Post by feeling kinda blue on Mar 3, 2016 15:13:12 GMT
Heronpaw really wished this conversation would be over. Otterfang made her skin crawl and her stomach somersault and not in a good way. It was annoying though because when she started talking he actually had this stupid ernest expression on his face like he actually cared about the answer. Maybe not as ernest was her sisters could be but Heronpaw got the point. For whatever reason the dark brown tom was interested. Invested in what she of all cats had to say. StarClan's whiskers this day couldn't get any weirder. Still, Heronpaw had said her piece and now the skinny she-cat was hoping Otterfang would leave her be. Maybe he'd tut at her for being rude, take back his promise not to tell Firestorm about her eating the rabbit and go stomping back to camp to tattle like a new apprentice. Really, she expected it. It wouldn't be jarring or even vaguely rude, just typical. Warriors never listened to apprentices, not really. Heronpaw was pretty sure most of them saw apprentices as slightly bigger kits and treated them as such with very few exceptions.
'How do you get treated?'
The question took Heronpaw by surprise. Emerald eyes blinked slowly at Otterfang as it registered, the words playing on a loop in her mind. How do you get treated? It when round and round. For a moment, Heronpaw thought it simply odd and flicked her ears curiously at Otterfang. How did she get treated? She supposed like everyone else. Firestorm was alright, he tended to listen to her when she brought troubles to him though his solutions weren't always helpful. Her siblings were alright though she didn't really know how to talk to them anymore. Since they'd left the nursery it felt like a canyon had opened up between them. Heronpaw didn't know where it came from or even if it was real but she could feel it. Her parents were alright, if detached from her life. Her grandmother was...okay. Everything was...okay. Alright. A bit boring...but that was life. She tried and failed and got frustrated, got tutted at for being frustrated, told off for being angry, hissed at about her hot temper. Firestorm liked to remind her she'd get hurt someday trying to do everything herself. It was normal though...right?
"I don't know," Heronpaw said finally, shrugging her scrawny shoulders and stepping to the side to walk past Otterfang. She couldn't have this conversation standing still, the nervousness in her long limbs wouldn't allow it. She flicked her brown tail for Otterfang to follow. "Like everyone else I guess." Heronpaw kept her gaze away from Otterfang though she could see his darker frame following in her peripheral vision. Instead of looking at him her green gaze tracked the ground under their paws, pillows of lush moss and beds of blooming heather, the occasional sprout of yellow gorse. "Don't do this, don't act that way, don't say those things. You should be nicer, you should be smarter, you should be faster, you should be prettier." Why was she telling him this? "You get used to people saying what you should do and what you can't do and how you should be. It's confusing when you can't be those things but eventually they stop saying it."
Wrinkling her nose at all of this emotional talk the patch-pelted she-cat listened to a hawk scream overhead as it hunted rabbits farther out on the warren. Why was she even telling him these things? It was too emotional. Too personal.
"Are we done talking about this? It's nauseating," Heronpaw grumbled, setting off a brisker pace, determinedly glaring at the horizon line instead of at Otterfang.
Notes: grumpy heron is grumpy
Word count: 618
Tagged: @twotone
