New places to see with blue skies ahead [c]

Foxpaw was anxious to begin training. He’d barely slept the night before, too eager for the dawn to come. It’d left him a little groggy, but any sense of sleepiness was momentarily sapped from his body the moment a taller figure than his denmates brushed into the space. He craned his head to look and found it was Sorrelmist. His ears swiveled forward as she called out to him, and he smiled a little blearily at her. After a full-body stretch and a maw-splitting yawn, Foxpaw got to his paws. He shook himself out for good measure before padding outside.

Foxpaw cast a look full of want towards the exit as he approached and began to shift his weight between paws. ”Hey,” he murmured sleepily, ”g’mornin’.” Foxpaw had already seen the territory once, when he was younger… a fragment of it, at least. Now, he would see more. He would get to do something. Hopefully he would return with a story for Harespring, something that would make his father proud.

Shifting still, Foxpaw turned his gaze up toward his mentor. ”’M ready when you are, Sorrelmist,” he said, not without impatience. ”Can we go now?”

Foxpaw followed eagerly when Sorrelmist led them outside. He wasn’t surprised by the view from just outside the thorn tunnel, having seen it with Firepaw, but as they padded onward, his eyes started to widen. The trees grew taller and taller the further they went. Everything around him felt so… big, and he felt so small, but it was kind of thrilling. At Sorrelmist’s instruction, he tilted his head up to look skyward. And… wow. The golden light painting everything hadn’t escaped his notice, but actually looking up at the sun as it began to crest the sky… Foxpaw had never been the type to put any stock in sunrises or sets, but this one made his heart stutter, charged by all that newness.

Foxpaw pushed out the breath that had caught in his throat and lowered his eyes back to Sorrelmist. She left the option of what to do in his paws. The weight of choice made his head spin a little bit. It all sounded so thrilling--he wanted to get his paws around all of it. He wanted to know the territory like his own pelt already, find himself at the top of a tree, know exactly how to win a fight every time. After a moment of blinking a little dumbly, Foxpaw said, ”Uh. We could try hunting?” It seemed like the safest option, except for exploring the territory. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Sorrelmist on their first day together, and fighting and climbing both made that far too easy. But hunting… well, he’d bet a kit could do that, if they tried hard enough.