Exhausted Return [C]

Poppypaw carefully made her way from the river back to camp. She was tired. Her shoulder ached with a deep pain and some blood was smeared on her white fur from the weasel's clamping jaws. Her own mouth tasted metallic with the weasel's blood from her own bite, and it made her feel nauseous. She wanted to take a long, long nap, but she still had prey to deliver and her wounds to address. Poppypaw just hoped that when she next spoke to Perchfall, that her mentor was proud of her rather than disappointed at how many injuries she received from a measly weasel.

She arrived in camp with the weasel's body draped over her back and a fish being carried in her mouth. She walked towards the fresh-kill pile and carefully set down the fish, followed by the weasel. The more she looked at the predator, the more it felt like she hadn't brought back enough food. One fish and a fairly skinny predator, smaller than some others that the clan took on. It was no goose, able to help feed several cats in this harsh leafbare. The disappointment welling in her stomach just made the exhaustion weigh on her heavier than the weasel's body had.

But still, she had done what she could. With the prey delivered, she sat sat down and started to lick at her own wound. It was pretty deep from the way the weasel had latched onto her and every careful lick only sent ringing pain down her leg. How pathetic. Maybe Poppypaw wouldn't make a good warrior after all.

Though the early afternoon sky was awash with the chilly light of the cool season sun, the prickling presence of dampness slunk beneath the bones and curled low in the gut, a frigid chill seeping deep and fierce under the skin; the nervous system was left perpetually alight, quick and hard shivers and trembles blossoming through muscle and skin in a futile attempt to ward off the worst of the chill. Heaps of old, well-trodden snow weighed down heavily upon the freezing earth, once alabaster expanses of untouched riversides made all the more dark and dingy by the gentle entrapment of long-lingering steps.

The carefully conditioned muscles atop weary shoulders, delicately interwoven alongside sparse fringes of unkempt haloed hairs and overlapping bands of tried and thoroughly tested muscles, momentarily tensed in an instinctive response to the sudden stimulus of brushing free of the Nursery. Whatever sticky remnants of lingering conversation that had been previously held between Jaystar and Harebounce promptly withered and died, dissipating at the sudden sight of a bloodied and thoroughly disheveled Poppypaw lingering within the shaded outreaches of the winter-barren camp.

"I would be remiss if I did not escort you to Cloverheart's den, or at the very least inquiry as to how you ended up in such a state." Jaystar eventually mewed, crystalline flecks of snow and ice clinging to the unkempt skeletal shape of his outline. The contextual clues perched upon the angular bridge of his muzzle were certainly enough for him to piece together some semblance of a story, but through trials and tribulations, he had learned that assumptions oft did little more than ruffle fur.

Poppypaw raised her tired eyes to look to her leader. She nodded and pushed herself back up to her paws. She gave another quick glance at the kill she'd brought back, trying to push away the thoughts that they were too small and unhelpful for the clan. She couldn't tell if Jaystar was cross with her, given her state, and she was worried that she would be reprimanded even after her long day.

"I went hunting at the river and a weasel wanted the fish I'd caught. I guess I was too focused to notice its scent," she mewed softly. She walked over to Jaystar so they could walk to the medicine cat den, as Jaystar had offered. "Perchfall is teaching me well, but I'm still not the best fighter. I didn't want to give up the fish, though. Riverclan needs it."

She had just wanted to be able to bring back as many fish as possible for the clan. It felt like she failed. Even memories of warriors coming back with nothing didn't come to mind now, and her whiskers drooped, weighed down with shame as she walked step-in-step with her leader.

Thick gossamer rivulets of snow-laden breeze drifted softly off the rounded backdrop of the encroaching riverbanks, a sour dampness that effectively concealed whatever partially-frozen droplets of sleet managed to curl down in lasting reaches of a new misting. Chilly sunlight bled freely across the barren canvas of the snow laden earth, heavy brushings of ice awash in faint curls of reds and oranges, with somber veins of blue shadows creeping across the chilly grounds that the unlikely pair were settled upon. Jaystar allowed Poppypaw's hasty commentary to hang between the duo for a few selective heartbeats, thoughts weighing heavily against the curl of his tongue as his dark gaze fixed upon some unknowable point in the lingering distance. It seemed as though the young molly was fearful of some sort of reprimanding- though fortunately for her, it was not something he cared much for excelling in after a lifetime of having his own ears chewed proper.

"It happens to the best of us," Jaystar eventually puffed out, low baritone wreathed in the smoky willow of his frosty breath, "especially during times such as these." Downy tufts of silky dark fur dragging softly against the cold sand of the largely frozen island, "I've found myself upon the receiving end of a few unfortunate encounters with geese. You'd be surprised to find that many often struggle against our neighborly competitors with little good fortune."