Capture [Cheddar]

The sun was setting, and Beechfang kept to the shadows as she headed towards home, or what she and Bloodstrike had made of the old twolegplace. A season now, and it didn't feel like home. It never would be, if Beechfang was being truly honest with herself, but she continued to tell herself that it was. She had little other options.

A bird dangled from her jaws as she trotted forward, ears pricked and single eye scanning her surroundings for signs of other cats. She was not in the mood for interacting with naive kittypets or hostile loners today, and simply wanted to crawl back into her nest. Ignore the ever-present fenceline that mocked her and made her heart ache for what she couldn't go back to.

Beechfang rounded a bend in the thunderpath, and froze as her ears picked up pawsteps. One light, with the cadence of a cat. The other...

Beechfang dropped her bird on instinct, ducking beneath an overhang at the entrance of an alleyway. She recognized the scent of cat, and if it hadn't been for the large, lumbering steps that trailed behind the kittypet, she might've reluctantly said hello.

As it was, she wanted no part of being anywhere near the twoleg that followed him. Kittypets could have their strange... strangeness, their sheltered, coddled life. But that wasn't Beechfang and she saw twolegs for the threat they were.

Kittypets weren't particularly observant at least, Beechfang doubted she'd been spotted. They would pass her hiding spot, then she'd be on her way.

Padding in front of his humans with his head held high and tail up, Cheddar let out a chirp of happiness. It wasn't too often that they would join him for walks around the area, but he absolutely loved being able to show them all of his favorite spots. As he trotted on, the bell of his is blue collar jingled and his sparkly, matching harness glimmered in the sun.

The fluffy tom was on a mission to nowhere in particular, but as they past an opening to one of the many alleyways that lined the neighborhood, a very potent, familiar scent caught his attention. Slowing his pace, Cheddar came to a halt and lifted his muzzle. He most certainly recognized that every-so musty scent... it was Beech!

Darting his gaze around, it finally fell onto the disgruntled she-cat that was hiding under a large human bin. "Beech! Hey!" he meowed happily, bounding over to the she-cat with his humans in tow. "Why are you hiding? Did I scare you?" Ecstatic to see her again after their pervious encounter, he failed to notice just why she didn't seem particularly happy to see him, though then again, when was she ever happy?

The funny thing about having light silvery and white fur was that it simply didn't blend into the shadows. At all. Her sister Ravenclaw seemed to practically disappear into them, and Shadowclanners, Beechfang knew, could pull off hiding in the shadows even better. That was not the case for her.

Cheddar's voice rang out in a cheery greeting, his paws heading in her direction, and Beechfang swore under her breath at the luck of it. "What are you doing?" Beechfang hissed, fur bristling, "Don't lead the twoleg this way, you idiot!" Just because kittypets were content living a life of mediocrity beneath the heels of his owner didn't mean Beechfang was, and she wanted to be nowhere near them. An old memory surfaced, of blistering greenleaf heat and strange, heavy pawprints in the scorching earth. She, her father and grandfather had leaped into the trees and the twolegs had never thought to look up, else they might've noticed the cats immediately.

Beechfang glanced around quickly. All she had were low stone fences that would put her directly in the twoleg's line of sight... But perhaps she could leap over them faster than the twoleg could and disappear into the alleyways.

Behind her the twoleg made a noise. To Beechfang's ears it almost sounded like surprise, or maybe confusion. The approaching pawsteps, blundering, heavy, uncoordinated, quickened. Beechfang's muscles bunched as she leaped as the twoleg's shadow fell across her.

She wasn't the nimble apprentice anymore.

She paused briefly to steady herself before leaping down to the other side of the stone wall, something she might not have needed to do if she still had her peripheral vision. The twoleg's paws came down upon the neck of her neck - not violently, Beechfang realized, but it didn't matter to her. She hissed, twisting and pawing at the air. There was some sort of pelt covering the twoleg's strange paws, and it had managed to get a hold of her scruff, just below the back of her head terrifyingly easily. It prevented her from twisted her head much, and a second paw quickly grabbed one of her hind legs. Doubtless, to prevent her from clawing at it like she was trying to do. The twoleg coo'd, making noise in a language Beechfang couldn't and had no interest in understanding.

"Get off of me!" Beechfang yowled, continuing to struggle, but she'd been well and truly caught. Foxdung, foxdung, foxdung... "Cheddar, do something!"