camp lope back o'er the heath 🍤 [ rta / mushroom game ]

[SHRIMPY BOY]

Plucked from the crevice of pine-swathed roots, the mushroom that Shrimpy Boy holds is just about as thick and bulbous as the tom himself, as though the slightest paw-swat could send it rolling across the flattest of fields.

While he trudges along the forest floor alongside @CASTOR | SHADOWFIRE, camp-bound, ever-so-gently clenching his find between his jaws, the faces of those who've disappeared in recent weeks are made manifest in his mind's eye. Howlpaw. Twitchbolt. Quillstrike. Hell, even Slate. None of whom he'd grown particularly close to throughout his tenure here, yet their losses have demoralised him all the same. Who would be snatched from their home next? And if he were among those taken, would his clanmates even miss him, or, dare say, want him to return?

Such ideas have reigned dominant in discussions around camp and during patrols as of late. Needless to say, the overarching atmosphere in the pine forest was not a positive one, and Shrimpy Boy was a tad anxious about the impact it'd have on the hearts and goodwill of his kinfolk—especially the young ones. The sting of loss is something he'd weathered before, and he feared for those unacquainted with its bitter taste. They needed an escape, a temporary break from it all, however fleeting and harebrained.

The daylight warrior shoulders his way through the hollow's brambly threshold, and then drops the mushroom to the soil shortly afterwards. It bounces once, funnily enough, before resting at the hilt of a limb. Without sparing a moment, he swivels around and hollers for anyone who might be within earshot, "If you get hit by the mushroom, you have to shout one of your deepest secrets!"

With that, he swings his paw into the fungi, propelling it into a fierce tumble toward whoever stands the nearest. ​

 

[eveningsun]

eve's paws were busy with chores. she had already changed two whole nests for some elders, even finding the time to drop off a mouse for orangeblossom. she was on her way back to the elders den, someone was too lazy to move to get some water. the damp moss dangled between soft jaws as she moved, paws light despite the absence of fun within these tasks.

suddenly, there is shouting. her head swings around to the ginger warrior, said something about a mushroom and deepest secrets. her brow quirked at the weird proposition for this new game. but quickly, eveningpaw found herself abandoning her soaked moss and diving out of the trajectory of the fungi. sliding away, dirtying the pristine ivory of her underbelly, eve sent a wide mouthed grin to wherever the projectile should have landed, and who was unlucky enough to be standing there.​

[ FALLEN STAR ]​

 

[Dizzymoth]

Bonk!

The rubbery projectile rebounds off of Dizzymoth's chest and falls rather unceremoniously to her feet, one side a little dented from the impact to her clavicle. She stares at it for a moment, registering both the sudden spore attack and the words of her part-time clanmate. Yell your deepest secret? Oh dear, she didn't have very many of those! She had been very open about her entire life once joining the pine group. What could she possibly say now, especially with younger company present?

I - um..... hm...... OH! I LIKE TO CHASE MY OWN TAIL WHEN I DON'T THINK ANYBODY WILL SEE!"​

​

"speech"​

 

[MALLOWLARK]

As quick as he'd spoken, Shrimpy Boy had hurled it. Bullet-quick, without much warning- like the mushroom had burst out of the chest of the words, flying through the air like a bird of prey descending upon its target. Eveningpaw dived out of the way, and the unlucky victim was- ah, Dizzymoth! And- the fact she spewed was barely a dark secret, barely something deeper than skin-level... certainly not the sort that burrowed into your chest and ripped you up from the inside! Shredding you- pushing your grin to the limits until you felt like your mile might spill out of your cheeks, because what made you happy was something you couldn't tell anyone- oh, he had experience with that...

Still, this secret- a game played in private, and something that sounded as dizzying as the molly's name... Mallowlark could not hide his amusement at it. Hardly- not at all, in fact. It burst from him in a sky-tearing tower of sound, appearing as sudden as a pounce upon prey; laughter, seizing his chest in hiccuping ceaselessness. Though his ribs convulsed with the force, and he danced on night-dipped paws to keep himself upright- balance was somehow kept, and moon-wide eyes found the mushroom's target. Too much laughter for the objective amusement of the stated secret, but when had he cared about that?

"Ma-hah- must be... fffun, though!" And genuine were the words, though they struggled through his laughter. He couldn't help it, that image in his mind- spinning and spinning, and for no reason! Simply because you could!​

☺PENNED BY PIN​

 

[~Deersong~]

( ♬ ) Deersong had blinked as the mushroom whirled past her face, turning to watch her daughter dive out of the way before it hit Dizzymoth in the chest, prompting the molly to confess her tail-chasing past-time. She would laugh as well, a sound a bit more calm and soothing than Mallowlarks' but she would walk over to Eveningpaw and lightly press her nose to her daughter's cheek, a silent question of whether she was alright or not.

Her teal gaze never left the mushroom that now lay at Dizzymoths' paws, because she assumed that it was now her turn to swat the small thing at the next target, and she was more than ready to dodge it. Her darkest secrets were perhaps a bit too dark for this game, and she wanted to maintain this lighter air the game now provided for as long as possible. ​

( LET YOU BREAK; MY HEART AGAIN )