pafp I NEVER MEANT TO BRAG — open

❪ TAGS ❫ — Another unsuccessful hunt.

No, not in the sense of not catching anything. Snakepaw had managed to scramble for and sink his teeth into a lousy mouse. Still... one mouse! When would he ever get his chance to catch a rabbit? He had his chance when one had gotten cornered in camp, but it had run right over his face instead. They were much larger than he had thought as a kit; quite sizable if they were fat enough, actually. Why was it so damn easy for everyone else and not him? What wasn't he understanding?

Feeling irritable and unsatisfied, the night-pelted apprentice stalks toward the fresh kill pile and unceremoniously deposits the dead mouse on top of the other catches. Frustration wells in his gut like a horrible sore, and only makes his pelt bristle with embarrassment and shame. How would he ever be one of the best apprentices if he couldn't manage to catch one of the most common prey around?

// @Marmot.
 
CAUTION TAPE AROUND MY HEART
marmotpaw | 03 months | female | she/her | physically easy | mentally medium | attack in bold #9ab973
Marmotpaw is hungry. After hours of senselesssly wandering the tunnels, digging fruitlessly at the earth, living in shadows and darkness save for the watchful gaze of her tunneler partner... she wants nothing more than to bask in the newleaf light and eat to her hearts content. As she slips into the camp however, she watches a fellow apprentice drop his meager offerings into the pile - a scrawny mouse. Mismatched gaze stares judgingly at it - at him. Is this really all she has to pick from? Perhaps she'd best wait for better pickings to arrive. She gives it a scornful glare before turning away - showing her distaste as vividly as she can.

She stares instead at the boy - he was he foul mouthed one she'd seen running about decently, one of her former denmates. "... is that all you caught today?" she says it blandly, mostly disinterested in his answer. She simply wants to know what the chances of getting something better are - she doesn't care to bother with polite pleasantries nor soften her words. She doesn't even stop to think of how they may be perceived.

 
Sparkpaw had yet to catch a rabbit as well. Internally, he blames the shortness of his legs — though he's grown in the time of his apprenticeship, it's not quite enough to keep up with the speed of an adult moor runner — but really, he knows that he is simply not ready yet. As awful as such revelations are every time he tries and fails, he supposes it's part of being a WindClan apprentice. Do the others fail as spectacularly? Thinking of a RiverClanner failing to catch a fish typically is funny enough to pull him from his grumbling whenever things get too bad. Maybe it's just 'cause they're not here, or he's not there, but they deserve to fail. WindClan apprentices still get his full sympathy when they haven't caught anything.

Unless they're Marmotpaw, he guesses. He knows that the freshly-apprenticed tunneler has not caught a rabbit yet, and that is why the tone of her question to Snakepaw has him absolutely flabbergasted, and more than a tiny bit irritated on the other apprentice's behalf. Typically he's not one for confrontation, but this time– "And what exactly did you provide today?" he asks, voice high and miffed. "You should be thanking him!"
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  • ooc: ic opinions ofc lmfao
  • scarlet_ledger2.png
  • sparkpaw, sparky. dmab male, he - him - his.
    ──── apprentice of windclan. loyal to windclan and his family.
    ──── 04 moons old. born on 12.15.22, and ages in real time.
    ──── echolight x elmbreeze, adopted by yewberry. brightfam.
  • "speech"
 
❪ TAGS ❫ — Snakepaw's frustration with himself was swelling and burning, which meant that any friction from an outside source might very well ignite the spark within. That was where Marmotpaw made her first mistake. The tom was rather infamously known for being skeptical of any and all cats born outside of WindClan, but for the tunneler apprentice to possess the audacity to scoff and belittle his hunting efforts? Unacceptable!

"Who do you think you are, speaking to me like that?" Snakepaw growls, tail lashing. He notices the judgmental scorn written across the younger apprentice's features; she is obviously dissatisfied with his catch as much as he is. "At least I'm contributing to the clan! Why, even for a tunneler, you're so puny and small. I bet a rabbit could eat you for a meal." Truthfully, Snakepaw's ranting is fueled mostly by his own frustrations, in which Marmotpaw is the sole vessel for his channeled anger. As nasty of a bark Snakepaw had, he usually doesn't fully tear into anyone unless they've provoked him — and, well, she had done just that.

He can't exactly fathom why someone like Sparkpaw would be jumping to his aid; the two haven't really spoken before, despite having been denmates. Just as Snakepaw was about to spout something like how he didn't need help from someone with a traitor's blood, Sparkpaw adds, "You should be thanking him!"

... Huh! His expression ever so slightly softens, if only for a moment. Well, Sparkpaw did have a point, admittedly. At least he seemed to have any sense in this situation, unlike Marmotpaw. If Snakepaw was going to tear into someone today, it wouldn't be Sparkpaw... for now, at least.

Youthful features souring once again, he fixes his emerald gaze back onto the little tunneler, pupils narrowing into sharp slits.