She'd seen another cat come in with pawfuls of moss and cobwebs, and what she thought may have been marigold, so she focused on the rosemary. Aromatic leaved pointing to the sky. Vi lifted her muzzle into the air to try to smell anything, but all she smelled was water. She let out a frustrated groan and moved to a different spot, trying again. This time, she caught a trace of something. It smelled like the medicine den, which was a good sign. She followed the scent and peeked under a bush to find a patch of the stuff protected from the elements. Letting out a purr of satisfaction, she managed to gather all she could, which amounted to six plants. She had also spotted some cobwebs between barren branches and scooped those up as well. This was a success.
He didn't miss the mildly irked look, and was pretty pleased to see his water attack worked. Good to know! ... Wolfpaw eyed the nearby mud slush but decided he probably shouldn't poke that bear too much. Not yet, at least.
".. Well, I don't think many of us fully grasp how dire our food supply being sabotaged was." A clenched jaw, forcibly unleashed. "If we wanna survive, we're gonna have to go against our nature. Fishing isn't ideal but if.. if we can adapt, and have it as an option, it's gonna be harder to hurt our food supply." The other Clans would assume ThunderClan had to rely on land and air prey, the possibility of fish would never occur to them. In the event of another territory poisoning, their water would likely be untouched - and ThunderClan would survive, remain strong. "i don't wanna see a repeat."
His gaze fell over the rippling water, where the silhouettes of fish danced just beneath the surface. Wolfpaw never considered himself terribly prideful -- not in a sinful way, but damn it was hard to swallow the pit of stubbornness lodged in his throat. For all his apprehensions, he was too rational to not recognize an opportunity to actually learn.
Sure, he could smack the water around all day. It might give him a workout, but odds were he'd just scare the fish. Violetfreckle.. meant that he could master the art in a fraction of the time. A baited breath.
Oh, StarClan. She didn't miss the glace at the mud-slush. And as he started to talk, she resisted the urge to scoff. 'Against their nature'. Please. This was what was wrong with the general ThunderClan mindset. Though she had to admit it probably took a lot to set aside one's pride, and a small part of her that she didn't quite notice was satisfied. Violetfreckle let the younger cat keep talking, grooming the rest of the pond water off her pelt in the meantime.
At this point, she wasn't too sure what to say. She opened her mouth and tried to think of something, but before she could get anything out, Wolfpaw asked her to teach him. Oh! She shut her mouth and furrowed her brows. "I mean, of course. I may have been born RiverClan but they can't tell a fish from a pile of algae over there." She snorted at her own joke. "ThunderClan's my home, and if I can help teach some skills I learned over there, I'm not passin' that chance up."
"What do you know so far?" At the question, she took a tentative few pawsteps closer to Wolfpaw and the shoreline.
"Well as you can see," Wolfpaw flicked his tail toward the water, where the edges still rippled slightly from his earlier whacks. "I've already mastered water combat, I just need help luring the fish onto land." He was trying to be light about things, to still the way his heartrate picked up when she approached.
'Water combat'. The words nearly made her snort. But she would listen and nod along and tap a claw on the dirt as Wolfpaw talked. "What'cha gotta do is be sneaky. Make sure your shadow isn't over the water, which, seems like you got that already." She crept closer to the shoreline and half-crouched, half-sat with a single paw raised.
And waited in silence. The water rippled ever so slightly, then stilled. A dark shadow glided beneath the water and she went quickly, striking with her outstretched paw and hooking the slimy creature with her claws. As it landed at her paws, Violetfreckle went for the kill, nipping its spine. "Be quick. Be ready. Fish spend their whole lives in the water, if you don't know what you're doing they'll easily outsmart you." The tabby took a step back, dragging her kill with her as she gave Wolfpaw some space. "Curl your paw and sink your claws in as soon as you feel scales. Even if you don't kill it right away, if you get the thing on land, it's done for."
Sneaky... what was this, a ShadowClan technique? Despite Wolfpaw's mild displeasure on how badly he botched his attempts, he was grateful for the tips.
As she raised her paw, he mimicked the move and carefully observed her. Wait.. wait, and then strike. She hooked her claws into the fish and essentially flipped it onto the land, at her paws where she could dispatch it. Okay.. he could do this. "Are they like water mice, then?" Mice weren't that stupid - they were bright enough to be startled and flee when they heard noises.
Wolfpaw focused on the water as Violetfreckle took her kill away from the edge. He waited, waited.. saw a shadow, and struck his paw into the water. He slightly overshot, the tip of his claws grazing across the scales and not hooking in. The fish flickered away. "Dung!" he swore under his breath, and tried again. A wait, a shadow. He aimed slightly lower than before, and struck - his curled claws hooking beneath the scales.
As it landed on the bank, he pinned the floppy creature beneath one paw and sank his teeth into its spine. Immediately, he recoiled back - muzzle twisted with distaste. "It's cold!" He'd been so accustomed to land prey, it didn't occur to him fish would have icy blood.
Water mice, huh. "Yeah, I suppose you could say that." It was an odd comparison, but one the tabby could make sense of. She watched as the apprentice tried, and... missed. Violetfreckle flicked her ear. She debated saying something before Wolfpaw went straight back to it, and she decided against it. Better not to interrupt him, right?
And... second time was the charm it seemed, she found herself letting out a small rumbling purr as he caught it. It had been too long since she'd taught some cat to fish. Maybe she would teach her apprentices. Violetfreckle let out a snort as Wolfpaw complained about the fish, and halfheartedly hid it by licking her paw and drawing it over her face. "Water's cold, isn't it? Fish're cold. They get warmer in Greenleaf when the water's nice and warm."
It seemed the younger cat was satisfied, maybe. So, she grabbed her kill and turned to head back to camp, lingering for a bit in case Wolfpaw needed anything else.
It was puzzling to Wolfpaw, how something alive could be so cold. Acornkit, Tawnykit -- the other cats he'd seen dead, were cold. The living had some semblance of warmth even when exposed to the elements. "Are fish actually alive?"
Ultimately, his question wouldn't matter in the grand span of things, as Violetfreckle was collecting her fish and he opted to do the same. Fishing had gotten him a bit damp, and the frigid air against his fur was causing it to clump unpleasantly. He joined Violetfreckle in her return to camp, briefly brushing up against her in a small show of affection. "Thanks."
The tabby she-cat hid her snort with a cough at the question, temporarily dropping her catch. "Oh yeah, they're alive. Dunno how, livin' in there. I guess water creatures are just... different?" She'd never actually thought about it before, huh. She picked the fish back up but let out a small mrrp of surprise as Wolfpaw brushed up against her, then blinked. Huh. Unexpected. "No problem. I'm sure you'll be a great fisher in no time, what with all the training you do. Glad I could help you start."
"Oh, I personally don't do that daily.. The Clan usually has patrols that rotate cats out. One day you'll be doing that, the next you might have a day off, or you'll be hunting. It's not supposed to be all on the same cats, we're a community."
Wolfhive had intentionally led Beachpaw away from the designated borders, and hoped the trek felt short with the distraction of talking. "A scary big rabbit, huh?" Maybe Beachpaw was taking WindClan being rabbits too literally. Still, ... "Well, a normal sized rabbit is really fast, so a weirdly big one would be EVEN FASTER. As ThunderClan cats, we're not really built for outrunning things. We're the Clan of strength, not speed.
"Your best bet would be to take it off guard, I imagine. You remember how you spooked the rabbit when we were hunting? It's kinda like that."
Wolfhive considered the best way of going about this. He could do a basic demonstration, but Beachbaby was already kinda bored. "Let's say you're the big scary rabbit. I'm gonna try to sneak attack you, okay?" Hopefully Beachpaw knew he wasn't gonna hurt them. "Do whatever you think a rabbit would do!!"
Then he was off, disappearing into the cattails. Wolfhive crept around the pond and bunched his muscles, before he launched himself toward Beachpaw - mostly intending on pinning them against the grass.
°•. info & relations ✿ they/them ✿ finder coming soon ✿ challenge mode! [skill-perk free] .•°
Beachpaw -
Aw, heck. Sneakiness. Beachpaw learned they weren't very talented at stealthiness from the recent group training and quite frankly their previous outing with Wolfhive. They were glad a giant rabbit probably wouldn't be something they'd have to someday face off against, they'd leave that to the WindClan suckers.
The playful urge to go tromping through the cattails and pounce on Wolfhive struck them. It was more fun than idling in the clearing munching on grass like the mega-rabbit probably would. Other than run around and be tasty, they weren't really sure what rabbits got up to.
The time to figure it out came and went, and in a flicker of a second, Beachpaw was squished against the grass and flailing. "I'm not big enough for this to work," they complained. "You be the rabbit, and I'll try sneaking up on you."
Re: Cattail Pond
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