username: coppercanary
clan: snowy peaks name: cherry
age: 127 moons
gender: trans female
prompt:Sometimes, the sky was blue, bluer even than the azure hue of Cherryโs fur. He liked to sit and watch the clouds chase each other across the sky on those days, with the cool mountain breeze to pierce his coat and clear his mind. That was when everything made sense. When it was just him, the cliffs, and the clouds. Those were the days for thinking.
Sometimes, the sky was pink, not quite the same pink as Cherryโs patches but pink all the same. In the pink moments he felt warm, restful, loving and loved. The sun would clear the shadows and he could feel himself filling with joy and hope for the future.
Mostly, though, the sky was grey. Not the snowy-white of Cherryโs paws or a fluffy cloud scudding across the horizon, but a stormy grey, a grey of unease and uncertainty and pain that could so easily give way to depression. Cherry was no stranger to these episodes, days where he could scarcely leave his nest for the weight that bore him down and turned his body to stone for reasons he could never quite explain. But the sky would eventually clear, as it always did, and he would return to his perch to watch the sky fade from glacier blue to camellia pink, and once more be at peace with the world.
On blue days, thinking days, Cherry would think about many things. About how the snow was melting later or earlier this year, or about how the cold made his bones stiffen up. Sometimes other things too. About the way he felt as if his peers were talking about someone else when they discussed him. About how he sometimes hid a flinch when they referred to him as
he or as a
tom, though what that meant he couldnโt say. He knew that sometimes the younger ones realised they werenโt what everyone thought they were, that they were actually toms or she-cats, or something else. But if Cherry were like that, surely heโd have noticed by now? He wasnโt exactly young anymore, and sometime soon heโd head into the eldersโ den - really, that day was long overdue.
But maybe, just maybe, these things didnโt have a time limit. Maybe Cherry could be old and still discover something new.
That night, as she headed to her den, Cherryโs paws felt a little lighter.
and congrats SkyWishes!
