Open Territory don't write yourself off yet 🪱 flooded tunnel

[wormpaw]

Wormpaw spits, water streaming down his chin as he exits the tunnel. The white overtake of his fur is not only dusty. He was certain that this time, none of his family or other WindClanners would agree to help get him tidy.

"Tunnel- it's- stupid rain, stupid tunnel-" she begins, her jaw tense enough to give her irate words a stagger. Wormpaw shivers, only half from the sudden cold, raindrops cascading off his burdened pelt. "Stars, it's ankle-high in there! I was gonna get that mouse!"

Some of the tunnels are safe from the storms, she'd been told. Rain didn't get far enough in to make it dangerous. This one's in the low point of a hill, the buzzcut prairie shrubs unable to shield its entrance. "Give it an hour or so, betcha you can swim in there." Despite his loud complaints, he barely turns to the cat he practically jumped out in front of, his tail-tip twitching.

"I don't want to stop hunting, though..." she sighs. "I don't want to be trapped in camp waiting for it to dry..." Ma and Pa would be so proud of her if she brought back another catch. The tabby finally meets her clanmate's eyes, worrying her lip, before his gaze departs and locks onto the tunnel. Water pools at the dip of its entrance, a preview of what disastrous conditions forced the apprentice from its routes.

 

[gorsepaw]

☼ . ° ✦

She didn't even know why she was invited to this patrol. Tunnel hunting was growing increasingly hard for Gorsepaw. He legs continued to grow and she felt more like a newborn deer day by day. Older warriors chuckled and shook their heads like they were in on some grand secret, not helping with the clumsiness she gained from her height. Hunting would take getting used to. Not to mention the pain at night that came with the growth. It was slight, but it meant she was tossing in her nest and making even more enemies with her denmates.

The apprentice sat near the tunnel Wormpaw had dived into, not deigning herself to follow after him. When he emerged, she only flicked an ear in acknowledgement of his complaints. He was a chatty one. "We could always hunt overland like normal cats," she huffed, raising to her paws and shaking out the mud that had collected there. "I don't even know why y'all worry over the tunnels. Much bigger prey running through the brush anyway." Gorsepaw had been pleased when she was assigned to moor running. Tunnels made her feel claustrophobic the few times she had stuck her nose in there, and she never had an itching to return.

✧ ° . ✶ . ° ✧

ooc information

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  NIP GORSEPAW — SHE/HER ･ 6 MOONS ･ APPRENTICE & WINDCLAN ･ PENNED BY MUDDLY!

  silver tabby with high white and yellow-green eyes. a grumpy, independent she-cat that prefers to bite before she speaks. raised by alder. adopted sibling to icepaw and pebblepaw.

 

[harefoot]

☾ Harefoot hears it far before he sees it. There's the sound of water running, of splashing paws, somewhere… the wind is on his right cheek, so he assumes that's the direction. His ears flick, trying to listen in closer, to pick up on what the wind carries. It might not be a cat– might just be a mouse mistaking a hole to be a safe hiding place from the rain. But then, the voice of a cat. They sound alive, though, so he doesn't hurry, padding through the tall grass, some of which has started to droop under the rain, the ears of wheat heavy. He finds Wormpaw staring at the entrance to the tunnel he'd overhead him splashing around in and comes up to stand beside him, looking into the half waterlogged tunnel curiously.

"'Twould be wise to seek a tunnel further up the hill, I think," Harefoot says. "Or perhaps you wouldst have better luck further south, near fourtrees? Some critter is bound to have sought the refuge of the tall trees."

His ears flick again when Gorsepaw speaks, nodding thoughtfully. "Normal cats, you say…? Yet, I suppose the cats from Riverclan would say the same to us, no? They hunt in the rivers, and we on the fields and in tunnels. The Shadowclanners hunt in their swamp land… the Skyclanners from the treetops… the Thunderclanners from beneath the trees canopy… normal… is hard to define. There is only… what one is used to." He sits back on his haunches, enthused by this topic. It's certainly interesting, thinking about what one considers normal. How one defines it. "And the prey… much prey hides in tunnels– hares, marmot, gopher. Knowing how to find them there… certainly makes it easier than having to chase after them over the moor. Yet, I suppose there are those who enjoy chasing."

He's thinking, of course, as he so often is, of Merrystalk, who was always happiest when running across the moor or through the old barn.

☾ HAREFOOT. 26 moons
peaceful powerplay allowed
ooc -

 

[wormpaw]

Wormpaw blinks at Gorsepaw's suggestion, shoulders drooping. "Nuh- normal?"

Did Gorsepaw think she wasn't normal?! A giggle bubbles out of his mouth, and the scrunch of his nose hides the wince. She's just joking for sure! Wormpaw grooms her chest like it's the most crucial task in the world, trying to smooth out her fur to appear put together. The taste of mud is enough to dissuade her valiant attempts. "Bleh!"

"I mean ..."

Harefoot's words aren't lost on her. Wormpaw knows in her heart what they do in the tunnels benefits the Clan. It provides a whole other dimension to their plentiful bounty in the warm season. Her eyes train on the horizon, mimicking the illusion of a perfectly distracted apprentice. She needs Gorsepaw to think she's badass. One ear swivels towards Harefoot despite that, and a quivering grin spreads across the apprentice's maw a few heartbeats after, tail still a twitching fast-beat metronome.

"We could try to hunt on the fields! I know how to hunt best in the tunnels, though ..." He shakes his head. Ma and Pa are down there all the time, and they're the most normal cats in the world to him. When he cranes his neck to look up at the other apprentice, Wormpaw isn't sure he'd ever outgrow the tunnels though. "One day I can take you hunting in 'em! You can hear the rabbits' footsteps so clearly, it's so cool!" She hadn't seen nothing like it back at the farm! All those months of digging into haybales really helped set her up for success...

When the rain wasn't trying to drown her underground.

"We could try near Fourtrees, if y'all want to!" A grieving look is cast back at her tunnel one last time, as if the mouse from earlier would wash out of it.