what it means to me [anastasia]

[Johnnyflame]

LIVE AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW​

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In the days following his little adventure to the Skyclan camp with Thistleback, Johnny had met a number of Skyclan cats. They had a habit of emerging from the woods behind his twolegs nest and approaching his fence for conversation, and he'd come to regard them as friends of sorts- even if one of them had been beyond strange.

Johnny was fairly new to the neighborhood, only a few weeks in, his nest settled right on the edge of the woods itself, in a neat little row of clean, inviting looking homes. Almost religiously the tom would leave his house in the morning when his twolegs left, and then would guard the fenceline from any stray cats or critters who'd come along looking to make a mess of the trash bins or garden.

Sometimes though, when his mind would wander back to the Skyclan camp and the skillful lead warrior who'd brought him there with an invitation to return, Johnny would find himself tempted into the treeline.

He never strayed far, a few meters at most within the trees where he could still keep an eye and ear on his house, but he'd allow himself to play pretend whenever he did, would stalk among the undergrowth trying to scent for prey, would practice climbing the sturdy trunks of the pines and would test out battle moves that he thought might impress Thistleback next time they met.

Today found itself to be one such day. Johnny was off behind his house in the treeline, patched tabby form crouched low beneath a shrub as he stalked after a mouse he knew he wouldn't catch- not that it would stop him from trying.

@Anastasia

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[Anastasia]

Anastasia would only profess her disdain for the Clan cats if prompted. Otherwise, those cultish cats and their snobbish nobility would have lived rent free in her mind. She could not have that. Their superiority complex aggravated her to an unbearable degree. What they did to Vermillionsun, what they did to the two greyish moor-scented toms, she did not feel like she was missing out on anything.

Hence, such worries were not at the forefront of her mind when she noticed a figure intruding a little too much outside of his boundaries. The tom seemed like a housecat but one could not be sure, especially with the SkyClan daylight warrior situation—whatever they called themselves.

"Hey, kitty, kitty," The ginger Molly trilled from her perch on another trashcan a whiles away, scarred ear twitching. "Won't catch that rat with that form."

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[Johnnyflame]

LIVE AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW​

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The sound of a voice calling out to him was all the distraction needed- he misstepped, and his prey bolted off into the undergrowth at the snap of a twig beneath his paw. Frustration bloomed in his chest as he straightened up from his crouch, turning to find a stranger perched atop the trashbins. He didn't recognize her as one of the housepets from the nearby homes, and the air didn't have the familiar scent of Thistlebacks clan on it either. A stray, then?

"Even harder when cats are chattin' loud enough for the prey to hear." he remarked as he made his way to the edge of the treeline.

Johnny couldn't honestly say he'd had many positive encounters with city strays. They were independent things that played by their own rules, and more often than not those rules held no regard for kittypets and their turf. Tearing up gardens, terrorizing bird feeders, tipping trash cans. Amber eyes couldn't help but shift to the shecats perch of choice before narrowing slightly.

"You haven't come around to dig through the bins, have ya? I'm afraid you'll have to try your luck elsewhere if so." he said, doing his best to keep his tone casual. He didn't like to come off too aggressive to cats who technically hadn't done anything wrong yet, but he wasn't above giving a gentle warning either. He took his job protecting the gardens seriously, especially his own.

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[Anastasia]

There could be plenty food around if one knew how to look. Anastasia hunted fairly often, but she knew where other food sources would be if she needed. The garbage bags usually were not promising—sometimes not even a quarter of it would be food, let alone edible food. There was one house that had a tray of seed out where birds would gather. It was Anastasia's favorite place to hunt and be assured of a success.

"If you're not fast enough. Then its just an excuse." She replied from her perch, striped orange tail flicking side to side as she looked down at the house-cat.

She blinked, surprised by the firmness of the tom in protecting his garden. She hadn't been thinking of tipping the tin, but maybe she wanted to spite the other cat. "Why not? Keeping it for yourself, hm? Some kibble left behind still somewhat good?" She leaned a paw over the edge, dangling it haphazardly.

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[Johnnyflame]

LIVE AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW​

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"If you're not fast enough. Then its just an excuse."

Well that was hardly a fair statement. He hadn't even known she was there, let alone that she was going to suddenly send his prey scrabbling away into the rocks like that.

"Fast enough or not, it's no reason to go scarin' the prey off when you know someone trying to hunt." he replied, trying to get a read on the shecat. She wasn't exactly being aggressive but... stars was she antagonistic.

"Why not? Keeping it for yourself, hm? Some kibble left behind still somewhat good?"

Shoulders tensed as he watched her paw move, annoyance flashing within amber optics. ""No, it's just common curtesy to not go around trashing things that don't belong to you." he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"So like I said before, if you don't want any problems, just find your food somewhere else. If your that hard up for a meal I'm sure someone will help you out if you ask- I could have given you that mouse if you hadn't scared it off."
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[Anastasia]

"I can't bring myself to feel too much sympathy." Anastasia remarked, flexing her claws out against the metal. "If you're one of the pets, you've got plenty there in your nest." Her eyes narrowed almost lazily, whiskers twitching. "Unless you've been brain-rotted by the Clan cats thinking that you have to hunt in order to be a real cat." Her voice is still light, her words accusatory but her tone had not quite reached that point.

Suddenly, her lazy attitude snapped into something stiff and alert. The ginger she-cat crouched to her paws, green eyes glittering down at the chimera tom. Anastasia laid her ears back as she spoke. "This doesn't belong to anyone. It's been thrown out for a reason—it's garbage. It's the things that nobody wants to own anymore." After her spat with semantics, Anastasia finally jumped down from her perch, now on level with Johnny.

"I don't ask for help." She curled her lip.

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