[Katara]

[googlefont=Playfair Display] [googlefont=Roboto] [googlefont=Kumar One]

if i was born as a blackthorn tree
i'd wanna be held by you, felled by you
fuel the

PYRE OF YOUR
enemies

clover

clovermask.

NIGHTCLAN WARRIOR // 45 MOONS

H

unting patrols didn't usually bore Clovermask so quickly, but tonight's felt like it was never going to end. Frogs and lizards were, as usual, plentiful in the territory but the bengal she-cat didn't love the taste of them, and playing with frogs before she dispatched them had long since lost its fun. And, in any case, she wouldn't play with her food if she wanted to tonight. An apprentice was on their patrol this evening, and Clovermask was usually careful to act like a strong example to them, since they were so impressionable. Gaining admiration from apprentices was almost too easy, and apprentices became warriors within such a short time that she felt it worth her time to gain their favor. After all, if she were to lead one day, it would be these warriors she'd be leading, not the highly-respected senior warriors that could be retiring to the elders' den soon.

The other two warriors on the patrol were busy following the tireless flapping of bats through the trees, probably toward the Bat Cave, but as Clovermask pricked her ears she caught another faint sound above the chirp of the bats. She stopped dead in her tracks, brushing her shoulder against Roachpaw's as she did so. "Stop," she commanded, and strained her ears as quiet pressed upon them, the other two members of the patrol wandering away from them. The silence was broken once again by the noise she'd heard: a short, quiet quack. "It's a duck," she hissed, and already she was practically salivating. Ducks were her favorite food, and her favorite to find and kill as well. Because they were so rare, she savored each and every meal she had when it came to ducks.

She turned her attention to Roachpaw. "Have you ever had duck before? You'd love it - we're not going to regret leaving those two behind if we go hunt it down. Are you coming?" She tilted her head, imploring and challenging at the same time. She flicked her tail, not waiting to see if he'd follow.

[attr="class","cltag"]tagged Fawn

[attr="class","clnotes"]notes --

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[Fawn]

The kid has got a dark side

Push too far you'll see

A duck? Clovermask wanted to catch a duck? Roachpaw's expression was dubious at best, his muzzle scrunching with a skeptical snort. They were fat noisy pests as far as he was concerned. But the chance to sample one, and the challenge of catching one had piqued Roachpaw's interest. He gazed into the bengal she-cat's eyes, and the coaxing tone was enough to make him shift a little restlessly on his paws.

He glanced back where the other two warriors had last been seen, and his teeth showed in a small grin. "Yes." The idea of placing a seldom caught piece of prey on the pile was like a song he couldn't ignore. Roachpaw would have to share that honor with Clovermask, but he needed her expertise to catch the stupid noisy thing anyway. "How are we supposed to get it if it's in the water?" He hissed his question to the shimmering flank of the warrioress ahead of him, his posture low, his muscles alert and reactive.

Copper eyes were wide, trying to take in everything that he could. It had to be getting close to first light. Why else would they be hearing duck noises so late? Roachpaw raised his nose to the wind, careful in his movements. It was a strange scent. Faint, compared to the frogs and mice he was used to catching. He tried to imagine biting into one, but all he could picture were his fangs brushing against feathers and the down sticking to his tongue.

Blegh.

Roachpaw

nightclan apprentice | 12 moons | 252 words| Katara

[Katara]

[googlefont=Playfair Display] [googlefont=Roboto] [googlefont=Kumar One]

if i was born as a blackthorn tree
i'd wanna be held by you, felled by you
fuel the

PYRE OF YOUR
enemies

clover

clovermask.

NIGHTCLAN WARRIOR // 45 MOONS

S

he didn't yet know Roachpaw well, but it was probably fair to say she knew him as well as she knew any other Clanmate, which was to say she knew enough. That was about how far she cared to know any of them, if she were being perfectly honest. Knowing them well enough to carry on a conversation comfortably, but not well enough to make them feel as if they could confide in her - that was her goal. Though she was aware that if she were to be chosen for deputy one day, she'd have to be comfortable with having those... emotional conversations with others, she was reluctant to partake. She could feign sympathy well enough, and even understanding to a degree, but her handling of any of those situations had been all wrong in the past. She thought she was being uncharacteristically nice when she offered sound advice to anyone who dared to confide in her (it had only happened twice in her life), it apparently hadn't been what Clanmates were looking for.

Whatever. She'd never have enough time on her paws to interpret what any cat wanted from another. She was certainly doing well enough to guess Roachpaw would follow her anyway, whether he thought he'd enjoy duck or not, and she was right. She twitched her whiskers, secretly pleased, as if she'd won a point in a game only she was playing.

"How are we supposed to get it if it's in the water?" His hiss carried through the night air, and Clovermask slowed briefly so they were prowling side-by-side. She'd only hunted ducks in water once before, and it was with the help of another Clanmate. It would be difficult to do it alone, unless you were a RainClan warrior and wanted to go for a swim. The she-cat couldn't imagine being willing to take a dip in the pond water, even for a taste of her favorite prey.

"We're going to trap it," she murmured. "If you've ever seen a pair of LightningClan warriors work together to take down a rabbit, you'll have an idea of what we'll be doing." She opened her mouth to taste the air, catching the faint scent of duck with it. As they moved toward the pond, the scent grew stronger, and her tail lashed with anticipation. They had to do this perfectly. "With any luck, neither of us will have to set a paw in water."

As soon as she began to hear the slightest ripple of water up ahead, she halted. "I'm going to sneak around and scare the duck directly toward you. I'll run around to help kill it, but you'll need to be quick and pin it down before it tries to fly away. Its wings can knock any cat aside easily." Though they didn't have quite the force of a hawk or an eagle, a duck could still make enough of a fuss to need more than one cat to take it down. "So," she continued casually, "break its wings first if you can't reach its neck immediately. It'll make quite a ruckus about it, but it beats an empty belly." With the few ducks she'd hunted previously, she'd broken their wings first on purpose. It felt like the logical choice, and it was the smallest bit satisfying to hear the crunch of its delicate bones and silence its shriek herself.

[attr="class","cltag"]tagged Fawn

[attr="class","clnotes"]notes --

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[Fawn]

The kid has got a dark side

Push too far you'll see

Her comment about LightningClan threw him. Why would he know what a couple of moorbounders chasing rabbits would look like? Their territory didn't overlap with NightClan's. In the brief pause between instructions, Roachpaw's copper gaze turned to scrutiny.

Did being a warrior give her more freedoms than he'd imagined? No. That made no sense. So how did she...

Some sort of boring, rational answer sprang to mind but Roachpaw pushed it aside, greedily entertaining the notion of stealthy observations of the enemy Clans - missions given to them by Darkstar herself. Roachpaw eyed Clovermask with renewed interest, his eyes flashing as she delivered the vital instructions needed to take the creature down. Break the wings. Don't let it fly away. Go for the neck.

It was rare to find prey that was strong enough to fight back, and Roachpaw mentally braced himself, regarding their prey somewhat skeptically. Clovermask's warning didn't go unheard, though, and his claws flexed with feral eagerness as they slowly maneuvered into position.

Dark eyes tracked the older warrior, kinetic energy building up despite Roachpaw's static state, his body crouched down amongst the tall, drowsily bent reeds. Can ducks smell? He had never given it much thought before, and the lack of an answer within his own mind annoyed him. It didn't matter. He would play this like he played everything else - carefully, with an almost frightening intensity as he did everything he could to get this right.

Roachpaw listened. Roachpaw waited.

Roachpaw

nightclan apprentice | 12 moons | 249 words| Katara

[Katara]

[googlefont=Playfair Display] [googlefont=Roboto] [googlefont=Kumar One]

if i was born as a blackthorn tree
i'd wanna be held by you, felled by you
fuel the

PYRE OF YOUR
enemies

clover

clovermask.

NIGHTCLAN WARRIOR // 45 MOONS

I

t only took a glance at Roachpaw's expression to determine he was ready. Without another word, Clovermask slipped through the weeds and wove her way to the other side of the pond, keeping her eyes on the duck floating on the surface. Briefly, she recalled Berrycloud's training from many moons ago, when the pair of them found another duck in this very same pond. It was during the days when she'd first made an effort to be likable with him, and the day they'd found the duck was when he still appeared to be somewhat wary around her, as if waiting for the other stone to drop. Ducks can't smell well, so they detect predators with their sight and hearing, he'd told her. You must become invisible.

With her rich brown fur and black rippled markings, she blended into the dried reeds of Leaf-fall with ease. Though it was Newleaf now, she didn't think she'd have trouble blending in, and the duck gave no indication it had seen her as she prowled around its line of sight, careful to keep herself concealed with the reeds or the other growth in the surrounding marshland. It bobbed peacefully on top of the water, dipping its head beneath its feathers and ruffling them; clearly, it was grooming itself in some way. When she rounded herself behind the duck, her green eyes flicked across the way, where Roachpaw was concealed, waiting for Clovermask to drive it in his direction.

She narrowed her eyes, considering. She didn't want to scare the duck so badly that it tried to take off instead of just moving further across the pond, but she didn't want it to not take her seriously either. She watched it curve its neck into the feathers of its back, its eyes turned momentarily in her direction, and she decided to take advantage of it. Still concealed by the reeds, she suddenly darted through them, being sure to shake them violently on her way to the edge of the pond, and loud splashing told her she'd spooked the duck. She quickly peered across the pond, seeing the duck half-flying, half-splashing across the surface of the water in a panicked way, heading toward the reeds where somewhere, Roachpaw was lying in wait.

Not wanting to scare it more, she didn't yowl out a warning - figuring the sound of it splashing around would be enough of a warning - and instead charged around the side of the pond to help finish off the waterfowl. With any luck, the apprentice wouldn't even need her help.

[attr="class","cltag"]tagged Fawn

[attr="class","clnotes"]notes --

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[Fawn]

The kid has got a dark side

Push too far you'll see

Roachpaw collided with the duck like a battering ram. He was smaller than his father, though they looked incredibly similar. Whereas the stocky warrior Sablefoot had strength in spades, Roachpaw had vigor and resolve.

It was exactly what a cat needed if they were to survive an apprenticeship with Cobrastrike. The noise the duck made was wretched; the dark tom's ears pinned nearly flat to his skull as he struggled to make sense of the large flailing creature. Wings buffeted his body so quickly and with such frenetic energy that a clip to the jaw made his teeth rattle.

Ouch.

Seizing as firmly to the duck as he did to Clovermask's instructions, Roachpaw sank his teeth into the meaty joint where the wing met the rest of it's body. His timing was excellent; Clovermask was a suggestion of brown and black fur in his peripherals, but he knew she was there. Through the strange pond-scent that clung to the waterfowl, he could taste Clovermask, adrenaline and muddled water. The duck's struggling decreased significantly, and Roachpaw wrenched the wing back, determined to keep his balance while the warrioress finished the job.

It was a strange feeling, to fight prey large enough that it could fight back. Roachpaw inwardly glowed with satisfaction; not many apprentices could handle a challenge like this one. While the rest of their patrol was off chasing their own tails around the territory, he and Clovermask were actually doing something worthwhile. Any cat with half a brain could renew a scent marker.

Not everyone could catch prey this large.

Would Cobrastrike be proud? Roachpaw's stomach muscles tensed in anticipation, hoping that her impression of him would at least improve by a small amount. Cobrastrike's thoughts and opinions were her own. He knew that. But Roachpaw's drive to succeed, to make something of himself, demanded feedback from those he respected most. And feared.

Roachpaw

nightclan apprentice | 12 moons | 314 words| @kat

[Katara]

[googlefont=Playfair Display] [googlefont=Roboto] [googlefont=Kumar One]

if i was born as a blackthorn tree
i'd wanna be held by you, felled by you
fuel the

PYRE OF YOUR
enemies

clover

clovermask.

NIGHTCLAN WARRIOR // 45 MOONS

O

f course, it was lucky the duck would be such a large meal, because she was certain its squawking would scare off any prey from here to StarClan's Claws. Hopefully there weren't any hunting patrols around. The sound of its screech as Roachpaw collided with it was practically music to Clovermask's ears. It was the sound of her favorite meal, and she couldn't wait to sink her teeth into it. She rounded the pond, seeing the apprentice valiantly keeping the large bird down, and noticed with satisfaction he'd taken her advice of going for its wings first. With a few more bounds, she closed the distance between them and pounced, fangs flashing as she aimed directly for the duck's neck. Its screeching had already faded from the start of Roachpaw's assault, but she it still pleased her to cut off its voice as she bit down hard.

Blood bathed her tongue, and Clovermask pulled away before it could stain her muzzle any further. She swiped her tongue around her jaws, looking at Roachpaw appreciatively. She praised the apprentices whenever she could anyway, just to earn their easy loyalty, but she did feel genuinely impressed with young cat. "Well done," she told him. "You hardly needed the help at all, and we have a nice, clean kill." Her eyes flicked over him, assessing him quickly for any injury, but he looked fine, if a little breathless. She was about to invite him to take the first bite when she remembered this was a hunting patrol. They were supposed to bring their catch back to the Clan... but at least there, they'd be able to show off.

"I don't think the other two will miss us if we head back to camp now," she suggested. "It's not like they're going to catch something better than a duck." Her voice had a note of triumph to it. "Let's go show it off to the rest of the Clan, shall we?" The duck was so fat they'd need to carry it back together, anyway, and she was eager to return so she could have a bite of her favorite meal.

[attr="class","cltag"]tagged Fawn

[attr="class","clnotes"]notes --

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