The Hawk and the Jay [Jaypaw]

The sun had briefly broken through the clouds, though it offered little in the way of warmth as Nighthawk tucked her paws beneath her, curled in a small patch of blessedly snow-free ground just outside the elders' den. Thinning fur was fluffed up against the cold, though it didn't help much. A gust of wind swept through the camp, stirring soft flurries of snow into the air.

Even her longer-furred clanmates seemed to be shivering today. Nighthawk watched as the clan's medicine cat hurried across the clearing towards her own den, a brooding scowl across her face and tail lashing back and forth. The medicine cat had made her hatred of the Asylum plain as day for all to see, an admirable trait, really. Also a stupid one. Nighthawk hated to admit it, but she didn't see any way that Skyclan would be rid of these rogues so easily. All they could do was keep their heads down and pray there wouldn't be any more violence.

Perhaps it was a more defeatist attitude, but Nighthawk was old. Between the fire, and everything that had happened since, it seemed like the dark tabby was feeling her age more than ever. She woke with stiff, aching joints in the mornings, and now it seemed as though the stiffness never truly left. Her muzzle was more gray than black, these days. Above all, the elder was tired. So very tired of one misfortune after the next befalling the clan. Her kin and clanmates shouldn't live in fear of their own shadows, afraid of one wrong move. And yet this was where they had wound up.

All the elder could do was wallow, apparently. Amber eyes narrowed in displeasure, both at the situation the clan was in and at herself for the inability to stop dwelling on what she couldn't change.

With a heavy sigh, the elder stood, attempting once more to stretch away the stiffness in her joints. A sharp flare of pain in her flank made her flinch slightly. Old wounds were aggravated more easily than ever, it seemed, and Nighthawk loathed it. She settled back onto her haunches, ears twitching back in silent frustration as her watchful gaze swept the clearing.

Asylum and SkyClan. SkyClan and Asylum. That was all anyone talked about anymore—all anyone had ever talked about in Jaypaw’s life. Jaypaw was sick of it. To her, in all her apprenticehood wisdom, it was so simple it hurt. Sure, she noticed the divide between rogue and warrior. Sure, when she really, really thought about it, she could remember a morning when her mother had curled tighter around her than ever before. But she also remembered, later and fresher, her first steps beyond the nursery and the world full of strangers awaiting her there. Whether those strangers smelled like pine forest or the lands beyond hadn’t mattered.

It didn’t matter. Asylum and SkyClan, SkyClan and Asylum—they defended the same borders, slept under the same charred trees, and at the end of the day, their prey went into the same pile. They were stronger together. And Jaypaw, to her knowledge, was the only cat who saw that. One conversation with her parents was all it’d taken to show her she needed to keep her mouth shut, at least about this. Jaypaw was young, not stupid, but too young to convince anyone of that.

Not for long, though. Cats listened to warriors. Someday they’d listen to her, too.

Miserable as leaf-bare’s weather was, the hunting patrol she’d been assigned to had been far from it; the plump squirrel dangling from Jaypaw’s mouth served as proof. Still, she wished SkyClan’s prey could be sensible enough to stay in their nests for once. That way, she could’ve stayed in hers. The once-fluffy apprentice, fur flattened with snow, tiptoed into camp behind her patrolmates, stepping into the prints they’d left on their way out. An eternity later, the squirrel joined its luckless companions in the fresh-kill pile. Jaypaw backed away, wrinkling her nose at the chill—and caught sight of a rounded face. “Grandma!” With only that as a greeting, she sprinted across the camp and tucked herself into the bare patch of earth right beside Nighthawk. Being small had its advantages. “Ugh, I can’t believe they make us hunt in this, you can’t even smell anything. It’s not gonna be snowy forever, right?” Belatedly, she glanced up, noting the set of her grandmother’s ears. “…Did something happen?”

Nighthawk watched as a familiar shape padded into the clearing alongside a patrol, dropping some prey on the fresh-kill pile. Her grandkits were turning into fine hunters, it seemed, and that was a good thing. She was proud of them.

Nighthawk's expression brightened a bit as Jaypaw spotted her, and when the apprentice happily sat next to her, Nighthawk purred, affectionately bumping Jaypaw's shoulder.

"Jaypaw! I don't miss hunting in this, either. How's training going, aside from the snow and cold?" Her granddaughter's complaints brought a small smile to Nighthawk's face, one of sympathy and agreement, as well as some genuine happiness to see her grandkit...

Who had evidently noticed her irritation. Whoops. It would, Nighthawk knew, do Jaypaw no good to hear her grandmother complain about things that couldn't be helped. Especially not when one of those things had casually drifted within earshot.

"It's nothing, just an old injury... It acts up in the cold, as if I needed another reason to detest leaf-bare. It'll be over soon enough, thankfully." She mewed, gently brushing her tail against Jaypaw's shoulder.

In contrast to her less-than-sunny tone, the apprentice’s pale gray paws kneaded the damp ground as she spoke. “It was super interesting at first, but now it’s kind of same-y. We did crouching again yesterday. I know warriors don’t spend their whole lives crouching!” Jaypaw peered up at her grandmother as if searching for confirmation of this thing she supposedly knew before looking back down, expression turning thoughtful. “Though getting to patrol for real today was good.” Hunting outside the framework of a lesson brought the fun back into it. It felt like being a warrior for once instead of just pretending.

The mention of an old injury sent Jaypaw’s tufted ears upright. She eyed Nighthawk up and down, clearly expecting some new scar to jump out of her grandmother’s fur. When, inevitably, nothing caught her eye, she sank back with a curious sort of frown. Fortunately, that curiosity was redirected a moment later. “…What’s not-leaf-bare like?”

"You're learning, though. That's what's important. Warriors spend a lot of time hunting, and by extension, crouching." Nighthawk had never known an apprentice that didn't complain about their training at least a little. It was only natural. That training was important however, there were skills that needed to be drilled into them and practiced. Hunting especially.

"Not-leaf-bare?" She chuckled softly at her granddaughter, "The grass grows green, the trees have their leaves back, and it's not cold. Best of all, there won't be snow on the ground."