pafp POUR THIS PESTILENCE INTO HIS EAR \ hunting jokes

[NETTLEPAW ♡]

Nettlepaw found hunting fairly easy. It was a fact he held close to his chest, for he didn't want to be looked at like he was bragging, or like he thought he was better than everyone else. No-one liked a cat who went on and on about how capable they were, anyway. A couple moons into his apprenticeship, and Nettlepaw had largely stopped trying to improve- he held himself at the level he had reached quickly and, not wanting to be seen as someone who thought he was better- as a show off, as anything other than nice and fun, he'd found it was much more appealing simply to try and make other apprentices feel better. Whether it was joking with them, or downplaying, or simply being there and being fun.

What was the point of being good at anything, anyway, if no one liked him? It was better to be liked and useless than to be useful and despised.

He and Ashenpaw were on a hunting patrol together, today- Nettlepaw had done a considerable amount of hunting, enough that he had one frog, and had mentally checked out for the trip. It was beginning to drag, now, wasn't it...? Surely Ashenpaw felt similarly...

Looking to the other tom, he flashed a grin. "Have we done two laps around the territory or something? I swear it's been ages," he sighed through his catch.

\ @ASHENPAW ​

penned by pin ♡​

 

[ASHENFALL]

˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 Ashenpaw had a headache. The weak sunlight of the clouded near-leafbare sky was too bright above for his bleary, exhausted eyes. It was annoyingly difficult to sleep lately, how could he sleep soundly while his head was full of blood-matted fur and unseeing eyes? It was a shameful thing to admit, that a warrior-in-training had such a weak stomach for death, especially when he knew that the whole clan already knew him to be brittle and shaky in mental posture. He could hardly go to the medicine den for such a thing, he avoided that cursed den of vipers in every way he could. So, he could cope.

The symphony of croaking frogs and wind-rustled pine needles usually fell to the back of his senses, a not-unpleasant brown-noise hum of home. Today, though, every little noise scratched at his ears like fine, itching shards of glass. The freezing mud beneath his paws made him shiver and ache with every step and the gnaw of hunger only further reminded him of his failure to catch even one measly scrap of prey on this stars-awful time-crawling patrol. He wanted to go to sleep, but he would remind himself that even sleep wanted nothing to do with him. Whatever.

Nettlepaw was simply an unfortunate bystander to Ashenpaw's dark-scribbled mental state. He'd entertained the clownishness of the apprentice a few times previously, and he could usually appreciate the tom's ability to play verbal mossball with his own sarcastic quips. Ashenpaw would strain his ears and nose to catch any whiff of prey for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon when the figurative glass would shatter beside him in the form of a poorly-contrived attempt at conversation.

"Stop! St-stop talking," he snapped at Nettlepaw, a coiled spring releasing at last, "Can you not yap for more than two seconds? You're getting on my fucking nerves." The regret had not yet rolled into his chest, but the grating in his ears made his head hot, and his hissing at Nettlepaw did little to relieve the crawling feeling beneath his pelt.

FOLLOW THE TIDE ˚⊹₊‧ 𖦹 WITH THE MONSTERS ON YOUR SHOULDER

• OOC:
• 
• 
  — ashenkit . ashenpaw
  — ftm transmasc. he/him. 8mo apprentice of shadowclan
  — longhaired muted blue torbie with heterochromatic pale blue and amber eyes
  — smells like rainsoaked ferns and swamp milkweed
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — icon by nya fullbody by tropics sticker by saturnid
  — penned by eezy
  — currently in an era of grief and anger, approach with caution. all ic opinions!

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