The Apprentice Games [For All of Skyclan]

The member 'Transient Days' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 3

Fernpaw raced after the group of leaving apprentices, she was late! All she had heard was that she needed to catch a squirrel, so she opened her mouth to taste the air. It took a minute, but soon enough she caught a scent of one coming from up in a tall elm tree. Gritting her teeth, she leaped upward with expert strength and grabbed hold of a low branch, pulling herself up and climbing towards where the bushy-tailed animal was chewing on tree-bark. With a low growl, she steadied herself before leaping forward and grabbing the squirrel's neck in her jaws, snapping it with a sharp jerk of her head. Her head held high with pride, she safely made her way down the tree and back towards the meeting place.

The member 'RainyHeart' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 6

Meanwhile, a grey striped figure of a tom who had vanished moons ago entered the forest.

'Starclan I hate twolegs,' the battered warrior inwardly snarled as his vision swam in and out of focus. Ragged breaths exhaled loudly from an irritated face. Each paw-step trembled with exhaustion, but the lost warrior's angry blue eyes were far from giving up. Whatever those fox-faces kept injecting in his body was annoying as fleas, but he wasn't going to lie around and grow fat like the rest of the fluff-brained lot he had been stuck with at the two-leg's lair. He had been captured by two-legs for the entirety of leaf-bare. It had been like living in the Dark Forest itself, a grey mesh forcing him to stay cooped up in a tiny space for moons- there had been no way he was going to let those pieces of mouse-dung keep him trapped for any longer. So one day with starclan-given luck, the irritable tom broke out of his mesh, scratched a two-leg face or two, and promptly left that flea-ridden two-leg lair for good.

Moving completely on instinct, the lost warrior padded the direction of camp before a swarm of nearby cat scents who were participating in Rippedsky's game assaulted his nose.

The irritable warrior was back, but he wasn't mouse-brained enough to think it would be easy for him to be welcomed into the clan again. Seeing as he was a general piece of fox-dung, some of his clan-mates might not want him back- or worse, they might think he had deserted. "Mouse-dung," he swore out-loud when he realized he didn't recognize some of those scents. Great, he was totally going to be mistaken as an intruder too.

Blossomheart instinctively stepped forward before stopping in confusion. This cat looked... familiar. She couldn't put her paw on it. A face she saw as a kit? Maybe some cat who was a relative of someone she knew. "Who are you and what do you want?" She asked. Whoever this was, she was taking no chances.

OOC: sorry im late ;-;
IC:
Russetpelt smiled and nodded to the apprentices who had caught what was assigned by Rippedsky and Dandeliondapple. "Hehe, let's mix things up and give you all a bigger challenge," He meowed. He hoped this wouldn't be too hard. Was it better to go easy on them? Still, its always good to have a challange. he thought. "Lets see how well you do at rabbit-hunting. I've been seeing a good bit of rabbits lately."
He would be very impressed if any of them catch a rabbit. Well, he was already impressed with all the apprentice's skills, they didn't need to catch a big rabbit to impress him.

Brokenpaw heard rabbit and sighed. He had smelled rabbit and started off in that direction, however he knew this would be a rough catch. As the smell grew stronger he began to slow his dash through the limbs. Finally, he slowed down enough to see the rabbit he heard below him. He crouched on his low branch, took his time, and sprung.

And.... before he even began to come off the branch the rabbit took off.

He hit the ground angry. The anger was useful as he spotted another cat- but a stranger! “You’re in my way and in the wrong place. What are you doing here?”, he asked the new cat.

The member 'Lord of the Wood' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 6

The lost warrior eyes narrowed as he took in the vaguely familiar Skyclan cat before him. He wanted to snap at her with a sharp-tongued retort, but his unsteady paws screamed at him to convince this warrior as fast as he could that he wasn't some rogue trying to cause trouble. Though, her ignorance about his identity was slightly annoying. If those mouse-brained two-legs hadn't captured him for so long, he wouldn't be having this problem. She was probably a kit or apprentice the last time he had seen her. Even so, he was not going to go into some teary monologue just to try to get her to understand why he was gone for so long. The frustrated warrior just wanted get some sleep for Starclan's sake.

Before he could reply something short and get her to just let him go back to camp, some mouse-brained apprentice showed up and starts yelling at him. His fur bristles at the punk's words. "In your way? I was here first," The irritable warrior hissed. He narrowed his eyes further at the apprentice. "And this is my clan, fluff-brain!"

“Your clan? I’ve never seen you. And you certainly don’t smell like a clan cat.”, Brokenpaw doubted this new cat. “Let’s see what the warriors have to say about you.” He turned to get the attention of the other cats knowing they would be watching all the apprentices out hunting.

He flicked the young kit with his tail before disappearing off into the woods. The forest was quiet as he got further from the chatter that came from the collective clan. It was peaceful, but among the trees, apprentices stalked after their prey. Hauling himself up the bark of a tree, Rippedsky raised his nose into the air and drew in the scents around him. Within moments, he found Sedgepaw and unfortunately watched his catch stolen at the last minute. Thankfully, the eagle tore away prey and not one of the clan's kits. The tom made a note to keep an eye on the sky in order to make sure they did not run into any problems. But, he quickly got on with his observations and was pleased to see plenty of others making their catches.

Finally, he found Brokenpaw. The mostly all black tom stalked and killed his first two assignments easily. He used the trees to his advantage. The deputy smiled softly and nodded to himself as he watched from the shadows. He was pleased to see the apprentice doing so well after so little training. It was obvious there were so many promising warriors here. As he was given another task by Russetpelt, the black young cat ran swiftly through the trees and prepared to drop down on his catch. Unfortunately, Rippedsky was too far away to hear the results of the catch. However, it was immediately followed by voices. Concern rose up in his chest and he raced forwards and leaped down out of the trees to land off to the side of the apprentice and the warrior. There was a question prepared in the back of his voice, but as he turned to scan the expressions, and then he froze.

Rippedsky couldn't move for a moment. It was like they were in a dream. The deputy straightened up and padded slowly over to the grey and black cat. His blue eyes were a mixture of wonder, sadness, and joy as he approached... his son. Was this real? Was Willowflight here? He parted his mouth slightly and after a moment, finally meowed, "Willowflight? W-where have you been all this time? Is this really you? Is this real. Brokenpaw... Blossomheart. This is my son." The black and white deputy didn't even glance away. He couldn't break his stare. This was Willowflight. This was his and Cherrymist's kit. He was back. Thoughts of the games happening around them melted away. Nothing mattered right now.

Before he could get further irritated, a painfully familiar scent enveloped all the anger in his system and dissolved it into nothing but the dust beneath his exhausted paws. The lost warrior didn't even have to look to see who it was. He couldn't. His brow tensed, paws digging into the ground as he waited for his father to approach them. His head no longer stuck up in aggregation against the apprentice, tilted down as he prepared for what his father would have to say. The lost tom didn't know how he should act around Rippedsky. He had been a fox-face as an apprentice towards the old man, doing everything he could to get a rise out of him. And yeah he wasn't doing that as much anymore, but it wasn't like he was going to change his personality or anything and still not throw an insult around or two. He was still miles different from his old man. He accepted that a long time ago, accepted that he would never be able to be a warrior like him.

His father came down from the trees.

Willowflight tensed at his name and found himself looking up his old man before he could think otherwise.

The sight that greeted him made no sense to Willowflight. Rippedsky wasn't looking sternly at him. Rippedsky's gaze wasn't set with infinite patience, drawing from a bottomless well that always made his hackles rise. Instead...was that joy? What in Starclan's name is wrong with his old man? Questions filled his head like a sudden hurricane that dropped in the middle of a desert. Why would his father happy that he, another headache in that guy's existence, was back? As his head searched for answers amidst an inward flood that didn't belong, something else started to well up inside him.

Willowflight was tired. Maybe that was why he couldn't find it in him to snap at his dad for once. He held no anger, too exhausted to try to pick a fight with the most patient cat he knew. And something inside him wouldn't let him anyways, twisting up as he took in the emotions that were painted on his father's face.

His eyes widened when Rippedsky called him his son.

"I'm-" He had to stop because something was going to leak out his eyes. "I couldn't-" Something wet lined his bottom eyelids. He shut his eyes furiously at himself and opened them again. "Dammit...I'm back, okay? Stupid two-legs got me."

“What is even happening?”, Brokenpaw said, mostly to himself.

Blossomheart's eyes widened as she looked at them. "Wow... I've heard tales of cats getting kidnapped by twolegs... In that case, welcome back, Willowflight! We're having a bit of a hunting spree here, but you'd want to go back to camp, right?"

Tigerpaw stared at Russetpelt as he announced that the next piece of prey they had to catch was a rabbit. A rabbit? That would be challenging. She was no WindClan cat, and rabbits could deal quite a lot of damage if an apprentice carelessly tried to catch one. If it was a rabbit she wanted, however, she would give him one. She would catch a rabbit and proudly drag it back to camp. With a flick of an ear, she headed into the forest again. It took a long while, but finally she made out the shapes of three rabbits foraging around. Not far away, their burrow could be seen, a dark, gaping hole in the ground. Tigerpaw lowered herself into the hunter's crouch and began to slowly approach them. Their large ears were very sensitive, and the slightest sound would send them scuttling away to safety. When she felt that she had gone as close as possible to the group, she sprung forward. She managed to grab the closest rabbit and snapped its neck with force. At her appearance, the other two immediately dashed into hiding. By the time she looked up, dead rabbit at her paws, they had already vanished down their tunnel. That was of no consequence to Tigerpaw, however, she had gotten what she wanted. That's three successful catches in a row! She thought triumphantly.