"Well, maybe we'd cross paths more often if one of us wasn't always skipping out early on their patrols." he answered with a lazy twitch of his tail, tone still lacking any real heat behind it on the matter. There'd be time for genuine scolding in the future, he was sure. "Lucky for you, you've got a whole moon to play 21 questions."
Though, Wolfpack didn't expect the first question to be 'who would you rather share a den with for a moon'. He couldn't help but roll his eyes at the sheer unimportance of the question– as if it would ever offer anything of value to Flamerunner in terms of 'getting to know' him.
"Sorry bright-eyes, but you're not even third." he replied with a chuckle, bursting that little bubble right then and there. Still, he chose to engage rather than brush it off, not putting too much thought into it, but answering honestly. "I'd choose Marbleshine. She wouldn't exactly be much help if a badger broke in, but at least my nest would always be fresh and she'd help me clean the mud from my fur at the end of each day."
She was the obvious answer. The correct answer, though some might expect him to choose the mother of his kits– but that had never been the nature of his and Jade's relationship. Sharing space with someone for a prolonged time like that, outside of the communal setup he had in the warriors den, wasn't something Wolfpack had really done before. Hadn't stayed in one place long enough to let it happen. But he thought if he had too, a cat like Marbleshine wouldn't be the worst to share space with.
She might not be much help if a badger did break in, but at least he knew she wouldn't let it jump him while his back was turned.
He was quick to snuff out the complications that liked to arise with that thought– the whys? of it all and how it made him feel. Now wasn't the time or the place.
As the conversation shifted to the monster and the thunderpath, Wolfpack wasn't surprised to hear the other cat call the scent rancid. Almost every clan cat he'd met had nothing but the same things to say about it– noisy, dangerous, filthy, chaotic. Was it just another mark against him that he didn't feel the same way? That when he and the trappers entered twolegplace to scout for the Thieves, he felt something akin to nostalgia as the scent of asphalt and concrete grew stronger?
Being with Shadowclan had certainly changed him over the seasons, but it was also very clear that Wolf was just as much the rogue he'd been the day he first joined. A drifter whose paws felt at home on the side of a highway because they knew the monsters wouldn't come onto the grass, and who heard the ravenous barking of dogs but didn't shy away because they understood the concept of a gated yard. Because once upon a time, every knew town, city, and farmhouse had been a new place to explore, a kingdom to lay claim to and then move on from.
"Yeah, it was pretty nice– just about the only dead thing you could live in that wouldn't start to rot around you." he admitted, his own childhood being a fairly average thing in his eyes, including the potentially 'odd' seeming den he'd been born in. But strays like him were born in random places all the time, so interwoven into twoleg society that it was seemingly natural for his mother to nest in a dead monster.
Speaking of the shecat.
A brow lifted as Flamerunner asked about her, seemingly surprised– and maybe a little confused– to be asked about her. "Not sure. We went our separate ways when I was maybe four moons old?" That sounded about right. He'd been hunting on his own by then– nothing crazy, but it'd been easy to catch the smaller rats that scurried through the allies, or to ambush the fat, stupid pigeons that would gather in groups at the parks. "Haven't seen her since then." he shrugged, no sign of resentment or grief in the words.
To Wolfpack, that had always been the norm for cats like him– passing spirits in the night, coupling up and then going their separate ways. The shecat nursing the litter, teaching them the basics, getting them strong enough to hunt, and then everyone going their own ways. The idea of family units staying together, or multiple ones joining up to make colonies hadn't even been a factor until later in life.
"As for why I stayed.." That was a little harder to put into words, mostly because he'd never really fully understood it himself. "I guess I was curious." Because in the beginning, that's what it'd been, hadn't it? "In the cities the groups don't get as big as the one at Fourtrees. The twolegs don't like it for some reason. So I was intrigued by the concept of so many cats being able to survive together without ripping each other apart over resources. I've seen alliances before– even been a part of some– but those coalitions never lasted when things got tough." Because at the end of the day, it was survival of the fittest, making sure that you were the one who got to survive another day.
"And yet, there you all were, choosing to starve together at Fourtrees rather than disband." Wolfpack could remember it clearly, how confused and frustrated and engrossed with it all he'd been. A group with the numbers to have so much potential, so locked into this sense of community that they would split the colony in half with a civil war rather than just leave to go live somewhere else on their own– it'd baffled him.
"Sometimes, I wonder how many of you would have stayed there and died alongside Fray if Sable had never planned the mutiny. And what would have driven you to do so. 'Loyalty', everyone keeps saying. But I'm not sure, I fully understand it. I stay though, because Shadowclan interests me. I want to see what it becomes, and I want to know more about this so-called 'afterlife' and the spirits that live there– things that only clan cats get access to, apparently." he paused for a beat, before adding, "Plus, I guess I like the company. Despite what most cats think, I like being around others more than I like being alone. Solitude gets boring after a while. The colony looked like a good chance to try something different for a change."
Because taking a mate and starting a family unit hadn't had much appeal to the tom, and staying long-term with one of the smaller city colonies wasn't an option, most of the cats being lazy and essentially half-kittypet with all the food and bedding they were left. Not to mention the trips to the cutter. No fucking thank you.
"What about you? Any littermates or family follow you to this place? And let me guess– you were walking by, saw a cute cat, and decided 'this is it for me'?"
