IT'S NOT HIS FAULT THAT HE CAN'T BEHAVE (exploring/joining)

[Tybalt [Stagstrike]]

After his mother had died, they'd fled to the forest. They'd left the city; hunted, fished and grown stronger. And everything had been fine.

Until it wasn't. Until that fox had tried to take their meal. He and his father had caught that rabbit together! It was theirs! And no way some stinking, ugly old fox was going to take it. They'd fought cat after cat after cat in the city, just to keep themselves alive. Why should a fox be any different?

Oh how wrong they'd been. They'd lost that fight. Forced to flee, to leave their catch like cowardly fools. They'd lost the rabbit, and in turn, Tybalt lost his father. He tried not to grieve too heavy. To tell himself that Iago would have wanted to die fighting for what was rightfully theirs, and that this was just sometimes the way that life was. And so Tybalt went on by himself, doing whatever he had to to stay alive. But, he realized, it was a lot harder to do it alone. And a lot lonelier when it was just him doing it.

These were the thoughts that the young tom tried to shove from his mind as he padded through the undergrowth with a squirrel dangling from his jaws. The scent of his prey obscured the smells surrounding him. Or at least, most of them.

His brow furrowed as a new smell met his nostrils, and he set down his squirrel to investigate. He immediately knew what these were. Scent markers! Obscuring the ones he'd made only the day before! And far stronger too, which meant more cats. How dare they just walk right in like he wasn't even here? A low growl escaped the wavy-furred tom's throat, and he followed after the unfamiliar scent until a small group of felines came into view.

"Hey!" he snapped, once again having to drop his squirrel to yell at them. "Who are you?"

(sorry in advance, he's gonna be a bit of an asshole to basically everybody until he settles in.)

 

[emberstar]

"WE ARE THE BROKEN ONES, WHO CHOSE TO SPARK A FLAME"​

Her ear flicked as a voice, brimming with hostility, hit it. She turned back, looking past the other members of the patrol she was leading along. Behind them she saw a young tom glaring toward the group, a squirrel laying forgotten between his paws. In a moment, she wound her way past her clanmates, swiftly putting herself between them and the stranger. There wasn't a chance he could take them all alone, but if he tried something stupid the she wanted be the one closest to him. Her gaze drifted over him, measuring him up.

Then she shot him a brilliant grin.

"Heya!" she greeted, with a warmth that clashed against the harshness with which he had addressed her. Despite that, there was a slight tension in the way she stood. A readiness to spring into motion at a moment's notice. My name is Ember and we-" a nod to her friends behind her. "are all a part of Thunderclan. Of which I am the leader. Nice ta meetcha! What's your name?"​

✦ ★ ✦​

 

[Tybalt [Stagstrike]]

Tybalt watched as the small flame point approached him. It took everything he had to keep his claws sheathed as he sized her up through narrowed eyes. He could take her easily alone, but with her friends behind her? He flicked his tail irritably. With his parents he would have relished in such a fight--and it had been so long since he'd been in a real scrap for something that belonged to him.

"ThunderClan," he muttered. What kind of name was that? It wasn't a word he knew. Whatever they called it, it didn't mean that this part of the forest belonged to them.

And then she was asking his name, and he had to consider whether to give it or not. Ember had readily given hers. "I'm Tybalt," he answered finally. "And I was here first." He knew he had been. He and his father had been in this part of the forest for the last four moons, and never once had he heard or seen any ThunderClan.

 

[BERRYHEART]

Behind Sparky did Berry follow, though he lagged behind on account of his slowness and his fickle attention. When finally he caught up, the leader was conversing with a stranger with a grouchy expression, who rather loudly insisted that the place they had made their home was already occupied. Untraceable surprise hitched within the tortoiseshell tom; he had surmised that they had already run into all of the forest-dwellers that predated ThunderClan, and they had been perfectly polite and welcoming. It seemed there was an anomaly lurking in the foliage however, one that stood before them now and stared them down.

For a moment he stood perfectly still, having come to a statuesque halt beside Sparky, and regarded the stranger for a few long, silent moments. A yawn parted his crooked maw as the contemplations of what exactly he should put into words worked through the cogs of his mind. He had never been deft at dancing around venomous words- they bounced right off his pelt, and left him willingly deaf to the violence. "We're here now, too." he finally murmured, voice teetering somewhere between unbothered and confused. Why did it matter who had been there first? There was plenty of forest to share- and it wasn't like they were napping in Grouchy's favourite spot.​

[ PENNED BY PIN ]​

 

[QUAILFEATHER]

The fluffy torbie steps beside Berry and behind Ember, her face creased in concern until she sees the little scrap of tawny fur who is accosting them. She can't help but smirk slightly. He has guts, she'll give him that, but his scent isn't familiar to her. "Someone never bothered to teach you manners, I see," she says mildly.

She flicks her tail in Berry's direction, nodding tautly as he tells the young scamp that they're here too, now. "And if you think you were the only one who lived in this entire forest, you're quite wrong, little one. I've been here since before you were a twinkle in your mother's eye." She gives him a stern look. "Show some respect to our leader, if no one else. Can't you tell we aren't a threat to you?"

Her tone has taken on that of a scolding mother, and she is sure the brash tom will react badly to it, but she can't help it. Kits who can't behave themselves is a pet peeve of hers that she can never quite quash.
​

PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[emberstar]

"WE ARE THE BROKEN ONES, WHO CHOSE TO SPARK A FLAME"​

Well, at least he wasn't yelling at them anymore. Though his attitude didn't seem to have improved much, which still worried her. While she didn't really consider him a threat, espesually not with her clanmates at her side, she didn't wanna fight him nonetheless. It was hard to figure out how to avoid that when he wouldn't come out and say what he wanted. She did get a name from him, Tybalt.

Berry and Quail both chimed in, and she eagerly nodded her agreement. Oblivious to the former's confusion and the latter's derision. "Right! We aren't any threat to you, Tybalt." Ember parroted, attempting a reassuring look. "Since we all live in this forest, we should try and get along! There's plenty of prey for everyone. You could even join us if you wanted, like Quail did!" she suggested eagerly, with a nod back toward the older molly.​

✦ ★ ✦​

 

[Tybalt [Stagstrike]]

The boy didn't give the older she-cat a spoken response, only a sharp hiss as he sank his claws into the dirt. He didn't care about his manners. In the city, manners meant you starved, or that other cats walked all over you. Politeness would get you nowhere except buried underground. Tybalt lashed his tail, turning back to look at Ember as she spoke to him.

He had to pause and think about what she offered him. If he stayed on his own, he'd have to compete with this bigger group for food and space.

And…he was alone now. All his life he'd spent with his parents, and both of them were gone. His mother had wanted to join a bigger group, his father had been against the idea, saying they'd just have to split their food more ways. But wouldn't he still have to split it whether he was with them or not.

After some time of silence, Tybalt finally let out a defeated sigh. "Sure," he muttered. "Why not?" He had little else to lose.

 

[Wildboy]

FIND ME WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE​

---

The Thunderclan cats truly were something amazing, at least in Wildboys eyes. He'd never met a group of felines with such patience and bight spirits, their tenacity unwavering in whatever their goals may be. While Wildboy had been raised as a twoleg pet, he'd had the benefit of being able to come and go as he pleased among his upwalkers, slipping out the cat-door and into the concrete jungle whenever he saw fit. And so while there was definitely naivety alive in the tom due to sheer inexperience, he wasn't totally oblivious to the harsh realities of life or what other cats were like because of it. Twoleg place had more than one group of unfriendly cats that would have turned on a loner for getting to close to their percieved territory, and had Thunderclan functioned in a
Tybalt might have been in more trouble than he'd realized.

But Ember was a kind cat, one with patience and a bright spirit, and he really wasn't all that surprised to see them defuse the situation, with Tybalt agreeing to even join them by the end of it.

"Welcome to the crew then, Tybalt. My name's Wildboy!" he said, offering the other a toothy grin and flick of his tail in greeting. Even if the younger cat seemed to be a bit more prickly, Wildboy ddidn't seem to mind. He had a lot of patience with cats- until he didn't. And then, well, one might find him to be just as unpleasent as Tybalt. ​

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thunderclan - tom (afab) - 18 moons - turkish angora - homosexual - has blue and purple pawprints stained onto his fur from berries