Post by Egotistic on Mar 12, 2023 10:01:31 GMT -6
> Pinepaw
>> ThistleClan
Leaf-bare was over, and the ground squelched with snow-melt. All around her, the air hummed with warmth, and the breezes were kinder and gentler than she had ever known them. They carried the smells of spring on their backsides, scents that spoke of new-leaf and all its bounties—of all things green and living. The forest was reviving, the air seemed to sing, and in the absence of snow, there had been nothing to keep her from seeing it for herself.
So it was with eagerness she rushed into their damp domicile, that her paws slapped down into murky puddles, never minding the mess they caused, for that same morning she had given herself a proper coating of mud, and she did not mind a little more. In the end, it would not matter. Only when she entered their hunting grounds would it matter, and she was quite eager to bound and play and splash about until she got there, her mentor in his dark, stolid furs keeping an easy pace with her, murmuring lessons softly to her that her ears did not hear. They were too busy drinking in the sound of scuffling feet and the dry, raspy notes of bug wings—all of which, she thought, were star-lengths more interesting than lessons on how to set one’s feet.
Yet when they crept into the belly of their hunting grounds, she eased. She shouldered through the dense undergrowth and let her eyes round, her pupils to grow vast and watchful. This was where she was to return, her mentor told her, when she had caught her first prey. He would not be there to guide her, he said. He had shown her more than enough in camp when the snows had kept them in. Now it was her turn, at last, to prove to him that she had ever been listening, and already she felt the silent thrill, that eagerness to prove that she had.
And so, flush-faced, she sprang from his side, from the clearing, and into the undergrowth. She scrambled under fallen logs and climbed over those that she couldn’t. She skirted puddles even if she felt that innate urge to splash in them, and she stilled at every sound and gazed hungrily at every shadow. But for all the sounds of scuttling feet, all the smells of prey bellied in the soft earth, she saw none of the forest creatures. Maybe if I dig them out…
She had heard that the forest creatures tucked into the earth when the weather did not suit them. They were sensitive like that and liked to be warm, so they would sleep through it instead. She’d seen Fernheart unearth a den of sleeping dormice once—said by the time they’d caught wind, he’d already had their napes. Maybe she could find dormice, then, and maybe she could bring it back to Smokestorm and see the way he’d chuff and twitch his whiskers in that approving way. She’d only ever gotten him to do that once while practicing her pounces; the thought of doing it again was far too exciting a thought to pass.
And so she looked downward instead of skyward. She sniffed at every tunnel she found, and set her paws into it, and would have kept on like that if she didn’t notice the trees thinning and the undergrowth with it.
Blue eyes shifted upward. Just ahead, she could make out the distant glad between the trees—the one that led far out into rogue hunting grounds. But closer than even that, she saw something moving. Something bright skulking.
Her whiskers twitched, she drank in the smell of it, and without taking the time to consider why it smelled so odd, she sprang at it, caught it up in her paws, and rolled it under her. A paw crept up on its chest to fix it there; the other surged up on high to land that deft and killing blow… before faltering, for the green eyes that stared back up at her were not the simple-minded kind of prey, but that of another cat—and one she had never met before.
An angry flush surged at her ear tips. She sprang from them and shook her paws off in horror. “Oh! I’m sorry- I didn’t realize- I…” she breathed, whiskers twitching. “I thought you were some kind of mouse.” She watched them as they found their paws again. And then she smelled it—the smell she’d once caught on the breeze when she’d walked the borders with her mentor. A smell like redwoods and creek beds. A RedwoodClanner. Her eyes rounded. “Oh no, no, no. You shouldn’t be here!” She glanced over the she-cat’s shoulder, into the darkness. “Is this some kind of ambush? You didn’t bring anyone with you, did you?” Her furs fluffed, and she stooped into a low crouch. “If you did, you better tell me now, or I’ll… I’ll do something you really won’t like.”
So it was with eagerness she rushed into their damp domicile, that her paws slapped down into murky puddles, never minding the mess they caused, for that same morning she had given herself a proper coating of mud, and she did not mind a little more. In the end, it would not matter. Only when she entered their hunting grounds would it matter, and she was quite eager to bound and play and splash about until she got there, her mentor in his dark, stolid furs keeping an easy pace with her, murmuring lessons softly to her that her ears did not hear. They were too busy drinking in the sound of scuffling feet and the dry, raspy notes of bug wings—all of which, she thought, were star-lengths more interesting than lessons on how to set one’s feet.
Yet when they crept into the belly of their hunting grounds, she eased. She shouldered through the dense undergrowth and let her eyes round, her pupils to grow vast and watchful. This was where she was to return, her mentor told her, when she had caught her first prey. He would not be there to guide her, he said. He had shown her more than enough in camp when the snows had kept them in. Now it was her turn, at last, to prove to him that she had ever been listening, and already she felt the silent thrill, that eagerness to prove that she had.
And so, flush-faced, she sprang from his side, from the clearing, and into the undergrowth. She scrambled under fallen logs and climbed over those that she couldn’t. She skirted puddles even if she felt that innate urge to splash in them, and she stilled at every sound and gazed hungrily at every shadow. But for all the sounds of scuttling feet, all the smells of prey bellied in the soft earth, she saw none of the forest creatures. Maybe if I dig them out…
She had heard that the forest creatures tucked into the earth when the weather did not suit them. They were sensitive like that and liked to be warm, so they would sleep through it instead. She’d seen Fernheart unearth a den of sleeping dormice once—said by the time they’d caught wind, he’d already had their napes. Maybe she could find dormice, then, and maybe she could bring it back to Smokestorm and see the way he’d chuff and twitch his whiskers in that approving way. She’d only ever gotten him to do that once while practicing her pounces; the thought of doing it again was far too exciting a thought to pass.
And so she looked downward instead of skyward. She sniffed at every tunnel she found, and set her paws into it, and would have kept on like that if she didn’t notice the trees thinning and the undergrowth with it.
Blue eyes shifted upward. Just ahead, she could make out the distant glad between the trees—the one that led far out into rogue hunting grounds. But closer than even that, she saw something moving. Something bright skulking.
Her whiskers twitched, she drank in the smell of it, and without taking the time to consider why it smelled so odd, she sprang at it, caught it up in her paws, and rolled it under her. A paw crept up on its chest to fix it there; the other surged up on high to land that deft and killing blow… before faltering, for the green eyes that stared back up at her were not the simple-minded kind of prey, but that of another cat—and one she had never met before.
An angry flush surged at her ear tips. She sprang from them and shook her paws off in horror. “Oh! I’m sorry- I didn’t realize- I…” she breathed, whiskers twitching. “I thought you were some kind of mouse.” She watched them as they found their paws again. And then she smelled it—the smell she’d once caught on the breeze when she’d walked the borders with her mentor. A smell like redwoods and creek beds. A RedwoodClanner. Her eyes rounded. “Oh no, no, no. You shouldn’t be here!” She glanced over the she-cat’s shoulder, into the darkness. “Is this some kind of ambush? You didn’t bring anyone with you, did you?” Her furs fluffed, and she stooped into a low crouch. “If you did, you better tell me now, or I’ll… I’ll do something you really won’t like.”
