[Fawn]

Russethawk
18 Moons || Warrior || Tom || RainClan

"Whatever you do, Rushpaw, do not move a muscle." Though on assignment to gather some herbs for Swanfeather, it was inevitable that Russethawk suggest they get a little hunting done while they had the free time to do so. It was during one such hunting exercise that the mentor and apprentice pair had encountered a potentially venomous curve ball thrown into their plans. Having heard that faint wet noise of a long, scaled body brushing against the water-dwelling vegetation that grew within the wooded cove and around it's edge, Russethawk had instinctively frozen where he stood, jaws parted to scent around a plump water vole clutched between pearly white teeth, trying to detect the distinctive, spine-tingling aroma of a water snake. There were two kinds of water snakes occasionally found in RainClan territory; a kind with a dark diamond back pattern along the length of it's body, and a kind with a plain grayish-green body. Russethawk found himself holding his breath, emerald green eyes seemingly trying to pierce through the dense, dark green water plants and funny smelling herbs to identify their slithering foe, conscious of the tabby and white kitten he was to be mentoring having stopped somewhere nearby. Just don't move, Rushpaw. Just don't you dare move. Whole body tense, the ruddy warrior's claws unsheathed from muddied, tufted paws, almost finding it impossible to pinpoint the serpent's location through hearing alone, considering how loudly his heart was pounding. A thousand scenarios did not run through the ruddy warrior's mind; on the contrary, Russethawk had fallen into a mode that was purely responsive, all thought processes cut short in favor of sharpening his ability to react - whether it was to protect or flee, Russethawk wasn't sure. Carefully, the older tom lowered his head to the ground, releasing his prey as quietly into the water as he could - inwardly cursing when he heard the slithering halt, as if the snake had suddenly tensed it's body. Fox dung! We could really be in trouble now! Though it was extremely mousebrained, Russethawk didn't know of any smarter moves he could've made, and perhaps the situation was in need of something a little mousebrained? Forever the optimist, Russethawk chose to act rather than to keep as still as a petrified rabbit. With a strike like lightning, a ruddy paw thwacked down hard on a spade shaped animal or thing hidden in a nearby clump of reeds, praying to StarClan it was his intended target and that he hadn't just riled it up further.

[Fate Admin]

Rushpaw had been having a hard time concentrating on much lately. Icepaw had gone missing… then Ashpaw had disappeared too. Rushpaw was sure she’d gone to look for their deaf brother and gotten herself lost. LOST. Just lost. NOT dead. Everyone looked at him all sad and sometimes they said things… things that Rushpaw understood meant they thought his littermates were dead and gone. But they WERE NOT DEAD. And everyone treating him like he’d lost loved ones to StarClan was really getting on his nerves. They were just LOST. They were out there somewhere… maybe together, surviving. They were ALIVE.

His training was suffering. He understood that it was, but it was hard to care about training when his littermates were lost somewhere. He should be trying to help them, trying to find them. The search patrols had stopped. They had stopped a while ago. Everyone had given up on his littermates, but Rushpaw would NEVER give up. One day they’d be back and Rushpaw would make sure they caught up on their training and became warriors with him. He wouldn’t be a warrior without them. He would wait 100 moons if he had to, he’d be Rushpaw forever, if he had to….

He was clumsy and distracted in training, but the urgency in his young mentor’s voice as Russethawk cut off their current training session to warn him not to move brought his mind into sharp focus. Danger, that was what his mentor’s tone warned. All his senses suddenly alert to the possible threat to his life, Rushpaw’s ears angled forward, eyes wide as he noticed the sound that had alarmed Russethawk. Had he ever heard that sound before? It seemed vaguely familiar. What was it?

The nursery. He remembered hearing that sound, and how he tried to find it, only to have his mother send him flying as she knocked him out of the way and lunged, quick as lightning, landing upon the back of a long, smooth, incredibly strange looking creature and biting it behind its wedge-shaped head, ending its life in one swift, frightening moment. A snake. That’s what she’d called it, warned him to stay away from them. Some of them weren’t so dangerous to full grown cats, but others could kill with a single bite.

The pale tabby and white apprentice’s fur stood on end as he wondered what sort of snake this one was. Could it kill with one bite? He stayed where he was, rigid, watching Russethawk for any sign of what to do next. Then his mentor struck and a long shape arrowed out a few pawsteps from the older tom, away from the potential danger of the warrior’s claws and right toward Rushpaw. All Rushpaw could think of was that moment in the nursery, his mother’s urgency and the way she had shoved him to roughly away from the potentially deadly creature. All thought fled his mind and he found himself frozen in place.

[Fawn]

Russethawk
18 Moons || Warrior || Tom || RainClan

Even without actual cognition of what kind of snake it was, Russethawk threw his body forward, conscious of one single intense purpose; save Rushpaw. This stemmed from more places than just the responsibility felt for the life and well-being of an apprentice entrusted to him, it ran deeper to his core, to the part of him that was still scorched black from having witnessed the death of his own parents, and the powerlessness he had felt during such an awful moment. A ruddy paw shot forward to smash the snake's head into the murkiness below, splashing discolored water in all directions and particularly on his nose, but Russethawk hardly noticed. No markings! Before he could let the relief sweep through him, however, Russethawk finished off irked opponent with a pin and a swift bite to the back of the neck, disliking the taste of snake and the way it writhed beneath his considerable weight. Only backing up when he was certain the serpent was dead, Russethawk blinked, emerald green eyes fixating on Rushpaw for any signs of injury or permanent psychological damage, licking the smaller tom's ear once as though to bring him back to reality. "Are you alright? That was close, sorry I didn't catch it earlier." He mewed, voice heavy but sincere, features marred as they scrunched slightly in seriousness; this dark moment quickly passed, however, at the idea of turning this into a teaching moment rather than a memory Rushpaw would remember later where he'd almost been killed by a snake. "Look at the snake for a moment, Rushpaw. See how it's kind of grayish-green? That means it's not venomous. Any snake with a pattern on it's back is poisonous, so run away if you encounter one - at your size right now, you probably wouldn't survive a bite." And one good bite is all it takes. Russethawk could recall a particularly alarming moment of his youth where Willowstep had returned to camp, frantically shouting that her apprentice, Reedpaw had been bitten by a water snake. Of course, being an apprentice and rather naive, Russethawk had clamored with the other apprentices out of the den to go find Reedpaw, but the deputy hadn't allowed it. The excitement of the moment evaporated once it was announced that Reedpaw had not survived the attack; Razorfang had killed the snake and stuck it on the River Stone so that all the other apprentices could memorize it's appearance and run the next time they saw one.

[Fate Admin]

The rough lick to his ear did indeed have the effect of bringing Rushpaw back to reality. He blinked once and looked up at his mentor, eyes still wide. Realizing his fur was fluffed up with his fear he shook himself and forced it to lie flat once more as Russethawk apologized for not killing the snake earlier. He shook his head, “I’m… I’m fine.” He felt hot beneath his pelt as embarrassment sank in. He had frozen up like a coward. He gave his chest fur a few licks as if nothing had happened, but looked up again as Russethawk spoke once more.

He turned his gaze to the snake’s dead form, fur prickling as he looked at the creature. It was so… different from the other creatures he normally encountered. It had no legs or fins or… did it have a tail? It looked like one big tail to Rushpaw. A tail with a head. Snakes were so WEIRD! He shook himself again and nodded to show he was listening. Snakes with patterns on their back are poisonous… this one isn’t poisonous… this one is safe. Of course it could still bite, but if there was no poison it wouldn’t be any worse than another cat biting or clawing him. His whiskers twitched as Russethawk explained he probably wouldn’t survive a bite from a poisonous snake, but he did well to keep his fur lying flat this time.

He blinked again and looked away from the snake and back to his mentor, “Can we hunt now?” He wanted to be done with this whole snake fiasco, thank you very much. Hunting was like a thousand times more appealing than continuing to talk about snakes. He wanted to get his mind off the stupid, slithery, creepy things. He wanted to get his mind off everything… but now that his fear had subsided, Icepaw and Ashpaw were back in the fore of his mind, and he sighed. He looked down at his paws, his claws kneading the soft earth beneath him, tearing into it anxiously, and a question burst forth before Russethawk had any time to answer him about hunting, “Russethawk, you haven’t given up on them, have you?” His pale green eyes were pleading as he looked up at his mentor. There had to be some other cat that hadn’t given up on his littermates. He didn’t even explain what he was talking about, what else would he be talking about? He had said little to Russethawk about his littermates as of yet, but he had to know if his mentor felt like everyone else seemed to feel: Icepaw and Ashpaw were dead.

[Fawn]

Russethawk
18 Moons || Warrior || Tom || RainClan

Understanding flashed deep within emerald green eyes, the dark ruddy tom slowly turning his head to glance back at Rushpaw, having begun to move from this area with all haste only to gradually stop at so unexpected a question. Well, perhaps not unexpected. Having just had what was likely the shock of his young life, it made sense that the apprentices' thoughts would automatically gravitate towards the other major events in his life that had such a soul-startling impact - such as the disappearance of Icepaw and Ashpaw. Russethawk was faced with a choice then, for the first time in his life as a warrior to either give possibly false hope to a cat who looked up to and trusted him, or crush what remained of Rushpaw's believe that his siblings were still alive, out there somewhere, and it could be done with a single word or a gesture from him. Inwardly, he let out a slightly uneasy laugh. I knew we'd have this talk soon but...I still don't feel ready for it. If he'd been in Rushpaw's fur and asked this of Razorfang, then the answer he would've wanted to receive would've been completely different then the one he would've gotten. The tom with the hazel jaw and the unusual teeth would've told him without a shred of a doubt that no, he didn't think Ashpaw and Icepaw were alive. Razorfang had never been the sympathetic type, and considering how much they'd clashed, Russethawk didn't blame him. Of course, he didn't have to make the same choices that his mentor did. "I think they're still alive, Rushpaw. I think something caused Icepaw to wander off and Ashpaw was the one who went after him." Beyond these amateur deductions, Russethawk had no other theories on what could have befallen Rushpaw's littermates, feeling sorry that the young tom was the last of the three, and had no possible closure on the whole thing. It was entirely possible that Icepaw, being unable to hear, had been distracted by something and fallen prey to the lynx. It was equally as possible that Ashpaw had heard his panicked cries and raced to the scene of the crime, only to be struck down as well. It was a grizzly end by anyone's standards, and not one he would wish upon his worst enemies. But it was also a possibility. "After we've finished hunting practice, Rushpaw, I can help you look for them." The last thing he wanted was for Rushpaw to get it into his head that he somehow had to go off alone - Russethawk, knowing full well the lengths a cat could go to for the sake of their family, wasn't about to let the smaller tom go charging off without a clue. Even if the search was hopeless, it was better than having Rushpaw confined to camp where he could sit and let his sadness and feeling of hopelessness fester.

[Fate Admin]

Rushpaw gazed up at his mentor, unsure what he was about to hear, and equally as unsure how he would feel about either possibility. He wanted more than anything for his siblings to return to the Clan, alive and well, but each day that passed by made that possibility shrink. How long could he continue to hope for their safe return? He found himself, every so often, hoping simply that they’d be found… alive or… or otherwise. He just wanted to know what happened to them. To be able to see them and… to be able to… say goodbye, if they were indeed… gone. Enough time had passed since their disappearance that he was beginning to become very conflicted on how to feel, what to think.

His ears perked forward slightly as Russethawk gave his answer. He believed they were alive!? He felt tensed muscles relax as he found another cat, one who wasn’t family, who still believed they were out there somewhere. It was harder for family to stop believing in them, but if a cat who wasn’t direct kin still did then maybe…. He looked down at his paws, and then his mentor was offering to help look for them. Again Rushpaw felt conflicted and indecision flickered over his features. He wanted to look for them, felt like he would go anywhere, to any lengths to find them, but he also had a duty to his Clan, and so did Russethawk. They couldn’t be anywhere in RainClan territory, the whole Clan had searched their territory over and over again. To have any luck they’d have to leave their territory, and Rushpaw wasn’t entirely sure Russethawk would take him outside RainClan territory.

Padding over to his mentor, he looked up at the older tom, contemplative, “Where do you think they would have gone, if they left RainClan territory? Do you think one of the other Clans could have them?” He glanced in the general direction of NightClan. Every cat knew to stay away from NightClanners… every cat but Icepaw. Maybe they’d captured his siblings… had anyone thought to find out? Rushpaw wasn’t even sure where their scent trail went, where it left off, where…. He sighed. “Maybe we should hunt first… and talk later. Even if Icepaw and Ashpaw are out there somewhere… the Clan still needs to eat….” He tried to think like a warrior and put the Clan first. If Icepaw and Ashpaw WERE out there, if they’d survived this long, then they could survive a little bit longer while he helped make sure his Clan was fed for another day.