- troutstar (tagged: finchtail, milkpelt)
"you're very welcome, finchtail," the grey tabby tom responded, a polite and reassuring smile etched onto his lips. "just do your best to be polite to minnowpaw. you're the older one; you need to act it. once you start to demand respect, minnowpaw will be sure to comply. and if not, i can always talk to him for you."
troutstar was pleased that he had managed to make the warrior feel better-- even if just by a little. he truly hated the feeling that he got when there was a flaw found in his decision-making skills. the tom had always been rather arrogant and self-assured, but also a perfectionist and problem-solver. he hated being wrong with a fiery passion, so he always strove to be correct. on the seldom occasion that he happenes to find himself in the wrong, he will quickly leap into action to fix the situation in his favour. he was certain that he was the best possible leader for this clan, and so he had to prove to be so. regardless, he wasn't too concerned about whether or not he was capable of leading lakeclan. in his eyes, there isn't much that can be done to improve himself. his most major fault is his inflated sense of self-worth.
"so," he said, thinking of something to say. as his mind wandered, he looked back in the distance to steal another glance at the gorgeous milkpelt. he made eye contact with her, and immediately flashed a flirty, charming grin. great starclan, what i would do for a moment alone with her... he thought longingly, shifting his gaze back to finchtail before it became too apparent that he was mooning over the she-cat.
"hey, if you really think that you're not cut out for an apprentice, why don't we head over to see shiningpaw and milkpelt?" he suggested, not yet getting to his point. troutstar had thought of the perfect opportunity-- excuse, more like-- to speak with milkpelt. "we could go over there and you could help out milkpelt with shiningpaw's training. it could be a source of valuable, transferable experience. i imagine that shiningpaw is a bit of an easier apprentice to deal with than minnowpaw, it could teach you a few things about how you should expect an apprentice to behave."
herontail (tagged: tumblepaw)
"oh, we'll just go over the basics," she said casually, hoping to make this training session brief but successful. she didn't want her young apprentice to become intimidated by the idea of battling, so she planned to make things easy for him. simple moves to learn, simple circumstances... nothing fancy. just enough to build some confidence and muscle memory. it was blatantly obvious that tumblepaw lacked in both of those skill-sets; so they needed to start small and give him the greatest possibility of success.
"we need to find a good place to train. a clearing, perhaps, with a soft dirt ground and nothing that could get in our way," herontail told tumblepaw, beginning to pad off into the small forest. the only place on their little island that would fit this criteria was the beach. most of the island's shoreline-- and the best fishing places-- was comprised of rocks. it would go directly from forest, to rock, to lake. however, there was one spot on the shoreline in which there was a fairly large sand beach. the fishing there was rather poor due to the shallowness of the water's depth, but it served as an ideal training ground for fighting practice.
"how about the sandy beach?" she offered, although the question was rhetorical. there was really no other good place to train, unless you were willing to train right inside camp. but knowing her apprentice, she figured he would prefer not to showcase his sparring abilities in front of everyone in the lakeclan camp.
