private advanced wind / soot

*:・゚✧*:・゚✧ He's become mildly claustrophobic, avoiding the confines of the splintering red horse nest whenever possible. During greenleaf, the mice spread throughout the hay is a guarantee for keeping one's self well-fed, but the stench of the animals combined with the captive atmosphere make Weasel uncomfortable enough to relocate.

He will make quick kills in the mornings and evenings to fill his belly, but otherwise, he's been out under the sky. There's been a dry heat, and the sky is a clear blue without any streaks of cloud. There are no puddles to quench his thirst; he's had to rely on the horse troughs, disgustingly enough, and he'd like to find some fresher water to get the slime from his mouth.

Weasel takes to the moor beyond the confines of the horseplace, and he's awed by the expanse. Fields of heather, grasses swept by the relentless wind. He can almost feel cool here, thin tabby fur buffeted by the gusts that plow the fields themselves. The sun is a pinpoint, directly overhead, showering the world in golden fire.

I never knew this place was here. It's so... big. Open.

He walks, tasting the air and making an almost comical expression of surprise at the scents caressing his glands. Rabbit, hawk, heather. His senses feel cleaned, cleared of the Twoleg stenches carried by the creatures at his home.

He feels free. There's an itch to run, to chase a rabbit over the expanse of land, but he isn't hungry and the desire is made purely of adrenaline.

Weasel is drunk on the feeling of escaping the horseplace, being somewhere new and unexplored, and he becomes numb to what may lurk around him. A fool's move, but Weasel is nothing if not that.

@SOOT.
✦ PENNED BY MARQUETTE.
 

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"That you, horse-dung?!" The self-proclaimed lady chimes as she descends a nearby slope. She thought that was who this brown mass of fur was... but it was only when she drew closer that she grew certain. Everything about this tom was forgettable, he looked just about like any other brown tabby on this planet... Soot wasn't certain about his personality yet either, but something about him ended up getting planted in Soot's mind. She's thought about him more than once since their previous encounter.

This time Soot looked different. Not only was she more swollen and round, but scabs and other imperfections could be found plastering her body. A dead giveaway that she had been in some sort of scuffle recently. Her gaze too was tired, but it still burned with confidence and determination. If Weasel was efficient enough at reading her, perhaps he'd be able to guess she was out of her usual habitat for more than just a stroll.

Unknown to Soot, the tom before her was just as lovestruck with this place as she was.

"Here to air that stink out of your coat...? Don't even think the wind will do you a favor, best you just go soak till the sunsets." It appears almost as if she's serious and humorous, but the scoff she lets out afterward indicates she's only playing. A little bit, anyways... "But no... really... you looked lost in thought just a moment ago... Something gnawing at you?" Not that she actually cared... or did she?

 
*:・゚✧*:・゚✧ He's startled out of his thoughts--first by a cold, beckoning voice, then by a familiar scent of swamp mud and carrion. Weasel turns, his ears flattened in mock-anger, as blue eyes meet emerald flames. "If it isn't the Crowfood Queen herself," he says, wrinkling his nose. It's both playful and not, and his tone remains rough, but there's a faint spark in his blue gaze as it sweeps over her.

She looks different, for sure. Weasel has never been around a kitting queen before, but Soot's belly is round to the point of looking painful, and she's covered in wounds that have only just begun to scab over. Despite all of this, and despite the reek coming from her smoky blue fur, Weasel can't help but find her beautiful.

It's her mouth that ruins it, every time it opens, he thinks.

"That must be why you're here, too. Or else to find more room for the eleven kits you're about to have," he teases, waving his tail at her. He's mostly playing. Mostly.

Her question causes his nose to wrinkle a bit--and not from her scent. "I've never been out here before. Didn't know this place was here. It's... nice." His eyes flick back to the moorland before them. He takes a breath of fresh, clean air and expels it slowly. "Wasn't fond of the marsh you insisted on defending last time I saw you. But this place..."

He shakes his broad head and turns back to her. "You come here often?" He wonders if she and her colony have staked their claim to the moor already. They seem to like their territories marked, though, and he hasn't scented anything like that.
✦ PENNED BY MARQUETTE.