TW: Sensitive Content TW: Death Private the swan's broken song [ foundlings ]

[serpentberry serpentberry]

Hollykit. What a prickle in her side, that surprise piece to their fractured puzzle. He slotted in perfectly by Juniperstar's side, a slate pelt that only seems to darken and darken. Her new prize after her (former?) partner continues to steal away her other three. He's nothing but a mewling, fussing thing now - but when he grows older, when he needs her... where will Serpentberry be? She finds herself buried in the same hole he dug moons ago, upon learning of Juniperstar's first litter. A divide not worth conquering, for if there was anything the molly respected, it was the idea of motherhood...

... at least, that was once a line she did not cross.

Likely taking a nighttime stroll to give Juniperstar some time with her new tyke, Serpentberry happened upon something... curious. Someone curious. The scent of blood did not move her paws any faster, like it might her daughter. No, she carries herself with the same yawning steps and half lidded eyes towards the danger. Eventually, the undergrowth parts to expose a body lain in the overgrown grass. Pale in pelt, but strewn with gashes, mottled with blood - Serpentberry blinks, and thinking a partially forlorn, Better you than I. Whatever harmed her had got what it wanted and left, at least.

And then - there. A struggled gasp, choking, and the heap of fur tries to move. Serpentberry stiffens, suddenly uncomfortable. There's quieter cries by the torn moggy, and deep beneath the weeping ichor, the medicine cat can scent milk. With the same, slow steps, the tortoiseshell welcomes herself to be beside the injured mother. Beside her are three sets of small paws, each just as pale, belonging to uncertain, wide eyes. The mother turns to her, shocked at first, and then a sense of relief sweeps over her.

"Y-you...! You're one of the Clan cats...!"

Serpentberry watches as she struggles to heave her upper half to her paws, twisting to see her. Blood continues to dribble unceremoniously from the strangers clawed throat. Almost four seasons. She supposes word of mouth must travel far in that time.

"I came this way for... for..." The molly closes her eyes, her head slumping to the side for a moment. Her breath is ragged, and she coughs, the sputtering noise more akin to a prey's last breath. She doesn't right herself as she continues, "My daughter - she's ill. We - I - got... attacked, but I don't think we were... followed..."
She slumps to her side again, her shoulder crashing to the ground first, but her head landing as if the grass aims to cradle it.

Serpentberry, for once so silent, turns her gaze to the three tots by the moggy's side. Two stand against her, squaring their kitten shoulders. One may even swipe at her, though she pays little mind to that. The last, the smallest, the meakest, sits lonely in beside their mother's gaping wound. Her coughs are pathetic, rattling little noises that Serpentberry mistook initially for the stranger's ragged breathing.

The tortoiseshell closes her eyes only for a moment while she weighs her decisions. Perhaps if her paws weren't so lonely, maybe if Juniperstar hadn't gotten so consumed with her own little foundling, or Rowanpaw hadn't hit her stride with her independence...

She does not smile. While she gains, the loss from this is still detrimental.

"I'll take your daughter," she says, quietly. "Your boys, too. They'll be safe with me," Serpentberry drips her poison to the strangers ear with ease and confidence. Her tail drifts across the ground, a snake in the grass. "I am what the stars have deemed a medicine cat. I am that of which you have sought out for your child. The stars gave blessed you... with me," she curls her nose to the other's cheek, muddying her paws with drying blood, drenching her scent in ill pouring ichor. "But I cannot save you," ( is so much a lie? an illness is slow creeping, unsure. an injury is fast, debilitating, devouring. who is more valuable to the clan? a kit who cannot breathe, or a mother who cannot hunt? ) "You're too hurt." The decision is made.

"Oh..." It's said with an exhale. Her voice wobbles, different from the still certainty of her savior. "I... you..." but who is she to argue? She cannot save her own children - she hardly kept them safe during the attack. And if she denies this help that she sought out... then her daughter...

"Let me hold them... one... one last time..."

Serpentberry says nothing. Pale arms reach and loop around three small shapes. She whispers to them, "Be good. Be kind," and she coughs, this time red spilling off of her tongue. The snake's tail thrashes in the grass, annoyed that this is no feast she could take part in.

The medicine cat, as three kits are herded to her paws, says, "May the stars light your path, stranger. Should you reach the skies, I hope you enjoy the fields of moonlight and stardust. May your wounds heal, then, and your gaze never leave the fruitful lives of your children." The stranger's head lulls to the side. Her breath remains ragged, almost stubborn, as Serpentberry gathers three kits by her tail.

Wordlessly, she guides them away from their dying mother. Wordlessly, the stranger heaves her last breath, her soul drifting away from the plane of the living.

 

[Thornkit]

The young tom doesn't know how long it's been exactly, only that it's felt like forever since his family had been accosted by the predator that had been the monster behind the wounds that now marred his mother's body. First, Nettle had fallen ill, and Stinger had found himself forced to choose between exercising the newfound freedom that came with getting older and staying at his sister's side. Stinger needed to be in motion; sitting still was practically agony, and even though Needle might have made a better bedside keeper than Stinger, he found it just as hard to be away from Nettle's side as it was to stay still. Eventually, just as he'd settled for pacing around mother and Nettle, that semblance of peace had been shattered by the attack. The attack that had left mother mangled and clinging.

By the time the stranger had arrived, Stinger was set to burst from having had to sit idly at his family's side, monitoring both mother and Nettle with less attentiveness than he was sure Needle could manage. The stranger, whose presence left Stinger feeling uneasy, was a target that he could set his energy on, and he jumped to his paws, back arched as he bared little fangs in a juvenile attempt to keep this stranger of unknown intentions away from his weakened family. Still, when mother attempted to make polite conversation with the stranger, Stinger eased back, but kept a wary eye on her.

It was strange, how slow the scene played out in front of Stinger's eyes. For as long as he could remember, he'd kept life moving, fast-paced and imminent - the sickness, the attack, even the wait up until then, it was all accompanied by a blurred vignette. Now, as the stranger spoke sweet platitudes to mother, and mother accepted them, trading things that Stinger couldn't comprehend, everything felt sluggish; and he felt immobilized, like nothing he could do would change any of it - how true that was, he'd never know, or would take moons to realize. An unattractive, disgruntled look spread across his face when mother pulled him, Needle, and Nettle close, bidding them, be good, be kind.

When the siblings were passed over to the stranger, Stinger bristled, and though he didn't bare his teeth again, he continued to visibly broadcast his discomfort with the situation.

"Nettle-" Stinger frantically glanced over at his sister, a passing look of worry offered to Needle, before he frowned up at the stranger, "Hey! She's sick! You gotta- be gentle, we need mother-"

STINGER—he/him + 02 moons
loner kit
NPC ♡ NPC
brother to Needle, Nettle
mate to N/A | father to N/A
mentored by N/A | mentoring N/A

penned by Archivist

 

[FALSEKIT]

Needle huddled by their mother's side, the strange and slick fluids from inside their mother now on the outsides of her children. Eventually did the red wash over their fawn-hued body, with the heat spilling and enveloping them like a cradle. They pressed harder, as if they could somehow give the molly their own life, or at least they could comfort her as she moaned in pain. Interspersed with the comfort of milk, the metallic scent of blood flowed into the kitten's nostrils, and the sanguine foolishly attempted to masquerade itself as their sustenance. The child's heart drummed thunderously within their chest, threatening to burst through the paper-thin skin that held it. They had never seen so much of this reddish water before, thick and suffocating in its miasma. There had been a giant monster, like a wraith throwing itself upon a place to haunt, for cavities to open and viscera to spill. Fear blinded them, and they hadn't seen what had happened to her. All the siblings had been left with was the aftermath, the gruesome scene now unfolding in front of them. All they could do - and could have done - was watch.

It started when Nettle fell ill, and ended with the finality of their mother. If they had more wits about them at this age, then they would have considered it a sardonic turn of events. At least Nettle remained with them, lonely upon the base of the fount of red. Their mother wretched and gasped, like smoke bursting through an open window, the mass of her breath far too great to be contained in her enfeebled vessel. Ears pricked upwards, of which hearing had just been blessed upon. She hurriedly spoke to someone, and they peered just behind her bruised shoulder. Needle's overcast-blue eyes settled on the unfamiliar tortoiseshell, and they felt small bristles prick forth upon their nape, as though the stranger were another predator to come for them next. They leapt at Thorn's side, high-pitched hisses (which came off as more of a whistle) wresting through their stubbed maw. Don't... Don't take Nettle away...! Bunching their shoulders together, so that young muscles tightened and tensed into a spring, they readied themselves to attack. They hadn't any combat expertise, nor drive to kill, but they would fight if it meant that this monster would not swoop away with their sister.

"Be good. Be kind."

Their mother's dying words, as her arms pillowed against the downy fluff of her children, resounded in their triangular ears. It had happened so suddenly that Needle hardly had time to react to it all, to ask what exactly that curt verse meant. Off-white paws, much bigger than their own, slowly herded their brood towards her. "Mother's hurt. Can she... really not be saved?" Needle whispered, the statement laden more in unfettered curiosity than suffused concern, as if they had happened upon some forbidden treasure. Owlish stare settled onto the crumpled form again, expecting her to stir again. She did not, and she never did. That, somehow, fascinated them far more than grief cut into them. "N-Nettle... Thorn... Let's go. We can... visit her another time..." Their soft voice lulled from their velvet lips, in an endeavor to at least keep their siblings by their side, as if a candlelight that knew it could not burn without its wick. Can't we? The naive kitten, with no knowledge of decomposition and decay, figured that she would always remain there. She would wake again, and she would keep them closer and closer to her side, until there existed no boundary between them and her. They stared upwards at Serpentberry, with poetry pulled from her maw like yarn, a mouth unspooling everything that she ever needed to utter. This is... only for a little bit. For my sister. They tried to communicate soundlessly to the unfamiliar she-cat.

SUNSHINE IS FAR, CLOUDS LINGER ON

☾

EVERYTHING I POSSESSED, NOW THEY ARE GONE

• OOC. might be wonky oops still trying to get into the groove of writing them
• 
  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.

 

[Faithkit]

FAITHKIT

​

A BOUQUET OF BRAMBLES

SHE/HERx THUNDERCLAN KITx 02 MOONS​

☆ A sickly fawn cream tortoiseshell with low white
☆ Adopted child of Serpentberry, littermates with Falsekit and Thornkit
☆ Posts are written in second POV as a representation of dissociation
☆ penned by Juice↛ Ouijeejuice on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

Not long after you had gained sentience had the sickness slowly clung to your body. It ebbed and flowed through good days and bad days, roughly two weeks prior to now it had reached it's worst point. You wonder if that's when you started to feel disconnected from your body, you had stopped being 'you' for a while now. Nettle felt like the name of a stranger, you felt more like a husk these days. The weather had started to feel as warm as your fevers days prior, fur feeling too thick and your breath runs ragged as you curl next to the body of your mother. Stubborn in her movements much like your own, determined to push forward even if her body longs to give up. You want to be like her in that regard, feeling like your own body had been shutting down for far too long now. "Ma" Your voice shocks you ask you speak, hoarse from the nights spent awake coughing yet hadn't it always carried a rasp?

She refers to the molly in front of your brothers as a clan cat, there had been babbling prior to this trip. How a clan cat could fix you, foolishly before the attack you had let yourself believe it. Would the Nettle a moon ago have believed her? You aren't too sure, the Nettle a moon ago was learning to walk and you were certain she could out run you easily. Feeling your body and your mind start to drift again you bury your head against her flank, ignoring the stickiness of the blood that marred it. Though anchoring you enough there is a desire to make sure your brothers still had that tether, lifting your head up from the fading warmth beside you their flanks are enough to bring a sigh of relief. The conversation that flows between the adults falls upon deaf ears, there's a slight ringing and all you can do is stare at your brothers. There's hope that they might know what to say, Needle was always so good with words and Stinger knew the right actions to compliment it. Though it seems they too are stun locked in a way, neither party aiding you in that sinking feeling of hopelessness.

A cough rattles your lungs as your scooped one final time. The final words play out as your own personal manta, be good and be kind. You can do that for her, after all she had given a life to bring you into fates good graces. Said fate is staring, at least you think she is. You could swear right now she is far more fearsome than any predator in the forest, that isn't a very kind thought though. She is the promised salvation, medicine cat you think you heard between the ringing in your ears. Passively she stares at Stinger's protest and finds herself agreeing with Needle. "Stinger" there's that rattle again. "Come on, it's okay. 'M fine" for a moment you could even convince yourself of it.