All I Know (closed)

Jaculus picked his way through the undergrowth — much drier than that dark and marshy bog, yet with a quiet that felt vaguely eery, despite the calls of birds twitching at his ears. Somehow it reminded him of his old kithood home back in the crumbling suburbs, the stone overgrown with vines and moss; old house walls crumbling to green growth.

And the stale scent of others mixed with fresher hints. As he nudged his way into a clearing, his eyes flicked over quietly rotting logs and hollow spaces filling with weeds that looked as though they'd held the shape of cats at one point. Perhaps that was why the sound of the birds echoed through the scrub and sparse trees, not daring to come closer, the rustle of small prey animals absent. Why it felt abandoned.

I wonder... His paws brushed silently over the patchy grass and rocky earth. ...why they're gone?

Still musing as his gaze scanned what were once dens, a sound caught his ear. A rustle of something larger than a squirrel, quieter than incautious prey.
In an instant, his eyes snapped around, piercing through the early-morning shadows.

"Sneaking around only makes you more suspicious." Her voice called from the crumbling stone structure above the tom, her legs dangling over the edge as she lounged in the afternoon sun, feathers of a now digesting bird fluttering to the ground. "They don't shun outsiders here. You can ask to stay if ya want to; unless you're here to cause trouble... Then you'll have to let me in on it." Her obnoxious laugh rang out, mottled pelt warm and cozy. She wasn't going to move.

The slight hints of tension in his frame dissolved as his gaze landed on the young tortoiseshell molly. Not completely abandoned. He tilted his head, eyes wandering briefly over her pelt before locking with the bright yellow of her own. That laugh vaguely reminded him of Croak - loud, obnoxious; empty-headed.

He chuckled low in his throat, sweeping the end of his tail. "It's not the cats I'm worried about. You never know what else might have moved in."

He canted his chin, a hint of intrigue flickering in his yellow-green gaze as he padded leisurely over. "I'm always interested in some trouble, but I like to get into it with someone on my side. Is your group another one of these 'Clans'?"

They seemed more worse off than anything else, but a weaker, possibly dying group was still a group. It wasn't like the Bladed Leaf had been much better before Nemesis came along and remade them into something more.