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cobnixious wrote:ROUGE ROGUES
cereus wrote:NORTHCLAN


The more the days passed, the more Huckleberry couldn't help but wonder exactly who those odd guests were. Far be it for him to question the Crown's decisions, but all 3 stood out quite sharply in both name - startlingly similar to Jaguarcrown himself's in structure - and function. Unlike Weaver, Fir, or himself, they'd never been granted any real duties or orders, given nothing to atone for in their service. None that he could tell at least.
Owlgaze had been agreeable enough, chatted gladly about far off lands, journeys, and plans. He could be satisfied with just one cat's word out of them all. And yet it nagged at him how much the grey tom and patched molly kept to themselves, a separate unit all their own even within the land.
It was uncommon to catch either of them alone, much less not busy with something. So when the opportunity presented itself, well... Weaver could handle himself for a bit. It had been enough moons to trust he'd not be eager to just run off.
Having found one sat in the sun by the hillside, he approached carefully, announcing himself with a polite 'good afternoon' when he was sure he could be heard.
The brown cat regarded him with little warmth, yet made no move to leave or shoo him away.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"Nothing that can't be picked up later." She answered with an ear flick, even now not fully facing him.
It was a sort of distant look that struck him as oddly familiar. Like Jaguarcrown's more distracted moments.
"Great. I was hoping you would be willing to answer a few questions."
He felt then that he'd crossed an invisible line he'd not been meant to, from the way she looked at him now, turned to fully face him.
"What is it you need to know?"
"Owlgaze has shared some of the story, but I wanted to hear from another perspective. You three, what makes you all stay here? As far as I've heard, you have somewhere to be."
Silence followed, nothing but the movement of the air, fallen leaves fluttering like giant moths upon the breeze. He watched those tall ears flick. And then...
"We each have our reasons. The companionship is appreciated, so I've voted to stay for a longer time." The molly's response was calm, measured. He felt it was not just a failing of his own that he couldn't tell what hid behind them, for once.
Huckleberry's eyes narrowed, but his curiosity drove him to push rather than retreat. He couldn't be satisfied with an answer that made no sense.
"Appreciated by who, if you don't mind the question? Owlgaze has been a joy, yet seemed anxious enough to leave herself."
"You are not the only denizens of this land."
"The spirits then?" Huckleberry blurted out without even thinking. It was the only logical answer, surely.
"Are you one to believe in spirits?"
The question made him huff with a prideful sort of determination to back himself up, especially with almost-amused as the asker seemed.
"Certainly. Every kit in my family is taught not to upset them."
"Interesting... Then we may say my presence is desired by a spirit here...I take it you are not acquainted."
He could only assume the gesture of the head was meant to point him towards something in the thin air she'd been staring at before.
"I fear I am not so blessed as to see or commune with the spirits the way Jaguarcrown himself is. But you are?"
"Perhaps."
"Can you prove it?"
"Must I?"- - - - - - - -
Fresh air and sleep had done him well enough. No longer was the nagging of unseen danger gnawing at his skin, at least. Even if any odd touch or movement in the corner of his eye that shouldn't be there still caused him to jump.
There was resolve, now, though. He knew it wasn't just a fleeting impulse. That it would last the journey home.
He stared from a distance. Watching quietly as Cam searched for prey.
If he was going to leave, at the very least she should know. It was only decent.
The rest, he knew, would largely be long gone by the time the snow came down proper. And with the changing leaves, he'd better leave sooner than later if he didn't want to get snowed in himself.
It just felt like such a betrayal. To spend so long trying to show he would be there, only to leave.
It's not like it wasn't something he'd done many times before. It just wasn't a good habit.
He watched her talk with Fir, only to separate and pad back his way...
It was as good a time as any.
"Fancy a break, Cam?"
He hopped down from the log, abandoning the catch he'd been 'guarding'.
"Mm... Might have more luck with a clearer head."
She sighed. "But I take it that means you want to talk."
"So long as it's not a bother, my dear friend. I must confess it is serious."
"I can tell, you're doing that thing."
"What thing?" He found himself off-beat, ever so briefly, picking through possibilities a mile a minute in the seconds it took to get an answer.
"You're all performative. Like you're hiding something."
"Huh." It felt. Odd. To have the mask called out so blatantly, even if he hadn't meant to be wearing it, necessarily. Even more so that it came from someone that hadn't known him since, well, since before he flew the coop at least.
It took a weird amount of effort to drop it, less of a relief than it usually would be, when he forced himself to relax a bit.
"You can say whatever it is, I'm listening. I'm sure it's nothing too much."
"Yeah... So point is, I'm going to go visit family. I don't know when I'll be back, but since we're neighbours, I reckoned you ought to know. You and Storm can stay in the castle if you want - actually that would be quite lovely. I could leave you in charge then until everyone scatters their own way anyway. Or I can ask Huckleberry."
"So you just want me to keep your den clean for you. Unbelievable." Camomile scoffed, batting at his shoulder with a paw, despite the slight smile on her face. "What do you even do in there? That Huckleberry cat makes you seem like a right tyrant."
"Honestly, not that much. Hunt, sleep, a bit of running around for the heck of it. Huckle just really bought into the whole kingdom shtick way back when. If you know what a kingdom is."
"Can't say I've heard of it, no."
"Makes sense. It's a human thing, actually. But I'll bore you with the details later, so Fir can't bowl us both over for sitting around."- - - - - - - -
She didn't like to admit that it might have slipped her mind just slightly, but... It's always better late than never. Besides, Slatenose is easy to flag down, it's not like she missed her chance.
"Need any help?" Owlgaze chirped, trotting at a quick pace to catch up with the healer, only to fall into step beside him.
"Always welcome to join. Can't say it'll be anything interesting, though." Slatenose answered, steering her along to where he was going, the motion familiar in a way that only clanmates seemed to reach.
"Great thing I have something I wanna talk about then!"
"Oh, you do? Made new friends?" The tom didn't quite match her energy, focused on his own work as she talked.
"Something like that. You used to be a loner, right?" Owlgaze leaned in, careful not to get underpaw as Slatenose examines some wilty plants.
"I'd say so." His ear twitched her way this time.
"Well, this cat named Weaver was too! He seems fun, but he's struggling to get used to living around other cats." Even some days later, it was a concept she struggled to quite wrap her head around. That's why having cats around who weren't Clan cats at heart from birth seemed like a help.
"That can happen sometimes. Not every cat enjoys much company."
"Well, I think he would like it! He just needs some help to not be so shy!" The idea Weaver would just...never come around to company just felt wrong.
The answer hadn't been quite as quick this time, Slatenose stopping to think, perhaps weighing her viewpoint a bit more.
"Keep at it then. Just be careful not to overwhelm the poor cat."
"Well actually I told him I'd ask you to talk to him. Since you know what it's like living alone better than me." She weaved around to the other side of him as Slatenose spun to move the other way, her tail tipped higher up.
"If you'd like me to, I can certainly try sometime. What's he look like, then?" He'd answered with a friendly sort of huff.
"Very white, it would be hard to miss him. The one with the brown tail."
"I'll keep an eye out. Now, would you mind carrying these?"
And, well, once her teeth were busy with the flowers, there wasn't quite so much room to chat on the way back.- - - - - - - -
It was a calm night. But it was getting harder and harder to ignore away the biting chill. Even the trees were starting to prove little help.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
They'd seen the milling about of a half dozen or more cats out there. Smelt it, too, hard not to.
Frankly, just because some pompous furballs think they own everything, doesn't mean they actually do. They can share a star forsaken den, it ain't gonna kill them.
When Wolf could no longer offer her a reason for them not to go, all caution was tossed to the wind rather quickly. Where Wolf kept to the shadows, slinking along silently, ears alert for any kind of sound, Fire felt no need. A cat would need to be blind to not notice the bright orange fur anyway. At most she kept her distance from her friend.
It didn't take long to find what seemed to be a food storage area. Rodents, rabbits, birds, piled up together in a sight that made her mouth water. Enough to feed a family for weeks, maybe, if it didn't spoil.
Fox would appreciate extra pickings if nothing else.
"C'mere. They won't notice if a little goes missing."
She whisper-yelled over her shoulder, grabbing at the leg of a rabbit to drag it towards the way they came, watching as Wolf caught up enough to grab something smaller.
"Aren't we only supposed to be scouting?"
"We'll find someplace to hide out in later. Unless you wanna go ahead while I get this outside. Your choice."
She could feel the silent judgement even if she couldn't see it, chortling in response.
All in all, despite Wolf's reservations, everything went fine. There hasn't been a single sign of a cat awake, even. Weirdos.
The thrill of success lasted maybe all of 5 seconds, though, before Wolf was back to shivering, and Fire was reminded of the main reason they went in there in the first place.
"Come on. Gotta be somewhere we can nest in. They can't be using the whole place."...
The second plunge was slower, carefully scanning for any tunnels or crevices a cat could fit into. Unfortunately, whatever forces had build a cavern such as this wasn't exactly that considerate. Mice or rats, mostly, that'd how big most of the open crevices were, save for the massive towering passages, and those were much too open.
They're doubled over about 3 times and split up another 2 by the time they met back up in the food chamber of this twisted warren of half-tree sized rabbits.
"Nothing." Fire spat, anger directed at nothing in particular. Maybe just the stones themselves. Her tail lashed with restless energy as she paced back and forth.
"I found a gap in some flat wood that I could squeeze through." Wolf reported, her hushed voice much calmer, sat by the corner, keeping watch of the passage she'd last gone through. May as well, with how confusing this place was.
"Finally!"
Fire grumbled, throwing her head up before stepping forward, headbutting Wolf's shoulder on the way through.
Then.
A different voice echoed through from that very same direction. And another.
Fire stood her ground, listening, half-crouched and hackles raised. They'd wasted too much moonlight here to just run away now.
The voices bantered, growing clearer and more distinct as the distance closed.
"I've been practicing!"
"Sure, but you still lack tact, I'm telling you."
"You're only avoiding a match cuz you think you'd lose!"
"I'm avoiding one because I would prefer not to have you pouting at me for a rematch all day when I kick your tail."
The moment a dark shape appeared, Fire pounced. Her claws met fur just as paws grappled onto her in turn, each trying to steer the other in opposite directions.
The lighter tabby had disappeared from her peripheral vision in the meantime, yet apparently hadn't joined the fight.
Good enough.
She dug her teeth into thick neck fur, as teeth snapped at her ears, missing the curled-away tips of them. The tussle went to the bigger cat - Fire brought the dark tabby down onto his back eventually, despite the pushback.
Paws battered her belly, even as she ignored them for the time being.
It was claws almost nicking her eyes that had her pulling sharply away, creating enough of an opening for her opponent to slip away.
They stared each other down now, snarling and hissing, wordlessly daring the other to take the next attack.
"Found another one!" The other stranger's voice rang out. Cold rattled its way down Fire's spine.
Without a thought, she spun, abandoning the fight in favour of rushing to the cornered, growling Wolf.
Not that she got very far, a weight crashing directly into her flank a heartbeat later, a paw tugged out from under her enough to sent her rolling mid-run.
"We were just looking for a place to stay, away from the cold. I'm not looking for a fight." She heard Wolf reason, tense and barely audible over the fight where Fire and the stranger wrestled.
"Well, ya coulda just said so. Jag left, but usually he just let's anyone stay here. Just, uhhh. I don't think we're supposed to fight."
As surprising as the lighter stranger's attitude was, she didn't stop just yet. Just as well, the dark tabby looked to have little intent of stopping either. She'd much rather not be stuck on, mostly, her back batting away and trying to anticipate strikes from every which direction.
She took the first opportunity to get back on her paws she could find, leaping up fast enough to nearly catch the enemy in the jaw with a headbutt, only for her forehead to land with a dull thud on the tom's chest instead.
It wasn't dark grey in front of her when Fire opened her eyes, however, rather the larger light brown cat.
"Could you not? I said we can just talk, alright?" He chuffed in her face, though she honestly didn't find him that intimidating. Size didn't mean all that much, even if he was huge.
"What's there to say? Either we stay, or we have a problem to settle with claws."
"There's a lot more of us than there are of you." The dark tabby growled from the other side, shifting instead to stand beside his fellow.- - - - - - - -
With all that Jaguarcrown had made it sound like a peaceful job with nobody ever bothering him, Cam very much did not expect to get dragged out of sleep before dawn even broke.
She did her best to listen to the explanation being given, hoping Storm would catch the parts she missed in case any of it was important.
"So why do you need me there again?" She asked inbetween yawns, half-tempted to burrow back into her brother's side to avoid the chill of the autumn night seeping through.
"Usually Jaguarcrown would be who we ask, but he said while he's gone you're in charge, remember?" Fir had a lot more energy than she could ever imagine at a time like this, bouncing ahead a few steps at a time like an excited fox pup.
"Right."
At least in the old foxhole, she didn't have to worry about interrupted sleep. But Fir seemed a nice enough fellow, it would be rude to just brush him off.
The tension they ultimately walked in on helped wake her up a bit more. Huckleberry and a ginger cat glaring one another down, with a 3rd cat crouched beside the stranger.
At first they'd just looked like a tabby at a glance, but Cam found herself stepping back a bit when they stood up and stepped forward, noting the prominent bare patches of skin. She'd seen ill creatures look like that before.
"Sorry for the disturbance. Really. Terrible of us to barge in. Would you kindly hear us out?" The voice was soft, almost unexpectedly smooth.
Cam turned her head after feeling a tap on her shoulder, watching as Storm did his best to make his gestured words clearly visible even with the dark blending his fur with the shadows.
She'd heard the mention of a fight somewhere within Fir's story, but. If they were the instigators, that was much more of an issue.
"We'll hear what you have to say, I'm sure." She tried not to let the hesitation show through too clearly.
"We're desperate, that's all. My fur just doesn't protect me well in the cold, and we've a kitten in our care that hasn't encountered winter before. Here just seemed like the only place to overwinter safely for us."
Were it her own den, Cam would have felt inclined to turn them away, admittedly. As much as she didn't have the heart to abandon cats in need, they were simply a danger.
But this wasn't her den, not really. It was a giant structure more lived in by everyone else. And from the sounds of it, it hadn't seemed like Jaguarcrown cared too heavily for it, not in the same way one would care for a den...
"I'm sure it's not too much trouble to allow your stay over the winter."
"May I say something?" Huckleberry spoke up, even having yet to take his eyes off the larger stranger.
"What is it?"
"The spirits do not like trespassers. That certainly means we'll anger them if we let intruders stay without paying back the Crown for the insult."
Right. Jaguarcrown had mentioned something like that.
"I think it's fair enough then that during their stay, our guests should hunt for themselves instead of taking from the cache, right? Save for the kitten."
The orange cat scoffed and growled. Her smaller companion at least looked more pensive. Though a hushed conversation in the corner later, both agreed, if hesitantly, to the terms. Fir, thankfully, was more than eager to be a dear and help them find a spot to settle in away from everyone else.
"Actions" wrote:
[New cats: Fire(blood) - December 18th cat, Wolf(glade) - cat on the shelf round 4 cat, Fox - kitten slot machine]
[Cat request: mediumhaired cinnamon tabby persian (in lore 'british shorthair') student (apprentice)] (in character intended for Jaguarcrown to meet while away)
[The Clan consumes 1x Lizard, 1x Rabbit]
[Hunting patrol: Fireblood, Wolfglade]
[Hunting patrol: Yarrowshine, Firrumble]
[Border patrol: Huckleberryshell, Owlgaze]
[Border patrol: Camomilesun, Stormheart]
[Herb gathering: Slatenose (bringing Weaverdew along)]
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