[ gone fishin' ]

[Slug]

OOC: At the request of Hardy, I am starting this RP. Forgive me for the shortness and lameness of this post.
This thread was moved from: SQUIRREL! {Cedarpaw and any other cat(s)}

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At Blackpaw's eager "Race ya'!", Willowpaw felt his leg muscles tense for a split second, preparing, before he shoved against the ground, getting a leaping start before taking off after the other FogClan apprentice, slowly catching up to the dark-furred tom. Cedarpaw's yowled "W-wait!" fell on deaf silver ears, for Willowpaw too engrossed in running to hear his fellow clanmate.

Just a little closer! He cheered to himself, tail waving in the air like a silver banner as he urged himself to go faster, his petite body straining at the command before obeying, his paws thudding loudly against the cold ground. Trees blurred past, the only focused object being Blackpaw, who was at least two foxtail's ahead of him. He was not deterred by the space between them, though, and continued running, his breath coming out in short, breathless wheezes as he sped up a little, eventually making his way to Blackpaw's side, though going no farther. I'm out of shape, Willowpaw mused, then set his ears back as his paws started aching, a grimace crossing his maw. Really out of sha-- "Eerrow!" Willowpaw suddenly screeched as his paw hit a stone, sending him flying through the air; he then hit the ground. Hard.

Right then and there, Willowpaw decided he wasn't so eager to go hunting anymore...

He layed prone on the ground, body splayed out like a soaring, four-winged silver eagle, eyes gently closed. He seemed like he was sleeping to those who looked, but the wiser would know that he was simply stunned. The latter was then proved when Willowpaw shifted a little, face screwing up with pain. Finally, his trademark, mint green eyes snapped open, their iris' bright with discomfort. "...D-did I win?" He whispered softly, his stutter back.

[Crowzerplorodon]

Running across FogClan's territory was not terribly easy. The ground was covered in many patches where the dirt was upturned, leaving holes that one could trip on. There were plenty of plants decorated the ground. And most of the time, you couldn't just jump over them. You would have to run around, which could seriously slow your progress. Trees overhead blocked out plenty of light, especially on a cloudy day, and made picking out details that could ensure your win difficult.

Not that it mattered to Blackpaw. He enjoyed the obstacles, made winning that more difficult. If something wasn't challenging, there was no point in trying. His paws thudded on the slightly-frozen ground with ease, avoiding the small rocks and holes in the ground. At one point, he skidded so close to a small tree he could fee the bark through his thick, black pelt. All the more rush for him, the apprentice thought, tail streaming behind him. There was no way he would lose this race. Yeah, sure, he had took off before any of the other cats. But all's fair when it came to winning. They wouldn't be able to catch up, so they wouldn't take the gold.

Which is why he was surprised when the familiar silver pelt of Willowpaw ended up besides him. Blackpaw managed a quick grin before picking up the pace, wondering why it seemed the StreamClan border was so freaking far away. Maybe he hadn't gone in the right direction, and was heading away from the bor-

His thoughts were interrupted by a screech. Trying to stop, his paws kicked up plenty of dirt and dust, causing the young tom to cough a few times before he found his bearings again. Looking around, the apprentice caught sight of Willowpaw splayed across the ground, looking like he had fallen asleep right there. Blackpaw hurried over, wondering what had happened and if the silver tom was hurt. “Yeah,” he said after the other had spoken. “You won. You ok?”


ooc: we still need Cedarpaw and Crow-whisker. :D

[[ hardyrex ]]

Crow-whisker's mind had processed what Blackpaw had yowled after he was left looking at where the apprentices had raced into the pine forest. A hiss of white air left his muzzle as he took off after them, dodging trees, rocks, and all of the other objects in FogClan's land.

Yesh, whatever happened to slow and steady wins the race? the tom thought as he dashed toward the border, keeping a look out for the border itself. Half way to the border he heard a screech -- Willowpaw's? -- and forced himself to go faster. They probably ran over the border and right into a StreamCl--

Crow-whisker's claws shot out, sliding on the slightly frozen ground as he saw the splattered form of Willowpaw right in front of his running path. Just before he would have hit the silver tom, he finally got a grip on the soil and stopped himself just in time.

"This, he panted, catching his breath to meow again, "is why we don't rush."

[neworleans]

Cedarpaw ran, his paws thrumming against the forest floor. His tail streamed out behind him as he shifted his ears back against his skull. The brown tabby tom was not about to give up this race, even if he didn't win. Usually, everything was about winning for him. Right now, he just didn't want to lose sight of his Clanmates.

Trees blurred together as he ran, making it seem as though he were caught in an endless dream, rushing by until his paws felt like they were about to fall off. The moisture from the fog clung to his pelt, making it wet and slick. This had the slightly odd effect of making his fur seem darker, which meant that he blended in even better.

The small apprentice skidded to a halt upon seeing Willowpaw sprawled out on the ground. This, of course, meant that some of the frost embedded itself in the fur on his hindquarters.

He clenched his teeth to muffle his cry of pain and shock, which came out as "Mrrr!" This wasn't his proudest moment, but it was better than the squirrel incident. Cedarpaw now had a private vendetta with squirrels.

Shaking himself in an effort to rid the frosty grass from his rear, he trotted over to Willowpaw, noticing Blackpaw already sitting beside his silver Clanmate. Seeing as the dark-furred tom had already asked the question Cedarpaw had been going to say, he simply sat with his tail curled around his paws, looking down at Willowpaw with mild concern in his eyes.

ooc: word count: 257

[Slug]

Crying won't bring him back.

Yeah, you won.

Willowpaw couldn't help but beam, practically glowing at Blackpaw's statement. I won? I won! He thought, giddy, his thoughts written all over his face as he began to purr, despite the fact that he had just tripped in front of two apprentices and a warrior. Talk about embarrassing-- but, toss caution to the wind, because Willowpaw was far too happy to care what the others thought of him right now. He may have done something wrong, but he did something right, too-- for once!

You ok?

"O-ok?" Willowpaw asked, scrambling to his feet, his purr becoming a pleased rumble. "I f-feel better t-than ever!" He chirped, nearly falling over his own paws as he turned to face Blackpaw, tail swaying behind him with a new energy. "I c-could t-take on t-the world!" He meowed, bouncing a little. Maybe he was overreacting about his 'victory', but the smile didn't falter at that thought, nor the warmth in his chest. Indeed, Willowpaw felt ready to take on the world. In short, he came, he won, he conquered, baby!

This, Crow-whisker began, startling Willowpaw out of his happy moment. is why we don't rush. The warrior panted, obviously exhausted.

Old age must be catching up to you, Crow-whisker, Willowpaw mused to himself, then his ears went back at that thought, feeling guilty. "S-sorry, Crow-whisker. It w-won't happen again." The apprentice said meekly, shuffling his paws nervously. Now he felt rude-- no better than crowfood. Even though Crow-whisker didn't hear what he was thinking, it was just... horrible to have those thoughts-- and about a clanmate, too!

Glancing at Cedarpaw, he smiled weakly at his fellow apprentice, urging himself to feel better. Not your fault, not your fault, not your fault, Willowpaw told himself, the words echoing in his head. "Not my fault." Willowpaw finally muttered, settling down comfortably onto his rear, his tail mimicking Cedarpaw's. "...We d-didn't p-pass t-the b-border, d-did w-we?" Willowpaw suddenly asked, fear piercing his heart at his own, admittedly silly question.

Yeah, well, it sure does make me feel better.

[Crowzerplorodon]

“The world, huh?” He chuckled, rocking back and forth on his paws. “Wishful thinking.” At least the silver apprentice was ok, though. He didn't seemed to be injured, maybe just in a little shock. Which was acceptable. Willowpaw had just gone flying into the ground, after all. Not being in shock would be, well, shocking. And the 'win' seemed to have done him some good, too. Blackpaw hadn't seem the others morale up like this since... forever. Actually, the apprentice couldn't think of a time.

The black apprentice twisted his head to watch Crow-whisker and Cedarpaw approach, grinning at the fact that a full grown warrior hadn't been able to keep up with two little apprentice. Maybe not so little, he correctly quickly. After all, he was almost a warrior himself. “Don't be such a downer, Crow-whisker,” the tom said, licking a paw and wiping it over his ear lazily. “Just because you can't keep up doesn't mean you can ruin all our good fun. S'not like we're hurting anyone.”

Except Willowpaw.

But the tom had chosen to run himself. Blackpaw wasn't blaming him for tripping, though he could have been a little more watchful of his surroundings. The accident could have been avoided completely if the silver tom had been paying more attention to the landscape around him. Blackpaw ears flattened in slight annoyance. Crow-whisker better not snap at him for Willowpaw's mistake!

“Almost,” he replied. “Border's like, a foxlength away. Almost went right over it.” But they were really, really close. They should probably get moving, before a patrol came by. This being the only strip of land that wasn't blocked off by the river, it was a key point for invading. And a patrol of their size sure looked like it could be for an invasion.

[[ hardyrex ]]

"Right. Not hurting anyone." Crow-whisker meowed, flicking his tail toward Willowpaw. "We could have got hurt ourselves. What if a StreamClan patrol had been coming by? What would you do if you saw a three cats from another clan running towards you at top speed?" He meowed, glancing toward the border to see if there really was a patrol there. Seeing none, he began to slowly pad toward some bushes, ground litter with tiny seeds. "We came here to hunt." Crow-whisker meowed, taking in the sent of the air also. "So let's hunt."

A vole. The warrior thought, dropping down to his vole-catchin' crouch. His yellow eyes weren't able to spy the soon to be fresh-kill, but his ears could hear it scrabbling against the frozen ground, looking for food. He briefly wondered why it hadn't shot off when they came crashing through the pines, but who was complaining? Crow-whisker's paws almost floated through the air, and soon shot him into the bush, killing the prey with a bite to the neck.

He shimmed out of the group of plants and turned to the rest of the FogClan cats, dropping the vole in front of him. Water vole, the tom realized. Must have crossed the border.

[neworleans]

"I f-feel better t-than ever!" If cats had eyebrows, Cedarpaw would've raised his. Well, perhaps they did. They didn't look like Twoleg eyebrows, though. The small tom made a witty retort to Willowpaw's statement, though he only spoke it in his mind. So, if I'm ever feeling down, I should just trip and land flat on my face? Yeah, that'll do wonders.

"I c-could t-take on t-the world!" The brown apprentice snorted. Right. Sure. I'd love to see that. Really, I would. I'd pay you in rabbits, he thought, unable to keep a mrrow of amusement from escaping his throat. What he actually said was, "The world, huh? Maybe you should narrow your opponent down to, say, the StreamClan patrol that's going to come over here and think we're up to something."

"The world, huh? Wishful thinking." Cedarpaw agreed with the black tom on this one. "Not my fault." He tilted his head slightly in puzzlement. "What's not your fault, Willowpaw? Whatever it is, none of us blamed you for anything that happened just now, anyway."

"...We d-didn't p-pass t-the b-border, d-did w-we?" The small tom bristled and he felt his claws unsheathe, sinking into the slightly-frozen earth beneath his pads. If they had, a StreamClan patrol would most likely see them. That would mean confrontation. That would mean hostility. That would mean fighting. His paws itched with eagerness. A chance to prove myself! I'll show 'em all. I've got what it takes to be a warrior- and more besides!

"Almost. Border's like, a foxlength away. Almost went right over it.” Cedarpaw's claws sheathed about halfway. The possibility of a fight seemed to have been lessened, though it was still there.

"We could have got hurt ourselves." Not me, he thought, though he knew Crow-whisker was right. He just didn't want to admit it. What if a StreamClan patrol had been coming by? I would've fought 'em, duh. What would you do if you saw a three cats from another clan running towards you at top speed?" Moved out of the way and watch them run right into a tree. A smirk crossed the apprentice's face at the mental image.

"We came here to hunt. So let's hunt." Cedarpaw thought this was a good idea- better than waiting around for doomsday via StreamClan patrol like a bunch of paranoid elders. He had begun stalking a mouse when his ears pricked up and his jaws parted to taste the air. "We've got company," he growled, catching StreamClan scent.

ooc: word count (not including quotes from others): 338

[Cloud of Diamonds]

OOC: Apologies for the failness. I haven't played Frostfang in a long time and I've never played Duskpaw before.

Frostfang

It was not the she-cat's day. She had to be on this border patrol with Duskpaw. Ugh. Talk about the incarnation of annoyance. The skinny, fluffy apprentice was so....weird. The gray-and-white she-cat had hardly spent any time around her. While that wasn't unusual, what she had observed when with the tortoiseshell did not please her.

But then, what did? She was often silent, which wasn't bad at all, but her odd outbursts of laughter annoyed Frostfang to no end. StarClan had better be watching out for Duskpaw, because no one else would be willing to do it, she thought nastily. Poor StarClan. Having to watch over all the mouse-brains in the Clans, what a chore. Being dead must give you an awful lot of patience, she mused. But then, it made sense that it would. You had all the time in the world, after all.

Thinking as the most exciting thing to do here anyway. No one to fight, nothing much to do, and her companions were dull. For a moment she paid attention to where she was actually stepping and realized she was close to the border, maybe half a tree-length or so away. Wait...there just a faint whiff of something that seemed somehow out of place...vole!

Freshly killed, that is.

But...there was no fresh StreamClan scent other than their own and she'd have noticed if Duskpaw or Rabbitheart had caught a vole. So that left...FogClan. Her green eyes narrowed at the thought. And as if her reflections had materialized onto the landscape, movement over the border caught her eye. Enemy cats, and with vole, she was betting. Though she knew she shouldn't jump to conclusions, who cared?

Any chance to use the skills she'd honed for moons was welcome. Besides, she could fight better than the majority of her Clanmates, let alone FogClanners. She pulled her lips back in a grin. They'd stolen prey, she was sure of it. Now it was time to get it back, hopefully with a scuffle, though she'd try to reason first for the record. Didn't want her idiot Clanmates tattling on her for jumping straight into a fight. Without explaining herself - why would she need to do that to them? They'd understand soon enough anyway - she raced forward to stop directly at the edge of the border and called out, "Hey! One of you stole prey! D'you want to come here and give it back or do we have to fight you for it?"

Duskpaw

Today hadn't been very promising so far. The morning had begun with staying in her den because of a light shower, followed by this dull patrol with only warriors as company. She walked a pace or two behind the silver tom and the gray-and-white she-cat, not knowing how to talk to them. They were older, and - though she didn't like to admit to herself - smarter. How could she relate to them beyond the fact that they belonged to the same Clan? And they, too, probably viewed her as just an odd apprentice, a weirdo, an-outcast, she thought miserably.

Had she always been one, really? Had the tortoiseshell been marked as strange and different in a bad way when her mother just...died? As she stepped along the grassy ground, not caring if she fell far behind hardly paying attention at all. Nothing ever happened here anyway, and the warriors would remark the border. She fell into her common brooding, thoughts gnawing her at mice at beechnuts.

Did the Cat Gods plan all of this? No, surely not; she knew it was practically impossible and highly unlikely that they'd planned her whole life. But when she was born...hadn't they been watching her, surely? Maybe they'd known that she would know they existed, and maybe they'd reward her by helping her...eventually.

She hadn't felt that she'd gotten helped by anyone - be it Clanmates, StarClan, or cat Gods - lately. She dimly realized Frostfang was calling to someone. Duskpaw frowned as she caught the last few words. Fight for it...this could only mean a cat from another Clan had done something. A jolt of excitement and anxiety ran through her at the possibility of having to fight.

[Pyro]

It was cold. Very cold. So cold that Rabbitheart was sure his very blood would freeze and that any moment he would collapse and die. And then Duskpaw and Frostfang would have to haul his cold dead carcass back to camp. And then Cloudstar would know the error of his ways, that sending Rabbiheart out in the cold to trot around a border on which nothing ever happened, was a mistake.

Not that he had been complaining the whole trek. No, rather he had been painfully silent, sulking behind Frostfang and just ahead of Dustpaw. His ears had been laid back, his muzzle set in a deep frown, his pale green eyes flinty. This would normally be intimidating, but for one fatal flaw: His nose. Rabbitheart's nose had been running nonstop for at least a moon and nothing Badgernose or Bluepaw tried could help him. So throughout the patrol he had been sniffling. It was almost sad really, seeing as he was trying so hard to look like an angry kitty.

A shout ahead, from Frostfang, told him that he was wrong about patrols. Sometimes things did happen (but still, not very often). He picked up the pace to see a quartet of FogClan (ugh) cats, three apprentices and one warrior. Nothing to get ones fur in knots about. 'Not that I could get knots in his fur, being as it's so short and utterly useless in this weather. Thanks ever so much, dad.' he thought to himself as he came up beside Frostfang.

"I do hope you'll give it back without a fight. I mean it's much too cold to be fighting over such a trivial matter...And besides, the quicker we can fix this little mess the quicker you can get back to rolling around like kits chasing a leaf." Rabbitheart, it seemed, was back to his usual lazy, pain-in-the-ass self thanks to this threat of even more work.