petals for the stars [vigil; solo]

She’d always found it easy to be quiet, to stay small and out of sight; her larger-than-average size and dark fur should have made it difficult, but to her it was simply the way she was. What came easiest to her.

To stand before the Clan and receive her warrior name… That was difficult. She didn’t care to be the center of everyone’s attention, no matter the occasion, even if it was a moment of pride and celebration.

Keeping a silent vigil would be easy for her. It gave her time to think as she kept a watchful gaze on the camp’s entrance, time to reflect on her new place and her new name.

Mistflower.

She had been Mistpaw for so long, she didn’t know what to think of it. But it was a nice name, she supposed.

Mistflower.

It was pretty, bringing to mind images of shimmering, misty petals; ethereal and ephemeral. She liked flowers, always keeping an eye out for them on the forest floor whenever she ventured out of camp.

They fascinated her, a beautiful sign of life to replace the melting snow. The meltwater from the ice was still as cold, and there had been a lingering chill in the air so early in the season, but they blossomed anyway.

She knew she was mist, had been born as near-invisible in spirit if not in appearance. She wasn't sure how to be flower.

She tried to picture it in her mind, what a mistflower should be. It was tall and ethereal without taking up space; with soft, wispy petals that seemed to glow beneath the night sky, though they were almost invisible in daylight.

But they weren't real at all, except that maybe they existed somewhere in the stars, and she was very much real.

She felt the earth beneath her paws, both soft and solid. She felt the breeze in her fur, light and airy, and heard clearly all the sounds of SkyClan's camp. It was never truly quiet, with someone always awake and often some degree of conversation, but it was easy enough to tune out.

She didn't try to do so now. Instead she listened, and contemplated her place.

This was her home. Where she was born, if not where she was raised, and while she had been apprenticed at Fourtrees, it was here and now that she was named as a warrior.

It was her home, and she had a place within it. She often felt separate, distant, as if she were a bird that happened to be cat-shaped and had been somehow misplaced. But that wasn't quite right. Stoneheart was her sister, and Stoneheart was a warrior and not a bird at all.

She was a part of SkyClan, and they were a part of her. Even if she watched from a distance, she wasn’t entirely separate. She joined Foxtrot on occasion, followed her sister where she could, spending some time somewhere in the vicinity of the nursery to watch over kits. She considered all of that for a moment, deciding that maybe it was like the trees that covered their territory: each one stood tall and proud, but together they formed a forest.

And she knew she wasn't a tree, but she thought of her imagined mistflowers again. Maybe she was one of those after all, sometimes difficult to see but ever-present, glowing softly in the shadow of the forest. Not quite the same, not as strong and not as proud, but a part of things nonetheless.

And maybe the flowers would sway even in light breezes while the trees stayed perfectly still, just like she wavered in confidence and drive more often than the cats around her, and maybe that was alright.