pafp FIDDLER'S HEART ✧ Quillpaw's Assessment

[ThistleBack]

It was time, quite possibly his final glare of scrutinous judgment upon a coat of dark stripes. His final orders as mentor and apprentice, perhaps. A task to decide something entirely vital, something Thistleback can easily consider imperfect by most angles. He would not blunt the blade of his expectations, for it were the production of warriors he wished to perfect. He demanded a disciplined soldier out of his moons of molding. Though Quillpaw had been distracted at times, he wasn’t the boy that mindlessly attacked anymore. He wasn’t the aimless foolish brat.

His apprentice was as barbed as his namesake. Fridged as leafbare, and unwilling to give-up. Quillpaw reminded him of the stones, solid and unwilling to crumble. Stable, and far more reliable than most branches. His time spent with the kid, had no doubt been an honor. As much as Thistleback would never say it, that too- was intended. Things harder to achieve, are appreciated far more. Such as, approval or pride.

" rise and bloody shine " Thistleback chimes from where he stands at the apprentice’s den entrance. A mirror of his first words when Quillpaw was reassigned to him. Only this time, he doesn’t flip the boy from his nest.

" I’m sure you’ve been wondering when this day would come. " he chuckles lowly but there is no smile. " Your last chance, to impress me " he comments lightheartedly as he turns and beckons the boy to follow.

" Today, is your assessment. " he begins, furrowed brows and steely eyes meet the boy’s. " You will first, hunt. Once you’ve caught your prey. Then, you will climb and place your prey on a high branch. Once the prey is placed, your final test begins. " his orders are simple, his demands are high, and the end is vague.

" may the odds, fall in your favor. " A crooked smirk creeps over his lips. " Go. " he barks, snarls out harshly.

​

OOC INFO REF

• — open for well wishes / please wait for @Quillpaw
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  Thirty-three moons EVENT TRACKER | IMPORTANT INFO
  — Lead warrior of Skyclan since 12.22.22
  — Devoted to Deersong 9.29.22 | polyamorous
  — Father of Coyotepaw, Pricklepaw, and Eveningpaw.
  — mentoring quillpaw & Snowpaw
  — very muscular piebald black and white tom with spiky fur and cold silver-grey eyes.
  — voice & accent
  — biography･ﾟ✧​
  OPEN for Dice battles | stine#3004
  
• 
  
  

​

 

[QUILLSTRIKE]

NOW IN ITS' PLACE IS SOMETHING NEW
I HEAR IT WHEN I LOOK AT YOU​

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"Rise and bloody shine."

Orbs of fire and ice snap open and fix on his mentor, fixing the older tom with a tired glare that showed just how much he appreciated be woken to that particular phrase, having half expected to have his nest turned over with him still in it. Your too big for that now. a voice in his mind supplied, and while it wasn't necessarily wrong considering Quillpaw was indeed a towering shadow of stripes and dark patchwork, he didn't doubt Thistleback one bit.

"Your early." he grumbles as he gets to his feet, voice rough with sleep, but when he shakes out his coat and mismatched eyes land on his mentor again, he doesn't bother to hide the suspicion in them.

Thistleback hasn't come to personally wake him in well over a moon.

" I'm sure you've been wondering when this day would come. Your last chance, to impress me"

The words make him tense, the shift something subtle but there all the same. What the hell did that mean? The words feel loaded when he knows they probably aren't, leave him searching for answers as he follows the older cat outside.

" Today, is your assessment."

He blinks, surprised by this revelation. Sure, he and Twitch had been talking about it recently, but it wasn't something Quill had ever thought about truly. A memory of him and Thistleback talking comes to mind, a memory in which Quill failed to provide the answers his mentor wanted. Because the truth was that Quill couldn't picture his own future. When he thought ahead to what lay in store for him, no picture ever really came to mind.

He can't imagine himself as anything but what he currently is, doesn't see himself as a warrior or a family man or anything. Any role he tries to put himself into feels wrong, as if he's not worthy of it, and can't help but wonder what's inspired his mentor to think that Quill is ready for this.

" You will first, hunt. Once you've caught your prey. Then, you will climb and place your prey on a high branch. Once the prey is placed, your final test begins. "

He shuts his growing anxieties down at the orders, because after weeks and weeks of following them, it's familiar. It's easy. Go here and do this; it's what he's been living by since he was assigned to the tom. Go the forest and gather moss. Go the nursery and reinforce the walls. Go to the border and re-scent the line.

Go hunt a bird and bring it to a tall branch.

"may the odds, fall in your favor. Go."

And he does.

--------

He's not sure what's compelled him to do it. He shouldn't care, shouldn't be putting in any more effort for this than he would any other hunt- but he is. Thistlebacks words echo in the back of his head, 'your last chance to impress me' and he feels himself taken with a feeling he's unfamiliar with.

No, that's not quite true, is it?

He knows what it is but he's afraid to admit it to himself, because acknowledging it means he can be hurt by it, and he can't stand anymore hurt on that front. And yet despite knowing this, it's like a part of him is engulfed by the fires of it, a desperate inferno of determination that sends him out into the woods in search of a worthy catch.

He wants to impress Thistleback.

He passes over a mouse and a chikadee, ignores the skinny squirrel chittering at the base of a tree, and his patience ultimately pays off. Up into the trees he goes, dark pelt of patches and stripes a natural camoflauge against the bark. Early on in his apprenticeship his size would have been a hindrance, his paws too big and too clumsy to keep in line, but he's grown into himself, has spent weeks and weeks under the relentless training of a Skyclan Lead Warrior, and so his ascent is calculated and quiet, hind legs and shoulders flexing with toned muscle as he hauls himself up onto the branch he needs to be on. He levels out on it, body pressed flat against the limb, stone-still as mismatched eyes stare forward at his prey.

A fat bluejay in the next tree over.

It's cleaning it's feathers, perched on a branch in the tree next to him, and he's made sure to position himself in a branch above, where the sun wont' cast a shadow that gives him away when he makes his move.

And what a move it is.

He streaks across the tree branch and leaps, dark body soaring through the air and dropping him onto the branch in the next tree. His claws catch feathers and slam the bird into the branch as he lands, fangs quickly sinking into the thing as he shifts his paws so he can sink his claws into the bark and steady himself on the swaying limb.

Step one, done.

Again, Quill is compelled. He could have stayed in the very tree he'd caught the bird in, but instead he climbs down and makes his way through the forest, prize clutched in his jowls, to Tallpine.

He's climbed it before, has been put through drill after drill in this tree, and the last time he was here he had climbed high and well enough to elicit a praise from Thistleback that had truly caught him off guard. Was he trying to chase it once more? He wasn't sure, but his claws sink into the bark and he hauls himself up, climbing high into the branches. He stops at a point where the branches are still sturdy beneath his paws, but high enough that he's sure Thistle won't find issue with it.

He isn't sure what the second part of his assessment will be, but he doesn't want to be on unsteady ground when it happens.

Now, he waits.
​

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skyclan - male - 10 months - bisexual - homoromantic - single - very tall tabby tomcat with broad shoulders

 

[ThistleBack]

A muscled belly framed in white drags quietly across light grass and mud as he follows his apprentice. Silver optics narrowed and judging every pawstep that pulls his apprentice further through the forest.

A pinched brow make up his maw when Quillpaw passes a few options digging in the foliage or scratching on the bark. Where had once been a bumbling Clydesdale of a boy prowled a skilled man. Sharpened as fine as a leopard’s claw and twice as sturdy.

Quillpaw seemed to have found something worthy, because his position and tactic changes like the tide, his movements purposeful and for once careful. It was nice to finally see a certain dedication and focus from the infuriatingly nonchalant prat. Thistleback settles and ducks under the ferns to spot the object of Quillpaw’s sudden dance. Branches sway but only once the tabby is crashing a splayed body of blue feathers between himself and the branch he lands. A rare smirk befitting his muzzle, experience secondhand victory and pride in the cat he had molded to fit the evergreens of Skyclan.

Now, for the finale. Thistleback rolls his shoulders and follows the boy. Wondering only for a few moments where he was heading until the tallest pine of the forest is stretched before him. Quillpaw is scaling with ease but Thistleback chuckles a bit to himself, would the boy have chosen differently if he knew his plans?

so be it, kid.

He tears forth from the shadows suddenly. Ascending up the ratty bark of the over-climbed pine with low growls and noisy scrapes of his claws. He snakes limb to limb, a snarl twisted on his jaws. The ground below is far enough to snap bones.

" quite the choice!~ " he sings out hoarsely as he pulls himself up the final branch. Eyeing the distant ground below pointedly. The wind ruffling the fur around his collar, and the feathers of the planted bird alike. " good lad " he laughs and suddenly tears an arm forward to whack Quillpaw across the muzzle. " that prey is mine and you’ll never see your warrior name. " he roars out fictionally. His final, lesson. The stakes were- to die for.

​

OOC INFO REF

• —
  
  
• 
  
  
  
  Thirty-three moons EVENT TRACKER | IMPORTANT INFO
  — Lead warrior of Skyclan since 12.22.22
  — Devoted to Deersong 9.29.22 | polyamorous
  — Father of Coyotepaw, Pricklepaw, and Eveningpaw.
  — mentoring quillpaw & Snowpaw
  — very muscular piebald black and white tom with spiky fur and cold silver-grey eyes.
  — voice & accent
  — biography･ﾟ✧​
  OPEN for Dice battles | stine#3004
  
• 
  
  

​

 

[QUILLSTRIKE]

NOW IN ITS' PLACE IS SOMETHING NEW
I HEAR IT WHEN I LOOK AT YOU​

---

The appearence of his mentor was sudden, an explosion of bristles black from the underbrush that charged the Tallpine without a moments hesitation. When the older toms claws met the bark of the tree Quillpaw felt his heart leap in anticipation, adreniline surging through his young body as he realized that Thistle wasn't going to hold back.

Here, in this tree high above the ground, Quill was going to be truly tested.

"quite the choice!~" the older cat practically sung as he hauled himself up onto the branch across from him, and while the chimer didn't wish to take his eyes off the other, mismatched eyes can't help but follow silver toward the ground below, understanding the implications. Quills first time showing a lick of ambition, and he'd put himself in the most dangerous situation possible.

He could die here. Thistle could die here.

But the praise that falls from the piebals lips- "good lad"- wipes away his worries. Because it's always been this, hasn't it? Quill against some adult in a high stakes situation- only he doesn't feel that panic now, the dread. And he realizes, almost bitterly, that he trusts Thistleback- enough to fight him at the top of Tallpine and risk falling to his death.

Quill won't hold back either.

The paw that comes flying for him is fast, and while the chimera launches himself backwards he isn't fast enough to avoid it entirely, feeling as it graze his muzzle. Claws bite into bark to steady himself in his scrabble backwards, all the while jaws clutch his prey tighter, refusing to lose it in the scuffle to come.

From there it's an exchange of near savage blows and risky dodges in the highest branches- of Tallpine- claws sheathed of course, but it's clear that Thistle intends to truly test the boy of his worthiness, and Quill is surprisingly meeting the challenge being thrown at him. Its obvious that his mentor is more at home in the trees, a longer resume giving him a surefootedness that outmatches Quills despite the chimeras clear skills from all his training, but he seems to compensate for it well with clever tactics and quick reflexes. They clash in the treetop, streaks of black and white and blue among the dangerously swaying branches, until finally things come to a head.

A shove from a broad tabby shoulder, a branch that wasn't meant to hold the weight of two cats, and suddenly a loud SNAP! filled the air and Thistleback was clawing at the branch as his hindlegs dropped out from under him, leaving him dangling over open air. Quills heart lept into his throat, and his body was moving before his mind had a chance to catch up with it, , half launching himself over the side of the branch to grab his mentor. The bird went tumbling from his mouth as teeth caught the side of Thistles neck, hind legs locked themselves to brace against the weight as claws dug farther into the treebark. He had to pull him up, couldn't let him hit the ground and fucking die.

That thought seemed to give him the strength needed, and after a moment he was able to haul the other tom back up onto solid footing.

Fur ruffled, mismatched eyes wide and sides heaving from the test and the sudden burst of adrenaline that was still coursing through him at watching Thistleback nearly fall to his deal, Quill wasn't sure where to go from here.

"I dropped the bird." he replied dully, the random detail the only thing he could thing to grasp to. Had he lost his warrior name? Failed the test? Oh well. Better the bird fall than Thistleback.

OOC- permission given by Stine to powerplay Thistle almost falling and Quill saving him <3 The bluejay he dropped with me below on the ground, a bit beaten up from the fall but still useable. Quill will be taking it's feathers as an accessory, so please don't steal it XD
​

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skyclan - male - 12 months - bisexual - homoromantic - single - very tall chimera tomcat with broad shoulders and several scars