[Neptune.]

Cinderpaw
~<>~
5/100
6 moons || she/her || ShadowClan Apprentice
small black tabby with minimal white markings and 3 legs; amber eyes

[this post contains elements of ableism, read at your own discretion <3 ]

Curiosity ushered Cinderpaw to what she guessed was a hastily thought through meeting. She would've come anyway, would've done anything asked of her, because that's what a good daughter does: she listens to her parents and follows their orders without question, she does whatever is asked of her, and if the thing asked is as simple as joining her mother in the medicine den? There was no reason to refuse such a call. Part of her assumed this was a check-up, her mother wanting to see how the stump of her leg was healing, but the steady stream of her brothers and sisters and even her father filing into the den before she'd hobbled even halfway across the clearing was enough to put a furrow in the brows of the quiet kit.

Amber hued eyes drift across the gathered family, trying to take them all in, their expressions, their body language, the things they aren't saying with words, but what they cannot hide as well as they might think they are. Momma is antsy, her tail twitching and rigid posture is enough to tell Cinderpaw all she needs to know. This is not a check-up, there's something on her momma's mind and it's clear she will say it regardless of what her children and the sire of most of them puts in.

Golden fur catches her attention, easily the tomkit is the most noticeable face in the den, his bright fur and abnormal patterning stands out exponentially among the sea of monochromatic blacks, grays and whites. The kitten looks perfectly happy where is is, and Cinderpaw can't help the way her mind starts sifting through all reasons he could possibly be there. She'd thought this was a meeting between family, unless she'd been wrong about that. Her mind is stronger than her body - it's the only thing she has right now, the only thing she can rely on - so if she's wrong, then perhaps she's wrong about everything. The kit seems perfectly comfortable, though, so she wonders if he was supposed to be here, if her mother invited him too. What did that mean?

Heronpaw looks as angry and disinterested as ever, like she doesn't want to be here, like she'd rather be anywhere else. Cinderpaw almost wonders if some invisible force made her oldest sister show up, stars know she probably wouldn't have come on her own without incentive. Gaze shifting over to Birdpaw, Cinder faintly smiles at how secure her other sister looks, how she's smiling, how the excitable energy practically radiates off of her in waves. There's envy, too, in the smile Cinder gives her other older sister, envy she cannot stamp out despite her efforts to try. Why couldn't she be that happy and sure of everything? It doesn't seem fair.

She almost doesn't notice Quietpaw's entrance, her sister almost as silent on her paws as Cinderpaw is. She doesn't look amused either, perhaps not quite angry like the expression that usually settles over Heronpaw's features, but she certainly doesn't look pleased, fluffy tail settling over her paws.

The only way Cinderpaw can even begin to describe her papa's expression is... resigned, like he knows what's coming, like he's bracing for the worst. That sends a shiver up the tabby's spine. Why did he look like that? Could she help him at all? She wants to do something helpful. But memories of the last time she tried to be helpful shoot through her mind and leave the injured feline rooted to her spot. If she helps him, will he be hurt too? If she helps any of them, will she destroy their lives?

Guilt floods her. She can't hurt them, too. Silently, the apprentice chooses a spot to sit some paces away from the group of them. If she does not sit next to them, she won't be inclined to offer comfort, right? Her attempts to help won't backfire and hurt more if she doesn't attempt to help... right..?

Barely, she has a moment to breath while everyone else who bothers to show up makes their appearance, and then her mother starts speaking. The very first thing she does is introduce Bleedingkit as her son. Her son? They have a new little brother? Cinderpaw shifts a little uncomfortably in her spot, whiskers twitching slightly as she takes in what this means.

First, she'd introduced the kit as her son, her gaze on Darkfall, as if to say 'he does not belong to you, too,' as if to say 'I don't want you to have anything to do with him,' as if to say 'he could've been ours if you'd bothered to be there.' Cinderpaw feels strange as she invents the words she imagines her mother means with that look, feels strange as the kit says hello, and as Birdpaw says it back, clearly excited. Is Cinderpaw excited too? She thinks yes, maybe, though she's not sure how true that is. Politely, she dips her head to her new brother, mind working overtime to try and figure him out.

There's no moment to breath, though, because Lostspark barrels on, as if just starting to obtain the momentum to keep going. There's pain in her expression that Cinderpaw can't place, that she struggles to unpack in the brief moment before her mother keeps talking. Smokekit. Smokekit had died, had gotten into the herbs momma keeps and died because of it. And there'd been... a bite taken out of him?

Hardly noticing the way her smaller frame is trembling, Cinderpaw sinks lower to the ground, mind reeling. Her oldest brother was dead? She'd wondered where he was, but she's not the most outgoing of their litter, hardly sociable with the few she considered friends, so she hadn't asked. Besides... she'd had her own trouble going on, though it makes her feel incredibly guilty to think of her injury as the thing that made her miss the news of her kin's death. How dare she? She should've known, should've found a way to ask after him. But she didn't, she was too concerned with herself.

More words tumble from her mother's mouth, something about how she knows some of those present may blame her for what happened to their brother, but how she loves them anyway. Cinderpaw knows this, she had never once doubted that and she'd thought she made it clear enough that she, too, loved her mother. But... but there's a note of blame in Lostspark's voice, maybe intentional, maybe not, when she says that perhaps her children not thinking enough to reach out to her as well was part of the reason for the somewhat strained relationship between many of them.

Blinking, the black feline is struck dumb for a moment. Had she not reached out..? She guesses... maybe she had not been the one to bridge the gap between her own life and her mother's busy schedule. But she'd wanted to. She just thought... she'd thought that maybe momma didn't want to be bothered while she was working (and she was almost always working), so Cinderpaw had done what she thought a polite, respectful daughter would do and given Lostspark space. She'd tried to be helpful and show her love in another way: she'd tried to get what she thought were herbs to help her momma. Now, too late, she knew what she had collected were not useful herbs, and the only thing she'd done was get herself hurt and add to her mother's stress. But she had tried. She'd tried to help! Did that not count for something..?

Numb, Cinderpaw watches with detached horror as her mother rounds on her father, gaze hard, words a fountain of anguish, grief and blame. Her grievances are not small, and they have almost nothing to do with the children sitting before them. Numb, Cinderpaw listens as Lostspark tears into Darkfall, chewing him out for not being there enough for her, for not being a shoulder to cry on, for being absent, for being... for being unreceptive to her wishes, it sounds like. Had papa done all that? Had he been dismissve of momma? Had he really been... had he really been so bad? Cinderpaw tries to think of a time where her father had been around and hadn't been at least watching his children in the clearing. She comes up almost empty.

Momma turns her attention to Heronpaw, apathetic as ever, and proclaims again that she loves her, loves all of them, that she'd do anything for them, that she'd die for them, bringing up each of her children's defects or disabilities. Cinderpaw flinches when her own missing leg is brought up, bitterness and guilt swirling in her gut. Her injury was not the fault of momma. It was Cinderpaw's own fault. She'd thought she was safe. She'd been wrong about that. Despite the way her mother talks, how she uses each of her children's struggles as an example of what she'd take on herself of she could, Cinderpaw feels a small spark of anger. She doesn't like being made an example of, despite her mother's seemingly good intentions. She feels small, like a spectacle, and feels hundreds of eyes that do not belong to any cat in the den settle on her, fur prickling in anxiety.

'I'm not a monster. Not unless you make me one.' Lostspark says, tone firm, attention on Heronpaw, but somehow Cinderpaw thinks the words aren't for Heronpaw alone; they're for all of them. She is what they make her out to be. If they believe her mother a monster, that's what she becomes. If they make her out to be a complicated cat with thought, feelings, flaws, wants, needs and everything else, that is who she is. If they make her out to be a stranger, someone that they hardly know, that's what she becomes.

'And you know what else I think, Darkfall?' she asks, her words washing over her youngest daughter, 'I think our children have grown lax, have become ungrateful.' Was that true? Cinderpaw doesn't think she's lax, lazy or ungrateful. Is that the way her mother sees her? Does she see an idiot child, so certain of her position among her clan, so assured that she's safe because of her parentage and her parent's parentage, that she can do whatever she wants? Is that why she thinks Cinderpaw left the territory almost two moons ago? Does she blame her? Does she think her... her defect is because she's lazy and arrogant and full of herself?

Tears start to well in her eyes, then, and she can't do anything to stop them. They start to fall as momma begins talking about her own struggles when she was a kit, how she had nothing, how she had to fight for everything she got. And Cinderpaw feels awful. Maybe she had been ungrateful. If her momma says she was, then that's true, is it not? She did not grow up with the struggles momma grew up with, so maybe... maybe she is ungrateful? She'd never considered... guilt mixes with the tears pouring openly from her face, she'd been an awful daughter, hadn't she?

For her final act, her mother offer's an ultimatum, a horrible, horrible thing to hear. Keep their mother, work to repair a bond Cinder hadn't even known was broken, or discard her. Replace her with the next best thing. Alarm washes over Cinderpaw, alarm and fear. Would momma throw her away like that? Throw them all away? She couldn't... she couldn't! There was no way she could do something like that! But the resigned resolve in her voice is clear. It's the most real thing in her tone. She would hold herself and her children to their choices, whatever they may be, and that scared Cinderpaw. What if some of them chose to throw all this away? What if, when they were old, they saw how wrong they had been and wanted to reconect? Would momma push them all away? Would she remember their choices as children and hold those decisions over their heads forever?

She doesn't want that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! 'Momma, please..!' Her mind screams, begs for forgiveness for her actions, for how terrible of a daughter she had been, but the words won't come out. It's like her words don't exist anymore. She'd had a limited number of them to use from her birth and now her reserves are empty. Depleated. Gone. She cannot beg forgiveness. Cannot grovel at her momma's feet and proclaim how sorry she is, how she wants everything to be okay, how she's sorry she was ungrateful! She'll change! She'll be better, she swears she will!

Papa starts shouting now, snapping Cinderpaw out of it and she turns wide, watery eyes on him, pulse picking up. He refuted all momma's claims that he was never there for her, proclaiming he was when he could be, wheh she let him be. Cinderpaw doesn't really know what he's talking about, the despair and panic in her mind swirling uncontrollably and messing with her ability to pay attention and analyze the words properly. Her mind works as poorly as her body right now, and there's a twinge of anger she feels about it. If she can't even have her mind, she has nothing - she is nothing.

Darkfall is crying, too, now, tears streaming down his cheeks as he lets out emotions he must have kept inside for moons. Cinder wants to go over to him, to comfort him, but she doesn't. She doesn't let herself move, too afraid that if she tried to help she'd hurt him.

He defends his children from momma's accusation that they're ungrateful, but it doesn't do much to ease the guilt that comment let loose in the small tabby, though the sentiment is nice. And then he's done. Finishing with a small 'I'm sorry.'.

Cinderpaw waits a moment, for a heartbeat when silence surrounds the family, broken, ripped bloody, bruised and raw. She doesn't know what to do. Throughout this, she'd vaguely been able to focus on Heronpaw's comments, small things, but enough that it stung probably as badly as she'd intended it to. Cinder doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what to do. Part of her wants to run, though she knows she won't be able to get very far in her condition.

Bridpaw had been quiet. That was unusual. Watery amber eyes turn to her big sister, taking in the stricken, panicked body language, and a surge of protective sympathy rang through Cinderpaw. But she could not move. Could not get up and shield her big sister from the awful things being said. She wanted to, but she couldn't.

Quietpaw... Quietpaw speaks now. When was the last time Cinder had heard her voice? She didn't think she could sound so... scathing. So apathetic and unremorseful. Had she always harbored these feelings for their parents. She reads their mother to filth, and Cinderpaw doesn't know what shocks her more, the amount of words or the disinterest in which she says them, like she's stating facts about the color, size and ferocity difference between a mouse and a rat.

Cinderpaw sinks to the floor where she is, feeling stuck. She won't leave. She can't leave. She can prove that she's a good daughter! She can make momma and papa proud! She can! Or... maybe she can't. Maybe they'll never be proud of a daughter who ruined her chances at a good life the moment she decided stepping out into the territory alone as a kit was ok. But... but she'd thought she would be safe! Papa said that the warrior code means no one can hurt a kit. That's against the rules. She thought it extended to everything in the forest. She thought... she thought she'd be safe...

But she wasn't safe. Did momma blame her for it? Did momma blame her for becoming defective the way Cinder blamed herself? Is that why... is that why she acted like she didn't want her anymore after their apprentice ceremony? Is that why she's pushing them all away now? She said she'd take on the injury herself - all of their injuries - but did she really mean that..? Or was she just saying as much to butter them up, to get them to believe her so that they'd give in and take the first option of her ultimatum. But was she lying? Cinderpaw can't tell.

She doesn't give an answer, the well of words she used to have had long since dried. She'd thought, for a while after getting hurt, that maybe she did have words, but they would take an enormous effort to come out now - much more effort than she used before, and she'd used a lot of effort before. Now, though? It's like there's nothing to force out. Like she's grasping for prey that isn't there and never has been.

So she cries. It's the only thing she can do.

Alone, in the isolated spot of the den she'd chosen to it in, so close but so far from her family, Cinderpaw cries.

[ only mentioning those who've already posted + estelle //
@Rose - lostma // @Dark - darkdad // @Rani - bleedingkit
// @stag - heronpaw // @Mica - Birdpaw //
@Morrigan - quietpaw // @Estelle - sleepypaw ]