Private GAZE, SIMMER, CRY // BRIGHTPETAL

[serpentberry]

Serpentberry tuts, her usual tight-lipped smile forming a thin line. An apprentice sits before her, freshly de-thorned but with wounds still weeping. Some have been slathered in an unnamed paste, whilst other cuts have been left to the air - she calls it the idiot reserve. It had been several minutes since this very apprentice approached her, whimpering over the cause of their predicament. A scared squirrel chased into a thorn bush... "That'll teach you some caution, won't it?" She says, eventually. At least the prey was caught. Her gaze falls to the side, to the tom who had instructed the crying kit-apprentice towards her.

The apprentice leaves as she starts speaking again, "Are you enjoying it, Brightpetal?" she posits, and the siren smile she wears returns with a vengeance. Her tail flicks against the ground, a snake bounding for its prey. "Being responsible for everyone, I mean. After all, if it's not Juni, it's you. Oh, it sounds a little daunting when said like that...!" Serpentberry leans back on her haunches, turning on her heel to trot back into her den. Her tail beckons the tom to follow, should he want to entertain the conversation. StarClan knows she'd enjoy it if he did.

"Have you thought about what it means?" She has. Brightstar means her friend is dead and buried, with all of her lives gone with her, her children sufficiently orphaned, and her friends left behind. That's what the young tom represents to her, now. Poor, poor Brightpetal. "StarClan would approve, I think. They like the young and foolish ones..." she trails off with her lie, an ear twitching.

 

[BRIGHTPETAL]

"Take it easy, alright? Next sunhigh you can stay in camp," he mewed to the departing apprentice, nodding his head respectfully. Blood and herbs stung the air around the tom, leaving his nostrils flaring as he sat by the Medicine Den's entrance, tail tucked around his paws and ears twitching as if shaking off flies. The young one's mistake was one he could relate to, all too often growing up, the red tabby had found their figure covered in nicks and bruises from falls and rough play. Picking a fight with a thorn bush and losing was almost nostalgic, enough for Brightpetal to let out a chortle as the apprentice slipped out of the den. He almost missed Serpentberry's comment until he turned around and saw an expectant gaze upon him, taking a moment to consider what she meant. "Yeah... a little. I mean don't get me wrong it's kind of fun trying to figure it all out but everytime something goes wrong it's on me, that's kinda hard to wrap my head around. Still, I have faith things'll get easier, I just wish I had some sort of example to go off of." Even if he wasn't the first Deputy, he hoped he would be the first to be around for a long time - it meant he had to be innovative, but every attempt at it so far seemed to leave his clanmate's heads tilting.

Nothing was the same, clanmates much older than him had spent longer in the colony, adhering to the rules of those that came before him. Perhaps they just hadn't adapted to his style yet... or perhaps he was in way over his head. Yellow eyes stared at the medicine cat, wide and hopeful, seldom flinching as she questioned what it meant. "Yeah," he smiled. "It means that I get to be closer to StarClan! I hope I can see them again, there's so much I want to ask them." He got up to his paws, pressing his forelimbs together in a faux bow. Serpentberry was only saved by her next comment, his blinks growing incredulous as she mentioned his faith approving of the young and foolish.

"Um... thanks?" There was a compliment there somewhere, he did not dig further than a surface level. He rose to his full height, impishness fading with reality: an 'I think' from the Medicine Cat was too curious for him not to prod. "Do they talk to you often? They haven't said anything about me, have they?"

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[serpentberry]

Young and foolish, indeed. She pokes and prods at the reddish tom and yet he remains steadily unflinching. Perhaps his discomfort is masked with blinking eyes or his long, useless stretch. She'd be rather surprised, admittedly, to learn that the tom hides his emotion so well. Maybe even impressed. Nonetheless he carried the conversation with ease, curiosity setting into his words just where she placed it. StarClan dances between them, and the morsels of her secrets remain just that, hiding beneath her tongue. Intrigue lures him closer, as if there is a trap to ensnare him in. Serpentberry wears a casual smile as she pulls away, resorting her herbs into her stores.

"Often? No. Their tongues are too delicate to carry conversation often..." There is a distant look in her eyes as she murmurs this. Her fleeting moment with Thornstar still dredges the worst out of her heart, makes her paws feel like lead and sorrow. She blinks away the grief and turns her gaze away, coyly adding, "But they would, if they had anything to say." Boring, is that what she'd call him? No. Youthful, free, eager to set an example even if he mourns that no example was set for him. Kind, for she would've sent that apprentice to mind some kits. Hopeful, for he saw death, he saw blood, he knows his destined future for it played out in his still living predecessor's life... and he still smiles. Strong, but she wouldn't say that to him. His ego needs to be well maintained. She cannot let it inflate.

"If you could speak with them," she continues, and her gaze turns back to him, "What would you say? They seem omnipotent in a way, once they're woven with stars. They seem to know more than they let on..." even she is perplexed by this. Serpentberry pats a paw beside her, inviting the tom deeper into her cove. "Come; I think this'd be a fun game to play. You tell me what you would ask them, and I make my best guess." Because a child is what he is. A child playing with toys while masquerading as a warland general. Her smile doesn't waver.

 

[BRIGHTPETAL]

Brightpetal wasn't sure if he expected Serpentberry to tell him that StarClan had talked about him, as she answered with a stare that seemed to linger within the ancient plains themselves, Brightpetal considered how it might've been slightly egotistical to presume that, just because he was Deputy, he was worth discussing. Still, she stated a fact about them which he didn't know, something that caused him to lean in closer, absorbing it like moss. They were everything, but they were as delicate as feathers (or perhaps it was the clan that was delicate, as if one change in StarClan could snap the quill and disrupt the entire forest). He nodded, enthralled, reaching a conclusion too quickly. "I guess if I wanted to talk to them myself, I'd have to be worthier than worthy or be a leader or a medicine cat or something. But if doing so's gonna hurt their tongues then I'd prefer it if they didn't say whether they approved of me or not." Besides, as much as he would like to say that the Stars loved him, it seemed he would have to work on his bonds closer to home at first. He still needed to figure out how to talk to Bustardpaw properly.

Sensitive, he had believed StarClan to be. Omnipotent, Serpentberry reminded him they truly were. She tapped a paw on her side and Brightpetal moved to her, sitting down like a kit ready to hear a bedtime story. She spoke of games and his reverence threatened to be flickered away by excitement. He tucked his paws beneath his chest to conceal their fidgeting, his heart beating rapidly in its trepidation. Serpentberry said it was just a guess, an estimate based on what talks she'd had with them, but at that moment, she wasn't just a clanmate talking to him. She was the one link between their world and StarClan's, someone who spoke both in cat's tongue and the tongue of the dead, someone who was as equal parts as mysterious and all-powerful as the ones she served. At that moment, he believed she could give him all the answers he'd struggled to find himself.

"I would ask them what it all means... being a cat, that is. Is there some greater interpretation of the death and suffering ThunderClan has endured, or is it up to us to make our own meaning? I know what I've been doing, but if StarClan says it's wrong then..." He rolled his shoulders, uncertain of what he'd do if his ancestors told him he shouldn't be so hopeful. It had stuck to him since their existence was revealed to him like the most pleasant burr in the forest, but should that be wrong, then his whole idealogy would have to change. It was a heavy and daunting idea, one that briefly made him wonder if he truly wanted to meet StarClan and discover just how incorrect he may have been about... well, everything. The idea sent a shiver down his spine, disguised with a twist of the head and a flutter of the eyelids. "Well, what do you think they'd say?"


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[serpentberry]

His tongue twitches with his deposit on their conversation, speaking no differently than she figures a child would when confronted with the same topic. She still admires the pieces he shows her, how his personality shines and glimmers like gems in the first light of day. She almost envies his (foolishness, gullible, childish) affable nature. She doesn't, however, only because with the weapons she wields, she has more fun toying with him and his curiosities. If she were any softer, any sweeter... Stars, she might be akin to Juniperstar herself.

"You're nothing but a sweet petal, aren't you?" Serpentberry chirps, borrowing his name for what it is. A small part of the bigger picture; a cog working in a machine that none of them quite understand yet. Still, she praises him for his kindness, hoping to continue with this ploy of a game. At least, until her kittens rush to find her again. He curls in next to her, expertly hiding his excitement with fidgeting paws beneath his form and a twitching tail behind her view. It's worked; whatever fishing line she cast, she's reeled in the one she wanted.

He speaks, and for a moment Serpentberry observes him in awe. For all of the silent lashings she's given him against his youthful demeanor and existence... he speaks with a tongue beyond his years. At least, his curiosity affords him as much. The deeper meaning to the lives they must all lead now that they are deigned by a new sense of belonging and society. It is a far heavier subject than she had anticipated, if she's honest. She expected something like, "Do they eat, like you and I?" Not anything pertaining to the meaning of life. Still, she promised delivery, and she holds to that promise.

"ThunderClan used to exist before us," she says evenly, one leaf leaving a pile only to be erected in a different one. "Cats that've... only known this way of life. And where it has gotten them is nowhere beyond forgotten. I've come to think that this chance we are given, this ThunderClan we are to be... StarClan intends that we are to use our knowledge of the past and persevere with it. We cannot forget the cats we once were before the Clan, if only so that we can change the path and divert ourselves from the same, fruitless end." A long pause, and she blinks something from her eyes. "StarClan... would tell you to survive, and to bring as many cats with you in doing so. That's what I think."