it's an instinct that never lies - skipping meals

[emberstar]

IT WENT FROM A SPARK TO AN OPEN FLAME ⋆⁺₊⋆ In Emberstar's mind, the job of a leader was to serve her clan.

Since the day it had been born, she had done everything she could to help Thunderclan grow and survive. Tried to, at least. The decisions she had made to get here were so complicated that sometimes it felt as if there were no right choices anymore. Or worse, she had just managed to make all the wrong ones. When she looked out on her clan though, she was sure that wasn't the case.

Thunderclan had grown into something she could be proud of. Her warriors were kind and capable and everything she had ever hoped they would be. There were grumblings about her joining policies given the season, sure, but that only made her all the happier when she watched the new members she'd let in be welcomed as friends in spite of those reservations. They really felt like a family to her. More than ever, Emberstar had become certain that this clan was going to be her life's work. If she could build it up to even higher heights before she went, she would die happy.

There had been troubles and - of course - there were still more on the horizon. The looming leaf-bare being one of them. However, she had full faith that, together, they would be able to get through it.

To a point.

Her optimism wasn't false, exactly. The trust she had in her warriors and her clan was real. Emberstar also knew what leafbare was like, though. She keenly recalled the stabbing pains of hunger from the more barren seasons she had lived through. Even the most skilled hunters were in danger of it, a clan of them all the more.

Which was why she had decided she would do what she could to serve her clan coming into this first leafbare. Innocuously, without comment, she had begun skipping her meals. Every day after she went hunting she simply dropped her catches into the fresh kill pile - if she had any at all - then went about her day. Starvation was a deeper wound than she remembered, and it had barely even begun to show its signs on her body. Though her stomach complained against her after having prospered under the bounty of her clan catches in leaf-fall. She reminded it, as she padded to her den to take a seat, that she had survived with less than this before and she would again.

Besides, even if she didn't, she had lives to spare.

Her clanmates did not. ​

 

[covecatcher]

Cove doesn't think she could never ever be leader, Emberstar looked... well... One of the worse ones out of all her warriors. She had the optimism, yea, and it was something Cove admired, but to be so littered in scars, oh, she doesn't think she could do it. Cove is just returning to camp with an abundance of seashells in her mouth as well as a young mouse hanging from her jaws before she spots Ember retreating from the freshkill pile and towards her den, not taking a single piece.

Hm... That was absolutely unacceptable, at least in Cove's eyes.

"Efersta!" is her muffled attempt at calling her name as she pads over, looking the small molly up and down. She ends up dropping both the shells and the mouse, nudging forwards both of them. She doesn't know Ember personally but shes the leader! If she falls then they all fall, if only for a couple days until things change. "I got some shells! They're magic and some of the ones even sparkle like the star cats you guys like, and do you want to share the mouse I caught?" small guilt floods her stomach. She won't say that she had caught her just doing a drop and run from the pile, but it does concern her. Everybody deserves to be happy and have food in their bellies because thats what makes Cove happiest! Good company and good food.​

✦ ★ ✦​

 

[emberstar]

IT WENT FROM A SPARK TO AN OPEN FLAME ⋆⁺₊⋆ Emberstar perked up as a voice called out to her. She shot a brilliant smile at the cream furred face approaching her. Company always made an empty stomach all the more bearable, though she didn't know Covecatcher all that well, that was even better in her opinion. That meant that this was a chance for her to get to know another one of her clanmates.

What she learned immediately, however, was that the warrior is a little odd. Her ear flicked subtly at the talk of magic shells. "That's... nice of you. Thanks!" She offered evenly, accepting the shells with a nod. Magic or not, they were very pretty. Maybe if she lined her den with them it would feel less empty, she thought idly.

"You can keep the mouse though, I'm not hungry. Thanks for the offer!" The leader refused politely with a dip of her head, resolute in her plan. She did truly mean her thanks though. Any offer of free food she particularly appropriated, especially in leaf bare, when the sharp memories of cold and hungry nights of her youth were particularly keen. ​

 

[BERRYHEART]

Magic shells- he'd never had much of an imagination, but it was a pretty thought. Enchanted items found simply strewn about the place as if useless- what an ideal world that would be. It would certainly make the majority of tasks a little easier, if they possessed the sort of magic he wanted. A hum of pleasant amusement left him as he passed Sparky and the Collector, olive eyes hovering over the prizes for a few moments. Even if his imagination failed to give in to the tale of mysticism that the Collector wove, they certainly looked beautiful in the glimmer of light.

Attention flickered to Sparky's refusal of a meal, stolen from the shells' shimmer. Not hungry? But- leaf bare (as Berryheart had reluctantly learned) was essentially a state of perpetual hunger. The tortoiseshell tom had forever indulged in his meals, but the winter months was when that lifestyle was forced to grind to a halt. All of the Clan had to ration appropriately- one never knew what their selfishness might give way to. "Is mouse not to your tastes?" he asked, curious as to why she would refuse a meal in this cold sparsity. The only conclusion he could come to was that she was simply being polite about not liking mouse. He understood- squirrel was far, far superior.​

[ PENNED BY PIN ]​

 

[Flycatcher]

Like many cats, Flycatcher has been rationing what he eats as of late. Prey has been harder and harder to come by as of late and there is not as much to go around as there once was. He tries to manage something to eat at least once a day but always tries to eat sparsely and to share his meal with another. There are larger prey items in the fresh-kill pile but he'd rather the more ample food go to someone who needed it more to him.

When he sees Emberstar decline, Covecatcher's mouse, he raises a brow in surprise. She claimed to not be hungry but he has his doubts. He's certain that everyone feels hungry at this point in the year. "Maybe a bird is more to your tastes?" He suggests, chiming in to Berryheart's suggestion that the mouse was perhaps not to her taste./font]​