- Jun 14, 2024
- 24
- 8
- 3
Much to the boy's chagrin, Leafhusk and the rest of their small, weary battalion had made good on their vow to ensure he was the first to fill his belly. It doesn't feel right—nothing feels right, anymore, out here in the tired scrublands. The thick vegetation and lush oaks that have always framed his world with their waving branches are all but gone, leaving him lost amidst wastrel trees and dry grass that smells like lonely dust. He is lonely; Ivorykit—Ivorypaw is the closest thing here to a friend, and she's an apprentice now, even if she, too, is adrift without familiar faces. There is nobody to play with, nobody to tell tales of their future glory to, no nest of friends to crawl into when he wakes in the night.
At least Ivorypaw can go out and hunt for her Clan, or the piece of it cast out into these empty lands, anyways—in all her youth and inexperience, she can still make her presence worth it. His many claws curl into the sad grass that rattles like reeds in the dusk - blown wind; for redness streaks the sky as the smattering of those born to softness settle to eat their prey. His has long been deposited before him, an undeserved gift in the form of a vole skinnier than he, boy born to summer, is used to.
Neither its stringy flesh nor his inability to provide recompense are the reason it sits untouched, though. Half - moon eyes scrutinize the slender curve of the rodent's tawny - brushed belly, searching for a strangeness, a discrepancy—the tear Antlerpaw had pulled raw before his jittering eyes. They find nothing, but he is not satiated—and he feels bad, he feels sick in his belly, because these are his Clanmates—he should trust them, they had been sent away together, to be safe—he pulls himself to his paws.
One pawful of claws unsheathes in a manner far too adult for him and he rolls the piece of prey over, draws a curved white crescent down the seam of its belly until it opens. He leans close to the wafting smell of raw - red meat, his pupils narrowing, searching the confusion of its innards for something, for anything—he'd almost be relieved to see the crimson swell of berries; perhaps it'd pull away the nauseous listing in his belly. His overlong fangs pull at his lower lip, and for a moment he fights the urge to cry, not understanding why.
At least Ivorypaw can go out and hunt for her Clan, or the piece of it cast out into these empty lands, anyways—in all her youth and inexperience, she can still make her presence worth it. His many claws curl into the sad grass that rattles like reeds in the dusk - blown wind; for redness streaks the sky as the smattering of those born to softness settle to eat their prey. His has long been deposited before him, an undeserved gift in the form of a vole skinnier than he, boy born to summer, is used to.
Neither its stringy flesh nor his inability to provide recompense are the reason it sits untouched, though. Half - moon eyes scrutinize the slender curve of the rodent's tawny - brushed belly, searching for a strangeness, a discrepancy—the tear Antlerpaw had pulled raw before his jittering eyes. They find nothing, but he is not satiated—and he feels bad, he feels sick in his belly, because these are his Clanmates—he should trust them, they had been sent away together, to be safe—he pulls himself to his paws.
One pawful of claws unsheathes in a manner far too adult for him and he rolls the piece of prey over, draws a curved white crescent down the seam of its belly until it opens. He leans close to the wafting smell of raw - red meat, his pupils narrowing, searching the confusion of its innards for something, for anything—he'd almost be relieved to see the crimson swell of berries; perhaps it'd pull away the nauseous listing in his belly. His overlong fangs pull at his lower lip, and for a moment he fights the urge to cry, not understanding why.
