SPIDERPAW
Riverclan Apprentice | 6 moons | Lanky, amber eyed, blue-grey tabby she-cat with white paws, chin, and tail tip.
Heightened perception: Smell
~~~
Spiderpaw felt a bit too exhilarated as she leaped into the air. She felt her paws land... but the Lionheart gave way too easily. As Heroneye fell backwards, she easily slipped out from under the grey tabby and Spiderpaw found her face in the dirt.
Tasting the nasty earth, for a moment the tabby forgot there was a fight going on. She was a bit dazed from hitting the ground and shook her head, spitting out the dirt. Spiderpaw sneezed, her sensitive nose full of earth and grass. It took her a moment to remember that she was sparring. She blinked once and tensed again, planning to dart to her right back into the undergrowth to find a tight spot where Heroneye would have trouble following her.
Mosstangle is an Enforcer in Shadowclan! Mention me whenever she is needed! My characters' thoughts, emotions, and actions are simply descriptions and roleplay, and do not align with my personal thoughts, emotions, and actions. *Pockets Full Of Purrkies active!*
Heroneye had managed to successfully evade Spiderpaw's attack. This was a good thing, she supposed, but she couldn't help but cringe as she heard the thump of the apprentice hitting the ground. In fact, she'd nearly put a pause on the session as the apprentice hesitated, fearing that perhaps Spiderpaw hit her head and couldn't go on.
However, as Spiderpaw's muscles tensed again and she slipped into the undergrowth, it became clear that she had no intention of slowing down. That being said, Heroneye was left to come up with a way to counter the apprentice's next attack. In the thick undergrowth, it didn't take long for Spiderpaw to leave her sight. While, in theory, Heroneye might have been able to search for and locate her through other clues, it was a fool's errand to dive in after her.
Instead, the Lionheart would more or less stay in place. She found a tree stump nearby, and while she was no ThunderClanner, it didn't take much to scale it and find herself at its top. Again, not the tallest vantage point in the forest, but it should offer her some protection and forewarning. She would wait there and force Spiderpaw to come back to her--not the other way around.
SPIDERPAW
Riverclan Apprentice | 7 moons | Lanky, amber eyed, blue-grey tabby she-cat with white paws, chin, and tail tip.
Heightened perception: Smell
~~~
With a few more blinks and a shake of her pelt, Spiderpaw felt back to normal. She slipped through the tight undergrowth, amber eyes carefully keeping track of Heroneye in every opening of the foliage she could see through. It seemed that the lionheart had not found it worth it to follow the apprentice into the foliage... which was probably smart. Looking around, Spiderpaw saw plenty of places where she could lure the older she-cat into an impromptu ambush. Too bad.
Stars, she was getting to a good vantage point? The young tabby narrowed her eyes as she slunk through the foliage. As quietly as she could, she moved through the foliage to somewhere behind Heroneye. She had a plan, but getting spotted would make it more difficult to do...
The bark of the tree went fly with plenty of cracking and snapping sounds as the apprentice chose a seemingly half-dead tree to climb... So much for stealth. The branches hung low enough, so she chose to move in as quickly as possible in order to make up for her clumsy excuse for stealthily climbing a tree, hoping that Heroneye would be trying to figure out what fell to the ground instead of what was now in the tree.
The branch shook as the small tabby darted along it to jump onto Heroneye from above. She braced herself for the lionheart to move again. If she didn't managed to land on and throw her off of the stump, the young tabby readied herself to land and lash out with her paws to bat at the older cat's face and shoulders, hopefully giving herself another opportunity to dart into the underbrush.
@Fits
[Rolls:
Climb: 4/10 - Got into the tree but made a lot of sound
Pounce: 6/10 - Managed to aim well enough to not miss the stump]
Mosstangle is an Enforcer in Shadowclan! Mention me whenever she is needed! My characters' thoughts, emotions, and actions are simply descriptions and roleplay, and do not align with my personal thoughts, emotions, and actions. *Pockets Full Of Purrkies active!*
Heroneye's head shot to the side as a sound caught her attention. She couldn't pinpoint Spiderpaw's exact location, but the shifting and crackling of the old tree told her that the apprentice was making her way up its trunk, evidentally attempting to nullify and exceed Heroneye's previous advantage in height.
Even so, she couldn't exactly retaliate without knowing the apprentice's location. She could try to run out of range of the tree or take cover, make it so that Spiderpaw wouldn't be able to land on Heroneye directly, but that opened her up to distraction, making her more vulnerable. In a battle perhaps she would have taken her chances with that approach, but today she figured she would try something a bit more unconventional.
[ Heroneye rolled a seven out of ten. ]
Spiderpaw sprung down from the tree. Heroneye's plan was to slip out from under the apprentice and go back onto the ground, but the Lionheart wasn't quite fast enough. While Spiderpaw didn't land on her directly, the weight under the apprentice's front paws did land and was enough to stun Heroneye for a heartbeat.
"Alright," Heroneye said, abandoning her battle stance to face Spiderpaw. She liked to end these sparring sessions after the apprentice had been successful in some way, to leave off on a positive note for them. Or perhaps she prefered to end things before they had the chance to turn out too badly for the Lionheart, she thought with an amused twitch of her whiskers. Whatever the case may be, then seemed a good a time as any to wrap things up for the day.
"You seem to understand how to use your surroundings to your advantage," Heroneye appraised with a not of her head. "But I believe we've come to the end of this training session; I've nothing more to teach you today." In any case, she figured the apprentice could use some rest; they had already been out for quite some time, after all.
SPIDERPAW
Riverclan Apprentice | 7 moons | Lanky, amber eyed, blue-grey tabby she-cat with white paws, chin, and tail tip.
Heightened perception: Smell
~~~
She hit! Spiderpaw's hadn't been perfect, it seemed the Lionheart was going to move quicker, but her paws did land. Tired limbs tensed as the apprentice prepared to move in again, perhaps an attempt to knock Heroneye off the stump while she was still stunned...
But she didn't need to.
Spiderpaw's ears perked as Heroneye called the spar to a halt. Her muscles relaxed, which made her suddenly feel quite weak. She knew that she was getting tired and sore... but she had no idea just how much she had been ignoring it until her limbs finally relaxed. She sat on her haunches and panted as the Lionheart spoke. Nothing else... She felt a small swell of pride in her chest. Sure, it wasn't a direct praise, saying that she understood how to use her environment to her advantage, but it felt good. She had done well enough.
"Thank you... Heroneye. I appreciate your help." Of course, this was an important training session knocked off the list for her requirements to become a warrior, and regardless of how much her mentor had promised, it had been hard to get the training she needed. She really did appreciate the Lionheart's lesson. She seemed very nice.
So, once her legs were capable of making it back to camp, she stood and accompanied Heroneye back to camp. There would be a bounce in her step, but she was too tired for that. Instead, she could just bask in the excitement and joy of completing not only some basic battle training, but touching some more advanced topics, as well.
Mosstangle is an Enforcer in Shadowclan! Mention me whenever she is needed! My characters' thoughts, emotions, and actions are simply descriptions and roleplay, and do not align with my personal thoughts, emotions, and actions. *Pockets Full Of Purrkies active!*
Re: (T) Dance of Heron and Spider
