Days Go By (for Bloodstrike & Smokepaw & Summer(?))

The forest was finally in the midst of the warmer half of the year. Newleaf, had come and gone, leaving the prey-abundant forest to flourish and grow unchecked, and Wolfcall figured they had very little time before the harsher side of Greenleaf was upon them. They'd need to start hunting and eating in abundance soon, preparing for the heat wave that was bound to come, as it always did, and chase the prey into hiding. The deputy wanted to make sure that this recent wave of apprentices knew what they were doing, and Smokepaw was his next target to survey. She wasn't that much younger than Bloodstrike, who had recently become a warrior, and so he brought his son along as well. Anything that could keep Bloodstrike's paws from being idle was a good thing, and this way, he had both company he enjoyed and another cat to hunt and carry prey back.

Leading the two younger cats out of the camp, Wolfcall headed in the general direction of Twolegplace, his pace a jovial trot. He was in a good mood, and it showed in his voice as he called over his shoulder. "Alright, the goal is for us to catch as much prey as possible today. Sort of like, a competition if you will!" He knew that would get both their hearts pumping, as young cats were always raring to prove themselves in his experience.

Once they were close enough, he hesitated and swept his tail in a general "here we are" sort of gesture. "Alright. There tend to be a ton of birds around here, so it shouldn't be hard to get quite a bit of food to take home!"

Bloodstrike easily kept pace with his father, as he was a tiny bit taller than him now. It was a fact that made him inwardly snicker from time to time, but he wasn't about to bring it up. He glanced over at Smokepaw, whom he had come to like since their last battle with a goose. The looks on the faces of the other warriors as two apprentice dragged in that huge bird to the fresh-kill pile as nonchalantly as if they brought back mice had been priceless. To this day, Bloodstrike would shrug if someone else brought up himself and Smokepaw dragging a full grown goose back to camp without the assistance of a more seasoned warrior. He wondered if all of that fur made the heat even more unbearable.

"A competition?" He asked before feigning a haughty snort and his nose to the sky. "Poor apprentice doesn't stand a chance..." He swiped his tail toward Smokepaw teasingly. His eyes dropped back down to ground level and his eyes scanned for birds on the ground. He'd smacked them out of a tree before but that wasn't something he cared to repeat for awhile, at least not unless Smokepaw did something truly amazing that he had to beat.

A band of quails suddenly caught his eye scurrying from one brush to another. He immediately dropped into a crouch and stalked toward them. He decided to try to get one in the middle of the group, maybe scare some toward Smokepaw and his dad... He crept in close and waited for them to scurry to the next bush. One quail... two quails... three... Bloodstrike charged for the fourth one, a little sluggish and confident that if three others before it had made it out safely, so would it...

Bloodstrike snatched the quail up in his jaws and immediately clamped down on it's neck, sending the other quails scattering in all directions in a panic.

Lets see what you got Smokepaw! He thought to himself, holding his own prize triumphantly.


Bloodstrike

40HP / 117SP (-3SP for hunting)

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 3

Smokepaw followed the two toms, ears pricked. She'd found herself thoroughly enjoying the shocked look on her clanmates' faces when she and Bloodstrike had brought a goose back to camp, especially Sunflower. Maybe she was an aggravating apprentice, but then, he was an aggravating mentor. Smokepaw liked him, but Bloodpaw's brief stint as a "mentor" had been much more her style. And she'd been right about the goose feathers being salvageable.

At Wolfcall's words, her gaze brightened, "Oh, we'll see about that," Smokepaw smirked. Friendly competition? Smokepaw wasn't going to balk at that idea.

Spotted the group of quails, Smokepaw moved in a wide circle around the cluster of birds, leaping nimbly into the lower branches of a nearby tree while Bloodstrike made a dash for one. As expected, the birds scattered. One of them fluttering towards the supposed safety of the branch Smokepaw waited on. Unsheathing her claws, Smokepaw leapt, fully intent on snatching the bird from the sky. Jaws closing around a feathered neck, Smokepaw landed and quickly ended its' suffering.

"You were saying?" She asked Bloodstrike, a glint of amusement in her eyes.

20hp / 77sp (-3sp)

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 5

After a while of comparative lounging in the upwalker settlement - or twolegplace, as the locals called it - Summer was tired of the sameness and opted to depart for greener grasses again, or greener trees as the case may be. She was ready to witness some of the excitement of the forest Clan cats again. Since arriving in the forest two moons ago her pale skin had gained several new scars under the tight, glimmering pelt she sported as a result of run-ins with the Clans, but she wore them in secret and with delight. They hadn't dissuaded her from exploring Clan territory by attacking her for trespassing, though she'd learned quite early not to hunt on land that they'd claimed, as they were more than willing to fight her for what they believed to be theirs. They had a code, and even if Summer didn't intend to follow it, it was fascinating to see a working culture of rules and regulations. She'd respect the cats who respectfully followed it. With that in mind, she'd snatched a mouse from twolegplace and gobbled it down before departing, scaling the wood fence and dropping down into the mossy grasses.

The ginger-cream drifter was fairly certain that she was in SkyClan territory, something she certainly wouldn't have known when she arrived. Now, though, Summer recognized the distinct scent on the borders. She stayed near them, at first, but she was a drifter, and so she drifted slowly inward, away from the boundary of the upwalker settlement. The sounds of the forest were pleasant and bright in the rising heat of the day, the season of her namesake, and Summer's ears twitched and flicked at the birds chirping. When she heard a sudden cluster of birds taking off a short distance away, her head immediately snapped towards the source, and she listened intently to the sounds the followed: a rustling of paws on the ground, wings fluttering in the air, and a triumphant call from a tree above. Summer looked up to the tall canopy with surprise and amazement, glimpsing a mottled pale pelt up in the branches with a quail's body dangling from their teeth.

The drifter grinned, amazed, and then began to move forth to search for the cat's companion on the ground, expecting the one in the tree would likely join them once discovered. She was prepared to be attacked and defend herself if she must, but she displayed a clear expression of friendliness.

It didn't take long for the youngsters to, very much in the spirit of competition, make their first kills. Wolfcall grinned, impressed by their enthusiasm, and rolled his eyes good-naturedly at their friendly banter. "The day when you two can outhunt me, then you can brag," he reared up on to his hind legs to cuff Bloodstrike gently about his ears, a deep purr rumbling - the deputy was clearly in a good mood, and it showed.

Dropping back to all fours, he turned, flaring his nostrils to scent the air. Among the SkyClan scents and the mingled scents of prey, the indicators of Twolegplace were hard to miss. "Alright, my turn," he said, and dropped into a crouch, slinking through the undergrowth. It was moist and green, and barely rustled as he moved through it, his eyes narrowed on a half-dozen or so pigeons picking seeds off the ground nearby. His haunches wiggled once as he calculated his trajectory, and then he charged. The birds took flight, and Wolfcall leaped as they did, the nearest pigeon falling victim as his claws sank into feathers, the momentum of his leap carrying them several fox-lengths horizontally before finally the deputy and his prey plummeted back to the ground. The pigeon struggled, cooing in alarm as it attempted to escape, but a bite to its throat silenced it, and the bird went limp.

It was then when he looked up, a ginger-cream shape a little distance away clicking a memory in his mind of the loner he'd met along the border some moons ago. He dropped the pigeon, tail raising in a friendly greeting, "Oh, hello there, Summer."

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 5

Bloodstrike nodded satisfactorily when Smokepaw caught her quail. His dad he supposed didn't care for quail and Bloodstrike butted his head against Wolfcall's paws as he cuffed him. Wait... what did he just say? Outhunt him? Bloodstrike smiled a huge smile through the feathers in his mouth.

"You're on old man..." he accepted his challenge. He supposed he had no choice but to stash his quail somewhere. Almost as soon as he was done burying it, his father snatched a pigeon from the air. He thought about making a playfully snide remark about how it was a good thing the pigeon wasn't in a tree, but he refrained, as he didn't know exactly how sensitive Wolfcall may be about his... inability to climb and hunt from branches as well as most Skyclan could.

The scent of a strange cat hit his nose. Bloodstrike immediately dashed to Smokepaw and put himself between her and where the scent had come from. He watched for his dad to react just as a cream colored pelt came into view. Wolfcall was a lot less than bothered... and even addressed the lone cat by a name...

I guess she is nothing to worry about... still, he didn't want to approach just yet. A movement caught his eye to his right and his eyes landed on a rabbit... it had just barely come out of it's hole. Bloodstrike grinned and dropped into a crouch, his concern for the loner disappeared for now. He crept carefully through brush to get close, determined to catch this rabbit. He knew they were challenging, which was the perfect way to show his dad up.

He inched closer and closer while the rabbit chewed on a few blades of grass on the forest floor...

He leaped, but the rabbit sped off in a direction he didn't anticipate it to go. Before he could even react, it was already gone down a hole Bloodstrike didn't even see.

He growled in frustration, but turned his attention back to Wolfcall and Summer.

(-3sp)

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 5

Smokepaw relaxed at the friendly banter between the former mentor-apprentice duo. If she was being honest, she was slightly nonplussed at the ease with which the two seemed to get along. Did Wolfcall being Bloodstrike's father have more of an influence in their bond? Was the relationship between mentor and apprentice always so strained as with her own mentor? The thoughts were worth pondering, but not now.

Now, she had something to prove. Smokepaw wouldn't have thought herself the competitive type, but she was enjoying this. While Wolfcall caught his own prey, Smokepaw buried her quail alongside Bloodstrike's catch.

Then Wolfcall was greeting an unfamiliar she-cat and Bloodstrike was... stepping in front of Smokepaw? The newcomer was unfamiliar, and didn't smell of clan. Smokepaw gave Bloodstrike a confused look, then shrugged. Wolfcall was greeting the unfamiliar she-cat by name, so things didn't seem like they'd devolve into a fight just yet.

Spotting a sparrow pecking at something on the ground, the pale apprentice carefully edged toward it. Hopefully her her slight amusement at Bloodstrike's failed rabbit capture didn't come back to bite her on the tail as Smokepaw sprang forward, aiming for the smaller bird. Her claws sank into feathers, and the she-cat turned to the others now, focusing her attention curiously on the unfamiliar she-cat. Summer, Wolfcall had said?

20hp / 74sp (77 - 3sp)

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

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'Hunting Dice' : 7

No, not one companion - two companions for the tree-dwelling cat. As Summer emerged from the foliage into the clearing where the birds had been startled, she found herself watching a familiar tom as he sank his teeth skillfully into a pigeon's plump neck. Two kills - and they say you can't hunt with others, the drifter thought, pleasantly surprised and purring. She remembered the tom's name, Wolfcall, just as he looked up, his sharp amber gaze boring into her for a moment as he held his prey between his teeth. Summer waved her tail in a pleasant hello, glancing aside ever so slightly as she registered a dark tom-cat in their presence. Perhaps the other cat she'd heard on the ground, then. The she-cat in the tree had come down and regarded the drifter with interest for a moment from behind the other tom's protective stance. "Wolfcall, darling, what a pleasure to run into you! I'm so relieved I didn't interrupt," Summer greeted the SkyClan cat with a purr, referring to his successful pigeon-snatching.

Seeming reassured by their Clanmate's lack of reaction, the other two younger cats seemed to shrug and wander off in search of more prey. Summer blinked her pale blue eyes at each as they walked away before looking happily to the dark tom before her. "I was out for a stroll, and I would keep near the borders, darling, but a sweet little dear from one of your neighboring Clans got struck recently on the road and I've been a bit leery of that edge, you see. I felt a little more comfortable trying to cross in the forest, and then I heard you and your friends - you are impeccable hunters, clearly," the ginger-cream drifter praised, her eyes shifting to the pale tortoiseshell and the dark tabby as they rejoined her and Wolfcall. "And, well, I had to see. So who do I have the pleasure of admiring?" she asked the unknown SkyClan cats each, her voice melodious and expression perfectly relaxed and content.

The sounds of a chase behind him made Wolfcall half-turn, head tilted slightly as he watched a rabbit dash just out of Bloodstrike's reach. The deputy chuckled, "Good try, son. And good job, Smokepaw," he acknowledged as the apprentice snatched another bird from the sky.

Turning back to summer, he fell back to his haunches, body language relaxed and easygoing, something he hoped would allow his companions to relax as well. "This is my son, Bloodstrike," he flicked an ear towards the striped tom, "and Smokepaw, another SkyClan apprentice," he said proudly. "Bloodstrike, Smokepaw, this is Summer. She lives around Twolegplace - she's a friend," he hoped he wasn't being too informal, as they had only met the one time, but the deputy liked Summer, she was friendly and easygoing and hadn't held any hard feelings for the mistake he'd made when he crossed into Twolegplace by accident. "So," he continued. "How have you been? Greenleaf treating you well?"

Bloodstrike stepped next to Wolfcall to get a better look at the lone she-cat. Seeing as his dad had reclined into a sit, as much as it tortured Bloodstrike to not be winning the competition right now, he also sat next to his father and desperately tried to ignore whatever Smokepaw was doing. There will be more competitions... just pay attention for now. He told himself. His eyes glanced over at Wolfcall for just a moment as if he didn't believe him when he said Summer was a friend. She seemed... friendly. Perhaps he just wasn't used to lone cats acting the way Summer did. Granted, his first interaction with lone cats was watching them fight and murder each other in an alleyway, and the time he met Iniko he got major trouble and liar vibes... but none of this he picked up from Summer.

Maybe she's just better at hiding it. Or she is distracting me. He thought, as he almost didn't hear what she said while he looked at her. She was pretty. In fact he had a hard time tuning out her cream colored, flowing long fur and her slender build. She was the complete opposite of him in every way.

Wait what did she just say?

"Were you closer to the marsh or the part of the forest with a lot of undergrowth?" He asked upon realizing she mentioned a cat got struck by a monster. He had a friend in Thunderclan, Beecloud, and he liked Flintstar and Emberspark from Shadowclan. It was unlikely that the casualty was either of them, but there was always that chance. He shook off his slightly mesmerized state of mind and tried to remind himself that Summer was a clanless cat. Clanless cats were not to be trusted one hundred percent, due to their lack of honor and code. She could be pretty all she wanted.

Why is almost all of Skyclan either a tom or my sister? He thought grudgingly, but kept this to himself. He liked Smokepaw. He liked Ivypaw though she hadn't been around much. But still, they were apprentices. So he never gave them more than a quick glance and refused to acknowledge that small flutter of excitement in his chest when he was near one of them. It was forbidden, even if they were close to the same age as himself.