[ AUGAHGHG FUCKKK!!!!!! TLDR interacted/flirted/got sad with @Jadethorn . met up with @Magnoliapeak when the chaos started and taunted the skyclanners. was amused when @OWLBARK said "yaaaa it was meee" but pissed shitted screamed and cried when @juniperstar said "take MY life im hot and sexy" and then had a whole horrible internal moment about how juni and thorn are for all intents and purposes the same kind of guy and how she has a type. saw @Thornstar and broke and cried. is NOW encouraging @OWLBARK to help @juniperstar home. jesus fucking christ never expect this of me ever agian ]
Although the other nearly shivered to her touch, Serpentberry did not lighten the weight of her frame. She comfortably enjoys Jadethorn's presence, especially as the other begins a quiet symphony of purrs in response to her appearance. Serpentberry almost looks to see if Juniperstar is watching, wanting to see something flicker and die in her leader's gaze. She doesn't, however, entirely enraptured by her ShadowClan friend.
The warmth that fled the other's body is nothing unusual; frankly, Serpentberry hardly notices the slight stutter as Jadethorn begins to speak. Her tail, still loosely wrapped around her friend's, gives a snake's rattle towards the tip. "Berries are fickle things, are they not?" Herself, Juniper... The medicine cat does not leave her point open for too long, not wanting the other to break into the meaning of her near double entendre. "But gemstones - ah~ - they're for forever, are they not?" Another shameless purr, happily listening to the chaos around them.
Jadethorn continues to the best of her ability, and Serpentberry again ignores the other's choked up tone. The ShadowClan molly makes a show of her paw to her chest, announcing her new position by Sablestar's paws. The medicine cat feels her trust waver, her teeth clench, and then she rattles a soothing coo: "Oh, ever closer to Jadestar then, aren't we? Oh, sweet thing, promise you'll remember me when you've clawed your way to the top?" The comment for the gathering is met with a slight giggle and a nod.
When her friend begins speaking of her own unborn kits, her belly rounder than Serpentberry's had been, her attention is recaptured. This time, it's near genuine; a mother acutely listening to another mother recount their woes. She can't help the flicker of connection that unfurls from her chest. A near wetness in her eyes as she thinks of her own kittens, so little, now grown. "You'll cherish every lazy moment, now," Serpentberry warns the other. "Before long, they won't be yours to hold anymore. My three..." her gaze floats about the gathering, finding bickering apprentices, a group of river cats and their crescendo of their own. She seeks out Leafpaw, Thistlepaw, Rattlepaw, and utters a fading, "They're no longer mine."
The newly christened night guard chirps something about her apprentice, and Serpentberry hums with bare amusement. She's hurt herself, her own fangs driven into her heart. Can you see how grown they are, Hawthorne? A pause, a selfish beat as she looks upwards momentarily. Can you see me?
Her gaze follows Jadethorn's. A tortoiseshell molly with blood dried and stuck to her fur approaches the gathering, many cats in variable levels of disrepair stand staunchly near her. She narrows her eyes, even as Jadethorn calls her beautiful. "I was hoping for a show..." she murmurs quietly. She hardly misses Thunderflash's downward glare, tossing back towards him a coward's beautiful smile. There are worse things to focus on...! She says, silently, though she doesn't think the message gets across from this distance. Distracted, Owlbark crosses the clearing towards Juniperstar, one of the SkyClanners point him out, as if his fur was dyed just as red as they were. And when she finds the chaos again -
"Cats of all Clans!"
The tortoiseshell yells - no, screeches, as if her voice was raw from sobbing. Serpentberry tightens her tail around Jadethorn's but stands, the harshness of the SkyClanner's voice pulling her to her paws. And then her accusation - oh, that alone is enough to lure the viper from her den. A soft apology is sent towards her friend and she, unintentionally, finds Magnoliapeak as the two of them parade ever closer to their leader and deputy. Accusations are tossed towards them, and Serpentberry finds she could not care less on if they were truthful or not. Just that this is public - messes like this are to be cleaned beneath the private shade of a secluded tree. SkyClanners are barbarians. She's decided enough.
Something about a death, something about a code. Serpentberry grinds her teeth, withholding the want to snipe back towards the molly. One of her cats growl towards Owlbark, and Magnoliapeak speaks in his stead, gnashing her own jaws in response. Her tail lashes as the molly glances towards her, the mess of this first gathering now culminating in something of a trial. Cats are shouting, demanding retribution, proof, salvation in a way - Owlbark insists he only acted to save his own hide, and who is she to deny his truth? She knows not the dead, cares even less the life he lived prior to it. What Owlbark says in the moment is near gospel to the medicine cat, especially with how sharp tongued he is when he delivers it.
Magnoliapeak speaks with her, and Serpentberry scoffs with a half smirk, "They're SkyClan, sweet thing. And you know what circles in the sky, waiting for the dead to decay?" Her venomous gaze fits comfortably on the SkyClanners. Where she finds trust in the odd little thing they call a medicine cat, she finds intense dislike for the rest of the Clan. "Vultures. Those things are no good fighting their own battles; they only prey on what others have left behind ~" It's as if she instigates one of them to her throat instead, happily acting in her haughtiest tone.
Hawkstar is incredulous, shocked - maybe even pained. The lack of knowledge over some code seems to send her spiraling. Serpentberry can hear shouting far off, but with Juniperstar and Owlbark here, her attention can now break. After a long, drawn out moment... the SkyClan leader speaks again. A life for a life. The code she honors so dearly speaks on barbaric terms, yet Serpentberry is begrudged to think that she understands it. She stole a life over herbs; this is somehow painless in comparison. And still, she snarks, "So much for following some code. You were quick to throw that one away." Lied to, the molly had said. Perhaps her ancestors never told her the full truth, instead.
Her maw opens to continue the snark fest, her shoulder locked to Magnoliapeak's, but her leader speaks first. Juniperstar defends Owlbark, as she should, as she's supposed to - yet Serpentberry as per her usual can only hide her disappointment, because it's all Juniperstar ever does. It feels right, as if the molly has had this written in her stars and she repeats the same manuscript over and over again. Serpentberry almost wishes she'd change the script again, even to just accuse SkyClan of lying instead. That'd be fair. And then she says, "I can't allow you to kill him." And the smugness in the medicine cat's chest returns slightly, appreciative of her friend's pushback, no matter how gentle. But Juniperstar continues, drawling, dancing, swaying. Serpentberry feels the itch in her paws before her friend says it -
"I'll give you my life."
( She sees red; she sees a body laying gently on the ground, bloodless but festering, a still chest, vacant eyes; she sees another form, torn and shredded, as if her lover's heart was something to be uncaged; she sees them all, sees the dead bodies in the clearing, the blood soaks all of their paws; the spirits remain watching, staring, begging for retribution, for peace, for something. )
"Juniperstar, don't -"
In her delusion, time has passed. WindClan is evacuating. RiverClan is shouting. A molly of burnt embers, of tree bark, of untrodden snow - flashes her teeth for all but a second. Fangs gore into the soft flesh of Juniperstar's throat. She rips. It's audible. It's a horrible sheering noise of tearing flesh and muscle, the blood that spills mixes with that of the day-long deceased. Unceremoniously, Juniperstar falls.
Hawkstar stands. Now, with the blood of a leader, the blood of her apprentice, the blood of the colony and their ancestors and their ill begotten histories - she stands. She beckons her Clan to her side.
Owlbark moves to stand over Juniperstar.
Copperstorm acts. Thunderflash acts. Apprentices new and fresh act, warriors old and weathered act.
Serpentberry watches. She sees what she never saw before. She sees Hawthorne fall into a heap of blood and fur.
Her paws, slowly, methodically, draw her closer to where her friend fell. Her white capped paws hold tenderly tattered flesh, as if she could coil it against the softened meat of Juniperstar's throat and watch it mend. She feels her body waver, but not with the pang of sickness, but instead... something else. Something tangible, with a name, with a purpose - with a vengeance. She sits quietly beside Owlbark as cats bicker and scream, shake and cry, gather and disperse. She waits with her love's hound, obediently waiting for her to rise again.
The matter of her world again crashing to the ground, simple and limp, does not fade from her vision. But she hears a voice - a voice she has not heard in many moons. Serpentberry holds Juniperstar tight, warm, protective, (possessive,) as she turns her gaze to the open again. And there - there is her first love, her final love. Intangible, feathered with stars at the edges. He makes a promised truce among the chaos, demanding their attention through a divinity unknown to each of them. Serpentberry doesn't have it in her to argue. Perhaps later she will sleep, beg for him to finally visit her, and tell him off for his horrible idea - but it is only an amendment to what Juniperstar wanted, is it not? She wanted peace. She wanted conversation.
They're too alike. It would've been in due time that Serpentberry found her paws tangled in another too-soft nest. A tom too small for the world he must conquer, a molly too meek for the world she inhereted.
He looks at her. Brief. Loving. Pained. She reaches a bloodsoaked paw to him, her lips parting, I love you! at the ready.
The sky steals him again. He is gone, and she is left with what remains of him. Their children, their Clan, and his successor.
Whether or not Juniperstar begins breathing again, Serpentberry shudders a breath of her own. Copperstorm and Thunderflash seem to have a handle of rounding up the rest of ThunderClan. Her chest feels heavy as she says, "We'll have to help her home, Owl." Uncharacteristically quiet. Unmentionably soft. She doesn't even have it in her to quip or croon. Instead, her voice cracks, "Come on, now; put those shoulders to good use."
And, without another word, she bends a knee to her leader, her friend, her... something, and attempts to bring her home.
Although the other nearly shivered to her touch, Serpentberry did not lighten the weight of her frame. She comfortably enjoys Jadethorn's presence, especially as the other begins a quiet symphony of purrs in response to her appearance. Serpentberry almost looks to see if Juniperstar is watching, wanting to see something flicker and die in her leader's gaze. She doesn't, however, entirely enraptured by her ShadowClan friend.
The warmth that fled the other's body is nothing unusual; frankly, Serpentberry hardly notices the slight stutter as Jadethorn begins to speak. Her tail, still loosely wrapped around her friend's, gives a snake's rattle towards the tip. "Berries are fickle things, are they not?" Herself, Juniper... The medicine cat does not leave her point open for too long, not wanting the other to break into the meaning of her near double entendre. "But gemstones - ah~ - they're for forever, are they not?" Another shameless purr, happily listening to the chaos around them.
Jadethorn continues to the best of her ability, and Serpentberry again ignores the other's choked up tone. The ShadowClan molly makes a show of her paw to her chest, announcing her new position by Sablestar's paws. The medicine cat feels her trust waver, her teeth clench, and then she rattles a soothing coo: "Oh, ever closer to Jadestar then, aren't we? Oh, sweet thing, promise you'll remember me when you've clawed your way to the top?" The comment for the gathering is met with a slight giggle and a nod.
When her friend begins speaking of her own unborn kits, her belly rounder than Serpentberry's had been, her attention is recaptured. This time, it's near genuine; a mother acutely listening to another mother recount their woes. She can't help the flicker of connection that unfurls from her chest. A near wetness in her eyes as she thinks of her own kittens, so little, now grown. "You'll cherish every lazy moment, now," Serpentberry warns the other. "Before long, they won't be yours to hold anymore. My three..." her gaze floats about the gathering, finding bickering apprentices, a group of river cats and their crescendo of their own. She seeks out Leafpaw, Thistlepaw, Rattlepaw, and utters a fading, "They're no longer mine."
The newly christened night guard chirps something about her apprentice, and Serpentberry hums with bare amusement. She's hurt herself, her own fangs driven into her heart. Can you see how grown they are, Hawthorne? A pause, a selfish beat as she looks upwards momentarily. Can you see me?
Her gaze follows Jadethorn's. A tortoiseshell molly with blood dried and stuck to her fur approaches the gathering, many cats in variable levels of disrepair stand staunchly near her. She narrows her eyes, even as Jadethorn calls her beautiful. "I was hoping for a show..." she murmurs quietly. She hardly misses Thunderflash's downward glare, tossing back towards him a coward's beautiful smile. There are worse things to focus on...! She says, silently, though she doesn't think the message gets across from this distance. Distracted, Owlbark crosses the clearing towards Juniperstar, one of the SkyClanners point him out, as if his fur was dyed just as red as they were. And when she finds the chaos again -
"Cats of all Clans!"
The tortoiseshell yells - no, screeches, as if her voice was raw from sobbing. Serpentberry tightens her tail around Jadethorn's but stands, the harshness of the SkyClanner's voice pulling her to her paws. And then her accusation - oh, that alone is enough to lure the viper from her den. A soft apology is sent towards her friend and she, unintentionally, finds Magnoliapeak as the two of them parade ever closer to their leader and deputy. Accusations are tossed towards them, and Serpentberry finds she could not care less on if they were truthful or not. Just that this is public - messes like this are to be cleaned beneath the private shade of a secluded tree. SkyClanners are barbarians. She's decided enough.
Something about a death, something about a code. Serpentberry grinds her teeth, withholding the want to snipe back towards the molly. One of her cats growl towards Owlbark, and Magnoliapeak speaks in his stead, gnashing her own jaws in response. Her tail lashes as the molly glances towards her, the mess of this first gathering now culminating in something of a trial. Cats are shouting, demanding retribution, proof, salvation in a way - Owlbark insists he only acted to save his own hide, and who is she to deny his truth? She knows not the dead, cares even less the life he lived prior to it. What Owlbark says in the moment is near gospel to the medicine cat, especially with how sharp tongued he is when he delivers it.
Magnoliapeak speaks with her, and Serpentberry scoffs with a half smirk, "They're SkyClan, sweet thing. And you know what circles in the sky, waiting for the dead to decay?" Her venomous gaze fits comfortably on the SkyClanners. Where she finds trust in the odd little thing they call a medicine cat, she finds intense dislike for the rest of the Clan. "Vultures. Those things are no good fighting their own battles; they only prey on what others have left behind ~" It's as if she instigates one of them to her throat instead, happily acting in her haughtiest tone.
Hawkstar is incredulous, shocked - maybe even pained. The lack of knowledge over some code seems to send her spiraling. Serpentberry can hear shouting far off, but with Juniperstar and Owlbark here, her attention can now break. After a long, drawn out moment... the SkyClan leader speaks again. A life for a life. The code she honors so dearly speaks on barbaric terms, yet Serpentberry is begrudged to think that she understands it. She stole a life over herbs; this is somehow painless in comparison. And still, she snarks, "So much for following some code. You were quick to throw that one away." Lied to, the molly had said. Perhaps her ancestors never told her the full truth, instead.
Her maw opens to continue the snark fest, her shoulder locked to Magnoliapeak's, but her leader speaks first. Juniperstar defends Owlbark, as she should, as she's supposed to - yet Serpentberry as per her usual can only hide her disappointment, because it's all Juniperstar ever does. It feels right, as if the molly has had this written in her stars and she repeats the same manuscript over and over again. Serpentberry almost wishes she'd change the script again, even to just accuse SkyClan of lying instead. That'd be fair. And then she says, "I can't allow you to kill him." And the smugness in the medicine cat's chest returns slightly, appreciative of her friend's pushback, no matter how gentle. But Juniperstar continues, drawling, dancing, swaying. Serpentberry feels the itch in her paws before her friend says it -
"I'll give you my life."
( She sees red; she sees a body laying gently on the ground, bloodless but festering, a still chest, vacant eyes; she sees another form, torn and shredded, as if her lover's heart was something to be uncaged; she sees them all, sees the dead bodies in the clearing, the blood soaks all of their paws; the spirits remain watching, staring, begging for retribution, for peace, for something. )
"Juniperstar, don't -"
In her delusion, time has passed. WindClan is evacuating. RiverClan is shouting. A molly of burnt embers, of tree bark, of untrodden snow - flashes her teeth for all but a second. Fangs gore into the soft flesh of Juniperstar's throat. She rips. It's audible. It's a horrible sheering noise of tearing flesh and muscle, the blood that spills mixes with that of the day-long deceased. Unceremoniously, Juniperstar falls.
Hawkstar stands. Now, with the blood of a leader, the blood of her apprentice, the blood of the colony and their ancestors and their ill begotten histories - she stands. She beckons her Clan to her side.
Owlbark moves to stand over Juniperstar.
Copperstorm acts. Thunderflash acts. Apprentices new and fresh act, warriors old and weathered act.
Serpentberry watches. She sees what she never saw before. She sees Hawthorne fall into a heap of blood and fur.
Her paws, slowly, methodically, draw her closer to where her friend fell. Her white capped paws hold tenderly tattered flesh, as if she could coil it against the softened meat of Juniperstar's throat and watch it mend. She feels her body waver, but not with the pang of sickness, but instead... something else. Something tangible, with a name, with a purpose - with a vengeance. She sits quietly beside Owlbark as cats bicker and scream, shake and cry, gather and disperse. She waits with her love's hound, obediently waiting for her to rise again.
The matter of her world again crashing to the ground, simple and limp, does not fade from her vision. But she hears a voice - a voice she has not heard in many moons. Serpentberry holds Juniperstar tight, warm, protective, (possessive,) as she turns her gaze to the open again. And there - there is her first love, her final love. Intangible, feathered with stars at the edges. He makes a promised truce among the chaos, demanding their attention through a divinity unknown to each of them. Serpentberry doesn't have it in her to argue. Perhaps later she will sleep, beg for him to finally visit her, and tell him off for his horrible idea - but it is only an amendment to what Juniperstar wanted, is it not? She wanted peace. She wanted conversation.
They're too alike. It would've been in due time that Serpentberry found her paws tangled in another too-soft nest. A tom too small for the world he must conquer, a molly too meek for the world she inhereted.
He looks at her. Brief. Loving. Pained. She reaches a bloodsoaked paw to him, her lips parting, I love you! at the ready.
The sky steals him again. He is gone, and she is left with what remains of him. Their children, their Clan, and his successor.
Whether or not Juniperstar begins breathing again, Serpentberry shudders a breath of her own. Copperstorm and Thunderflash seem to have a handle of rounding up the rest of ThunderClan. Her chest feels heavy as she says, "We'll have to help her home, Owl." Uncharacteristically quiet. Unmentionably soft. She doesn't even have it in her to quip or croon. Instead, her voice cracks, "Come on, now; put those shoulders to good use."
And, without another word, she bends a knee to her leader, her friend, her... something, and attempts to bring her home.
