Private Territory 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 ◈『 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚕 』

[Smogmaw.]

He'd advised Leopard to flee the colony with her daughter. That it'd be better for them to find greener pastures, lest they both get swept up in the fangs and claws of impending anarchy.

He hadn't yet crossed the line when he'd warned her. Hadn't yet chosen a side. But when the rumblings of dissent ruptured, and brought to bear the ugliest, most violent form of discourse, Smogmaw committed himself wholly to the argument's winning side. One cannot negotiate their place when faced with a roaring current; swim with it, or drown. A cruel philosophy to live by, and even crueler to find the wrong end of, yet it allowed him to live another day. What scars streak his muzzle are borne proudly as badges of survival. What'd remained of Leopard's neck served as the price.

"First off," he starts, voice a husk of its usual baritone, "you don't go tryin' to make friends with every cat that crosses your path."

Dawn's first light still eluded the sky above. The world's a mixture of cold and dark, fog swallowing up their limbs in a ghostly grasp. Smogmaw led his apprentice to a secluded tree grove, a rare spot in the pocosin where their paws did not become mired in muck and ooze. Today stood as their first session together, and the tom had many important things to impart. Every session is a learning session, of course—but this one especially so. No mimicking hunting stances, or throwing limp paws about in mock battle. This is the foundation, the basis upon which all the rest will stand, and Sealpaw will lend her ears to it well.

His neck is craned down to meet her gaze as he recounts the skirmish past the Thunderpath. "Them cats in the forest, you saw how quickly they turned to their claws? You tried to share and reason, and they almost killed Sablestar right afterwards." He frowns deeply. "That just ain't how it works. Not here, not ever. This isn't the colony no more, and when the time comes to fight 'em again—'cause it will—you're gonna be harder and meaner."

A grunt, and his head lifts. He's a brawny tom, and despite the ongoing seasonal dearth in fresh-kill, his form is nevertheless formidable. A swing of the paw could very well send his apprentice into orbit. "The same day we found out we've got a clan right next to our own, we started competing with 'em. Hopped the border, nicked some prey, and put our mark there to show it's our land. They're gonna come back at us soon, try to steal what's ours. We ain't gonna let that happen. A warrior's job is to protect their clan and its interests—and what I'm gonna teach ya from hereon is how to do that. Look at me." His eyes sharpen into golden fine points. "You ready to become a warrior?"

She better be. Elsewise, the path she'll be following will end just as surely as her mother's did. Or- similarly, at least. Based on current trajectories, it isn't all too feasible for Smogmaw to personally see to her demise.

// @Sealpaw

 

[Sealpaw]

┍❆

Leopard had intended to take Sealpaw and flee across the moors the night Quell attacked Sablestar, but the kit's own tantrum about leaving friends behind without saying goodbye had pushed that journey to the morning of the duel so she could say her goodbyes to Blue and Lemon. To Manzanitapaw. To Thunderflash and the not-so-scary Ghost. (She wondered if Ghost had kept his word and left the moment his wounds were healed...) But the duel had never come to pass. She finds herself wondering- knowing- more these days that if she had just behaved her mother would still be alive.

With this thought gnawing at the back of her mind Sealpaw follows dutifully behind her mentor, yawning in the twilight. Ears pin back when Smogmaw speaks. Talks about the border skirmish and how badly her attempt to smooth things over had gone. Her mouth opens, closes, before finally she nods with a matching frown. It would be nicer if everyone could keep to themselves instead of fighting- but it seemed that fateful day across the thunderpath had set something in motion that no one was able to stop now.

"I'm ready to be a warrior." There's a tremble in her voice, claws sheathing and unsheathing in a nervous tic she's not even sure when it started. "I-I don't really want to fight, not if I don't have to... But I want to help still..."

Perhaps its stubbornness, perhaps its just simply youthful naivety but the apprentice finds she can't completely condemn her former friends just yet. Perhaps, with time, things will settle to a simmer instead of the near boiling it was now.

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

❆┙

*•.¸❆

─WAVING THROUGH A WINDOW─

❆¸.•*

• 
  Sealpaw
  — Shadowclan Apprentice
  — She/They
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  — Grey, Rosetted Tabby With Blue Eyes And A Bobbed Tail.
  #4c66bf

 

[Smogmaw.]

Smogmaw's gaze doesn't falter. It remains as stern and unflinching as before, though his tail flicks once. Fatherhood curbed his impatience and disinterest for juvenile wabbling countless moons past, but, make no mistake, the same force had steeled him to enforce discipline in its highest, most absolute form. It'd be absurd for him to condemn the unsullied innocence of his ward, or find fault with where her morality stands. At her age, she is open to mold and bend, and perhaps soon she'll come to understand why such idealism rings hollow at its core. He'll prepare her for the long march ahead, as per his charge as mentor.

"I don't want to fight either," he says, lowering his posture and gliding in a languid circle before her, "but that don't mean I won't. On any given day, I'd rather be warm in my nest, with my family all around me and my stomach full." A pause mid-step allows him to wag his head a couple of times. It wasn't a lie, nor was it the whole truth. He'd reasoned with Halfshade to depart the colony well before the spectre of conflict had entered its domain; yet when it'd been go-time, he hadn't skipped a heartbeat to snarl and hurl himself into the fray.

A long-drawn exhale siphons the last of the tension from his muscles. At last, he pushes aside the gnawing thought: he'd put down her mother, and now it falls upon him to raise Sealpaw properly. The silvery tom straightens up again, dropping the scholarly air and meeting her eyes with a deadpan stare. "When we fight, we fight to win," he mutters, hinging off of what'd already been said. "When a fight breaks out, you try to put an end to it as soon as possible. Think for a minute. Tell me the spots where a cat wants to be hurt the least."

 

[Sealpaw]

┍❆

A small part of her wonders what her mentor must think, if he thought of her as weak as Fleapaw did, or if he was sympathetic to her current position. Only when she'd approached Wolfpack to ask had Sealpaw finally been able to put all the puzzle pieces together in her mind on the hows and whys of why the colony had crumbled like it had.

She followed Smogmaw's pacing around her with wide eyes, ears pricked forward to catch every word. He hadn't fought that day on the other side of thunderpath, perhaps like her he'd believed it wasn't going to escalate like it had. Or perhaps he simply thought the rest of the patrol had it covered. Either way in her mind it seems to serve to cement his words and Sealpaw finds herself nodding her agreement. If it came to fighting or not, she'd much rather be curled up against Marbleshine or Flamerunner's side than exchanging blows and snarling in another cat's face.

It's the ensuing question, however, that catches her off guard somewhat. Not the words itself but the implications behind. One fights to win...

"Mmm..." It's a faint hum, with eyes closed and head tilted as she thinks. Where did she want to be hurt least? Her knee-jerk reaction is that she didn't want to be hurt at all. But that wasn't the question posed to her. The night Sablestar announced Hawthorne had died springs to mind, with fresh wounds almost framing his eyes and she shivers at the memory. "...The eyes, like Sablestar."

He was lucky whoever had done that hadn't actually gouged his eyes out.

Leopard comes to mind too and she speaks so softly that she's unsure if Smogmaw will hear her. "And the throat." Without realizing at first her paw had raised to press against her own throat, feeling her heart beat rabbit fast against her pawpad and she swallowed thickly before near slamming it back down to the ground.

❆┙

*•.¸❆

─WAVING THROUGH A WINDOW─

❆¸.•*

• 
  Sealpaw
  — Shadowclan Apprentice
  — She/They
  "SPEECH", 'THOUGHTS', ATTACK
  — Grey, Rosetted Tabby With Blue Eyes And A Bobbed Tail.
  #4c66bf

 

[Smogmaw.]

Smogmaw can only read from the small tells that bled through her demeanor: eyes and ears lean hungrily into the lecture, a muzzle curdled at its corners that breathed apprehension into the spaces between her guarded answers. Her nerves are an expected reaction. Sealpaw's an earnest learner, he reckons, one who takes instruction seriously and feels the pressure to deliver. On its own, this is an admirable trait, one setting her well above the unruly ruffians that posed as apprentices within the clan—however, his sink-or-swim approach to teaching would not permit her to teeter on some shaky scaffolding of what's right and what's wrong. The half-pint she-cat before him will learn what works, and how to leverage it without a second thought.

"So many, you got so many choices, kiddo." The words exit him in a string, the intonation barely raised above a thoughtful drawl. He settles on his haunches a fox-length away, tracking her across the grass with an unerring gaze. Her conjuration of Sablestar's injury proves itself sufficient on the merit of thought alone. Though she gave no illumination to the reasons behind her responses, it isn't too hard to rationalise why sight or the welfare of one's neck is indispensable to a combatant. Sealpaw demonstrates the base ability to conceptualise and draw inferences. That'll serve as an excellent jumping-off point.

Eyes constrict to smouldering slits, contemplative, prodding. "There're a lotta finer points to battle," he begins, "stuff like defensive stances, feints, counters, how to use your speed an' size to your advantage. Could go on for seasons 'bout this stuff—and we will. But, when all is said and done, what truly matters is gettin' in your hits, and makin' sure the other guy don't hit you back. You gotta be decisive. You gotta commit."

The tom pushes his haunches into the ground, then swiftly springs up to his paws and approaches. "I got it easy. I'm tall 'n mean—I could roll through most cats like a boulder." And get them onto their shoulders and then tear into the tender column that holds their voice. "But everyone's got a weak spot you gotta exploit." Halting, his frame sways on the spot, then he snaps his attention up and down her form. "Think of where I'm at, and where you're at. If I were bullyin' you-" A forepaw lashes forward, claws unsheathed, aimed to provoke her evasion. "Y'know, shovin' you around." He repeats the motion, without the menace, a good bit more gently. "What would you do about it, eh? How would ya put a stop to it?"