camp I'M CALLING YOUR BLUFF | bickering

[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧​

things should be going well, she should be calm and relaxed by now. hasn't she gotten what she's wanted? perhaps she has not wanted for good, simple things. no. no she pokes where she shouldn't and isn't prepared to deal with what she finds. it's clear to the world that something is off with the riverclan deputy. she's too on edge, too bitter and harsh for the time they are in. shouldn't they expect her to be even the tiniest bit cheerful? she will be an aunt in the coming moons, she will see life be born in riverclan. shouldn't that excite her? yet she can't stop the tossing and turning at night, the nest that feels bigger and bigger with each moonrise. she rises with a heavy loneliness, one that she thought would go away once lighting has acknowledged her existence. yet it still lingers, becoming as close as any partner could. if her younger self could see where she is now, how would she react? a peal of cruel laughter, or an echoing silence? to be so powerful and yet be the weakest version of her?

there's a harsh intake of breath as buck looks upon her hunting partner. a singular vole shared between the two. she struggles to silence her call of how pathetic they must be to only manage this. it's true, but she won't say a word. instead her eyes rove over their paws, shared steps in silence. his dwarfs hers, not that she's looking too hard. it's their first outing together since his total ignorance of her. and she can't find a word to say that won't start a fight. but she keeps looking at his paws. watching them expand slightly when there is pressure applied, she wonders if they would be as harsh as hers has been. "your big ugly paws probably scared everything off." it's the first words she's said since they've come back. and they are not as gentle as she wanted them to be.

she was never quite gentle anyway.

// @LIGHTNINGSTONE , feel free to post before !!!
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[LIGHTNINGSTONE]

Despite its silence, the patrol with Buckgait had been refreshing. To be in her presence again felt easier than avoiding her, and now that everything had been left out in the open, he had nothing left to say. He expected nothing from her, and was content to hunt in silence. A vole, they'd managed to scrape together. He'd managed to chase it into her waiting paws, and it felt like old times when they'd been tied together by the hip by obligation. Now that it's by choice...well, he can hardly believe it.

He trails in behind her as they cross into camp, and immediately he gives his pelt a shake to rid himself of the droplets he gathered. Her critique is thrown at him, and in the past he may have had a clever reply, but he only shifts his usual half-lidded gaze towards her and grunts, "Do you ever say anything nice to anyone, or am I just that lucky?" As far as he's concerned, he is the sole target of her insults. He stopped taking them seriously long ago. The silvery tom moves to continue towards the fresh-kill pile to deposit their singular catch, casting a glance towards her to see if she follows.​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

He had seen this before. This vitriol with two cats who acted as if they despised one another yet were seemingly seen together all the time. In this case they had been forced together previously because Buckgait needed a caretaker to keep her grounded and now she was deputy and set free from her cage to rampage as she liked. Women. Not that he would make the joke to her face, his sense of humor was too dry and she didn't have one to begin with so the only thing that would result from that kind of rapport would be a lot of his blood outside of him.
Frankly, he didn't care to deal with that right now so he just watched the two wander in bickering from where he lay on his side by the warrior's den, loungning and disinclined to get up to even offer a greeting. They had another Poppysplash and Willowroot situation in the clan.
Well, here was hoping no more kits got added to the already frazzled preparations for leaf-bare, he'd be inclined to kill these two whereas his friendship with Willowroot spared her any of his ire.
"You two are so noisy...." Smokethroat muttered into the ground, nursing the headache that had kept him from his usual nonstop productivity for the better part of the day. Stress headache, Beesong had said. Eat this weird stuff and stay still. So he did. He didn't like it. But he was doing it.
Stars knew the medicine cat had enough on his plate without the dark tom adding to it.

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[CICADASTAR]

GUTTA CAVAT LAPIDEM : the river phantom enters in near silence, whisking towards the slope of shadows and light leading aside the stone - laden warriors den. a bundle of soaking moss is held gentle between pointed canines, head low to keep the steady drip of water from splashing haphazardly with each step. the dark tom had been lounging in the shade all day since his venture to beesong’s deen . . not that he’d been keeping tabs from atop river rock, of course. the bundle of moss clasped so gently in his jaws he definitely hadn’t scraped himself from the bark of a waterside willow, dipped into the babbling waters with a delicateness wholly unneeded for what he was doing. regardless he steps quickly, finding a familiar dark form lying where it had been for most of the day, white - knuckled paws bringing him across the way just as buckgait and lightningstone make their entrance. he rests the moss quietly aside his paw, " i heard you were . . i brought, ah -- moss. for your . . ? "

his voice trails off, realizing far too late that he doesnt know quite what was ailing the shadow of a feline. in the moment of silence he is trying to come up with something that doesn't admit his staring, he hears it. quiet bickering, ears perking and twitching forward and his gaze lifts finally, fully from smokethroat. buckgait and lightningstone pad by, between them a single vole the latter now tosses atop the ever - wilting freshkill pile, " not much luck today? " a quirked brow, a slight smile against the bolt of panic that flares in his chest. leafbare loomed closer with each passing day, prey burrowing into their hidey holes to protect against ice - bitten weather. carefully, worries momentarily forgotten, he folds his limbs beneath him to murmur close to his lead's ear, low and gossipy, " starclan, and i thought she'd hated me. they argue like that often, yes? "

− ♱ information visual reference out of character translations ♱ −

• − CICADASTAR ; he / him. roughly thirty nine months old, riverclan leader
  − handsome, lanky black smoke tortie chimera with curly fur and ice blue eyes
  − gay. speaks with a german accent, ages on the seventh, penned by antlers
  
  
• 
• none.

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[BUCKGAIT.]

MY NAME IS BRUTUS AND MY NAME MEANS HEAVY ✧​

his reply brings a snort from her, eyes rolling heavenward. nice...she is plenty nice, isn't she? not overtly cruel, but not gentle. just honest and true. he moves away, she follows. buck blames it on the habit of his closeness, and not that she wants to stand alone. to watch him walk away from her yet again. the deputy simply hopes he does not mind her closeness, eyes avoidant of the stoic tom and surveying the camp. "i'm very nice," the woman interjects, even if she can't name any examples now. not that that should matter. "maybe you just don't see it. like how you didn't spot the vole." she did. she mentioned it. he chased it to her, and he put it away. but she found it. a slight grin curves upon her lips, keeping sure that her features are kept out of view of lightning. she missed this.

how it drops as quickly as rainfall, eyes narrowing at the sight of smokethroat. his lack of charm and charisma is outstanding. she thinks that a rock would have more interesting traits than he did. "you're free to stuff dirt in your ears." he cannot expect silence while the sun claims its celestial throne, and he will not receive it from her. it's not like the tom had lived near a calming stream, one that was plenty quiet and desolate. the richly-painted molly almost turns her attention back to her companion, before the mottled pelt of their leader comes into view. the one cat she can't quite let her tongue run loose against. the time it had, it landed her a ward. and her only freedom of it was to be marred. or, perhaps she was still bitter about how it all ended.

"the prey were too frightened by lightning's scowling." she answers his question, trying to push away the ever-approaching truth. she thinks this leaf-bare will be far too harsh, and the deputy and leader are, for once, sharing a similar fear. she can only use so many tricks to track her prey, and buck fears she will soon run out of cards to play. her eyes rove back to the poor tom, who now has no escape from her. but now she's more interested in his reaction. or if he'll walk away, to which she will follow. funny, how it all turns.
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[leechpaw.]

Care and compassion were fickle ideas, nothing but concepts that persistently evaded him. The hidden affection behind the act of doing someone a favor, like fetching moss for an ailing friend ― or whatever spurred the banter between the deputy and her two-cat patrol. He couldn't quite grasp the nuances of such relationships, contradictory and sad excuses for symbiosis. What was the benefit? The personal gain? Based on Buckgait and Lightningstone's bickering, he doubted there was anything worth the complications of dealing with other people. No, Leechpaw would just prefer to work alone. As alone as he could be, considering the need for a mentor.

He shadowed said mentor from afar, not enough to intrude on Cicadastar's personal space (hopefully), but taking interest in camp activities nonetheless. That's what he was supposed to do, right? To at least watch from afar, until asked to train and then dismissed again. He didn't have anything else entertaining to do. The dark-furred apprentice stood a fair distance away, pretending to fuss with the stubborn tangles in his fur while listening to the nearby chatter. "You can't scare prey with scowling," Leechpaw abruptly pointed out, his underused voice scratchy and shortly falling silent yet again. Though he wasn't part of the adults and hadn't actually experienced any leaf-bare season yet, anyone with half of a brain to eavesdrop could understand that cold weather meant scarce prey, and no prey meant starvation. As small as his appetite was, it was still something for the clan to dread. And if Riverclan dreaded leaf-bare, then so would he.​

 

[LIGHTNINGSTONE]

Lightningstone's lips quirk up in the slightest smile of amusement at the deputy's retort. He's long past believing she's serious. She's got more attitude than a badger with a splinter. As he tows her towards the fresh-kill pile, a huff is all he throws her way. Cicadastar's question catches his attention and he glances over his shoulder, rolling his eyes in response to Buckgait's accusation. "The ground's getting colder. Seems like much of the prey was underground today," The warrior reports before continuing to the pile. Arriving, he dares to glance over to the mahogany she-cat, catching icy blues. He parts his jaws, hesitates, before grunting, "It was a good catch." She can rile him up all she wants, but her sass has lost its effect on him.​

 

[SMOKESTAR]

There was a joke he could make about how he'd rather she stuff dirt in her mouth and how her words were already filthy or something like that but his head hurt too much to even bother trying to formulate the right level of sass to deliver back. In the end he opted for a huffed, "Shove it." Rather than some clever jab because frankly it was more energy to try and figure that out. Thankfully Leechpaw was there to...whatever that was. Was he correcting what he thought was something factual, was he being sassy himself? It was very hard to tell what Cicadastar's apprentice was thinking or if he even thought at all really.
Speaking of the leader...his shadow was almost a blessing, a veil of cool soothing darkness that fell over him and he tilted his head enough to look upward to the mottled tom in time to catch his words and note the moss now laying next to his outstretched paws.
"...thank you."
Had Beesong sent him, had Beesong ratted him out to some cats with some comment about 'keeping an eye on him' because he was not to be trusted when it came to sitting still for long periods of time? Nonetheless he gave a weary sigh to the query, "Just a headache..." He would not be including the addition that he was told it was probably related to his stress levels, no. That was not going to be public knowledge. The slim pickings the hunting patrols were bringing in were certainly not adding to it or anything. Of course not.
The sudden flutter of warm breath near his ear had heat surging down his throat as the storm-colored tom settled down to lean over, whispering a curious note into the triangle of black atop his skull. Smokethroat almost chuckled but was too mortified by the close proximity to do anything other than give a curt and sharp nod that made his head ache ever more. That was a mistake.
"Like an old married couple..." He whispered back, not wanting to draw the earthen deputy's ire further, "...she hates everyone, I'm not sure if you've met her or not..."

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