NORTHERN WATERS | strange plant

[FERNDANCE]

Ferndance had decided to take her patrol to a section of the territory she rarely got a chance to explore on her own volition. Close to the carrionplace (but not close enough to warrant visiting the actual dump itself), the emerald eyes of the Lead Warrior were focused on anything but the cats behind her. She wasn't sure who was supposed to be on her patrol and who was just tagging along for the sake of it but it didn't matter, 'the more the merrier' her family would've said. The air was still damp with petrichor as she wandered along, the odd comment or two made by the tabby to indicate that she enjoyed the scent. Things were going swimmingly until her fleeting gaze settled on something that made her fur stand on end in surprise. She blinked rapidly at it and, deciding then to abandon her duty, strolled closer to whatever had caught her attention. "Oh wow." She exhaled loudly as she spoke, her ears twisted in opposite directions. Before her was a stick-shaped plant, a sweet smell emanating from the top of it where its singular leaf hovered atop a circular entrance. It was green in colour, except for that top, which had veinlike red markings accentuating it.

How long had that been there? She would've noticed it before, she thought, it was a striking colour compared to the darker-hued plants of ShadowClan's wetlands, heck, it even had red on it. Red. What sort of plant had red on it? (Plenty, but her brain forgot about flowers) Ferndance moved her head closer and tried her best to peer inside without disturbing the plant, her pupils practically blown out at the sight inside. "Guys." She called her patrol over softly, as rigid as stone even as pawsteps sloshed at the soft earth around her. Like a butterfly to nectar, all the ticked tabby could fixate on was what was inside this mysterious flora. "There's a frog in here." A very very dead frog, shrivelled and likely rotting, but a frog all the same. She wondered why on earth it'd chosen this plant to die in, if it even had a choice. It was submerged in a strange looking liquid, and the longer she stared, the more that Ferndance recognised the black dots lining the side of it to be the corpses of newleaf bugs. This thing was equal parts beautiful and dangerous - good heavens she'd never wanted to be a plant more than she did at that moment.
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[loampelt]

These patrols, the sort without the expectation of a hunt, were Loampaw's favorite. Recent catch aside, Loampaw knew his hunts ended in disappointed far more than success. But this, wandering the territory with easy conversation, inspecting for new and old scents, made for time well spent. Rain had dampened the usual smells Loampaw had come to anticipate and made what was normally an underlaying of mudscent overwhelming.

He perks when Ferndance finds a strange plant, rushes to meet her at her side, and not so subtly tries to nose her from her spot so that he could peer for himself into the depths of it.

"It's like uh-ah-aa-aaa... mouse nest. Luh-like if a pl-pluh-plant formed itself into uh-a mouse nest." He's seen woven mouse nests before, both held in shrubbery and dug into the ground, always rounded and far deeper than a bird's nest, "Leh-let's call it uh-a midgepool," Loampaw decides and then, a moment later, "Or... or a gnatpool oo-or —" He squints into the basin of the plant, "Fuck. It's guh-got every ty-ty-ty — kind of buh-bug there is." ​

tags ∘ shadowclan apprentice ∘ solid black with hazel eyes ∘ curled front foot ∘ 10 moons​

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[silkbreath]

TAGS — The more the merrier indeed. Silkbreath tags along on his aunt's patrol with a skip in his step and a grin on his pale muzzle. Petrichor assaults his senses, as do the usual teeming of ShadowClan's marshes. Mud stains his white-dipped limbs black as he follows along, humming some tune to himself. The colors of the marshlands melt together in his vision, creating a nice mosaic of mossy green and muddy yellow to consider while he walks- but really, he likes listening to Ferndance's mutterings more than anything. When she suddenly bolts away, Silkbreath follows without second thought.

"The frog wants to be a mouse!" Silkbreath decides with a cackle, a grin cracking his pink lips wide apart. He can smell the rot just barely through the pitcher plant's sickly sweetness, but he can't exactly tell that it belongs to their poor amphibian friend. "Oh, silly thing.... May StarClan pity such a foolish pursit." His plumy tail sweeps behind him, thoroughly entertained, and he points his muzzle towards Loampaw's direction as the apprentice assesses the plant's contents. It sounds like a stomach of sorts, this green nest; Silkbreath can't help but wonder if its roots dig much deeper than any of them think. Maybe there is more underground- maybe the roots of the plant are nerves that could bend the earth to its will, should it starve. His spine tingles at the prospect. Maybe he'd be next. "The bugs all want to be mice, too...." he muses quietly after Loampaw's assessment, smile morphing dreamy. "Perhaps there will be more prey in greenleaf, then...!"​

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[GRANITEPELT]

Granitepaw's interest in plants has only minimally sharpened since Starlingheart has become a medicine cat. He can't recognize anything besides the odd leaf or two she's tried to teach him -- with one exception, of course, an exception he does his best to forget about -- and the rest are a blur of greens and golds and browns. What good are plants to a warrior, after all? His duty is to feed and defend ShadowClan. He's content to leave the medicine cat stuff to her.

Ferndance seems to have singled some leafy thing out, though, and the patrol ceases productivity to go poking at it. Granitepaw gives @DOGFUR an annoyed look, as if the patch-pelted tom had had anything to do with the pause, before approaching the object of interest. He grimaces. "I've never seen a plant eat fresh-kill before," he mutters. "One more thing for us to compete with, I guess." His tail begins to lash irritably. "Should we destroy it?"​

[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

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[ROOSTERSTRUT]

❪ TAGS ❫ — Maybe it was something about the marshes that just brewed abnormalities, quirky things and creatures. Nothing about these lands ever seemed normal, including the clan cats that inhabited this place, and now it seemed like the flora was starting to take on some of the arcane qualities of ShadowClan itself.

Upon Ferndance announcing a frog had died a victim to the clutches of none other than a plant, Roosterstrut quirked his brows and padded forward tentatively in order to sneak a better look. The others were crowding around as well, trying to make sense of this peculiar plant. The orange tabby tom certainly did not recognize it, but good stars, it smelled like crowfood. "That thing caught more prey than we did the entire leafbare." Roosterstrut manages an attempt at a wry joke, though he realizes afterward it may not have been everyone's preferred humor. Leafbare had been tough for everyone, the effects of starvation even tragic in the case of some individuals. That might have not been in good taste.

He moves on, flicking his gaze toward Granitepaw if only for a moment. Roosterstrut doesn't always appreciate the older apprentice's aura; he finds it rather uncomfortable and grating compared to his own easy-going and lighthearted energy. However, he cannot say he disagrees with the tom in this instance. "He's got a point. This plant's just making us look bad." The orange tabby chimed in, glancing toward the rest of the patrol. This plant did stink, and it did waste a perfectly good frog in its gullet (he doubted that whatever the frog was coated in now tasted pleasant), but... part of him wondered if the right course of action was to destroy it. Was this flora not just another entity trying to live on the marshes? Who knew that plants hungered for frog meat?​

 

[Sundewtail]

The marshes were full of strange things, Shadowclan included. Stars know there's not a single normal cat in this clan, not that Flytrapjaw could say anything. Most strange things came from the carrionplace, but on occasion, something strange would pop up in the marsh.

Today was one such day.

When she heard Ferndance call her patrol over, she came bounding right away. What sort of strange things had she found? Flytrapjaw was excited to see!

And what she saw when she got there, listening to the conversation as she approached, was a plant that she recognized as one her parents had told her about. One that she was technically named after, though not this plant in particular.

"This one knows this plant!" She said cheerfully. "It's called a pitcher plant..... It lures bugs into it's mouth with it's smell and then traps them...." She explained, peeking into the plant.

"This frog must have been lured by all the bugs and got trapped inside. Or maybe it thought it was a good hiding place." She said.

It felt good to be knowledgeable about something for once! She felt so smart! For this moment alone, her brain was huge.

And you know, maybe they should bring one back to camp to eat the bugs that keep buzzing around her smelly clanmates.
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[DOGFUR]

As the tortoiseshell ambled alongside his apprentice, Dogfur was not paying much attention to what the other patrol members were gathering around. Instead, his sunken yellow eyes sought out the shadows among the pine trees, ragged ears pricked for an invisible sound. His call back to reality was his uncanny sense for knowing when his apprentice was angry with him, and he turned his head back to the grey and white cat with a dumb look on his face.

Plant with freshkill in it? Dogfur's nose crinkled at the sweet-smelling plant and suddenly gasped. "No!" He shouted, squirming and wiggling through the rest of the patrol to stand on guard in front of the sickly-sweet plant with rotting bugs and carrion in it. Dogfur glared at Roosterstrut, mottled fur bristling in defense of the plant. "It's a freak of nature. Leave it! Leave it!. I want it to live. Ferndance," He turned to his friend, the one with the highest authority on the patrol. "Don't let them ki-ill it."

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[FERNDANCE]

With everyone gathered around the curious little discovery, the cinnamon-ticked tabby raised her head away from its find to assess the opinions of those around her. Loampaw wished to call it a midgepool, Silkbreath was mocking the rotting thing, then.... the patrol member's voices became more assertive. They wished not to observe but instead to kill, a way of eliminating competition that the clan didn't even know they had. It seemed that the final verdict fell onto her, the life of such a little creature in her paws once more. Little creases formed on her face as she tried not to grimace, Lead Warrior or no, why was it up to her to decide what her clanmates were doing? Granitepaw was practically a grown-up and Roosterstrut was one, but still they waited for her approval (technically Dogfur's in Granite's case). Before a verdict was decided, she heard Flytrapjaw interject with a proper name - pitcher. Ferndance preferred Midgepool. Still, she listened, eyes wide in fascination.

"A good hiding place..." Her tilted cranium seemed lighter as ideas began to brew in her brain about what to do with such a revelation. As she opened her mouth to speak once more, Dogfur cried out, the Lead Warrior whipping around with bristled fur to whatever had disturbed her friend. Unsheathed claws were ready to tear at whatever had startled him... until she caught him staring at Roosterstrut as if the other had stepped on his tail. The truth was revealed quickly and her agouti hairs flattened against her spine once more, her bicoloured claws retreated when she knew they wouldn't be needed. She glanced towards Roosterstrut, wide eyes trying to convey a message she had no clue how to convey: please just go along with it. Her twitching tail tip didn't know which direction to point either. For a creature that prided herself on subterfuge, she found it difficult to use it to navigate difficulties between friends. "Alright, you all heard Dogfur. We do not kill it, alright? It is bad form to kill a new friend." Her voice did not speak of strong authority, but there was still one that lingered behind her soft-spoken tone. "Perhaps it is worth marking its location though. If frogs are attracted to these things, it wouldn't hurt to check them. Perhaps we can scoop out frogs before they get turned into slush, I'm sure our little Midgepool-Pitcher-Freak-of-Nature wouldn't mind. Look how many bugs it's got already."

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