[ i feel fine enough i g u e s s] - open | L0V0S0

[[cazzy]]

[bg=f5ece8][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true] There are days when even Ratwhisker needs to get out of camp. And when that happens, by god, it is unsettling to the poor tom. He has an image to protect. A sterling reputation of laziness that has taken time and effort. He can't go wasting that now. There is no way he should be seen doing anything mildly productive. But still, this morning he had dragged himself up onto his paws, and padded out of camp with the intention to hunt. For the clan. Ratwhisker suppressed a shudder at the thought. He hadn't even stopped to clean before he left. There were patches of matted fur in his dark grey pelt, and even sleep in his eyes. It was far too unlike him to be unkempt and helpful. If he hadn't been preoccupied with a mouse, Ratwhisker might have even worried for his mental. The next thing you know he could be preaching the wonders of StarClan and slashing at his sides. This mouse, if you could even call it that, was tiny. And Ratwhisker was convinced it had some sort of disease, possibly multiple. At one point he wouldn't have even glanced at it, but now he thought better of it. With the growing lack of prey, his clan would go hungry, and more importantly he would go hungry. Ratwhisker stayed light on his paws, careful not to make a sound on the stray stick that lay in his path. It was truly a half hearted effort as the mouse stayed with its nose glued to the ground, making it's own desperate attempts to find food in the cold. It hadn't once looked out to check its surroundings, and Ratwhisker was suddenly struck with how pathetic the creature was. It was disheartening. He almost wished for a challenge. Almost. A challenge always meant more work, and this hunt was already so easy. And if something isn't broken, don't fix it. Isn't that a saying or something? Ratwhisker shifted his weight onto his hindquarters and flung forward. He landed true to his mark, and killed the gross looking thing with a swift bite to the neck. Ratwhisker let the animal fall from his jaws, and it hit the ground with a quiet thump. The pitiful thing was barely enough for one cat, but it was at least something. Ratwhisker would take some pride in that because at least he had done something. Deciding he had put enough energy into this catch, the tom turned for home. A pang of hunger flared at his stomach, and he was almost tempted to just eat the silly thing. But one more look at the pathetic creature quickly shut that down. There was no way he was going to put something that looked like that into his body. Ratwhisker's stomach growled in protest. He ignored it. Convinced, the mouse was in his jaws in a matter of seconds, and the tom was back on his way. Long, bounding strides took him easily over the cold, hard ground. He spent most of his energy on trying not to breath in the stench of the mouse. Lucky enough he hadn't traveled too far from home. In fact he could already make out the entrance to camp. His ears strained as he inched closer, slowing down considerably. Greenleaf had silenced the forest, and it made it unexpectedly easy to overhear. Old habits died hard. (And he knew that was an actual saying. )Yet even camp seemed eerily quiet today. So with a low growl of annoyance, Ratwhisker padded in. He was greeted by no one, something he wasn't exactly thrilled about. No cat stopped and looked up as he entered, and definitely no one went to speak to him. He had just hunted for the ungrateful bunch! He almost snorted in disgust, but stopped. (A nose full of mouse fur did not seem like an enjoyable situation.) Fine, two could play at that game, he thought viciously. Ratwhisker cast his eyes downward, ignoring his clanmates in the same way they were ignoring him. He dropped his measly catch among the few pieces of prey and harumphed away. He stood tall, with his tail in the air. An icy stare thrown at any cat that happened to get in the way. "speaking" ooc;; lol customary hunting post

[/blockquote][/color][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[Cloudbat]

Palefoot felt sleepy; probably from staying up too late last night chattering with her denmates - it was weird sleeping under stone instead of earth..secure, though. Or maybe she'd doing most of the chattering to herself. Whichever. Thank StarClan she hadn't been picked for the dawn patrol. Food, thought the spotted she-cat blearily. Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten at all yesterday, it had been too exciting. Now, however, her stomach was making its needs quite plain. Oh good, at least the fresh-kill pile still had a few pieces left in i-craaaaaap. Ratwhisker was sitting right next to it, fit to kill. Of course, it had to be him. And of course, he would probably act like what right do you have to be eating when you should be looking at moi, Mr. Fathead (a.k.a Ratwhisker)? But food was food, and if she had to pay a price to get to it, well, so be it. Palefoot was not in her usual charitable mood, so she figured she'd just grab a piece and get out as fast as she could. Trying to sneak up from behind the gray warrior as quietly as possible, making sure her body language was proud or noticeable, the young warrior slowly padded around to his left over the moist soil and sat, reaching out a paw to hook a medium-sized blue jay. Not her favorite bird - they were usually a bit dry and sour - but not too bad. Her ears flicking from a small fly buzzing around - how were there any left in this cold? - she bent down and began to nip the feathers off as unobtrusively (and quickly) as possible. [bg=dadbdf][atrb=width,469,true] [atrb=border,0,true]

[[cazzy]]

[bg=f5ece8][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true] Brooding fit him well. Or at least he had convinced himself of that a long time ago. He had the face for it. It made him look handsome and mysterious. Definitely not childlike. (Because he was brooding, which was nothing close to sulking. He just wanted to make that clear from the get go.) But it had it's cons, this brooding thing. It took a substantial amount of effort to block out the entire world to focus only on himself. Granted it was the only real effort he ever made, but his brain still filed it away as exertion. And after so much time, his brain just doesn't enjoy having to work. Which was why his self-centered frame of mind was now slipping ever so slightly. He was slowly allowing the muted sounds of camp to come back to him. Although muted might have been and understatement. He could hear heavy paw steps on his left. They reminded him of a cat who had just woken up, still sleepy on it's paws. A cat that just woke up... Ratwhisker's head whipped around so that his gaze followed the she-cat sneaking up on the fresh-kill pile. Well if he had been angry before, it was nothing compared to the annoyance that was flaring in his gut now. She was trying to ignore him! The very cat who had just hunted for her! (He was just going to skim over the fact that she hadn't taken his diseased mouse) How dare she! "I hope you hunt today," the grey warrior spat out the words with more venom than the situation called for, but Ratwhisker had always been good about going overboard. There was some life quote about being overly dramatic, but Ratwhisker couldn't remember it now. "We wouldn't want to waste what little food we have, you know? End up like StreamClan, totally useless." He kept his green graze locked on Palefoot as she rid her meal of it's feathers. Well hah, if he did nothing else of importance today at least he could say he ruined some cat's breakfast.

[/blockquote][/color][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[Cloudbat]

Palefoot, about to take her first bite after she'd scattered the soft blue-and-white feathers on the hard earth, groaned rather audibly. Enough was enough. She refused to take any crap from Ratwhisker, especially since they were of equal rank now. "You wouldn't want to waste what little brainpower you have." The spotted she-cat retorted, then picked up her jay and padded off to a more peaceful corner of the camp, a shallow depression near the grass tunnel that lead to the rest of the territory, half-hidden from view. Unless he was really being stupid, that should deter him. Besides, the tom was lazy - she was sure he couldn't be bothered to go after her. The multicolored she-cat was determined not to let one mouse-brain ruin her day. As she began to chew the dry flesh, she wondered what to do once she'd finished her meal. Hunt? A waste of space Ratwhisker might be, but he had a point. Even if there wasn't much prey to be found, she should try. She remembered - with a mixture of pride and fear - the day she'd finally passed her assessment. At least Crowclaw was gone now, somehow. No one knew where he'd gone. She wouldn't lie - she felt better without the shadow of her terrifying mentor hanging over her. She stuttered much less now, too. Looking up, she smiled as she gulped the gamy bird, watching the sun slowly rise into the sky, which was a beautiful gray-blue with the last vestiges of orange fading from it. Smells were dulled by frost, but surely more (and friendly) Clanmates would be rising soon. [bg=dadbdf][atrb=width,469,true] [atrb=border,0,true]

[[cazzy]]

[bg=f5ece8][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=border,0,true] Ha. Ha ha ha ha. That was a joke, right? Ratwhisker's eyes narrowed with indignation and he let his jaw hang ever so slightly open. In a very unfortunate turn of events, he had given himself the look of a stunned rabbit gaping at the claws of some very lucky cat. So you know, super attractive. “You have got to be kidding me,” the tom mummbled to himself while he dropped his head to his chest. When he had started this conversation he had definitely not imagined he would be faced with the retreating form of Palefoot... so soon. Ratwhisker would be lying if he said that it didn't hurt his pride just a little. He was probably going to have to nurse that wound later on. Right now though, there was no way he was going to let the she-cat off that easy. And anyway, it wasn't as if he could be left by his lonesome. Wasn't there some saying about two being better than one? And he could definitely make that apply to this situation somehow, right? (If not, screw it. He would try anyway) It didn't take the grey tom very long to catch up to the she-cat. Mainly due to his long strides and the fact that Palefoot had stopped moving fairly shortly after leaving. “Well, it seems someone got up on the wrong side of the den this morning.” Ratwhisker maneuvered himself infront of the she-cat before lowering his haunches until he was sitting. His body language screamed that he had no real inclination to leave. “You know, like five minutes ago.” Surprisingly, the tom's anger had dissolved, which was actually kind of funny seeing as Palefoot had only just walked out on him. But that always seemed to work in Ratwhisker's favor. Without the cloud of rage fogging his vision, the tom found it a whole lot easier to offend others. A life skill he had learned early. “You know, you should be more careful. That was a lot of walking you just did. You could strain one of those newly awaken muscles.” Ratwhisker laughed, his voice almost hiding a savage tone. There almost always seemed to be too much bite in his words. (One of the downsides of morals the same color as your fur) “We can't have our new warriors injured and all that.”

[Cloudbat]

Wow. Really and truly? This tom was so pathetic that his insults wouldn't have hurt the feelings of a kit? Sad. Waiting until she'd chewed the last bit of meat from the delicate white bones of the blue jay, she looked up, yellow eyes unimpressed. "You know, I'm not even getting into some petty mud-slinging fight with you. If you're so desperate for attention that you'll pad after someone just to insult them, I feel sorry for you. Now leave me alone." With a last contemptuous look and sniff, Palefoot flicked her dark-tipped tail and turned on the tom, tempted to kick a bone at him as she left, but restraining herself. Barely. If he wanted to complain about her mess, screw him. She'd clean it up later when he wasn't around. She sniffed the air. Should she go hunting? It was cold, but fairly moist - there would be be at least a few rodents scurrying about. Plus it would be an escape from Ratwhisker. Deciding, she made for the tunnel and scrambled up the slight incline, making her way through the grass, the green stalks bending and springing back as the she-cat wove through them. Their cool lightness was pleasant against her fur, though they were still a bit wet with dew. As the warrior got to the end into the open lands, she took a grateful breath. It was hard to believe she'd once been unused to this territory. Ah, freedom. [bg=dadbdf][atrb=width,469,true] [atrb=border,0,true]