The Murky Grump Meets a Raven (closed)

Murkpaw wandered on the edge of the now even larger group of cats, trying to stay as far away from them as possible. Every cat just meowed too much all the time, now they'd found all those other cats. He stared at nothing in particular as his sore paws walked over the significantly softer ground. No more of that smell.... His nose practically cried from relief at finally being able to smell something other than putrid water and rotting dead things. When they'd reached cleaner water he'd practically dumped himself in, to the amusement of some RiverClan cats who for some reason found it funny that a WindClan cat wanted to soak in a river. But then, RiverClan cats were weird, especially that ginger one that had nearly broken his eardrums on the strange bridge-thing.

He flicked his tail as a sudden smell hit his nose, lifting his head from blankly staring at the ground underneath him as he paused to open his mouth and draw the scent in. Oh great, something to eat. Finally. It was only a mouse, by the smell, but his stomach rumbled as he imagined what it would feel like to have something other than a bony foul-tasting fish or some sort of scrawny thing that should have been edible but wasn't. Immediately, he dropped into a crouch and began to approach where the scent was emanating from, keeping his paws light as his mentor had taught him. Funny how Silverstreak had never turned up. Which probably meant he was dead, or just somewhere else. Either way, it didn't matter at the moment.

As he crept up on a pile of rocks, his ears picked up the sound of faint squeaking and a skitter of tiny paws. Mouth watering, he prepared to pounce, keeping his movements slow and careful as it came into view. Finally. A decent meal.

For Ravenpaw, things had been oddly quiet since the mass reunion at the Twoleg “bridge” (or whatever Salmonkit had called it). Part of him was still reeling—both shores! This whole time, there were two! Another group of cats, just as lost and isolated as they had been. If the battle had ended differently, if the cats from the other side had stayed longer, they might not have met until they were all home again! He supposed it didn’t matter since everyone would end up together regardless of how long it took, but, with WindClan so far away, the thought clung like cold, dried mud. The moor wasn’t truly home to him since he hadn’t seen anything outside the camp (he’d had an opportunity during the flood, but there had been more important things then), but he was…homesick, almost. Or maybe he was just tired of traveling.

At some point, the Clans would part, each returning to their own territory. Ravenpaw didn’t like to think about that. The only friends he’d made at the shore—his only friends in the world—were a ThunderClanner and a SkyClanner, respectively. Once they left, he’d be walking back alone. He could stick with Brookclover and Grousepaw, of course, but he’d hung around them quite a bit as of late, and being around his mentor all the time would make it a lot harder to get out of training. There were so many other cats here. If he met enough of them, maybe he’d happen upon another WindClanner his age—and, better yet, some stories from the opposite shore.

Ravenpaw wasn’t at his most presentable, and he knew it. His long pelt had never been easy to wrangle; the constant walk-hunt-sleep routine made it harder still to maintain. He refused to put so much as a whisker in the river. But when his eyes fell on a brown tabby in the distance, staring intently at what looked like an ordinary, boring pile of rocks, Ravenpaw set off toward him without a second thought. ”Hey! I don't think—” At that moment, he registered what the other cat was doing: Crouching. Specifically, crouching in a way that Ravenpaw had only ever seen on patrols or in training, a way that suggested the tabby was about to spring on some unsuspecting animal. An animal Ravenpaw may have scared off. Stepping back, the small apprentice grew smaller. ”Oops.”

Murkpaw's muscles were on the trembling verge of springing when a sudden noise came from behind, startling him and causing the mouse to race off in alarm. Wh-wha-?! He whipped around, a snarl on his face as his narrowed eyes found the cause of his misfortune - a small black and white tom hanging back guiltily. "What do you think you're doing?! You just scared off my prey, rabbitbrain!"

He spiked his fur out to its extremities, his ears flattening on his head as his claws dug into the ground. This stupid cat had come along for no reason, not content to bother the entire crowd of cats a short distance away, seemingly just to stop him from getting a meal. There was always a final straw, and this whole thing with the flood, getting swept away from everything he knew, and being forced to travel with cats who were loud and constantly getting in each others' way had already stretched him thin. Now, hungry and deprived of a meal that could have assuaged that - and perhaps even a little lonely and miserable from being ignored by every other happy cat in the camp - he was at the breaking point.

Murkpaw gritted his teeth, tail lashing behind him as he glared at the tom, forcefully shoving away any reasonable voice in his head persuading him the other tom couldn't have known what he was doing. There was no way this tom wouldn't have known; in fact, he'd probably done it on purpose. A low growl rose in his throat at the thought, a churning mixture of emotions causing his claws to unsheathe and score tears in the grass.

Would no one ever just leave him alone?

Ravenpaw, though he didn’t know it, was not much good at introductions. He usually just threw himself at strangers and hoped for the best—which, luckily, was what he’d gotten so far. Every cat he’d met had been nice, Mosspaw most of all considering he’d called to her out of nowhere and bombarded her with questions while she was still recovering. The thought that a loud approach wasn’t always the best kind had never crossed his mind. Until now. It was very much on his mind now.

The tabby rounded on him without warning. Barely stifling a sound of surprise, Ravenpaw scrambled back, ears twitching. He’d known he’d made a misstep, but this was new; it wasn’t often a harmless greeting came with consequences. He opened his mouth, trusting that whatever came out would defuse the situation. ”I’m not a rabbitbrain!” Realizing how bad an idea this was once it was too late to take it back, he widened the distance between himself and the other tom by another step and, when he spoke again, aimed for a less confrontational tone. ”I didn’t see you were hunting is all, I swear I wasn’t trying to scare anything off.” Poor evidence against him being a rabbitbrain, but it was at least better than “oops.”

That was when he glanced down. Anger was one thing. Claws, though… When his introductions went wrong, they really went wrong. Even so, Ravenpaw didn’t back down further. He may have exhausted his bravery on the shore, and he didn’t entirely know what he was saying, much less what the magic words were to make the tabby be less mad at him—but he’d come here with a mission. And he wasn’t a coward. And, anyway, wasn’t the point of this journey that they were all working together? Ravenpaw took a deep breath and in the same steady voice said, ”I don’t wanna fight.” Some part of him, having no self-preservation whatsoever, nearly tacked on I mean, I could probably win, but, as if that was a reasonable thing to say. ”I was just looking for someone, and you weren’t…” He winced. ”Busy.”

Though his tail lashed behind him, and he was almost ready to just stalk away and leave the whole mess behind, the other tom's reaction to him caused a flicker of surprise to run through him. Yes, cats may have acted offended by his prickliness before, but that kind of startled fear reaction had never happened. For a moment he hesitated, befuddlement breaking through his anger as he slightly relaxed his overly aggressive stance. The shameful thought of what Finchbreeze would think of him snapping at the other apprentice over this flashed through his mind for a heartbeat, and he reluctantly sheathed his claws. It's not my fault this cat's an idiot...! Nevertheless, he grudgingly prepared to try and talk like a relatively normal cat to get this tom to stop bothering him long enough to catch a decent meal.

All intentions flew away at the tom's next words. Immediately, his hackles rose again as his claws sprang out, and he flattened his ears as his tail whipped behind him. But before he could snap anything, the other tom had stepped back even further, his next words slightly less rage-inducing. Still, Murkpaw couldn't help but growl, "If you didn't see I was hunting, you're blind."

That was when the other tom glanced down for a moment, and it took Murkpaw a heartbeat or two to realize the other apprentice was looking at his unsheathed claws still digging into the ground in frustration. Though he briefly considered it, he didn't sheathe them. Then the other tom spoke.

"I don't wanna fight. I was just looking for someone, and you weren't... busy."

Murkpaw ground his teeth for a moment before reluctantly sheathing his claws and letting his fur lie flat. "Not busy," He stated flatly, a hint of acidic sarcasm running through the long-suffering frustration. "Fine. I don't care. Go look for someone else."

He turned, tail twitching behind him as he began to stalk away. A sort of hollowness followed him as soon as he turned his back on the other apprentice, something twitching inside him at just leaving the tom after practically biting his head off. It was the same feeling that had led him to randomly pick a wailing kit up and toss her back into the nursery, though grudgingly. Faltering slightly, he fought with himself for a heartbeat, before finally letting out an annoyed growl. "Or you can help me catch something else to make up for that."

Letting the second insult slide was easier when there was a set of shiny claws motivating him to keep his mouth shut. Even when the other tom sheathed them for the second time (and kept them sheathed, thank the stars), Ravenpaw didn't dare attempt a retort. Instead, he waited, ears turning forward as his fear gave way to mere caution. The sarcasm plain in the other tom's voice barely phased him; he'd been expecting that, and it was honestly an improvement. Had he fixed this after all?

"Go look for someone else."

...Apparently not. Ravenpaw slumped despite himself, trying and failing to think of a response. He couldn't even come up with a good way to stall. "Hey," he said at length. The half-formed sentence soon died in his throat, for the tabby had already turned and begun to storm away without so much as a goodbye. No one had ever just left like that. He really had messed up. Half of him wanted to pursue the tabby; had the threat of a fight been more distant, he may have, but that kept him rooted to the spot, staring down as he tried to figure out what he'd gotten wrong. Aside from the shouting. By now, he knew that had been a mistake.

Ravenpaw wasn't expecting to see anything when he glanced up from his paws, but the tabby was still there. His exit was taking longer than Ravenpaw had expected, considering he'd been in such a hurry to be rid of him. It was too optimistic to think he'd changed his mind after everything—

Or maybe it wasn't.

Ravenpaw didn't think long about the offer. All of this just to strike up a conversation with someone he didn't know, might never see again, and had so, so clearly gotten off on the wrong paw with. In most things, Ravenpaw was not a persistent cat. His grandest aspiration was simply to have his warrior suffix, whether it took six moons or thirty-six—heck, he was skipping out on his apprentice duties at this exact moment. If something didn't work out for him the first time, he left it, especially if he didn't care about it to begin with. But other cats, even the snarl-y ones, were so much more interesting than practicing the same battle moves over and over until they got lodged in his head. Given those two options, his choice would never change.

"Oh. That. I can do that." He tossed on a smile sunny enough that the previous conflict might as well not have happened and padded forward, taking too-long strides until he was almost beside the tabby. One of his talents: Letting bygones be bygones. As for another... "Don't worry, I'm a pretty good hunter. I caught a lizard once, you know. ...By the way, my name's Ravenpaw." That left too much room for a not-answer, so he added, "What's yours?" careful to keep his voice low lest he startle anything else before they could catch it. There was a brief silence; then something occurred to him, a memory from his first real hunt. "Oh, just so you know, I'm not gonna go in the river. Hopefully you didn't want fish?"

OOC: mobile, will correct any typos when i wake up

Murkpaw felt instant regret as the other tom immediately strode up to him with an overly sunny smile on his face. You don't have to look so star-forsaken happy about it. His tail twitched behind him as he faced away again, grunting at the other apprentice's spiel of words about hunting or something that he hardly bothered to focus on.

Instead, he scanned the terrain that was dotted with piles of rocks and other decent hiding places for prey. StarClan forbid this harebrain is worse at hunting that he says he is.... As he opened his mouth slightly to draw in the scent, he suddenly realized the pause in the other's flow of incessant chatter. He gave a blank blink at a nearby tree as he tried to recall what the tom's question had been. Name.

He thought for a moment on whether to bother or not. "Mff, Murkpaw." Hopefully the other wouldn't decide to ask about his entire life up to that point as well....

Luckily, the apprentice - he'd said his name was some-bird-paw? Ravenpaw? who cared anyway - moved on, talking about some nonsense with fish. Distracted from trying to find prey despite himself, Murkpaw gave the other tom a flat look. "What Clan do you come from - RiverClan? No, I'm not hunting fish."

With that, he struck out in a random direction, hoping there might be some sort of prey around that hadn't been scared off. He didn't wait to see if the other tom followed as he scented the air again, swiveling his ears all around to try and catch a sound that could indicate some prey that was easy to catch nearby.

Murkpaw. It matched the muddled brown of his pelt nicely. Even if it hadn’t, Ravenpaw would have been glad to have any name to fit to the tabby’s face; you could never be sure when you were going to meet a cat again, after all, and knowing their name tended to make things easier.

Ravenpaw replied to Murkpaw’s flat expression with an unsure smile that, despite his tone, eased into a calmer one as Murkpaw went on. No fish. Thank the stars. ”Fish isn’t that bad—and I’m from WindClan, actually.” Saying that after spending so much time away from WindClan felt…weird. He was a WindClanner, but he lacked their scent, their familiarity with the moor, the memory of having hunted rabbit or stood atop Outlook Rock... Coming back to reality, he meowed, ”Good luck,” to himself, as Murkpaw had already left. The questions that had been nipping at Ravenpaw since before he’d approached Murkpaw hadn’t disappeared; he was simply hoping that some prey would put the other apprentice in a good enough mood to answer them. Without protest, he headed off in a different direction, idly wondering how much a wish for luck counted if the cat it was directed at didn’t hear it.

He opened his mouth to scent the air and, to his surprise, soon caught a scent he…recognized. Categorizing them hadn’t gotten any easier since his first patrol. Thankfully, his answer came quickly: The dull red feathers of a finch caught his eye. Not the easiest prey, but he wasn’t about to pass up this chance in case it was his last. Crouching with a glint in his eyes and fragments of Brookclover’s lessons fading in and out of his ears, he crept toward the small bird and prepared to spring. His pounce alerted it; unfortunately for the finch, it spread its wings too late, and Ravenpaw batted it to earth almost before it had left it. One quick bite broke its neck. Hoisting his catch (he was proud of it regardless of whether it made a suitable peace offering), he glanced around in search of something else.

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 4

Murkpaw was met with blessed silence as the other tom apparently decided not to follow. Finally. Silence. It wasn't like it would be for long though - for some reason, standard procedure for hunting patrols involved killing something and then dumping it back at the spot you split up. Personally, Murkpaw couldn't see the sense in it, but the other cats were weird anyway.

He centered his mind on the task at paw as his stomach let out a low growl again, drawing in the scents all around him. Ahh.... As he drew it in a fresh smell caught his attention, and he pricked his ears as he let it bath his tongue. Rabbit. His eyes sparked as he dropped into a crouch, gliding as silently as possible over the ground as he stalked towards where the scent had come from. It wasn't going to be easy to catch a rabbit when it was so rocky here, but the pay-off would be worth it. His mouth watered as he remembered the last time he'd ever eaten one, the time that had been a few moons ago.

Doubtless to say, he wasn't going to give this one up without a fight. And if that apprentice dared to interrupt again, he would shred him.

Creeping carefully around the pile of rocks the scent was coming from, he froze as a pair of twitching ears appeared. He eased his head around the pile to see it easier, carefully setting his paws as it went from an alert stance back to nibbling on the grass. Closer, closer.... There was too much open space between them for him to be able to creep up on it, so he settled his haunches, wriggling them slightly as he gathered himself to spring. The rabbit kept nibbling, oblivious.

Suddenly, he leaped, darting towards the animal as it started. Its ears pricked and he could see its eyes rolling around to view him for a moment before it started scrambling desperately away. Long legs working smoothly, he was too fast for its unprepared escape, his claws stretching forwards and clamping down on its back as he snapped his head forward to pierce its spine. Warm blood oozed around his fangs and into his mouth as it let out a sharp squeal before falling limp. A sense of satisfaction twitched the corner of his mouth upwards as he stared at his catch for a moment, uncaring that the noise it let out had probably warned all the prey off for tree-lengths around. Silverstrike can't say I'm a lazy rock-brain now....

He leaned forward and took a bite, his growling stomach stilling as he began to ravenously rip into the creature. Suddenly, he stopped as a thought occurred to him, his tail twitching behind him slightly. What about the apprentice? His stomach was more appeased than it had been before, the satisfaction at having caught something washing away most of the anger and annoyance he'd held towards the other tom. After a moment of thought, he flicked his tail and buried his teeth in its pelt, beginning to lug the plump rodent back to the place he'd met the other. It was surprising just how much a good hunt and a few bites of fresh-kill had managed to lift his mood as he padded back, feeling more relaxed and even-tempered than he had since this whole flood-thing happened.

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 3

As it turned out, Ravenpaw had been lucky to catch that finch. No matter how hard he looked—even after scaling a tree and perching on one of its lower branches, claws locked into the bark, to get a better look at his surroundings—he couldn’t see anything save for the glinting scales of fish in the river. Gazing down on it, the apprentice shivered. No way could he snag fish right out of the water the way Dapplepaw had…and what if he fell in? Murkpaw probably didn’t like fish, anyway. His paws found solid earth again, and he uncovered the finch, which he’d buried before his brief excursion away from ground level, with a soft sigh, taking it carefully into his mouth. Time to go back.

He took exactly two steps toward where he and Murkpaw had parted ways, and a squeal broke from ahead of him. Immediately, he froze. What in StarClan’s name was that? The shriek stopped as suddenly as it had started—the quick, sharp cry of killed prey, he hoped—but when he resumed the brief walk to the meeting place, Ravenpaw’s feet moved faster. It couldn’t have been Murkpaw; he’d never heard a cat make that noise, nor could he imagine Murkpaw, especially, doing it. Still, a tiny thread of concern wove into his curiosity.

Almost too soon, he located the original rock pile and set his finch down near it (though not before glancing around just in case something had decided it could risk encountering two apprentices). His wait was very short; Murkpaw appeared just as he sat down, dragging a large, furry something along with him. Ravenpaw’s eyes lit up as he recognized the shape. ”Nice catch! I got something too”—he rolled the finch under his paw—”but it’s no rabbit.” Another glance confirmed Murkpaw had already sampled his prey; after a moment's pause, Ravenpaw leaned down to take a bite of his bird. Not as good as a rabbit, but it would keep his stomach quiet for now. He wasn't quite bold enough to assume they were sharing.

It might have been hopeless optimism talking, but Murkpaw looked a little less grumpy than he had when he’d set off. Sensing an opportunity, Ravenpaw pounced on it. ”Can’t believe you found a whole rabbit out here, I haven’t even seen one—wait.” He swallowed; his voice cleared. ”If you caught that... Are you a WindClanner, too?” RiverClan was out, based on Murkpaw’s lack of enthusiasm about fish. The others—SkyClan, ThunderClan, ShadowClan—were options, sure, but from what Ravenpaw had overheard, there was only one Clan fast enough to hunt rabbits. His guess wasn’t purely logical; the hope that he'd finally, finally found one of his future denmates was just as influential. In all his time on the shore, he hadn't befriended a single WindClanner. Granted, he couldn't exactly call Murkpaw a friend yet, but he'd gotten a name and a face, and a cat who knew his name and face. Even slight progress was progress.

Murkpaw dragged the rabbit the remaining distance as the other apprentice noticed him and called out a compliment. He dropped it with a grunt of satisfaction, and - seeing as the other had been at least mildly successful at catching some sort of bird - began to dig in for real. Contented to let the silence drag out, his ear twitched as the apprentice began to talk. I assume he doesn't do anything but speak? Though he didn't particularly mind at the moment, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. StarClan forbid he became some sort of weird attention-seeking cat. But... at that time, it was almost somewhat... nice.

His flow of thoughts halted as the other tom suddenly interrupted himself. "-Wait. If you caught that... Are you a WindClanner, too?"

Murkpaw raised a brow, finally looking up from where he was crouched over the fresh-kill to give the other a deadpan look. "Yes...? Unless I'm a ShadowClanner and this is an over-sized frog." It wasn't exactly hard to see why the other hadn't immediately recognized him as a WindClanner, now that his scent was muddled up with the stink of the other Clans, and his build wasn't exactly the standard, lithe-but-powerful build most WindClan cats possessed - more of a scrawny... something. But still, it couldn't be that hard. At least he's not a ShadowClanner. Honestly, those cats stank, and he wouldn't speak with one if he was given a sun-warmed rock with eternal rabbits to try and convince him to.

”You had to bring up frogs,” Ravenpaw groaned good-naturedly, wrinkling his nose. Nothing against ShadowClan, but he’d had plenty of time to reevaluate his opinion on frogs, and his final word was that they were as gross as the muddy waters they came from—harsh judgment from a cat who would eat nearly anything. He eyed Murkpaw’s rabbit, trying to imagine it as a frog. The result was, in his opinion, better left undescribed. ”Honestly, having that much fur might make them taste better.”

He took another bite of the finch, then pushed it aside as he chewed. Most of the good parts were gone; it really had been a tiny thing. Murkpaw hadn’t commented on it, though, so it must’ve passed muster. ”Well, you’re the first one I’ve met. The first apprentice, anyway… Wait, that makes us denmates!” Ravenpaw wouldn’t admit it, but he was relieved, in a way, that he would have at least one acquaintance—or a someday-friend—on the moor, even if that acquaintance was as prickly as Murkpaw. ”Only when we get back, of course.”

Before he’d finished this sentence, an idea popped into his head. ”Maybe“—maybe Ravenpaw had completely, totally, absolutely lost his mind—”maybe you could show me how you caught that rabbit sometime? Since I, uh, haven’t gotten to try yet. I’ll be quiet, I promise,” he added hastily. Then he shut his mouth as if to prove he was, shockingly, capable of silence, the tip of his tail twitching nervously as he waited for Murkpaw's answer. Assuming he chose to acknowledge the question. It was, now that Ravenpaw thought about it rather than simply throwing words out the moment they entered his head as he usually did, sort of a rabbitbrained idea.

Murkpaw's opinion of the tom went up a notch as he pretty much declared he didn't like frogs. Finally. Someone gets it. The things stank, they tasted like dirty mud, and all cats who ate them were crazy rockbrains. A sense of satisfaction traveled through him as he took another bite of the rabbit, savouring its... un-frog-ness... for a moment. Waving his tail-tip in vague agreement at the other tom's comment about fur, he let himself relax further.

The other tom had apparently finished with his scrawny bird-thing, which wasn't exactly a bad catch, especially since birds were almost impossible to do anything with - not that he'd ever admit that - and began talking again. A faint look of surprise crossed his face as the tom mentioned not meeting any other apprentices from WindClan. Mff, must have died. That was a little sad. But he was interrupted in his line of thought as the apprentice suddenly came to another conclusion. Denmates. I hope he doesn't snore.... At least this cat probably wouldn't step all over him, hopefully.

His mind drifted off again as the other apprentice kept talking, though as the other tom suddenly switched track, his ears pricked again. With an internal sigh, he prepared himself for something utterly rabbit-brained to come out of the other's mouth. He was right.

”-Maybe you could show me how you caught that rabbit sometime? Since I, uh, haven’t gotten to try yet. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

The content of the rabbitbrained-ness threw him off, though, and he stared at the other in disbelief. "...What. Don't you have a mentor who teaches you? Or are they just too rabbit-brained to bother?" His tail-tip twitched behind him, though more from confusion than annoyance. "I'm not a warrior."

But, as he thought through the idea, it did sound somewhat... interesting. Though he had absolutely no idea how to teach, of course.