burnetpoppy

"

chamomilepetal's pregnancy was complicated. stubborn, the she-cat refused to retire to the nursery until shortly before her projected kitting date in the dead of leaf-bare; and the medicine cat uttered this as the reason why, when her large litter of four were born, they were all born frail and sickly.

toadwhisker, their father, pleaded with her to rest now in the nursery, to which chamomilepetal haughtily sniffed and curtly agreed. she named her only daughter petalkit in her namesake, and the three toms boragekit, burnetkit, and thymekit.

their first night, both boragekit and thymekit passed away while chamomilepetal was asleep. she woke to them cold and still. she grew desperate, frantically coddling the tiny petalkit. when toadwhisker would enter to check on them, he grew frustrated with his mate when he noted burnetkit being excluded from her coddling.

two suns later, and petalkit, too, had passed away in the night. chamomilepetal woke up distraught to find the only female kit still and cold, leaving burnetkit in the care of another queen while she went out to personally bury her daughter. toadwhisker came in during this, and while burnetkit couldn't quite understand or comprehend the idea of him yet other than warmth and safe - slept with him that night.

tentatively, as though burnetkit might bite at her, chamomilepetal tolerated burnetkit at best as he opened his eyes and his ears unfolded. toadwhisker was resigned, beseeching his mate to be kind to their last living kit - his kit as much as hers.

chamomilepetal eventually did warm to him, albeit was nowhere near as doting to him as she was to petalkit - and toadwhisker noticed. they would bicker over burnetkit, who could only stare dumbly up and wonder why they were meowing so loudly and sharply.

as he grew older and larger chamomilepetal began to 'warm' to him: teaching him tradition and many, many rules - far more than his denmates had. do not leave the nursery before sunhigh, be back before the sun descends. always let mother eat first. don't roughhouse with the other kits in the nursery. burnetkit grew frustrated, but soon felt awful for feeling so angry about it; she was only looking out for him, wasn't he? but his denmates would always sigh when he said he couldn't play with them because his mother had said so.

the clan leader came into the den while burnetkit was asleep, asking to speak to chamomilepetal outside. she ceded, and he informed her quietly that a scramble had happened to the border patrol, and a battle had broken out with tensions high while prey was still staggeringly thin despite newleaf's arrival. toadwhisker had been badly hurt, and was getting treated. chamomilepetal did not return until late that night, with sharp blood-scent on her paws. she bluntly told burnetkit that toadwhisker had just died in the medicine cat's care.

burnetkit was shocked, crying out to want to go and see him, but chamomilepetal forbid it and told him to go back to sleep.

when he woke up that morning, toadwhisker's body had already been taken out to burial.

with only his mother now, burnetkit naturally flocked to her, despite his unease that she said was trivial to feel, for she was his mother. she provided for him. and he leant into this notion, clutching it like a crutch for she was all that he had.

near his sixth moon, chamomilepetal began to prattle on about how she could not trust any clanmate to properly train her last living kit. come the day of his apprenticeship in the middle of greenleaf, the clan was stunned to see that chamomilepetal had been given charge of burnetpaw's training, having apparently coerced the leader into allowing her to train her kit.

burnetpaw was not a... talented apprentice, from the get-go. it took him suns to become adjusted to the movement being an apprentice demanded, after being confined to the nursery and from play for so much of his kithood. he was gangly, with larger paws and ears than other apprentices, which chamomilepetal gave him grief for.

he fell behind in battle practice, so much so that the kits after him caught up to him despite being two moons younger.

one training session turned especially sour when burnetpaw had fumbled his pounce, skidding down in front of his mother and mentor with his whole belly exposed - which could have killed him in true battle. with a frustrated sigh chamomilepetal swatted him upside the cheek and grunted, "it should have been petalkit to live; she would have the resolve to do well in training."

burnetpaw was stunned, taken aback and hurt; he had known of his mother's grief for the sister he never knew, but never knew it was to such an extreme extent. they wrapped up training soon after when his hurt translated into his performance, and chamomilepetal gave up and sent him home while she hunted. the other apprentices were surprised when they saw him re-enter camp alone, tail dragging. they tried to cheer him up with some fresh hare since they had finished with the elders and kits, but he softly denied and went immediately to sleep. he slept almost half a sun.

it seemed that breaking that barrier allowed chamomilepetal to make it something worth remembering whenever burnetpaw wasn't effective in training. when he pounced too soon, when his rabbit was too small, when his haunch wasn't twisted just so. he didn't grow numb to it, per say, but accustomed; and began to believe it would have been better if it had been petalkit to grow up, maybe. then his mother would be happy as she deserved to be.

it took burnetpaw two extra moons of training, after failing his first warrior assessment. the knowledge that his mother was there, critiquing him, judging his abilities and his worth in the shadows while he performed the mandatory tasks of his exam -- it was too much, and he fumbled his hunt, losing a large quail that would have fed numerous cats that leaf-bare.

he succeeded on his second attempt at his exam, however, and was named burnetpoppy by the leader that night.

that cold leaf-bare night, it snowed. it snowed lightly and delicately, icing his sensitive nose and settling on his large ears. it was so quiet then, during his vigil, without his mother to hover over him and hen his posture.

it was nice, but oh-so short-lived as the sun emerged, and as did the clan from their dens.

hazelheather's early warriorhood is relatively typical for a warrior. at first, she receives a bit of imposter syndrome among the clan's warriors, especially when daisydew is so cozy with barleybush. she overcomes this feat, however, when egretpaw and her littermates become warriors not too long after, coming into the warriors' ranks as egretswan, ryerunner, and martendance - though hazelheather only really cared for the sake of egretswan, knowing how chiding her siblings could be. she was just relieved that they were finally at equal rank again, always being two strides behind her friend every leg of the way up to then.

juniperfang passes away during a battle with thunderclan trying to save gopherstar's life only a few moons after being appointed deputy. despite herself, hazelheather cannot feel too distraught by the loss as more than a warrior could grieve their deputy falling. daisydew, on the other paw, was stricken, resorting not to confide in hazelheather but to barleybush. she didn't really mind, ignoring the sting in her chest.

however, hazelheather was elated when gopherstar, in his progressively old age, elected egretswan to be his successor. whatever envy she might have felt for gopherstar's choice was nullified, knowing that her friend was going to do good things for windclan in gopherstar's wake. but that elation is a guise, shielding the envy that her friend - hardly older than her and already having trained an apprentice in cherryhop while hazelheather was left with none - was already going places. she hoped, still, that when egretswan became leader, she would elect hazelheather as her second-in-command. she had to.

greencough sweeps windclan, and cowbud, the old medicine cat, passes away and his apprentice frecklehare steps up to become the sole medicine cat.

soon after, not even a full season-- gopherstar is found dead in his den by frecklehare. hazelheather mourns the loss of the clan's long-term leader, having respected his stringent method of handling clan affairs and proving windclan's valor to the rest of the lake. when frecklehare takes egretswan to the moonpool, hazelheather prepares to be elected deputy when her friend returns.

when egretswan comes home with the new name of egretstar, hazelheather readily joins in the meeting she calls in her wake. however, she's stricken with dismay, hurt, and frustration when egretstar elects not hazelheather to be her deputy, but ferretflurry. that night she considers storming up into egretswan's new den and questioning why it wasn't her, but seeing how weary she was after the moonpool, failed to have the heart to do so. so she turned away, tail lashing.

daisydew announces to windclan that she's expecting barleybush's kits. hazelheather's indifferent to the news, if not a bit disappointed in her sister for bitter internal reasons. it was silly to be upset about, but they'd sworn as kits they'd never let themselves be like their mother.

two moons later daisydew has her kits, two, meadowkit and sporekit, just like juniperfang had. hazelheather is bemused by this, and a little concerned, noting the similarities between daisydew and juniperfang's prim manner of mothering. however, her sister appears to be very doting and almost overprotective of her kits - so she lets it lay. she just hopes that daisydew doesn't expect her to be an active part of their lives as their kin - and fortunately, she doesn't.

a blizzard overtakes the lake, cold and callous and cruel. snow piles up in the hollows of the moor and it takes constant upkeep to prevent their own camp from being flooded with the stuff. wildstar of riverclan dispatches a patrol to windclan to tell them that the gathering is cancelled that moon, as the log to the gathering island is overtaken with snow. she notes on patrols that thunderclan's scent on the border is remarkably faint, even with all the snow.

the snow eventually dies down and settles half a moon later, just in time for daisydew's kits to become apprentices. meadowpaw comes a warrior apprentice while sporepaw becomes frecklehare's apprentice, which bemuses hazelheather, as the squirrely medicine cat had hardly been his own cat for a year since cowbud's unfortunate death.

time daisydew returns to the warriors' den, as prim and proper as ever, it's as if she's an entirely different cat. somehow, she became even more uppity while caring for kits for six moons, and hazelheather decides she wants nothing to do with this judgmental cat that daisydew has become. she worries that her friends in windclan begin to shrivel, wondering who's been there for her as passionately as she's been for them in her life, doubting their intention and truthfulness.