Private Backwritten Safe and sound || Cygnetpaw

[flowercloud]

It had been some time since Rosepaws outlash- pure rejection on her behalf, and eyes full of that.. fire that burned into her memory. She didn't blame him, she couldn't. Never was he wrong to express his feelings, she just wished she could help. But she would pace. She would think, she would sleep on it - well as much as she could in a nest with no warm bodies curling into her stomach.

A soft sigh escaped the molly as the time ticked by, the days passed, before the fluffy form would finally think through the haze, finally feeling the weight settle deep in her chest. What.. could she improve on for her children? What could help them- because it wasn't about her. It was about them. She wanted them.. happy... safe. She didn't want them to feel abandoned. To feel.... Let down.

Flower knew abandonment. Flower was abandoned on the edge of Skyclan territory, and watched as others had families, nuzzled their parents and played with their siblings.. and now? Now she feared she put the same ache in her own children's hearts.

She shook her head roughly, before pulling herself up. She had work to do if she wanted to make this right. She wanted them to know, to truly know, that she hadn't intended to let them down.

---

It had been a long day. downy feathers and soft moss was bundled in her jaws as she approached Cygnetpaw from the side, green eyes gentle as she followed her gaze to the stars above them. a clear sky, jotting with lights.. the camp quiet as others have settled down. Her ears flattened a bit as she settled down beside her daughter- uninvited, but before Cygnet could pull away .. she worked quickly. Her paws pressed into the moss, shaky, having to pull away in hesitance a couple of times. But she would continue settling the feathers gently around the edges and weaving it in intricately despite the nervousness. "I used to do this all the time... Adjust the nest.. make it more comfortable for you and your siblings. Even when you were already fast asleep, I'd make sure everything was just right. I guess it was my way of making sure you knew you guys were safe- that someone was looking out for you. I... Don't know if this can help now, but... I still want you to be comfortable... I want you guys to be okay," she murmured softly, finally finishing the moss and downy feathered nest, pulling her paws away finally, finished.

She remembered humming them to sleep, soothing her tongue over their heads. Small murmurs of words to softly sing and lull them to a peaceful slumber. But those days seemed so far away now. "I would hum to you guys, and-" a hesitant chuckle would escape her. "You would twitch your little paws- as if chasing something. I've always wondered what it was..."
​

 

[cygnetpaw]

She nurses a wound; a careless wound that circles her arm like a thorned wreath. Her training with Lionfire has only gotten more heated, more feverish - more wreckless. The young molly is still missing her marks, still finding her paws clumsy and unsure, and still earning new wounds per every training she attends. Perhaps there is merit in the fact that she is trying, putting everything she can into every bound, lash, or bite. But what use is it all when she struggles to hold her own still?

Shs doesn't visit Swallowpaw. Her tongue graces the wound on her arm in silence, her voice rarely used since that day with her family. She's become something of a ghost of the molly she used to be, lost to the gorge and fog far behind them. She hardly notices Flowercloud until her mother tucks in close beside her and begins working - moss and feathers form and expertly made nest. Cygnetpaw stares blankly to the bedding, the taste of blood on her tongue somehow deafening her more. She can remember the days where they all nested together. Where Flowercloud would giggle when tiny paws would claw up fresh moss for the sake of it. Everything had been brighter then.

Her mother continues the story with a wobbly lip. Cygnetpaw twitches an ear, and slowly says, "I used to dream of wolves." Her voice is hoarse from misuse, more akin to a scraping honk than the song she used to sing. "They would chase me for hours. The only reprieve was the birdsong I had to follow..." She finds, now, that the birdsong was her mother's doing. Her gaze twists over the nest, and she murmurs, "Do you still have moss for your own bedding?"