It was so weird being here again.. everything felt so familiar, but so off too.
So familiar that Larchflame could almost feel her paws falling in line with one steps she had taken moons ago, leading her back to camp, but as they arrived with the sinkhole in its place she couldn't help feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Right." she meowed in agreement to Alderstep, both about the not-falling-in thing and about splitting up. She looked at the two toms for a moment, Alderstep better take his own advice, I don't want to be getting my ear shredded by Bumblestar if he winds up dead. The calico decided to make her way to the right of the abyssal pit, keeping her mouth open a little to check for scents. There was a faint smell of mice along with that of a vole, though the voles was pretty faint, so she began following the mouses' scent trail.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by navarra (Post 1458979) Since Larchflame had gone right, Alderstep went left, trailing after that rodent smell. Wariness kept him on guard, but he took care not to tense up to either cause himself pain or ruin his hunting form. With realistic goals set, he wanted to catch at least two things on this patrol. So, as the mouse scent hit his senses, he went into the dead-to-the-world-except-for-yummy-animals mode, determination powering him forward to catch the stupid itty-bitty creature. Well, not stupid, he supposed. Mice could be smart, by their standards. If they had those. Alderstep frowned down at the now-dead mouse, giving up a moment later. Who cares, the mice tasted good and so he was going to continue catching them. Onwards to the second, yeah? Alderstep prowled the ruins, having cached his previous catch where he'd caught it. It was difficult to separate the scents left behind by the previous mouse, and so it took some time until Alderstep finally caught wind of something new: mole. His attention tunneled to just that, focus sharp as usual. Mouse and mole; the two m's of yummy. He felt like screeching when his tedious searching was halted by the fact that the mole scent went into one of those little holes the pests made. It was like the mole was trying to imitate the giant abyss, pitifully. Alderstep chose to play the boring waiting game, wanting nothing more than to start digging up the rodent. If only that tactic was foolproof. After what felt like moons, the mole made an appearance, which was an ultimately fatal mistake. Alderstep snatched the rodent up, barely a chance given. Two pieces of prey, done. Content, the tabby fetched his mouse and carried the two fresh-kill back to where he'd come from, ready to meet with Larchflame and head back. @Apollo. [+ 1 mouse, 1 mole]

| Larchflame |
( aaa sorry my reply took so long!! )

The mouse trail seemed to be the right choice, as not long after beginning to follow it she was met by a woodland mouse upwind of her, peacefully nibbling a kind of seed. Creeping up slowly, the mouse was none the wiser, only just noticing the warriors presence when her shadow covered the sun before her paws landed squarely on top of it. Hardly letting the mouse scream from terror Larchflame delivered a killing bite, putting the creature out of its misery before it had to suffer too much, however it seemed as though the tiny cut-off screech it managed to let out spooked another mouse into running nearly right into her claws from a nearby bush.

She was quick to react, slamming her paw down on it's tail as it ran by, but not quite quick enough, as not even a heartbeat later it had wiggled itself free and bolted into a tiny mouse hole to her left. Larchflame hissed in annoyance, it would've been an easy catch, the thing ran into her for starclans sake! Her tail flicked with irritation as she picked up the mouse she had caught and began to circle back around to the old camp entrance, there'd be a bird or something over there.

Sure enough a small blackbird was resting in a small oak tree, with low hanging branches. Larchflame made swift work of climbing the tree careful to only take larger steps that might send vibrations through the branch when the breeze passed by, as to not alert the bird. The blackbird was on a thinner part of the tree, but that didn't deter her. Once she reached the same branch that it sat on she coiled up before taking a big leap. Instead of aiming for the bid itself she aimed just past it, off the branch, bracing for the impact of falling with her jaws open to catch the bird on her way by. Larchflames plan mostly worked, she snagged the blackbirds wing in her maw as it tried to fly away, but she hadn't accounted for the blackbird squirming this much, so she landed awkwardly on her left forepaw. Yikes, she thought to herself, examining her injured paw after delivering the killing blow to her prey. I'm gonna feel this tomorrow.. she winced, testing to see how much weight she could put on it.

She was fine, she could still walk, though she ought to get Drizzlecloud or Springpaw to check it out when she got back to camp. Retrieving her mouse from earlier she continued making her way back to meet up with Alderstep, trying to shift her balance according to her paw.

[ + 1 mouse, + 1 blackbird ]