silent night [solo]

Zinnia wandered the moor, the stars shining overhead. Freshly-fallen snow had dusted the ground she walked on, and the remaining plants had a light coating of frost. She could race across the moor, certainly, but she saw no point tonight. She would hunt patiently, and she would try to sort out her thoughts. The pelt-wearing cats were still on her mind, weighing her down. The one that had escaped, and the one that had not. How she had raced into battle against them both. She was just trying to defend her new home, but now, when the adrenaline had long since faded, she found herself wondering if she'd done what was right.

Violence did not come naturally to her. At least, she didn't think it did. Now, recalling how she'd leapt to defend WindClan without a second thought, she wasn't so sure anymore.

Did it matter at all that she thought she was fighting a fox, if it was still another cat - if a cruel and awful one - beneath the pelt?

And the cats themselves made her wonder, too. Did they have ancestors watching over them, or had they turned their backs on them long ago? How did their way of life differ, beyond what they had seen? Was there something there that deserved to live on? Was everything about them as cruel as they were, or was there something worth preserving?

She would never know. And, looking to the sky, she realized she would never know if she had done the right thing, either.

All she could do was keep going, step by step, and make choices as they came.

That realization made her pause, and in that momentary pause she spotted a flash of something she had come to recognize.

Rabbit.

With what felt like the speed of the wind itself behind her, she chased after it. Her light steps and the pawprints she'd left faded into the distance behind her as she raced forward.

Finally, when it was within her sights, she pounced; delivering a swift kill and a soft whisper. The Clan cats thanked their ancestors for the lives of the prey they brought back, and looking at it like that, Zinnia supposed the custom she had been raised with wasn't all that different.

"Thank you for this life. Wherever your spirit wanders, may peace find you there."

The member 'Deck the Holly' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 7

Though the rabbit was serviceable, she wanted to prove she was more than just serviceable as a warrior. She was different, after all. As much as she tried to learn and blend, there were things that would always give her away. She spoke not of StarClan, but of her own ancestors; of the distant homeland she had left. Most notably, she still didn't carry a Clan name. The name her mother had given her... It was the only gift from her parents that Zinnia hadn't been forced to leave behind, and she didn't plan to do so now.

But she could run and hunt and fight like a WindClan cat, given time and practice and maybe just a little help. This place, this moor, was not her home by birthright, but it had become her home in the time she had spent there. She had defended it with her life, even if she still questioned why. And she would continue to defend it, whether or not she understood the reason. Her friends were here and her home was here, and that was reason enough, even if something still poked at the corner of her mind like the sharp edges of the stone paths she'd walked on for so long.

Part of defending the Clan was making sure everyone was fed. It was strange, to hear talk of prey shortages and to see a pile of fresh-kill in the camp. In the Garden, cats hunted when they were hungry. They took only what they needed, and did their best to avoid letting anything go to waste. She had seen shades of that here, but their system was so different... There was far more danger to life as a Clan cat, she supposed. But it was her life now, too. She would adjust with time.

In the corner of her vision, just out of proper sight, she spotted a hare. But before she could properly give chase, it was gone.

The member 'Deck the Holly' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 9

Zinnia looked to the stars shining above her, a soft sigh escaping her. "Is this right? Have I found the place I was meant to go?"

She didn't elaborate. They were watching, always; they knew every step she had ever taken and every word she had ever said. Perhaps they knew every step she ever would take and every word she ever would say. They not only wandered the stars. They were the stars, impassive and eternal. Forever watching those that came after, just as cats that walked the ground stared up at the sky and saw those who came before.

Still, there was no answer. She didn't expect one, not directly. The ancestors didn't speak in words, or in dreams as she'd heard the Clan cats' StarClan spoken of. The ancestors spoke in the softest of passing breezes, with the act of a single leaf falling from a tree, or the flutter of an insect's wings. Sometimes she wondered if those things meant anything at all, but it was nice to think they did. To believe that some things from home followed her even now, even if it was so simple as the breeze washing over her as she stood in the snow.

To believe she was doing the things she was meant to be. Whether she believed in fate, she wasn't sure. Every choice she made was her own, but was the path each one led her down one they already saw? Did the ancestors know she would leave? Did they know where she would find herself?

Why were they so silent, so distant, when the Clan cats' ancestors were said to speak to them?

Would she ever find out? When her last day finally came, would she join them? Or would she be too different? Would they turn her away? Was she Clan and Garden, or something that wasn't quite either, and didn't quite fit anywhere?

She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

She wondered what the breeze that passed over her now meant. Was it approval, or was it shame?

She carried the rabbit she'd already caught as she walked, deciding in that moment to treat it as their approval. They hadn't yet struck her down, and one never truly forgot the cautionary tales they were told as kits. In those, at least, they made their disapproval much clearer. They couldn't have minded anything she'd done all that much, then.

Suddenly, she spotted another rabbit in the distance. Gently setting her current catch down on the snow, she ran once more. She was sure she wasn't actually going that fast, and that if the other WindClan cats were watching they would be able to pin down exactly what she was doing wrong, but alone on the moor she felt powerful. Like she was not only running with the wind, but she was the wind.

The rabbit didn't stand a chance. She caught it easily, and set it next to the first, repeating the same prayer she'd offered that one.

Maybe that was their blessing, she thought. The feeling of being connected with all that surrounded them.

The member 'Deck the Holly' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 5

In the end, all things led back to one another, didn't they?

If this was a sign, she would take it. Zinnia looked the sky once more, voice soft and genuine as she spoke. "Thank you."

And, at last, she set about carrying the two rabbits back to camp, wondering if she would actually impress anyone. Somehow it seemed less important now than it had before, but it would still be nice.