In a moment of respite, Ferndance found herself sharing tongues with Maggotfur, a creature whom she had watched grow from kittenhood to warrior. Nothing serious had graced their conversation, in a way, the emerald eyes of the cinnamon tabby were easy-going, her head nodding along to every few statements that reached her ears. Suddenly, the other said something, and the she-cat's head tipped forward, voice bombastic in agreement. "I know! Oh, it's just awful..." An ivory paw pressed against Ferndance's chest, as if accentuating how taken back she was by Maggot's observation. "And to think that tigers were—" Crunch. A noise, no louder than paw steps pressing against snow, caused the former Lead's ears to shoot up to the stars. There, in the corner of her eye, a brown thing scurried across the floor. Ferndance's pupils broadened immediately, her double-take at the creature causing her jaws to slam shut, the intellectual conversation forgotten in favour of the hunt. She crouched against the floor, glaring at the place where she'd seen the chestnut shadow last - sure enough, several seconds later, a ragged rodent with a worm's tail shifted in the brush. A little pink nose popped out - a rat.
Ferndance leapt into action, claws hooking onto the creature before it could escape into the marshlands and throwing it towards the centre of camp. There it seemed to panic, searching for a direction free of felines, skirting passed the cinnamon tabby's paws when she attempted to pin it again. Outnumbered, it did not turn its fangs on her as many rats in the past had done, but its frantic squeaks and scurrying left a self-defence bite in the air - a danger in leafbare when herbstocks were as low as they were. Her mind did not wander to that possibility, only the thought that this intruder could get into the nursery. She bolted in front of the entrance to deter the rat from it, her gaze briefly shooting to the younger warrior. "Corner it!" She called over the blood roaring in her ears - Stars had she missed the hunt, the feel of fur beneath her claws and prey blood on her teeth. This was hardly a prey animal, a rat any bigger could've eaten a kitten if it felt like it, but as it hesitated to fight back, the similarities did not escape the whimisical she-cat.
@Maggotfur.