[Fawn]

Strut of Ring-Necked

ROOSTER

42 Moons Cave-Guard Tribe of Forgotten Waters

Why were the birds so loud? Rooster grunted in his sleep, wide face rubbing against his feathered nest as he instinctively tried to bury his head to muffle the sound. It didn't work. That same soft chirping kept on going, until Rooster found he was able to actually understand a few words. Mice...rabbits...hunting party... The words blended in with the dream he was having, somehow reaching him in this perfect, imagined world where he was leading a fierce party of cave-guards to confront an offending badger. They were just about to show the striped menace that it had no place on Tribe land!

Against his own will, Rooster found himself coming back to awareness. Sleep flaked apart like old, thin shale, and the sturdy tom sat up, blinking stupidly at the tortoiseshell she-cat who'd been the source of all the noise. The largeness of her eyes and the sweetness of her voice kept him from knee-jerk grumpiness. Hard to be mad at someone like that. "Huh? Oh, hey Mulberry." Mulberry that...somethings in something...

The tom shifted, grunting as he bent a back leg up to briefly scratch a piece of moss free from behind his ear. I was having a great dream, too!

“Mice and rabbits have got to be just as hungry as we are after all of this rain,” “Could you accompany me?” “If the mice and rabbits are hungry—so are the foxes, and…” “I’d feel much safer with a shepherd."

"Why didn't you say that first?" Rooster replied, at once getting to his paws to shake out his coat, letting the fresh morning air clear out his nasal passages. That she had asked for him specifically was enough to bury any grumpiness the cave-guard might have had about being woken up so early. And it was early; Rooster stared up at the sky, frowning as he saw a few lighter patches where it looked like the sun was attempting to shine through. But the dawn was still nested within the gray clouds, like he would like to be.

Instinctively, he looked at the prey pile, his stomach rumbling like gathering thunder. It looked measly. Even as he put eyes on it, another Tribemate picked up a soggy looking finch and brought it to the thin-coated elders, who all gathered around to take turns taking a bit of the measly meal. Rooster's ears flattened, and his chest seemed to inflate, fully taking it upon himself to identify and address the problem. He wasn't a prey-hunter, but he could rouse a bunch of them for hunting and--

Oh right, Moth had a hunting party planned. If he wanted to be Lead Cave-Guard some day, he'd better not go stomping on the Lead Prey-Hunter's toes. But if Mulberry and I bring back something good, Skyteller will notice. And, at the end of the day, the Tribe wouldn't go hungry. It was two wins, and that was even better than one.

Rooster crept to the water's edge, drank his fill, and spun to address the fluffy tortoiseshell. "Ready to go? We can try hunting in the valley if you want. Those Clan cats are touchy about their borders or whatever, but if we're fast, they won't even notice. They're always arguing about who peed on what rock and which tree belongs to which Clan." Rooster smirked, smugness filling him in place of real sustenance. Clan cats are so dumb.

Along the way to Mulberry's chosen hunting spot, Rooster made a habit of trotting rather than walking. It was his normal practice to get his heart rate up after a long sleep, and he stretched and flexed and did whatever he needed to do to wake up the muscles necessary to protect his pretty charge.
This will scroll.

Step back I'm goin' in
I'm crankin' up on the throttle
This is how legends are made

620~ words & @ide

_{Art by Syman Kaye}

[Fawn]

Strut of Ring-Necked

ROOSTER

42 Moons Cave-Guard Tribe of Forgotten Waters

It had been at least a few seasons before Rooster had given thought to his deceased parents. He wasn't the type to dwell on grief, not when their instructions had been so clear from the moment he'd been old enough to understand their words: look after your siblings. But Mulberry's story, the gentle cadence of her voice as she recounted her mother's beliefs was enough to send him deep into a memory. A memory of being nestled up against his mother's belly, purring the loudest, almost as if to drown out the stories his father told him and his siblings.

Rooster's throat was tight, as if a cruel paw were pressing down on his windpipe. Then his prey-hunting companion spoke and he hastily cleared his throat. "A bug--it was a bug. In my throat. Yeah. Stupid bug." Pull yourself together, Rooster! Why are you crying about your parents when you're supposed to be watching for danger? Shame reddened the skin beneath his face-fur, and he could feel the heat radiating out from his whisker pads.

What a mossbrained thing to be doing right now.

Mulberry led them along a wooded path, and Rooster snapped back to attention, his brow began to furrow with the effort to concentrate.

Scent. Sight. Sound. The three S's that any good cave-guard knew to watch out for. Rooster took a few tense steps behind Mulberry and then stopped, his pace halting compared to her smoother gait as he repeatedly made danger assessments. Even with his untrained nose, Rooster could sense that the prey was scarce today. "You think the shaking scared them off?" The bulky tom turned his nose up at the waterlogged mouse Mulberry discovered; he gave it a half-hearted prod, recoiling his paw from the pitiful thing.

The pretty tortoiseshell took his suggestion to heart, and they shared the opinion that hunting in the valley would yield better results. I hope. What are we supposed to do if we can't feed the Tribe? What if the shaking never stopped? Skyteller seemed concerned, but not worried. Not panicked. Rooster pictured the large ginger tom in his mind, and comforted himself with the knowledge that Skyteller had once been a Cave-Guard, like him.

“The Clan cats wouldn’t try to fight you, would they—if we were close to the valley?”

Rooster snorted. "If they did, they'd be in for a surprise! I'm not gonna tuck my tail and run just because some Clan cats get their fur in a knot. We have to do what we have to do for the Tribe, right?" Jade green eyes found Mulberry's face, and he raised his chin, chest expanding with pride of purpose. "Don't worry about me. I can protect you. You just catch us some food, okay? I don't want to go back empty-pawed."

A glimmer of self-consciousness crossed the tom's normally broad, confident face. It was gonna really sting to walk up to Moth or Storm and let them know they'd failed.

Step back I'm goin' in
I'm crankin' up on the throttle
This is how legends are made

497 words & @ide

_{Art by Syman Kaye}

[Fawn]

Strut of Ring-Necked

ROOSTER

42 Moons Cave-Guard Tribe of Forgotten Waters

Ugh, what was that smell? It was this musky, wet odor that made him want to rub his paw across his nose - or claw it right off his face if he thought that might fix the problem.

Panicked squeals shattered Rooster’s rigid focus on their surroundings, sending his heart into a furious pounding rhythm. In the back of his brain, he recognized it as rabbit and not cat, but any comfort that brought him was short-lived as he saw the source of the pungent odor.

Green eyes darted from fox to Mulberry to fox, his blood pulsing in his ears as the scene unfurled before his eyes. Rooster immediately stepped in front of Mulberry, pelt bristling as if he could turn every strand of hair into a claw to strike with. The bloodbeat briefly muffled the sound of Mulberry’s desperate mews. Rooster wasn’t the best at picking up context clues, but not even he was so soggy-brained as to be unable to figure out what had happened. That maggoty fox! It had gotten to the rabbit just a couple heartbeats before Mulberry had, and his Prey-Hunter companion was looking at him with such pleading, shameful eyes that he blinked stupidly at her. What does she want me to--OH. Oh.

Rooster sprang into action, kicking up sodden grass as he charged the fox with almost idiotic disregard for his own safety. He slammed into the creature, intending to make it drop its catch. Wide mountain-hardened paws pummeled the damp body, striking bony joints and ribs and protruding spine as he bowled it over. The world became a flurry of dark red fur, long, snapping jaw, and that nasty, nasty musk so strong it made his eyes sting.

Step back I'm goin' in
I'm crankin' up on the throttle
This is how legends are made

300~ words & @ide

_{Art by Syman Kaye}

OOC: Rolled a 14 +2 for Cave-Guard Muscle Boi Energy and got a 16/20!

[Fawn]

Strut of Ring-Necked

ROOSTER

42 Moons Cave-Guard Tribe of Forgotten Waters

Rooster, nursing a shallow cut above his right eye that bled profusely, snarled at the fox. "Just try it, you mangy bag of fleas. I'll line my nest with your bones!" The threat barely crossed his mind when it was immediately chased by another thought. That wouldn't be very comfortable. Bones were hard, and anything from a fox was promised to reek. The fox narrowed its eyes at him with what Rooster recognized to be pure hatred; he braced himself, but the scavenger, aware of his fighting prowess, chose to escape.

It took several heartbeats before Rooster moved away from his defensive position, muscles tense as coils, ready to spring.
"Whew! I'm gonna be shoving lavender up my nose until next snow-melt just to get rid of that smell! Did you get it, Mulberry?" The bulky cave-guard pivoted to where he had last seen the pretty tortoiseshell dragging the lowland hare away, and the sight of the fresh-caught prey was enough to make relief replace the adrenaline.

Rooster padded up, shaking the blood out of his eyes with an almost dog-like wag of his head. "We make a great team. Let's drag this back and then go get more. Can't risk anything stealing it while you're hunting." Even though some might have considered the encounter frightening, and even though Rooster was aware of the stakes, he still seemed to almost glow with pride at the confrontation. It wasn't every day he got to fight off a fox. It wasn't every day he got to fight off a fox single-pawed. The tom couldn't resist a cocky, almost kittenish grin. "You picked the right Cave-Guard, Mulberry."

Step back I'm goin' in
I'm crankin' up on the throttle
This is how legends are made

250~words & @ide

_{Art by Syman Kaye}

OOC: Feel free to end it with your Mulberry reply, or we can figure out a way to keep the thread going! Your choice! This feels like a good finishing scene to me. ^_^