ALL MORTAL GREATNESS ☆ CARDINALPAW TRAINING

[olliebones]

꧁ᬊᬁᴄᴀʀᴅɪɴᴀʟᴘᴀᴡᬊ᭄꧂
He/They |~| Windclan Apprentice |~| 14 moons |~| Agatha Kitty (Active!!), Kitty Softpaws (Active!!)
“Be a voice, not an echo.”

Cardinalpaw was getting tired of the running. The tom slowed his paws until he stopped next to his mentor. They glanced at where she directed her attention to. Ah. Yes. Shadowclan was a thing, wasn't it? He opened his mouth to respond to his mentors words, but was cut off when Whiterabbit lunged at him, knocking him to the ground. Cardinalpaw let out an oomph as his back thudded against the earth, his eyes wide. The tom lifted his hind legs, hoping to kick Whiterabbit away from him. That's what he knew to do. Basic information his sister told him when they were kits. Hopefully this was a surprise battle lesson and she didn't randomly go crazy.

[nyme]

SOMETIMES MY MIND DON'T SHAKE AND SHIFT
BUT MOST OF THE TIME IT DOES

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ❖ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

WHITERABBIT . 24 MOONS . SHE/HER . WINDCLAN

Paws shoot up into her belly and Whiterabbit lets herself fall to the side with a wheezy laugh, tumbling and then righting herself.

"Yes! That was good, Cardinalpaw! Any time you're in a fight, if you have a shot at their belly, take it. A quick kick like that'll do wonders to knock them off you. If you really have a point to make, you can grab at their shoulders or neck to hold them in place while you get a few good rakes in." She chatters, soothing her own sore tummy with a few quick licks.

"But you let me off easy!" And so, she drops back to all fours and swings a paw down to try and knock them between their ears. No claws, but not a bit of tenderness or caution, either.

@ollie_the_skeleton ; CARDINALPAW

[olliebones]

꧁ᬊᬁᴄᴀʀᴅɪɴᴀʟᴘᴀᴡᬊ᭄꧂
He/They |~| Windclan Apprentice |~| 16 moons |~| Agatha Kitty (Active!!), Kitty Softpaws (Active!!)
“Be a voice, not an echo.”

The tom grinned at his mentor, rolling to his paws. Yes! The tom grinned, his eyes bright as his tail lashed behind him. The kicking was good! Great, he did it right. He yelped as Whiterabbit brought her paw down upon his head. They winced, a loud ringing sounding in their ears upon impact of her paw. Crap. What to do now? The tom had a brief hesitation before barreling forward into Whiterabbit's chest head first, hoping to knock the she-cat off her feet. Ack. That hurt, damn.

[ @nyme ]

[nyme]

SOMETIMES MY MIND DON'T SHAKE AND SHIFT
BUT MOST OF THE TIME IT DOES

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ❖ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

WHITERABBIT . 24 MOONS . SHE/HER . WINDCLAN

She did just try to knock the daylights out of the kid, so even if there's a chance Whiterabbit could dodge his lunge, she doesn't take it. Part of it is a shot at fairness, part of it is that it's a lot more fun to figure out how you'll teach someone if you take the hits. And Cardinalpaw should understand their own strength.

Li'l stinker's got a pretty hard head, though.

"Ough—" Whiterabbit goes down with a grunt, not bothering to fight for her footing. She twists out of the fall, finding her paws and shaking off with a thoughtful nod.

"O-kayyy, not so bad. I wouldn't recommend making frequent use of headbutts, though. If you're ever up against a burlier cat than me or most of your clanmates, or something like a dog or a badger, you're more likely to hurt yourself than them. Use your paws; they're for more than just moving." She reaches out again, this time very gently, and pats at his head. Pat-pat-pat-pat-pat, down between their ears like before—

"A solid front paw blow here'll stun most cats. And it hurts, huh?"

Over each of their ears—

"Getting your ears shredded stings pretty bad and they bleed more than you'd think; it's a good way to make unseasoned fighters panic, but older warriors will know better."

Near their eyes—

"If you slash above the eyes, they'll have a hard time seeing you for the rest of the fight. And if you get a claw into their eye, they'll have a hard time seeing you for the rest of their life." She pauses here. "Not every battle is gonna require that kind of force. Remember that you might run into that cat again at the border, or at a gathering. Everything you do to them will send a message. Think hard on what you wanna say about yourself and about Windclan before you go poking cats' eyes out willy-nilly."

Finally, Whiterabbit tap-taps at his nose and muzzle (she is, in fact, trying to be annoying). "This is a pretty sensitive spot, too, and you'll ruin that cat's next moon of hunting if you get their nose good enough. Means they'll need it all herb-ed up and bandaged for a while."

She's all done touching Cardinalpaw's face for now.

"Alright. Just using forepaws for now, show me what you got."

@ollie_the_skeleton ; CARDINALPAW

[olliebones]

꧁ᬊᬁᴄᴀʀᴅɪɴᴀʟᴘᴀᴡᬊ᭄꧂
He/They |~| Windclan Apprentice |~| 16 moons |~| Agatha Kitty (Active!!), Kitty Softpaws (Active!!)
“Be a voice, not an echo.”

Cardinalpaw shook his head. Bad idea. He got her to the ground though, yeah? Stars above. They watched as Whiterabbit got to her paws, their eyes watching her every move sharply and with interest. Cardinalpaw nodded at Whiterabbit's words. Yeah. No. That hurt and it felt like he'd have a headache for the remainder of his life. Paws. Paws was a good idea, yes. The apprentice nodded.

He twitched his ear as Whiterabbit tapped his head in between the said ears. Cardinalpaw flicked their tail, snorting at the motion. Whiterabbit did have a good point, though. It certainly did hurt.

The apprentice scowled as her paws reach their ears. That was annoying. They nodded at her words. There was a lot of sensitive bits up there. Younger cats seemed to be freaked out by the concept of getting their ears nicked.

Oh. Oh he did not like Whiterabbit's paws near his eyes. The tom narrowed his eyes, his tail stilling. Unacceptable from any cat besides his mentor. "Blood in the eyes" they'll be lucky if they still had them. Oh. Wait. No. That's violent, yes? No poking out cats eyes. Got it.

The apprentices's nose twitched as Whiterabbit tapped at his muzzle. This? More acceptable. They swished their tail. The flesh up there was pretty soft and easily slashable. Pretty easy to scent-blind a cat that way. Cardinalpaw took a step back when she was all done touching his face, shaking his head again before sizing up Whiterabbit. Only his forepaws? Ackh. Uhhh. What did he know to do? He could use the move she just did on him and go from there?

The apprentice lunged, not with much force, and brought his paw down to replicate the move that was just used on the tom, before using his other paw to graze over her ears. No claws, but the intent was there. He then backed up before jumping back towards her, his paws falling down upon Whiterabbit's shoulders. He had no clue what he was doing, really. It was just hitting with paws, really. Whatever he did would have an effect, even if a small one.

[ @nyme ]

[nyme]

SOMETIMES MY MIND DON'T SHAKE AND SHIFT
BUT MOST OF THE TIME IT DOES

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ❖ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

WHITERABBIT . 24 MOONS . SHE/HER . WINDCLAN

Whiterabbit endures the solid bopping from her apprentice, gritting her teeth through it and taking a few seconds to collect herself afterwards. Shoulders roll. Solid paws on this cat.

"Alright, that's some pretty good stuff. Uhmmmm, when you hit my shoulders, right? That's a good shot, even better if you sink your claws in, but something that'd do you even better would be striking lower to mess with their balance. If you hook your paw and swing, hit this little hit-pull action to yank that leg out from under 'em, you might get lucky and topple them over. It's not a guarantee, and you will have to repeat it on different legs until they finally feel too tangled up to keep steady, but it's a safer way to try and knock someone down than throwing your whole body weight at them." She demonstrates how to sweep a paw out low, aimed for the legs of an imagined target, and then pauses a moment to prompt Cardinalpw to repeat the gesture before she moves on.

"No matter what you do to your opponent, you wanna think ahead just one step past 'will this hurt?'. A lot of the cats you'll come across in other clans and a lot of the things that hunt us tend to be bigger and/or broader than a regular ol' Windclanner, which means they will hit harder almost every time. That's just how it is! So you wanna do what's gonna give you more control over the fight, not just what'll draw blood. Make them dizzy, stun them, blind them, trip them up, knock them down." Whiterabbit conveniently 'forgets' to prompt Cardinalpaw to try tripping her up as practice. She'll give them the chance later, when they put it all together for some proper sparring, but right now she is in no mood.

"Another way to stay in control is to attack someone from behind. If someone's sneaking behind you, what do you think you can do about that?"

@olliebones ; CARDINALPAW

[olliebones]

꧁ᬊᬁᴄᴀʀᴅɪɴᴀʟᴘᴀᴡᬊ᭄꧂
He/They |~| Windclan Apprentice |~| 16 moons |~| Agatha Kitty (Active!!), Kitty Softpaws (Active!!)
“Be a voice, not an echo.”

He did good. Great. Cardinalpaw's ears twitched as he listened to Whiterabbit's words. Hook paws around and then they fall to the ground. Heh, that rhymed. They flicked their tail, watching his mentor demonstrate the mentioned attack. The apprentice repeated the move when prompted, hooking his paws around the imaginary legs of an imaginary target and making them imaginary fall to the ground. Cardinalpaw stood back up.

Yeahh.. unfortunately, Windclan cats were smaller. Cardinalpaw was fortunately blessed with his mothers beefy structure, but he was still lithe and easily overtaken by a larger cat. 'Will this hurt?' Well. Maybe, in his opinion, most moves would hurt, even if just a little. They understood what she was trying to say, though. Cardinalpaw took in her words, nodding. An upper paw in a fight. Drawing blood wouldn't be enough, apparently. It wasn't really apparently, he figured as such, but blah blah blah. They didn't exactly look forward to battle. But, yeah, this was useful and, frankly, entertaining. They twitched their whiskers when they weren't promoted to try tripping Whiterabbit. Which, fair. But a shame. Would've been fun.

Oh. What would be do? He seemed to pick up on smaller sounds easier, but if they're very sneaky, or he's not paying attention, being snuck up on would be an issue, yeah. "Uhhmm...I could, well first, am I able to hear them? Or if the wind catches their scent, I could turn around to catch them before they get me." Cardinalpaw said slowly, his claws flexing into the dirt. "And if I dont sense them or something that, I could..roll away, or something like that. I don't know if I'm pinned or what, because this is a scenario. But I'd roll away, gets them off most of the time So I think i could do that and try to trip them, like ya said, or go for their stomach." Yes. That was coherent enough. Probably.

[ @nyme ]