camp MY INNER GOLD [tree climbing]

Jan 10, 2024
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✧✧ SkyClan is known for their climbing skills. Some SkyClanners even went on a big long scary journey, and they had to use their climbing skills to save all the clans! So it makes sense that climbing trees and stuff is important to everyone in the clan, even the littlest kits. That’s why Figfeather tried to show Coffeekit and Sangriakit how to climb, back when they were littler than they are now. Of course, that didn’t go well, though—and now, anytime Sangriakit thinks about climbing a tree and jumping gracefully between the branches, all she can think about is the way her stomach dropped out of her body when she felt the tree branch start to move under her. And then Coffeekit almost fell, and Figfeather didn’t even do anything except yell at them until Greeneyes came up and saved them.

The little torbie doesn’t hold a grudge against Figfeather for it. She’s mostly forgotten about the incident altogether, but it comes back in her mind every time she happens to look up at the tree that sits just at the edge of camp. She’s been trying to build up the courage to try again, determined not to let down her mama or Figfeather or anyone else in SkyClan. She’s a SkyClanner—she has to do this, doesn’t she? No matter how scared she is, she’s not a tiny kit anymore. She has to… to face her fears, like a warrior would!

Today, she stands at the base of the same tree that had frightened her and Coffeekit so long ago. Bright green eyes gaze up into its branches, determination plain in her expression. She’s gonna get this right the first time. It comes easier now after doing it once already—Sangriakit has been practicing at home, on the fuzzy weird tree in front of the window. She knows how she should hook her claws into the grooves of the bark, where she should place her paws to keep herself moving upward. With a wiggle of her hindquarters, she launches herself at the base of the tree before pulling herself up, shifting her hind paws to anchor her weight before lifting her forepaws.

Her progress is slow but steady, and though she slips a couple times, she manages to stay pressed against the tree without falling down. When she reaches the branch she and Coffeekit had clung to before, she feels the fur at the back of her neck bristle, but continues on to a higher branch—she’s gonna go even farther and farther until she gets to the very top! (In reality, right now, she can’t make it to the top, but she can make it higher than last time, at least.) "I made it!" She cries out; with a careful adjustment of her grip, the kit is perched steadily upon a branch, peering down at the camp a bunch of Sangriakit-lengths below. "But how do I get down?"
 

Though Twitchbolt feared many things; and had been markedly worse as a kitten- climbing had never really been on the list. Heights were rolled in with thunderstorms... pastimes that found an inexplicably peaceful place in his soul, thrill that did not touch fear.

If he could have had kits of his own- not that he was particularly desperate or sad that it would not happen, given his own parents treatment of him, and a latent fear that he might have done the very same thing- he'd have paid close attention to how their climbing sills were developing. One could be a wonderful SkyClan warrior without those skills- Figfeather very much came to mind- but to remove any fear of heights early on was a necessity, as far as Twitchbolt was concerned. Thus, even though she wasn't his kit there was a distinct glimmer of satisfaction in Twitchbolt's eye as he caught sight of Sangriakit clambering up. Making it, as she soon announced with a triumphant call.

Her question shuddered a bit of amusement across his face. Yes, that was the next step... and he might have been a little more nervous for her if there weren't so many cats milling about, ready to break a possible fall. "You've got to- to go down backwards," Twitchbolt instructed, managing not to mince his words up awfully. "It'll... feel scary, but your claws will hook into the tree that way."
penned by pin ✧