[poppy]

Birdsnow wasn’t usually one for walks. There were usually so many other, better things to do that she had kind of forgotten about how calming it was to be alone with your thoughts. How long had it been since she had been able to do something like this? Relax, look at the river and the trees and the sky… sighing softly, she was lost in thought for a little while, staring at the sky. This would have usually been the times when she would sob, howl at the stars she knew were there, and feel lost. These were the times when she usually lost herself the most, but instead, she felt more like herself than she had before. She had gotten rougher, meaner, harder to reach. As the days got colder so did she, because there wasn’t any point in trying to find who she used to be.

She remembered the way that she used to live, the happy, sweet cat she had once been. Making friends left and right, family all around her, building flower crowns, collecting trinkets, chasing butterflies.

But things were different now. She didn’t have many friends. Most of her family was dead or gone. She hadn’t touched a flower in months, hadn’t gone bird watching or butterfly watching. All of her special trinkets, her beloved collections of stones and flowers and feathers had been swept away by the flood. Her face was shadowed with exhaustion and she didn’t feel light anymore. She felt hopeless, dark. Staring at the sky, she almost missed the snap of a stick and the collapsing body of a cat. Blue gaze snapping to attention, she was on her paws in a second, dashing in the direction of the sound. The cat wasn’t struggling, wasn’t fighting, and Birdsnow thought for a moment that surely she was mistaken. Until she came upon a familiar torbie and white body, and she stared down at Pebblesplash, eyes round with shock before her face grew taut with frustration.

Dropping to a crouch, she clenched her jaw and she tried to first gnaw at the wire and then tried to pull it loose. It jerked a bit before coming a bit undone, not enough for Pebblesplash to squeeze through but enough so that breathing would hopefully come a bit easier. ’Dammit, Pebblesplash, FIGHT.’ She prepared herself to snarl out, but the words that came out were a bit different. ”Mom, if there’s an ounce of love for me left in you, for the love of StarClan fight. Don’t you dare just give up- y-you owe me that at least.” Her words, though angry, were underlined with a hint of desperation. Yeah, she didn’t like Pebblesplash much right now, but this was her parent, and Birdsnow had lost too many family members, too many parents, to let this one get away without a fight. Blueberrypaw was gone. She hadn’t seen Troutpaw around much. Pebblesplash had been neglectful (among other things) but she was almost all Birdsnow had left of her family. How was she supposed to live without it?

// @Sakura.