this body means nothing to me ༺♰༻ first catch

[gravepaw ★]

༺♰༻ They pull the carcass from the dim of the tunnels, breaths heaving. They had now seen what it was, blinded by dark. All that they had known was the soft sound of snuffling, the down of fur, and the sweet taste of blood on their teeth.

Its fur is white, pristine. Blood seeps from its neck, drips from their jaw. Blood speckles across their face, a light scratch on their cheek marking where the thing had tried to fight back. It was not an easy catch, but it was a catch nonetheless. Their first. "I caught it," Gravepaw whispers breathlessly. "I did it, I - look. A rabbit. It's a rabbit." A young one, a late-season baby just beginning to grow. Smaller than they are, but still. How many apprentices can say that their first catch was a rabbit? And so young, too. She must be a progidy. Perfect, talented. Everyone will congratulate her, and she smiles at the thought of it.

She heaves a shaky laugh, adrenaline thrumming htrough her veins. "Aren't I good at this? Wouldn't my -" She chokes. Her voice quiets. "...Wouldn't my mama be proud?" She doesn't care about her mentor. She doesn't care about her clan. The one cat she most wants approval from is gone. The taste of the kill sours in her mouth.

‎‎┌── MUSCLE TO MUSCLE AND TOE TO TOE ⋅❆⋅ THE FEAR HAS GRIPPED ME BUT HERE I GO ──┐‎

• 
  

• 

  
  
  "SPEECH"
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• 
  GRAVEPAW ♰ they / she, apprentice of windclan, six moons.
  ⭃ a tiny chimera of black and white fur with bulging pink eyes.
  ⭃ bratty and bitter beneath a sickly-sweet demeanor.
  ⭃ cygnetstare x gooseberry, littermate to shriekpaw, heronpaw, & milkweedpaw
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by SATURNID ↛ saturnids on discord, feel free to dm for plots.
  

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[COLDBITE]

By this time, Coldbite has grown used to small bodies popping out of tunnels at random, though it's more startling than ever among the stagnating, scorched landscape that semi - defines his world now. He's trudging along one of the well - worn pathways no longer quite so bordered by waving moor - grass, his own catch thumping a faux heartbeat against his broad chest, when Gravekit's sickly pink gaze peeks out of the dim, scrawny chimeric body following not long after. He starts ever - so - slightly; no matter how inured he is, reflexes are a finger to the pulse of survival, and sudden motion is quick to attract his darkened blue gaze.

" Nice catch, " he remarks gruffly, ever the stoic. He can't recall his own first catch . . . it had been moons upon moons ago, though, back when he was hunting in mud up to the elbows rather than grass, with two other monochrome scraps flanking him. Coldbite regards the memory with a purposeful distance, deems it unuseful at this time, and sets it deliberately aside. Dark eyes blink at the tender - looking young rabbit, just starting its growth, youthful enough that its fur isn't even singed; the truth is that it may have been more productive to let the rabbit live and fatten, but he refrains from wasting words on that. It's dead and ready to be eaten by a hungry queen or elder, and there's no taking that back.

A slow blink is the only indicator that Coldbite has even heard the young cat's shaky, choked - out question; he doesn't seem to quite grasp the magnitude of the question, how much it means to Gravepaw. He had not known Cygnetstare well; she was strange, a tunneler, the type he ( had thought he ) rarely brushed paths with, but any parent would be proud of a child's first catch. His third word of the conversation, quite possibly third of the day, is a logically drawn affirmative. " Yes. "

OOC : STOP HURTING ME LIKE THIS /lh

❆

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[ROWANPAW]

〔✦〕Rowanpaw hadn't yet the pleasure and honor of securing her teeth around WindClan's perhaps best-known prey item. Only a couple of small burrowing mice, dirty and covered with muck, had met their end under her claws. While Rowanpaw had managed to muster up a bit of pride at those small accomplishments, they only were subjected to invading feelings of mediocrity when their fellow tunneler apprentice announced that they'd caught a rabbit. The chimera exits the maw of the tunnel shortly after Gravepaw, jaws empty and belly hungry and short pelt dusted with soil. They stifle a cough as their airways take in the fresh moorland air, heterochromatic eyes peering toward the beaming apprentice.

"...Wouldn't my mama be proud?" Probably. Why wouldn't she? The topic of mothers was a strange one for Rowanpaw, as they had never truly had one. Gorsepetal had nursed them and kept their bum clean, and that was about it. Their real mother was presumably watching them from StarClan. Would she be proud of them?

Coldbite is there, too, presumably on a hunt or solo mission of sorts. He offers his ever-so-brief share of words, and Rowanpaw supposes that a congratulation is also in order from them. "Congratulations." Their voice, although not necessarily uncaring, lacks the enthusiasm that perhaps Gravepaw is seeking from her peers.

let me walk to the top ( of the big night sky ) //

• ooc.
  
• ROWANPAW —— apprentice of windclan , mentored by webthorn ✦ penned by beatles
  ✦ afab demigirl / they/she pronouns / 7 moons & ages every 17th
  ✦ single / graysexual & monogamous
  ✦ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / underline & tag account when attacking
  —— easy combat difficulty / may start fights, won't kill
  
  ✦ "speech", thoughts, all opinions are ic
  ✦ biography — msg on discord for plots — toyhouse
  
• 
  
  

  a shorthaired black/tortoiseshell chimera with heterochromia. a lithe, slightly muscular cat with a smaller-than-average build. a direct line splits their face, as if mirroring an inner battle of identity and belonging. a serious expression usually graces their face, and their amber and blue gaze is always sharpened.

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[SCORCHSTAR]

༄༄ Shoulders so thin should not bear the weight of such a loss. A frame so slight should not be made to hold so much grief. A child should not be forced to stumble through early life without the guiding paw of a parent. The calico feels terribly for Gravepaw, left to pick up the pieces of their new life without a parent—and even more so as the apprentice returns to camp with their first catch. Scorchstreak was not a particularly gentle mother to her own kits, nor is the calico one to shower young WindClanners in praise. But, looking to Coldbite and then to Rowanpaw, she decides that someone must offer more than four words to the albino-patched apprentice.

Slow pawsteps take the deputy closer to Gravepaw, scrutinizing their catch. A rabbit, still young. A truthfully good catch, and one that should be praised in spite of how insignificant it may seem. Any prey is better than no prey, in Scorchstreak’s eyes. Young prey caught within their own territory means that the moorland is returning to life, a phoenix from ashes, and it means that there need be no more idiotic, brazen treks into the territories of their neighboring clans. "Your mother would be very proud of you, Gravepaw." Cygnetstare likely would offer more words focusing on the splash of red that spills from the rabbit’s fang-pierced wounds, but Scorchstreak has never found the same fascination with the morbid that her friend had. Dulled golden eyes flash with momentarily renewed flame as the deputy gestures to the prey with a subdued smile. "You should be proud, as well. In my time as a tunneler, I have only seen one apprentice before you who was able to catch a rabbit as their first prey."

☽♰☾ IT WAS WAR, IT WASN’T FAIR

• ooc: —
• 
  SCORCHSTREAK ❯❯ she/they, deputy (tunneler) of windclan
  ༄ small, slim flame-streaked calico with fiery golden eyes. cold and closed-off, ferociously protective of her clanmates. rarely seen aboveground.
  ༄ mate to bluepool ; sibling to rattleheart & rabbitclaw
  ༄ mentor to pinkpaw
  ༄ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted
  ༄ penned by foxlore

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