Post by Fireflake on Sept 1, 2019 8:26:15 GMT
Pepperpaw took a deep breath as she padded back into IvyClan's camp, savoring the mixture of fresh air with the interwoven scents of her clanmates. Seeing camp from the outside still seemed novel and exhilarating to her, likely a result of the injury that had left her hind leg at a slightly odd angle away from her body. It kept her in the nursery, and occasionally in the medicine cat and elder dens, two moons longer than the average kit would have been. It didn't hold her back anymore, though. She was happy just to have another shot.
The tabby's practice with grand battle moves and her proud first catch were some of the best stories to come out of the few moons of apprenticeship that she'd lived so far, but they weren't her favorite moments. The real bests were things like the first time she realized the volume and variety of moss hidden away in IvyClan's land. After moons of sorting second-hand moss, she could finally see the source! Truth be told, she spent far too much time scouting out the softest stuff when she should have been hunting actual prey. Her mentor was usually able to redirect her focus in a swift manner, but nobody paid as much attention on patrols.
This morning's patrol, for example. Luckily, this trip had only been to mark the border, so she wasn't in any trouble for collecting the green mass which now tickled her chin as it hung out of her mouth. She could take it straight to her nest and enjoy it when the busy day had left her worn and tired. That's exactly what she had intended to do, but before she knew it, she was staring at the inside of the nursery instead. What cats said about old habits dying hard was definitely true, especially in a cat as drawn to familiarity as Pepperpaw was. So there she was, standing in the entrance to the nursery with a wad of moss, completely by chance. A twinkle danced in her eyes, and something told her she wasn't getting out of this quietly.
