The call to travel to unclaimed borders had come from someone amidst the clan and the patrol leader was happy to oblige, missing the little bits of authority she could get with such responsibilities. Even with Ferndance's days full of hunting and splendor, tragedy had buried within her home like a parasite, so numb to it all that it had mostly been business as usual for the cinnamon tabby. Loyalty to the clan came with a healthy dose of apathy, but even that could be tested. First alerted to something wrong by a scent on the borders not belonging to a ShadowClanner, the cinnamon tabby had led her unwilling minions along until they'd reached the very outskirts of marshlands, her paws a near-inky black from the mud she'd brazenly trodden through.
A brown shape moved across the distant lands, four-legged and broad-shouldered, with a belly as white as cream. Suspicion and recognition glinted in equal parts within the emerald eyes of the tabby glancing briefly to the patrol, Ferndance's gaze soon settled once more upon the loners' territories as she realised she was irritatingly partnered up with others. Every instinct told her to run ahead and see if her impression was correct, but ShadowClan's borders were a prison she had not earned the privilege to escape. Her shoulders sagged in disappointment and she lashed her tail; it wouldn't be long before others caught wind of someone sniffing too close to their lands too. "Do my eyes deceive me.... or is that a bird flying on the horizon...."