private the knight // foxglare

[cottonsprig]

“Foxglare…!” Cottonsprig joins her friend by the sunwarmed pool, a rabbit hanging from her maw. It's been a while since she's properly hunted - with the fires and all that came both before and after, her paws were often better suited for preparing salves and cleaning wounds. And yet, as she raced down the moorlands with the red-and-white furred tom, it feels like second nature. The creature falls beneath skilled paws and she gives thanks to StarClan for its dying breath, all before presenting it to her friend.

“I'll catch another on the way back,” she says. Kits and queens should eat first, they both know - but as the sun sits square in the sky, Cottonsprig figures that they must've eaten by now. And if not, then she will make amends by bringing home double the amount they've consumed. Surely Foxglare would help her in that endeavor, too, should she ask nicely.

She sits down beside him, dangling her paws in the warm water. The rabbit is sat somewhere nearby, waiting for Foxglare to decide if he's hungry enough to break the code. (Not that Cottonsprig would tell, truly.) “I almost wish this was cooler, y'know,” she murmurs, her tone almost bitter at the edges. “But when Leafbare comes around, we'll each be grateful for the heat, huh?”

@FOXGLARE ​

 

[FOXGLARE]

⁀➷ The greenleaf sun beats relentlessly upon Foxglare's back, and with his paws brushing the warm water of the aptly-named pool, he supposes it's a small miracle that it hadn't dried all the way up with the fires and relentless shine of the sun. It was nice, though, knowing that it withstood the elements all on its own.

Cottonsprig would be greeted with a raised eyebrow and a twitch of his whiskers, accepting her place by his side with their familiar unspoken ease, "I'll hold ya to that, then." He recounted the state of that day's dawn patrol, not quite so meager as the day's before, recalling seeing some kittens eating the morning's catch. Yes, he agrees, they must have eaten by now. Perhaps he would skip a meal tomorrow anyway, to be sure the freshkill pile evened out. A pair of swallows flit above them, and he makes the all too simple decision to indulge her offer, taking the first bite of rabbit and leaving it to share between the two of them. "Clean kill, you're keepin' your claws sharp," he observed. If anyone came upon them, he'd have to steal her valor, unfortunately—he'd claim the rule break was his idea. Though, that may not have mattered.

He hums affirmatively when she speaks, "Yeah, you'll have to remind me 'bout it then. We didn't have much time to enjoy it last leafbare..." Foxglare is reminded of the worst of leafbare before any of the pleasant moments. This leafbare had to be better, he decided. There wasn't much that could happen to make it much worse, of course, so it was a low bar to set... But still. Hope was such a fleeting little bird, he would indulge in it when it did come to roost.

"By then, we'll be missin' the sun, and the heat," He said, almost ruefully. They'd forget all about the burning heat beneath thick fur, lost beneath the haze of pink nostalgia, "But that's how it goes.

WE CAME FROM DIRT ⁀➷☾⁺₊ WE HAVE TO SWALLOW IT.

• OOC:
• 
• 
  
  — meztli . sun . fox . foxpaw . foxglare
  — he/him. 20mo moor-runner of windclan. Mentored by shalestripe. formerly mentored sunlitpaw.
  — a scarred, hulking white and golden tabby tom with gray eyes
  — taciturn, vigilant, reserved, self-righteous, restrained, independent, humanitarian, unyielding
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by eezy

​

 

[cottonsprig]

"In this Clan, you can't afford to let them dull," she responds with a slight giggle, although her words are more dire and upsetting than her tone leads them to be. With how often they are targeted, by Clans and rogues alike, Cottonsprig cannot even think to let her skills wither. Even minor ones such as hunting can lend to great success on the battlefield. She thinks still, briefly, of how her awareness is somehow stunted and how Junco had to save her from a dire end at the cost of her eye. An ear twitches, "I have room to grow, still," she says after a short moment.

Now is a nice time, however. She need not immediately worry over the past or the patients within their camp. Cottonsprig keeps her weight gently on the tom's side, taking a bite from their shared meal once he did. Breaking the code is a serious offense, surely, but the she-cat felt if they brought double their catches back home... it'd make no real difference. She listens as Foxglare reminisces (if one could call it that) about the leafbare prior. So much had gone on, continuing into newleaf and now greenleaf... Cottonsprig cannot blame him for not remembering it all fondly.

"When the snow falls again," she starts, nudging the kill back towards him, "We can have a long, unbearable conversation about how the weather now is at least tolerable. The clouds will hide the sun and the moors will look more white than..." green, she wants to say. Some sprouts are showing now, but even then the landscape is predominantly of browns and blacks. "Than this... Maybe it'll be prettier, then," she suggests, resting her tail alongside her body.​