Old......Friends?

Raisha padded into the Asylum camp, extremely grumpy, although that seemed to be normal now. She thought she would get used to being stationed in RiverClan by now, but nope! If she had to take one more bite of fish, she might just puke. There was only so much of that stuff she could take, and RiverClan seemed to eat nothing but. And don't even get her started on the water, her pelt is still damp. She shook it out as she plopped down. Now she was eating a much more appetizing squirrel. This break would not last long, but at least she had the break.

She was so caught in her reverie she almost did not notice the other presence in the camp. She did not need to turn around to know who it was. She knew his stench anywhere. She could picture the tortoiseshell male, and groaned inwardly. "It won't do you any good standing there Pyrik. I'm not gonna bite your head off, as fun as it might be." In truth, she was much too tired to try anything. She lied down on her side, fixing the tom with a glare. She would really rather talk to anyone else, but Pyrik was there, and she knew for a fact he wouldn't leave.

One of the best parts of being home, Pyrik decided, was the food. Though he didn’t mind rabbits or the taller, stringier hares, he preferred milder prey, half for the flavor, half because birds and mice didn’t kick while being hunted. He rooted through the prey pile with a paw. Taking something without adding a catch of his own felt wrong; privately, he promised to go for a quick hunt before returning to WindClan. At last, his claws caught on a sparrow. He fished it out of the pile—just as his gaze fell on an all-too-familiar calico. His paw went slack, dropping the bird. Raisha. He’d completely missed her. Of course, she had noticed him, which meant he couldn’t leave…

…Not that he could have. They were factionmates. What kind of cat couldn’t face one of his own allies? Wishing he could summon his fox pelt from where he’d tucked it underneath his nest in the Standards’ quarters, Pyrik grabbed his prey again and turned around. “...Theron beat you to it, anyway.” Just alluding to the reprimand he’d gotten made him grimace. He slid into a sitting position, eyes locked on Raisha, the sparrow tucked securely beneath both of his forepaws. Sure, she’d said she wouldn’t bite his head off, but there was awful lot of ground that didn’t cover. “So, um,” he began carefully, ”how’re things in RiverClan?”

Raisha snorted at the mention of Theron. That cat made her glad she wasn't a Nightstriker. "Theron is a rough one. But she might just be the first cat to not reward you for being a screwup." Her voice was level, but there was salt in her words. She did not like Pyrik before they were assigned their camps, she would not pretend to be his friend now. "What did you do, anyway? Trip over a rabbit warren?"

She cringed as Pyrik asked her how RiverClan was. She was not about to speak of her misgivings about the Clan. "The takeover was fairly easy. RiverClan is a fairly weak one, they can hardly even hunt. They rely solely on the fish in their rivers for the most part, even though they have forests filled with just as much prey. They are also a bunch of selfish gluttons." She added, noting the amount they chose to eat. She could imagine how sluggish the future generations would be. "How was WindClan? I surely hope that not all of the Clans were as pathetic, otherwise we will have a lot of work on our paws."

As expected, Raisha had no intentions of being nice. Pyrik winced anyway. It was an old fight, almost comforting in its familiarity after all the newness he’d faced. Almost. Rather than rise to the bait, he remained silent and rolled the sparrow back and forth through the dust with a paw, waiting for Raisha to continue. When she did, he winced again. He should have expected she’d ask what had happened; every time he opened his mouth without thinking, he ended up creating another spot for her to jab at. That made answering her even more precarious. I got someone killed. Staring at the sparrow, he shrugged and said, “Something like that. WindClan’s faster than I thought.”

The conversation turned to their Clan assignments (much to Pyrik’s relief; better some strange Clan than him). During the chaos unfolding on the moor, he’d forgotten Raisha had been sent to RiverClan; she made her opinion of it clear. He wrinkled his muzzle as she claimed they only ate fish, though privately he wondered what that might taste like. “WindClan was…messy. We, um, showed up with a dead body, so they got pretty mad. They still are.” Then, because it seemed important to clarify: “That wasn’t my fault.” A brief silence fell as Pyrik struggled to remember anything else about WindClan. ”Aside from that, they’re just…weird. Did you know they all sleep outside? Even when it’s raining.”

"Trade. Now. Please! I want to be in the Clan where I can actually fight! Lyralei won't let us raise a claw! At least you guys get to do something! Did I mention they only ate fish in RiverClan? And you have to swim to go anywhere. And you know I hate water. Brick has been having to hold me back, or I think some cats would have died!" For a moment, Raisha had forgotten who she was talking to. She was just enjoying having someone to hang out with, she forgot that she didn't actually like Pyrik.

Scrambling to sit up, she narrowed her eyes at the tom. "Of course that death wasn't your fault. You don't actually have the guts to kill anyone. Your nothing more than a weak, pathetic mouse that puts the fox you wear to shame. They should have made you a pelt ward. You're no good at even being a standard. In fact, even if you were a pelt ward, you'd probably screw that up. You're useless, Pyrik. It's a shame the Asylum spends so much time worrying about you and cleaning after your messes. There are much better cats their attention could be on." There was a coldness that had overtaken Raisha as she stared at her fellow standard.

"Trade. Now. Please! I want to be in the Clan where I can actually fight! Lyralei won't let us raise a claw! At least you guys get to do something! Did I mention they only ate fish in RiverClan? And you have to swim to go anywhere. And you know I hate water. Brick has been having to hold me back, or I think some cats would have died!" For a moment, Raisha had forgotten who she was talking to. She was just enjoying having someone to hang out with, she forgot that she didn't actually like Pyrik.

Scrambling to sit up, she narrowed her eyes at the tom. "Of course that death wasn't your fault. You don't actually have the guts to kill anyone. Your nothing more than a weak, pathetic mouse that puts the fox you wear to shame. They should have made you a pelt ward. You're no good at even being a standard. In fact, even if you were a pelt ward, you'd probably screw that up. You're useless, Pyrik. It's a shame the Asylum spends so much time worrying about you and cleaning after your messes. There are much better cats their attention could be on." There was a coldness that had overtaken Raisha as she stared at her fellow standard.

Hearing Raisha talk about fighting their new allies so casually sent Pyrik’s paws shuffling through the dirt. Everything else sounded interesting, though—better than WindClan, where the only good thing was Thalia. “I would switch with you, but Captain Iniko…” He trailed off into a one-shouldered shrug. “At least you’re with Brick, right? I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know anyone in WindClan.” Having run out of things to say for the moment, he shut his mouth, unable to stifle a faint twist of hope. They’d finally found common ground. Maybe complaining about their assigned Clans could lead to a ceasefire.

Raisha’s expression shifted, then, sharpening into icy thorns, and Pyrik had just enough time to process the change before she launched her attack. Without his second skin, he couldn’t hide the tears welling in his eyes. Yet, though he shrank away as if struck, words pushed themselves past the knot in his throat. “Why are you always like this?” It might have sounded biting if his voice hadn’t cracked in the middle. “Can’t we just…talk? For one day? We’re supposed to be factionmates—“ Were they? To hear Raisha tell it, he’d become a Standard through favoritism and sheer luck. An argument rose to his tongue: I’m good enough for Captain Iniko. No. He wouldn’t let her poke holes in that, too. Pyrik clambered to his paws, tall and ungraceful, abandoning the sparrow as he stepped backward. “Did I…did I do something? Is that it?”