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Poppy.
It’s the first thing Poppykit’s small, fluffy kitten ears hear, and it’s almost the last thing she hears too.
But Poppypaw’s fur isn’t soft like kit-fur anymore. Her pelt has thinned out as she’s aged, and her appearance has started to change. It’s not like anyone would have noticed besides Poppypaw anyways— no one bothers to pay attention.
Jaypaw calls her name, but it feels like her head is submerged in water and he’s on the shore. She can hear him, but not clearly, and she almost wants to block it out. She’s gotten sick of the word Poppy. Its lost it’s meaning as time passes, and Poppypaw, who used to love her name, finds it now irritating to hear.
Someoene else called Poppypaw’s name before she slipped into sleep— someone before Jaypaw. She can’t remember who. Maybe her mother, or maybe her father, perhaps even her sisters. They act like they care, but Poppypaw still feels like they don’t, even in what seems to be her final moments.
Poppypaw stares at the starry sky in front of her. The clan of stars. Poppypaw tries to remember the proper name for the place, but her memory has been foggy recently with her illness, and she doesn’t bring much effort to try to remember.
Jaypaw calls her name again. Poppy! Poppy! Poppypaw doesn’t hear the other words he says, only that single word.
Yet soon, Jaypaw brings her elsewhere, and she’s back awake in her nest, no longer seeing stars. Jaypaw says the word again, Poppy. But this time Poppypaw’s head hears it more clearly.
- - - - -
“Cinderkit, you were named after a very brave cat.” Poppykit yawns as Sorreltail speaks, she’s heard this story plenty of times being told to her sister. It’s getting old, and Poppykit wants some attention to herself. It may seem selfish, but Poppykit doesn’t talk a lot, so perhaps others wouldn’t mind if she finally spoke interest in something in order to be noticed.
“What was I named for?” She asks her mother, her tone in a mumble. Sorreltail flicks her tail, glancing away from Cinderkit and instead bringing her full attention to Poppykit. Poppykit is happy to see her mother staring at her and no one else. It wasn’t like Sorreltail and Brackenfur were bad parents or anything— but with four kits it was hard for them to get one on one time with every one of them, and Poppykit was happy that whatever Sorreltail would say— it would be about Poppykit— no one else but her.
”You were named after the flower, poppy. Poppies. Poppies are a symbol of remembrance, a way to remember those we have lost and those who are still with us during hard times.”
Poppy. Poppy. Poppy.
- - - - -
If poppies were for remembrance, like Sorreltail told her they were, Poppyfrost wonders why she continues to not be remembered.
After she recovered from greencough as an apprentice, she’s been no worry for anyone. But she didn’t want anyone worrying over her, she just wanted someone to talk to. People probably assumed Poppyfrost didn’t want to talk, since she didn’t open her mouth often. But Poppyfrost had plenty to say, yet she just doesn’t know how to do so.
Poppyfrost reflects. Who’d she used to talk to anyways? When she was an early apprentice, it was Cinderpaw, Honeypaw, and Molepaw. But then Molepaw went to the clan of the stars, and it was never the same.
- - - - -
“You guys are so slow, this is why toms are better than she-cats!” Molepaw sprints ahead across camp, getting glares from warriors as he does so. Poppypaw follows shortly behind him, with Honeypaw behind her and Cinderpaw in the very back.
“Toms are not better than she-cats.” Honeypaw hisses, running after her brother. Poppypaw is still the closest to her brother however, and she runs, doing her best to catch up.
Poppypaw doesn’t think she has a chance. Molepaw is fast— and now she is going to loose the race.
But then Molepaw stops in his tracks, his claws clinging to dirt. He erupts into a coughing fit, and Poppypaw surpasses him, reaching the camp exit— their finish line.
”Ha! Told you your sisters could beat you any day!” Cinderpaw says teasingly, however Poppypaw doesn’t say anything. Molepaw chokes on nothing but air, and he doesn’t look okay. Poppypaw trails back to go over to her brother, only to be stopped by her mentor, Thornclaw.
”What are you four doing? I know you were only apprenticed yesterday, but you can’t be running around like this and causing each other to spit into coughs from being reckless mouse-brains. If I told Firestar about this, he would send you right back to the nursery.” Thornclaw glares at all of them, but Poppypaw especially, and she swears she can feel his eyes burning into her tortishell pelt.
- - - - -
That isn’t the last time Molepaw coughs. He coughs, and coughs, until eventually he doesn’t have enough energy to cough anymore, and then doesn’t even have enough energy to wake up from slumber.
Poppyfrost remembers the last time Molepaw tried to say her name. Molepaw didn’t make it through the whole name— only making out Poppy before brutal coughs interrupted him.
She wonders how Cinderheart and Honeyfern forgot so quickly. How they grieved and then moved on so fast.
Poppy. A symbol of remembrance.
- - - - -
Suddenly, Poppyfrost has multiple cats to remember.
A snake. There was a snake and there was rocks and there was Berrynose and there Honeyfern was also happy and laughing and then—
And the Poppyfrost never heard her sister laugh again. And then she was dead, gone into the clan of stars, and there was nothing she could do to bring her back.
She could only remember. Only remember as the stupid word poppy rings over and over in her ears again. Now, Poppyfrost wished she had asked what Molepaw and Honeyfern were named for, but she figured that if she dared to ask now her mother and father would break down in tears.
- - - - -
Berrynose says he loves her. It’s a lie.
It’s a lie because Poppyfrost knows he sees Honeyfern in her, and Poppyfrost knows far too much about remembrance to believe Berrynose has forgotten her sister already.
And if it really was the truth, Poppyfrost wouldn’t want it to be, because she doesn’t think it is morally correct to move on that fast when grieving for someone.
But as she watches the rest of her clan, she assures herself it is a lie, because who would ever love a silly Poppy like her?
- - - - -
Yet Poppyfrost gives in, and now her belly is swollen with kits. Because Poppyfrost wants to be loved, and even though she knows Berrynose’s love is fake, it still feels nice to have someone at least pretend to care.
But the remembrance stings and images of Honeyfern getting bitten by that snake flash in Poppyfrost’s brain over and over again, so she runs, just like how she did when she raced Molepaw, and brings herself to the entrance to the clan of stars.
The pool is just as she imagined it, bright and starry and magical. Poppyfrost thinks it will work if she drinks it, she had already been to the clan of stars anyways as a dying apprentice, what difference would it make if she was a warrior now? Perhaps she wasn’t dying physically, but maybe she was mentally, and maybe that was good enough to let her enter the clan of stars to say at least something to Honeyfern.
And then she sees Jaypaw— No, Jayfeather now— as she is no longer a dying, coughing apprentice but instead a sad, scared warrior.
The rest was a blur. There was a black cat with the stench of the clan that hunts rabbits— Poppyfrost can’t remember the name at the moment, perhaps it was something like the clan of wind— and a intimidating spirit cat who wants to hurt her and Jayfeather and she can’t do anything about it.
Jayfeather saves her (although he says Hoenyfern did). He saves her from slipping into the grasp of the clan of the stars for a second time, and tells her Honeyfern approves of her relationship with Berrynose, and that Berrynose really does love her, but Poppyfrost finds that hard to believe, because would loves a Poppy? A Poppy, stuck in the past, stuck remembering.
- - - - -
Jayfeather cares for her now. He saved her twice, and now he seems to be trying to save her a third time, because he notices how Poppyfrost struggles, and finally isn’t just another who forgets. Berrynose, although supportive, doesn’t seem to really fit Poppyfrost, and she’s fine with it. She doesn’t need him to care for her anymore, she has Jayfeather.
Yet she still doesn’t understand why he cares at all.
The medicine den is silent. Poppyfrost had came in for a check up on her pregnancy, however it turned into her and Jayfeather having a long conversation as they lately had been doing, and suddenly they laid next to each other, sharing tongues, no longer having anything more to say.
But Poppyfrost realizes she does has more to say. She isn’t a silent kit anymore— she has someone to listen.
”Why would you ever love a Poppy?”
Jayfeather stares at her, confused.
”Why would you ever love a Jay?”
And Poppyfrost could give a thousand reasons why she loves a Jay. Suddenly, she realizes a Jay could probably give a thousand reasons why it loves a Poppy.
She wasn’t alone anymore. She was remembered.
- - - - -
When Poppyfrost gives birth to her two kits, she doesn’t let Berrynose name them, and he understands. She needs to think carefully about their names.
She needs to think carefully about their names so that when they ask about the origin of their names they are satisfied with the answer their mother gives them.
”Molekit.” A Mole. For someone that had been remembered, no matter how far in the past they were. But it was a name with originality— a name that wasn’t just one cat’s name— but many cats names. Because everyone Poppy had lost through out her life, they were all just as valuable as Molepaw, and so would her kits. They would be valuable and loved and kind and happy and all that Poppyfrost ever hoped any cat could be.
”Cherrykit.” A Cherry. A symbol of love and beauty. Poppyfrost promised her kits would forever feel loved, forever feel cared for, forever feel remembered. Forever feel that they were beautiful, no matter their fur. Forever feel that they were their own cat, and that they were always loved no matter who their own cat may be.
- - - - -
Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy. Poppy.
Poppies are a symbol of remembrance, a way to remember those we have lost and those who are still with us during hard times.