† Sharppaw has strayed far from the hunting patrol. It was teetering on forbidden and teetering on not. Forestshade had done more than teeter, slipping out of camp entirely unnoticed. That had been fine for her though, because the rules meant little when you returned with a plump marsh hare in the midst of leaf - bare. Returning empty - pawed was not an option.
Rainshade had always held the rules in high regard. Sharppaw hadn't thought she was wrong for that, but now she was dead.
Now Sharppaw knows: that how important rules were depends on who you are. Who you are could change in an instant if you wanted it to. Thoughtless and lazy was now talent and heroics when you saved a kit or two from being hungry for a day. Sharppaw would like just a whisker of that. To not have to worry about something for a moment. Just a moment.
Newleaf means the night comes later, and her eyes are heavy from the weight of countless excursions, countless patrols. Too much has been happening, and nothing at all. She is steady like Rainshade told her to be, and yet his mind quivers beneath the skin. His nerves are something entirely different, and something he struggles to control. There is barely a whisker of feeling in his tail, and his own paws threaten to trip over it, still. The crawl is just that– slow. And a crooked tail drags grass and needle litter in its wake. It's the closest she's been in a moment, still. A toad perches atop a stone, back-turned, oblivious. Did they have ears to hear her with? One leap from it could put tail - lengths of distance between them, but she hoped it would not have the chance.
The rustling in the swamp is not all her own, though. He pauses on the slight swell of a marshy rise. If he lowers his chin he can see the toad, but when his eyes are raised to the skyline...
Perfectly perched; too good to be true. Framed demurely between the smatterings of reeds and tall pines there is a marshland hare.
Unconsciously, he takes a step. Her prey does not startle. Neither does the toad. And the toad itself seems so much worse in comparison. He can't leave unless it's with the hare in his jaws, he realizes.
Another step.
There's low - sunken ground and water in between him and the hare. Not so much brush to slink his way through. If he crept forward, the toad would stir; springing into the air and possibly sending bog water spray along with it. If it did not, the dead - weight dragging behind him would stir the water instead.
Another.
If he crept around the foliage– found a path weaving between pine and grass and reed– who knows if the hare would still be there, delicately perched as it was. Sharppaw did not know how they behaved. Perhaps faux - friendly patrols between the clan they were once aligned with should've been utilized more properly. A watchful eye cast; a question. Would he have been afforded that much? He would never know.
Another.
The hare sits upon its hind legs.
Sharppaw darts out from the reeds he has been perched beneath. Unsheathed claws meet the crack of splashing water and sink into mud thereafter. Grime is crawling between his toes. (It's disgusting), his skin starts to crawl if he thinks too hard about the muck sunk underneath his claws (So he doesn't; doesn't think). He hits the ground– hits the ground, a deadened tail gives ripples in the water as he does. Droplets blaze from behind as he comes upon where the hare once stood. But it's not deaf. Not scent - blind. When Sharppaw had darted, it had too, and the flat wetland allows Sharppaw to watch as it practically flies across the swamp. Mud and water are not the problem for it that it that it is for Sharppaw. He was not so weightless. She feels each and every second of drag that a bystander would not be privy to from observation alone. Her lungs burn and her nostrils are flared and his pupils are blown wide like there is nothing more important in the world right now than a lone wetland hare in newleaf.
It weaves between the trees, and Sharppaw does too (but slower, worse in every conceivable notion). If he thinks about the excess of mud clumped beneath his claws, he may turn his own stomach into knots. His crooked tail is dirtier than its ever been, tugging strangely on wrong bone and dead muscle (only dragging him back further as it lumps with mud and leaves). He does not acknowledge the widening gap. He cannot acknowledge it until its over, or he feels like he might die, and any worth to his name along with him.
He tells himself that he can make it if he tries harder, if he ignores the smatterings of gruff - spoken advice rumbling around his mind and slowing him down. He just needed a few moments more. A few moments more and he could run his claws around a cotton length, rather than mud. He could split open on a bloody seem, rather than parting through ripples of water.
And then her paws hit asphalt. There's blaring in his ears. Through the ringing and through his straining eyes, it sounds like something beastly is howling so it may drag her down beneath the crust of the earth. It rumbles and splinters. Or was that just her? Her legs shake with impossible effort.
She nearly doesn't step away in time.
A monster howls past her, a whisker away from her nose. Her own whiskers feel singed by it. And past the blaring; behind the trail of smog and dust, a bushy - tailed thing streaks its way across the moorland.
There's spit dangling from his maw, lapped up by a dry tongue. His paw pads ache. He thinks he's torn a claw. Sweat drips from the tip of a black nose. The deadness behind him does not feel like an anomaly for once. It's something else bristling and lifeless along with the rest of him. It hurts to blink his eyes shut, and when he does, he does not reopen them for a long while.
They stay closed as his body regathers itself. As the feeling of exhaustion is allowed to creep back into his bones, adrenaline reaching for the hills along with her lost hare. As his chest pieces itself together enough for him to close his panting maw. As the feeling of limpness wholly and truly seeps into his aching limbs.
Something else crawls to take the space fleeing adrenaline leaves behind, tearing holes in his stomach and reaching up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.
Heavy limbs slump to the ground. He seeps into the darkness of night in that moment, too busy trying not to claw out his own eyes to worry about the twoleg smoke he's breathing in. He is a breathing ghost, form kept from the moon's light by trees and passersby. He wouldn't have the energy to clean the mud from himself for a while. He wouldn't have the energy to make the trek back home for a while. Heaving softly, he spares a mournful wail.
She would be returning empty - pawed, that night.
Rainshade had always held the rules in high regard. Sharppaw hadn't thought she was wrong for that, but now she was dead.
Now Sharppaw knows: that how important rules were depends on who you are. Who you are could change in an instant if you wanted it to. Thoughtless and lazy was now talent and heroics when you saved a kit or two from being hungry for a day. Sharppaw would like just a whisker of that. To not have to worry about something for a moment. Just a moment.
Newleaf means the night comes later, and her eyes are heavy from the weight of countless excursions, countless patrols. Too much has been happening, and nothing at all. She is steady like Rainshade told her to be, and yet his mind quivers beneath the skin. His nerves are something entirely different, and something he struggles to control. There is barely a whisker of feeling in his tail, and his own paws threaten to trip over it, still. The crawl is just that– slow. And a crooked tail drags grass and needle litter in its wake. It's the closest she's been in a moment, still. A toad perches atop a stone, back-turned, oblivious. Did they have ears to hear her with? One leap from it could put tail - lengths of distance between them, but she hoped it would not have the chance.
The rustling in the swamp is not all her own, though. He pauses on the slight swell of a marshy rise. If he lowers his chin he can see the toad, but when his eyes are raised to the skyline...
Perfectly perched; too good to be true. Framed demurely between the smatterings of reeds and tall pines there is a marshland hare.
Unconsciously, he takes a step. Her prey does not startle. Neither does the toad. And the toad itself seems so much worse in comparison. He can't leave unless it's with the hare in his jaws, he realizes.
Another step.
There's low - sunken ground and water in between him and the hare. Not so much brush to slink his way through. If he crept forward, the toad would stir; springing into the air and possibly sending bog water spray along with it. If it did not, the dead - weight dragging behind him would stir the water instead.
Another.
If he crept around the foliage– found a path weaving between pine and grass and reed– who knows if the hare would still be there, delicately perched as it was. Sharppaw did not know how they behaved. Perhaps faux - friendly patrols between the clan they were once aligned with should've been utilized more properly. A watchful eye cast; a question. Would he have been afforded that much? He would never know.
Another.
The hare sits upon its hind legs.
Sharppaw darts out from the reeds he has been perched beneath. Unsheathed claws meet the crack of splashing water and sink into mud thereafter. Grime is crawling between his toes. (It's disgusting), his skin starts to crawl if he thinks too hard about the muck sunk underneath his claws (So he doesn't; doesn't think). He hits the ground– hits the ground, a deadened tail gives ripples in the water as he does. Droplets blaze from behind as he comes upon where the hare once stood. But it's not deaf. Not scent - blind. When Sharppaw had darted, it had too, and the flat wetland allows Sharppaw to watch as it practically flies across the swamp. Mud and water are not the problem for it that it that it is for Sharppaw. He was not so weightless. She feels each and every second of drag that a bystander would not be privy to from observation alone. Her lungs burn and her nostrils are flared and his pupils are blown wide like there is nothing more important in the world right now than a lone wetland hare in newleaf.
It weaves between the trees, and Sharppaw does too (but slower, worse in every conceivable notion). If he thinks about the excess of mud clumped beneath his claws, he may turn his own stomach into knots. His crooked tail is dirtier than its ever been, tugging strangely on wrong bone and dead muscle (only dragging him back further as it lumps with mud and leaves). He does not acknowledge the widening gap. He cannot acknowledge it until its over, or he feels like he might die, and any worth to his name along with him.
He tells himself that he can make it if he tries harder, if he ignores the smatterings of gruff - spoken advice rumbling around his mind and slowing him down. He just needed a few moments more. A few moments more and he could run his claws around a cotton length, rather than mud. He could split open on a bloody seem, rather than parting through ripples of water.
And then her paws hit asphalt. There's blaring in his ears. Through the ringing and through his straining eyes, it sounds like something beastly is howling so it may drag her down beneath the crust of the earth. It rumbles and splinters. Or was that just her? Her legs shake with impossible effort.
She nearly doesn't step away in time.
A monster howls past her, a whisker away from her nose. Her own whiskers feel singed by it. And past the blaring; behind the trail of smog and dust, a bushy - tailed thing streaks its way across the moorland.
There's spit dangling from his maw, lapped up by a dry tongue. His paw pads ache. He thinks he's torn a claw. Sweat drips from the tip of a black nose. The deadness behind him does not feel like an anomaly for once. It's something else bristling and lifeless along with the rest of him. It hurts to blink his eyes shut, and when he does, he does not reopen them for a long while.
They stay closed as his body regathers itself. As the feeling of exhaustion is allowed to creep back into his bones, adrenaline reaching for the hills along with her lost hare. As his chest pieces itself together enough for him to close his panting maw. As the feeling of limpness wholly and truly seeps into his aching limbs.
Something else crawls to take the space fleeing adrenaline leaves behind, tearing holes in his stomach and reaching up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.
Heavy limbs slump to the ground. He seeps into the darkness of night in that moment, too busy trying not to claw out his own eyes to worry about the twoleg smoke he's breathing in. He is a breathing ghost, form kept from the moon's light by trees and passersby. He wouldn't have the energy to clean the mud from himself for a while. He wouldn't have the energy to make the trek back home for a while. Heaving softly, he spares a mournful wail.
She would be returning empty - pawed, that night.