Young Light in Old Darkness [O]

Poppypaw

Poppypaw watched the cats dart off down the path and she mewed and cheered from the start line. They were moving so fast, all of them! She almost didn’t notice the new addition that had crept in with the group, but she was happy to have more friends join them. The cats zoomed around the bend and Rushpaw was the first to cross the line. Poppypaw was dizzy at how quickly he ran! She’d just been about to congratulate him when she heard a splash and spotted Kitpaw in the water.

She let out a startled yell and rushed over to the river. Her heart hammered, remembering her own recent experience at the river; it was why she had decided not to host a swimming race and instead stick to the safety of being on land. Thankfully, it seemed that she hadn’t fallen in too far and got out just fine. Poppypaw still gave her a few licks to start helping her shake off the water. “Are you alright? I guess I put the marker too close to the river,” she mewed. She tried to give Kitepaw a reassuring smile so she didn’t feel too discouraged. “You’ll dry off soon in the sun. Let’s go back with the others.”

They headed back to the other apprentices and Poppypaw kept up her cheerful attitude. “Great job everyone! And Rushpaw, you did amazing! Your mother named you well.” She beamed at her fellow apprentice and then looked to the rest of the group. “Moon, Dovepaw, you both did great as well! I couldn’t even tell who came in second place. You should be proud too.”

With the race completed, she gave them all a couple minutes to catch their breath. Once they all seemed ready for the second game, she told them to follow her to the next area. This one also wasn’t far and just circled around to another area near camp. She’d spent some time flattening out some grass and dirt to make good flat terrain to be used for sparring. She turned back around to face her group and explained, “The next contest is a show of strength and strategy; we’ll be sparring one another!” She looked to each of them, counting heads. “Looks like I’ll be participating in this game so we have even numbers! And remember, because we’re sparring, don’t use any actual claws or bites. I’ll be calling out time to stop the spar and whoever has tired the most will have lost.”

She paused, giving everyone a chance to ask any clarifying questions. When she finished answering, if there were any, she then added, “Everyone choose a partner and we will begin!”

[OOC: Can you all please also add to your post in OOC if you would like the spars to each happen in order, so your cats can react to the battles, or if they should all happen at once, to keep the topic moving along faster? I was planning on the former but I’m happy to do the latter if more people want that!

And as a reminder, while Poppy talks about being tired as determining the loser, the actual winner will be determined based on how much damage has been done. There will also be 3 rounds before Poppy calls time, so be sure to strategize to get the most out of the battle system.]

Poppypaw

Poppypaw smiled as she watched the apprentices pair up. Owlpaw and Rushpaw paired up straight away. They were both hardworking apprentices, and they each had their own passions that she was certain would make for a good battle between the two of them. It appeared that Dovepaw was willing to work with her sister Kitepaw, too. With the new numbers, that meant that Moon had no partner, but Poppypaw happily stepped forward.

“Looks like we’re going to be sparring partners!” she mewed brightly to the older apprentice. She looks back to the other two pairs and directed them to areas of the flattened dirt. She meowed to them, “I’ll do my best to still keep an eye on everyone! Give it your all, but remember not to actually raise a claw against your partner. I’ll call time not after too long, so keep an ear out too. Good luck everyone!”

Satisfied that everyone understood and was ready, she turned back to Moon. She gave him a final bright look before she called out, “READY? GO!!” and the sparring began.



[OOC: The sparring portion will begin! I’ve reiterated how things will work below, but I’m sometimes bad at explaining myself, so if you’re confused about anything, PM me or message me on Discord!

More people voted for all of the spars to go at once, so that’s what we’ll be doing. So rather than 2 users playing out their spar, finishing, and then the next 2 do theirs, all 6 of us are going to be going at once. You’ll only need to keep up a posting order between you and your partner, but otherwise you don’t need to wait for other people to post before you can respond to your partner.

The sparring will last for 3 rounds before Poppy will call time and assess how everyone did. This means that you and your partner each get 3 attacks. If you and your partner finish your 3 rounds before other pairs finish, please refrain from posting until after Poppy has called time!

Because this is a spar, no actual damage will be done. This means that you can use a higher level move that would do a lot of damage (ex: Belly Rake) but not actually cause harm to your partner. This means you don’t have to refrain from using Front Paw Strike and use Front Paw Blow instead; you can still use the “clawed” version of strike even though as flavor text, no claws will be used.

Something else to keep of note: This is sparring, and so no actual HP is going to be lost. Any lost HP that is kept track of during this will be reset when we move onto the hunting portion of the games next. HOWEVER, the SP you lose will still be lost when we move onto the hunting section. While we’re out of leafbare, a hunter can still potentially be rolled and interrupt the games. It’s up to you if you want to use up a lot of SP on the sparring or if you want to potentially forego a win to retain SP for the hunting section.

With that explanation out of the way, let us begin!]