, wanting to press against him as she has not been able to for moons. "Your other two daughters are Sootkit," she runs the tip of her tail over the gold-flecked she-cat, "and Asterkit," she points to the child with dawn-like patches of dusty yellow coating her pelt. "You have two strong sons and three healthy daughters."

The lie is spoken coolly, smoothly. If Thriftfeather were to search her expression, he would find nothing but exhaustion; the joy in her special moment had been, once again, stolen. She lowers her face and breathes in the muddled scents of the five kits at her belly, closing her eyes just for a moment. Soon, you will all share my scent. You will grow strong on my milk alone, on the prey your father brings you. You will forget her. And I am sorry for that.

"I must carry them back to camp. It is not safe to linger here." She looks to Thriftfeather, the question in her gaze. Even now, she wants to protect him, but the safety of their children is paramount. "I do not know what will happen when we get there, but I will defend you to the best of my ability." She is only a queen, only a lead warrior, and not a well-trusted one at that, but...

He is the father of my kits, and he belongs in WindClan, she thinks, setting her jaw. They must not harm him. Not when he carries my children.

Bluefrost nudges Asterkit, Foalkit, and Comfreykit toward Thriftfeather. "Your jaw is stronger. Can you carry them? I shall carry these two." She lowers her mouth and grips first Sootkit, then Rimekit, by their scruffs. Their protests fill the dawn air as they are lifted, as their bodies swing unceremoniously through the air.

Be patient, my little ones. Soon you will be in your true home.

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

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

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[sootkit.]

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯ ️️️ ️️╱ ️️️ ️️ ️️️ She protests. Oh does she protest — first at the intrusion of three more bodies, her voice turning to a tinny squeal as she releases her mother's belly to cry out; then as her mother lifts her far above the soft moor-grass nest and her softer belly. Tiny paws flail out, stuck spread as if she was frozen that way as her noises cease. It does not occur to her that she has met her father, or the siblings she would have never known as such. Only that her world has shifted irrevocably once more, and it's left her apart from Bluefrost's side. An entirely unforgiveable offense, though there's some small comfort in her littermate's presence alongside her where they hang.

Eventually Sootkit settles for the trip, a limp bundle of fur set off to an uncertain world.

THE CAGE IS OPEN ( 𝙒𝙃𝙔 𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐 𝙎𝙏𝙄𝙇𝙇 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙀?) ₀₉.₀₇

• ✧₊⁺ ️️️ ️️ ️️️ OOC. —
  

  

• 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘬𝘪𝘵 ️️️ —————— ️️️ newborn kitten of bluefrost and thriftfeather
• "speech"

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