Shades of green | INTRO

[Bella]

'Color has returned to the forest.' Peach notices and settles along the wooden fence. The early morning sun warmed the young cat's multicolored fur. Peach sighed, closing her eyes, and strained her ears to listen past the bird chirping and the trees rustling. Sitting and waiting in front of the border to the forest is what she finds herself doing most mornings. And if she's lucky, she'll see a cat or two enter or exit the green shore of trees.
These forest cats are a constant topic among the cats who live close by. Calling themselves Daylighters, cats return to the forest when the sun rises and come back home to their nests in the two-legs home at night. 'What are they doing in there?' Peach has thought about that same question just about every day lately.
Nothing really pushed her to jump down from the fence and walk past the border into the thick trees. Only to find more trees, looking around as she walked around and found more trees. 'Huh, no cats'. After walking farther in, Peach started to become worried 'no cats at all.' The fear went right down to her paws until she couldn't take another step. "Hello?" Peach called into the woods. Suddenly, everything seemed much louder than she could remember, and she shrank into herself. "I know there are cats in here," she meowed once again into the vast trees.

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[SILVERSMOKE]

"Then you should know better than to trespass on land that isn't yours," the seething voice of the tom came from the evergreens, pushing down thin branches with broad paws to glare at the young cat below. His tongue swiped at the remnants of yolk clinging to the corner of his muzzle and Silversmoke was silently grateful that Peach had announced herself before he'd let a trespasser go unnoticed for the sake of an easy meal. Odd eyes squinted down at the other, his ability to find a scent marred by distance and the odour of pine needles so close to his nose. Even as several fox lengths separated them, the tom couldn't help but notice how... small the other was. It was an easy deduction to make as one of the largest members of the clan (only overshadowed by the purebred maine coons), but youth seemed to direct the other's height more than anything else. The taciturn frown of the Lead Warrior didn't soften at the realisation, instead, pinned-back ears slowly began to rotate toward the sky. "SkyClan doesn't take kindly to intruders. You have one chance to explain yourself: why are you here?" Unsheathed claws gripped the bark beneath.

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[Orangestar]

"This is why we make sure our borders are marked." Orangestar remarks quietly to Springpaw as they weave through the trees, visible to this stranger from a fair distance for having been on the ground today. The leader isn't quite confident in her apprentice's ability to tree-hop just yet, but with some luck they'll be able to do so in the next moon or two. A curious kittypet isn't uncommon this close to the Twolegplace border, nor is Silversmoke's acrid hiss, but an insult to this housecat stranger hasn't left his maw.

SkyClan's leader doesn't say a word to this young calico stranger, quietly waiting for a response to Silversmoke's challenge, but she does move into the kittypet's peripheral so that the yet-to-be-introduced Peach could see another SkyClanner standing there.

ooc ✧ 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦

• // @Springpaw
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  ORANGESTAR ✧ she/her, leader of skyclan | nine lives
  " a scarred white-and-ginger she-cat with brown eyes."
  
  — single ; mentoring springpaw
  — speech is in #E3B2A9
  — tags | art by pin
  

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[Bella]

Peach head slowly turns over to the large tabby Tom ahead of her, but she didn't dare move. Not only did he triple her height, but the unknown cat seemed very upset. 'Trustpassing,, Intruder?' Granted, she had never entered the forest previously, but there were not any two-leg dens nearby, at least any that she could see. She listened to the other cat to the best of her abilities, but was unfortunately confused by his warning, "Skyclan" she mimicked.

A word that sounded so familiar yet nothing came to mind. Maybe that's the name of his two legs; other cats have called them weirder things. The young cat decided maybe she's still too far away from where the daylighters played. She let his hissing roll around in her mind before deciding that walking into another cat's den is rude, even if they didn't have a fence.

"Sorry, I didn't see your den. I guess your two legs aren't fond of other cats," she her attempt at lightening the mood looked to have no impact. Not breaking eye contact, Peach rose onto her white paws. "I just wanted to see where the 'daylighters' go all day," she reveals after a pause. The last thing she wanted was a fight her smaller self would lose. She was completely unaware that she was being watched from the trees above, too preoccupied with the situation down below.
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[SILVERSMOKE]

Tufted ears flicked back, as if struck by the others paw. The bark beneath his paws began to chip as he sunk his claws in deeper. "I'm no kittypet," he sneered, insulted by the very idea. His loyalty was SkyClan's until a final breathe left his lungs, the rippling bristle of his fur was no coincidence as the stranger suggested otherwise. He knew his promise to his leader, an oath sworn in secret in the den, and though his lips curled, he didn't explain how he was so different from the thing that Peachpaw thought he was. In the silence, the other explained themselves, blinking at the word 'Daylighters' before the tip of his tail twitched in understanding. 'Johnnyflame... if this is another one of your friends...' Silversmoke exhaled through his nose; it could've been any manner of Daylight Warrior that tipped off Peachpaw to their activities in the forest, but only one of them was worth following. Silversmoke disappeared back into the pine tree's foliage and scrambled down the side of it, his loud and rather ungraceful descent only blocked from view by the tangle of branches that shielded his grey pelt from view. Silversmoke landed with four paws on the earth below, prowling closer to Peach.

"They live with the wildcats in their camp at day and run back to their Twoleg dens at night." A paw in two worlds, was it so wrong to believe that many of them did not have a gait weighted towards SkyClan? In the corner of his eye, he spotted Orangestar and her apprentice, making eye-contact in acknowledgement. "They hunt with us and train with us, they go everywhere on our land, but you're not going to see any more of it, outsider." A trespasser that thought he was a kittypet would not get the red carpet treatment, then again, the spotted tabby had a habit of finding issues with any who did not pledge their devotion to the same clan as he did. "You're too young to be wandering out in the forest alone, I can take you to the borders but after that, you will find your own way home." Another glance to Orangestar, this time, his eye contact came with a question: 'Is this one to be told more about SkyClan?' It could satiate curiosity, but, there was a delicate balance between honesty and stupidity - there was no saying if the information shared with Peach would stay with Peach alone or go to someone more unsavoury. He hadn't decided, and wouldn't decide, until the one he'd promised to defer kittypet matters to had decided for him.

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