Darkness Lingering [OPEN Hunting]

The dark forest had fallen, and while her wounds still stung, Beechfang refused to sit around idle despite her former apprentice's weak attempt at a protest. Instead, she'd rounded up a couple clanmates for a hunting patrol and headed into the forest, paws restless despite her tiredness. The sky above was clear, and the cool newleaf breeze brought the scents of bird, squirrel and newly-growing herbs with it. With a wave of her tail at her patrolmates, Beechfang veered away from the main group in pursuit of the scent of bird.

It wasn't long before she spotted the songbird, flying low, probably in pursuit of the spiders and insects that had taken interest in the blooming flowers among the rocky crevices along the creek's edge. Beechfang watched for a moment, then carefully made her way forward, broad paws silent on the familiar terrain. Leaping forward before the bird saw her, her claws quickly caught the bird's wings and she ended her prey's life before it could squawk out an alarm. Turning, she buried it near the base of a tree and continued on.

Beechfang attempted to catch a bird for -3 sp. Catch was successful!
107 / 110 sp

The member 'kjSage' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 4

Pinekit was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

He was bigger than some of the apprentices, and he still wasn’t an apprentice. His green eyes blistered with the slight. He was just as good as they were, just as strong as they were. Why didn’t he get to be an apprentice?!

The nursery was boring. The queens were boring, the same stupid leaves and the same stupid rocks only incensed him more. No cat should have to deal with that.

He noticed some cats gathering to leave camp. The queens got some sleep while the kits rested too. Pinekit was too old for naps, he didn’t need those. He was big doings and he wouldn’t suffer through yet another newleaf day stuck in a glorified hole.

Pinekit tiptoed around the sleeping cats, going behind the warrior and apprentice dens, then slinking behind the patrol party. His paws were quiet on the soft earth as he started his pursuit.

It was liberating. The breeze, the birds, the sun poking through the trees. This was what paws were made for. The apprentice-sized tom kept about two fox-lengths behind the hunting party when one of the members snatched a songbird out of the air.

“Whoa…”

Pinekit couldn’t wait to be a cool warrior. He kept going forward, now about a fox-length from the big cat that caught the bird.

He kept low to the ground, pale green eyes peering from the tree he was behind.

There was a noise, and a flicker of movement in her limited periphery. Beechfang spun towards it with a hiss, blinking at the realization that this was no predator. Nor was it a rogue, by the scent. No, the nearly-apprentice-aged cat in front of her belong to Skyclan... And most certainly should not have been outside of camp. Had Beechfang not been startled into anger, she would have been impressed.

"And what do you think you're doing out of camp, hmm?" She asked, heavy paws slowly approaching the dark tabby tom. "You know Bloodstar's rules." She added, trying to keep her tone one of stern disapproval.

Pinekit looked up as the warrior turned to him.

Bloodstar’s rules? One of his ears bent sideways at the mention. It was always rules, rules, rules.

The disappointment was palpable as he replied, “You're going to take me back there, aren’t you?”

“It’s so boring, they sleep all day, I’ve been in there forever. All the kits are younger than me and they have moss for brains. Tails aren’t that exciting and watching another cat bite their own tail again is gonna make me crazy. The queens lick my head and mess up my fur, they… they… they don’t even do stuff with me! They probably have tasted me more than talked to me.”

“I just wanna be a warrior and I had to wait around while the weird cats were here and I thought when they left that I would be an apprentice, but I’m not, and that stinks worse than bad moss.”

Pinekit shuffled his paws as he walked next to the warrior, his head hung down. Bloodstar would never make him a warrior at this rate.

"Yes. It's not safe for even apprentices to be out here on their own. Even us warriors need to have someone with them outside of camp." Beechfang mewed. Her whiskers twitched as the kit continued however. He almost sounded like her when she'd been younger. The thought was a strange one. "You'll be an apprentice soon enough... I remember hating being stuck in camp at your age, too. My littermate-" Her ears slid back at the word, Smokefeather had sacrificed herself to ensure Dawnhawk wouldn't trouble them. "-and I would fight all the time. We hated each other but... well, the boredom didn't help. I'd try to sneak out of camp but always got caught. Made Bloodstar and Smokefeather crazy, I'm sure." A huff escaped her. "Now... Am I going to have to drag you back to camp by the scruff or will you walk with me?"

The thought of being carried back was downright insulting. His ears flattened at the mention, he could think of nothing more degrading than being carried around like he wasn’t capable. Pinekit shuddered at the thought.

“My paws work, I’ll walk.”

He privately hoped the warrior wasn’t going to rat him out. Sure, he did leave camp, but nothing bad happened to him or anybody else. It was a completely harmless adventure.

Pinekit walked beside Beechfang, hoping that she would tell him cool stuff or something. He walked with a certain confidence; he would be the coolest kit in the whole nursery. And, before long, he would be an apprentice.

"Good. Come on, then." Beechfang mewed, turning to retrieve her prey. The kit seemed quite confident in himself despite being in unfamiliar-to-him territory, though Beechfang still kept a wary eye out for any predators that might be lurking about. A hawk had carried off kits from camp before, and out in the forest there was plenty more predators than was capable of making it into camp, even with the clan's efforts to exterminate predators when they were found. Typical for a kit to not realize how dangerous things could be, but he'd learn soon enough whenever he was made an apprentice. "How'd you manage to sneak out of camp, anyways?" She asked after a few moments of silence. Dawnhawk had trampled the carefully-placed sticks and branches that surrounded camp to serve as an early warning system... Clearly Skyclan needed to fix that and be more vigilant. Herself included.

“If I tell you, can I not be in trouble?”

Pinekit walked along, his eyes following everything around him.

“Everybody was sleeping. I saw the patrol getting ready. I went behind the dens and followed you guys. You all walked super far, but I was able to see you. Then I watched you catch that bird. And that was the coolest thing I ever saw.”

The dark ruddy tom kept walking beside Beechfang. Was this what apprenticeship was like? He smiled. Perhaps it was. It wouldn’t be too much longer, he hoped.

“How long have you been a warrior?”