- Oct 22, 2022
- 714
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The Burnt Sycamore's ancient boughs stretch nerve-like against a lonely, starless sky. Night drapes the miry wasteland and coils around its dying trees, dead brackens and rotting stumps. Every now and then the foliage rasps like a gentle thunder—it is the only sound that can be heard in this desolation, save for a pair of paws trudging through the sodden morass.
Smogmaw shoulders through reeds and swampgrass made brittle by frost. Every footfall plunges into cold slurry, sucking hungrily at his legs. On his tail is the young tom whose mettle shall be measured in these sublime ShadowClan conditions. Standing at the cusp of a warrior's age, while lacking the moons of training one completes for it, Hawk faces a daunting task in the brief span to come. The deputy, however, takes confidence in this one—a privilege denied to his siblings. The reserved, observant demeanour and willingness to learn are assets well sought within this community, and assets often not found in loners skirting territorial borders.
Should his mental fortitude manifest as physical prowess, Hawk will breeze through this assessment without any hitch.
The marsh yields to firmer ground, upon which the Burnt Sycamore casts its wasted sprawl. In the tree's immediate vicinity there's sparser foliage, but for the most part the area is still dense with ferns, rushes, and sedge. Smogmaw halts his footing just before the clearing proper. "Alright," he meows, as he twists his body to squarely face the other feline. "This is a simple test. Your goal, Hawk, is to climb this tree. My goal is to stop you." Above does the sycamore loom, majestic yet somehow pathetic.
"You don't gotta reach the top, that's not the point. What I want to see is how you use your surroundings-" his forehead sweeps in a gesture towards the surrounding underbrush, "-to your advantage. Assuming your stealth is up to scratch, I shouldn't even see you coming; but if I so much as touch you, you've gotta try again. Understood?"
Once his command is acknowledged, the smoky tabby sends his student off. He roves over to the sycamore's trunk, where he takes his post shortly thereafter. Claws taste the soil in anticipation, braced to fend off the other's frame at a moment's notice.
// @Hawk
Smogmaw shoulders through reeds and swampgrass made brittle by frost. Every footfall plunges into cold slurry, sucking hungrily at his legs. On his tail is the young tom whose mettle shall be measured in these sublime ShadowClan conditions. Standing at the cusp of a warrior's age, while lacking the moons of training one completes for it, Hawk faces a daunting task in the brief span to come. The deputy, however, takes confidence in this one—a privilege denied to his siblings. The reserved, observant demeanour and willingness to learn are assets well sought within this community, and assets often not found in loners skirting territorial borders.
Should his mental fortitude manifest as physical prowess, Hawk will breeze through this assessment without any hitch.
The marsh yields to firmer ground, upon which the Burnt Sycamore casts its wasted sprawl. In the tree's immediate vicinity there's sparser foliage, but for the most part the area is still dense with ferns, rushes, and sedge. Smogmaw halts his footing just before the clearing proper. "Alright," he meows, as he twists his body to squarely face the other feline. "This is a simple test. Your goal, Hawk, is to climb this tree. My goal is to stop you." Above does the sycamore loom, majestic yet somehow pathetic.
"You don't gotta reach the top, that's not the point. What I want to see is how you use your surroundings-" his forehead sweeps in a gesture towards the surrounding underbrush, "-to your advantage. Assuming your stealth is up to scratch, I shouldn't even see you coming; but if I so much as touch you, you've gotta try again. Understood?"
Once his command is acknowledged, the smoky tabby sends his student off. He roves over to the sycamore's trunk, where he takes his post shortly thereafter. Claws taste the soil in anticipation, braced to fend off the other's frame at a moment's notice.
// @Hawk