Open PAFP Prompt Camp ThunderClan Haven't I Suffered Enough? | ⸙. ݁₊ ⸙͎. ݁˖ 𓃟 . ݁𓍊. ݁ ݁𓃴 | Learning to stalk

[Fawnkit]

Wait for Boarpaw to respond!

Fawnkit

Haven't I Suffered Enough?

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The camp is quiet today as Fawnkit wakes from her nap. Everyone is either out on a patrol or training, or working on their own thing. She scrunches her nose, I'm boooooooored! If only she was an apprentice already, then she could properly learn to fight or stalk her prey, but no, she has to stay at camp, with nothing to do and nowhere to explore. This sucks.

She paces around the camp, looking for something interesting to do, poking her head into every single den and turning each pebble around, just to see if there's anything under it. The stale air makes her want to sleep again, but even that activity seems boring to her. Instead, she wanders to the edge of camp, where the shrubs grow thicker, looks around to make sure no one is watching, and jumps through.

The branches scratch at her fur and the leaves obscure her vision, but she moves along the camp border, pretending like she is on a mission in enemy territory, determined to be unnoticed. She watches her clanmates, the few left in camp, smug at being able to see them, yet being unseen herself. How far can she get before being noticed? Maybe...- OH! Suddenly, her mission changes, for she notices a shiny beetle making its way across the grass. Now she can practice hunting, like a real apprentice!

She tries to mimic what she thinks the apprentices do, crouching low and slowly moving towards her target. She takes one step, two steps, three...- CRACK. Fawnkit steps on a twig, jumps away, startled by the noise, and turns around, only to see the beetle opening its elytra and flying away. "Darn it." she curses under her breath.

She would spend more time being cross with herself, but she notices a second beetle, not far from where the first one escaped her. She lowers her body once again, this time mindful of every twig around her. Once more, she takes her first step, second step, third...- WHAM. This time Fawnkit crashes head-first into a branch hanging just above her eyes and when her vision finally focuses again, the beetle is long gone. "Argh!" she growls to herself. She was too focused on the beetle and the ground and the twigs under her paws, she failed to notice something right in front of her!

"How am I meant to focus on so many things at once?!" she lashes her tail angrily, flexing her tiny claws in frustration. Grumbling to herself, she turns towards the camp, ready to go back. "This is stupid anyway. I'm gonna go take a nap."

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[Boarpaw Boarpaw]

————————————— The melody sings what the words can't say. ✦

The giant apprentice found himself some spare time to lounge about camp, comfortable for once under the warmth of the sun. He knew the brisk warmth of greenleaf would soon be snuffed out, so he only hoped to make the most of it before the cold season reared its ugly head.

But as he lay splayed against the ground of the hollow, his attention was caught by one of the new kittens in the clan. It seemed as if there had been an influx of tiny paws skittering about; it brought a smile to the toothy maw, remembering how it felt like not so long ago he was one of the little troublemakers. If he recalled that the tiny scrap of fur was Fawnkit, it seemed as if she was desperately trying to capture a shiny little beetle.

For a while, he just watched. There were many reasons why kittens weren't trained like apprentices; their little paws just don't have the coordination you need to stalk and pounce. Let alone the fact that she kept stumbling onto twigs or losing sight of her prey. As the tiny thing let out a groan of frustration, Boarpaw gave a warm chuckle, a smile catching about his tusks.

"Giving up stho easthy, Fawnkit?" He asked, tilting his head as his ears flopped to follow the movement, giving her a playful smile. The apprentice pushed himself to his paws with a small huff. There was a good reason he was curled up; the ache in his bones was damning that day, but he would grin and bear it as always. "You're never gonna learn if you give up."

He walked over to Fawnkit, a little daunted by just how tiny she was, but smiled down at her. "Focusthing on a bunch at once isth hard, but itsth sthomething you understhand over time." The grey apprentice scanned the area, eyes landing on a poor, unsuspecting snail not so far away. "You gotta learn with a target that ain't gonna run from you, so you can practisthe your sthtalking."

The apprentice crouched down, finally able to meet the gaze of the kitten with a tilt of the head, before turning to look ahead. "Understhtanding your own movements, being aware of where you put your paws, it'ths how you sthneak about!" Twigs and bits of wood were scattered about the camp from strong winds, and the trees were beginning to die out with leaf-fall approaching.

He reached out a huge paw and stepped lightly, finding a foothold amongst the bits scattered on the floor, approaching the evil and devious snail. Turning back to look at Fawnkit, he motioned the kitten to follow. Maybe a lead to follow would help her understand better.

——— You keep on grinnin'

and this world keeps nagging. ———

• 
  Boarpaw
  ✦—Thunderclan apprentice | 10 moons
  ✦—He/They
  ✦—"SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  ✦—A long-haired, dark grey tom with a prominent underbite and blue eyes.
  #AFBCC1

 

[Fawnkit]

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Fawnkit stared up at the giant apprentice who stood before her. This cat was sooooo big! She hoped she would one day to be as big as Boarpaw, his size demanding both respect and fear. She gave herself a few embarrassed licks - was she being watched this entire time? No matter now, this apprentice seemed to promise to be her mentor for the day and Fawnkit was not letting such an opportunity pass! Especially not from such an imposing and kind cat...

She watched him carefully step between all the different kinds of debris on the ground, placing his big paws between sticks and leaves. She tried to follow his footsteps, but her legs were just too short! She had to figure out her own path - she couldn't step on the leaves for they would crunch, nor the rocks for they would make her pawpads hurt. She had to avoid the sticks, or else they would crack, and she needed to be mindful of the vines to not get her paws tangled in them. The only safe options were the dirt and pebbles.

Fawnkit chose a pretty, round pebble to place her paw on. Then she lifted her other leg and immediately regretted her decision, for the pebble slid right from under her paw and she fell face-first into the dust! She felt heat rise into her ears and quickly scrambled to her feet, so her mentor would not notice her failure. Now she knew pebbles weren't always a safe option either!

"Like this?" she finally asked, as she approached the snail without making any noise, only stepping silently onto the dirt and dust. "But how do I focus on all of this while my eyes are on my target?"

She hoped her question didn't sound too silly to Boarpaw, as she had already embarrassed herself more than enough today. Now her new goal was to impress the apprentice, and she puffed out her chest in confidence - right before slamming right into him! She had been too focused on her daydreaming to realize he had stopped walking and had instead turned to look at her...

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[serpentberry serpentberry]

The medicine cat lingers by her lover's den, enjoying how the sun loves to shine in this particular spot. She could spend the moments believing in divinity, how the stars burn to reach herself or Juniperstar's hide - but she also could simply exist in silence. It doesn't last long, not since before the colony she thinks. Her attention is easily captured by one thud followed by a second, the groan pitched only in a way a child would. Her tail sweeps to her side as she looks down, spying Fawnkit and now her new mentor, Boarpaw. It's always amusing how apprentices seem to guide kittens in the same way their teachers do them. Serpentberry, although not one oft to reminisce about simplicities, enjoys the cycle.

Her paws carry her downwards, but not towards the duo. Instead, she finds the medicine den and scoops out the kits inside - @FALSEKIT , @Thornkit , and @Faithkit should the tot feel up for it. "I want you each to spend time in the sun," she tells them, though she is obvious in her motion to Boarpaw, "Maybe learn a new skill. It'll be fun~!" The kits aren't the biggest fan of her, not yet anyways (as much as that hurts her feelings,) but that doesn't mean Serpentberry will begin ignoring them entirely... Well - she might, but at a later time. She's giving them chances in the very least.

 

[Thornkit]

If there was one thing that Stinger - Thornkit, as all the Clan cats were calling him now that Serpentberry had named him and his siblings, as if they hadn't already had perfectly good names before - could give the medicine cat credit for, it was that she allowed him and his siblings to stay together in the medicine cat's den. He knew that the rest of the kits, if they weren't sick or hurt, were all made to sleep in a separate den called the nursery, and regardless of whether Serpentberry was allowing him to stay with his siblings out of kindness or because she didn't want to deal with more fuss from them should they be separated, he could reluctantly appreciate the discretion. He had slowly been in the process of realizing that if he played along with this whole scheme, he might get more out of it in the long run: so Thornkit he was, for now. Playing the happy family with Serpentberry was a work in progress as he grappled with all the ire within him.

He frowned when the shadow of a cat eclipsed the light that filtered into the medicine cat's den, and he shifted closer to his sister, watching Serpentberry cautiously as she entered the den and prodded all three of them to their paws and out of the den again. She was quick to explain the action before Thornkit could get a word in otherwise to question or refute her, and his wary gaze drifted from Serpentberry to the duo that she was herding them towards. Thornkit recognized the kit as the one who'd attempted to interrogate him before, but the bigger one - and he was quite large - was another stranger, though most ThunderClanners still were at this stage. Thornkit pressed closer to his frail sister's body, and murmured under his breath to her and Falsekit, "That one might be dangerous."

Ushered forth by Serpentberry, Thornkit lifted his head and openly appraised the scene of the larger cat and Fawnkit in front of him. "What are you two doing?" He asked. He wasn't against learning a new skill, as Serpentberry had put it, but he wasn't going to waste his time on learning something that wouldn't benefit him in the long run. Fawnkit herself had said that unless they were apprentices, they weren't allowed to do any actual training.

THORNKIT—he/him + 02 moons
ThunderClan kit
NPC ♡ NPC | adopted by Serpentberry
Brother to Falsekit, Faithkit
Mate to N/A | Father to N/A
Mentored by N/A | Mentoring N/A

penned by Archivist

 

[Webpaw]

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https://www․purrgatory.net/Plot_Twists/info?=Webpaw

Webpaw watched with mild interest as Boarpaw took on the role of teaching Fawnkit some stalking techniques. The rambunctious kit was far too energetic and childish for her to have the patience like Boarpaw did, but then... Serpentberry deposited the newest ThunderClan additions into the group. Certainly Boarpaw wouldn't be able to handle four mini-apprentices at once - it would be very warrior-like to help a Clanmate out, after all! She made her way over to the growing group, trying to look casual, and blinked slowly at the collective.

"Quite a lot of apprentices you have there," she mewed to Boarpaw, her tone slightly teasing. "Want to make this a bit of a competition?"

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ThunderClan Apprentice
9 moons || she/her
SPEECH || THOUGHTS​