pafp empty handed and tail tucked | rouge thievery

[breezerunner]

An odd sense of dread has been lingering over Breezerunner's head lately, but he isn't sure the feeling is necessarily new to him. Since he was small, the young tomcat has been a cynic and a skeptic. He never gets his hopes up about much- in fact, the last time he'd done that was when he and his brother and sister had planned to be a triad of tunnelers together. That had been before he'd sprouted legs and grown long like a weasel. Before he and Mossdust and Wormwing had grown distant and out of touch. Despite his reverent realism, Breezerunner finds that lately he's had to face a lot of shocking realities. Between the hunger of his clanmates, the illness and deaths from the plague, and Badgermoon's betrayal Breezerunner has been feeling more weary than usual.

When Bluepaw had proposed to him that the pair go searching for food together, Breezerunner welcomed the opportunity to take his mind off of current events. Besides, if they're able to bring something back for WindClan it might help to bring him some selfish peace of mind. Once they've set out, it doesn't take them long to find the trail of a hare on the moors, and it takes an even shorter amount of time for them to take it down. It's a sizable piece of prey- a small blessing they've been spared from StarClan, he thinks- but the cheerfulness that Breezerunner feels as he looks down at the dispatched hare is shortlived when he catches wind of something nearby.

"Do you smell th-" the question receives its answer before it can even fully form on Breezerunner's tongue as an unfamiliar figure pops over the crest of the hill they're on. Breezerunner growls, low and warning as they draw closer, but it's obvious that he and Bluepaw are outsized and outnumbered by the rouges encroaching on their territory. "Thanks for doing all the hard work," one of them barks out a laugh as he comes tail-lengths from the pair "I'll be taking that off your hands now!" One of the other rouges bowls Breezerunner over while the one that speaks snatches up the hare and turns tail to flee.

"Cowards!" Breezerunner cries, swiping at the tails of the fleeing rouges, but weakened and slowed by his hunger he's unable to make any meaningful contact. The moor runner only makes it a few strides before he feels winded. Deflated, he turns back to Bluepaw "I suppose we could try to find another, but that was the only thing I could scent here..."

/ please wait for @BLUEPAW first! :3c ​

 

[BLUEFROST]

Like Breezerunner, Bluepaw uses this hunt as a distraction. Her father’s death had been humbling, but his funeral lingers in her mind like the scent of smoke after a grass fire. It’s not Weaselclaw’s body that occupies space in her thoughts, but the manner in which Sootstar had behaved. Her decorum has been abandoned, her claws and teeth and belly revealed to all who look upon her. She’s mad in her grief, had protested the burial stones only to say Weaselclaw would not be wanted by StarClan. She’s haunted by the incident, by the look on her mother’s face when she’d said such a horrid thing.

And now she’s embarrassed, above all else. Ashamed. Bluepaw emerges from the tunnel Breezerunner had chased the rabbit into, hiding expertly behind her pretty veil of cool nonchalance and dragging the piece of prey toward his paws. She drops it, surveying it with faint satisfaction. “Good work. This should—” She drops her voice at Breezerunner’s interruption. “Do you smell that?” She tenses beneath her fluffy pelt, knowing what to expect.

They crest the hill, rogues too great in numbers for them to realistically fight. She puts a protective paw over the hare, and one of the filthy heathens uses one paw to smack at her and another to hook the hare from behind her forelegs. She hisses, rubbing a white paw across her smarting nose. “Filth!” Her green eyes gleam with fire. “I will not be made a fool of by cats who worship nothing but themselves!” She scrambles to her paws, claws shredding dirt and moor grass. “I will punish each and every one of them!”

But like her companion, she isn’t fast enough—the rogues flee before either of them can make contact. Her claws meet empty air, and her flanks heave with the effort of having hunted the stolen prey still. Bluepaw watches with misery and rage. “We shouldn’t have to hunt something else!” She seethes. “This is WindClan territory!”

ooc ✧ 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓈

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  — bluekit . bluepaw
  — she/her, apprentice of windclan
  — bisexual ; single
  — long-haired blue she-cat with white and green eyes
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by Marquette
  — art by Meg

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[heathermoon !!]

Collecting enough prey just to feed those unable to gather it themselves had been a hefty trial. Heatherpaw's dives into the tunnels had been paired with the expectation to hunt, quotas piled on every day they returned with nothing or not enough. It was unending, the constant game of catch-up to get enough of them fed. "Nothing for this morning? We'll have to try bringing home double what we should have for the afternoon." Ears fold back, the expectation heavy on his shoulders.

Dirt coated his paws and all he could scent was dust and shadows. Nothing helpful, nothing useful in the depths. It felt like every turn they made was wrong. Tentatively they raise for the surface of the moors again and Heatherpaw kept himself hunched over, close to the ground as his tiny frame was exposed to the sky.

Shouts and threats catch his attention and without thinking he parted off to investigate. The scent of hare and rogue mingled in introduction, his nose scrunched in distaste as uneasy crawled into his belly. He watched his Clanmates race after the fleeing figures of several cats. Tabby fur began to rise down his spine and he hurried to catch up to them. "What happened? Are you two alright?" ​

WINDCLAN APPRENTICE ✦ RED MACKEREL TABBY ✦ 10 MOONS ✦ TAGS​