private WELCOME TO THE IMMINENT | thriftfeather

[SCORCHSTORM]

Sunstar is letting the traitor stay.

It is the first time she thinks of him as too soft-hearted for his own good. The Sunstar she had known before, back when he was still Sunstride, back when he still had his limbs, his child, would never have harbored a DuskClanner in his nursery. Stars, the nursery of all places! And she had thought Juncoclaw's imprisonment to be cushy. Undeserved. What has Thriftfeather done to deserve this luxury now? Sired a litter? It's not exactly a hard thing to do. Maybe what is most unfortunate is that they share their taste in significant others — the idea that she is like him in some way.

But whether she likes it or not, she and Thriftfeather have always shared some commonality. Whether it was merely their allegiance, before Sootstar had cleaved WindClan in half, or their interests and collections, both unorthodox and antisocial, they have always had something to share. They shared Bluefrost — but they shared something else, too.

It is this something that compels Scorchstorm to visit the nursery. The sun is only a few hours from dipping behind the horizon completely. Camp is sparkling and golden in the evening light, and that light finds its fingers sticking through the gorse that shelters WindClan's most vulnerable. It dapples her already dappled pelt, swirled with a flame that she can feel in her chest, hissing and spitting up her throat, molten spite.

"You." It is a low, harsh whisper. The shadow she casts into the nursery from its mouth is long and cutting. It eclipses the sleeping Bluefrost from view, shadows her kits alongside her, as if Scorchstorm and Thriftfeather are the nursery's only occupants. Thank StarClan Sootspot has made himself scarce, too. Scorchstorm glares daggers at the egg-yolk tom — the one she cannot stand to be alike, the one who Bluefrost chose, the one who holds answers to her own most burning questions.

She creeps into the den as poison oak. When she settles near Thriftfeather, it is only because she must make him hear her without disturbing the sleeping queen. "You grew bored of DuskClan, I take it?" she jeers, hushed. Her claws worry into the soft earth of the nursery's floor. "Or could you not handle lying in the nest you made? Or maybe you just like the feeling of betraying your Clan — you have done it twice, now." And it feels good to insult him, to poke barbs in him. It would feel better to claw through him outright. But all of this languid lashing does not get to her point. Unfortunately for Thriftfeather, Scorchstorm does not feel like being very direct today.

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• ooc. @Thriftfeather WHEEEE <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 17 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

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[Thriftfeather]

There is a unique type of fear that comes in waiting—the knowledge of a stable now that will doubtlessly be disrupted by the uncertain future, the knowledge that for whatever is to come, Thriftfeather is helpless in changing it. WindClan accepts him or WindClan doesn't; in how many ways is he once again a trembling apprentice, accepting and wanting whatever scraps of judgement might fall over him if only to know exactly how and where he should stand?

Scorchpaw—doubtlessly a warrior now, even if Thriftfeather doesn't know her name—appearing at the mouth of the den is both a welcome reprieve from watching the predictable rise and fall of Bluefrost's flank, the endless squirming of their litter, and yet it is another thing that sends his heart to his throat. Her voice is harsh despite the hush she maintains. Thriftfeather looks away from her, watches the way his white paws flex into the soft ground.

He doesn't know what to say to her. He doesn't have words for how lonely DuskClan had been, how out of place Thriftfeather had felt, how the guilt he felt only abated when it had given way to apathy. There aren't words for it—everything Thriftfeather considers sounds like a feeble excuse to his ears.

"I couldn't be apart from them," He keeps his own voice at the same quiet as her own—some part of him is appreciative that she would think to not wake Bluefrost. It doesn't sound like enough when Thriftfeather says it out loud. It feels impossibly selfish that Thriftfeather could somehow allow his want to see his family eclipse that of his family. WindClan doubts Bluefrost's place—doubts his kits, "And I couldn't stand—I couldn't stay in DuskClan."

Perhaps that makes him everything that Scorchpaw thinks of him. Thriftfeather is already shaking his head in rejection of the thought.

"It isn't—whatever you are thinking, it wasn't like that," His eyes return to Bluefrost when he speaks, "She had asked me back to WindClan before but when she—I thought, back when she told me she was pregnant..." Thriftfeather trails off. He doesn't know what he had thought, or his thoughts would sound harebrained if given even a thin voice. He hadn't known she would announce him as the father so soon. He hadn't known what she would risk in the defense of himself.

"DuskClan didn't—it couldn't compete with her," Eyes back to Scorchpaw.

Thriftfeather doesn't know how to say that he thought that Bluefrost would have been with him in DuskClan, or the dull way he wished he could rage at her absence. There is a contradiction in his wants—that he would want to be near so that he could be of some help in case something went wrong and the fact that his presence is the ruinous factor. In another life Thriftfeather hadn't helped Bluefrost home. In another life he had stumbled back to DuskClan's camp and worried until he was ill over whether or not Bluefrost and the kits found their way back to camp—and they would have been fine, nestled into the warmth that acceptance provides.

"I'm sorry," He says because he is sorry in more ways than he can count, for more deeds than he can even recall.​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 19 MOONS ✦ TAGS​

 

[SCORCHSTORM]

"I couldn't be apart from them."

He does not look in her eyes, not at first. The small, angry animal inside of Scorchstorm rears its head; kicks apart her ribs. She feels all of her rage in a single wave. It illuminates her insides, a cursed forge that crafts her crusading blade. Her instinct becomes crueler. "Oh, tragic!" she hisses snidely, hot metal in cold water, still mindful of her volume despite it all. Thriftfeather could not be apart from his kin. She thinks of Badgermoon, of Rumblerain; of the family who had left her in the dust. He does not know how to suffer the distance. The consequence.

She does not stop to think whether the suffering should be altogether avoided. If she has to hurt, then he must hurt — she has always followed the code, always obeyed the word of her leader, hasn't she? And now Thriftfeather, a cat who plays fast and loose with loyalty, is rewarded with proximity. It is not just. The scales are out of balance. Aren't they?

And she cannot say more, for his jaws part and he blubbers still, miserable justification piling upon miserable justification. Each one brings her ears closer to her skull. When he is done, when he finally seeks her face again, he will find her jaw witheringly set, a contemptuous glower in her eyes. He may reject her judgment of him, but Scorchstorm knows the cat that he really is. She must. Because if she doesn't, what would it mean for her now?

She grinds her reason against the whetstone. She peels her lips away from her teeth. "She deserves better," she utters, carefully measured. Gravely quiet. Her eyes narrow just a hair; her heart beats more fervently, as if trying to make itself heard. Scorchstorm denies it. "Someone who can stick to their convictions, at least. Just because you cannot stand the weight of distance does not mean you can play with loyalty like a kit. Maybe that is why Sunstar put you in the nursery."

It is more cold, more cruel, more viscously poisonous than any word she has uttered since the start of her haunting, and it is all because she means it. She knows exactly what Bluefrost is missing — knows the queen's struggles and aspirations, her fears. Knows most keenly of all that she had never felt the same. But Scorchstorm cannot help but wonder; if Thriftfeather had had the courage to stand by whatever had brought him to DuskClan in the first place, would things have turned out differently now?

She dares to glance at Bluefrost, still sleeping soundly, but is quick to pierce Thriftfeather with her gaze once more. "If you hate DuskClan so much, then why were you a part of it in the first place?" And why did Rumblerain go with you? "I am certain Rumblerain does not appreciate your abandonment."

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋 𝐎𝐑 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍, 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ✧

• ooc.
  
• SCORCHSTORM —— warrior of windclan, mentored by sunstar & badgermoon . scorchstreak x badgermoon . littermate to rumblerain, frostwind, and luckypaw ✦ penned by meghan
  
  ✦ a broad-shouldered tortoiseshell with low white and dual-toned amber eyes. extremely loyal to sunstar and her family, and enjoys a deep connection to the moorlands
  ✦ demigirl / she they pronouns / lesbian / 17 moons & ages every 1st
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— will start fights / will not flee / may show mercy. fights honorably and with great ferocity. can tank a few hits, but is not the sturdiest cat in windclan. starts fights with the intention of finishing them permanently, but will not aim to maim or kill obviously young cats
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are in character
  ✦ full biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  

• 

​

 

[Thriftfeather]

The small apology Thriftfeather had offered hadn't been enough. It never could have been—Thriftfeather has always known that nothing would be adequate to make up for the bulk of himself, even before he had left for DuskClan. There is no other option for him than to try again, to keep trying despite knowing the futility of it all. Someday, maybe, Scorchpaw may not come to like him, but she might soften towards him. Expecting anything more would be akin to expecting Leaf-fall to ease beyond Leafbare and directly into Newleaf. Thriftfeather sees that now.

And then Scorchpaw says the words that Thriftfeather himself has thought: She deserves better.

Beyond his own volition, Thriftfeather's eyes track the distance between himself and Bluefrost's form before finally landing on her face. So often he has felt like a burden to her: it was Bluefrost who needed to trek across the territories to see him, it was Bluefrost who provided him meals that would have otherwise been given to WindClan mouths—Bluefrost, who was a better balm to his rabbit heart than anyone else he has ever known.

Yet Bluefrost inexplicably hadn't chosen better; she had chosen him.

"She doesn't think so," It feels impossibly presumptuous to speak on her behalf, but hasn't Bluefrost already told him as much in countless different ways?

Had Bluefrost not wanted Thriftfeather at her side then she would have never allowed him near her. Their fateful meeting after Thriftfeather had resigned himself to a life outside of WindClan would have ended bloody. Instead, they had talked. Bluefrost had said she had missed him—something in Thriftfeather still cannot believe it.

"I've always wanted—I want to offer her more than I have, but she hasn't asked that of me," Scant resistance offered up only because of the spark of indignation that Thriftfeather feels towards being compared to a kit, to having Sunstar's motivations assumed.

The question as to why is an expected one. Thriftfeather looks down, considers the pain of widening the circle of those who know, and then crushes the idea before it could become anything more than a sprout. There is only so much of himself that he can share and only so much that he can trust another with the whys. Even Thriftfeather himself doesn't understand the depths of it. The mention of Rumblerain doesn't sting as deeply as Thriftfeather expects it to—it is a betrayal he cannot bring himself to regret.

"It wasn't as dramatic as abandonment," Thriftfeather deflects. He nearly forgets himself, nearly forgets to keep his voice at a hush. When Thriftfeather next speaks, he has corrected himself, "You don't—DuskClan isn't anymore a clan than a fox is a kind of bird. They've left for an entire—they've been gone for nearly a moon before."

Thriftfeather doesn't mention that they are currently gone from DuskClan, doesn't mention that their leaving has always been accompanied by others, doesn't mention that they had planned the time of their return each time they had left—the details shouldn't matter. A normal clan would never be making trips to twolegplace regardless.​

DUSKCLAN DEPUTY ✦ GOLDEN TABBY TOM ✦ 19 MOONS ✦ TAGS​