Padding swiftly after the patrol leader - a cat she felt closer to purely because of the bond they shared from that horrendous creature they had faced a little bit ago - Redhawk kept Treepaw in sight the whole time as she scented the air. With the frost starting to thaw barely, she had hopes that prey would start to come out of the woodwork.
Which speaking of, movement near the base of a patch of prickly thorn bushes caught her eye. She slunk into a crouch and crept forward with her attention focused on what appeared to be a mouse. Slowly she slid forward until she was able to flash a paw out and capture it just as it tried to make a break for it back underneath the bush. A swift bite killed it, and the warrior buried her catch before casting a glance to where she had left Fernwillow and Treepaw, making sure they were both okay.
[Treepaw] | Trees Friend
ThunderClan Apprentice
Silver Tongue
Treepaw nodded towards Fernwillow, following instructions and sticking close to the warrior. The apprentice crouched down low, following after her as she practiced her stalking. She had no hunting experience and was solely relying on Fernwillow to lead by example.
Fernwillow
ThunderClan
she/her | 21 moons
[Silver tabby with white toes and sage green eyes]
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[Treepaw - @SuspiciousMindz ] [Redhawk - @tallulah ]
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Fernwillow spotted Treepaw following her lead, and a flicker of understanding crossed her gaze. She gestured for the apprentice to follow her lead, opening her jaws to scent. A mouse nearby! She dropped into a crouch, keeping her tail low and her belly fur away from the ground, and stalked towards the creature. She could see it scuffling in the roots of a tree nearby, and she flicked her tail to warn Treepaw to halt. Suddenly bursting forward, Fernwillow leapt upon the mouse and landed a killing blow on its neck. She picked it up in her mouth and turned to Treepaw. "Your crouch is good--" she spoke around the mouthful of prey. "See if you can scent anything."
She saw Redhawk returning with prey, and waved a tail in a gesture of "all clear".
[Oh gosh I'm SO sorry I didn't see the pings--I'll ask Star for an extension (nevermind I see you've got it, Tal. Thank you again I'm so sorry)]
Seeing the all clear sign from Fernwillow put her mind at ease and Redhawk buried her mouse before seeing if she could scent anything else around the area. There wasn't much except for a faint trace of... somethin. Stalking carefully towards it, navigating her way around some scattered branches that must've fallen, she took notice of a robin perched among the roots of a tree up ahead. Her mouth watered at the sight but she kept her focus on the bird as each paw moved slowly and silently.
Once she was close enough Red launched herself across the short space. Of course the winged creature was alerted to her presence but not before a swift claw clipped one of its wings while the other slammed down onto its head. The robin fell limp before it had a chance to take off, and the warrior made sure it was really dead by delivering a swift bite to the back of its neck.
Not bad; a mouse and a bird. Picking up the feathery morsal Redhawk turned back and rejoined the group once more, uncovering her mouse and glancing towards Fernwillow and Treepaw. A small grin unfurled across her face as she watched the former teach.
The still-recovering (though almost healed, mind you) she-cat had been lounging outside of camp, just trying to get away from... well, everything. The camp was stuffy and crowded and too warm. Yes, there was a good amount of warm but all those bodies in that small of a space? Yuck. And that was how she found herself laying in the snow, thick coat and scraggly undergrowth protecting her from the brunt of the cold as she began to doze off. That was, until she heard a sploosh in the distance.
As she opened her eyes, a few ideas flickered across her mind. Had someone decided to go swimming? No, that would practically be a death sentence in this kind of weather. Or at least a recipe for a nasty cough. Fishing? But what kind of ThunderClanner would be fishing? Besides her. Was it RiverClan? Hesitantly, she got up onto shaky paws and stalked forward, trying to see exactly what was going on. And what she found was none other than the young cat who had spoken to her not all that long ago, Wolfpaw. The kid seemed like he was trying to fish. But he wasn't exactly great at it.
Violetfreckle slunk out of the not-so-lush undergrowth, making her way toward the apprentice. She stopped a few tail-lengths away, clearing her throat with a soft ahem. "You uh, learnin' to fish over there? In this weather?" She half-joked, sparing a glance toward the undoubtedly cold water. Yeesh.
Wolfpaw jerked his head up at the sound of Violetfreckle's voice, visibly tensed before he forced himself to relax.
Because Bumba trusted her, for some reason. She hadn’t done anything personally to him but he still found a former RiverClan cat's company to be... strange. Even if she was ThunderClan now. Bumba's friend, though he knew that was a gross simplification. "Any reason why I shouldn't?" he absently flicked his paw in the water, intentionally sending droplets scattered her way. "Figured if you fish could do it, I could too."
Wolfpaw jerked his head up at the sound of Violetfreckle's voice, visibly tensed before he forced himself to relax.
Because Bumba trusted her, for some reason. She hadn’t done anything personally to him but he still found a former RiverClan cat's company to be... strange. Even if she was ThunderClan now. Bumba's friend, though he knew that was a gross simplification. "Any reason why I shouldn't?" he absently flicked his paw in the water, intentionally sending droplets scattered her way. "Figured if you fish could do it, I could too."
The smallest wave of guilt washed over her as Wolfpaw tensed at her approach. Catbrows furrowed as she walked toward the other cat and sat down a safe few tail-lengths away from him. Still, this wasn't enough to avoid the few droplets that scattered across her pelt. For a fraction of a second, Violetfreckle shot the apprentice an annoyed look. It wasn't enough to be truly irked at, though.
"Guess not," she conceded, looking at the (very frigid-looking) water. "Though not a lot of ThunderClanners like to 'sully themselves' by fishing. Have you gotten any tips from anyone?" She felt as though an outright offer to help would be turned down. So, maybe Violetfreckle could worm her way in by being more sneaky. Not all that sneaky, granted; it wasn't like she was some mastermind.
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there's courage in being terrified, but still going forward.
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.
Skunkstrike padded along the trail toward Cattail Pond, squinting to peer around for those pretty golden flowers. Her tail was held high, plumy and thick, and as the fur fanned out, it very much did look like a skunk was prowling through the foliage. "Natural camouflage," She chuckled and turned her head to the side, grinning at Sprucepaw. "You know most predators, unless really hungry, will avoid skunks entirely, right? No meal is worth getting a bath in noxious gas. Most of the time. Once had a fox stalk me for a whooole day trying to figure out if I was really a skunk or not." She laughed, shaking out her thick pelt and fluffing it up to fight the cold chill.
"Realized I wasn't a real skunk when it got bored or brave enough to test its luck. Sadly, it wasn't stink that stung its nose and eyes that day!" She laughed again, but her ear pricked, and she cried out, "Ooh! Flowers! And I see gold ones!" As if she hadn't just been chatting away to Sprucepaw, Skunkstrike bounded off to gather the pretty flowers. The large black and white warrior stopped beside a low-growing patch of marigold, and with a claw, she cut the blossoms down near the root. If the root stayed, more would grow, right? Right.
Walking besides the dark warrior, Fudge had gotten used to the pleasant silence that had formed between them... until he heard Stinky speak up once more, coaxing his blank stare to shift in her direction, head remaining unmoving as he did so. She was... bubbly. Very bubbly. Laughed a lot. That was odd. With all the death and all the anger he constantly saw in ThunderClan, finding one so obviously pleased with her lot in life - or oblivious to the cruelties of life... although for once that did not seem to be the case - was odd. He could feel his brow raising as he assessed her, placing her perhaps a bit closer to The Boulder's side of ThunderClan in his mind for now.
The star worshippers were strange to him, but he thought he was finally starting to make some level of connection in regards to how they acted. To what drove them. There were two bands so far. The Angry lot. The ones that seemed to be very much like the leader. Murder monsters with little regard to lives outside of their own. They were the cats that reminded him the most of city cats. The ones that had beaten him for fun to see how long it took him to stop crying. It was funny, really... He'd run away from the city to escape those felines... to survive. Yet it was what he'd learned from dealing with those bullies that had enabled him to survive here.
And then there was The Boulder lot. The ones who were too kind. Too merciful. Too sweet to really belong. He'd only met two cats like this so far. The Boulder themselves and Chatty. Noticing Stinky now, however, he had to wonder... were there more he simply hadn't noticed in his time within the clan? Fudge didn't like the idea of making friends like The Boulder had implored him to do. Didn't see the point. Most cats seem to vanish or be killed by Angry herself. If anything, it seemed like a dumb way to gain weaknesses. Cats that could be used against you to make you do things that were against your best interests. It was easier to survive by yourself than be tied down by others, after all.
And yet even with this mentality, the young apprentice couldn't find it in himself to treat this weaker band of cats ill. To think any worse of them. Because really... what would that gain him? Nothing... It would simply turn him into the same ruthless monster that he'd feared in his time out in the city's streets, and he would never become that. He could not see how such cruelties would enable his own survival, in any case. It was little more than bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed, much like the pointless raid Angry had launched on that other clan. The quiet one. The one that deserved to be eradicated for not being noisy enough.
"Regarded," Fudge drawled as she finished describing her meetup with the fox, able to at the very least concede that perhaps the moniker of weak was not well fitting to a feline that could drive away a fox through brute force alone... even if their attitude was admittedly more lax than he would expect of someone with such prowess. Then again... he supposed The Boulder wasn't so different in that regard either.
A rare, half formed smirk crossing his expression at this thought, the Havana Brown mix turned, allowing the star worshipper to gather her flowers in piece, his attention instead to the herb cat's secondary request. So much for avoiding the water during this weather. He wasn't certain what moss was used for other than nests, but he assumed it had to have its uses? He didn't give it much thought as he found a good clump on a rock by the frozen pond. Most of it was frost bitten, dried out and frankly quite horrible to look at, let alone touch. But surely it was a start?
Digging through the rot, he soon found a good sheet of usable, fresh, green moss. It seemed the decaying matter on top had saved some from the worst of the snow, and with claws unsheathed Fudge took to stripping the plush vegetation from its resting place. Surprised at how neatly it was removed, the tom was left with a single sheet of moss. Probably useful for more than one cat? He would certainly need to bunch it up to carry it back, that was for sure. His moss gathered and unceremoniously wrapped, he padded back towards Stinky, eager to get back to the camp and check up on his wounded mentor now.
[+1 Large Moss Sheet]
@Tiabirb [Skunkstripe]
| Got a few power outages that messed with my posting schedule spectacularly. Got an extension until March 9th, but I think we should be able to get them back now! Sorry for the wait. |
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Lightningstorm is WindClan's current medicine cat.
She has a semi-closed den policy.
Skunkstrike
36 Moons
She/Her
Purrk(s): Beefed Up
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With her tiny golden bouquet, Skunkstrike padded back to Sprucepaw, nearly tripping over him when she realized too late he was heading back to her! She managed to skirt sharply to the left to avoid him, but she looked at the moss he had gathered and nodded. "Looths goo'!" She said through her mouthful of flowers, "Leths ger hum!"
Okay, sure, she could have spit the flowers out. But that would be pointless just to use two breaths. Just looking at the brown lil guy and Skunkstrike could see he wanted to get back. So, with her tail high, she led the way back to camp.
Re: Cattail Pond
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