Shade and Birdsongs

[Goose]

The afternoon sun shown brightly in the sky, big fluffy white clouds drifted across the sky lazily. Crickets chirped in the long grass of the quarry , its stone walls bright and shiny in the suns light.

Snowcreek layed in a warm patch of grass in the suns, its ray's warning his patched coat and the ground around him. The tom watched silently as cats bustled around the nursery, wingedheart had given birth a day before and the clan was welcoming it's new members. Snowcreek had peeked in earlier and saw the kits and his heart melted a bit at the sight. The tom wanted kits of his own someday but for now he was content.

The suns rays moved across the camp slowly, Snowcreek getting up every once in a while to remain in the sunshine. The dappled tom greeted a few cats that crossed his path and gossiped a little but was mostly left alone to his devices.

The tom grinned when a familiar face walked by, the tom lazily batted at the cats legs as they walked by but got a solid hit on their tail. Whap!" Gotcha!" Snowcreek laughed out.

[bits]

[ wasn't sure if this was open or not; if it's not, let me know so I can yeet this reply into the abyss ]

Swiftwing was on her way out of camp - despite having returned no more than an hour ago. These days, she was in the territory more often than not, returning only to eat something, drop off prey, or pick up her apprentice. Miraculously, her mentorship seemed to be doing alright. While her headstrong apprentice had been a pawful initially, they seemed to be on the same page now. He didn't need constant training; he seemed to thrive with shorter, intensive lessons and time to practise on his own. That left the workaholic molly to do more patrols, something she'd been nigh-on obsessed with lately. Swiftwing hadn't been the most social of warriors before Creeksong's disappearance, but she seemed to be a ghost to the clan these days, appearing for short periods and boasting cracked paw pads and exhaustion-hazed eyes.

In short, she wasn't engaged in camp and wasn't planning to stop and acknowledge anyone. Of course, either Starclan or the forces of nature had a conspiratorial grudge against her, because someone smacked her tail and Swiftwing nearly jumped out of her fur. After her heart stopped trying to mimic a mouse's, she turned her flabbergasted gaze on none other than Snowcreek.

A solid thirty seconds went by in which Swiftwing gaped openly. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times, as though her words would be ready to go and fizzle on the way out of her maw.

"W- ... Why. Just... why?"

Any other day and Swiftwing's prickly personality would have inspired her to lecture or admonish the other warrior. But exhaustion and stress left her less prepared for moments like this, and she blinked rapidly as though she could blink away whatever just interrupted her day.

[Goose]

( i am so so sorry for the late reply, i hope you can forgive me and i totally forgot to put this thread as open lol)

Snowcreek giggled guiltily as swiftwing was startled by his playful swipe at her tail. The dappled tom sat up and dipped his head apolitically and twitched his whiskers. " Sorry swiftwing , you looked a little tense and i thought you needed a good o'l dose of some fun" the snowy tom replied.The black and white tom took another glance at the bamboozled she-cat and stifled the laughter that threatened to bubble up in his chest and cleared his throat " You should get some rest now and take care of yourself , i can admire your determination to keep the clan feed but you should take a day or morning for yourself sometimes too." Snowcreek said his voice turning from lively to a quiet and more stern tone. The tom turned to walk away and leave the mollie in peace but he had one more thing to say. " Oh !, don't forget , if you ever need a break i can cover you for hunting and border patrol" the lanky cat offered with a kind smile and a flick of his long, feathery tail.

[bits]

[ no worries!!! ]

To the credit of Snowcreek, the initial act had baffled Swiftwing to the point of silence. Merely asking 'why' had taken so much of her mental real estate that her brain struggled to comprehend the follow-up explanation. She looked ... tense? That much would make sense - though the last time she looked relaxed was probably before she had become an apprentice, if then. It was hard to say when, exactly, her severe demeanour had cemented itself into her personality, but it had been some time. She was objectively aware of the fact, though it was strange to hear it stated so plainly by someone else. Most avoided pointing it out, given that doing so would be... not rude, but certainly outside the bounds of the distant relationships the red molly tended to keep with the rest of the clan.

Her brain began to catch up with her sometime around the use of the word determination. Determined was a nice way of putting it, with the less nice way sounding more like obsessive or overbearing. Determined made it sound a lot kinder than it tended to feel. The word painted her as a better warrior than she felt like, and she blinked a few more times to try and make sense of the oddly friendly interaction.

"I ... if you're hunting with that technique, I think I'll keep going on patrols."

There was less bite to her words than there could've been though. Swiftwing wasn't a particularly kind individual, but she had to hide her amusement more than she was used to at the odd way of trying to get her out of her head.

[Goose]

The dappled tom blinked as he processed swiftwings little jibe at him . "BWAH HA HA Ha" Snowcreek burst out in laughter and grinned at the she-cat with wide eyes, oh how his day was going. Snowcreek purred in delight at the bite in her words but could tell she was amused with his antics. The tom was glad she was relaxing a little as they talked as the ginger she-cat was always moving and didn't seem to ever take a break. " Well since your always out on patrol maybe you can show me a few moves after you relax?" the white and black tom offered in a friendly tone. Snowcreek hoped the she-cat would take some time to herself because he knew what could happen when cats worked that hard. They burnt out and had to recover for a long time afterwards and snowcreek had an inkling that Swiftwing would probably not use the full time to recover and would feel like a burden to her clan. Snowcreek was probably a little out of line with his comments but he was trying to help out a clanmate in need. Even if said clanmate didn't know they were in need.