Meet Me At Dusk [Open]

The soft cool breeze of Leaf-fall blew the brightly colored leaves across the territory in a silent dance, casting all kinds of hypnotic shadows down upon RiverClan’s camp. Some of the leaves, too heavy to maintain their pace with the rest of the group, start to lower, the constant rubbing with each other causing a very faint raspy sound barely audible over the whistle of the breeze.

However, before any of the leaves had a chance to reach the ground peacefully, sudden movement forced the falling leaves to scatter, wind caused by movement successfully interrupting their dance. Small yaws closed rather suddenly around one of the bigger leaves, its dry state causing a loud crunching sound as the fragile prize fell apart under such sudden pressure.

Tiny paws hit the floor with great grace and in relative silence for the most part. An interestingly looking kit whose pelt seemed to have been touched by the memorable twilight that this season carried with it now spitting out what not only half a second ago he had caught, trying to get rid of all the loose bits of dry leaf that now coated his tongue. As fun as chasing the falling leaves was for him, successfully catching one dry enough to fall apart like this was not exactly as fun.

Duskkit shook his head a bit after successfully cleaning his raspy tongue, huffing and still licking his muzzle as the feeling remained for a bit longer after. This was his first time outside the nursery, and he was amused by everything and anything the camp had to offer, but he couldn’t help but be especially interested in the leaves that kept falling all over the place, almost as if the trees and breeze kept tempting him to catch some more. He reacted by half running, half bouncing around the nursery once more, trying to guess where the next large leaf would get close enough for him to catch it.

His ears, however, kept moving in their attempt to catch every sound. The outside was so much more interesting than the quiet interior of the nursery, yet he was still trying to get used to the new number of stimuli that surrounded him, unable to block noises, scents, or sights out or ignore them just yet, and getting confused rather often due to this. There was just…so much to do, so much to experience, and way too little time to do it.

Bearspirit hadn't seen kits in Riverclan for... far too long. He dropped off a mouthful of voles onto the fresh-kill pile, happy that he at least caught something in the still-dead Riverclan territory. The twolegs and dogs had done a number on the river and their territory. Food was scarce, forcing them to hunt on Windclan territory with Ivystar's permission. But it was about to be leaf-bare. How much longer was Windclan willing to let them hunt there? As much as it would irritate his clan, Bearspirit knew he could always bring back canned food or dry kibble. It wasn't glorious, but his clan would eat. Having a former kittypet in their ranks had it's advantages.

Bearspirit was about to leave again when he noticed the small kit hopping around catching leaves with his paws. His tail flickered with excitement. He'd wanted an apprentice for quite some time, but with so few queens understandably not giving birth right now, he was afraid he'd not get one for quite some time. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go talk to the kit now... maybe show him around camp?

The tall, golden marbled tom approached... uh... Duskkit was it? He wasn't completely sure but that seemed right. "Hello, Duskkit!" He said confidently, even though he wasn't one hundred percent sure of the kit's name. "Eradicating leaves, I see. The pests!" He plopped his heavy rump onto the ground and a series of loud crunches came from the squashed leaves. Well now what? "I hope you've got enough energy for all of them... there are a lot more to come." He noted how opposite their pelts were too. Bearspirit sported the hues of soft golds, off-white, cinnamon, milk chocolate and dark chocolate with peridot green eyes. Duskkit had a lot of blues in his pelt... but the orange hues were not unnoticed. Amber might not have been the opposite of green per se, but it was close enough in the cat world.

The tiny ears of Duskkit perked up far before Bearspirit talked to him, the heavier steps of the older tom not exactly going unnoticed, especially when there were so many leaves making silent movement near impossible…but then again, why would anyone try to move silently here? It was camp, it was home, it was safe…or at least that was truth in the still innocent mind of the young kit, who was blissfully ignorant of the many dangers that could lurk everywhere.

He even was still a bit too naïve and sheltered to fully grasp the hardships his own clan was experiencing. Stormbringer had done an amazing job at keeping the young kit oblivious, as smart as he had already proven to be. Mom said everything was alright, mom said she was happy. Mom was always right, mom would never lie to him…why would she?

And yet, there was something…a strange feeling in the bottom of his chest, a nagging thought in the back of his head that haunted his dreams. The floating pieces of this puzzle were right there, floating right before his nose, but he was still too young to be able to put them together…but for how long? Innocence doesn’t last forever…

That train of thought was however completely derailed when his name was called, ears perking up and amber eyes raising to meet pale green ones. Oh…a warrior. He had seen several of them come and go from the nursery, but he couldn’t exactly recall this one…maybe he was not a dad? That would give him no motive to walk into the den, right? He sniffed in his direction a bit before he mentioned the leaves “Pests…” The word came as something barely above a thoughtful whisper. He bapped one of them lightly as the word clicked into place in the kit’s head, the crunching sound of it almost seeming to pull him out of his trance “Pests!” And with that he started jumping around, hitting and crunching as many as he could around the place he was standing in.

“Pests! Pests! Crunchy pests!” He was basically laughing out the words more than actually speaking them, eventually falling on purpose and rolling on them, his pelt not covered in bits of bright oranges, yellows and reds all over. With the joyful laughter only a kit can own, and still belly up on the mess of shattered dry leaves he had created, he turned his head to look at the warrior again “I don’t know your name…mom says it’s polite to ask for names, yes? What is your name?”.

Bearspirit wasn't sure what he was expecting, but what he got brought forth a chuckle out of him. He watched Duskkit crunch the leaves, genuinely enjoying himself. After a few moments he couldn't stand to just sit there and watch. He extended a large paw and crushed a few leaves himself. "Don't leave a single one left!" He said playfully... as he proceeded to try to out crush the leaves on the ground that the kit was playing with. He even playfully "stole his kills" from a few leaves around the kit by crushing them first. Once or twice he extended a paw to block Duskkit from getting to one and crushed it with the other paw. He stuck his tongue out at the kit before offering a teasing smirk.

"I'm Bearspirit." He answered Duskkit. At least he'd remembered the kit's name correctly. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier!" He swiped a large leaf into the air and allowed it to drift towards Duskkit. An even larger one broke off from a tree above them and Bearspirit dropped into a hunting crouch. He watched it intently, trying to guess where exactly it would land.

"Look at that one! That's a big pest!" He said excitedly as the leaf teetered this way and that way coming closer to the ground. Maybe he'd let Duskkit get it. "Can you get it before a warrior can? I mean... you are just a kit...." He feigned haughtiness, but had every intention of letting Duskkit get the leaf first. It drifted down closer... Bearspirit was going to swipe at it and miss on purpose when it came close enough. How fast would Duskkit be, he wondered....

Duskkit yowled each time a “kill” was stolen from him, bapping the older cat’s paw repeatedly with his own each time it happened, careful to keep claws sheathed as he didn’t want to harm him, before returning to try and get as many leaves as possible again.

His ears flicked when he finally heard the larger tom’s name, his head tilting a bit. He knew how warrior names were made, even a kit like him would know how clan cats were named at this point. However, Bearspirit’s name poked his interest a bit more than usual. Being so young, he couldn’t fully understand the post-mortem implications of the word “Spirit”, but he could understand having a Spirit regarding vitality, strength, courage, and such, as it was an expression he had heard being thrown around from time to time in the past. However, it was the prefix that he couldn’t really understand, the word was completely new to him “What’s a Bear?”.

He got up, shaking off the bits of leaves that stubbornly clung to his fur, waiting for an explanation. However, Bearspirit’s words were quick to distract him, albeit temporarily.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at the large, falling leaf, tail lashing as he copied the hunting position the warrior had taken, even if it was noticeably flawed as one would expect from a first-timer. A soft growl echoing in the back of his throat as he seemed to be calculating to the best of his young, undeveloped abilities. His pupils almost seemed to contract for a split second as his muscles fired when he considered the time being right…but how he did probably would take the older cat by surprise unless he saw it coming.

Instead of jumping up as one would expect, which would’ve been a near guaranteed miss given that not even a SkyClan kit would be able to jump high enough to get it just yet, he leaped towards Bearspirit’s head. Small paws using the warrior as leverage to get the impulse needed, climbing onto his head before turning around and pouncing towards the leaf with extended paws, claws unsheathed, and tiny jaws open wide. Whether this managed to stun Bearspirit long enough or take advantage of him trying to pounce as well, making his impulse help himself in his goal to reach it first, it would be the best outcome in Duskkit’s eyes.

The tiny paws of the kit fumbled around as the tiny jaws snaped until they felt the crunchy surface of the leaf between fangs and claws. The feeling of success was a bit short-lived as realization hit them, realizing that they hadn't really thought about landing as much as they did the jump itself. A small muffled yelp left the small kit's muzzle as he hit the ground, as he didn't really realize he could've just...let go of the leaf to ensure a safe fall. He rolled a bit with the prized, but now very broken, leaf, before lifting his head, his fangs letting go of it, but his paws still clutching it tightly "I-I'm ok!" .

The member 'Silver Ink' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 4

Bearspirit had been so focused on the leaf... he didn't expect a kit to come flying at his head. He blinked and swiveled a peridot green eye in it's socket to look at the kit. He didn't move, fearing that he might hurt the boy. The kit's paws landed on his head and he kicked off to an impressive height. The weight of the kit was hardly anything, especially not to a tom as big and burly as Bearspirit. It still stunned him in other ways, but it was a momentary stun, surprised by the kit's tactics. When Duskkit caught the leaf and fell back to the ground... quite unceremoniously... Bearspirit blinked and hoped the young tom was alright. He confirmed that he was, and it was at that moment that Bearspirit barked out a laugh.

"Nice catch! That was brilliant!" His praise was genuine. He admitted defeat and allowed the lad to have his leaf without anymore interference from Bearspirit. As for his question...

"I asked the same thing when Ivystar named me. She told me it was a creature that was like a cat and a dog put together, yet neither of those things. Some were as tall as mountains and had the strength to roll boulders and knock trees to the ground. Their roar is as loud as thunder and not even Lionclan or Tigerclan could be a match for them. They could walk on all fours or stand up like twolegs too, and their long claws couldn't retract, kinda like dogs, but they still use their claws and teeth for battle like us. They were known to be fiercely protective of their young and fairly good fishers and swimmers too." He paused for a moment, relishing the memory, but then he shrugged.

"I doubt they were ever real, but I appreciate Ivystar's confidence in me." She had been too kind, really. He'd grown big, bigger than a lot of cats in the forest and certainly had broader shoulders than most... but he still wasn't the biggest. The Skyclan deputy and some of his kin, as well as Flintstar of Shadowclan were fairly large too.

"I imagine you were named Duskkit because of your pelt? It would make sense... it's definitely different."

The great imagination that was so common between the younger cats started to work quickly as Bearspirit spoke of the origins of his prefix. He looked at him with wide-open eyes full of curiosity, though his gaze was slightly lost thanks to his imagination being front and center at the time, as well as both ears pointing forward towards him as to not miss a single detail. He had heard descriptions of dogs in the past but never seen one himself, so to say that the mashup of an imaginary creature that included another imaginary creature of his made it so he most likely made up something completely different from what a bear truly looked like…something that probably could be way more intimidating than the real thing if put side to side. He was so enthralled by the words, he hadn’t really noticed he had been absentmindedly nibbling on the large leaf, a tiny crunching sound coming from said action.

Then it came to the thoughts of the older cat regarding the veracity of the creature’s existence “Oh…so I’ll never get to see one then, right?” The tone he used was as ambiguous as his feeling towards this potential fact. Part of him felt saddened, knowing there was no possibility to put a face to the being beyond what his imagination could come up with…but the other felt relief and comfort in the thought that the nightmarish creature he had managed to somehow put together in his head wouldn’t cross paths with him nor anyone he cared about.

At Bearspirits’s mention of his pelt, he turned to look at his own coat, now covered in pieces of leaves and some other pieces of vegetation, probably even a bit of dirt, given the playing around he and the warrior had been up to. He stood up, the large leaf, or more like what was left of it at this point, forgotten as he started spinning a bit on circles, trying to get a better look of himself “I guess? Is it really? It’s hard to know when there isn’t many others to compare it to” This being the first time he stepped out of the nearly empty nursery meant that he had no idea of how different his pelt was when put next to others.

He was smart enough to stop spinning when he started to feel a bit dizzy, though, turning to look to the one he now started to think of as a friend “Is your pelt common? Or is it different too? Are there many different pelts around?” He leaned a bit to look towards the rest of the camp as he made this last question, looking around for “different” pelts in his clanmates, though he wasn’t exactly sure how to label something as such just yet.

At the disappointment in the kit's tone, Bearspirit felt a bit guilty. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to lie either. "I've never heard of any cat seeing a real bear. That might not be a bad thing, though. A creature that could kill a dog with a single swipe of it's paws isn't something I'd ever want to run into." Then again, anything that would kill dogs was a friend of Bearspirit's. He hated the wretched creatures. They had taken everything from him in the most brutal ways possible, and even now they roamed his home looking to destroy everything and everyone he loved.

"I suppose that's true. You'll notice how unique you are once you're out and about more." An idea hit him, but before he could open his mouth to ask, Duskkit was speaking again. His pelt... oh boy that's a whole other story.

"There is no pelt in the entire forest like mine. There are similar ones, but mine is the only one exactly like it in existence." Bearspirit dropped to his belly and rolled a bit on his side to show Duskkit his back. The marbled stripes surrounded darker hues of gold, but then abruptly bordered white on his back as well.

"I wasn't born in this forest, Duskkit. I was a kittypet once. My owner... uh... my twoleg had many generations of cats that eventually created me. She wanted these white patches on my back, my mom told me. I have three different stripe patterns on my coat, where most cats only have one. I guess I was what she wanted... but never seemed too pleased with the black on my toes." He held out a forepaw for him to see. On both forepaws he had two black toes in the middle.

"Twolegs like their kittypets to be pretty. That's all I was bred for. If I still lived with her she would have used me to make more kittens until she finally got the coat pattern she wanted. I guess I was almost perfect." He was the only one of his siblings that hadn't been to the vet to be cut.

"Would you like to have a short tour of the camp? As long as your mother doesn't mind..."

OOC: Sorry about the abrupt ending. It's time for me to go home from work!

Duskkit’s ears perked up as the top spoke to him, and even rolled a bit to allow him to see his unique pelt a bit better. With the curiosity that was starting to become very evident in him, he dragged himself a bit closer as he inspected the different patterns as the older cat described them to him. Questions were like loose minnows swimming on the river in newleaf in his head, bright enough for him to distinguish them, yet too small for him to grasp easily, making pulling them out of the said mental river, turning them into words to ask them with, a challenge for the young kit.

He did the same with the black toes on his forepaws, his head tilting a bit. Twolegs were strange creatures indeed. He then looked up at him once more “I thought kittypets didn’t approach the clans, and that clan cats tend to chase intruders off, so even if they tried, they wouldn’t be successful…” He still couldn’t fully wrap his head around the code but could somewhat understand what was told through it through his mother’s explanations. Yet, this new bit of information came to tumble down this knowledge he had built up since he was born. This was the first time that what he knew was put into question, where two truths collided with each other in irreconcilable ways

“Oh! Sure, I would love to!” He quickly bounced at Bearspirit’s side for the tour, eager to get the tour around camp, but it was clear he wasn’t going to drop the subject so quickly “But…if you really were a kittypet…how were you allowed through? How were you accepted into the clan?” He felt a powerful need to put these incompatible truths under careful scrutiny, to figure out which one was the flawed version and consequently nothing more than a fallacy trying to pass itself as reality.

Bearspirit entirely understood the kit's questions, because he was right. He glanced back nervously at the nursery, but it didn't seem like anyone inside had any objections to Bearspirit showing Duskkit around the camp. He got to his feet, crunched leaves cascading off of his slick fur. He gave it a final shake to get the more stubborn pieces off, but they too relinquished their hold on his pelt and fell to the floor.

"You're not wrong." He admitted fully. He gave a nod in the direction of the warrior's den and began to walk slowly so that the kit wouldn't struggle to keep up with his bigger steps. "Adult kittypets are usually chased out of clan territory, but the warrior code prohibits any harm coming to kits. I was a kit when I showed up at the Riverclan border. I had lost my family to dogs and I was nearly on the brink of death myself. Ivystar found me and took me in. I spent about a moon in this same nursery before I was old enough to become an apprentice. Now I am a Riverclan warrior, new name and all. My kittypet name was Mikael, but obviously I had to leave that name behind if I was joining the clans."

The approached the warrior's den and Bearspirit gave it a nod. "This is where the warrior's sleep. You can look inside but don't go in. Some of them have late patrols and they can be a little cranky if you wake them up." He gave the kit a chance to look inside before he began to walk slowly towards the medicine den. He wondered what other questions the kit might have. Kittypet life was very different from warrior life, but he wouldn't necessarily say that he'd want to go back. His uncle Mocha had been dangerously overweight, his mother had told him many times. She would always encourage him and his siblings to be mindful of how much they were eating, if only to instill the habit in them before their metabolisms became slower as they aged.

"What did you think of the warrior's den?" He asked, wondering if he'd been curious about anything before they reached the medicine den. Bearspirit found the medicine den interesting himself, if only for the cocktail of aromas that filled it.

Duskkit’s ears twitched a bit as he listened to Bearspirit, almost tripping a couple of times given how hyper-focused he was on the older tom’s tale. An active imagination trying its best to fill in the gas of knowledge the kit had, from the appearance of the dogs to the area on the border of the territory that they lived in. Then again, chances are that in his still innocent mind, the true carnage and fear Bearspirit went through back then would be completely missed. He was still too young and sheltered in the safety of camp to be able to even start to get an idea of what that could’ve been like at all.

“But…that would mean rules are not perfect…” The fact that two rules now clashed and allowed a loophole to be created between them was new, but for some reason, it was like if something inside him, a strange floating piece that made up the puzzle of life, had fallen into place and shed new light to a previously unknown part of this world. He would need some time to fully understand it himself, but this probably was the start of the chain reaction that would start to shape his personality regarding rules and his views towards them.

“S-So…Mikaelkit? Yes?” His head tilted once more, his whiskers twitching as he tried to force a suffix on the old, discarded name, sure that his new friend had just accidentally forgotten to add it at the end “What’s a Mikael?” So used to the whole idea of prefixes, suffixes, and these coming from the world around him, he didn’t even consider the chance of a name not existing under said definition, to think that twolegs didn’t have a naming system like theirs.

When Bearspirit showed him the warriors den, he cautiously approached, peeking his head inside and sniffing the closest nests to the entrance…once…making a weird face before taking more steps forward, cautiousness giving way to inquisitiveness as he sniffed a couple more nests…twice, trice…the weird face becoming a frown as his mind tried to decipher a newfound mystery. The sound of Bearspirit’s steps snapping him back into reality and forcing himself to retreat as they headed somewhere else.

With the warrior’s question, the detail that had made him frown earlier quickly slipped past his lips “Your nests don’t smell of milk like the nests in the nursery…” Duskkit was still very young and used to drink milk, only taking small bites of the prey apprentices brought to his mother out of curiosity instead of necessity, he was aware that the older you got, the less milk you were expected to drink for some reason. This was the first time that the realization that older cats didn’t drink milk at all downed on him “…things…things change when you growup, don't they? What else changes?”.

Bearspirit looked up at nothing thoughtfully as he considered Duskkit's words. The rules aren't perfect... he supposed that was true. "You're right... they're flawed. They were put in place with good intentions, though." What other answer could he possibly give him? Bearspirit wasn't equipped to defend the code with sound reasoning. That was the medicine cat's job, wasn't it? He smirked at the mention of Mikaelkit.

"No, I was just Mikael. When I got my apprentice ceremony I became Bearpaw." What a good day that had been, albeit bittersweet. He'd made it to the clans and had been accepted, but his mother and uncle and his siblings had not been there to witness it. His conversation with Copperfox had been his first interaction with a Starclan cat, and while the copper tom made him feel a bit better about how things had turned out, it pained him to know that even in Starclan his family would not be there.

"Well... aside from getting bigger, stronger and wiser..." He thought about his next words carefully. How honest should he be this time? Adult life was much harder than kit life, that was for sure. He paused in front of the medicine den, but didn't quite acknowledge it yet.

"More will be expected of you as an adult, or a fully fledged warrior. The consequences of your actions catch up with you more too, both the good and the bad. There is nothing wrong with listening swiftly and speaking slowly either. In fact I'd say that is the most wise thing you can do. Cats that are quick to speak but slow to listen seem to have the most difficulty in life and are rarely well liked." It was simple observation he'd gotten even as a kit in his twoleg nest. The aroma of the herbs in the medicine den hit him as a gentle breeze blew through and it brought his attention back to why they were originally out and about. He nodded at it.

"This is the medicine den. Don't touch anything in there, especially since you don't know what any of these herbs do. This is where Cloverheart works. You'll likely be in here a few times in your life, but it's not so bad. I've spent about half a moon in here when I was attacked by dogs. Just do what your medicine cat tells you and don't give them any trouble. You'll be out in no time." He then lingered there and waited for Duskkit to get a good look at it. He'd probably swing by the apprentice den next, the elder's den after that, the leader's den and then they'd go back to the nursery.