The Murky Grump Meets a Raven (closed)

By the bafflement in Murkpaw’s expression, Ravenpaw had once again caught him off guard. Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen. Ravenpaw waited for the inevitable shift to irritation, the complete and total rejection of his less-than-stellar idea that was sure to follow…and waited…and waited. Eventually, Murkpaw had been quiet long enough that it was clear the dismissal wasn’t coming after all (at least, not yet), and Ravenpaw felt his heart rise for possibly the first time throughout this whole mess.

Murkpaw, he decided, was a strange cat. Interestingly strange, as all cats were.

”Brookclover’s a good mentor!” Taking charge of WindClan back on their side of the lake had doubtlessly used up her time and energy, but she’d still managed to train him well enough that he could hold his own here; though Ravenpaw didn’t know what made a mentor “good,” he assumed that was part of it. ”It’s just—you need to do things to learn them, right? There weren’t any rabbits on the shore, and now we’ve got trees and rocks everywhere…” And he’d relied on the other warriors to do the hunting when he could get away with it. The younger apprentice cleared his throat. ”I never got a chance to try. So,” he said matter-of-factly, ”I didn’t learn.”

"I'm not a warrior." Ravenpaw blinked at Murkpaw once, twice, then said, "You're good enough to get that," as if that solved the problem. Which, in a way, it did. He'd never been picky about where his knowledge came from. Brookclover had already told him the basics: he needed to be fast, and there was probably a crouch involved, because everything involved a crouch. The rest, he figured, could be picked up easily enough.

”So, how about it? One hunt.” His paw tapped out a soft beat against the earth as he thought; true to form, he hadn’t planned on a plan in case Murkpaw chose to hear him out, ”When we get home, I mean. If we find a rabbit, I’ll stay out of your way and watch. If we see another one, I wanna try catching it—you can have it when I do.” His stomach protested at the thought, but if sacrifices had to be made to make his idea more appealing, well—the moor had plenty of rabbits. One way or another, he’d be able to catch them for himself soon. Brookclover might even be impressed! Perhaps not so much with his methods or the fact that he was still hazy on how to hunt one of WindClan’s main food sources and hadn’t told her, but that was a problem for a different day. "And,” Ravenpaw went on, every bit as serious as an apprentice swearing the warrior’s oath before their Clan, ”if you want, I won’t say a word the whole time after we leave camp.”

It was a stretch, he knew. But he was going to take advantage of Murkpaw's good(ish) mood while it lasted, in the hopes that he would come away from this having accomplished something beyond irritating the only denmate he knew for sure he'd have. Besides, the hunting bit hadn't been so bad... Sure, they'd been apart for that, but everything had gone well enough since they'd met up again. It was almost...fun, now that Ravenpaw was out of danger. Pressing his paws against the ground, he leaned forward and meowed, "You can think about it, if you want?"

Murkpaw ignored the rabbit for the moment, his hunger sated as he eyed the other apprentice, who was defending his mentor like his life depended on it. Which, knowing mentors, it probably did. I can't believe he doesn't know how to hunt. How is he still alive? He twitched an ear and gave the tom a deadpan look at the relatively weak excuse he put forward. Though it was true there hadn't really been any rabbits. Not that he'd seen, anyway.

"You're good enough to get that."

"Mff." He searched for a reply better than the one-syllabled grunt, and failed. Oddly enough, that felt like the first compliment he had ever gotten. Probably because it was.

He sat up, cleaning his whiskers as the tom almost begged him to take him on a hunting patrol. Would it be a bad idea? He thought for a moment, his paw slowing. Yes. But.... Looking back up, he met the other tom's eyes as Ravenpaw leaned forwards, speaking again.

"You can think about it, if you want?"

Murkpaw narrowed his eyes for a moment, feeling a strange sense of lightness as he let the silence drag out, very deliberately placing his paw on the ground. "With all those restrictions, I think it wouldn't be half bad. Fine, I'll do it, and I'll even take the first bite."

He considered for a moment longer before adding, "And you can talk, if you want. Though I wouldn't be able to stop you anyway," He hesitated for a moment, "Ravenpaw."