private YOUR BROKEN HALO ] cottonsprig

[BLUEFROST]

"Cottonsprig?" A voice calls softly from the mouth of the medicine cats' den. A feline with an iced pelt stands on weary paws, sagging slightly as though her shoulders carry the mantle of the moorland. She waits for some answer, quietly spoken or not, to beckon her further inside. Bluefrost's emerald eyes are brilliant despite the exhaustion draping shadows over her body. There's even a touch of affection in the tunneler's expression as she nears her sister.

I have not been alone with her since her naming, Bluefrost thinks. I have spent my free time with Brackenpaw, or with...

Well. Some of her exhaustion is of no surprise to her. The lead warrior runs herself thin finding extra prey to replace the rabbits she brings her friend during their clandestine border meetings. And yet, she feels heavier, clumsier, bloated about the middle — has she come down with something? Summer sicknesses are not rare in the forest, she fears. She remembers the stench of the abandoned badger set, Moorblossom's caked eyes, Weaselclaw's wheezing, sour breath...

I cannot be ill, she thinks. "I have been feeling... off, lately," she mews. "Tired. And heavy. I wanted to ensure I was not getting ill." She watches Cottonsprig's paws, quick and efficient with the herbs that still mystify her sister. "I have... too much to do now to worry about being sick."

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

• ooc: @cottonsprig
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 16 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan warrior. 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 world has yet to tilt upside down. The churning in her gut can be explained away several times over, her volatile emotions just the same. Wolfsong does not observe her with a squinted eye, nor do any of her Clanmates comment on her odd behavior yet. It's all in her head, maybe - as if a case of paranoia and insanity is somehow safer than pregnancy.

She adjusts her stores, playing with the idea of taking something to suppress her symptoms (chamomile, maybe, to quiet the screaming in her mind?) when her sister calls her by name. There's a brief huff of frustration, her ears pinning to her skull as she passes her gaze in the vague direction Bluefrost calls from. It drifts with guilt for her reaction at all, and a quick, "Over here!" to summon her twin closer. She's not noticed much difference in the other, but given their daily lives, they've not many chances to sit and chat.

And yet, Bluefrost speaks as though she is pulling words from Cottonsprig's very mind. And instead of green eyes growing cold, the tunneler seems... warm, even. Fatigued and annoyed by whatever plagues her, but not necessarily put out by the circumstance. Cottonsprig withholds a terrible laugh - the Clan would sooner notice Bluefrost' kindness than her sister's rotten attitude as of late, right? Maybe that could serve as a cover... She grits her teeth and smiles.

"Too much to worry about, huh?" Tell me about it. Cottonsprig does not claim to often have tact, but less would she rather abruptly ask of her sister's intimate life. "Stress alone can be one rotten sickness if not managed right, you know," she almost wants to mention their mother, but stops herself short. There is no necessity to that. "Have you been eating more lately? It's tempting with the prey coming back. Or... Maybe sleeping a bit more?" She treads out onto the limb, testing her sister's symptoms all the while answering the questions on her own.
​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Her sister is impatient — a tufted white paw beckons her closer, as well as a snappish, "Over here!" Bluefrost's ears twist with surprise at her sister's tone. She seems agitated, on edge, as though Bluefrost has disturbed her in the middle of something quite important. She doesn't seem to be in the middle of anything. The den is vacant, but for her littermate messing with her herb stores; she tends to no patients, dresses no wounds. The tunneler's expression becomes a touch wry. "Am I interrupting something?" There's a faint, dry touch of humor in her voice, even as Cottonsprig gets up from her spot and begins to nose about her.

"Too much to worry about, huh?" Bluefrost's smile is faint. "The tunnels need lots of upkeep. Scorchstreak keeps us busy." She yawns against her will, and the gesture is like prying her jaws open by force. "Brackenpaw is a lot of work, too," she mews, hoping that's enough of an explanation. Cottonsprig certainly does not need to know about the other things keeping her sister busy — stars, no cat does.

"Stress," her sister names it, and Bluefrost sighs. "I was afraid you would say it was something like that. I do not suppose you have an herb for stress?" She twitches her whiskers, trying for humor again to dissolve the strange tension in the air. "I've eaten less, if anything. And slept less. I..." She frowns.

Cottonsprig is, in her own way, diagnosing her, isn't she?

"What do you know?" She presses. "What do I have?"

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

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

A paw lifts to her muzzle, the gesture simple yet doing the most to hide an involuntary grimace. Interrupting something - as if her endless mind will ever yield to another. Cottonsprig doesn't reply, not verbally at least, and simply shakes her head. She plays her gesture off with a lick to her forepaw, drawing it over her own nose briefly before setting her jaw and paying as much attention to her sister as she could.

"That... she is," surely the other knows of her run in with Brackenpaw - being lectured by an apprentice half her age was demeaning, no doubt. She can only imagine the reaming her sister would have her, or their mother for that matter. And for a mistake that was preventable. Again her stomach churns but this time it's an effort to keep anything from rising. Nerves, she calls it, silently. Her sister is sick, and with how they both lived through yellowcough, she cannot help but worry.

She knows such is not the case however. StarClan would not be so merciful as to provide her with a problem who's solution is granted with a purple flower. No, Bluefrost speaks of lack of appetite, struggle sleeping. She tremors a short lived and awkward smile, humor that doesn't quite go far. Some dastardly mistress of fate looks down on two daughters of Sootstar and grins something toothy, for the trouble that will welcome them both cannot be resolved with a simple herb.

"Well..." Cottonsprig trails off, swallowing thickly as her gaze falls to the wayside, "There are... plenty of symptoms of pregnancy, Bluefrost. And you're naming a good amount of them." She hates the words that she says, for she does not only say them for her sister. Speaking them into the world only settles confirmation for herself, too. For a moment, the upset in her gut quiets.

"If you're alright with it, I can see if I can feel much? If - If there's nothing, I can find something that'll help you sleep a little better," her gaze finds her sister's greens once again, though there's plenty more sorrow and apprehension swimming in her pools of blue. She never thought she'd be an aunt and yet she can't even enjoy the moment of discovery. It sucks.
​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Something is wrong, yes. Cottonsprig's blue gaze is shifty as she pronounces Bluefrost pregnant. The tunneler's lips thin into a taut line, and she feels the glacial bulk of her emotional mantle begin to bead like melted ice down her spine. "Pregnancy?" Her whiskers quiver, her voice trembling in similar fashion. Pregnancy? She thinks of desert dust on a gilded pelt, thinks of wavering green eyes, a flower stem held between them, sweetness that dries into nothing on her tongue, a rabbit shared, a rabbit shorn.

"What do you..." Her tone is accusatory, but it falters, falls short, staggers like a fox with its foot caught in the steely jaws of a trap. Bluefrost sits with a thump, her tail drifting behind her in silver-smoked disarray. How did you feel at this moment, Sootstar? Were you proud, to be carrying kits by a cat you loved?

A cat she loved.

Do I love you?

"I..." She tries again, but the words are lost, adrift once more. Love. She has no name for the heat that burns her cheeks when she touches her pelt to his, for when she loses herself in the troubled, tortured expanse of his field-green gaze, for when she brushes her nose against a tender, velvet ear.

But love — well, that's as good a word as any.

And Cottonsprig, lost to herself, meets her gaze and Bluefrost is stunned by the depth of the sorrow she sees there. She feels she can drown in her sister's eyes for a heartbeat.

"Cottonsprig... what is wrong?" Is something wrong with her — or has her sister guessed, now, that Bluefrost carries kits fathered by a defector, a rebel, a traitor? A friend, a friend, a friend I love.

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

• ooc: —
• 
• Bluekit . Bluepaw . Bluefrost, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — 16 moons old, ages realistically on the 14th.
  — mentored by Sootstar ; mentoring Brackenpaw ; previously mentored n/a.
  — windclan warrior. 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 world seems to crumble around them both. Whilst Cottonsprig tries to hold her composure, to keep the roiling in her gut to a minimum and the sourness on her tongue at bay - it seems the mere suggestion crushes Bluefrost beneath its weight. There are slow, uncertain words that leave the other's mouth, and the blue smoke sits awkwardly as her sister goes through the motions. She does not think of who could've sired her eventual nieces and nephews - if such is the case, of course - for a multitude of reasons. One being that if she played this guessing game with Bluefrost, she would inevitably have to do the same for herself.

"It's okay, Blue-" she starts, but green eyes grow perceptive. They cut through the haze that they were once lost in and hold her own, and the simple question asked makes Cottonsprig feel as if she's been torn. She cannot fight, for she knows a brawl with her sister is nonsensical. She cannot flee, for where is she to go that Bluefrost can not? And so she freezes. Something burns behind her eyes and the hope that she can find happiness in her sister's news is swiftly drowned.

"I'm sorry, Bluefrost," she says, gritting her teeth. She tries to not be emotional, tries to hold herself together in one piece. Her eyes mist and she makes a half hearted effort to swipe away the tears that beg to run. She looks around her sister, checking for lingering souls too eager to be nosy before saying in a too-soft voice, "I think I may be pregnant. I... I'm sorry," to Bluefrost she apologizes, yet to the stars lost to the day-bright sky, she says nothing.

"This -" she tries to be quick with it - comfort has never been a strong suit of her sister and she doesn't expect the rule follower to be exactly kind with the revelation. "This doesn't have to be my moment. I can handle myself -" she sniffles as she says this, another paw brushing past her eyes, quicker this time. "I'll... figure it out," she says no more shortly thereafter, flexing her claws into the ground beneath her for a moment. ​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"It's okay," Cottonsprig starts to say, but Bluefrost levels her with a gaze that has lost its dreamlike quality and has sharpened. Her sister freezes, her body stiff as though she's lost in the glow of a monster's fiery eyes on a sprawling Thunderpath. The medicine cat's blue eyes swim, and Bluefrost again fears she may drown in their tempestuous depths.

"I'm sorry, Bluefrost." White paws seek tear-streaked cheeks. "I think I may be pregnant. I... I'm sorry." The tunneler's ears flick forward, twisting, stunned by the revelation that her sister, too, has broken the warrior code.

"Cottonsprig..." Bluefrost's jaw drops, and her face crumples in a way it has never before. The beauty in her features crease, tattered, wrinkled, and the only audience to see it is the cat who'd shared a womb with her and StarClan themselves, damning them both.

"What have you done?"

Nothing worse than what I have done, she thinks, but she cannot admit it — she cannot bring herself to equate the love she feels for Thriftfeather to the curse Cottonsprig has brought upon herself.

"I can handle myself," the soft-pelted she-cat murmurs, and Bluefrost wants to unsheathe her claws against her sister. The scene is similar — the den is tight around them, and though there is sunshine behind her, she can feel the cold prickle of a creeping white moon. "I'll figure it out." "Not alone, you will not," Bluefrost hisses, her breath like melting frost. "You ... you harebrain. What are you going to do?"

And she does something she has not done since Cottonsprig and she were tiny kittens, curled tight in the curve of their wet nurse's belly. Bluefrost lays her head on her sister's shoulder, and she clings to the earth for dear life, as though it may twist beneath her and leave her flailing in darkness at any moment.

"What are we going to do? Does anyone else know? Who is... do they..." She trails off, embarrassed, alarmed.

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

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

Don't say my name like that, she wants to bite through the tears. Her sister's elegance is demolished by her sin, and for the moment that Bluefrost allows her countenance to wrinkle and misshape as it does, Cottonsprig can only think, you look like our mother. And surely, surely, Sootstar would behold her news with far less grace and condescension than Bluefrost affords her in the moment. Yet all the same, she flinches, "What have you done?" searing into her mind's eye, repeating dozens of times in a manner of seconds - in a voice no longer belonging to her sister.

She cannot claim love to fuel her actions, as Bluefrost might with her own situation. Her life is not ruled by clandestine meetings beyond borders, sharing pieces of prey beneath starlit or cloudy skies. She lives amongst herbs and the sick, doing a job that StarClan has deemed right for her, that Wolfsong deemed her capable of maintaining on her own. Doing what others have always expected her to do - and yet when she has a chance to hold fast to her own life, it derails, it crashes and burns and she's left in the rubble with fear.

"I've done no different than you," she says, cold and quiet, her chest hurting. "No different than any cat before us, nor any cat after us. Why - why must I be different?" Why must this situation be so painful?

She wants to do it alone. Cottonsprig cannot fathom a realm where any cat would linger by her side in her sin, much less her sister. But Bluefrost holds fast to her. "Not alone," she says, and her twin does not reply so quickly. The medicine cat stares, watery blue eyes marked still by furrowed eyebrows. What is she to do? Cottonsprig knows that in weeks time, she will be plump and round - enough so that even kittens will be able to tell. What then? She can pass by the days taking lonely patrols, rolling in old lavender to hide scents and working around prey that makes her queasy, but what after? When she births kittens, what is there to do?

She trembles. Bluefrost's head rests to her shoulder and she flinches again, but she does not move away. There's odd solidarity with their discovery, but worse does the runt feel in dragging her elder sister down. She does not know of her sibling's sin, of the trouble she too faces should she reveal her sire. Cottonsprig again does not even dare think of it, now too overwhelmed to think much of anything at all.

"I've not told anyone," Cottonsprig says, between sniffles. She grits her teeth and shakes her head, trying to clear the emotion from her eyes, but the tears continue despite it. "I... I don't know who to tell, Bluefrost. I've not been exclusive - I didn't think -" it seems she rarely does. Cottonsprig does not look towards her sister, her eyes instead focused on their cluster of white paws. "I... give me a week, okay? I have that time, at least, to figure something out. And I will. Please, Bluefrost," she pleads, looking towards her sister once more.
​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"I've done no different than you," Cottonsprig says, and her voice is chilled, elevated. Is that true, Bluefrost thinks — is there a cat that you fell into a hole with, a cat you slipped and slid into and can't claw your way out of? A tunnel even you can't navigate? But Cottonsprig is quick enough to dispel the notion. She does not know who sired her kits, only knows that the buds have quickened, have flowered. Soon enough, she will show. I will show. The thought go tandem, paw-in-paw, and Bluefrost is almost dazed from the idea.

"You have a code," Bluefrost says, simply. She does not tell her sister that she has violated the very same code — that she has sought love, comfort, friendship, from a cat outside the boundaries of their mother's moorlands. Bluefrost does not venture in that direction at all. Instead, she withdraws from Cottonsprig's shoulder, feeling the tension, feeling the restraint.

Her sister is not placated.

"Give me a week," she pleads. Cottonsprig, the fool. Cottonsprig, the martyr. Give me a week.

"I will not spill your secret," she murmurs. Their blood runs thick in the others' veins. Their claws are muddy with secrets, redemption. Their eyes meet, green as Sootstar's, blue as Weaselclaw's, and there is turmoil in either gaze. "But you must figure something out. I... will go back to work, for now," she murmurs, pressing a paw to the white of her abdomen. "Cottonsprig... trust me."

I will not watch you die. I will not lose you the way I lost my brother, my mother, my father.

Her jaw clenches. The teeth strain against one another.

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

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

Her pleas are met with equal understanding, but Cottonsprig does not dare pry for how Bluefrost relates. The notion begins with foolish freedom and ends there, too - for motherhood is impending and neither have the means to avoid it. But I can, she thinks stubbornly as Bluefrost pulls away. The comfort is not well received and the medicine cat feels guilt for not leaning into the touch. I can and I will, she does not say, for even she cannot see past her recklessness.

"Do not lecture me," she mewls pitifully, childishly. "It's a code that..." and she trails, indefinitely, into silence. Her resistance against the code means nothing in the face of hundreds who respect it and treat it like the law it is. "Nevermind," she says too softly, too fatigued by emotion and overwhelmed by circumstance suddenly.

Bluefrost holds her gaze. A promise, another secret held between them. Cottonsprig resists the urge to glance towards her sister's shoulder, where a scar would lie if she were any less well groomed. This feels too much like before, when she escaped the tyranny of their mother. Except this time, she must escape her own mistakes... somehow.

"Thank you," she whispers, and pieces of her soften as she leans forward to hold her cheek to her sister's. "Take it slow, okay? I... will be doing the same," her humor is hardly anything, and she can barely smile with the relation. She pulls away, looking towards her sister with her formal regalness, her set jaw and pointed eyes. She must look like a bedraggled orphan beside the other, for even in distress Bluefrost maintains her composure.

"I am happy for you," she says as the other goes. "I hope you know that."​

 

[BLUEFROST]

"Do not lecture me," Cottonsprig defies her, but it's the mew of a scolded kit in the face of all she has done. To flaunt the medicine cat code, decreed by StarClan themselves — Bluefrost's heart is iced in fear for her sister. What will they do, now? Look upon their chosen one and ... and what? Bluefrost wants to smack some sense into Cottonsprig's head, but she has never been able to do that, and besides... besides, it's too late for that. It's far too late.

Her sister presses her cheek to Bluefrost's, and for a moment, the gray she-cat holds herself there, holds her face still, seeking warmth and reassurance.

She wants to give her sister the same reassurance. She knows, though, she cannot.

"I will join the nursery when it's appropriate, but..." She backs away, slowly, her green eyes dark with sorrow. "In the meantime... we shall act as if nothing has changed. Agreed?"

"I'm happy for you. I hope you know that."

Bluefrost half-turns, pinning her littermate with her sharp emerald gaze.

Would you be, if you knew the truth?

After a few heartbeats, she murmurs, "Thank you, Cottonsprig. I..." Wish I could say the same.

She does not utter these words; she leaves the medicine cat's den, her tail swishing behind her with the burden of all she knows.

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

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

​