pants full of stones ↷ [ PATROL CHATTER ]

[smogstar]

It is a dense, long-drawn-out sigh that breaks the silence amongst them.

Cold muck cakes Smogmaw's paws as he plods along the territory's perimeter. Both the tom's head and tail sling low, and while it is often difficult to read his disposition through his expression alone, the ire in his eyes is undeniable. It is as though, no matter how much effort is put into trying to achieve otherwise, nothing can ever go their way. Hell, it's been a moon since the snow melted and yet the prey is still scarcer than ever. Every moment spent here feels to be two moments nearer death. Patrols seem pointless when there are bigger things to worry about.

"Not looking forward to the next gathering," he puts forward. A conversation-starter, some would say, but his drab tone betrayed the interest he was trying to feign. "ThunderClan... you already know they'll be mad at us. I hope Pitch lets 'em know that Emberstar broke her own code."

Perhaps shifting his focus away from the doubts and misgivings that gnawed at his brain would do him good. Maybe make his presence a little less offensive. Oh, but what does he know. ​

 

[FERNDANCE]

Everytime she was in Smogmaw's vicinity, he seemed to crave the sweet release of death. Ferndance was beginning to wonder if it was just around her, or if the older feline truly had nothing in his life to smile about. Large ears swiveled at his sigh, and after a few more moments of poking at a muddy burrow, she turned her angled cranium towards him. Her paws, muddy from her attempts to bury at loose earth in hopes of finding something, reclined towards her body and she stood to her full height, blinking slowly as the other explained himself. She hadn't attended the previous gathering, yet she'd heard tidbits of the drama that had come from it regarding the other clans. Smogmaw's prediction piqued her interest, and she moved closer to him, the earth squelching beneath her. "Well... let them be mad. We had our reasons, girl's gotta eat." She huffed, sticking her nose up at the prospect of sharing with an enemy. She wished she had been there to help the hunting process, camp had been awfully dull whilst everyone was fidgeting and waiting for them to return. Maybe next time, feeding the clan aside, she wanted to get some old-fashioned revenge for the injuries they'd inflicted on her clanmates.

She tilted her head in consideration of Emberstar's alleged codebreaking. Breaking codes did not bother the warrior, but despite having the enthusiasm of a wheezing frog, Smogmaw appeared a little perturbed by the law break in her eyes. "We should kill them all and eat them." She smiled widely, not considering the fact that if all the ThunderClanners were dead, then they could just take safe prey for themselves anyways. Innocently, she fluttered her eyes in the tabby's direction, her tail slowly wagging. "I'm not sure who 'all' is at this point, it is still a first draft. Maybe the gathering cats, maybe ThunderClan, maybe..." Emerald eyes briefly turned blank. "I forgot the third option." It probably wasn't important, maybe just the entirety of ShadowClan or the entirety of the Twolegplace strays. Figuring that Smogmaw had grown accustomed to her humour by now, she did not regale him with a promise that it was a joke and instead just let out a gentle chuckle when others began to stare at her. They had nothing to fear from the ticked tabby, attempting to kill everyone was far too impractical, and she had no reason to set her liberal claws on her beloved home.






​

 

[DOGFUR]

The tortoiseshell had only heard of the new code by word of mouth. For the average cat, getting information from secondary or tertiary sources could cause some details dropped or changed. In Dogfur's case—who knew what the story would be mangled into by the time he recounted it.

This was a lovely patrol. Dogfur was enjoying the silence for once, stopping to sniff at a flowering plant that struggled to break through the frozen ground. He batted at it. It would probably be dead in two days, he wondered. Noticing the patrol was gaining, he quickened his pace. Ears flicked forward, they listened to what Smogmaw and Ferndance had to say.

"Why's it matter so much to you anyway?" Dogfur turned their sunken gaze curiously to the blue and gray tom. The code was silly—to Dogfur at least, and it was newly born. He did not hold loyalties to individuals or groups either. Dogfur did not have an attachment to it. But he grinned and his shoulder bumped against Ferndance as he walked. "You will have to tell me how RiverClan tastes like when you come back." They purred. "I wonder if they taste like fish...!"

​

 

[SNOWMASK]

She is a quiet soul within this patrol. Merely here to learn the terrain and help where necessary. Their conversation for the most part eludes her given that the gathering is not something she has permission to go to yet. It's a far off dream right now and she isn't in much of a hurry to make it a reality. Especially when it comes to being around so many cats. So she is a lingering soul, sniffing here and there. Eyes of soft grey looking about this marsh. It is not an appealing place and with all the snow melt it is sludge more than anything. "And it reeks." She mutters to herself as she finally looks at the cats ahead of her. At least she can venture out with others so long as she has someone to watch her. With a frown on her muzzle she casually slips along the side of a tree, eyeing a hole in the ground.

A snake hole? Maybe. She neglects to say anything though as she stares at it. Her paws shifting to easily cover the hole with muck and dirt. If the snake is in there it will come out since the entrance is covered. So as the conversation continues about eating cats she simply ignores and waits.​

 

[smogstar]

Ferndance closes the much-appreciated gap between them, causing air to involuntarily expel from the tom's nostrils. He spares her a wayward glance, his streaked brow crooked askew as she provides her own commentary on what he had said. To a nominal extent, Smogmaw supposes he can find common ground with the ticked tabby's stance. Heeding the integrity of ThunderClan's borders was subservient to surviving another day in the long run. All the same, her commentary devolves into a tangent straightaway, running her maw off about mass murder and cannibalism among other things. Again, these are two ideas that the tabby can empathise with, but granted this is Ferndance he's listening to, he harboured a couple of misgivings about the soundness of her headspace.

He does not respond immediately. Instead, he skims over the other faces of those present. There's Dogfur, a nutter if there ever was one, and Melisandre, who still has yet to shed her twoleg-given name.

Earthen eyes dart in the tortoiseshell's direction when he speaks next. A sneer takes hold of his lips when the other tom implies that he cares about the code. "It matters 'cause they're all sanctimonious mouse-brains, Dogfur," spits Smogmaw. Black-and-brown dapples become the object of his ire. "They make rules, tell everyone to follow 'em, and then go ahead and break 'em. If that's not a problem, then I dunno what is."

Smogmaw's black-capped tail flicks out behind him, sweeping against dead strands of grass along the ground. He sighs, and his attention falls upon Ferndance once more. "We're right to take their extra prey," affirms the tabby. His expression lessens in severity now that his viewpoint has been defended. "I've seen 'em at the last gathering; got much more meat on their bones than any of us."

He then tilts his square head towards Meli and imparts a nod in her direction. "I'd love to see a RiverClan cat try to swim through our swamp." The conjured image of one getting stuck in a mud pit is satisfying to say the least.​