[ti]Private[/ti]The Case of the Messy Moggy

[Broadwaykat]

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Although she had only been alive for a few moons, and hardly had seen all that the world had to offer, no one would ever say that Badgerkit did not have her opinions about things. And strong opinions they were; they might as well have been set in stone as far as she was concerned. A good kit should have plenty of sleep in order to look and think their best, they should also have the best, primest pieces of prey (she had only just started eating solid food, but she was already becoming rather picky about what she ate, preferring birds above all else). And of course, everything had a proper place. 

And woe be it if those places were disturbed. 

Badgerkit had just resently become very keen on collecting, too. She liked to decorate her side of the nursery nests with little bits of shiny pebbles and feathers. But for the last few days she had noticed a disturbing trend. She would just sort everything the way she wanted it, by size and color and general shape and sparkliness, and head for a mid-mid afternoon nap - only to find her careful collections utterly destroyed.

And she was determined to find out why. So, putting her detective mind to work, she had laid out her collection in a new spot and promptly burried herself in some dead sedge and feathertip ferns that had been swept aside from the nests. She wrinkled her nose at the strange earthy smell of her hiding place; but it worked wonders with her tabby pelt to make her invisible. Now all she needed was the culprit.

And woe to them when she found out who was responsible.

[bits]

It wasn't that Sootkit intended to be disruptive. She didn't wake up in the morning thinking how will I ruin lives today? She wasn't a social creature by nature, and it was difficult for her to understand why her clanmates acted the way that they did. She was a creepy kid by nature of her near-constant silence, her fascination with camouflaging herself in mud and dirt, and just the general eerieness of her presence. No, she wasn't nearly as bad as some kittens in the nursery (Peonykit came to mind, what with the tendency to mutter intelligibly over the bones of the deceased) but she was far from an easy kid to look after. She felt no guilt for it either way - but sometimes Sootkit had no reference for the discomfort she was capable of causing.

And sometimes, it was a complete accident. While certain actions she undertook with willful ignorance (biting being her go-to, or tossing dirt and mud at someone who was being rude), other times it wasn't really her intention to cause any issues. This was one of the latter moments; Sootkit didn't intend to cause issues with the collection that Badgerkit had gathered - she just... well. It was a little simpler than nefarious desires.

One of the queens had just finished grooming Sootkit back to a respectable state. She waited just long enough for the queen to stop paying attention to her, took a few steps away, and practically dove head first into the collection of shiny things and the nest. She rolled around, trying to get as much debris stuck to her as possible to make up for the loss of her usual dirtiness. The side effect was that the collection was irrevocably messed up - something that didn't seem to occur to her.

Broadwaykat

[Broadwaykat]

It seemed to take much longer for something to happen than Badgerkit had planned for. Her hiding spot was very comfortable, and before she knew it her eyelids were drifting shut. She had just settled into a sort-of comfortable non-slumber stupor when a sudden tinkling-crickling-tumbling noise caught her attention.

Her eyes snapped open; and there, before her, was the culprit. For a moment she thought her precious collection was being assaulted by some sort of fuzzy shadow. But as she shook her stupor off, the wind change, and a scent reached her nose. A very familiar-yet-strange one, as it seemed to belong to someone who did their best to disguise it by rolling in the most disturbing of things they could find. 

"SOOTKIT!?" She bellowed, her anger driving out all previous thoughts of stealth, concealment and digression. She emerged from her hiding spot spitting, dried grasses and debris clinging to her on-end fur. "WHAT IN STARCLAN DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

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[bits]

Alarmingly, Sootkit didn't seem to be surprised by the sudden reappearance of Badgerkit. Noises were a constant here, and while she did stop where she was and look towards Badgerkit, it took a moment for her to realize that yes. She was being addressed. Badgerkit was ... yelling at her? She didn't take admonishments very well, in the sense that very few attempts to correct her were successful, regardless of who was trying to scold her. Queens were routinely ignored, adults half-listened to, and her peers weren't any different. So Badgerkit was upset, but Sootkit's mental disconnect meant that she had no clue as to why.

Sootkit, what in Starclan do you think you're doing?!

Was that something she was supposed to answer? It seemed to be. The kitten was still half rolled onto her back when her denmate started yelling, and if nothing else, she didn't seem unhappy with the result. She was more intrigued than anything, and slowly rolled so that she was lying back on her belly.

"Needed to get dirty again. One'a the queens made me groom."

As though it was the most obvious thing in the world.


Broadwaykat

[Broadwaykat]

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Inwardly, Badgerkit knew that all cats were supposed to have their skills and quirks. She, well...she prided herself on learning everything she could, but strangely enough that didn't get her a lot of the admiration she thought due to her. Her sisters and brothers all were strong and proud.  Others still had their quirks - warriors knew how to fight and hunter, leaders to lead and Medicine Cats to heal. These were all basic facts that she had picked up in her few short moons of life and constant pesterings of older cats.

But for the life of her, there were some things she just couldn't figure out. Why did Peonykit talk about weird things all the time. Why were apprentice's so pushy....

And why, for the love of STARCLAN...did Sootkit seem so bent on being annoyingly...disgusting.

She couldn't articulate those problems now; her anger was up. And when Badgerkit got mad, her articulation and brains went out the window. 

"Those are MY things, Sootkit! MINE! I Went and collecteded them! It took me AGES!" She snarled, her kit fur fluffed to dangerous, appoleptic-hedgehog levels of spikiness. "And you RUINED them!"

[bits]

Broadwaykat

Sympathy was a difficult thing for Sootkit, who had very little stake in the wellbeing of other people. She didn't know Badgerkit, not really, and she didn't care much for the other - if Badgerkit had something interesting to do or say, Sootkit might be intrigued enough to listen, but otherwise there was very little on the line as her denmate continued to scold her. The yelling made one of her ears fall back, pinned not out of emotional distraught but rather to defend against the volume.

The quiet child looked away from the angry kitten, her yellow eyes drifting over the collection. She hadn't necessarily destroyed everything. The feathers especially were kinda messed up, but pebbles and hard things were just kinda scattered around. She might have eaten one the other day, she wasn't sure. The thought of apologising didn't really cross her mind; why? It wouldn't mean anything. She wasn't sorry; but she was curious how to rectify the situation.

"You shouldn't leave your things out in the open. They're safer if you hide them or bury them."

There! She fixed it. Sootkit looked back at Badgerkit, still blinking almost owlishly at the other. It wasn't an apology but if Badgerkit hid her things no one would mess them up by accident... or on purpose. Except maybe Sootkit, one more time, because she didn't appreciate being yelled at.

[Broadwaykat]

Anger was not something that easily flitted from Badgerkit's mind once it had taken root; in fact, there was a part of her that registered Sootkit as having some sort of point, but also realizing that the fact she did have a point made her ire burn all the more hotter. She stocked around the older she-kit, looking at her destroyed collection; it's bent feathers and crooked stones, and realized how fruitless this was. She may have found the culprit, but there was still her collection, lying there in a mess. 

"If I buried it, it'd get dirty." She curled her lip up at the word, even as she realized exactly who she was talking to and why this was a problem that would not strike Sootkit as particuarly bad. "And if I HID it, then no one would get to LOOK at it?!" She finally snapped once more, unable to contain herself. She wanted to pin Sootkit down; make her beg for mercy until she offered to clean...and not just clean...to replace every bent piece of bric-a brac, every unpolished stone. But at the same point she didn't want to really get her own paws dirty touching her.

[bits]

Sootkit was apparently completely unable to comprehend the anger being directed at her. She understood quick flashes of emotion; anger at being accosted, disgust at a bad piece of prey. These were things she could understand, but lasting emotion? That was beyond her expertise. she couldn't grasp why Badgerkit was still mad. Still furious. Why? Was the problem not resolved? It's not like Badgerkit could change the reality of the situation, and Sootkit was the kind of creature to live life by the moment - anything beyond this moment, past or future, was beyond her. The past was untouchable - there was no point in worrying about it. The future was unknowable. The concept of assigning a value to things or people was not one Sootkit was familiar with. Maybe that was why she stared expressionlessly for Badgerkit's tirade. Or perhaps this moment was just engaging enough to keep her attention.

Either way, the explanation made no sense to the dirty kitten. Worries about things getting dirty, or desire to have people see one's actions or deeds... neither were relatable. And because Sootkit was, well, Sootkit, she saw nothing wrong with voicing her opinion of this whole thing.

"That's stupid."

It was a little crass (read: very rude) but it was what she thought. She had no precious items or people and the thought of anger over ... what amounted to some random crap in her eyes? That didn't make any sense. If it didn't make sense to Sootkit, it must be stupid, and she either didn't realize or didn't care that her comment may be taken as an insult. Evidently, Sootkit cared little as to whether or not she deescalated the situation.

[Broadwaykat]

Badgerkit might have been an intelligent young she-cat, but her biggest problems was her emotions; she let them get the best of her no matter what. And despite her young age, there was nothing more insulting than to be called stupid. In her mind, she knew just as much as the older kits already. More than some apprentices; heck, she thought that she may know more about important things than her PARENTS did. She was smart, intelligent and in control.

Most of the time.

So Sootkit calling her thoughts stupid - that was the straw that broke this kitty's back. She would not, could not stand such a slight. And despite the fact that Sootkit was older, that she was at least two moons older than she was, Badgerkit was beyond words. Whatever careful revenges she had planned before had fled, and Badgerkit let lose with the last thing in her arsenal to deal with things that annoyed her.

She pounced.

[bits]

Sootkit was hard to make sense of; even the kitten herself wasn't sure whether or not she was doing this to incite conflict. It could have been her nature that compelled her to do this, or perhaps she wanted to see the result of her honesty and lack of care. It was hard to say even for Sootkit. But regardless of the motivation, she bothered Badgerkit to the point of violence. It was neither the first (nor likely the last) that she'd gotten into a legitimate conflict with a clanmate. Thought Mudpaw had very quickly backed off, this probably wasn't going to be as simple as the first time. But the strategy Sootkit employed remained the same.

The situation didn't matter - as soon as Badgerkit pounced on her, the dirt-covered kitten twisted to try and chomp down on her denmate, not caring where she ended up biting. Unlike her quick tag with Mudpaw to warn him off, this was a blatant attack - Sootkit was trying to clamp down on the other kitten without the intent of letting go.