"Are you going to catch one then?" Ferndance tilted her head as if her neck was boneless, a smile adorning her white-whiskered maw. She had done her best to teach her young from the comfort of her prison, she was confident that the day would come where all four were competent hunters, but without firstpaw experience, the question was rhetorical. There was little begging to be done in Leafbare, though she loathed that she would have to give her little ones food with tougher skin, it was at least something, which was more than what could be said for her own empty belly. Placing the half-stared starling before her daughter, the former Lead Warrior's ears twisted in amusement, a warmth filling her chest. 'Is this how mama felt?' Five little kittens trying their first squirrel; the complaints that it wasn't warm and it was too hard to chew must've sounded so entitled to the one who'd worked so hard to get it. But, she just remembered her mother smiling and giving them advice (and some gentle admonishment for certain siblings who seemed to maul instead of eat). "Things?" She queried, following the sapphire gaze.
Eyes searched for maggots, or boils, or some other dastardly indication that it was carrion, before she clicked onto what Snowykit meant. "Ah feathers," she purred, pressing a paw onto the bird's body. "You don't eat them... Unless you want to... but then you'll be spitting feathers... No, hmm... that means something else," She shook her head as if dusting it from cobwebs, mental tangent cut off by such a gesture. "You tear them away, like this." Teeth sunk around the starling's feathers before, with a rip and a tear, she plucked a strand from the prey's body. A nose wrinkled as the brown vane bristled against her nose, unceremoniously, Ferndance spit them out beside her - decorations for later, a fun little memory of Snowykit's first bird. "When you see the pink... then you can eat it, have a go," she mewed, pushing the catch forwards towards her daughter.
