TW: Sensitive Content Private HEAVY HEAVY ʚɞ flowercloud

[SWALLOWBREEZE]

// belated warning that this thread contains discussion of grief! i forgot </3

the clan has moved on entirely from the accident a moon prior, but for some, it's become raw and red. swallowbreeze has kept her head down since the incident with flowercloud and her daughter. neither injuries were life threatening, thank the stars— but feelings linger, and medicine cats remember. the molly's insistence on treating cygnetscratch's wound while blood poured from her brow, did she not understand that her sight could've been damaged?

her irritation at the scuffle has decreased, although that doesn't mean she won't let it slide past her. skyclan can not afford to have a deputy struggle to hold their composure, flowercloud was brought back into the position for a reason, and she didn't deserve to have her clanmates wonder if hawkstar made the right choice.

the medic told herself that she'd see how things were doing after things cleared up a bit. for flowercloud's sake, and her own, she didn't want to rub dirt in the wound if it wasn't necessary.

after a long day, swallowbreeze seeks out the deputy. "flowercloud?" she asks carefully, "can we talk in my den for a minute?" there are no patients she has to tend to, or an apprentice to watch over, the hollow log den is perhaps the most private area right now.

 

[flowercloud]

She didn't care, even if she knew. If the blood stained her eye, and left her blind- she would not fight it. Her daughter, her family- even in the spiral of rage, came first. But she had already been blind. She had let her pain reveal itself, let it warp her, distort her image- who she was. She had become an embodiment of who she wasn't. She had become something she had fought her entire life to try to avoid others becoming. And she fell victim to the tragedy- but it wasn't just one. The prior year had been like walking through the Dark Forest- each step pulling her closer to snapping jaws.

But she had found the light. She had raced for it at the first opportunity, she had fought the demons dragging her- and the sad thing, the more she thought about it, was that she couldn't find the strength to fight it. She wasn't dragged kicking and screaming, she was willingly letting herself succumb to something evil, malicious.

And that is not who she was- that is not who she is.

If the last week or two hadn't proven it, she didn't know what would. If the time before losing not one- but two children, if the fights and arguments of confrontation that made her throat fill with bile wasn't enough to prove who she was, then she didn't know what would. But that didn't mean she didn't feel regret. That didn't mean that when green gaze caught Cygnets scar down her cheek, that she didn't feel her heart breaking all over again.

She had become the monster that she had tried to keep her children from.

but it didn't mean others still didn't feel like they were walking on eggshells when they approached her. Green eyes watched Swallowbreeze approach, the way her voice hesitated, ever so slightly. "Yes, of course Swallowbreeze." She responded, pulling her body up with a swish of her tail that had previously been laying over her paws. Shed fall in step behind Swallowbreeze, pulling herself through the entrance of the log before settling back down. "Is everything alright?" She asked, tilting her head slightly and letting her gaze soften. "Do we need another herb patrol- or... Is something else troubling you?"

flowercloud - 36 moons - skyclan deputy - mentoring none

 

[SWALLOWBREEZE]

both of them know swallowbreeze isn't dumb, she's witnessed her clanmates at their lowest, it's an unspoken part of her job. medicine cat patient confidentiality, for better or worse. when cats leave her den, swallowbreeze is unsure if she's allowed to chase after them. your body can heal from the jaws of a dog, but the experience of it still lingers. the wounds that twist in flowercloud's skin cannot be fixed with a simple poultice and some rest.

swallowbreeze finds it ironic that flowercloud assumes she is coming to her for advice, when the deputy's spent the last few moons with her claws digging into a reality that doesn't exist anymore. why do you deny it when you're so obvious?

the medic realizes her expression has twisted into a frown when it's too late, but she forces it to soften anyways. her head shakes, and she replies with, "no, no... everything's fine. i just, uhm..."

she found it easier to be annoyed when the situation had just happened. the facts were laid out in front of her, the whole clan, therefor impossible to deny. swallowbreeze kept her mouth shut back then because honestly, a part of her didn't want to scold the deputy so openly in front of her daughter. she didn't deserve that kind of humiliation and as a result, swallowbreeze is unable to rekindle the irritation.

"i'm worried about you." she can state the obvious, at least.

swallowbreeze pokes around her herb stocks, and gently tugs out a bundle she had waiting around. "you know i'm unable to give you anymore poppy seeds, so i um... looked through what i have, and came up with this." a chamomile flower lays on the dock leaf, mixed with honey to ease the taste.

"i want things to be easier for you. i don't like sitting here and watching you trudge on like this. the clan needs their deputy. it's—it's um, chamomile and honey. something you can take if you're not feeling well." it's nudged closer to the amber molly, the light of early afternoon poking through the slits in the bark, giving the small herb mixture a gentle glow.