after no longer than a few moments, in which he had been watching the water and his surroundings carefully, ribcage expanding and contracting at a slower and slower pace as he caught his breath, pelt still wet and no where near damp yet, rookfire slid back into the water smoothly. following his brief consideration to try and dive to retrieve sticks and what not from the bottom of the pond he decided against the opening eyes part of it. stars with his luck he'd catch some kind of mean infection from the sludge of water he was currently moving within. head dipping under water with far less hesitation than he had ever approached a tree to climb, he blindly moved straight ahead, ignoring the sticks and algae pulling his back and only coming up to gasp for air once, until front paws hit the other side of the ponds shore. determined to make it through without gasping for breath again he let his body go limp, floating in the water vaguely due to the paws still bumping the ground every once in a while, head under water and attempting to imagine how long he would take to the other side. with his eyes shut, he pelt vulnerable and every moment seemed to pass slower than the last, only pushed forward by the knowledge that he was doing something useful and important. lungs feeling wrung dry of air by the time he broke the water tension again he backed up and onto where he could stand again to catch his breath before proceeding. this time pushing off the waterlogged part of the riverbank he had been resting on to gain some advantage at his little battle against the water and his lungs.
surprisingly, or unsurprisingly depending on how much hope and trust one post on rooks back, the made it. some would say barely by the way he was panting, gasping for air to fill his burning lungs once more, but he would definitely disagree with that. this was all part of the plan and he was not struggling. i mean, why would you even say that?... pulling himself out of the water again, the dark furred medicine cat apprentice shook all the water he could out of thick two coloured pelt, previously stuck slight to his body and now standing spikey in every direction under the sun. speaking of the sun, due to the lack of it present at this moment in time, in combination with the thick canopy spanning above his head, rookfire decided to take the time grooming most of the water out of his pelt instead of trusting his surroundings to dry him off on the way back. white tipped ear flicking back and forth and eyes taken off his pelt every once in a while to observe his surroundings, he suffered through the foul taste on his tongue. hard pieces algae and mud flooding his maw with small rocks, grinding between his teeth like he had taken a big bite out of riverclans sand covered beach for whatever reason. except for the fact that this didnt taste salty, just..green and yucky. which was arguably not much better than the salty oceanwater he was at most vaguely familiar with and only ever spelled at moon high gathering anymore. not something he complained about in any capacity. he didnt need the salty water drying out his pelt or the sand between his teeth and making his skin itch beneath his pelt. he needed nothing riverclan had to offer and him swimming was not a sign that he was missing anything.. stars.
after taking the time to go into swimming once more, the former enforcer and relatively recently named medic had taken it upon himself to go through all his skills one by one over the next moon or so. swimming, climbing again because he was still bad at it and afraid he might die just looking at a tree, fishing because why not, no hunting because stars above he had hunted enough for a life time during the darn event with far too many rounds he had hosted with sleepysunrise and briarsplash, flaying and whatever he could do for stealth. this time was to be dedicated to flaying because he did not feel like getting his paws wet, perhaps fishing would have to be postponed until new leaf...they didnt need prey now anyway. the medic existed camp, it was still early so there were barely any cats lingering around camp and those who did had no business caring about where he was going or anything. some time alone was nice and while he still couldnt really find his way to liking hunting, he could appreciate the effort it took to practice flaying due to the additional effort needed for tracking and catching the prey first.
after a while of aimlessly wandering shadowclan forest, rookfire actively picked up the first scent he caught, having more or less ignored everything before now, rabbit, one of the animals he was confident could be flayed the exact same way as the squirrels mistlewhisker had demonstrated on and he had attempted for the very first time. low to the ground in a practice hunters crouch, the dark furred medic followed the scent to a clearing before inching closer and closer slowly. readying himself to leap at it and- stepping on a twig. as quickly as a rubber band snapping under too much pressure, the rabbit was off and rookfire right after it, delivering a good chase before the rabbit had to admit defeat beneath large white paws and blood coated fangs.
rookfire grabbed the rabbit by the scruff, leaving a small puddle of blood tinting the forest ground a deep red behind, and dragging it along as he moved backwards until he found a spot nestled between a tree and a dense bush and finally let go of it. perched on his hind legs, rookfire shifted the rabbit until it rested on its back, soft stomach bared to him and ready to be seperated from its flesh by sharp claws. claws out, rookfire took his right front paw to hold down the head, overflexing it backwards before puncturing it to the right, drawing his claw along a imaginary line and severing the skin connected with the rabbits head from that of its stomach. then he made a cut up around the middle of each leg right where it goes from fleshy to boney to avoid ripping the pelt. from there he made a incision along both hind legs and straight through its stomach. shifting to stand on the rabbits hind legs, the yanked the fur upwards and towards the head with a considerable amount of force, not enough to tear the skin but enough to separate it from the flesh. rookfire repeated the motion a couple of times, changing positions to keep the rabbit down as he moved up before pulling the skin over its head.
the last step he knew to do was arguable the hardest, to flatten down the skin and round the edges, cut odd corners from the part be had separated the boney leg part from the more fleshy bit, before he wandered to the nearest water source to scratch the last of the flesh from the skin and wash out the rabbits mousey brown fur that had gotten a bit bloody in the process.
after washing blood, flesh and skin from the rabbits pale brown fur rookfire placed it skin side up on a sunny rock to let it dry whilst he continued to prowl the surrounding area in search of another prey item to practice on. ideally, it would be something small like a mouse, merely because he was for one curious if there would have to be any different steps taken to ensure the small preys pelt stayed in one piece and also because he was kind of getting hungry and wouldnt mind quickly scarfing down the mouses body after using it as practice..
one more glance to the rabbits pelt before rookfire turned, jaws agape, to pace around the bushes and trees in a ten or so meter radius in search of a scent and also to ensure there were no predators around that may think of the rabbit as a little snack and cause shadowclan trouble. he had already made it almost halfway around the imaginary and very wonky circle he had drawn around the rabbit when he picked up on the very scent he had been looking for: mouse. it was strong enough for him to immediately pick up its track, and follow it towards a small space nestled between two bushes and the thick bark of a particularly large conifer tree. the mouse was alone, spotted in a way that was kind of odd to him but not enough so to make him actually think much of it, simply a brown mouse with some lighter and some darker spotting, nothing too unusual?
he pushed closer, body close to the ground until he leaped towards the mouse, slipping on a weirdly slick leaf as he was pushing off and landing a bit next to the mouse due to his loss of balance. too slow, his white paw slammed down on nothing as the mouse disappeared into a bush close by.
rookfire turned his head to glare at the leaf that had ruined his catch before getting back up to search for another mouse.
the next scent he picked up was squirrel but he ignored it. following the squirrel, rookfire came past a abandoned rabbits den and spent a few moment peering into the dark hole and swatting his paw in it until he realised there might be snakes in there and promptly decided this had been a very stupid idea. the need to try and break the under earth path was definitely there as well and he considered hopping up and down or using a large stone to make his attempt but quickly reminded himself he was here to hunt and a lot of noise (that would probably not do anything) would do nothing if not chase away his potential prey.
grumbling to himself quietly, the medicine cat apprentice moved away from the abandoned den that had captured his attention for a good few moments and wandered aimlessly until finally picking up the scent of another mouse. this one wasnt nearly as recent or strong as the previous one had been so he took a while to actually locate the mouse and even longer until he finally layed eyes on it.
this one was scrawnier than the last one and a greyish brown colour a good few shades lighter than the last one, otherwise, it was similar. this mouse, too, was sitting huddled securely with a lot of undergrowth around like these damn rodents knew that it was far harder to reach or event rack them once they disappeared into the thick of it.
he moved closer, making sure to check to the ground for any pesky leaves before pouncing this time, flexed the muscles in his haunches and-
leaped onto the mouse, landing with one paw on its tail and the other one quickly coming up to pin it down before delivering a killing bite.
now to the actual trying out things part. rookfire moved the mouse around so it lay on its lack like he had previously with the rabbit (or was it a squirrel? his roleplay is too tired to care enough to check) and leaned down in order to get a better view of it. carefully drawing a claw along its body, he attempted to replicate the motions he had originally learned from mistlewhisker and had been working on improving every time he had the time to do so. it did appear mice were not the thing to attempt and skin as he slipped and pierced its skin, claw slipping in easily. the medicine cat apprentice cursed quietly, wiping the blood off his claw before continuing anyway. it couldnt get worse than it already was so he may as well continue trying around with it.
pretty much everything about this was harder than the same process using the body of a squirrel, it was hard to seperate the part of the legs that would just rip off if he tried to pull skin off it because the legs were so thin, it was hard to keep control over his claw and the way he was moving it, and it was bloody hard to not drag around the flesh beneath the skin as well. the incision in the neck was the easiest one by far given he didnt have to try so hard not to go too deep and could theoretically decapitate the animal if that was what just so happened.
in the end, he was left with a cutely separated skin and body, littered with small cuts and indents where he had messed up. a sigh escaped white marked maw and he scarfed down what was rest of the mouse, eyeing the 'pelt' and trying to figure out what to do with it.
Re: wings to warriorhood [p]
