Territory 𝒎𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒏 𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒕 ☞ [ 𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒆-𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 ]

[GROTTOWATCHER.]

Tethered to nothing, nowhere, just the habitual trajectory of his own curiosity, Karst's snout stabs into the cavity of another hole in the ground. Nostrils quiver at its damp scent and the frigid bite of its earth, a mouse-length beneath his chin.

There's no shortage of these tunnels here in the swampland. He's been investigating their breadth and depth since they'd arrived, a constant for his mind to focus on and fill the days with. The tom makes a consistent point to return to camp with fresh-kill clenched in jaw, so that his cohorts might see the worth in keeping him around, and to not worry too much about where he wanders to and fro. Luckily for Karst, many holes serve as dens for myriad prey species. His keen thirst for knowledge and a full belly seem to coincide more often than not, and this confluence of interests sits just fine with him.

The particular hole which presently preoccupies him lays on a tongue of land that pokes into a pond, bridging the shores. Its circumference is akin to that of his skull's, leaving him ample room to stick as far as his neck will allow. Prey-scent mingles in that soupy dank air. Why, this is a very nice hole. Fancies himself almost akin to a muskrat. Surely these tunnels are safe, warm, snug and comfortable. "Hellooooooo..?" His sonorous mew calls out, quiet and curious in its echo through the soil.

 

[VANILLAPAW]

On her hunt, she doesn't expect to be stumbling across another cat, nonetheless a cat with his face pushed in to the soil. She nearly passes him by at first, not noticing him in her hungry one-track-one-mind mission, but she reels back to look in almost morbid curiosity. She guesses that even if it was weird, maybe he was hunting...? That was almost immediately ruined by the cats hello meowed in to the soil. Her face twists up. Weirdo, comes a judgmental thought, something she quietly brushes away as she stands there. Well, the thought of chasing something in to there and trying to get it out was now off the table... And she cannot think of anything else he could possibly be doing.

She cannot help but open her mouth, curiosity killing the cat, looking for any kind of explanation possible in a logical mind. "… What are you doing?" Vanilla's voice is full of guarded caution and skepticism as she keeps her distance, brows furrowing and lips sinking in to a deep-rooted frown. "Is someone down there?" or is something down there, really? Sudden panic seizes her chest at the thought of a predator bursting forth from the ground. She just waits for a response.

 

[tansy]

The scene before them makes for an amusing sight, reflected in the smile tugging at Tansy's lips as she approaches on light paws. "Trying to charm your prey?" she jests with a lash of her tail. "Interesting technique." She can't help but notice that Vanilla seems far less entertained, with her dubious frown and the deliberate distance she maintains. Bit of a stick in the mud. The chocolate tabby spares her a lighthearted glance as she sidles past her, and right up to Karst's side to lower her face down to his level and waits for her opportunity - the moment he decides to remove his head to answer either of his onlookers, she pokes her muzzle down into the hole herself with pricked ears and parts her jaws. "Hiiiiiiiiii."

 

[GROTTOWATCHER.]

Knowledge is seldom located on the surface of things; that is why he sticks his head in holes. Other cats poke at things, rake their foreclaws into something and make sense of it by force. Not him. To observe with patience is to learn in clarity, and clarity only comes in slow steps.

Hence the idle frustration with the interlude imposed upon him, but that fades quickly. An ear flicks as his head withdraws from the opening. Yellow eyes cycle between Tansy and Vanilla, returning them a glance of salutation. "I'm studying," comes the answer to the former, uttered like it should be obvious. "I'm positive that either a snake or rodent is burrowed down in this tunnel. I want to figure out which."

Tansy nears as he speaks, and his gaze tracks her movement until it mirrors his own. Her bout of kitty-see-kitty-do evokes an endearing huff from the warrior, and he takes a step back from the hole to leave room for her. That she asked no questions and went straight to the source built a delightful symmetry in his mind. The chocolate tabby even emulates his greeting into the void, to which Karst wears a smile. But when she pulls her snout from the crevice, he waits to see if she's discerned anything unique.

Once a larger share of his study space is returned, the night-draped tom dips in again, putting his head back where it belongs.

And no sooner, in one fluid and desperate motion, does Karst hurtle back. "Ah!" A muskrat thrashes wildly from the opening with him, attached at the side of his head. He jerks around and backs away in a skittering hop that widens his stance and paws frantically at his face—the rodent is dislodged and launched with furious momentum straight toward poor Vanilla.

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// seeing that the muskrat is small enough to latch onto karst's face, it is a smaller, not fully-grown one