this wave is stringing us along (c)

Apprentice duties that kept Dovepaw cooped up in camp were some of his least favorite. Not because he disliked camp, but because he liked going on patrols, and because he disliked waiting around at home while his siblings were out in the territory. What if something bad happened--some predator attack, some sudden invasion--and he wasn't around to help protect them? It made him feel queasy. He knew he was being a little bit petulant as he pummeled the moss into nest shapes, but he couldn't quite help himself. Who was he supposed to be on nest duty today with, anyway? He couldn't quite recall....

Oh. A shadow falling across his path--or a cat as quiet and tall as a shadow--reminded him swiftly. A quick glance up afforded a view of Murkypaw, right next to him. The former ThunderClan cat. Dovepaw was... unsure what to think of her so far. On one paw, she was older than he, taller and likely stronger, and held a silent air of intimidation that made him want to tiptoe around her in case of offense. But on the other paw, she'd never been unkind to him. She had been very straightforward when he helped make her a nest and find her a place in the apprentice den. She was also Perchstar's own apprentice, and she seemed to be learning how to fit in rather swiftly, even if he had seen her looking strangely at the fish in the fresh-kill pile once or twice. She was strange, certainly, but only in the way that new experiences were strange. She was just a cat... wasn't she? So why did his heart pound so loudly when he saw her ember-orange gaze fixed on him? "Uh... hi," he offered, attempting to sound friendly instead of uncertain. "Are you here to help with the nests, then? I got some goose feathers and a lot of moss we can stuff them with, so, uh... You know how to do that, right? I mean, they use nests in ThunderClan, so. You probably do. I'll stop talking." Stars, could there have been any messier of a way to phrase that? Grimacing a little bit, Dovepaw returned to his own pile of moss.

She had still not gotten familiar with most members of her new clan. Whether it be inaction on her part, the fact they avoided her, or simple coincidental circumstance... she bothered not with contemplating it. It hardly mattered to her for the time being. All of her focus was on honing her abilities into being the sharpest and strongest they could be to serve Riverclan, much as she had back during her apprenticeship in Thunderclan. Even far into her time as a warrior, all her focus had been upon shaping herself to be the best she could be. A child prodigy, even now. Still, there were times she were forced to be in proximity to her new clanmates. Her mentor was the leader of the Clan, and thus, it meant that not every moment of the day could be spent in training. She had accepted that.

Of all clanmates to be stuck with, the tom who had been tasked with helping her set up her nest on her first evening of being welcomed was perhaps the best one. Stuck with was perhaps the improper term, but she had no other way to think about it. Few enjoyed her presence. There was only one, perhaps two cats she would consider on that list. So, in an attempt to not be burden, she had approached like a shadow. She would stay as such, if at all possible. Out of the way. Helping, not hindering, learning. Even as she was taller than him, her age wasn't that far apart-surprising to her. It shocked her at times, truthfully, just how much youth still remained in her paws. She'd pushed herself to grow up perhaps much too fast. Disregarding the ugliness in that truth, his greeting helped pull her mind away from that introspection. From curling into herself and hesitating to reach out.

Her whiskers flicked in amusement at his uncertainty. "I am a friend, not a foe." She stated. Perhaps a bit harshly-but it was hard for her to properly regulate her tone. Especially after him. His loss still stung at her, the sunset hour the hardest time of the day for her to bear. Even now, she tucked herself away during that time, the splintering pain digging into her like the sharp claws and teeth of a fox. It was the only time she whimpered, or showed any discernable pain. But that was not now. It was clear as day. She would try to be a decent enough companion, much better than the silent shade she had been upon their first meeting. He had known her name quickly, as she had known his. Thankfully, it meant Murkypaw didn't have to bother with any introductions.

Silently appearing more comparably at his side, her ember gaze glanced at how he worked with his paws. Thunderclan had been known to pad their beds with tufts of fur from badgers and foxes, but had never used feathers. Part of her worried about the thick quills at their base prodding into fur, but the way that Dovepaw worked with them, they seemed to cause minimal obstruction. Setting down her own bundles of moss and feathers, she took a different approach. Her weaving skills wouldn't be nearly as good, so instead, her claws worked to sever the base of the quill away. That way, there would be no extra of the sharp material to dig and pierce. With the feathers prepared, the excess wouldn't go to waste. Instead, she used it as a base to shape a ring, one to then push the feathers and moss into. A semblance of structure, given the way she knew some cats had fitful sleep. Still... ever so often, she stole a glance his way. As if to learn.

It was perhaps two of those nests of her own style before she finally had the courage to speak. Not to let him in... no, she couldn't dare doing that. Ice still clung to her limbs and made it hard to move, even harder to speak. But she could ask how to learn. "Can you show me the Riverclan way?"

It appeared that Murkypaw was not completely inscrutable, after all. She caught a whiff of his anxiety like a predator might've, then--whiskers twitching with mirth he had not known she possessed--chastised him for it. A prouder cat might've prickled. Dovepaw was suitably abashed, cursing himself for not having the innocence of his sister Pigeonpaw or the overt friendliness of toms like Sunpaw. Still, he shook out his small ruff of soft cream-point fur, trying to shake away the nerves as well. There was no reason for him to be so jittery around her. She was a Clanmate just like any other.

"Don't trust them, or what they say.... They will turn on you too."

Now where had that thought come from? What was making him instinctively want to distrust a cat from ThunderClan so much? Dovepaw blinked a little bit, startled at the sudden appearance of the desire, and shoved it away. That was unlike him. Instead, he continued to work with the moss, beginning to weave the feathers in carefully. "I'm sorry," he said, trying to sound more friendly. "It's not you, it's me. I just get nervous talking to other cats sometimes. Words come out... awkwardly. Apologies in advance if I offend you."

They continued their work in silence for a little while. But now, rather than being iced over or stilted, the quiet seemed more companionable. It was better now that she'd spoken and shown no dislike for him. Still, it took Dovepaw by surprise when he heard her deep alto voice echoing up again. Curious, he glanced over with pale blue eyes to see Murkypaw watching him. Show her... how to do it the RiverClan way? He inspected her nests for the first time, looking with a critical eye. Though they weren't messy by any stretch of the imagination, they didn't quite seem right. It took a moment to find the discrepancy, but she'd been picking off the sharp parts of the feathers. An understandable mistake.

"Sure. You don't want to claw off bits of the feathers like that; it's actually important to have the sharp part. Here, let me show you why." In full teaching mode, Dovepaw moved closer, shuffling a few materials with him. A small clump of moss and a pile of goose feathers. "Here. See, once you have the moss in a nest-shape like this, you put the feathers in after. Notice how the moss has natural holes in it? You want to find one of those, and tuck the quill in like so." He demonstrated. Small brown paws worked deftly for their size, gently weaving a delicate white feather between easy-to-miss divots in the light green material. "Just make sure that the hole doesn't go all the way to the inside. That way, no one's gonna get poked. But if the hole does go that far, you can cover it up with more moss. Just a little bit will work." He tore a small piece of moss with his teeth, nosing it into place over the barely-protruding sharp edge of the quill. "There! Now it's just extra soft. No hard poky bits at all."

Proud of his work, he looked up, only to realize how close he now was to Murkypaw. He'd been so focused on the nest, he hadn't even noticed their close proximity to each other. Looking up as he did brought them almost nose-to-nose for the briefest of moments. Shocked pale blue met a fiery bright-orange gaze, looking at him in such a measured way that he couldn't quite tell if she was offended or amused or just surprised. Flustered, Dovepaw quickly scrambled back a couple of mouse-lengths. His heart was pounding unevenly for some reason, almost as if it had feathered wings of its own, attempting to beat out of his chest. "Oh--I--sorry. Didn't mean to invade your personal space! M-my bad."

"It's not you, it's me. I just get nervous talking to other cats sometimes. Words come out... awkwardly. Apologies in advance if I offend you."

For some reason, that phrase stuck with her. It caused her ears to prick upwards for just a heartbeat, as if they registered kin. Had her own tongue not be promised to silence, there would have been a gentle, Me, too. uttered. Unfortunately, forces that loomed long beyond her control promised her inability to speak, the muteness simply fading away into silent company. Even as her muscles seemed tense, logic dared keep her as calm as she could be. It looked as if she were in the state of permanent-defense, ready to attack whatever dared threaten them beyond the walls of camp.

As his attention turned to the object of her creation, the apprentice found herself stilling. It was an icy stillness that blanketed her, a state she stepped into whenever she was taking in information. Her eyes narrowed, just slightly, as they focused squarely on the work that Dovepaw was doing. She watched as he studied her work, seeming to find just how hers was different than his own, watched as his frame gave away the moment that he figured out just what it was that set them apart. It was curious to her, getting to watch other cats. How they moved about so calmly, so... jubilantly. Was that even a word? It did not matter, for it described how she perceived him. Jubilant. Happy. Carefree, as the world had not yet wronged him harshly enough to take away what brought any sort of a smile to his face.

The thoughts were silenced as he gave instruction, and every part of her turned receptive to the feedback. It seemed as if the goose feathers were instead to provide support for the weakness in the structural base that was made from the moss itself, the plush tufts that they were used to interacting with most being a topper of sorts. With ears that focused directly towards the exemplary nest and Dovepaw, her nose had unintentionally lowered closer. It was a subconscious attempt to better be able to scrutinize just what the other apprentice had created, every little detail being etched into her memory for her to soon recreate.

As he looked up and she near felt his nose brush her own, Murkypaw instinctively recoiled. Perhaps a bit farther than she normally would have, her tail quickly curling around her defensively. Memories of the flower-and-moor scented tom flooded her senses, forcing her to curl in on herself for just a moment before they were chased away on the breeze. His scuttling and apology caught her off-guard, but her recoil was timed with the surprise of his movements. It was easy enough for her to recover, to look strong. After all, she was a seasoned warrior. Small mis-steps among clanmates were not what threw her off. "I leaned in to observe, it is alright." She stated, forcing herself to blink in comfort for her clanmate.

But for a moment... her youth truly shone through. The way her next move was to instantly go back to crafting nests, piecing them together in the way that Dovepaw had shown her. He had demonstrated, and now it was time for her to replicate. In the way that her paws moved, there was the training that she had put herself through that gave a swiftness to her movements... but there was an innate awkwardness, too. An awkwardness that came from not truly knowing her body as well as she should, the awkwardness that came from the very last sprout of growth her body would undergo. She was not that much older than Dovepaw, just had simply put herself through much, much more than most cats her own age. Her siblings had, too. They all had. Perhaps it was a side-effect of their birth, or simply nature, or both.

That did not matter, however, as Murkypaw recreated the nest in the manner that Dovepaw had demonstrated. Patches in the moss were gently stuffed with the quill, any parts where they may poke out then covered with the perfect amount of moss. Once she had finished, she once more sat and wrapped her feathered tail around her paws, the pumpkin-tinged gaze seeming to bore itself right into Dovepaw's pelt expectantly. "Is this correct?"

Ignoring the heat that still lingered beneath his pelt, Dovepaw regained control of himself and settled back on his haunches. She hadn't been offended. That was good. But... had her level of shock been normal, or was the strength of her reaction due to his gaffe? He hoped that he hadn't made her too uncomfortable. While he had begun this interaction unsure of her, he now found some part of him wishing that they could be companionable. Friendly, even. It would be nice if she would be his friend. She seemed level-headed and cool, but there was an honesty to her movements. He liked that.

Surely the dream-warning about ThunderClan cats couldn't apply to her. After all, she wasn't ThunderClan, was she? She was RiverClan, no matter where she'd come from. Just like he was.

It didn't take long at all for Murkypaw to improve upon her mistakes. Her movements were quick and not perfect, but the work she'd done looked far better. "Yeah, that looks great!" Dovepaw said encouragingly. He refrained from getting too close in order to make sure that the incident didn't repeat itself, but he didn't have to scrutinize the nest to see that all sharp quill bits had vanished inside tufts of soft moss. "You're really a natural at this. It took me ages to learn how to weave stuff. My paws're too clumsy to get some of the smaller feathers anyway."

For some reason, he felt the urge to make her feel more at ease. To speak of the similarity she would be unaware that they shared. But he wasn't quite sure how to go about it. Pale blue eyes glanced at her, then at the nest and then away again. "It's probably not easy to change Clans like that," he found himself saying. He couldn't quite bring himself to look directly at her vibrant gaze when he talked, but the tip of his tail waved back and forth slightly. "I mean, to learn new stuff when you already had stuff that you knew, if that makes sense. I wasn't born in RiverClan... but I was brought here as a kit. So wherever I came from, I didn't have any traditions or family from there. All my siblings are here with me, and Owlcall's family adopted us. So things like learning to swim weren't too difficult. Is it--is it harder to learn? After you were already something else... somewhere else?" Finally Dovepaw looked over, finding the strength to meet her gaze. "I mean you don't have to talk about why you came here, if you don't want to. I just wonder sometimes about... if my mama hadn't died giving birth to us. If maybe I'd have ended up here in RiverClan anyway."