[ti]Open[/ti]wild roses on a bed of leaves

[bits]

In the course of three days, Bearpaw's life went from "calm, functional, and maybe a little dull" to "I've lost my home (again), my tribe clan, and everything I've held dear". This was the second time that disaster had sundered Rootclan, and Bearpaw was starting to think that her clan was cursed. Or maybe she was - after all, a day and a half after losing her way, she was snatched up by rogues. She would never have considered it to be a legitimate threat: "kidnapped by rogues" was a scary story used to scare kittens into behaving themselves. No one actually got kidnapped by rogues.

Okay, so maybe she had underestimated the threat that the outside world offered. 

Because after a little bit of a scrape, the apprentice (she would have been a warrior by now had she managed to stick with her clan) found herself brought along to... more rogues? If it was a group of rogues, what made it different from a clan? Was it just... a reverse-clan? Evil-clan? Anti-clan? If she focused on the semantics of the group she was with, maybe she wouldn't immediately spiral into an endless thought-train of "I'm probably gonna die".

"I would like to go home now please."

The young Rootclanner was polite despite her mortal terror. Even during the initial encounter, she seemed more inclined to go silent than to yell and make a fuss. That probably wasn't the best action plan during a kidnapping, but she couldn't help her immediate reaction. So now she stood stiffly, as though keeping herself still and quiet would allow her to fade so wholly into the background that she just ... disappeared.

[Mama]

Vulpes wasn't certain where this cat had came from, or what her name was, but did that matter anyways? She was a filthy, star kissing clanner. And being polite wasn't making him any less angry with her. If anything, it ticked him off even more.

"Oh, will you shut it already!" He snarled, keeping guard of her incase she ran. His claws sunk into the dirt as he kept his distance, but watched her like a hawk. "You think we'd let a rat-infected, stinky, idiotic clanner go home with a please? Maybe if you say pretty please, I'll think about it." Vulpes sarcastically hissed, before rising to his paws to turn and fully face her. His elongated teeth stuck out of his mouth, similar to a fox or a dog's, and he stalked towards her.

"Oh, for crying out loud, leave her alone, Vulpes!" Came a voice from the other side of the clearing. A brown, wideeyed tom nervously shifted his weight back and forth, uncomfortable with the violence.

"Oh, you shut up too, or I'll tear your face in half. You'll look as ugly as our mother did. Stargazer, more like Scargazer." Vulpes sneered back, lunging fowards with a snarl and sending his smaller brother back into his little shadowy side of the camp. Turning back towards the clan cat, the fur along his spine bristling before flattening back down, the tom started to stalk towards her.

He had a unique appearance. He looked just like the other clan cats, however, he had unusual markings like swirls all over his pelt. And, big teeth. Along with that, his eyes flickered with bloodlust, and boredom.

"So, say one more word, and I'll tear your face off first." Vulpes hissed into her ear with a devilish smirk, before sitting down about two taillengths from her.

[bits]

Bearpaw wasn't particularly known for being rowdy, or even self-confident. She wasn't boisterous, she wasn't loud, she wasn't extroverted in the slightest. Even when she was just a kitten and the tribe was falling apart during the first loss of their home, she hadn't uttered more than a few coherent sentences: I'm scared or I want my mom. She hadn't wailed, hadn't screamed - throughout her life, fear and danger had sent her into near-silence. It was nice at times - queens in the nursery never had to worry about her being noisy or disturbing others. But even when the situation called for volume, she failed to rise to the occasion; when the stranger had trespassed onto their territory, it was primarily luck which had brought her mentor to her side when she had stood, statuesque.

So maybe it was growth (or perhaps stupidity) that fanned the flames of indignation in her chest. She was afraid, yes, but she was also defiant in the quiet way she had. She would not stomp and yell and fight, but neither would she tremble and whimper. Instead, Bearpaw set her jaw and met Vulpes' gaze, knowing that ignoring her situation would not get her out of it. Ideally, her stoicism and quiet demeanour would allow her to simply fade into invisibility - but the world didn't work like that, and she could only stare into the face of her current problem. There was no hiding from this, nor would running get her far (especially with exhaustion clinging to her in the wake of the rapid evacuation).

"I would like to go home. I don't have anything for you. Please let me leave."

This was, potentially, the most polite and even-toned defiance that could be had.

[Fireflake]

Scorpio listened silently as he slowly stacked pebbles on a pile in front of him only to knock the same ones off again. Though the words from the room over were mostly background noise, he kept his ears pricked. He had to admit that ‘I would like to go home now please’ was not a clan attitude he'd come across before. Maybe the she-cat was biding her time, he decided, to preserve her energy and get them to drop their guards. It wasn't the air he got from her, and his gut wasn't usually wrong, but there was no chance that a clanner was sitting in their base and just politely asking to be released.

He was second-guessing his decision to bring her into their den at all. She could go back and share what she'd learned with her clan, and the alliance might have to move again. He couldn't help but wonder what his mother would have done if her own kidnappings hadn't always gone awry. Would she have kept them forever? Killed them off? Or traded them back and doubled up the alliance's defences? Scorpio left Vulpes and Stargazer to their own devices for now, though he frowned at the sound of their squabbling. He'd have to talk to Hornet about what to do later, and Split, when he could find her.