Cattail Pond

[twizzypaw]

In the blink of an eye, Creepingpaw felt himself lose his footing from Shockhoney's impact and fell on his side into the pond with a big splash. Unprepared for the surprise swim lesson, he sputtered underwater from accidentally swallowing some of the water and began thrashing his paws to claw his way to the surface. And it took a whole 5 seconds for him to realize the water was, in fact, not deep enough for him to drown in as his head shot up from the pond. Gasping and coughing, he caught a glimpse of a smiling Shockhoney and laughing Lavendersong. Realizing what happened, Creepingpaw's ears pinned flat to his skull and he climbed out of the pond soaking wet.

"Not... Funny..." He hissed through clenched teeth, shivering from the cold breeze against his wet pelt as slowly padded towards Shockhoney to shake off his pelt in hopes she would get a couple splashes on her as well.

Lavendersong, with a paw lifted to her maw, tried her best to hold back her giggles but to no avail as she busted into roaring laughter. With Creepingpaw's high and mighty attitude, he definitely deserved to get a taste of his own medicine and Lavendersong had no quarrels with that.

"You're right, it was hilarious!" She corrected the apprentice, shooting Shockhoney a nod of approval.


@Rose - Shockhoney

[I haven't signed up! I'll make sure to cross that off when I do lmao]

[BEAR.]

Originally Posted by kittycatburmise

Mallowpaw
95/100

Battle training. Something Mallowpaw hadn't worked much on; she only knew two moves from the event that the Hornets had hosted moons ago. Wolfhive would be teaching her advanced moves as well as the basics; good. At her age she should be learning more than the fundamentals.

Mallowpaw hadn't thought Wolfhive would cover dodging; it was one of those moves you instinctively knew without being taught. But still she watched as her mentor demonstrated, springing to one side before twisting and slicing his paw through the air.

It was her go now, and Mallowpaw imagined an enemy lunging at her. As imaginary claws came towards her, she side-stepped and spun, slashing a sheathed paw across the invisible warrior's flank.

"Good!" Wolfhive purred as Mallowpaw demonstrated the move. "It's a simple move, but can be very effective." A good go-to in a pinch especially. "There's a couple other techniques you can do when your opponent is no longer directly facing you; grabbing their tail and yanking it can knock them off balance or even break the tail if you pull it hard enough, you can put your paw or tail out to trip them up.. Hell, even just slashing at their legs can make moving painful for them." None of this was worth demonstrating, though; just things he wanted Mallowpaw to consider in the future.

"If you're looking to immobilize your opponent.. you can go for breaking their leg. It won't kill them, but it'll put them out of commission for a couple moons." Wolfhive mimicked grabbing a leg and twisting it 'against the grain'. When he was an apprentice, he had a live model - but he got the impression Mallowpaw wouldn't appreciate fighting some random trespasser. So, the point was to give her an idea, even if she never used it - she could if need be. "Go against the momentum and it'll snap, you'll have to put some force into it to do more than a dislocation though. A dislocation would hurt, but might not actually stop them.."

Now onto something a bit more tangible for her. "Some other techniques.." Wolfhive went on to demonstrate things like the front paw blow n rake, playing dead, and scruff shake... but he wanted to move to more of a spar format.

He'd give Mallowpaw a chance to try it all out first, though.

[ @kittycatburmise i hope this makes sense LOL i lost my train of thought / didn't think it was worth describing the book stuff ]

[BEAR.]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Morningpaw
He/him | TC apprentice | Moons: 6 | No purrks

Morningpaw came up to Wolfhive's side slowly, not wanting to spook away the hornet's catches, but wanting to see as he demonstrated the fishing. At first, it seemed like there was nothing happening at all, even though the apprentice knew that the older Tom was waiting for the right time to strike. It was a lot less... time stressed... if that's the right word, compared to normal hunting- at least, that's what he thought before the hornet suddenly shot a paw into the water and in a blink of an eye, a fish was on the bank and Wolfhive was killing the poor thing. Wow. Okay.... that was... Morningpaw could totally do that. The black and orange feline nodded his head at the verbal and shown instructions before turning his green eyed gaze towards the water's surface.

Would all the fish here be spooked after Wolfhive's catch? Morningpaw peered into the water, squinting to try and catch the bodies of the fish through the shaky weird effect of water. Eventually, he did spot something. So Morningpaw raised up a paw... he saw his shadow flicker with the ripples of the water and oh right, he shifted so that it was no longer cast over the space. Luckily he caught the error before the fish was frightened. Though now it was time for the waiting game. He almost wanted to yawn, but that would probably be seen as rude... Morningpaw was just tired, just as he always was.

Eventually, ( after a life time of waiting ), the fish finally came into what the apprentice thought was a fine fishing range and he shot forward with little time to rethink what the hornet said about this part of the hunt. Saly, it resulted in him aiming straight for the fish, rather than under it for a hook. It resulted in Morningpaw simply straight up punching the fish and attempting to hook his claws along its scales but with the poor angle it was futile and the fish slipped away. The black and orange feline sat back with an irritable huff, great, he shook out his wet paw half dramatically with frustration.

"Stupid fish." He cursed the creature as the last of its tail flickered out of sight.

[ @BEAR. - Wolfhive ]

"It just takes practice." Wolfhive purred gently at Morningpaw. "No shame in missing it to start with. Violetfreckle didn't even tell me to aim lower 'n I almost ended up in the water with the damn thing!" Second time was the charm for him, maybe it'd be the same for Morningpaw?

Regardless, Wolfhive went for another fish again. Same thing as before, aim lower and hook, then flip it out of the water and kill it. Though he didn't fish too often, the technique almost felt second-natured to him - similar to hunting on land with less stress. "Uhh... as a warning when you kill it, it's gonna be very cold! Their blood isn't anything like our normal prey."