but good things are coming || intro, joining

[Hunts Pheasants]

Familiarity begets a certain complacency. It has been long-- too long-- since Hunts Pheasants has been home, and this is a close enough approximation that something in her loosens, but does not yet free. The soil beneath her large paws is sand-gritty and dry; the sky burns a blue that promises an infinity that Hunts Pheasants could believe, were she to look up and let the sky try to convince her. Ahead, thin-branched heather parts as Hunts Pheasants passes and the delicate petals catch in her pelt like burrs. Her paws try to find gametrails of a time passed.

She could stay, she decides, if only for a short while.

It doesn't take long for Hunts Pheasants to find a meal. She ignores the whirring grasshoppers, but remembers fondly a time when she would spend the better part of a day hunting those, and instead sets her sights on something meatier. A blue grouse has the misfortune of falling into her failing sight. It clicks and clucks as it walks, head bobbing with each step, and periodically pauses to peck and unseen seeds or insects on the ground. A lunge and a near-miss later, Hunts Pheasants holds it by its neck, its body and wings thrashing. She kills it quickly: the only kindness she can offer.

Hunts Pheasants doesn't eat it right away. Rather, she stretches to her full length beside it, allowing the heat of the sun to fall on her back, and cleans the drops of blood from the thick cowl of fur around her neck with a gentleness that stands in contrast with the act.

loner | brown tabby tortoiseshell with low white spotting | one blue eye & one white-eye | tags​

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[VULTUREMASK]

Leech was no idiot. He knew perfectly well he shouldn't approch an adult all by himself even if he knew the hunting patrol he had joined were somewhere around here. Honestly, he often sneaked away to hunt on his own since it was better then to be around other cats, especially adults. He didn't trust them. They had never done anything to prove they could be reliable. In fact he couldn't wait until he got old enough to leave them all behind and become a loner or something instead. But that would only happen until he could both hunt and fight for himself. Not anywhere near that was he at the moment, unfortunately. Leech would have left this loner alone if it not was by the fact she had decided to not only hunt on thier moors but also had the guts to make it comfortable for herself like the moors belonged to her!. It annoyed him so much that he in the end couldn't just seat back and keep his mouth shut. In the end of the day his mouth always won over his own so claimed intelligence.

" How can you be so carefree like that?, Doesn't it cross your mind that someone can ambush you and jump you from behind?." If he had been older with alot more experience he for sure would have!. But only because he wanted that bird from her. Free meal was never a no for him. Didn't matter if he had to steal it. Now if she had been a kittypet he for sure would have tried his luck but she was a loner which could complicate stuff. He didn't wanted to risk getting choked to death by an adult.

So instead he went on the approach to question her after all he had grown up in a group of cats and if he one day wanted to leave this cats to be on his own he could as well take the opportunity to ask a loner how a life actually looked like out there now when he had a chance for it. That and how she could let her guard down like this. Maybe she was just a mousebrained loner though. That was always a possibility of course.




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[Hunts Pheasants]

It isn't long before Hunts Pheasants is no longer alone. Both of her ears, half and complete, turn towards the stranger, but beyond that he goes unacknowledged. Not until Hunts Pheasants has finished smoothing her fur to her satisfaction, not until she's licked her mouth stretched her forelegs out until her shoulders popped.

The stranger is young. It's the first thing Hunts Pheasants notes through the haze of her bad eye. Young and brash: such a dangerous combination.

"Someone could," Hunts Pheasants admits, "Some have."

She shifts then, a little less relaxed, so that she can place a possessive paw over her grouse. Young and brash: Hunts Pheasants doesn't want to have to hurt him, but it is no mystery to her as to how hunger can cloud judgement, if not youth, if not pride. It's Greenleaf, he should see to hunting his own prey, rather than salivating at what so clearly belongs to another.

"Do you want to know what happened to them? The ones who tried?" Her voice drops to a rumble. Not a threat, not yet, but the promise of one. "Are you all alone out here?" With hooked claws, she drags the grouse closer to herself, until it is flush with her chest.

loner | brown tabby tortoiseshell with low white spotting | one blue eye & one white-eye | tags​

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[Duskfire]

I WANT SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS​

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"No." Answered Dusk as he made his way over to stand alongside Leech. His gaze is hard as it lands on the shecat, the muscle beneath his coat stiff with tension. He'd never been in this situation before, but he had a feeling that Sootstar would not have reacted well to the sight of a stranger lounging in their territory and helping themselves to their food.

All he's known since joining the clan is the influence of the cats around him, and while he doesn't understand why things are the way they are, he doesn't object to the status quo. He's a part of it now, for better or worse.

"This territory is claimed by Windclan. If your not here to join us, you don't have a right to be eating our prey or lounging within our borders." he explained, tone calm but unflinching. The large golden-brown tom didn't want to hurt her, but he had a feeling it would be expected of him. Was this right? Was this what Hyacinth or Soot would have done?

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windclan warrior - male - 17 months - homosexual - polyamorous - single - bengal

 

[Hunts Pheasants]

Another appears to stand besides the first, dappled with rosettes and smelling of the same undefinable group-scent. Hunts Pheasants sees his attempt at intimidation for what it is-- we outnumber you, there are potentially more of us nearby-- and after visibly sizing up the newest arrival, Hunts Pheasants wrinkles her nose in palpable distaste.

Claimed, he says, you don't have a right.

"I didn't smell any border," Hunts Pheasants lifts her chin, "This is my first time hearing mention of WindClan."

Her eyes flick briefly between the two strangers. How far were they willing to go to defend what they assumed to be theirs? Were she to leave, would they try and claim her prey? Did they think the sunlight on her back belonged to them as well? But beyond that, something the rosetted one said bothers Hunts Pheasants, like a flea chewing on the hard to reach spot at the back of her head.

"Join, you said," Hunts Pheasants shifts into standing, slowly, so that the both of them could see her full height, "You-- or someone above you-- has decided that by virtue of existing here I should ask your permission to stay." They would want her grouse, Hunts Pheasants knows, they would want her work. It's a pretty thought to stay here with the windsound and the sky, soured by the knowledge that it would come at a cost; that depending on how heavy, Hunts Pheasants may be willing to pay.

"What would that mean for me, joining?"

loner | brown tabby tortoiseshell with low white spotting | one blue eye & one white-eye | tags​

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[SOOTSTAR]

"It'd mean you won't have to give up that nice little grouse of yours for starters." Soot is displeased this cat hadn't been found earlier... they could've hunted the bird themselves. Now at least there was a chance without unsheathing their claws to get the damn thing... and maybe a capable soldier. Clearly, they could fend for themselves and hunt.

"You'd continue to hunt and fight for this clan. Your loyalty would be with us, to me, Sootstar." A blue tail lashes, "But you'd have a home and friends who'd hunt and fight for you in return if you prove yourself. It's a fair trade... especially if you're sick of traveling on a lonely path."

But if she didn't want to join... "If that doesn't interest you leave now, with your bird just this once. If we see you again around these parts we'll use our claws and take whatever prey you've got on you."​

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[Hunts Pheasants]

The next to arrive carries herself with a certain authority Hunts Pheasants recognizes. She straightens herself-- then looks down.

And down

Hunts Pheasants knows she is larger than most, that she needs to look down to most, but quite suddenly she wants to laugh or she wants to scoff. Is WindClan, the whole of WindClan, serious? Are they aware that their leader, or something close to such a position, is this? Hunts Pheasants has the thought of accidentally misplacing a step and this leader of theirs snapping under her paw like an old and hollow bone. She has the thought that she could very well take her chances with staying uninvited; what would this leader of theirs do? Nip at her heels?

But there must be something about her that commands loyalty or fear-- elsewise someone else would have already taken Hunts Pheasants thought into reality.

"You'll find me more than capable of proving myself," Hunts Pheasants says at last, more like a warning than a promise, and then, her rough voice softened, "You may know me as Hunts Pheasants, Sootstar."

loner | brown tabby tortoiseshell with low white spotting | one blue eye & one white-eye | tags​

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