Private are you who you want to be? ✯ aurora

[MAREMANE]

Newleaf was here, and the barn was filled more with wind than cats by midday. Mothers were taking their kits out into the yard, watching them run in the meadow. Lucille found it harder to avoid being randomly selected for hunting parties, which happened to test her social skills more than her catching abilities. They were a happy bunch and made it evident in their chatter. When she thought they would run out of things to say, they would find the most miniscule topic for the hour.

She didn't completely detest it. Even Lucille went stir-crazy alone, though she wouldn't admit it. It was that sliver of extroversion that gave her pause as she watched @aurora - stalk through the grasses, tasting the wind for a young rabbit or mouse.

It was difficult to make Lucille notice any quality of her fellow barncats. Aurora's work ethic had not flown under the radar, which meant it was significant. Lucille's brow raised when nobody else came rustling behind the hunter. Her head tilted towards the sky, shying away from the sun but noting its position. There were few efforts to gather food at this hour. It had been enough time for at least two dawn runs to sweep the entire meadow.

She tagged behind Aurora, letting the distance hide her. The other became only the clearance of grass and new wildflowers around her as she walked. Distracted by keeping unnoticed, Lucille's ears pricked up at the sound of a death squeak. She nosed the long stalks hiding her behind, peering just as Aurora gathered up the shrew.

When Aurora's eyes passed over the sliver of Lucille that was visible, she stepped forwards out of the grasses, guilt spidering along her spine. She met the tabby's face, looking for any signs that betrayed she had known exactly how long Lucille had been in her presence. It was enough for cats to see her as quiet, and only barely dodging the insult of antisocial by faux pleasantries. She didn't need the addition of being viewed as creepy.

"Nice catch," she meowed plainly. Lucille wasted no time in recovering herself, hoping to keep it brief. Her shoulders rolled back, and she studied Aurora, searching for something.

"I thought you left at dawn with a few others." Lucille had been present, but had blatantly ignored the call, opting to make herself useful by going minutes after them, in a different direction and alone. Aurora had, unsurprisingly, been one of the first to gather at the barn doors. She only knew this because she had noted to herself who all would drag her into joining them if they crossed paths.

Gears clicked in her head, and her eyes turned scrutinizing, squinting. "...Have you been trying to hunt something all day?"

 

[aurorabeam]

★ Even in the privacy of her own mind, Aurora was careful to balance the reasons for why she enjoyed the changing of the seasons. The wide blue of the sky wasn't admired for its beauty or shade, but because it gave favourable hunting conditions. The gently warming temperature wasn't a personal preference for the way it made the blue chimera smile, rather, it reduced the danger that weather could impose on the young and the elderly. The winds being reduced to a stirring breeze from their previous forceful gales wasn't a small delight, fur wind-combed and light, so much as it was better for guarding and following scent trails. Newleaf did nothing more than make her duties easier - and the lies she told herself harder to swallow.

More than the changes in the landscape, Newleaf had roused the barncats into a new set of activities. There were still, of course, those who lounged the day away, content in a way that always made Aurora's chest ache with something she couldn't look at. But more and more cats were out and pursuing productivity - Sassafras was frequently hunting, Buck seemed eager for any group patrols, the older kittens enthusiastic in their learning. Even those that Aurora never saw outside the barn had obviously ventured outside, sweat lingering beneath their fur from exertion, the scent of freshkill wafting from paws and muzzles. Her eyes would catch on those individuals, like Lucille, before she went on a patrol or a hunt, and wonder how they managed to both work and rest.

The question followed her as she hunted, maw parted to catch the scent on the breeze upstream, and she ignored it. Like the brilliant sky that vaulted overhead, the thought that she could do anything other than work was a distraction that she turned her mismatched eyes away from no matter how often she glanced back at it. When her jaws closed around her quarry she let her eyes fall shut for just a moment, childishly, before turning back the way she'd came - and toward Lucille. How had their paths crossed? Had the blue furred cat truly been that focused to not notice her approach?

The answer to the latter was a very simple yes.

She blinked at the compliment as much as the presence and set her catch on the ground. "Thank you. It's been a good day for it," she said, and felt very much on the back paw. Her paws shifted in the dirt, torn between a million options - take the prey home, offer it to Lucille, eat it herself, excuse herself, hunt, patrol, gather - but the scrutiny pinned her in place. Have you been trying - "O-oh, not just trying!" Aurora rushed to assure, suddenly seeing the problem: Louie worried that Aurora hadn't had any luck until this shrew! "It really has been a good day for hunting, there's lots of new foods for the kittens to try. Did you want to join me, I was going to go out again?"