The Lion Tamer [C]

Nightwind, true to his word to his new apprentice, was up early just as the sky was becoming brighter. Instead of a dark blue, it looked more like a dark lavender. He padded his way to where his apprentice was sleeping and nudged Lionpaw with his toes. "Lionpaw, it's time to go. Take a moment to wake up if you need it but don't take long. I'll be at the edge of camp waiting." He instructed the newly named apprentice. He walked away and sat at the entrance to the camp. This was just as much a test for him as it would be for Lionpaw. He'd been with Windclan for a few moons now, but did that really make him a windclan cat? He was going to find out. If he could successfully mentor an apprentice and they became a legitimate warrior of Windclan, then he was confident that Windclan had nothing more to offer him in the ways of training. As it was, he was already much faster than he had been previously. He hadn't known that there was a proper way to run until he joined. It could prove to be an invaluable weapon in the near future.

Lionpaw was deep in her own dreamworld, caught up on the many future possibilities that could present to her now that she was an apprentice, some honestly more fantastic than others, if not outright impossible and only achievable in this world that was completely hers.

However, all of this ended when something…or someone, nudged her.

Her eyelids refused to open at first and her body felt so heavy. Probably if it wasn’t for the voice that soon followed the nudging, she would’ve thought this was nothing but part of her dream and wouldn’t had fully awakened. The very particular scent of her mentor soon reached her nose, registering faster than her still slow mind managed to process his words.

She stumbled out of her nest, only half-awake, some moss clinging to her fur as she stumbled out of the apprentices’ den. She felt like if she had eaten a bunch of fermented berries that the medicine cats had forgotten to properly dispose of. Legs wobbly and body sluggish.

She looked up at the sky and then walked towards the tom, groaning softly. She had to use her nose instead of her eyes on this one, his dark pelt blended too well with his surroundings at this time of the day “Nightwind…the sun isn’t even up yet…do we really need to leave so early?” Slurred words left her muzzle thanks to drowsiness. As she spoke, she couldn’t hold back a yawn. Dear StarClan, if this became a routine, would she ever be able to properly wake up again?

Nightwind watched as she woke and managed to keep the smirk off of his face that was threatening to crawl across it. "This is the best time to hunt. Everything else is awake and eating and the prey will go back into hiding by mid-day to avoid the sun. Evening is another time we can try, but it's not as good as morning." He nodded for her to follow him. She'd wake up as she moved around. He lead her away from camp and out into the moor. "What we hunt is active during the day. That means they sleep all night, which means when they wake they are both hungry and thirsty. That makes them far more predictable and easier to ambush. That is why morning is best. If you're awake before your prey is, you can set up where to ambush them without being seen first."

He found a decent hill to stand on and wait for the hares to become active. He would need the extra bit of time to teach his apprentice how to stalk properly before they emerged from their hiding places anyway. He dropped into a low crouch and stalked forward a few steps. "When you stalk your prey, make sure you distribute your weight evenly across all four of your paws. The less weight you put on each paw, the less of a chance that you may crack a twig or make a noise with it. Make sure that your head, neck, shoulders, back, hips and tail are all in a straight line." He made sure to move slowly so that he could show her how it was done. She could observe for as long as she liked. "Windclan cats specifically are known to be fast, but so are hares. Make sure that you stay downwind from them or they'll know you're there no matter how quiet you are. You can feel the wind with your nose, your whiskers and even the hairs in your ears. Don't even bother looking downwind for any prey. It's already gone. Focus your attention upwind and across from you. Is that simple enough?"

Lionpaw listened to Nightwind as she followed him out of camp and towards the moor. However, as soon as she stepped out of the camp, it was like magically the drowsiness had vanished. Her eyes were instead wide open as she almost bounced around the older tom, taking some steps away from him, stopping to look around, before quickly running back. Rinse and repeat in different directions as she tried to take in whatever the territory had to offer her, as this was her first time outside, given every attempt to sneak out as a kit was foiled by the grownups.

It was a whole new world to discover, and even if she had only seen a dark version of it, dulled by the shadows of night that remained, she already loved it.

She was really trying to pay attention to Nightwind’s words, but some detail slipped from her grasp as she tried to do more than one thing at once. At least she could catch a couple of the basics as to why he had decided to wake her up so early…kinda “If this is the best time to hunt, why are you the only one up so early? What about the rest of the warriors?”

The long blades of grass tickled her nose as they climbed the hill, causing her to sneeze and lose her footing at one point. The energetic apprentice falling back and making a full roll on her back before falling on her belly with legs outstretched. She laughed at herself a bit before getting up and shaking off the dirt off her fur, reaching the top of the hill as Nightwind started to explain to her how to stalk.

Licking her nose and twitching her whiskers a bit, as she did her best to mimic him. Now telling from where the wind was coming was relatively easy, as her long whiskers were sensible to most changes and were quick to pinpoint the origin of said wind…however, her crouch was still more worthy of a kitten trying to hunt grasshoppers in camp than those of a warrior trying to find and hunt down prey.

Her posture was a bit uneven, which post of her weight on her front paws, her tail lifted high instead of horizontally, probably without her knowledge as she wasn’t really trying to fix it “The grass is very high…how are we supposed to see what we are hunting?”.

Nightwind allowed the tiniest of smirks on his face as he watched his apprentice bounce around and tumble everywhere. She may as well act like an apprentice now, because once she was a warrior, this wouldn't be acceptable anymore. Taking a bit of a liking to the young, energetic and enthusiastic she-cat, he decided he wouldn't ruin it by telling her how dark and horrible the world really was. If she had been his first apprentice or even his second... he absolutely would have been blunt with her. There was something charming and magical about innocence... and it was likely fascinating to him because it wasn't something he'd ever had. Skyclan was very militaristic in nature, the complete polar opposite of Windclan.

By the time Nightwind was Lionpaw's age, his father Bloodstrike had ordered him and his sister to fight a dog at least eight times the size of Bloodstrike, whom was comparable to that of a bobcat. He remembered Smokefeather scolding his father for it, and Bloodstrike's response was simply, "The Forest is harsh and unforgiving. It's better to prepare them for it now rather than spare them the experiences and they end up dead later." And that had been the end of it.

"Windclan cats hunt hares. They're basically huge rabbits and they're fast, but they don't retreat into burrows like rabbits. They just run. You'll have to be fast too if you want to catch them. Rely on your nose first, then your ears, and lastly use your eyes. You can peak up over the grass if you do it slowly, but don't be too close when you do it or the hare will see you and be gone." He put his paw just at the base of her tail above her hips and pressed down on it to gently guide her into the correct stalking form. "If it hurts a little, you're doing it right. Your muscles will take time to adjust to the stance and the art of the crouch, but the pain will remain until then. Just keep at it."

It would help you hide a lot better if you didn't hold your tail up like a shark's fin in the grass too... But he wasn't about to say that out loud. He only knew about sharks and the ocean because of the Asylum. An ordinary rogue and certainly no clan cat would know about any of these things. He gently corrected her tail as well, pressing it down until it was straight out behind her rather than up.

"I'll catch something first. Just pay close attention and stay close to me." He then sunk back into his own crouch and scented the wind. Fresh dirt... the moor... and the earthy wild scent of a moor hare. He turned into the direction of the wind and practically disappeared into the long grass. Lionpaw would be able to find him by scent easily if she kept downwind from him.

The scent of the hare grew stronger as he stalked forward. It was at this point his ears pricked forward, alert. He hoped Lionpaw would be able to see what he was doing, or at least hear the hare nibbling on the woodier foliage that they liked. Nightwind slowly peaked his head up, pinning his ears back and barely letting his vision clear the top of the grass to spot the exact location of the hare. Satisfied with the distance, he slowly sunk his head below the grass again.

He bolted forward with a powerful kick of his hind legs. He closed the distance on the hare so quickly that it even surprised him, still not quite one hundred percent in tune with his swifter Windclan training. He plowed right into the hare and sank his fangs into it's neck. The hare jumped up once, taking Nightwind with it, and bounded forward a few strides before tumbling to the ground. Dead. Once Nightwind was sure it wasn't going to get back up and start running again, he released it.

"There... I hope you learned something from that. A hare will almost always jump to avoid a ground predator. Make sure you anticipate that and jump with it or you will miss every time."

Nightwind attempts to catch a hare! It was successful! -3SP

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 8