Tour of the Territory [OPEN]

Opsreypaw had only just been apprenticed and couldn’t seem to get enough of this new, exciting world beyond camp. Before the journey through the mountains she could imagine of course, but she never knew there was so much out there. But then her first time out of camp had been stained in blood and fear. It was the nightmarish, twisted version of everything she’d dreamed. The wolves and forced exodus had seemingly shattered Ospreypaw’s curiosity and she had stayed practically glued to her siblings for the entire journey. But now that she was apprenticed, maybe her eagerness to explore could be rekindled? She’d started off the tour nervous in the unfamiliar territory, but as they went farther and farther from camp without anything eventful happening the apprentice’s ears slowly relaxed and the fur on her spine stopped pricking up at every noise. Her eagerness started to show through by the time they reached the Great Ridge, straying from the group to check out whatever caught her eye. Ospreypaw always came back though, catching up with the patrol or slowing down to return to her littermates' sides. She orbited their familiar presence comfortably.

This time she’d been peeking through a gap in the fence, eye out for any of the mentioned ‘twolegs’. She listened to Beechfang’s warnings with at least one ear, but all other chatter faded into the background. There were just too many other things to focus on when so much was going on in the forest around them. She was only broken out of her distraction by Myrtlepaw’s hiss. Her ears pricked up immediately, paws already in motion towards the group before she realized there was no danger to her sister. She relaxed to trot as she approached, just in time to make out Yewpaw’s words and catch something from Beechfang about the rest of the tour.

“Yeah! Imagine, Myrtlestar.” She agreed readily, of course her sister was amazing. But why was Yewpaw glaring at Mallowpaw while he said it? She brushed against her brother’s side with a sense of purpose, breaking his line of sight to the other tom. At the same time she shot a questioning, almost worried look to Mallowpaw, who was more silent than she’d ever heard him. Weren’t the two friends? She opened her mouth to ask if everything was ok but shut it in quickly. Bumbling into the situation with no idea what had happened would only make things worse. There were too many confusing layers of tension muddling the group’s interactions now, like the million crisscrossing scent trails she’d been investigating a minute ago. The apprentice decided on a distraction instead. “The creek uh- that’s a good spot to catch prey, right Beechfang?” The question came at risk of sounding a bit daft, but it should hopefully be good enough to draw attention away from whatever argument was brewing.