The loners around here are chatty, and they offer plenty of talk to a neighbor holed up in an old sett. Some of the outerlands' denizens are as reticent as she. Some are naive enough to engage in conversation rather than bristling immediately. They all tell of 'Clans'; bands of cats bonded by blood and strange vows, and a snow-pelted feline with a twang in their voice had advised her to make for the pines if she sought them. And seek them she does—as wary as Doe is to turn her fate into the paws of another yet again, she needs protection. Shelter. Somewhere to get back on her paws, and somewhere to hide, should it become necessary.
She's not sure she was made to be a loner, anyways. The life of the lonely traveler doesn't particularly suit her; she wears it like a coat of daggers, always bristling, always checking over her shoulder. As the pines close in and a thick scent of cat layered over pinespice greets her, she stops, lifting her weight off her bad leg. It's a spiky sort of smell—do not cross if you value your life is a message practically painted all over the ground here. So Doe stands, not wanting to seem weak under the gazes of these strange cats, assuming they ever arrive.
And they do.
" Greetings, "
she says, and her voice is rusty in the way of a cat who has been quiet for many sunrises. She is not a socialite even at her best, and she's been far from her best as of late. Indeed, she feels piercingly aware of the freshly healed wound marring her face and the disorienting absence of vision on her left side. So too is she aware of how her muscles have grown wiry and her pelt ragged, faced by cats with neater coats and denser bodies. Doe sets her jaw and tightens the line of her spine, trying to gather her little dignity to herself, like a fire in a winter waste.She blinks at the strangers, and her eye is shadowed.
" You are SkyClan, if I've not been misled by the locals? "
Her voice is raspy but free of malice. The line of her shoulders is wound tight and spiky, a symptom of the cagey paranoia she hasn't been able to shake since she left the mountains. " I would like to join your ranks, if you'll have me. I know how to hunt, and I can hold my own in matters of claws. "
The dead socket of her eye burns with a phantom ache. For a moment, memories of spiny-furred assailants and blood seeping into snow fill her head.// TL;DR — Doe is waiting just past the border, seeking to join SkyClan. She has a freshly healed eye scar, if your character's the type to notice that!
