- Mar 14, 2024
- 153
- 14
- 18
Celandine stared upon the night sky, like the lodestars dripped slowly along the varnished black, descent easing into the knells of the pitch sea. From the windowsill, the world below her looked so small, like ants scurrying along the margins of the horizon. She gleaned little comfort from the pure silence from the twilight, with not even a gurgle or a roil from above - nothing to indicate that something (or someone) watched out for her. The barncat had spent her entire life as an observer to the outside world, even as the rain collapsed and heaved upon the ground, and even as the sun emerged afterwards to wake the worms and birds to play. Beast of the wild, yet crafted and kept in her prison of tresses and teasels. She had convinced herself that she was content inside - that she would be happy if the world passed her by. She had been quite grateful to have a roof over her head, as if she would surely be slumped at the outfall of the wilderness otherwise, bearing witness to that which she had only heard of in kit's tales. If the Horseplace were her anchor, than the rest of the fields were a great ocean, shifting greenery suffocating all else. There was little to protect her from the elements, like she would be damned to bear the brunt of nature's wrath if she were to stray from her predestined place.
"Don't wander far from me." Said her mother so long ago, but the adults could never be as vivacious as the littler her, as though they were precipitation lagging just behind a streak of a stormcloud. When she was little, the barn had been her entire universe - with the petrichor-ridden walls like the edges of what could be observed. There was little else, aside from the picteresque fantasy that lie outside the sliding doors. Celandine had always been beset with wanderlust, like a cadent hum that lapsed through her heart, something so innate and intertwined with her stardust-laden self. As she grew, that humming only grew in its volume, restless and rustling thing that never sated itself on the littler things. She could hardly explain it, for she could not feed that harmony with anything here. There was surely something waiting out there for her, though she had never been allowed to cross past the wooden fence, like the fender that embraced the singsong hearth. It kept the flame within, but would it be happy within its confines or better upon the open fields? Would she be better within the cage that sustained and fed her or upon the fields that would allow her to blaze through, yet would surely extinguish her quickly?
When she was only four moons old, their home had been overtaken by strange cats of windswept fur and wilderness breath. Wounded and beaten, they had come to seek sanctuary at the Horseplace, crossing that immutable border that had never been crossed before (to her limited knowledge). Each breath hung on the words of war, and of concepts far too ghastly for her naive mind to wrap around. Windclan's arrival had not been of coincidence but of fate - like the incidence of morning sun ruining a restful slumber, of destiny overtaking her and rubbing the wool from her eyes. But the felines from beyond had not been bogeymen nor monsters... They had arrived just like her, though perhaps leaner and more muscular, as though the winds had roughened and sewn them into bestial contour. She had been so little, decadence of her satisfaction distilled by her naive youth, and still did she wish to see them again. Verses woven in blood and sung in hoarse tones, and yet she wanted nothing more but to follow them into the depths. Curiosity, like a temptation shorn in satin, led her farther...
"Why can't I follow them?" Celandine asked to her mother, with Lovage's grey hairs like asterisms breaking up her dull coat, and an age in which it was far too futile to even dream of anything more. Looking up to the woman that raised her with olivine eyes, bright like berries draped in morning's dew, she could only hope to glean some sort of answer from the frazzled and furtive furs. "You will surely die out there, my little chickweed flower. The outside world is not meant for you or I. We were born here, and we will end here." Her mother responded, like her voice descended past the heaviness of her implications, the oil impossibly flittering below the waters. But Celandine had seen the wildcats, the merciful and the humble, at their lowest. Like allowing a hound to bow at the beck of the hare it chased, she did not fear those predators anymore - she witnessed their reverence unfurled, their pride lacerated. "I don't want to spend my entire life here. 'M sorry, mom. I want to go where Windclan is, I'm sure of it!" Her protests had only been met with an exasperated chuckle, dewdrops sprinkled onto a concrete floor, and something that Celandine had drowned out in the midst of chaos. What her mother said might have been true, but there was little else that a young mind wanted to do than to prove the dissident wrong.
"Celandine... You won't be able to survive out there. Those cats will eat you alive until there's nothing on your body, no legs to run home and no eyes to see us. You're kind and sweet and generous, but those cats will not be that way to you. And besides, what can you offer them that they do not already have? You cannot hunt in the moors, you cannot fight to save your life, and you cannot keep up with their hard-working lifestyle. You will just be dead weight - we mousers don't care about dead weight, but the life of a wild cat means that they are always running, and there is nothing that a cat that always runs hates more than dragging along something that they do not have to. Forgive me, my chickweed flower. I'm only telling you the truth of what lies beyond the fence. If you go out there, you will never come back. There are things out there that you could never imagine, and injuries far graver than anything that you saw here."
That did not quench her thirst. It became a yearning within her, like a heavy knoll sustaining itself within the cavities of her body, sapping and tugging at her until it became too much to ignore. She burdened herself within it inside her gut, growing and uncurling itself even among where she did not wish for it to be. There was little that she could do except feel that terribly hungry blossom all of her dreams, her hopes, her expectations of the future. The golden tabby always waited for that familiar scent to return, though sweeter like heather nectar and dewdrop smatters, like they had washed themselves clean of the decay and demise that they had first met her with. They had recovered quickly, their resilience almost a beacon to the young spotted tabby. As winter had rotted out and the body of snow had hollowed itself out enough so that the verdancy could emerge, she expected their return upon that same windowsill that she had been on her entire life. There had always been one particular molly that Celandine looked out for - of flint-grey fur and snowfall spotting - as the moon rose and shed its skin, only to regrow it once more. She asked the one of "cotton paws" to tell her all that she knew, to the point where Celandine clung to her every word, like rivulets of sleek honey from the river of sought knowledge.
On one fateful night, Celandine hopped onto the wooden fence, creaking underneath her like its mildew lilted in its uneasy and dissonant melody. Springtide sorrows rained down on her, though never imposing nor fearsome in its display. It simply was, much like everything seemed to be. There was no shifting of destinies, nothing greater for her to be meant for. Still, she hoped that she was not everything that her mother said she was. Well-meaning as Lovage was, the thought filled poor Celandine with dread more than anything. Am I truly destined to do nothing but live and die in the same barn? That's no way to live! Why should I have to be stuck in the same place where my mother happened to give birth to me? If I'm to waste my entire life hunting fat mice until I bore myself to a forever-sleep, then give me a sign! Tell me I'm not supposed to go out there and explore what's beyond the fence! She pleaded to no cat in particular, as the twilight drizzles of leftover spring storms had sprayed softly upon her golden spots, the only comfort upon the dimly-lit moon. Nothing yet, only a shadow of a plenilune stare. Sighing, the young molly hung her head. I knew it. I'm nothing more than what I am right now, huh?
She had been about to go back to her nest when a brilliance caught her eye, streaking across the sky like an outcast angel fleeing exile, falling downwards and downwards until it seemed to land upon the ground. Beautiful and inglorious in its declivity, it rested upon its grave at the ends of the earth, farther than where her feet would take her. The comet said nothing to her, but it was a sign to her nonetheless. She stayed on that fence for the rest of the night, waiting for another white streak to fall downwards. Waiting for something to follow. She waited until the forenoon sun slumped upwards, until she was sure she had made up her mind.
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"Don't wander far from me." Said her mother so long ago, but the adults could never be as vivacious as the littler her, as though they were precipitation lagging just behind a streak of a stormcloud. When she was little, the barn had been her entire universe - with the petrichor-ridden walls like the edges of what could be observed. There was little else, aside from the picteresque fantasy that lie outside the sliding doors. Celandine had always been beset with wanderlust, like a cadent hum that lapsed through her heart, something so innate and intertwined with her stardust-laden self. As she grew, that humming only grew in its volume, restless and rustling thing that never sated itself on the littler things. She could hardly explain it, for she could not feed that harmony with anything here. There was surely something waiting out there for her, though she had never been allowed to cross past the wooden fence, like the fender that embraced the singsong hearth. It kept the flame within, but would it be happy within its confines or better upon the open fields? Would she be better within the cage that sustained and fed her or upon the fields that would allow her to blaze through, yet would surely extinguish her quickly?
When she was only four moons old, their home had been overtaken by strange cats of windswept fur and wilderness breath. Wounded and beaten, they had come to seek sanctuary at the Horseplace, crossing that immutable border that had never been crossed before (to her limited knowledge). Each breath hung on the words of war, and of concepts far too ghastly for her naive mind to wrap around. Windclan's arrival had not been of coincidence but of fate - like the incidence of morning sun ruining a restful slumber, of destiny overtaking her and rubbing the wool from her eyes. But the felines from beyond had not been bogeymen nor monsters... They had arrived just like her, though perhaps leaner and more muscular, as though the winds had roughened and sewn them into bestial contour. She had been so little, decadence of her satisfaction distilled by her naive youth, and still did she wish to see them again. Verses woven in blood and sung in hoarse tones, and yet she wanted nothing more but to follow them into the depths. Curiosity, like a temptation shorn in satin, led her farther...
"Why can't I follow them?" Celandine asked to her mother, with Lovage's grey hairs like asterisms breaking up her dull coat, and an age in which it was far too futile to even dream of anything more. Looking up to the woman that raised her with olivine eyes, bright like berries draped in morning's dew, she could only hope to glean some sort of answer from the frazzled and furtive furs. "You will surely die out there, my little chickweed flower. The outside world is not meant for you or I. We were born here, and we will end here." Her mother responded, like her voice descended past the heaviness of her implications, the oil impossibly flittering below the waters. But Celandine had seen the wildcats, the merciful and the humble, at their lowest. Like allowing a hound to bow at the beck of the hare it chased, she did not fear those predators anymore - she witnessed their reverence unfurled, their pride lacerated. "I don't want to spend my entire life here. 'M sorry, mom. I want to go where Windclan is, I'm sure of it!" Her protests had only been met with an exasperated chuckle, dewdrops sprinkled onto a concrete floor, and something that Celandine had drowned out in the midst of chaos. What her mother said might have been true, but there was little else that a young mind wanted to do than to prove the dissident wrong.
"Celandine... You won't be able to survive out there. Those cats will eat you alive until there's nothing on your body, no legs to run home and no eyes to see us. You're kind and sweet and generous, but those cats will not be that way to you. And besides, what can you offer them that they do not already have? You cannot hunt in the moors, you cannot fight to save your life, and you cannot keep up with their hard-working lifestyle. You will just be dead weight - we mousers don't care about dead weight, but the life of a wild cat means that they are always running, and there is nothing that a cat that always runs hates more than dragging along something that they do not have to. Forgive me, my chickweed flower. I'm only telling you the truth of what lies beyond the fence. If you go out there, you will never come back. There are things out there that you could never imagine, and injuries far graver than anything that you saw here."
That did not quench her thirst. It became a yearning within her, like a heavy knoll sustaining itself within the cavities of her body, sapping and tugging at her until it became too much to ignore. She burdened herself within it inside her gut, growing and uncurling itself even among where she did not wish for it to be. There was little that she could do except feel that terribly hungry blossom all of her dreams, her hopes, her expectations of the future. The golden tabby always waited for that familiar scent to return, though sweeter like heather nectar and dewdrop smatters, like they had washed themselves clean of the decay and demise that they had first met her with. They had recovered quickly, their resilience almost a beacon to the young spotted tabby. As winter had rotted out and the body of snow had hollowed itself out enough so that the verdancy could emerge, she expected their return upon that same windowsill that she had been on her entire life. There had always been one particular molly that Celandine looked out for - of flint-grey fur and snowfall spotting - as the moon rose and shed its skin, only to regrow it once more. She asked the one of "cotton paws" to tell her all that she knew, to the point where Celandine clung to her every word, like rivulets of sleek honey from the river of sought knowledge.
On one fateful night, Celandine hopped onto the wooden fence, creaking underneath her like its mildew lilted in its uneasy and dissonant melody. Springtide sorrows rained down on her, though never imposing nor fearsome in its display. It simply was, much like everything seemed to be. There was no shifting of destinies, nothing greater for her to be meant for. Still, she hoped that she was not everything that her mother said she was. Well-meaning as Lovage was, the thought filled poor Celandine with dread more than anything. Am I truly destined to do nothing but live and die in the same barn? That's no way to live! Why should I have to be stuck in the same place where my mother happened to give birth to me? If I'm to waste my entire life hunting fat mice until I bore myself to a forever-sleep, then give me a sign! Tell me I'm not supposed to go out there and explore what's beyond the fence! She pleaded to no cat in particular, as the twilight drizzles of leftover spring storms had sprayed softly upon her golden spots, the only comfort upon the dimly-lit moon. Nothing yet, only a shadow of a plenilune stare. Sighing, the young molly hung her head. I knew it. I'm nothing more than what I am right now, huh?
She had been about to go back to her nest when a brilliance caught her eye, streaking across the sky like an outcast angel fleeing exile, falling downwards and downwards until it seemed to land upon the ground. Beautiful and inglorious in its declivity, it rested upon its grave at the ends of the earth, farther than where her feet would take her. The comet said nothing to her, but it was a sign to her nonetheless. She stayed on that fence for the rest of the night, waiting for another white streak to fall downwards. Waiting for something to follow. She waited until the forenoon sun slumped upwards, until she was sure she had made up her mind.
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OOC:
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( NOTE: Reference is a placeholder until a drawn reference can be supplied. Credit HERE )
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