Post by Abyss on Apr 17, 2022 13:29:06 GMT -5
Out of all cats that could do it, Rustpaw was one of the ones who you wouldn’t really expect to sneak out of camp. Sure, she might have tried when she was a kit, but that was a while ago now. These days it was less sneaking out and more so trying to go without being stopped. And she hadn’t really snuck out of camp, she didn’t try to hide that she had left. She just…went. She didn’t ask for company, she didn’t say anything, she just left. It was one of those scenarios where at least one cat knew where she was going, so it was fine. Shadowchaser knew of the ruddy she-cat’s new hobby; he knew where she would be.
And that knowledge was correct. Even though there was a thin layer of snow on the ground, it thankfully wasn’t snowing, and the sun was actually out, so the weather wasn’t too bad. Very small pawprints could be seen in the snow, going in a relatively straight line from the hollow Mistclan called home out towards the Misted Lake. When they met the shore of the lake, they turned and traveled along the edge, occasionally shuffling and flicking snow about where the Apprentice had clearly stopped. Eventually, a figure would appear in the distance.
Rustpaw sat alongside the lake, her back legs stuck forward in an odd way and a slight lean forward in her posture. She seemed very focused, wide amber eyes peering down between her paws where there was a small pile of something.
Shells. After having came to the Misted Lake a few times to admire the island in the distance, Rust had learned that sometimes you could find all sorts of shells along the shore. She didn’t know what they were from, whether they had once been the home to tiny critters or if they were just washed in from somewhere else. But, when they ended up on the shore, she was always excited to find them. She had come here a couple of times already for this exact reason, looking for shells. She had even made herself a little burial place in one of the sections of land that protruded towards the center island but did not even come close to touching it.
Her paws shuffled through, moving the shells about and examining all of the ones she had collected so far and the ones she had found just today. Greens, reds, browns, tans, pale yellows, she had already found all sorts. And she adored all of them. She almost didn’t hear footsteps approaching while she sorted through them, going back and forth between sorting them by color or by shape or by pattern. But her ears flicked, and she blinked a few times as she turned, catching sight of someone approaching, a familiar face heading her way.
“Oh, hey Newtstripe. Out for a walk?” She offered a smile to the tom, looking back down to her shells. Over the couple of moons that Mistclan had been formed, Rustpaw spent a lot of time with Shadowchaser, which was obvious, but this also meant she spent time with Newtstripe by extension. When the clans had come together in the tribe and when Mistclan got to their new home, Rust found that the two toms spent a lot of time together. For a little while she had wondered if they were brothers, but that idea was shooed away when she asked once, being told that no, they were not. In actuality, she had seen them sleeping in the same nest, the orange tabby joining her and Shadowchaser in the Medicine Den quite often. In recent moons she had never really had the chance to ask, or rather wasn’t in the mindset to hold this curiosity, but part of her wondered if they were actually mates. Maybe she would ask…at some point.
RUSTPAW
Medicine Cat Apprentice
