Tiny lives matter (closed)

Sitting near the camp entrance, Tinylegs waited for some cat to join him with his long tail curled neatly around his little paws. A crisp, early morning Leaffall breeze ruffled his fur as he sat in silence, enjoying his own company and thinking about several things, one of them being how he’d been appointed as SkyClan’s temporary deputy. Like most cats, he’d been pretty surprised himself, but he didn’t doubt his father. The small tom had faith in Crowstar’s decisions and if that meant that he was to help the clan while Rippedsky recovered, then he would give it his all, even if his clanmates were persistent on expressing their opinions about the matter. Of course there were cats that didn’t exactly like the leader’s decision and he understood that, but if Crowstar trusted him and his abilities, he must not be that bad of a warrior, right?

The big fluffy leader was the one to pull himself from his den and notice that his son was waiting on someone to join him. The tom knew that the two hadn't really interacted all that much lately, but maybe he should take this chance to go on a small patrol with his son and temporary deputy.

Crowstar padded over to the pure white tom, before asking. "Mind if I join you?" The leader asked. He needed to get out. Rippedsky's quickly deterorating health had the tom caught in endless stress. This would do him some good.

Hearing pawsteps approach, Tinylegs turned his head to see his father padding over to him. Letting out a happy purr, the little tom stood up and gave a respectful dip of his head to the older tom. "Of course!" he mewed with a big smile that was almost the size of his entire muzzle. No matter what cats thought of his father, he would always love the leader with all of his heart and would never turn down the chance to patrol with him, even if it meant being a bit embarrassed by the fact that he wasn't exactly the best warrior in the forest.

"Ready to go?" he asked and turned towards the camp entrance, the tip of his white and grey tail twitching back and forth.

"Of course." The leader said to his son. "What did you have in mind for this patrol?" The leader asked, curious as to what they were about to do. He wandered what his son had been doing lately, and how things were fairing for the tiny warrior. He knew his son wasn't exactly the biggest cat in the forest but the leader didn't think his size mattered for how good of a warrior he was. He felt that Tinylegs could still do everything a warrior could but maybe a little less because of his small legs. At least when it came to battles.

With both of them ready to head out, Tinylegs made his way out of the camp and into the lightly wooded forest. Though he'd been on more than enough patrols in his lifetime, patrolling with his father brought him more happiness than regular patrols around the territory. When Crowstar asked what he'd had in mind for their patrol, he drew a blank. Come to think of it, he hadn't really gone over what they'd do while out of camp, but he decided to do the obvious, seeing that there wasn't much else that he could do. "I was thinking that we'd do some hunting or patrolling... or even both," he replied, hoping that he didn't sound too indecisive to the leader.

"I'm fine with doing that, we could hunt on the way to one of the borders if that is alright." The leader said. It didn't matter to him what border they went too or how much hunting was done, the leader was just happy to get out of camp. And maybe spend some time with his family.

Trotting alongside his father who kept a steady walking pace, Tinylegs listened to the leader's proposition and nodded his head in agreement. "Sure, let's do that," he replied with a warm smile. Though the weather was pretty dreary and not of his liking, the little tom's happiness was practically brightening up the area a bit.

As the two of them continued their way through the forest, he came to a halt when the fresh scent of bird blew past his nose. Opening his jaw, he looked around and sure enough, just a couple foxlengths in front of him, a finch jumped up and down, occasionally flapping its erratic wings as it pecked at the ground.

Crouching down, the small warrior lowered his long tail and his ears fell back against his head. Slowly stalking forward, he watched the little bird flutter about, unaware of what was about to come and too distracted to notice the cat that was staring him down. After a few moments, Tinylegs pushed off with all his might, and leaped forward, claws extended and teeth bared. Caught by surprise, the finch let out its high pitched cry and began to take flight.

Skidding to a halt from his jump, Tinylegs wasn't going to give up that easily and knew he had to act fast.

With his tail lashing back and forth, he bunched up his stubby hind legs and pushed off the ground once more, springing straight up into the air. Outstretching a paw, he swiped at the bird who was just inched away from him, but he was already too late. With his long body twisting to the side from his midair hunting attempt, he fell back down to the ground, landing oddly gracefully for a cat of his stature.

Fur on end and breathing heavily, he looked up and watched as the bird flew to a somewhat low tree branch, whistling and chirping as if to mock him. Pinning his ears against his head, Tinylegs watched as it flew away. Well, so much for hunting.

Giving his pelt a shake, Tinylegs ridded his muzzle of the frown it wore just moments ago and replaced it with a cheery smile as he turned back to Crowstar. "Sorry you had to see that, it was pretty sloppy of me," he chuckled. Even though he hadn't caught the bird, he knew that there was no sense in letting it get him down and he just needed to move on and try again. Besides, that bird was too small to feed any cat anyway.