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Post by Fate Admin on Dec 31, 2014 23:47:04 GMT -5
The Hunting Contest during the Apprentice Games had actually done quite a lot to boost her confidence, about her hunting ability at least. She hadn’t won, but she had done very well, only four of the other apprentices had done better! Gorsetail had been proud of her and it had made her feel warm inside. She had even beaten Bluepaw, which she of course apologized for and felt awful about but Bluepaw was equally as proud of her as Gorsetail had been and had seemed genuinely happy about it. It did a lot to assuage her guilt over it. She knew Bluepaw would never be mad at her over something like that, but she couldn’t help but feel bad about it anyway. Bluepaw did so much for her, she deserved to do well. And she was normal… freaks like her weren’t supposed to beat normal cats at things like that.
Still, she was happy that she had proven Gorsetail to be a fantastic mentor, because training her wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. She did her best to listen and learn of course, but the sun caused problems that she just couldn’t help and had a very hard time overcoming. She’d been doing better since she saw Whiteshade though. Whiteshade was like her, and he lived in LightningClan, without the comforting shelter of the trees. If he could survive out there, surely she could do fine in TreeClan. She had been doing secret training herself, trying to stay out longer in the sun and not squinting so much. She was pretty sure she was getting better at it. It was still uncomfortable, painful at times, but she was determined to learn to live with it so she could be the best she could be for her Clan. Just as it wasn’t her fault she was born like this, it wasn’t her Clan’s fault either, and they didn’t deserve to carry her along like a helpless kit for the rest of her life, a useless mouth to feed who couldn’t contribute.
She and Gorsetail had been assigned to a hunting patrol with two other warriors and Pinkpaw found herself near the LightningClan border. Gorsetail had tried to suggest they go the other way but she had insisted. There was more sun here, not that it mattered too much today, with the rather overcast sky, a dull gray above. She’d assured him she would be okay so he had relented. She knew he wasn’t far as she stalked forward; like Bluepaw, he had grown to watch over her. Her whiskers twitched happily as she thought about him. She was very glad Lionstar had chosen him as her mentor. She focused on the rabbit nibbling grass a few fox lengths away and crept forward another few paces until it suddenly stopped and lifted its head, scenting the air and looking wary. She crouched low and kept still until it resumed its meal, knowing very well the wind was with her, blowing her scent safely away rather than toward her prey.
Judging the distance, she tensed, extending her claws, and took off toward the rabbit, low to the ground, steps light and swift. The rabbit took off toward the LightningClan border, but she had already closed in on it and leaped onto its back, sinking claws and teeth in, snapping its neck quickly. She raised her tail triumphantly, still several tail lengths inside her own border, and licked the blood from her muzzle. She loved rabbit. If there was anything to be said about LightningClan, they had a good choice in prey. Rabbit wasn’t quite as common on the TreeClan freshkill pile as she would like, though TreeClan’s forest rabbits tended to be plumper than LightningClan’s meadow rabbits. This was one clearly a LightningClan rabbit, crossed over the border, but prey didn’t have borders. She dragged the creature’s limp body over to the base of a tree where a fern was growing, stashing it beneath the arching leaves for now and glancing over the border, hoping she might catch a glimpse of Whiteshade.
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Post by Fawn on Jan 4, 2015 2:06:40 GMT -5
Mudpaw 7 Moons. Tom. LightningClan. It seemed as though Mudpaw had used up all of his hunting luck during the competition. Twice that morning, LightningClan’s diet of choice had evaded him, and it was with a dogged, begrudging sort of determination that he kept stalking after it, trailing it all over the territory while keeping his senses peeled for anything else. Frustration matched him step for step on the way to the borderlands separating the moorlands from the woodsier dwellings of TreeClan, his mood foul, but not enough to make him start needlessly shredding grass or kicking around pebbles like one of his older brothers would. Even if there was no one here to see him, Mudpaw preferred to maintain some semblance of calm control over himself. He often imagined Windstrike approving this, not knowing just how much of a juggernaut his father had been in his youth – how so like Blazepaw and Gustpaw; would he have loved him less if he knew? It was a hard call, and one he would’ve felt guilt over even considering.
There you are. Dense brown fur rose at the collar as he spotted the creature he almost considered his nemesis at this point, yellow-orange eyes narrowing against the sunlight, staring down the grass-munching perpetrator. Mudpaw took a silent step forward, and then froze, dismay starting to fall over him like a surprise winter storm. It was on the TreeClan side of the border. Hare dung. There was nothing he could do about that, except gaze at it with a mixture of forlorn resentment – until the object of his dissatisfaction was pounced upon by a speedy white blur. ”Hey—!” And then the small white shape turned, rabbit between jaws, and he saw the startlingly pink hue of her eyes, and his heart started practicing its battle moves against his ribs. Pinkpaw. He had not seen her since the hunting competition, and this chance encounter was one he wished he could’ve prepared for – not stood there gawking like an idiot. Suddenly, as if to make himself feel worse, Mudpaw could recall the first conversation they’d had together. I introduced myself as Pawmud. StarClan kill me now.
Mudpaw almost considered turning around and just walking in the opposite direction, but he’d already caught her attention; besides, his paws didn’t seem to want to move.
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Post by Fate Admin on Jan 9, 2015 18:55:53 GMT -5
Her ears perked forward as she caught sight of a familiar dark brown pelt and her tail waved happily behind her. Mudpaw! He wasn’t Whiteshade, but she liked to think that maybe they were friends after the Apprentice Games. He had treated her so nicely. He had an odd look on his face and Pinkpaws ears twitched, recalling that she had heard someone call out to her as she had leaped for the rabbit. She turned to look at the limp creature for a moment and her ears flattened against her head. She hadn’t crossed the border after all had she? A flare of panic went through her until she parted her jaws and confirmed that yes, she was on the right side of the border. Maybe Mudpaw had been stalking this rabbit before she’d caught up to it?
She ducked her head, feeling guilty, “I’m… I’m sorry… did I… take your rabbit?” she peered across the border at him, her tail flicking nervously behind her, “You… you can have it if you want….” She hoped he wasn’t mad at her. The rabbit was on TreeClan’s side of the border, after all… he couldn’t have caught it anyway without trespassing. But if she’d known he was waiting over there for it she would have chased it back for him! Wait… was that against the Warrior Code? Was helping a cat from another Clan hunt wrong? Her fur fluffed out in confusion and she crouched in the grass, unsure what to do.
Should she not have offered the rabbit back to him? It was clearly from his territory. Would her Clanmates be mad at her if she gave it to him? Her ears laid back, wondering if Gorsetail would be disappointed with her. She almost felt like wailing like a kit, though she thankfully managed not to. StarClan forgive her, she would never hunt by the borders again!
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Post by Fawn on Jan 16, 2015 19:56:10 GMT -5
Mudpaw 7 Moons. Tom. LightningClan. “I’m… I’m sorry… did I… take your rabbit?” [...] “You… you can have it if you want….”
She's so pretty. There was very little going on in Mudpaw's head at that moment, it was as if his brain synapses had gone into a hiatus while his sense of sight took center stage, gazing at Pinkpaw as if he was not quite sure she was real. Then, as if that inner voice inside of his head had had enough of him embarrassing himself, his attention snapped back to the conversation like a branch pulled and then released, whacking him hard on the nose. "Huh? Oh--No its yours, you keep it." There was probably something fundamentally wrong with him not fighting harder for that rabbit, but it had gone over to her side of the border, which meant it was hers, fair and square.
"I see you still hunt good. Well. I mean you still hunt well." Great StarClan, was he doomed to make a complete idiot of himself every time they came in contact with one another? Mudpaw shuffled his paws, uncomfortable; the stocky young tom hadn't been the best when it came to socializing, but so long as it wasn't Pinkpaw, he could hold a conversation pretty well. (Not that his siblings cared much for conversation, they were all action action action) Was it too much to ask for the chance to actually look cool in front of her?
Not that he should even be worrying about this. Once again, their differences in Clans became glaringly obvious; Mudpaw could envision a red line stretching right between them, separating them as only a territory boundary could. I wish she'd been born in LightningClan, like me. Who would her parents be, though? At once, Mudpaw thought of Whiteshade, and he had to suppress an involuntary shudder; yikes, having that tom for a father would've been... scary. There was something about that warrior that made Mudpaw feel uncomfortable.
Or maybe it was because, the last time the three of them had been standing near each other, Pinkpaw had... ignored him for Whiteshade. I can't blame her for that, though. TreeClan didn't seem to have any other albinos. She was probably just fascinated with him. Most outsiders were. She didn't have a crush on Whiteshade, did she? Maybe his white fur and red eyes were more her type? Mudpaw sullenly thought of his mud brown fur, wishing he was at least a little bit lighter...
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Post by Fate Admin on Jan 21, 2015 22:54:48 GMT -5
Her ears shot forward as he told her to keep the rabbit and she looked up and across the border at him with wide pink eyes. Oh, thank StarClan, now she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she was breaking the code! The flicked back almost immediately, still wondering if it wouldn’t have been right to give him the rabbit anyway, but he didn’t seem upset about it. She forced her fur to lie flat, realizing she had puffed up quite a bit in her panic, and ducked her head as he complimented her hunting. She giggled. He was always so funny, it really did wonders to put her at ease.
“I’m not really… that good…,” she insisted, “I just get lucky sometimes….” Her plumed tail twitched nervously behind her and she took a few cautious steps closer to the border, thinking over what she’d just said. If she wasn’t good, if she was just lucky, then she wasn’t paying enough attention to Gorsetail and then she’d make him look bad. But he was a great mentor, and he was teaching her a lot. “Ah, b-but I have a really great mentor!” she blurted, defending Gorsetail as if Mudpaw would even know who he was or would for some reason think less of him because of her excessive modesty.
“I… I guess I’m not bad… at hunting…,” she finally managed to admit, looking down at her paws, “I mean… I’m… not really good at anything else, so… I try really hard to be good at hunting.” She looked back up at him, shifting uncomfortably when she realized she just kept on talking about herself and he probably didn’t care, “I… uhm… how… how’s hunting over there… in LightningClan?” Duh, in LightningClan. Her ears flicked back briefly, “You ah… you did really good at the Apprentice Games too… you must be catching loads of prey.”
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Post by Fawn on Jan 27, 2015 11:44:45 GMT -5
Mudpaw 7 Moons. Tom. LightningClan. Did she giggle? She did, didn't she? Mudpaw felt like butterflies were tickling the undersides of his paws - not an entirely uncomfortable sensation, but he also couldn't quite describe or understand the feeling it was giving him. It was almost like he had extra energy, as if he might actually take a leaf out of Blazepaw's book and cross the border just to be a little closer to her - but Mudpaw's strong grasp of the warrior code gripped him tight and refused to let him budge. Stay on your side of the border, said a voice of reprimand, and Mudpaw quickly found himself again, reminded that this blossoming friendship of theirs would never be anything more than that.
It couldn't be anything more than that.
"It's not bad," he mewed as truthfully as he could. Why did he get the feeling she'd try to give him the rabbit if he told her he hadn't caught anything today? He didn't know how closely she adhered to the Code, but given that she had panicked over the idea that she had taken his prey from him, he wasn't going to risk it. "Is it... Is it weird hunting there? With so many trees?" They had this sparse stretch of woods, but even having this small scrap of forest was enough to make him feel a little claustrophobic, as if the forest were trying to close in around him, blotting out the sky sometimes. He didn't care much for the noisy chattering of birds, he preferred the soft song of the sedge bushes and the tall grasses brushing against one another, and the sound the wind made when blowing in full force. Mudpaw's somber golden-yellow eyes gently sought out Pinkpaw's distinctive pinkish ones, gazing at her without fear of her condition or with worry that he was asking her to divulge secrets of her Clan. That would've been wrong, and he wouldn't have asked that of her, or any cat; he had more integrity than that, he didn't want to be that sort of person, who belittled and manipulated others. He just wanted to be a good warrior, and a good brother, and a good friend. It really was just benign curiosity that made him ask such a question.
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Post by Fate Admin on Feb 14, 2015 20:23:40 GMT -5
Pinkpaw blinked in surprise at Mudpaw’s question. Weird? Hunting under the trees? He glanced behind her, where the trees grow closer together, forming a thick canopy of varying shades of green overhead. She always felt rather comforted beneath their shade, reminded of her father when she had been nothing but a tiny kit, his pelt like night, blotting out the sun and shielding her from its intense light with every step. He had seemed to fill up the sky, when she had been so small, a canopy of black fur protecting her.
“I… don’t think so?” She mewed finally, after thinking about it. She purred, “I always feel so protected beneath them.” She shuffled her paws, wondering if that sounded strange. She tried to explain further, “It’s like… the forest is my father… and he’s…,” she felt hot under her fur, “Sorry, it sounds silly… I guess I’m not very good at explaining things….” She ducked her head, tail twitching nervously behind her.
“So, um… do you… ever get really hot? Without trees? I mean… there… sure is a lot of sunlight in LightningClan’s territory…,” she stuttered on, moving away from the subject of her own territory because she was starting to feel like a mousebrain, “Lots of cats like to sun themselves, but… the shade feels nice too….” She stayed away from the fact that she found the sun unbearable for long periods of time. Then again, Mudpaw had Whiteshade in his Clan. If Whiteshade was like her, then Mudpaw must know about it already… even if Whiteshade somehow seemed to be okay in the sun. He was clearly a lot older than she was… maybe he was just used to the pain.
Her ears perked forward as a question she had been curious about for a while popped to the fore of her mind, “Oh! Is it true you only eat rabbits? Some of the other apprentices were saying that’s all LightningClan eats, and it’s why you all smell kinda… like rabbits….” She clamped her jaws shut briefly, mortified, “I’m sorry! That was really rude! I mean, you don’t really smell like… I mean… kinda but… it’s not BAD or anything! I promise! I don’t think you smell bad at all!” This was going well. She was probably going to send him running back to his camp never wanting to talk to her again at this rate. She felt like crawling into a rabbit hole herself and never coming back out.
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Post by Fawn on Feb 24, 2015 21:33:07 GMT -5
Mudpaw 7 Moons. Tom. LightningClan. "I don't think it sounds silly," it was a solemn sort of response despite the casualness of their conversation - he was a solemn cat in general, he couldn't help that his tonal range was a little more towards the somber and the serious. Of course, any onlookers would probably be suspicious about his answers - she could have said 'hedgehogs look great with feathers' and he would've given the same answer. Of course, that was also because he probably couldn't quite grasp the concept of a silly joke, but that was another issue for another day. Listening patiently to every question, he gave her curiosities about TreeClan's lack of shade some thought, tail brushing against the grass and curling around his wide, chocolate-hued paws. "The tall grasses protect us from the sun, it's not as bad as it looks." We must look like we don't mind the heat, to live in a place without trees. In Mudpaw's eyes, however, the Clan that looked borderline batty had to be StoneClan; the absolute lack of cover at all was enough to make his belly clench with unease; TreeClan's environment felt too oppressive - the open moorlands brought a sense of peace to him - but StoneClan's territory felt way too exposed, as if at any moment something could jump out and rip him to pieces.
Mudpaw's tail twitched in surprise as she said they all smelled like rabbits. That's true, if you think about it. Why wouldn't cats smell like what they ate? TreeClan must smell like mice or squirrels. "Sometimes we eat birds, and there are mice here too, but rabbits are the most plentiful." Mudpaw informed her gently, seeing nothing wrong with taking the time to enlighten the she-cat -- it was better that he correct some of these rumors now then if she spoke up at a gathering and earned the scornful glances of LightningClan for her misinformation. He shuddered to think what Blazepaw or Gustpaw would say to her if they heard her fumble through her words like she had just done.
A breeze stirred his pelt, and he smiled at Pinkpaw, not minding her company at all, in fact, he considered it pleasant -- he gladly would've spent more time then was proper just sitting here talking to her, but the breeze carried with it familiar scents. A LightningClan patrol! The happy expression slid off his face like a rain drop, and he jumped to his paws, mewing a hasty "I have to go--it was nice talking to you Pinkpaw--there's a patrol coming, I don't want to get you into trouble!" Haredung! What if they noticed he hadn't caught a single thing? A thorn of guilt clawed it's way into his chest, feeling anxious; he had almost caught something... Any remorse he felt over not pursing the rabbit into TreeClan's territory was quickly dealt with and shoved aside. No, no matter what, borders are borders. You'll just have to keep hunting until you catch something.
Word Count: 494 Words Tags: Fate Admin
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