Rivers & Roads [Elmbreeze]

[Echolight]

Seeing Elmbreeze at the gathering had been… frankly, without the rose-tinted enchantment of him alone- awkward. She had been a polar opposite of the version he had first met, albeit she had been defensive at first, that had melted away quickly.
Echolight liked him, she knew she did, and the fear of it spiraling into something more than a puppy crush was overwhelming. The night she had gone back home after finding Cinderfrost at the Four Tree’s instead of him, the calico had been a little relieved. He was too new, too shiny, too handsome, and miss level-headed couldn’t let herself get carried away, especially not in the presence of everyone else.
So, what was she doing here, shrugged against one of the oaks, waiting for him? Perhaps to make up for her rigid behavior at the gathering, to tell him their friendship couldn’t continue?
The faint taste of copper is what brings her away from her thoughts, she hadn’t even realized she was chewing the inside of her cheek.
Something rustles behind her, and with one quick glance over her shoulder she instantly recognizes the pelt of Elmbreeze.
Suddenly, her anxiety is thrown to the wind, and she turns to face him. "I wasn’t sure if you’d actually make it" she commented, but her tone was warm. She takes a small step towards him, but leaves it at that.

@ELMBREEZE
"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

When Echolight had suggested meeting up again, Elmbreeze had practically jumped at the idea. It had been good to see her at the gathering but with so many prying eyes they hadn't been able to relax and talk as they had before. So the offer of meeting up again privately was something he could not refuse.

It had taken him a little longer to sneak out of camp than it normally would have but soon he was on his way, heading towards the spot where they first met. She detects him first, having unintentionally given himself away by his rustling. He laughs at her words, instantly put at ease by her gentle teasing. "I almost didn't get away, to be honest," He admits. "But I didn't want to keep you waiting. How have you been since the gathering?" ​

 

[Echolight]

But I didn’t want to keep you waiting.
Those words cause a surprising flutter in Echolight’s chest, they shouldn’t really, it was just courtesy after all- to not leave a cat waiting in the middle of the night.
She pushes the thought away, taking a seat in front of Elmbreeze, and letting her shoulders relax themselves, there was no point in stressing herself out when there was perfectly good company only a rabbit length away. She flicks her ear at the others question, how had she been? Her mind flickers to blood thirsty hawks, Rosepaw, Honeytwist.
"I’ve been alright, my apprentice is likely to become a warrior soon.” She replies, bitterness flickering in her gaze for only a brief moment at her last words. She didn’t appreciate Sootstar’s proclamation that apprentices were ready to become warriors at the mere age of nine moons, they were still children, and it was still wrong.
Catching herself in a lull of silence, she quickly corrects herself, waving her tail as if she were waving the thought away. "How have you been since I saw you last? I want to hear about all of your adventures!" Her prompt was brought with a little more glow in her tone, genuine interest bringing a glimmer to her pale gaze.
"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

Elmbreeze did not know Echolight had an apprentice. He almost envies her for having that honour, never having been assigned one himself. Though given what he was like, Elmbreeze reflects that wasn't necessarily a terrible idea. As much as teaching an apprentice filled him with interest, he didn't think he would be well suited to teaching and fretted about passing on the worst of his traits to any future apprentice. "Are you excited?" He asks. "For them to become a warrior I mean?" He imagines there must be some nervousness for her too, he knows he would be if the situation was reversed. That lingering question of whether you had done your job and your apprentice was ready to go off a be a full warrior to the clan.

At her following question, he laughs. "Alas, my life hasn't been so interesting since we last spoke," Elmbreeze confessed, feeling bad that he had no interesting stories to share at that moment. "I caught a really large fish recently though! Which, I admit, doesn't sound exciting but you should have seen how hard it was to get it back on shore!"[/font]​

 

[Echolight]

When Elmbreeze asks if she is excited for Leechpaw, she pauses to bite the inside of her cheek, happily listening on to the others own response to her prompts.
A small smile stretches across her maw at his story- personally Echolight had never tried fish, her diet accustomed to rabbits and the birds that sometimes hopped along the moor.
"It’s complicated…" she finally sighs after having a moment to simmer on her thoughts,
"Sootstar has begun making apprentices into warriors at only nine moons, a selfish part of me hopes that Leechpaw isn’t ready for it- to be considered a fully capable adult, but another knows how proud I will be of him, very contradicting but I’m not too sure what to think" she explains a little more, adding a low and bittersweet laugh.
She moves to her paws after a moment though, not wanting to spoil the opportunity of seeing her friend again with her own troubles. They weren’t on the moor tonight.
"You should teach me how to fish" she prompts, gesturing towards the river that lay only a small walk away. "I’ve never tried fish before" she then admitted, hoping her lack of fish-tasting would persuade him to teach her.
"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

He nods sympathetically as she explains the situation to him and her own feelings on the matter. He expects that all clans would be enacting similar early promotions to warriors for their apprentices but he can see where Echolight was coming from. True, he knew a little of how to hunt and defend himself at that age, but he was not proficient at those skills for some time after. It was different for the apprentices of the clans, he knew, but he also found himself questioning how wise it was to name cats less than a year old as warrior.

"You want to learn how to fish?" He echoes. Elmbreeze is genuinely surprised by the suggestion, mostly because the other clans turn their noses up at eating fish and a lot of RiverClan's other "unique" behaviours. Elmbreeze considers her suggestion for a moment before nodding. "Alright, I'll teach you," Elmbreeze replied. With a tilt of the head, he gestures for her to follow him closer to the water. Elmbreeze tells her to wait and watch before he moves to the riverbank and sits down, watching the water. He's never really tried fishing at this time of day before so he's not feeling optimistic about his chances. Still, when he spots a shadow of a fish close to the surface, he plunges a paw into the water with precision, hoping to hook it up on the bank. Unfortunately, Elmbreeze misjudged his timing, so instead of getting it on to the bank it flops back into the water and swims away before he even has the chance to hastily try again. "Fox dung..." He mutters under his breath. Elmbreeze turns to Echolight with a sheepish expression on his face which quickly gives way for a burst of laughter. "Well, that's the sort of technique you want to use," He explained. "But you need to make sure you actually get it out of the water and not do what I just did. Did you want to try?"​

 

[Echolight]

The small smile that had been contently displayed now grew into an eager grin at Elmbreeze’s agreement.
She follows him, ready to listen to his every word- sure the premise of fishing wasn’t that exciting, or not so much so that it called for the glow in Echolight’s demeanor, but being able to sit beside Elmbreeze and relax for just a moment? That made her beam.
When they get close to the riverbank, the pastel calico happily obliges to Elmbreezes instructions and happily sits, lightly leaning forward to get a better look at his technique, subtly turning her head so her single eye has a full view. She watches with interest as the warrior follows trained movements, the deliberate plunge while still maintaining speed reminding her of Windclans own hunting techniques, running behind a wild rabbit- delivering the lunge without breaking your jaw from its flailing hind legs.
He misses, and there is a small bit of silence. How a cat reacts to failure is telling, and Echolight is careful to watch.
Melodic laughter bursts from Elmbreeze, and Echolight finds herself laughing along. His laugh was nice.
Finally, the spindly warrior joins his side, nodding softly along with his next set of instructions.
"Okay, but if I fall in you have to promise to catch me." She teases softly, her voice low as to not disturb the fish.
She sheepishly positions herself, keeping her eye on the rivers surface while trying to ignore the fact that her long pelt was brushing against his sleek.
You’re being childish. Juvenile. Get it together.
She opts for the forepaw with the least burnt away nerves, raising it ever so slightly.
It is a pawful of moments before the shadow beneath the water catches her attention. She follows Elmbreeze’s demonstration- though far more sloppier than his- her paw breaks through the surface, a gasp of surprise leaving her maw as a paw hooks around what feels like slippery scales.
She pulls up, but the weight of the fish catches her off guard, and Echolight is only able to bring the fish about an inch above the water before she fumbles, and the fish is gone.
Despite her failure, she is giggling, "I felt it! Wow… it was so… slimy?" She laughs, shaking a wet forepaw over the river. "I don’t know how you do that all the time… but that was awesome!" She feels almost juvenile in her awe, but her radiant expression doesn’t betray that as she turns to look at Elmbreeze.
"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

"Of course I'll catch you!" He chuckles in response to her comment about him saving her if she fell in. Elmbreeze ducked his head away briefly after saying that, feeling suddenly very warm under his pelt. When he looked back, Echolight was about to try her hand at catching a fish. He watches her carefully, noting that he hadn't done that bad of a job teaching her, and is impressed by her lack of hesitation.

Elmbreeze is only further impressed when she manages to get a fish out of the water, but ultimately fumbled and lost it to the river as he had. "Yeah, they do tend to be quite slimy being in the water all the time," The tom quips, bumping her shoulder playfully. "You did great for your first time, Echolight! I must admit I half expected you might fall in."​

 

[Echolight]

The soft shove that brushes against her shoulder is unexpected but welcomed, the laughter has faded but is still evident in her smile. "Thank you for this-" she blurts out, unable to catch the thought she would have rather kept to herself. Nonetheless, it was said, a soft but awkward chuckle leaves her maw then. "I just mean, I like spending time with you" she continued, eye casting back towards the river, she glides a paw against the current. "Where did you come from? You know… before all the clans started?" She then prompted, both keen to know more about her new friend, and to distract the conversation from her previous outburst. Still, she keeps her eye steady on the river in the slight hopes another fish would swim their way, despite her failure before- she truly did want to try that fish, perhaps her pelt would shine the way Elmbreeze's did.
She laughs silently to herself at the thought as she awaited the toms answer to her question.

"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

He smiles softly when she thanks him for the quiet time spent together. "Think nothing of it," Elmbreeze assured her. "I like spending time with you too." He looks at his paws a moment before continuing. "I've always liked to get out of camp a lot but it's always been by myself. It's nice knowing I have someone to share some of that time with." Even if said someone was a pretty she-cat from another clan.

"I was born beyond this forest," He began, lifting his head to look at some point on the other side of the river. "My parents were escaped kittypets and lived in a forest with a small rogue colony where I was born. I don't have many memories of that time or place though as my parents liked to move around a lot and as soon as I was old enough we left that group. We wandered for several moons before eventually coming here. When we first arrived, we kept to ourselves, but we eventually joined with Rain's group in the pine forest. My parents had grown tired of being alone." They were also growing old, Elmbreeze added silently. Practically a year of constant travel and some close-fought battles had worn down their spirits, and they just wished for peace and somewhere with a community of cats again. "After the Great Battle, we all joined RiverClan. My mother is a warrior there and so was my father for a time, but the injuries he sustained in the fighting were too taxing for him so he retired to the elder's den."

After sharing his tale, his green eyes flickered towards Echolight again. "Have you always lived in these lands, Echolight?"​

 

[Echolight]

A single eye was glued to the warrior beside her as he spoke, his story had been almost a complete mystery before, so Echolight found herself hanging onto his every word.
She nods along, but her movements are subtle and careful not to distract from his story telling. By the time a question is reflected back towards her, the lilac and ivory warrior has twenty more questions ready to spill.
Instead, however, she only nods at first. "My family and I lived in an old Badger set up for almost as long as I can remember, we were aware of two large groups in the forests but… they were kind of just background noise to us" she recalls fondly, "I’ve done my share of exploring, of course, but the moors have always been home" she adds, not an important piece of information, but she felt she should share more after Elmbreeze’s life story.
"Speech."
​

[ WHAT A TIME ]​

 

[ELMBREEZE]

Like Echolight listened to his tale, he too listens with rapt attention as she delivers her story. He shared that same recollection of the two groups that initially inhabited these lands. Although both their families had eventually joined the clans, Elmbreeze could agree that when he and his family arrived the warring groups had more or less been background noise to them too. "Perhaps one of your family members should have lead WindClan," Elmbreeze muses, taking a risk at slating the WindClan leader in front of her. Although he has no personal quarry with the queen of the moors, her reputation is well known among his clan, and he has heard plenty of her attitude to want to steer clear from her. "Was there anywhere you explored you really liked?" He asked, genuinely curious. "I've never travelled that far myself but I have always wanted to see what lies within the mountains and beyond. Are there more groups like us? Or perhaps stranger groups that wander those sheer cliffs?"​