MUDDY PAWS // bugs

[TERMITEHUM]

// intro and a prompt! finding happiness in unlikely places ^^


( 𓆣 ) Termitepaw is off on her own, in a secluded spot on the outskirts of camp. Good, they don't want to be interrupted. Very important goal today, very important. No one else would get it.

The molly's paws scuffle at the ground, pulling up a small spray of dirt. She pauses, stares for a second, then moves on. She leans her head low to the ground, angled so her ear is facing the earth. It twitches as she listens, still as the dead. She stays there for several seconds as though frozen in time, until suddenly she moves, darting forward with new purpose.

A small pile of rocks is their new target, gray-blue pebbles scattered haphazard and half dirt-covered. She circles them, eyes locked as though waiting for the stones to make a move. She pauses. Cranes her neck towards them. Swipes a paw, scattering the rocks -- and jumps away at the sound, back arched as though ready for a fight. The rocks clatter across one another, clack-clack-clack in a cacophonous cascade. Termitepaw watches as though mesmerized.

And there beneath them: yet another rock. Perfect.

This one's larger than all the others, long as her foreleg, and halfway-wedged into the ground. She smiles and moves in, shoving at the rock with her forepaw and dislodging it from its near-subterranean resting place. The true prize lizes beneath, of course.

It's exactly what they've been searching for the whole time: lots and lots of bugs.

The insects scatter in every which direction once their hiding place has been so carelessly destroyed. Beetles and worms and all manner of things crawling over one another in a disoriented daze, the skittering and squirming that Termitepaw had been chasing far more audible now. "Aha!" she exclaims, slamming a paw down on the back of a particularly large beetle to pin it in place. It's a prefect find, and Termitepaw is absolutely giddy. She watches the other bugs swirl around and over top of her paw, laughing a bit at the ticklishness of it. She seems to be completely lost in her own actions, unaware of anyone who may bear witness to her triumphant quest.​

 

[Honeysplash]

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Small, pale tawny paws picked their away across the muddy ground outside of camp as they came from the twolegplace. Green eyes bright and cheery as always and a little hum came from the small cat as they moved along. Today was going to be a good day, she could just feel it. Something good was going to happen today and there was no way she would stand in the way of it! Maybe Sharpeye and her could do some hunting practicing? The world had so many possibilities today!

Bananapaw trotted along and then something caught her eye, a black and white pelt with an arm under a rock. What was she up too? Termitepaw was Chrysalispaws' sister, and they hadn't had much chance to talk yet so seeing them trying to get under a rock was- interesting. The cream she-cat tilted her head to the side and approached the other cat quietly as she moved the rock with a triumphant 'aha!'.

"What're you doing? Hunting bugs?" Bananapaw asked and wrinkled her nose at the thought. Bugs were a part of the ecosystem, but she'd rather not have them crawling on her or near her. They could exist just not her in space for the most part, so for Termitepaw to be brave enough to let them crawl over her paw was a chill ran up her spine, "Did you catch anything good?" She looked to the black and white cat for a moment then over her shoulder at the bug trapped under her paw.

speech​

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[eveningsun]

termitepaw was catching bugs, it was kind of funny considering they were named after one. she didn't like bugs that much, they had too many legs and it made her a little nervous. why did they need so many legs anyways? where on earth were they going that called for more? it was freaky, the ones that had too many eyes were even freakier. if she found a spider in her nest she might just burn it down. but if termitepaw found so much joy in catching the little freaks, eve wouldn't judge. there were worse things that she could be doing.

"you're pretty good at that, how many ya' caught so far?" she asked, cheerily as ever. maybe termitepaw could catch all the bugs, that way she didn't have to interact with them.​

[ FALLEN STAR ]​

 

[Fireflyglow]

The apprentices around him always had so much energy, he almost found a bit of jealousy in such a thing- he wished he, too, could spend his days off playing with bugs. Nonetheless, he found himself passing by with a mouthful of herbs, drool slipping down his chin and onto the ground. "Just be careful, you dunno if one of 'em sting." He mumbles in passing, before he seats himself behind the apprentices and settles his herbs down with a paw. Now that his paws were free, he could actually focus on what was going on.

He watches the apprentices babble over the bugs, a shiver of disgust going down his spine. How could one play with those creepy crawlies? Butterflies were one thing, so were fireflies and worms; but this..? Ugh. "You.. Seem to enjoy it."​

 

[CHRYSALISWING]

Bugs scrambled in droves from their hiding place, as though uprooted from their kingdom of solipsistic shadow, even though they slithered just beyond a breadth of one another. To him, insects were self-serving, sumptuous, and simple things. He was, in his sharply narrow-sighted view, wrong. One more invested in the happenstance of the hollows and mires would tell him that there were many bugs that stood together instead of in in parti pris. Ants, bees, termites... One beetle crawled on top of Chrysalispaw's forepaw, with its glimmering carapace alight in a shining sun, like a jewel beheld in the thick light of the day. He shook it off with vigorous, limp-wristed motions until it scurried away like a cowardly prey animal, though nothing that he would ever want to put in his mouth. He liked to watch their ilk, but not touch them. It grossed the preened, prudent 'paw, for some reason.

His sister Termitepaw was garnering quite the sumptuous crowd for herself, as he stood alone upon his castle of nothingness, donning his crown of trifle lightly. He simultaneously did and did not envy those who were able to captivate cats with a mere verse. If asked, he could never cobble up a good response to justify such. A bouncing gallop brought the apprentice to joyously raucous laughter, of which stridently sang upon sensitive ears, which tore a sneer through impressionable features. His unemotional facade was paper-thin, often replaced with a sharper and more voracious ire. Truly, he could not bring himself to hide his real feelings. He stood along with the audience that would humor her, but did not cheer nor spectacle her.

"That's really gross, Termitepaw." Chrys' contemptuous barb chimed in, as though hooked with a sort of poision that he had learned from those he looked up to, a shared venom from parent to child. He would never acknowledge it, but he mirrored Dragonflywing in a myriad of ways. Like the surface of stilled water, he only reflected what he saw before him. Heterochromatic eyes lit naught with typical brotherly love, instead replaced with a coldness befitting that of the very winter, of rime-rusted ledges and icy precipice. Damn the girl who looked too much like their father, he decreed.
​

 

[TERMITEHUM]

( 𓆣 ) Termitepaw seems surprised by their newly-gathered crowd of apprentices, blinking owl-like at the onlookers. It's not that interesting... Well, they didn't think anyone else would find it interesting at least. Evidently, she was wrong. Bananapaw comes first, the energetic apprentice's usual radiant enthusiasm dimmed by apparent disgust for the bugs, her face all scrunched up. Yeah, that's more of what Termitepaw would expect.

Still, though, she seems interested in their find: "Did you catch anything good?" asks Bananapaw. "Mhm," hums the molly distractedly, leaning down to carefully grab the beetle between its teeth. She pulls her back up a bit too quickly, blinking in dizziness at the sudden head-rush before presenting her find to Bananapaw, undeterred by the other cat's distaste. She leans forward a bit to show it off, the beetle's legs tapping against her muzzle, wings pinned by teeth.

Eveningpaw is next, her disgust hidden much better than Bananapaw. Termitepaw perks up a bit at her cheery demeanor, and the compliment only helps. She is pretty good at this! They're not good at many things, so it's a welcome realization. "How many ya' caught so far?" Eveningpaw asks, and they nod down at the bugs still running over its paw, mumbling "Jus' these," around the beetle in its teeth.

Then comes Fireflypaw, warning about stinging bugs. Oh, they didn't even consider that. Termitepaw stares with a newfound wariness at the bugs. They haven't stung her yet... Maybe she should move her paw though.

Chrysalispaw's words startle Termitepaw as she is carefully extracting an insect-covered paw from the spot where the rock once lay. As usual, he has nothing but criticisms; it seems their father's lineage has divided itself evenly between the two, giving Termitepaw his coat and Chrysalispaw his cruel tongue. She always feels a sense of shame when either of the two share their oh-so-common barbs with her, never able to impress the family she longs for closeness with. Well, it's not the first time this has happened, so she tries not to let it sour her enjoyment.

"Sorry," they say softly, pulling back a bit from their brother. Unthinkingly, they set the beetle down on the ground, and it begins skittering wildly towards the other apprentices.​

 

[GREENEYES]

It's Greenpaw, that the skittering bug nears.

Unlike the other apprentices - who wrinkle their noses at the bugs Termitepaw harbors, disgust hinted at in their words - the ginger tom only looks at the beetle with a curious gaze.

He doesn't mind bugs. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, all sorts of colors. One of his most prized possessions is still the cicada shell that Snowpaw had given him when they were merely kits, after all. And, this beetle, the rest of Termitepaw's collection, it wasn't much different than that, right? They're only moving around, free to skitter away as the one that nears him.

He reaches a white paw forward for the beetle to crawl on, lifting it once the critter has hopped on to inspect it closer. Fascinating, how it wriggles about, how it shines in the light.

"Well, I think they're neat," he chimes in after Chrysalispaw shares his disdain. He's not too sure the patchworked tom can say a single positive thing. Greenpaw watches the beetle for a moment longer, before stretching his paw out to the black and white feline. "Do you want this back, Termitepaw?"
​

 

[DAWNGLARE]

He's made a mistake in looking. Of course, such a ruckus would gain his attention. Equivalent of a star blinding him from behind, buzzing that never ceased. An unimpressed sneer fixed on his maw, his attention shifts. Practically a snap of his neck in the direction. And at once, his stomach lurches.

It's almost angry, the way discuss coils in his stomach, cultivating into a vicious flame. Far too calm, these few. Clearly, their mothers taught them nothing. Either that or they did not have one. "There is nothing good to catch," The tom snaps, head held low in a glare towards the sun-bleached little fool. He scowls further, still, with so pointless a question rising from a snake-tongued maw. By design, it was that way; doomed from the start. It was a poor excuse for a compliment. King of the worms, as it were, best at something no one wished to have or be. Oh, he hoped that they would sting themselves. A lesson for the youth who seemed to listen to nothing that wasn't deadly. Let her die then, body rotted early amongst what she'd created. Bitter betrayal, welling bug, a swarm that none of them would save them from.

The day that one, little angry beast, is the one to knock sense into his peers is a worrying one, indeed. It certainly spelled nothing hopeful for their kind. Quite the opposite, indeed. Too used to his own snapping, he does not expect them to relent.

And naturally, the little devil scuttles toward the cursed child. It latches on like blood-sucking leech, or perhaps, more akin to a pet. One as wretched as their owner. Dawnglare nearly retches in his mouth, but he settles for a hiss, sizzled between iron-clenched teeth. Grating, the sound. "You think wrong," he grumbles. They've long since established this, he had thought. But oh, how could he expect a mind so feeble to know its place? "Keep it. You certainly deserve it."​