[vigil]

Redbird was hunting rabbits. That's a lot like saying it was Thursday (which it possibly was, but the clans never cared much for naming the days of the week). Redbird did a lot of hunting, she was good at it.

And she was especially good at catching rabbits. Rabbits were a major cornerstone of what Redbird did. They were comparatively large prey for a cat, and bringing back a rabbit or two would always go a solid way toward keeping the bellies of her clanmates full. It was work she took pride in, and something not all the apprentices really mastered. LightningClan's territory was a rough place for hunting fast prey, the clear lines of sight you could draw over most of it meant it was very difficult to sneak up on a potential meal unseen.

Redbird had lots of practice, however. The she-cat crept low through the thin vegetation of the flooded grasses, eyes intent on a browsing rabbit. She moved softly and stealthily, careful to avoid its gaze.

Finally, she was near enough. Redbird sprang and had her teeth in the rabbit's neck before it realized what had happened. There was a mighty scuffle of claws and powerful hind legs as she bore down on her prey. The rabbit squealed, then died.

Redbird spat out a mouthful of fur and disentangled herself from the kill, examining it.

Thankyou, StarClan, she thought to herself as she prepared to haul it back. It wouldn't do to leave it lying out here while hunting more, it would be hard to stash. A mouse could be hidden, but a whole rabbit? Not so much.

[Fawn]

[STYLE= font-family:Georgia; font-size:45px; letter-spacing:30px; width:450px; text-transform:lowercase; font-style:italic; color:#1E1E1E; line-height: 25px; background-color:#000000; text-align:center;]Rookfrost
[/style][STYLE= background-color:#000000; width:450px; line-height: 10px; font-family:Arial; letter-spacing:3px; font-size:9px; color:#2F4F4F; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:center;]38 Moons - Medicine Cat - Tom - LightningClan
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Hunting was a tedium. It did nothing to exercise the complex machine that was his mind, it did nothing but test his muscle memory and display the hunting prowess he'd had as a warrior and apprentice before his true calling had caught up with him. It was a difficult thing, to hunt and contemplate medical discrepencies and curiosities all at once, but if Rookfrost hadn't been able to do even that, then he would have to be ill himself.

A large brown leporidaean eye was focused in the direction of the tom with the midnight fur. It had taken a bit of maneuverability to find coverage that was dark enough to conceal his black fur, but the Medicine Cat was confident that he could trick the eye and calm the heart with his stony stillness, as he was doing right now. The rabbit did not see him, despite looking right in his direction from out amongst the bracken.

Like a lamb unknowingly walking into the welcoming arms of a butcher, the rabbit hopped from the sanctuary of the gorse and sedge bushes on the LightningClan moorlands, and out in front of a creature of nightmarish immorality. The once-warrior was pensively, patiently mulling over a strange new case that had been called to his attention not too long ago.

In the forest, there existed a she-cat with some sort of invisible ailment that left her coughing from strenuous activities, that left her lungs seizing in her chest and her airways nearly constricting her in seasons of heavy pollination and new growth. Winter was the only season in which the afflicted she-cat could truly find relief. It was puzzling to the average Medicine Cat, but to one whose thinking was not at all bound to spirituality and the ideas of curses and ailments given by gods, it was a challenge he whole heartedly accepted.

Haunches tensed, his back brushing against the brambles noiselessly as he slid into a stalking stance, prepared to leap from the undergrowth and exercise his mother-nature-given right to kill the prey before him.

Like the scream of the rabbit's deceased ancestors, an otherworldly scream of death reached the ears of both prey and predator - the sound of a fallen kin sending the rabbit racing as though struck by lightning. Growling in frustration, Rookfrost sprang, his speed unnaturally fast as though spurned on by his rage, his heavy form looking unable to keep up such a pace, but he had already run down the terrorized creature. His wrath was not brought down upon the rabbit - he was not so childish as to blame it for following it's own flighty nature. He could not blame it for heeding the warning signs and trying to live another day.

He could, however, blame the cat who'd let their prey's squeal echo into the moorland like a death call.

Carrying a limp rabbit, Rookfrost recalled the direction that last tormented lamentation had come from, and slipped through the bracken, large tufted ears rotating, checking for a change in position of the guilty party. He found her - he knew he would, even if he hadn't relied on the dead creature's scream to pinpoint her location, he would've discovered the red-furred she-cat just the same. Directing a stare that was full of cold, dissonant frustration, the Medicine Cat set down his own catch, regarding her the same way a mentor would regard a disobedient apprentice.
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and say that you were unaware of a rabbit's inability to band together. They are not like wild cats - when they hear a death scream, they do not come running in vain to the aid of their den mate, instead they let their instinct for self-preservation take over and we shall see hide nor cute fluffy tail of them for the next few hours." Rookfrost's biting lecture wasn't full of ignorance born of not knowing his Clanmates well. He was perfectly aware of Redbird's skill when it came to catching rabbits, which was why his opening line had been almost mocking, as if he had been given the impression that the only thing she knew how to do was bite a rabbit on the back of the neck and nothing more.

Redbird was intelligent, there was no mistaking that.

Perhaps that was part of the ire. To someone who rarely found anyone of the intellectual superiority the same as his to hold a decent conversation with, to have those that were at least a couple steps above the rest do something so mousebrained seemed to rub his fur the wrong way. Such was the reason as to why he pegged her for ruining the rest of their respective hunting experiences.

Words: 804

[/style][STYLE= background-color:#000000; width:450px; line-height: 10px; font-family:Arial; letter-spacing:3px; font-size:9px; color:#595959; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:center;]What's wrong with you cats, why aren't any of you dying?[/style][STYLE= background-color:#000000; width:450px; line-height: 10px; font-family:Arial; letter-spacing:3px; font-size:9px; color:#595959; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:center;]© LISE of BACK TO NEVERLAND[/style]