Herons and Starlings (CLOSED)

Heronpaw was by herself at the river. Of course, she wasn’t the only one here, as there were other cats in the hunting patrol just downstream. Of course, Heronpaw was trying to search for fish to catch, which was a patience-inducing task. She had to wait for the fish to come up and be able to be caught. Just patience, and eventually she’d be able to catch something. Hours passed. It was now past sunhigh, and the silver she-cat thought that she was maybe doing something wrong.

Shifting her posture so that she couldn’t see her reflection in the river, she waited longer for fish to arrive. Of course, if the other cats in her patrol wanted her to come over, she would, but for now she wanted to wait for fish to appear. Noticing a minnow near her vision, she pounced at the fish. The splash she made ended up leading to nothing, as the fish ended up wriggling away from the she-cat’s paws. Well, there’s always next time, she thought, returning to her perch above the water. You have to be patient when it comes to fishing, after all, That’s how it works.

"Well that just made a giant mess, and you almost splashed me."

A voice called from across the river, as yellow eyes were locked onto the she-cat. Starlingpaw stood, with his head held high, a few paces back from the water, not really wanting to get wet again. "Is that the welcome I get? I come to check and see if you are okay, and I get splashed? Wow." He said being dramatic about the predicament that he was in.

"What are you even doing? Just sitting there like a stone doesn't seem productive in any manner." He didn't get it. He hadn't seen anyone fish before so he didn't know what was going on, just that it seemed like a massive waste of time when this pretty she-cat could be paying attention to him.

Heronpaw blinked at what seemed to be an apprentice from another clan. ”I’m fishing,” she said, standing up to look at the tom. ”It’s why I was splashing around and sitting still so much. Haven’t caught anything yet though.” The tom on the other side seemed very calm and energetic, and his smile was very charming. She didn’t know why, but it pulled her in. Realizing that she should know his name, she began making some small talk with him. ”My name is Heronpaw,” she said. ”I’m from RiverClan. What’s your name?”

He looked puzzled by her answer for a moment. Fishing? It seemed like a giant waste of time, and an ineffective way to catch prey. Oh right his name. "Starlingpaw of Thunderclan, at your service." He said with an exaggerated head bow, but as he straightened up again, his eyes locked onto her form. A small hum escaped the tom as he observed her for a moment.

"Ya know, you don't look like a Heronpaw. You look more like a Brindlepaw to me." He told her, not at all feeling ashamed by his words. "A pretty name to match a pretty apprentice." He smiled at her again, not caring that he was flirting with a potential enemy. Riverclan was close by, might as well learn what he could from them, maybe it could be useful in the future?

Starlingpaw, huh? It was a nice name, one that she thought was fitting of the tom. As a ThunderClan apprentice, he seemed to not know very much about fishing, or even care as much as she did. It was fine, though. The other clans had their own ways of hunting, after all. ThunderClan focused more on land prey than RiverClan, and RiverClan caught more fish than ThunderClan did.

At Starlingpaw’s next words, the RiverClan she-cat couldn’t help but blush. Brindlepaw was a pretty name, she silently admitted. And she did have a brindled pelt, so the name did fit. However, Heronpaw was her name that she got from RiverClan, and she ended up connecting it with her clan and the loyalty she had for them. Still, Starlingpaw’s words were very flattering. ”Oh, well, I appreciate your kindness,” she ended up saying. Her pelt felt hot with embarrassment, which was probably because she was messing up her conversation with the handsome ThunderClan apprentice.

...She thought he was handsome. And he thought she was pretty. It’s nothing, she told herself. Just enjoy the moment right now. Don’t worry about it. You won’t break the code, you’re too much of a goody two-paws to do that. Just enjoy yourself with him. It won’t amount to anything anyways. So Heronpaw stayed. ”Nice weather out, isn’t it? Makes you look... uh...even more handsome than you already are,” she said embarrassedly. Okay, now that I have just embarrassed myself ten times over, what’s my next course of action? “Um... how’s ThunderClan doing at the moment?”

Starlingpaw couldn't help but stick out his chest a little at her compliment, he wanted to say he knew but he couldn't do that. He had enough sense not too. "Thanks, I try my best to stay clean." Not as much as my brother.. he is such a neat freak.. The apprentice thought, Wasppaw coming to mind didn't make him happy so he quickly shook the thought away.

He let out a small chuckle at her reaction, not really in a teasing manor, just more in good fun. "Cute.." He said, his voice soft. Yellow eyes locked on the she-cat across from him. "Thunderclan is alright, though they don't really pay much attention to me at the moment." Considering he was on his own at the moment and no one was nearby. "I would cause some good fun if I had the time, but you know how training is." He paused for a moment before thinking of something. "Oh! I have an idea, you should teach me to fish!" If he mastered it, then he could show off to his clan. They would be amazed by his skills, certainly.

Heronpaw smiled. It seemed that Starlingpaw took her compliment well, which was nice to see. Good fun… the silver she-cat knew what he meant by that. When he asked if he could learn how to fish, Heronpaw nodded. ”Sure!” she said. ”Splashing can occur during fishing, though, as you’ve seen earlier.”

Turning to the water, she began explaining how to fish. ”First, you need to wait for the fish to appear. Seems easy at first glance, but it requires a lot of patience. Today has been a little unlucky for me, as not many fish have shown up for me, but hopefully that will change soon.” Of course, she probably missed a couple schools by talking to Starlingpaw, but that was fine. She was only going back to fishing to teach him how to fish anyways. ”Once you see fish close by, you swipe at it and try to get it onto the shore.”

Just as she finished saying it, she noticed a trout swimming right next to her. Instinctively, the she-cat flung the fish onto RiverClan’s side of the territory. Blinking, she turned back to Starlingpaw. ”Like, well, what I just did,” she finished awkwardly, her pelt getting hot again. She didn’t think she’d catch the trout so easily, but it just seemed to happen without her even thinking about it. She was a RiverClan cat, of course, but how could she already catch fish without thinking when she was just made an apprentice?

"Ohhh~ Impressive." He said with a smile on his maw, the fact that she managed to catch something like that did impress him. Maybe he didn't mind sharing the spotlight with this she-cat if she had cool tricks like these. It also helped that she was cute too.

"I will give it a shot, but I don't think I will be as good as you." There was a slight purr to his voice as he spoke his compliment. He really did mean it. He was a Thunderclan cat after all, fishing and water wasn't exactly his thing.

He positioned himself beside the water, following her instructions closely. He was impatient though, his tail flicked behind him as he waited, slight irritation building inside of him but he wasn't going to give up. He forced down his irritation, and waited looking for shadows of fish, or even the shape of one. Finally Starclan gave him one. He flashed his paw into the water, but it was too slow, and it was more so like a slap of water to himself instead of catching the fish. The dilute stepped back from the water spitting out whatever had gotten into his nose and mouth from his own splash. "Bleh! That isn't fun. How do you guys stand it?" He really wanted to catch a fish, but he didn't really like the water.