the eagle in sunshine — joining, sorta

[IKAROS]

❝ INFO ❞ So this is where his thief fled to. He'd had his suspicions she was with a clan when her tracks led him away from the upwalker dens and into the forest, but there'd been a chance she was a loner. Or a very smart thief trying to throw him off. That could still be true, but he has enough dignity to hope he hasn't been outwitted by a child— though not with as much confidence as he'd like. Ikaros has met one or two crafty, impish little creatures who may or may not have ran circles around him and his meters-wide tender spot for the vulnerable and helpless. Those are stomach-twisting, embarrassing memories that keep him humble after the sun's led down the horizon.

For his own sake and his pride's, may he find that thief here after all.

He could, in theory, cross through without announcing himself to the local clan cats. He could also, in theory, completely lose his opportunity to find his thief after taking a few thrashings. Ikaros has gambled with his safety before, time and time again, but to avoid completely fucking his shot at recovering sentimental property,, he'll try this the diplomatic way for once.

Too restless to sit, he stands, shifting his weight and watching the branches above teeming with birds. He doesn't envy them their beady little eyes, but their music has always comforted him. They sang to a young Ikaros more than his mother was able, and unbidden, a hum rumbles deep in his chest as he waits.

//he's here looking for @sparrowpaw but there's no need to wait before posting!

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[ThistleBack]

Behind the mocha and cream half-tail was the thorny tom, eyes grey and narrowed upon the ground as he gnashed his teeth. his muscles shoulders thrusting the undergrowth the the side as he sidles up to Deersong as she greets a stranger as he paced on the border.

Thistleback’s sights set on the man at the tether of worlds, he seemed tense, and impatient this was buisness. Though the piebald knew not what, this cat wasn’t here for no reason. That itself translated in his body language as he studies the brids above and their natural ruckus.

" what’s got your nose to the air, lad?- exposing your throat is quite dangerous in these woods " he chuckles and follows the other’s eyes to the branches above. His body is placed near Deersong but barely brushing her fur- a closeness that made his own skin twinge in discomfort.
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[sparrowpaw]

❝  To her credit, as much as anything could be, Sparrowpaw had not meant to take something sentimental. It should have been what meant nothing to him. The challenge had been to take it, that was all! If she did that, everyone would come out of this fine. Him following her had not been part of the plan. As soon as she sees him, tagged along at the end of this patrol, her sheepish, guilty heart leaps up into her throat. There was no mistaking him. He is as tall as he had been when she first saw him heading to the place he had called home. The same darkness to his pelt and the bright glimmer of his eyes, even though they are turned so far towards the sky that she cannot see all of them. She is not afraid, but....that does not keep her from hiding behind Thistleback, peeking out from behind the spiky warrior to stare.

It does not seem as if he is here to be angry. There is too much patience to his shoulders. Would he rat her out to the warriors? Would she be in trouble, even if he did? If they were to shun her– she does not know what she would do. Better that than draw the wrong attention to her adventures past SkyClan's territory, or to the clan itself, however. Better to be angry at her than ask how she had gotten into this situation at all. "You're not really supposed to be here, are you?" she tries.

†  ooc notes information †

• 
  ooc: —
• ──── sparrowpaw, sparrow-?.  cis female,  she - her pronouns.
  ──── an apprentice of skyclan. former stray  &  a bit of a thief.
  ──── a fluffy brown tabby with high white and dull olive eyes.
• "speech"

​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Deersong and Thistleback find him first, a pensive-looking, quiet dark brown tabby who hums softly to himself and stares wistfully at the birds in the pine trees. He stands, shuffling his paws as though he's eager to continue some unknown journey. Blazestar, like his Clanmates, regards him with no animosity. The Ragdoll only gazes at him for a moment before his blue gaze shifts curiously to Sparrowpaw.

The young she-cat asks, in a voice dripping with innocence, if he's supposed to be there. He looks at Sparrowpaw and asks, "Do you know this cat, then?"

He lifts his gaze to the unknown loner and smiles. "As you may have figured out, we are SkyClan. I'm the leader, Blazestar. Something we can help you with?" It's still not in his heart to act territorial or possessive of the pine forest. After all, he was not born in these woods, any more than the newcomer has been.
​

PENNED BY MARQUETTE​

 

[IKAROS]

❝ INFO ❞ He smells the first clan cat before anything else. It's a little overwhelmingly cloying to his sensitive nose, and he fights back a tremendous sneeze at the cost of an absurd expression, eyes squinted and mouth briefly parted. Ikaros doesn't mind floral scents; he's fond of upwalker gardens and the brightly-petaled buds in them, but they're not always kind to his sinuses. At least he hasn't sneezed in her face as he has flowers. Those poor, poor flowers.

She's not alone, accompanied by a little entourage of other clan cats in various shapes and colors. At first, he doesn't immediately notice his thief or answer the question, distracted momentarily by what he could interpret as a threat. He's slightly smaller than Ikaros beneath all that sawtooth fur. If he fell into a river —fell or pushed, whichever— it wouldn't do him any favors. Might make Ikaros laugh, though— and he does now, a rumble rolling in like a distant storm over the mountains. "I can show you what I do to people who get too close to my throat," he offers, and that might sound like a warning, but the curl of his mouth is sly and he deliberately tips his chin up to look down his nose at Thistleback, not condescending but arch.

And then he's promptly ducking his head and clearing his throat heavily the moment he notices the small, familiar face hiding behind the clan cat. Not in front of the children, Ikaros. Plural or singular. "I can't make new friends?" Ikaros asks, quoting the slender-limbed feline. "Besides, if you want to talk about things we are or aren't supposed to be doing, you..." He trails off, his gaze sliding over to the blue-eyed cat who introduces himself as Blazestar. The leader. Important, obviously, and Ikaros knows as much about clans as birds do chewing, but something tells him Blazestar wouldn't be too enthused if he knew she snuck off to steal from a loner like him. "...Are supposed to be keeping an eye on my keepsake, remember?" Ikaros finishes, tilting his head expectantly.

Surely she'll get the hint and play along. If not, she has even less of a survival instinct than he thought. It occurs to him that it might be a better lesson to reveal the truth and deter her from theft, especially because she's lucky she didn't steal from a cruel cat. And yet, while much of Ikaros has been shaped and tempered by bruising lessons and tender aches, he would spare her that pain if he could.

Blazestar speaks again, reminding Ikaros he'd neglected to answer the question the she-cat had asked. "Well, I'd asked the little one"—fuck, I don't know her name—"to hold onto an heirloom for me while I took care of some loose ends before coming here to...learn the ways of your clan." Very convincing.

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[ThistleBack]

His neutral face was dimpled with studious contemplation until the stranger responds to his vague threat to none-other than an obscured threat of his own. Good man, like a well-placed chess piece of an opponent, Thistleback’s slender tail flicks and his lips play as a smile. Intriguing him further with the daring tilt of his head.

" enticing" his eyes are slitted but he holds no malice in them- no, just pure interest and intrigue. Blazestar appears with diplomacies in tow- to which Thistleback would stare toward the leader silently. Only stirred from his trace-like state of dormancy by the unnamed tom’s words toward Sparrowpaw.

Looking between Sparrowpaw and the stranger- incoherent hints drawn into words, Thistleback feels his lips crinkle and he turns his muzzle to Deersong. " whatever is happening right now- is weird… even for me" he jokes as the border-stepper addresses the Skyclan leader with reasons.

" trusting a child with something important? " he muses with a furrow of brows and comically quizzical smile. " you can’t trust them to clean all the snot off their muzzle let alone-… are you thick in the head? " he hums in his eloquent accent. So this guy wants to join? Oh yes, Thistleback’s eyes turn onto Blazestar with wonder and intrigue.
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[sparrowpaw]

❝  Oops. Perhaps it had come across too familiar, her wariness of this stranger. That is an odd thing about this place– she had not grown used to it, yet. They enjoy the company of strangers. Usually, when she had been on her own, they had tried to fight strangers. Blazestar is far more forgiving than she had expected anyone to be. And now it had come back to bite her tail. He would see that she is too familiar, and the newcomer would rat her out, and she would spend the next moon picking ticks from the elders or cleaning up after the birds that haunt SkyClan's forest. She is steeling herself for exactly this when he, instead....holds his tongue. The words stop flowing as he looks to the leader of SkyClan. It is a clumsy cover, though perhaps no more clumsy than her own had already been.

"You're staying?" Immediately she wants to protest, cold shock down her spine. She had only expected him to take it back, that silly little skull he seemed to hold so dearly. Is this what he had decided, rather than tell Blazestar of her mistakes? Punish her himself? At the very least, this stranger would constantly hold something over her. He knew too much. She says that as if she has done something terrible. Something more than taking an unattended skull from a loner, that is. As far as she knows, she has not done any such thing. But he seems insistent. Certain about staying. Great. Just great. She would have taken it out on him were it not for Thistle's untimely comment.

It draws a harsh, quick, "Hey!" from the apprentice, stepping out more fully from behind the offending tom. "What excuse do you have, then? For nobody trusting you with anything?" Then, under her breath yet distinctly audible, with a childish defiance: "Booger breath."

†  ooc notes information †

• 
  ooc: —
• ──── sparrowpaw, sparrow-?.  cis female,  she - her pronouns.
  ──── an apprentice of skyclan. former stray  &  a bit of a thief.
  ──── a fluffy brown tabby with high white and dull olive eyes.
• "speech"

​

 

[IKAROS]

❝ INFO ❞ It doesn't occur to him until the little thief's exclamation that she might be afraid of his coming here. He blinks at her, startled by the force of her very plain upset. Well, fuck. Of course she must be worried about his intentions to stay here; she must think that he has plans to punish her, and to do so in the very heart of her home— his stomach tightens at that. He would never harm a child. Never. Even the most conniving little shits have never had anything to fear from him save a stern talking-to, but she doesn't know that. All she sees is a large stranger she's stolen from, who's shown up on her doorstep and could very well befriend the people with the authority —and the power— to keep her safe.

So he understands her caution, and does not blame her for it as much as he does himself.

The bristle-pelted cat has a very low opinion of children. It offends the thief enough she stops hiding, indignant and offended, and Ikaros knows his eyes must be bright with mirth for how light his chest is suddenly. "I don't see any snot," he says, scrutinizing her small face and looking to Thistleback with a small shrug of muscled shoulders. "And I'm not soft in the head. Every good skull needs to be a little thick." He almost feels sorry for him, but he feels even more sorry for any children in the area if he's so openly dismissive of them.

His face tilts toward the slender feline's direction when she asks after the keepsake, and he hesitates, just for a moment. "I do treasure it," he says eventually. "It is a skull from my very first hunt with my parents." He glances fleetingly at the child before a distance finds his gaze as he sinks back into memory. It's a rude return to the present when he fails to recall the sound of their voices. "Mm? Oh, yes. You're probably right." He has no idea what she just said.
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[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar tilts his head as the stranger explains himself. He knows Sparrowpaw because he'd asked her to hold onto a keepsake for him. This sits oddly with him, and he gives the young apprentice a neutral look as she spits at Thistleback. He makes no move to separate the two of them, instead continuing to gaze at the mottled tabby and white she-cat. "Where is his skull, Sparrowpaw? Are you keeping it for him?"

He twitches his tail tip. The tabby does not present to him as threatening - even when a volatile cat like Thistleback is giving lazy threads with gruesome implications. He knows he wouldn't be opposed to having the loner join the Clan - far from it - but his curiosity about just what Sparrowpaw knows is almost unbearable.

Perhaps, though, he'll find out with time. Interrogating the young, especially the feisty young, isn't a past-time he's particularly skilled at.

He swings his broad head back to the center to gaze at the tabby. "Well, as you said yourself, Deersong is right. SkyClan could always use more warriors, and if you were interested in learning about Clan life anyway..." He gives a small nod. "We'd welcome you. Perhaps Sparrowpaw can show you how well she's been keeping your skull." He refrains from looking at the apprentice. "We can show you back to camp, if you're interested."
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PENNED BY MARQUETTE​