pafp I'M THE ONE TO BLAME | patrol

[Cloudyfur]

Cloudypaw always felt useless when she was assigned to a hunting patrol.

It felt like she was always a step behind everyone else, even the other apprentices. She was always the last to catch the scent, the last to understand the plan, and the last to get a catch. At the end of the day, she always came home with less prey than everyone else. It was disheartening, in spite of all her improvement. There had been a time when she would have returned to camp with nothing at all to show for it.

Cloudypaw tried to ignore her own self doubt. Her clan put its faith in her every time they sent her out hunting, and she had to try her best not to disappoint them. The apprentice stalked through the undergrowth carefully, toward the scent of a squirrel she was worried she had lost track of.

Then, she spotted slinking across the ground only a few steps away from her and she froze. In disbelief, she realized its every step was bringing it closer to her. The creature had no idea where she was. Any second now, it would realize though, there wasn't a creature in the world that was oblivious enough not to. She needed to move.

NOW.

In a panicked rush, Cloudypaw tensed her muscles and pounced toward the squirrel, missing her target and sending her body flying straight into the face of the warrior that had been about to catch it.

// wait for @RACCOONSTRIPE​

 

[RACCOONSTRIPE]

Newleaf is a blessing. The forest is warming up, and the squirrels, mice, and voles are erupting from their nesting places to feast on tender buds and seeds. ThunderClan will soon kick starvation, and their bellies will be full again.

Raccoonstripe, an average hunter at best, has been uncharacteristically patient with his stalking. The squirrel he's been watching is skittish, darting from tree to tree. The powerful tabby slinks behind it, steps muffled by new turf. The squirrel knows something is near, but despite it's frantic sniffing and checks, it cannot locate him. His eyes gleam with pleasure as each white pawstep brings him closer to his prize.

Now. His muscles bunch, haunches tensing and preparing to catapult his mass forward. The forest pulses with his excitement. The taste of the squirrel, the prickles of auburn fur on his tongue -- he can taste it now. His mouth waters invitingly.

He springs, but the squirrel seems to sense another presence opposite him. It vanishes, and before he knows what's happening, he collides into something hard. Raccoonstripe hisses, his head ringing, and backs away to eye the perpetrator furiously.

Cloudypaw. "What do you think you're doing?" He rages, slamming a paw onto the ground in frustration. "Couldn't you scent that I was downwind? How did you not know I was here stalking that squirrel?"

His anger bubbles and boils in his chest and belly. Raccoonstripe glares the apprentice down, tongue scathing as he spits, "Kittypets are always getting in my way!" Perhaps he wouldn't have said it -- but his pride is damaged, besides losing a crucial catch for the Clan. "What do you have to say for yourself?"​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

​

 

[Moonwhisper]

She had not been very far from the scene, tracking her own mouse and thankfully managing to sink her teeth into it before the sound of shouting a rustling sent it scurrying away from her. Moonpaw's ears fall flat against her head as she looked up, limp prey dangling in her mouth and pale blue eyes wide in alarm. That was Raccoonstripe's voice and for once his impatient tone was not directed at her but another. The tortie point genuinely debated even approaching the area she'd heard the shout but eventually her curiousity overcame her caution and she began to trek forward just in time to hear the rest of her mentor's fury in full volume and the vision of the other apprentice crumpled on the ground filled her gaze. Ah, so that's what happened. Now his sharp remarks of 'downwind' made sense when before she'd only though he might've lost the prey on his own.
The word kittypet is slung out as a sharp curse, an insult meant to demean, her fur prickled as she heard it but she had to force her immediate defensive response down because she wasn't, she wasn't a kittypet-she was clanborn. Cloudypaw was a kittypet though, there was no denying the origins of the deputies' niece. A small part of her wanted to defend Cloudypaw, accidents happen and she shouldn't be punished for a simple mistake but another part of her feared the backlash turning to her if she so much as uttered a word in the gray molly's defense.
Kittypet apologist, she'd be called, just like her father. Moonpaw inhaled and held it, let it burn in her chest before she pushed forward and dropped her mouse so she could speak, "Aren't you older than me? Even I know to keep downwind."
With one remark, aloof and cold, she let the other be thrown to the wolves and she lifted her head up high with an indifferent stare.
​

 

[Cloudyfur]

Cloudypaw stumbled backward, blinking against the splitting pain in her skull. She felt dizzy. It took everything she had just to stay on her paws and everything in front of her was little more than blurry shapes. With a shake of her head, her eyes finally focused on Raccoonstipe. Finally letting her see his raised haunches, sneering expression, and the anger that flared in his eyes.

Her ears flattened back against her head.

"S-sorry, sorry, sorry." She stammered out frantically as he berated her. There was nothing else for her to say. With all her attention focused on the squirrel's scent, she hadn't noticed his at all, she had no clue he was anywhere nearby. The thought she might actually get a catch had made her overeager. It was all her fault.

Moonpaw only reaffirmed that thought, chiming in to ask why Cloudypaw hadn't been keeping downwind. She glanced toward the other apprentice, opening her mouth as she tried to find a response, but nothing came. So instead she looked down at her paws. Even her younger peers were better hunters than her. She really was an embarrassment.

Cloudypaw winced as Racconstripe demanded what she had to say for herself. She shuffled her paws beneath her anxiously.

"Sorry." She offered again pitifully.​