DONE BEING THE SAD GIRL [ ✦ ] battle training

[Starlingheart]

She does not like to hurt others. Never have. For the longest time she was of the opinion that she didn't know how to fight, that what little knowledge she possessed was enough to defend herself in the case of an attack. Besides, what would she ever do with the knowledge of how to fight? In all her life she has been little else other than a medicine cat. The one who the clan turned to to mend wounds, not create them. She has only ever participated in a battle from the sidelines, has never had to do anything other than turn tail and run when faced with danger. But now, shadows haunt her at night. In her nightmares, a cat with stone gray fur follows her through the forest whispering promises of taking everything she had ever loved from her one by one and there was not a damned thing she could do about it. She is not strong but she wants to be. For Flintpaw, for Halfpaw Laurelpaw and Thornpaw. For all the cats she needed to protect with more than just herbs. For Magpiepaw, who she had failed in her blind inistance that he did not need to be trained in such ways when he walked the same path as her.

Pipitclaw and Hawkstride, her nephews, are who she had chosen to approach with this request. "I ne-need someone to teach Magpiepaw an-and I how to uh how to-to fight. Please will you two-will you two teach us? she would not have been above begging had they not agreed so easily, but they had and so now here they were, in the training grounds she had thought she would never see again. As they enter the space, she casts her single eye about, remembering no doubt the time she had been here last with the intention of taking out her claws. Pitchstar was still alive, Granitepelt... No. She doesn't want to think of that right now. She closes her eye and takes a deep breath before turning to the cats that had accompanied her. "Ri-right. Where should we- where should we start?" she asks, waiting for their guidance for herself and her apprentice.

// sorry this post is blegh starter posts my beloathed grrr
@pipitclaw !! @Hawkstride @Magpiepaw

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[pipitclaw !!]

An oddity in its nature, a healer seeking to learn the cold-carving methods of blood-shed and battle. Most did not relish in the spill of life, did not find it virtuous to fight and be fought but Pipitclaw relished in it. It meant protecting something... only truly dedicated fighters would endure blow after blow in the name of someone else... and he'd done it. Time and again.

Took pride in the scars that littered him even though others might point it out as failures to have been marred in such a way. He'd gained those wounds and survived and won in spite of them... There was honor in that.

"We can do that," he'd promised, matching the seriousness of her stare with a solemness of his own. He didn't enjoy being frigid... but there was no kindness to be spared in war.

Magpiepaw may have insulted him, well-meaning doctor or not, and despite that the smoke chimera was still insistent enough and willing to teach. That razor-mouthed tom still deserved to feel safe... deserved to put up a good fight should his life depend on it. They should not be hunted like mice just because they walk under StarClan's light.

"Have you... fought before," he asks, flicking an ear in an effort not to let his nervousness to pry show its true colors. "I won't hurt you," he adds quickly, "If it's too much just tell us to stop and we can be done for today. You won't be masters of it in a day anyways."​

 

[Starlingheart]

Pipitclaw's easy agreement to her request makes her relax a little. Her nephews were good, kind, something she respected about any cat. The marshes may be unforgiving but that did not mean that they had to be.

Has she fought before? The question brings memories to the forefront of her mind, of a kitten way too young being led out of camp by her brother, her mentor, alongside her best friend. Two scraps of gray and black being pitted against each other. "Claws out" Pitchstar had said. Granitepelt had gone easy on her back then, unwilling to harm her. Funny how things change. "Only when I-when I was newly apprenticed" She admits with a small shrug of the shoulders "My brother- your uncle- Pitchstar was- was briefly my mentor" she would tell them all about him if they liked, at a later time. Now was meant for learning. "But I was- I didn't train as a warrior for very long before- before my aunt pulled me to the path of medicine. I haven't fought before or since. Well. You know." and she indicates to her eye with one paw, an offhanded gesture and the easy smile slipping off her face for a moment as she struggles to regain her composure. How would she feel in training if she was pinned again? She is uncertain but she at least has to try. For Flintpaw, for Magpiepaw. He needed to learn to, and she had no problem setting the example.

She looks to the black and white tom, swallows her reservations and her nerves and smiles in his direction. "How much did- did Rainecho teach you of-of fighting?" she asks.

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[Magpiepaw]

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He did not have much of an opinion on Skunktail's sons. He didn't think too highly of Starlingheart's older brother but then again he hardly thought highly of anyone who wasn't Starlingheart herself so that wasn't a surprise. The newcomers didn't make him uncomfortable, at least, they had some sense even if Pipitclaw talked too much and Hawkstride didn't talk enough. Suppose the chocolate and black tom had swallowed up all the words in the womb and left none for the others, Magpiepaw guesses he had been born screaming.
They would suffice though, for training. He was not exactly against the idea but he didn't have high expectations for himself. The only reason he'd managed to drive out that one rogue was purely the surprise of his presence; his black pelt lent well to ShadowClan's territory and he'd managed to reach the sand-colored intruder without stumbling or making a sound for once in his life. A blessing from StarClan, surely, meant to preserver their herbs. The dark apprentice didn't think he'd have much of a chance face to face with an opponent directly, without stealth or the advantage of getting the first blow and certainly not against a cat who knew him and knew the way his legs wandered and wobbled beneath him.

"We did not get to combat before the bears..." Magpiepaw explains quietly, tone curt but polite. Rainecho had focused on hunting which he'd struggled at and he could tell even if she was kind about it that she had not been looking forward to putting a cat like himself into battle at all, let alone teach him.

——— ⸸ I'm the kid in the rain. Celebrate the insane ———— ⸸ Yeah, never goes my way

• OOC can go here.
• 
  
  
  Magpiepaw
  —⊰⋅ MCA of ShadowClan
  —⊰⋅ He/They
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  —⊰⋅ Black tom w/a white throat and blue-violet eyes.
  —⊰⋅ Has mild cerebellar hypoplasia (Wobbly cat syndrome)
  
  

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