pafp WOLF FATHER, AT THE DOOR \ pestering

[COMFREYPAW]

There's something Comfreykit wants to know. She wants to know it so badly that she prays to StarClan every night before she falls asleep -- she prays for them to tell her. To make her mom tell her. She loves Roosterstrut, and he's always around Yarrowkit and her, but he's never once called himself their father, and neither has Betonyfrost.

It's all she wants. She wants two parents. She wants a father who comes to the den to nuzzle his kits and mate, the way Smogmaw does with Halfshade. Watching the ShadowClan deputy hover outside of the nursery is enough to make Comfreykit want to wail. Where is the cat who looks at her mother with eyes full of love and adoration? Where is the one who will come tell her jokes, and take her out of the nursery, and play games with her when her mother is tired and doesn't want to be bothered?

She loves Betonyfrost. She loves Yarrowkit. She loves her denmates, her Clanmates.

But she just feels like something's missing, and it fills her with a terrible yawning loneliness that she can't hold onto.

"Betonyfrost?" Clouds are rolling in, blocking the sun. The charcoal she-kit creeps up beside her sunbathing mother, interrupting a well-earned nap.

She doesn't stir, so she clears her throat. "Mother?" This isn't the first time Comfreykit has asked Betonyfrost this question. It's not the second time she's asked her this question.

Betonyfrost clearly does not want to be bothered, but Comfreykit cannot help herself. She furrows her brow, determination creeping over her features. The dark tabby darts forward, prodding her mother in her rounded flank. "Mother! I still... I still want to know! Who is our father? Why won't you tell me?" A piteous whine creeps into her voice, grating and self-flagellating. "I don't understand why you won't just say! Is it Roosterstrut! If it is can you just SAY?

// please wait for @betonyfrost​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[betonyfrost]

There isn't anything quite like being a queen. Betonyfrost can admit that she's gotten lazy — content to stretch into a sunbeam and let the day pass her by. Being idle suits her. It's a near enough sensation to being content that Betonyfrost can confuse the two. Life is meant to be lived without responsibility, a fact that Betonyfrost had discovered when she had finally settled into her place in the nursery.

Only, that isn't entirely true.

One of her responsibilities prods and pokes and whines until Betonyfrost's growing annoyance becomes enough for her to abandon her attempted nap. It's this question again. Betonyfrost doesn't know how to better impress the answer into Comfreykit's head — into everybody's heads.

"You're being loud," Betonyfrost scolds, "And there isn't anything good to come out of asking questions that don't have answers. You're ShadowClan blood, and that's all that matters."

What else could Betonyfrost tell her? I chased him out of my life before I could find out if he wanted you? He isn't fighting for this, so surely the answer is that he doesn't? That was hardly something to tell a kit, and even less of something to say with so many gossip-hungry ears around. The questions about Roosterstrut were always the ones to get beneath Betonyfrost's skin.

"Are you going to think any tom that spares you a glance is your father?" Grumbled words, not quite meant for Comfreykit's ears but almost certainly heard, and then Betonyfrost continues, voice louder and far more intentional, "You need to get all of these — these speculations out of your head."​

shadowclan queen | blue mackerel tabby | 19 moons | tags​

 

[APPLEJAW]

Rumor has it that Betonyfrost eats kits.

Applekit wonders if there's an exception made for her own. Despite the company they were always (or sometimes?) in, Comfreykit and Yarrowkit managed to be twice Applekit's own age before being eaten. Maybe the rumors were liars, and liars are no good, she thinks. Applekit angles her ears toward them. Comfreykit really wants to know something, and Applekit wants to know too. Betonyfrost doesn't want them to know anything, though.

Betonyfrost looks like she's about to eat Comfreykit, so Applekit comes to save her. The dark tabby is bigger than her still, but a cat can't eat two kits at once, can they? " Spec– speculations are good. " She fumbles a bit. She's never said the word before. Would people speculate on her because of that? Not everyone deserves speculations, she supposes, but Betonyfrost certainly did.

Applekit could respect warriors unlike Yarrowkit, but Betonyfrost isn't worth her respect. Not wanting to be eaten, she keeps her distance, and she thinks that Comfreykit should too. " She's lying, " she says lowly. Cats lie sometimes, but she doesn't know why yet. Liars shouldn't be trusted, though.​

 

[lambkit]

❝ BAD THOUGHTS GIVE ME BAD DREAMS ⃤°.✦ ————————————

A white-dappled figure emerges from the nursery's shadows and materializes behind Applekit with deathly silence; it's likely the tortie won't even know she's there until Lambkit's bulging eyes and moth wings appear in the other kit's peripheral. Their eelish tail raps a beat on the ground behind them, coated in dust and leaves as it always is, as bicolor eyes leer at the trio gathered in the newleaf sun. Their head dips from the curve of a bony spine, limbs in a complicated tangle as Lambkit seats herself.

Lambkit had been listening from the nursery, and they've heard Comfreykit's interrogations of her mother before. It seems to Lambkit that Comfreykit must just be punishing herself at this point, they think, because Betonyfrost is always scolding them as much as breathing, seems like. She wonders if Betonyfrost even wanted to have kits. Lambkit also wonders why Comfreykit cares so much about who her father is; Lambkit doesn't really have a father or a mother (Addercoil didn't count for much) and it doesn't really bother them. Maybe having a parent who chose not to like you is different than one who just died, Lambkit speculates. Oh yes. They know about that. Addercoil isn't exactly a soft-tongued foster mother, and Lambkit had asked about their parents. Once. Addercoil had rather bluntly told her that they were both dead, and so were her littermates. She'd taken Lambkit to the little gravesite at their request, snuck out of camp since they weren't technically old enough, and that had closed the issue for them.

Applekit's sharp feminine kitten-mew breaks this reminiscence; commanding as ever. Lambkit leans forward, swaying snakelike, and cranes their kit-oversized head to look at the other, "Your pelt is pretty." The compliment is a touch creepy coming from them, especially with the way Lambkit's wide-set stare fixes on Applekit's serpentlike blue streak, pupils pinpricks as always. Their head turns to Comfreykit, chirping in an attempt at comforting, "It's okay, Comfreykit. I don't have a father either."

[penned by dejavu - ]

———————————— ✦.°⃤ AND MY BAD DREAMS MAKE ME SLEEPWALK❞​

​

 

[hitch]

Well. This is...unfortunate, to put it politely, and that's also probably this moon's most egregious understatement. Rosemire feels awkward around children the way many adults who haven't learned how to talk to them do. That doesn't account for the defensiveness, though, the compulsion to rattle Betonyfrost until she can give her kids a better answer than, "Stop asking about it." Maybe it's just because he's the only other supposedly responsible being here; of the five cats, three are kits, much as Lambkit seems to behave like some unblinking horror from a nightmare.

That's not nice of him to think.

Inhaling deeply, Rosemire pads closer, the beginnings of a headache at his temples. "Something tells me kits are more concerned about who plays with them and shows them affection than how much frog-eating is in their blood," he comments wryly. If Comfreykit's father is in ShadowClan, he's done a pretty damn good job of keeping his distance. "And that if you're wanting to wait until they stop asking— well, anything can happen in that span of time. Like growing resentment."

I N F O R M A T I O N
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[Poppypaw ★]

She was just nosy enough to be present nearby when she heard the question and so she stalked over in time to hear the honestly disappointing answer. Who had sired Betonyfrost's kits? It was hard to say, whoever it was had a much higher tolerance for tomfoolery than even her patient and understanding mentor did because some cats thought the gray she-cat was more annoying than even Poppypaw if you'd believe it! But Poppypaw's crimes were minimal and mostly related to being too loud and maybe sometimes throwing a tantrum when she didn't get her way, but most of it was mild in comparison to some of the things other ShadowClan cats did. Like their stinky deputy or that awful old medicine cat they used to have. Terrible, terrible, all of them!
"Don't feel bad Comfreykit! I don't know who my dad is either!" Crimsonflower was rather tightlipped about the entire thing and the one time she had asked she was responded to so negatively she never so much considered doing it a second time. It was around then they started food training and she only got to eat if she learned to shut her mouth.
"Who needs dads anyways! We can be cool without'em!"
Poppypaw kept a careful distance from Halfshade's kit as she spoke, not wishing to incur their horrible tiny wrath once more.
​

 

[CHITTERTONGUE]

જ➶ Coming upon all of this and listening to the back and forth in the background the tom doesn't know what to say. Perhaps he shouldn't say anything at all honestly given that, well, he knows who his father is. He knew. And perhaps that is the reason he stands there staring at them with wide eyes. He knows what Rosemire means and he knows how it can possibly grow into that. The pain of not knowing but the tom thinks differently about the entire situation. His grin sharpens as he looks away, wide pupils narrowing as he thinks before he sighs sharply. "Maybe it is better to not have to feel that loss. You could be happier not knowing. No need to be attached to a cat that can't be assed to be here." And really he has never been one to care at all about who fathered Betony's kits. He doesn't really care about who decided to knock her up.

It's none of his business as long as the kits know they belong in Shadowclan where they will be well taken care of.​

 

[COMFREYPAW]

Her mother’s reaction to her questions startles her out of her insistence. A prodding paw freezes mid-air. Betonyfrost tells her, “You’re being loud.” Comfreykit frowns. She knows she’s being loud, but she wouldn’t have to be loud if Betonyfrost would just give her a straight answer. The nipped-eared blue tabby continues to tell her there is nothing good to come of asking her questions that don’t have answers. “But how can there not be an answer?” She persists.

The queen rewards her pestering with, “Are you going to think any tom that spares you a glance is your father?” Comfreykit flinches as though her mother has stricken her. “N…no, I…” Tears well up in amber eyes. “You need to get all of these—these speculations out of your head.”

“So it’s not true,” she murmurs, her tail drooping, her ears falling back on her head. “I’d heard… I thought…” Somehow, Betonyfrost confirming this for her is more devastating than any blunt word she’s spoken to her daughter. The death of that dream causes her flanks to heave, though she does her best not to sob. Her mother is already annoyed—crying will certainly only vex her further…

The scene has drawn an audience, and shame begins to burn beneath Comfreykit’s charcoal pelt. The fluffy tortie form of Applekit hovering nearby forces Comfreykit to swipe at her face, hoping to conceal any hints of her sorrow. “She’s lying,” Applekit says. She shakes her head desperately. “She’s not. She doesn’t lie to me…” She likes Applekit, but she can’t be right about this. Her mother wouldn’t—doesn’t—couldn’t lie to her.

And Lambkit… Comfreykit stiffens at the strange kit’s empty stare. “It’s okay, Comfreykit. I don’t have a father either.” She gives the tortoiseshell a tearful but furious glare. “Congratulations.” She’s feeling something mount inside of her—frustration, embarrassment, and a sick, nauseous rolling threatening to upend the contents of her breakfast.

Albino limbs flash into her sight. Rosemire rebukes her mother, and that only makes Comfreykit feel worse. She hadn’t wanted anyone to become upset with Betonyfrost. Betonyfrost hadn’t meant to make her cry. “I don’t h-have resentment,” she says softly, but the anger in her voice that’d sparked at Lambkit’s comment has died. Even Poppypaw's attempt at reassuring her doesn't evoke any strong reaction; she only nods, sniffling, disbelieving that it's that simple.

That is, until Chittertongue tells her she’s better off. Comfreykit’s head jerks up, glistening yellow eyes stretched wide with emotion. “I’m not better off! I’m not better off not knowing!” She hiccups, unable to contain the tempest of emotions that have begun to stir in her tiny body.

She does the only thing she can think to do—she runs, abandoning the crowd who’d gathered to gawk at Betonyfrost and Comfreykit.

// out
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[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​