Open Event Territory RiverClan ShadowClan BARKING AND HOWLING THESE SONGS ] herb heist continued

This tag indicates this is an event specific thread.
This thread takes place outside the clan's camp in its territory.
122
11
Freshkill
54
Pronouns
they/them

CICADABUZZ, 30 moons / shc + med. cat
a SH cinnamon tabby/chocolate tortie chimera w/ black eyes
parent to deathberrykit, hemlockkit, mistletoekit ; mentor to magpiepaw
a reserved, pragmatic healer driven by duty rather than sentiment
Cicadabuzz moves like mist through the undergrowth, paws barely stirring the leaf litter as they weave deeper into RiverClan territory. The others have already fanned out behind them, their pawsteps swallowed by distance and forest hush. They're distant enough now that their scent is not quite strong enough to pick up on from here; out of sight, and out of range. Only Wolfpack remains close, his larger frame casting long shadows across the dappled ground. Cicadabuzz neither looks at him nor speaks; his presence is accepted, like the wind or the sun, the rain or the dark. The air is damp but fresh, touched by the memory of morning rain. Cicadabuzz pauses near the base of a gently sloping rise where the earth softens and the sun seeps in between broken canopy. Here, nestled against the edge of a rock still slick with dew, they spot it—thyme.

The sprigs are short but sturdy, clustered in a pocket of warmth where stone meets soil. Cicadabuzz crouches low, brushing the pads of their forepaw across the tiny leaves. The scent is sharp, calming. A good find. Carefully, they lean down and begin to nip off a few stems with their teeth. They say nothing to Wolfpack, but their body is fluid with purpose, every motion quiet and precise. A few sprigs are tucked into the dense fur of their tail, the rest placed in a small pile for Wolfpack to carry, should he cooperate. Their ears flick once—listening, always—but their focus stays grounded in the task. But, as they know they must not overharvest, they take only what's needed. Finally, they glance sideways, not at Wolfpack directly but in his general direction—a slow, unreadable movement of the eyes that might be a check-in or a signal to continue. Then they rise, swift and silent once more, to continue their search.


[ this is taking place at the same time as this thread and this thread; please don't post in this thread if you have posted in one of those! ]
[ please wait for @WOLFPACK to post ]

1d7 Roll: 2 - Aches
Herb Found - Thyme


 


AND I AM SORRY MY CONSCIENCE CALLED IN SICK AGAIN


Wolfpack followed a pace behind, shoulders rolling as he stalked along behind his medicine cat with the focus of his namesake– alert, and eager. The damp air clung to his whiskers and the soft rot of river-turned earth filled his nose, but he didn't let it distract him, pushing his senses outward instead for any signs of the cats that called this place home. Cicadabuzz moved ahead like a wisp, free to work as they pleased while their sentinel was shadowing them.

He didn't speak. Didn't need to. Cicada wasn't the kind of cat who required noise– and while he might have bothered them with it anyways if they were back home, out here he didn't play games. Wolf wasn't here to chat. He was here to make sure RiverClan didn't walk away with their healer's throat between their jaws.

He stood just off to the side as Cicada worked, his broad-shouldered frame casting a cool shadow over the thyme. The faint scent of it pricked his senses, but he didn't let his mind wander long. His ears stayed up, rotating slow. His eyes scanned the trees. Every tail-flick from Cicada, every motion of their paws, Wolfpack mirrored with stillness, holding the world back so they could do their job.

When Cicada's eyes shifted toward him, just enough to acknowledge his presence, he gave a slow blink in return. Wordless. Measured. He saw the sprigs set aside and, without complaint, stepped forward to gather them up gently in his jaws, tucking them into a spot against his shoulder where his thick coat would hold them steady.

He needed his teeth free– just in case.

shadowclan deputy - male - a large, monochrome chimera with mismatched eyes and several scars

 

There is a presence that Dogflicker couldn't detect in the sense of sight or scent, but an eerie feeling crept up on her like a spider between the long hairs of her pelt. A grimace twisted upon her maw as she looked around, cold greens narrowed as she took to scanning the meadows. The nighttime air was too warm to stay in the warriors den which had grown stuffy from the humidity rather quickly. A shame, since she quite liked the comfortable plushness of her nest and the scent of Coyoteclaw would normally lull her to dreaming.

The lands beyond camp did not give her much comfort, though. The tension crackled against the air like static breaths between her own, growing as she felt a pull to stay on guard. She sticks out sorely in the plains this night, not bothering for stealth when she had begun to grow familiar in their new home. It's when she can spot them, two figures perilously close by, does Dogflicker realize she's met the source of her paranoia. They don't hold RiverClan's scent- dammit, they don't hold a scent she can name at all. Rogues, she decided, have infiltrated her home.

Dogflicker doesn't care for subtly and simply charged ahead, aiming to shove into the bigger of the two cats with all her weight into his side in attempts to knock him off his paws. "Don't make me try anything worse!" The molly snarled. "I'll let you leave with your lives if you don't got rocks for brains. All it takes is a single scream and my Clanmates will be wearing your hides." She knows she is outnumbered here, right now, but maybe she could try at some persuasion.


  • ooc :65 HP / attacking @WOLFPACK
  • ▵ chocolate/cinnamon chimera with high white, and green eyes
    ▵ littermate to foxtail and coyoteclaw
    ▵ mentoring ??
    ▵ mate to none ; peace powerplay allowed
    "speech"

 
———————————— 'Cause everything moves, everything pulses. ✦


She was comfortable resting in her nest, though the growing humidity was starting to make her writhe in her sleep. Though the rustling of nesting and the sound of paws walking away was what kept her awake. Peering from lidded eyes, her face contorted in confusion. "Dogflicker?..." She mumbled, watching her sister walk away. Pushing from her nest in kind, she stretched with a yawn, parting her lips. While her sister had gotten ahead of her, she trotted along to see what the matter was. She was hard on her littermates much of the time, but it didn't mean she didn't care about Dog or Fox, so she tried to catch up, squinting in the dark to see if her face was knit with any emotion in particular. Had she had a nightmare?

But instead, any kind of nightmare was more a reality as something came to view in the distance, Dogflicker's fur stood on end as she continued ahead, running faster. It took a moment for Coyoteclaw to register, but a foreign scent clung to the air, one she didn't recognise. It certainly wasn't Thunderclan, but regardless, some trespassers had yet again crossed into their territory. She was quick to back up her sister, fur raised on the back of her neck. Coyote had let Stilldream away, likely something foolish, but she was harmless and seemed quite a bit of fun to toy with. But, these strangers, a pair of them, rifled around the territory plucking herbs so it seemed.

Dog didn't hesitate to lunge at the large tom, fangs unleashed and claws bared. She had to laugh, a dark, dry laugh; it wasn't like Riverclan often got the chance to start a fight, so seeing her sister let loose was a sight to behold. Coyote was glad to see that all their training was coming in use. She could back her up if she needed, but she was a strong warrior, capable with her own paws.

Instead, she skulked towards the other cat, a weird-looking one at that. Dark eyes like the night and whiskers that looked more like a bug's antennae. Both of them smelled foul, damp, and acrid almost. Coyoteclaw sneered as she grew closer. "What gives you load've strays the damned gall to trespass, y'all ain't the first but don't think we won't hesitate to make y'all the last." She snarled, shoving the brown cat away from their clanmate.

She didn't yet unleash claws, but she knew backup should show up soon, so instead she wanted answers. "Go on, tell me then, why the fuck're you's tresspassing... Are there any more of y'all?" Her voice was cool yet dark; she had more stakes in the clan now. Not when she had an apprentice to take care of, like fuck she would let any weird freaks into their home anywhere near Scalepaw or these defenceless kits and apprentices. No point in getting her claws dirty yet when she could get something useful out of the stranger, the bigger one seemed more of a brute, so if he tried anything funny, she wouldn't mind turning a claw on him, but the bug-looking thing held itself differently, maybe someone important?

  • Coyoteclaw
    ✦—Riverclan Warrior | 19 Moons
    ✦—She/Her
    ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
    ✦—A chocolate/cinnamon chimaera with low white, and amber eyes.
    #8E4C1A
 
Pigeonpearl is out on patrol, surveying like a good life guard should. She takes her title in stride, proudly, as if she were born to represent the Clan, and maybe in a way she was. Or maybe, she was in a way everything that Riverclan was not. Always hungry for a fight, sharp-tongued and opinionated, meaner than most, she thinks its a wonder why some of them still put up with her. She sniffs around idly, ears flattened as her thoughts race in her brain. Her eyes slide towards the distance, only to see two unknown figures on their territory, picking at something in the grass. Her eyes narrow, a trot starting before she watched Dogflicker charging towards them too. She picks up her pace, still a bit away.

Dogflicker goes after Wolfpack, snarling, and Pigeonpearl feels something akin to pride in her chest. Hungry eyes set upon Cicadabuzz, next, willing herself to run faster. Pigeonpearl has been in many of fights before, had been a rogue before settling in to the shipyard. She just needs... To go faster, before her Clanmates gets hurt. Before this is on her conscious. Before blood is spilled.

Coyoteclaw doesn't yet initiate, instead trying to shove the other cat away. That is what upsets Pigeonpearl as she finally arrives on scene from where she had been watching, still sprinting. "Less talking! Do I need to remind you they're stealing? Deep in our territory, I may add!" and the way she had watched the one Dogflicker hadn't attacked, the way she had watched the other trail at their side as if nothing more than a bodyguard, the more she is sure this is fully intentional. These fools knew what they were doing. Out of nowhere, she rushes forwards and past Coyoteclaw, launching towards Cicadabuzz, claws out as she attempts to slash her paw across their face, or at anything she can get her claws in to, practiced and poised. "Leave now, and let this be the only wound I inflict!" she spits. I'll kill you, i'll kill you for this, i'll kill you, it's not often that she gets to start fights, and its rarer that she gets to finish them the way she would like to. This time, she'll make sure of it, she'll kill them if she has to, if its for Riverclan, for her clanmates. A newfound light of loyalty ignites in her chest as she steps back to potentially help Dogflicker, if her enemy chooses to run.

  • attacking @cicadabuzz
  •  
  • PIGEONPEARL ♡
    ( life guard of riverclan, 22 moons )
    a short chocolate tortie with curled ears & a curly "mane"
    mentoring n/a
    peaceful powerplay allowed but may not be entirely welcomed
    penned by chuff

    "speech"
 


AND I AM SORRY MY CONSCIENCE CALLED IN SICK AGAIN


Dogflickers charge wasn't quiet. And Wolfpack was not an easy cat to take clean off his feet,

The snap of underbrush, the crunch of weight-bearing down carelessly on whatever was underfoot- it didn't help her cause. The shecat certainly hadn't chosen stealth as her method of approach. Maybe she should have– then, at least he wouldn't have heard her coming from a mile away. He hissed a warning in Cicada's direction seconds before the Riverclanner burst from the underbrush and barrelled into him. He took the blow with a grunt, stumbling back a step or two away from his clanmate, but he didn't fall, bracing his massive paws deep and digging into the earth beneath him.

A lesser, smaller cat might have crumbled from the force, but Wolfpack just took a step back toward his companion and snarled, ignoring the forming bruises as teeth bared in a flash of white. His muscles twitched, wanting to lunge back– wanting the violent collide of bodies tearing into each other that their owner was always so happy to pursue– but the deputy held himself back as a second cat appeared and attempted to shove Cicada away from him.

Ignored the age-old instinct that told him to rip into and eliminate the competition in favour of protecting his asset.

"Back off." he warned while stepping closer to Cicadabuzz, his voice coming low and flinty, a growl more than speech.

The arrival of a third shecat cut the conversation short, however, eliminating any potential explanations they could have gotten. Not that it should matter. It wouldn't have if the roles were reversed. She stormed over to join her clanmates, snapping unhappily for not just shredding the two of them right off the bat. Wolfpack couldn't say he disagreed with the sentiment. It was annoying when you're clanmates had a tendency to hesitate when the answers seemed obvious.

But if she thought she was going to just get a free shot on his medicine cat, she was as stupid as the pair she was scolding,

The second she shoved past her clanmate, Wolfpack was also moving. He put himself between her and Cicabuzz– a wall of muscle and spotted fur stepping in front of the black-eyed feline to tank the hit. He hissed in pain when he felt claws rip into his cheek and the side of his jaw, beads of red trickling up through torn fur and flesh.

Again, that anticipatory twitch of muscles– a hammer on a gun clicking back into place, a finger on the trigger– as his own claws longed to dance after her retreating form.

We're not here to fight. Cicada's earlier words buzzed in his head like an annoying set of wings, stilling his paws once again despite the overwhelming urge to crush at least one of these cats beneath his paws– not because they'd pissed him off or even wronged him, but simply because that was nature. Instinct. Eliminate the competition. Secure the best resources. Get rid of what you don't need.

But they hadn't come here to kill, or to fight. And even if he wanted to, these three hadn't done anything to warrant it as an excuse. So what if he and Cicada had been shoved around a little? Scratched up by the only one with a brain? It was obvious by how they kept backing off and giving them options to go that none of them truly intended to kill.

He was almost disappointed. It would have been fun to take one or two of them down. Maybe more. How many had he killed during the colony war? More than this, he was certain.

"Yeah, we get it." he replied, voice flat and lined with the disappointment he felt at having to hold back. He shifted to nudge his buggy companion away from the three riverclanners, urging him to begin the trek back toward the river. "We're leaving."

A final look– impassive, slow, deliberate– swept across the three RiverClan warriors. Not hostile. Not threatening. But not cowed either.

It was only if and when the medicine cat would turn to leave that he would follow, keeping on their flank, body strategically kept between them and the trio at their backs.


OOC-- this thread (and 50 others) are long overdue for a reply, so sorry about the wait!!! Wolf is not engaging and is currently attempting to obey the Riverclanners orders to leave with his medicine cat!!

Sore ribs + bloody face/jaw

shadowclan deputy - male - a large, monochrome chimera with mismatched eyes and several scars

 
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