A Successful Hunt [CLOSED for KJ]

It was just shy of Sunhigh in SkyClan camp, though the cold wind offset any warmth that the sun would have provided. Bonekit's slightly matted pelt kept out the chill as he stalked about camp, avoiding his mother's fawning and doting at all costs. He'd put up with it for the past several moons, but today he'd put an end to it. He was a big cat now, almost an apprentice! He didn't need to be told what to do, and he definitely didn't need to be groomed. The dirt was on purpose! It made him look tough, but mother would never understand that. Which was why Bonekit was leaving the nursery, for good. He was going to live wild and free, sleep where he wanted to and groom himself when he wanted to. Of course, the forest was scary, so he'd have to stay in SkyClan camp... But it was the principle of the thing! He'd have to hunt for his own food, of course. Fresh-kill piles were for scaredy-kits.

As if on cue, a rather large spider scuttled into the little kit's field of vision. His eyes locked onto it, body dropping into... Some kind of stance. It was more of a shaky slither than anything resembling a hunting crouch, but he somehow managed to stalk forward in pursuit of the spider. He grinned, speeding up- there was no way it was getting away from him! He unsheathed his miniscule claws, ready to pounce, and-

His paws hit something solid. Very solid. It didn't crunch or give way like a spider would, but Bonekit hadn't been paying attention. He had no idea what he'd hit. He clung to the fluffy interruption, brain doing somersaults to figure out what he'd hunted instead of the spider. He looked up past the leg he was clinging to- oh Stars. The realization that he'd pounced on maybe the scariest cat in all of SkyClan just made him hold onto her tighter on instinct, little claws buried in her fur. "Oh!" was all he could manage to say.

...Did this make him a fighter now? Technically he'd managed to land an attack on a much, much bigger cat than himself. One cat's failed hunt was another cat's battle victory! Yeah, he liked the sound of that! He grinned, oblivious to the fact that he was still hanging onto her leg like a slightly undersized squirrel.

Beechface stepped out of her den with a yawn, eye narrowing as she scanned camp. No Bloodstar in sight, so maybe she could have some peace and quiet and not-stress for more than two minutes. She knew full well it was wishful thinking, but she could dream, right?

Claws sinking into her leg had the medicine cat letting out a low growl, lifting the leg in question and staring down at the white-furred kit who had... decided she'd make a good target, apparently. Beechface... Was hardly in the mood for this.

Of course, it was a kit, as annoyed as she was... The kit was probably bored. Stars knew Beechface had been at that age.

"Come now, you can do better than that." She commented, tone gruff. The kit was hardly capable of doing real harm, anyways.

Bonekit finally detached himself from Beechface with an intense amount of concentration. He hadn't quite mastered the whole bodily autonomy thing yet. He looked up at his 'opponent', trying very very hard not to flinch. The other kits were right, the medicine cat really was terrifying. He gulped, what little rationality he had making him question whether this was a good idea... Before his attention span wore out, and with it his doubts. "A challenge! Okay, you asked for this!" He unsheathed his claws, taking up another several seconds, and charged at Beechface with a squeaky battle cry.

By some stroke of luck, he managed to hit his target a second time- this time on purpose! He almost let go of her fur with excitement at the fact that he'd landed right. Clambering up onto her shoulders, he batted at her neck with tiny paws. "Haha! Gotcha!" His blows made no impact, but the fact that Beechface was agreeing to play-fight with him at all had him over the moon. Everyone else in the nursery would think he's so cool! And mother would finally let him be an apprentice! He'd be the first three-moon-old apprentice ever, and then he'd be able to do whateeeever he wanted.

The kit managed to detach himself from her leg, and she let him, whiskers twitching with amusement at his antics as he decided to take her up on the challenge. The kit sprang, tiny claws sinking into her fur, and Beechface let out a soft huff of laughter as Bonekit batted at her ears. Movements carefully exaggerated, the medicine cat sank to her belly beneath the featherweight of the kit standing on her shoulders. "Ouch!" She yelped in feigned horror, he was much too small and too young to do any sort of real damage, though Beechface was sure anyone in camp looking in their direction would get a chuckle out of the sight.

Bonekit stopped batting at her head for a moment as she fell to her belly, hanging onto her pelt for dear life despite the fact that she moved fairly slowly. It took a moment to click in his mind what had just happened, but once it did he broke into a grin. "Yes! I did it! I did it!" He hopped off of Beechface, jumping about in a little victory dance. Then he whirled back around to face her, rearing up so that his front paws were planted on her chest. He underestimated how much bigger she was, he didn't really have a flat surface for his paws to be planted on, but he made do with his claws. "Any last words, Beechface?" He growled- or tried to growl. It was a lot squeakier than he'd envisioned.

He felt like the strongest kit in all of SkyClan. He resisted the urge to look around and see if anyone was watching him defeat the medicine cat single-pawed- he could gloat after he won for sure.

A purr of amusement rumbled in Beechface's chest as the little kit dropped to the ground and reared up, trying to place his paws on her throat. They landed closer to her chest instead, though the kit was off-balance a little, too. "Spare me, Bonekit! If not, tell Ravenclaw I'm sorry." Really she had a lot of things to apologize for, no matter how Ravenclaw insisted she didn't need an apology... But Bonekit would have no knowledge of that.