Open to Join Butterfly in the Sky (14RP21)

Tiptoe through the murk and mire
✧ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ♖ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ✧

Duskmantle padded low through the strange heart of Whitehart, scents thick and foreign. He kept to the edges where shrubs or broken fences offered cover, though even here the air reeked of Twolegs and their strange contraptions.

When his path bent and opened he froze.

A clearing of stone stretched before him rows and rows of tall slabs jutting from the ground their faces carved with unreadable claw marks. The sight alone made his fur prickle, unease sinking into his spine. This was no forest glade, no honest rise of earth. It was something planted, arranged… and wrong. Then he saw her.

A cat...but something else perched atop a stone bench. Duskmantle’s eyes widened as the creature rose, and with her movement, the air seemed to shift around her. Wings, glittering wings draped across her back, shimmering blue and black like a beetle’s shell but soft as a butterflys.

A growl shuddered low in his throat, unbidden, his hackles rising. His claws scraped against the path before he wrenched them free. StarClan’s breath… what manner of beast is this?

The standing stones loomed around her like sentinels, silent and cold, sealing her in. To Duskmantle, it looked a den for the dead.

He drew a step back into the shadow of a tree stump, his breath sharp through his nose. "What are you?" He growled. Cornflower eyes stayed fixed on her, his body poised between fight and flight, every instinct torn between bolting and testing his claws against this almost otherwordly vision.

Tiptoe through the murk and mire
✧ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ♖ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ✧

Duskmantle’s ears flicked, her calm tone cutting strange against the growl that still trembled faint in his chest. His claws eased back into their sheaths, though his stance stayed coiled.

Her words... some sort of sacred shelter - they were not the words of rogues he’d known, nor even the polished airs of Laetitia the day before and sat heavy.

He let out a slow breath through his nose, the fur along his spine flattening a fraction. "Sacred." He echoed, rough and low, as if testing the shape of the word. His gaze swept the towering slabs, hard lines of his face unreadable but for the faint twitch of his whiskers. So much like Highstones...

Her question tugged his eyes back to her and those wings. "Am I alright?" His mouth twisted. "I’ve seen many things but never a cat that wore the sky on her back. You look like something StarClan sent to test me." The admission carried no shame but a blunt edge, though curiosity threaded beneath it.

Duskmantle shifted forward a pace just enough to stand clear of the tree’s shadow. "I’m not from here." He said simply, tail flicking once behind him. Cornflower eyes fixed on her again, steadier now. The fight drained into watchfulness. "Tell me what you are and maybe I’ll tell you what I am."

Tiptoe through the murk and mire
✧ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ♖ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ✧

Duskmantle’s eyes narrowed at her twisting reveal, the shimmer of her cape falling aside to show the tabby fur beneath. The line of his shoulders eased a fractional inch as the truth struck him. Just a cat. Flesh and bone. The illusion only some trick of Twolegs.

"Hn." The sound rumbled low in his chest, not quite laugh, not quite scoff. His gaze flicked over her sharply. "Laetitia carried herself similarly. Are all your kind so odd?" His tone was blunt weighed heavy with suspicion.

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, paws scraping against the gravelly path as he angled toward one of the looming stones. Still, even with his nose close to the carved face of the stone, Duskmantle’s eyes kept sliding back to her. "A keeper of what?" His tail lashed once behind him. "Maybe you keep cats like me who wander too close?"

Cornflower eyes fixed on her again, suspicion and a reluctant kind of intrigue woven in their depth. "You're not the only cat I know who speaks in riddles... But if you mean no harm, then say it plainly." One more step passed the stones. He was stalking closer so that they may both get a better look at one another. Perhaps this place indeed has some mystical aspect to them...

"Duskmantle. My name is Duskmantle." He spoke plainly enough.

Tiptoe through the murk and mire
✧ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ♖ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ✧

Duskmantle’s ears twitched, the faintest shift betraying the ripple through him at her last words. He did not answer immediately. Instead, his gaze cut to the nearest stone again, as though the carved faces might hold an answer he’d missed before.

"StarClan approved of my name. I had little to no choice in the matter." the words came rough, low, as if testing its weight. His tail lashed once, then stilled. "I've shed three names before this one." He turned his eyes back to Morgan, sharp against the soft gleam of her butterfly cape. 'But...no. I haven't really seen myself. A glance in a murky puddle, perhaps, but I suspect I look like a cat."

His whiskers twitched once, then stilled again, his expression tight but not hostile. "But if you mean what you say, then keep this. I am looking for someone." His voice dipped lower, a growl threading beneath the words. Duskmantle’s gaze softened a fraction as he added. "A cat...that used to be close to me."

The air stirred faintly through the cemetery trees. He lifted his nose toward it, breathing in the mingled scents of stone, dust, and faint flowers. He sighed, his tail dipping with the futility of it all. "As you've said. You keep secrets...Or things 'entrusted' to you." He paused mid step before his toes covered the earth again, prowling around the topic. His thoughts shifted, mentally turning and testing.

"I could describe him to you."

Tiptoe through the murk and mire
✧ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ♖ ⭒ ♦ ⭒ ✧

Duskmantle’s whiskers twitched, the barest hint of a scoff caught between breath and silence. Praise for his name sat oddly on his shoulders. Never something he’d sought, nor wanted, yet hearing it spoken so simply without weight or expectation tugged faintly at him. His ears flicked back then forward again as his gaze locked on Morgan.

"They chose well?" His voice was low, sharp at the edges, though a bit more subdued. "I suppose it does suit. Easy to dress a shadow in words." His tail brushed the earth once before settling again.

For a moment, his thoughts drifted to Highstones. There was no room for argument in that light. No freedom either unless he somehow achieved something that would warrant another exhausting name change.

His jaw tightened, but then his shoulders eased with a slow exhale. "You and StarClan may share a similar taste then." A flicker of dry amusement touched his tone, there and gone.

He dipped his head once, conceding the moment before pressing on. "As for the cat I seek… He's a rusted red tom with a paler, tawny body...With two different colored eyes. One green and one gold."

His gaze lingered on her butterfly cape as he spoke, the strange shimmer of its shifting colors pulling at the corners of memory in half forgotten days before the clans had taken him.