TW: Sensitive Content Private Medicine Cat's Den STAND UP, YOU'VE GOT TO MANAGE —— serpentberry

[FALSEKIT]

"I cannot save you. You're too hurt."

What did it mean to be beyond salvation? Were some more deserving of salvation than others? Then, did that mean that his mother (and by extension, they and their siblings) were undeserving? Falsekit never heard of such a concept, an alien and remarkable turnstile for a curious mind imbibed in a growing world. Already did the seeds of philosophy burrow deeply into soft soils, though he hadn't the will nor the word to ascribe to it. The gallstone of a thought rolled vexingly in Falsekit's mind, like the profanation of the goodness of the soul, a poisoning of the naivete they still clung to. The former rogue wished for answers, but who would they turn to? Everyone around him was a stranger, and they didn't entirely wish to invite them into their life. It was too many variables, too many considerations. Eventually, the thoughts became a maddening drone within the kitten's body, like an echo tainting the sanctity of silence. Falsekit knew, eventually, that they must turn to the woman who martyred their mother. The cold-shouldered doctor, the arbiter of salvation.

Falsekit rested in one of the plush nests of the medicine cat den, letting one white-tipped paw hang from the side. One of their pads still pulsed in dim heat from where a small splinter once lodged itself. With Serpentberry's help, though, it had been quickly dislodged. Now, all the child had to do was wait, even if the tedium would eventually drown them in its swathes. The calico's back was turned, doing whatever she did with the various leaves and roots and whatnot. She was already here... so she might as well utter what seemed to burn at the ends of her psyche. He wasn't quite sure if he liked her, but she would be as good of a substitution for his actual mother as he could get in Thunderclan. "... Serpentberry?" He called for the medicine cat, stormcloud-blue eyes blinking innocently as her, as if the light within their eyes had not been blemished by tear nor wear. "What does it mean when you can't save someone? I thought that was what you were supposed to do." The statement came innocuously from lamblike lips, as though there lie no slight that slithered between the words, and no malice to hide behind bold-faced intent. They were a little aware that it might rouse some other emotion from the depths of the medicine cat's spirit, though, and the uncertainty made it all the more fun for them.

SUNSHINE IS FAR, CLOUDS LINGER ON

☾

EVERYTHING I POSSESSED, NOW THEY ARE GONE

• OOC. @serpentberry <3
• 
  NOTE: This is a very loose reference until I can draw a more accurate reference. <3​
• 

  FALSEKIT & 02 MOONS

  ​

  —— Agender / Any Pronouns & Gendered Terms
  —— Kitten of Thunderclan / Adopted by Serpentberry / Biological sibling to Faithkit & Thornkit
  —— A shorthaired fawn tortoiseshell with medium-high white and greyish-blue eyes. Walks with a confident, almost unassuming posture. Talks with a calm and collected voice, and one much too mature for their age.
  —— Outwardly, Falsekit is an affable and polite cat with natural charisma. Within the controlled walls of their own making, they are a skeptical and nihilistic soul, often going about in life in accordance to their own morbid curiosity.
  —— Penned by Tempest. Contact on Discord (naruk4mi) for plots and threads.

 

[serpentberry serpentberry]

She would think that Faithkit, oft wavering on her paws and uncertain in her gait, would be the first of the trio with a self-made injury, not Falsekit - and yet, the little boy approaches her quietly, pawpad turned up with the meagerest splinter sewn into the skin. She almost warded them away, insisted that they're old enough to figure that out on their own. But then she recalled the very obvious. That not only is she a medicine cat (and while decent at her craft, absolutely a failure in the empathy department,) but that she forced this sort of dependence on this trio. That Falsekit could've already tried to wiggle the wayward fragment out of her paw, but sought her 'mother' out ultimately.

And with that, she happily removes the splinter and urges the young kit to a nest, with promises of salves and sweets if he waits patiently.

She turns her back to Falsekit, tail swaying back and forth with no urgency to strike. Some plants get chewed and mashed, but before she can properly finish up, Falsekit posits a rather... difficult line of question. She's glad to be looking away from the girl in the moment, knowing how her face must contort with the vague confrontation. Of all the questions she could've prepared for, "How does someone die too horribly?" is not quite one she thought of. Maybe that's her own fault.

She turns, a sliver of honeycomb held gingerly between her teeth. She drops it by the tom's maw, urging with a slick, "Try it." At least she can say she gave him that.

While she works with his meager injury - one that, with any other cat, she wouldn't have bothered with this much care - she tries to answer his question. "We all have blood, Falsekit. Blood that's supposed to stay inside of our bodies," luckily, his wound isn't large, lest she show off exactly what blood is. "Sometimes, cats can use herbs like these - dock, marigold, tansy - and a sort of bandaging - like cobweb, or even moss - to stop the bleeding. But when blood leaves the body, it cannot go back in. It becomes useless. And when we lose too much blood..." she screws her nose up, winding a piece of cobweb around his paw to keep the salve from slipping away. "Well, there's no saving to be had. Sometimes it's easier to let someone go, then to prolong their death, Falsekit."

 

[FALSEKIT]

Serpentberry placed a sliver of a sickeningly-sweet-smelling honeycomb besides him, as it glistened in the filtering rays of light. Falsekit blinked at it, unsure of how exactly to proceed. The kitten had seen the calico molly give something similar to others, and they ate it without retort nor protest. Everyone in Thunderclan trusts her a lot. I'm not sure if I trust her. She hasn't hurt me yet... but she might in the future. Still, the fawn tortoiseshell had little other choice but to listen to her, too. They attempted to pluck the piece of honeycomb off of the ground, holding it gingerly between their ivory teeth, as though it would soften and relent if he placed any amount of pressure onto it. Honey settled onto their tongue, placated by the viscous and sweet liquid. She began to chew on it slowly, feeling how the crunch reverberated within their maw and how the shards of the honeycomb pecked at the sides of her cheeks. The medicine cat had already removed the splinter in one of their pads, the pain becoming a dull pulse that ran along their round paw, as though a wave that warmed the waters that belied their shorthaired pelt. Still, they did not wince, as if the pain hadn't affected them at all. They were grateful to Serpentberry, but she had just been doing her job. If she were not the medicine cat of Thunderclan, then he doubted that she would have helped him, for true altruism did not exist within his naively-narrow world of action-and-reaction.

Pointed ears pricked upwards, following the motion of Serpentberry's suave verses. Eyelids lilted as she kept speaking, as though she were the end-be-all expert on such a thing as blood. And she might as well have been, for she had undertaken the role of caring for the whole of the clan in this manner. As she prattled on about blood, greyish-blue eyes turned downwards to his own chest and forelimbs, tender as a lamb kissed in stardusts and satins. They must have blood, too, sloshing and churning within the thin walls of flesh and bone that enclosed it. To tear the skin away from itself felt impossibly easy, and fear panged within his fragile form, as if they were crafted from nothing but paper and twine. They felt more like a doll than a boy, or a porcelain plate more than a girl. How scary it was, they grimly mused, to live in a world that could drain him of all of his life-blood in an instant. "Sometimes it's easier to let someone go, then to prolong their death." Whiskers twitched in contemplation. "If I lost a lot of blood... that means you wouldn't save me. Correct? And if you lost a lot of blood, I wouldn't save you." He bluntly stated, as if it were some absolute axiom of life, and a truth that left little room to mourn alternatives. The only solution was not to lose the blood in the first place. He would only be safe if he allowed his body to remain pure, unfettered, unmarred. I don't want to lose a single drop. Otherwise... I won't be the same cat. I won't be saved. There was nothing special about his mother, and nothing special about him. It was all a matter of the body, he supposed.

SUNSHINE IS FAR, CLOUDS LINGER ON

☾

EVERYTHING I POSSESSED, NOW THEY ARE GONE

• OOC. text
• 
  NOTE: This is a very loose reference until I can draw a more accurate reference. <3​
• 

  FALSEKIT & 02 MOONS

  ​

  —— Agender / Any Pronouns & Gendered Terms
  —— Kitten of Thunderclan / Adopted by Serpentberry / Biological sibling to Faithkit & Thornkit
  —— A shorthaired fawn tortoiseshell with medium-high white and greyish-blue eyes. Walks with a confident, almost unassuming posture. Talks with a calm and collected voice, and one much too mature for their age.
  —— Outwardly, Falsekit is an affable and polite cat with natural charisma. Within the controlled walls of their own making, they are a skeptical and nihilistic soul, often going about in life in accordance to their own morbid curiosity.
  —— Penned by Tempest. Contact on Discord (naruk4mi) for plots and threads.