private WOULD YOU SAY I'M WORTHY? ✧ flintkit

[GRANITEPELT]

Granitepelt’s only purpose for setting paw inside his mate’s den is to bring her food, but some part of him wonders if she is actually eating it or if she is dismantling the pieces he gives her to try and force some fresh-kill into her ill patients’ mouths. The sickly refuse to eat, wasting away and weakening further. He drops the frog next to the lizard he’d brought her this morning, still untouched, and his eyes search the dimness for a tiny gray shape curled into moss. His son sleeps, his breathing wretched, his nose and mouth still crusted and wet with illness.

He resists the shudder of revulsion that threatens to wrack his body. This is still his firstborn, his child, born of his body and soul, born of the love and loyalty he and Starlingheart have for one another. He is still the kit he favors, the one who all of his hopes rest upon the shoulders of…

And again, he thinks of Nettlekit and the she-kit in the nursery, playing without a care in the world. His lip curls. Flintkit should be the one who is strong, sturdy, shrugging off sickness. Granitepelt wonders if StarClan has exploited some hidden weakness the kit’s father would never have been able to perceive…

Lost in thought, he sees Flintkit’s eyelids flutter. The boy’s father looks at him with a sterile expression. “You’re awake.” He forces himself to sit, though he is so far away from Flintkit that he cannot smell the child’s scent over the reek of yellowcough that permeates the den’s air. After a few heartbeats, he says, “Are you better yet?”

✧ INFO.

• @FLINTKIT
• 
  — granitekit . granitepaw . granitepelt
  — he/him ; warrior of shadowclan
  — heterosexual ; taken by Starlingheart
  — short-haired gray tom with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Meg

​

 

[FLINTWISH]

And if the boy dies? Then what?

All senses have been dulled by the heat of fever. All senses have been dulled except for one; for worry persists like a dog craving his attention. Flintkit can feel it through waves of illness, through each coughing fit, through each shuddering breath and each dream of starry-pelted cats. He can feel his chest squeeze through quiet moments. His lungs tighten with his anxiety and throw off the rhythm of his wheezing, acrid breath. StarClan is coming for him. He knows it. Poppypaw told him otherwise, but just seeing her meant that the starry graveyard wanted to add him to its swath.

He's so young. What would happen if he died? What would it feel like? Maybe it will be the sickness and heat pressing gentle on his lungs until he could no longer breathe, hardly noticeable, completely painless. Maybe his fever would escalate, a subcutaneous wildfire, the smoke choking him so that he wretched and heaved until he stopped moving, painful and graceless. But Starlingheart would make it better. Poppypaw had told him they weren't ready for him yet. Flintkit still has time left to walk ShadowClan's swamp. Doesn't he?

He is stewing in his nest as if his body has no shape, as if his illness has made him a puddle in the downy moss, when Granitepelt whisks into the den. Flintkit's fog-bleary gaze searches for his father's face. When he finds it, Granitepelt is staring back at him as scalpels stare at uncut flesh, clinical and coruscating. It pierces him and he swears he can feel blood welling where it lands. He is far from the nest Flintkit pools in. Is Granitepelt afraid of catching his illness?

His father speaks at him and the boy's ears flick as he tries to process the words. Are you better yet? He doesn't think so. He can hardly breathe through his nose, his jaw perpetually slacked, fly-buzz heat-rot in each inhale and exhale. Are his lungs decaying within him? Will his heart burst each time it quickens? But Granitepelt is not asking him the question because he cares. No, Flintkit has not come to expect such tenderness from the stone-cast tom; Granitepelt is asking him if he is better because Flintkit needs to be better now. Because Starlingheart needs less almost-corpses to worry about. Because Flintkit should be an apprentice this moon, like his siblings; because he should be outpacing his siblings at every turn, really.

Is he better yet? "I think–" I am better, he would continue to lie, if he were not interrupted by a coughing fit so forceful it leaves him wanting for breath. The boy collects himself quietly; he reconsiders his position. Is he better yet? "... No," he admits, and maybe Granitepelt will have mercy on him, for he is his father's eldest and most prized son. He remembers Poppypaw visiting him and again his heart races. "I'm scared." I'm scared I'll die.​

​

 

[GRANITEPELT]

Granitepelt watches passively as Flintkit stirs in his nest, blinking feverish mismatched eyes in his father’s direction. “I think,” he tries to say, and then the rest dissolves as coughing takes him over. A cloud of digust flickers over his features. It only deepens when his son admits, “I’m scared.”

Isn’t he scared too? Isn’t he scared to lose his father’s namesake, his look-a-like firstborn son? Isn’t he scared all he’ll be left with is Nettlepaw and the she-kit, unnatural and unfit for his legacy?

He is, yes, he decides. But repulsion for Flintkit’s weakness overtakes all of those feelings, beats them back into submission, into hiding.

“You should not be afraid.” His green eyes glimmer in the dusk. “Your mother will not let you die.” He straightens, preparing to leave the den—he’s seen enough for a lifetime. “StarClan does not wish to take you yet, I’m sure.”

✧ INFO.

•  
• 
  — granitekit . granitepaw . granitepelt
  — he/him ; warrior of shadowclan
  — heterosexual ; taken by Starlingheart
  — short-haired gray tom with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — chibi by Meg

​