- Dec 25, 2022
- 132
- 24
- 18
TAGS — The scent of the modest rabbit between her teeth and the feeling of its flesh against her tongue has her mouth watering. She's tired and hungry in the aftermath of her hunt, smelling of the earth as she slips out of a tunnel close to camp with the rest of her patrol close behind. Eager as she is to just get home, her pale gaze wanders here and there, spurred by nerves that stubbornly persist even after she determines that no enemy patrols are traversing the moors — as far as she can see, of course. Thank StarClan their territory is so bare; she'd go nuts living in a dense forest, where danger could lurk behind every bush. Uneasy as she tends to be in the aftermath of the SkyClan raid (as if her anxiety is anything new), she can at least take some comfort in knowing how easy it'd be for any of her clanmates to spot trespassers and book it home in no time flat to alert everyone else.
A strange feeling tugs at them when they catch sight of the graveyard in the distance. It's a solemn place that they rarely visit; she can never stay for too long without starting to panic a bit, thinking too hard about all the bodies beneath the ground. Their suffering, their dying breaths. At least they're living peacefully in StarClan now, watching over everyone and guiding their paths. It must be nice, eternal life. No pain, no anxiety, no wars to tear anyone apart. Still, Icepaw's content where she is. She's never been good with change.
Only after a few moments does she realize she's stopped walking. With a lash of their tail they tear their gaze away and continue onward to camp, ducking through the heather tunnel and slipping quietly into the hollow, trying to ignore their racing thoughts. They're about to deposit their catch on the fresh-kill pile when their attention is once again stolen away, this time by the familiar form of Sootstar relatively close by. Her belly is swollen with kits to-be; Icepaw can't imagine how weird and uncomfortable that must feel. Sootstar seems content with it, though, and always has. Which makes sense, they suppose, considering this is her second litter. What will these kits be like? Firepaw and Snailpaw will definitely be warriors by the time they're old enough to start training — imagining either of them mentoring such prestigious kits is laughable. No way they'd get picked. It's weird to imagine anyone her age or close to it mentoring anyone, though, including the warriors. Cats her age had seemed so big and mature when Icepaw was young, but she and all the others feel like nothing more than oversized children now.
That's especially so as she approaches her leader with a timid air about her, almost slinking along, ignoring her empty belly in favor of feeding those who need and deserve it more. "Hi," she mumbles through her catch, and then feels her cheeks flush with self-consciousness at how dumb she definitely sounded. Hastily she places it in front of Sootstar like an offering, bearing an almost appeasing expression on her wide-eyed face. She knows the older molly has no problem with them (or at least, she has no reason to suspect it), and in fact is still riding the high of being smiled at by her and being allowed to nestle up alongside her, but Icepaw doesn't think she'll ever not be intimidated by such a powerful cat. "Uh- for you, if you're hungry..."
@SOOTSTAR
A strange feeling tugs at them when they catch sight of the graveyard in the distance. It's a solemn place that they rarely visit; she can never stay for too long without starting to panic a bit, thinking too hard about all the bodies beneath the ground. Their suffering, their dying breaths. At least they're living peacefully in StarClan now, watching over everyone and guiding their paths. It must be nice, eternal life. No pain, no anxiety, no wars to tear anyone apart. Still, Icepaw's content where she is. She's never been good with change.
Only after a few moments does she realize she's stopped walking. With a lash of their tail they tear their gaze away and continue onward to camp, ducking through the heather tunnel and slipping quietly into the hollow, trying to ignore their racing thoughts. They're about to deposit their catch on the fresh-kill pile when their attention is once again stolen away, this time by the familiar form of Sootstar relatively close by. Her belly is swollen with kits to-be; Icepaw can't imagine how weird and uncomfortable that must feel. Sootstar seems content with it, though, and always has. Which makes sense, they suppose, considering this is her second litter. What will these kits be like? Firepaw and Snailpaw will definitely be warriors by the time they're old enough to start training — imagining either of them mentoring such prestigious kits is laughable. No way they'd get picked. It's weird to imagine anyone her age or close to it mentoring anyone, though, including the warriors. Cats her age had seemed so big and mature when Icepaw was young, but she and all the others feel like nothing more than oversized children now.
That's especially so as she approaches her leader with a timid air about her, almost slinking along, ignoring her empty belly in favor of feeding those who need and deserve it more. "Hi," she mumbles through her catch, and then feels her cheeks flush with self-consciousness at how dumb she definitely sounded. Hastily she places it in front of Sootstar like an offering, bearing an almost appeasing expression on her wide-eyed face. She knows the older molly has no problem with them (or at least, she has no reason to suspect it), and in fact is still riding the high of being smiled at by her and being allowed to nestle up alongside her, but Icepaw doesn't think she'll ever not be intimidated by such a powerful cat. "Uh- for you, if you're hungry..."
@SOOTSTAR
