Exploring, Among Other Things. (Open.)

[Aureate]

Graybird didn't really have a definitive opinion on kittypets. She knew what most of her Clanmates thought of them -- that they were spoiled, with their safety a given and food always in front of them -- and she agreed with their opinions, but she felt there was more to it than that. She felt bad for the kittypets, in a way, because they would never get to experience the joys of Clan life: the wind in your fur as you raced through the marshes, the satisfaction of having a rat that you caught yourself in your claws, the way that every member of your Clan was an important part of your family.

This was what Graybird contemplated as she padded closer towards Hayden Street. She had never really met an actual kittypet, but maybe she would now: Hayden Street was the strip of road that went around all five Clans' territories. There were many more kittypets and loners on it the Clan cats, but the warriors did visit sometimes... and this was one of those times.

ShadowClan was fairly small at the moment and everyone in it was fairly healthy, so Graybird didn't have much to do at the moment. Leaf-bare was quickly approaching, though, so it was important to collect as many herbs as possible. She hadn't heard of any good patches of herbs in this area, but it couldn't hurt to look.

Pausing, she opened her jaws a bit to allow the air to flow through them, and sniffed. The scent of twolegs was everywhere, but underneath that was the faint scent of cats, and then, even fainter... the smell of mouse. Graybird slid down into a hunting crouch, her eyes and ears angling towards a tuft a grass that she could tell the mouse was hiding in. Placing her paws carefully and quietly, she slowly stepped towards the grassy hump. A few more seconds of waiting, and then she pushed off with her hind legs and leaped with her claws outstretched.

Unfortunately, though, the push wasn't hard enough of she was too far away: Graybird landed a few pawsteps away from her goal. Startled by the thump the medicine cat had made when she hit the ground, the mouse shot out of its hiding place towards the twoleg houses. "Foxdung," Graybird said to herself quietly. Apparently, she needed more practice to be as good at hunting as an actual warrior.

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[Silvaah.]

Put on your Sunday clothes,

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A less than gentle breeze hovered over Hayden Street, sending a single leaf into flight; a flight that the leaf had most definitely not requested. It had been snatched up by the wind as soon as it had let go of the branch, then promptly dragged into a messy routine of twirling and diving, before being roughly deposited and left to scuttle across the tarmac road. At least the rain had subsided. It could’ve only worsened the leaf’s surprise journey, and sabotaged the neighbourhoods’ wishes for a warm day. But it had and, in return, most Twolegs had pushed open their windows, one in particular allowing the nose of a rather large dog to escape and desperately inhale fresh air. Brickwork chimneys had finally stopped puffing out streams of murky smoke, and so the blockage to the blue sky had been lifted, also giving way to the sun.

What luck, then, for one housecat. His Twolegs had left the house a few hours ago and, though he’d been grateful for the quiet at first, he now hoped for their return. A block of light spilled in from the window, casting a patch of warmth in it’s silhouette, and thus alerting the tom that sun had finally appeared. He scanned the room briefly for any sort of opening... there was only one. It was no use to him in this situation, though; a rip near the bottom of his favourite armchair that he’d made a few months ago by, er, jumping when the vacuum cleaner had been turned on. He wasn’t all that proud of his creation or, at least he hadn’t been when it’d happened, but now at least it offered a shelter for mice on their passing, and a snack when his Twolegs forgot to fill his bowl. Nice creatures, Twolegs. Really.

Ra untangled his legs from beneath his chest, stretching them out to free the stiffness of slumber. He expected the cold to hit him, but was then reminded why he’d wanted to get up in the first place. A faint smile curved his muzzle as he leapt from his perch on the chair, moving with a stride as he crossed the room out into the hallway, floor bleached yellow by the natural light. The house was home to a young family, but was rather old in itself; the hallway was strongly fragranced by oak wood, which radiated from the pair of marbled stairs in the centre of it. He placed one paw on the bottom step, pausing to look gratefully behind him at the closed window, where a bird- sparrow, he decided - swooped just outside, before leaping up the following. Clambering up the very last step, Ra noticed a slow whistling noise. Uncertain at first, he inclined his neck to the left, peering into an open room with slight apprehension. Bare carpet stretched out in front of him in a trail of beige wool and, even further ahead, was a balcony to which the door lay practically wide open... to a cat, at least.

Fright forgotten, Ra exploded into a series of fluid bounds, clearing the wide expanse of ground and not even allowing his stride to be broken as he squeezed out into the open. A much needed exhale was released, and an inhale was taken in return, along with a certain light in his pale gaze. He wasn’t quite sure what should happen next however, as he was still at least a story from complete freedom. A single drop of stagnant water dripped from the ledge above him, which brought with it a rather daunting idea. Pipes. Below, he knew from very strenuous hours of waiting outside for the front door to open, was a line of copper-coloured drainpipes. They were extremely narrow and open from the top, which may or may not’ve lead to a pair of unpleasantly wet paws and an untimely death if he fell. He could be careful.

Ra stretched out a foreleg, testing the durability of the tiling below before closing his almond-shaped eyes. He shouldered his way through two black iron bars holding up the balcony fence, squinting despite himself at the heady scent of paint. With a single deep breath, he jumped, paws splaying out in all directions, ready to grip whatever surface came their way. A sickening feeling enveloped him as his feet touched something and, upon preparation to stop himself from slipping, he realised that he was, in fact, clawless. Bunching his screaming muscles suddenly, he prayed to whatever would help him that something, anything, would hold him still. And then he stopped. Ra noticed, after a few needed moments to gather any composure he still had left, that his left back leg was being supported by something. It was at that moment that his eyes opened, revealing the world in an immediate blur which soon cleared as his vision adjusted. He turned his head, and a thankful breath left him. One of his legs brushed against the very target he was aiming for – the pipe – while the other half of his body clung for dear life to the brassy tiles lying in slants above it. Reversing with unrelenting precision, he brought all of his paws onto the pipe so that he could use it to walk, unevenly, to the right side of the house. His tail swished as he brought his walk, which had been done entirely with limping movements, to a halt. Rearing onto his hindlegs, he then sprang downwards onto a dusty trashcan, then finally to the concrete floor beneath.

Pausing a final time to shake his coat free of dirt, Ra trotted into the reaches of light with a bright grin. He dared say that his short but inarguably perilous journey had not been in vain, and that this was indeed a perfectly fine day. [/center][/justify]

There's lots of World out there !

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WORDS ;; ... far too many. Over a thousand, I think.
LYRICS ;; Michael Crawford - Put on your Sunday Clothes.
NOTES ;; Really didn't mean for it to be that long at all, but I felt it needed to be to get what I wanted to say across. If it isn't obvious, he's perfectly visible now. I didn't mention him seeing Graybird because I thought if I typed anymore, you'd be at a ripe old age and've gone blind before I finished. Sorry.

[Aureate]

Graybird shook off her embarrassment with a flick of her paw and prepared to hunt again. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she scanned the ground ahead, peering from a distance into every crack and crevice in the street -- the few that there were, anyway. Perhaps this wasn't the best place to be hunting mice... But Graybird was on a mission now, and desired to finish what she had started. Maybe it would take a while to catch something, but she had time.

The first thing to do was find another piece of prey. The thump of her failed pounce had scared the first mouse away, and it was possible the other small animals in the area had been alerted, too. It was best, Graybird decided, to move closer to the Twoleg homes and see what she could find there. There would probably be mice there, and maybe a rat or two -- the street and the homes alongside it looked fairly tidy and clean, but Graybird a few black bags that smelled like the stinking mix of old Twoleg food.

Padding closer to the tall, foreign-looking buildings, Graybird looked around warily. She hadn't gotten into any scrapes with Twolegs herself, but she had heard tales from the few cats who had. The street was a fairly open space, anyway, so she could easily run away if necessary. It was good to be careful, though, and Graybird ducked into the narrow shadow next to one of the buildings. As she did, the strange stone surface brushed against her fur uncomfortably, and Graybird leaned away from it. Weird Twoleg thing. At the back of her mind she wondered if it was real rocks or just a stone-looking material -- there was no way to get such a huge piece of rock so smooth, was there? Graybird doubted that such strange creatures as the Twolegs had ways to do that.

But that wasn't the real issue right now. From her place in the shadow, Graybird hoped that any passing person would see only the eery glowing of her bright feline eyes, which darted from side to side as she looked for more prey. Lifting her nose slightly into the air, she inhaled and waited for something to come along.

A minute later, something did. Rat! Graybird thought, only barely remembering to keep her tail from twitching excitedly. Rat wasn't the type of animal that ShadowClan cats ate often (neither was mouse, for that matter), but she guessed she could catch it. And it was bigger than a frog, too -- maybe she would bring it home to the camp instead of eating it then and there as a reward for her warrior-class (well, not really) hunting skills.

Pricking her ears in the direction of the faint scratching noises the rat made as its claws scrabbled and scraped along the sidewalk, Graybird unsheathed her claws. In a moment the rat poked first its twitching nose and then its whole head out from behind a trash can. As it decided the coast was clear, it walked out into the open, a thick piece of Twoleg food clamped in its toothy jaws. Graybird breathed in deeply, excited by the prospect of fresh-kill. She lowered her haunches into the hunting crouch position, waved them ever so slightly from side to side, leaned back a bit to put her weight into her back legs, stared even harder at her unmoving target, and--

Thud! The rat looked up in terror and darted away as a blunt bang interrupted the otherwise silent interaction between predator and prey. Graybird's head shot up and she pulled immediately out of her hunting crouch, furious at the disruption. With her prey gone, having disappeared into some other dark corner of the street, Graybird stalked out of her little hiding place with the intention of confronting or at least seeing whatever had destroyed her now-futile attempt at hunting.

The only creature Graybird could see was a cat -- a kittypet, most likely -- standing in a patch of light near one of the Twoleg buildings. Graybird noted with irritation that it was grinning widely, but guessed that maybe it was happy because it had escaped from its Twolegs. She could see no doors nearby, but several windows on the building; maybe it had jumped out of one of those. The bang could have been from a leap onto the trashcan, or maybe the cat had just knocked into one.

Graybird sighed shortly, the breath huffing out through her nose. The cat really didn't look like it had intentionally disrupted her hunting, so it was probably just a mistake. No point in getting this mad, really, she thought. And if the cat was new to the outdoors (Graybird just couldn't understand why kittypets liked being inside; this one was probably more normal, in her opinion), she might as well go up to it. It would be interesting to meet a kittypet, after all.

Blinking her eyes as she stepped out of the shadows into the brightly lit area the other cat was in, Graybird attempted to look friendly. She wasn't very close to the cat, but could easily reach it with a few steps, not wanting to be too pushy or intimate with a cat she had just happened upon. Glancing to the side nervously, the Clan cat wondered if she should speak first. Usually she wouldn't, and she almost decided to wait for the stranger to respond to her appearance, but then she decided to ask a question in an attempt to get past the formalities of "hello, how are you, lovely day, isn't it, yes, yes."

Graybird cleared her throat a bit awkwardly. She opened her mouth and then closed it before trying again: "Hi," she said. "You're a kittypet, right? New to the outside?"




OOC: 965 words. It was fun to write. :]

[Silvaah.]

Put on your Sunday clothes,

Er, what now? Ra paused, mulling casually over how it was so much harder to decide what to do when there were endless possibilities, most of which he currently couldn’t think of. Sunlight gripped his dense fur, warmth blanching its woody colour and highlighting rare pigments of orange it held. Even the dark tones on his back, which connected to a fading patch on his forehead, were altered and forced to take on a lighter shade. Discomfort was in fact present, but it didn’t occupy his thoughts too heavily as he pondered over his options, glad for the constant shedding of his fur in preparation for the summer. Anyway... Ra had a number of friends around Hayden Street, and even a few who lived beyond that. Jasmine, the over-friendly Siamese and the perhaps cruelly-named ‘Toast’ lived only a few doors down from his dated but otherwise welcoming nest. For a second, he thought about visiting them, but reconsidered rather quickly. Last time he’d entered Jasmine’s garden to look for her, he’d been shooed out by her Twolegs after being accused of disturbing a patch of new daffodils. And, recalling his last discussion with Toast, he remembered that the tom-cat and his human family were away for a few days on something called a va—um, trip.

The distant call of a crow roused him from his haze of thought and caused him to look toward the still-bright skies. Although it was perfect weather, Ra didn’t really feel like calling upon anyone else. His expression darkened briefly as he watched a pair of particularly adventurous squirrels descend from the tip of a tree branch, one following promptly after the other. They chattered noisily to back and forth, and Ra’s thoughts of food vanished as he noticed how much they seemed to be enjoying each other’s presence, not wanting to separate them and turn their sunny day into a solitary one, too. His yellow eyes downcast for a second, wondering quietly why the only pleasant day he’d seen for numerous weeks had been ruined with practically nothing to do. Usually following the lead of his companion, he often complied with what they wanted, perfectly happy to keep them entertained and share their, well, happiness. Alone, he didn’t have many ideas.

Feeling rather out of place now, he decided to survey the area around him for the umpteenth time, hoping something interesting would crop up, if completely out of nowhere. To put it lightly, he was more than a little surprised when they – or more specifically she – did. She didn’t look anything like Jasmine at all; her face wasn’t nearly as pointed or... inevitably joyful as the brown-faced kittypet’s was, and her pelt didn’t have the same sleekness that came with a maybe too regular brushing. The scent that came from her in strong bounds presented that of mud and... trees, perhaps pines. She was most definitely a stranger to him, but yet another look at her slight unease told him that she was probably a stranger to the entire neighbourhood. It was apparent that she wanted to talk to him, and apprehension only clouded the relief that flooded is need for company for a brief moment. The foreigner was undoubtedly a forest cat, and therefore a member of one of the groups his dimmer-minded fellow house pets feared with a ridiculous passion. They probably had no reason for it other than the usual lectures parents felt the need to pass down from generation to generation, which Ra himself hadn’t been held from. He preferred to take the route of optimism, however, and chose to stand calmly until the she-cat saw it fit to say what she wanted to, despite the obvious unease he felt.

‘Hi. You’re a kittypet, right? New to the outside?’
Ra failed to hide a hint of amusement at her assumption. It seemed that Clancat parents weren’t without their ‘stereotypical house cat’ talks, either. Actually, she might’ve been right if she’d asked a few other felines he knew of; the cat next door had never been seen beyond the closed window of her nest, which puzzled him and a few of his friends to no end. “No,” he replied, in a tone that could only be taken as a friendly one, “they open the doors every once and a while to let us breathe.” He hoped she wouldn’t miss his light joke, even if it wasn’t taken as a very humorous one. Despite that, he smiled faintly.

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There's lots of World out there !

WORDS ;; 749.
LYRICS ;; Michael Crawford - Put on your Sunday Clothes.
NOTES ;; ... um. Hi.

[Aureate]

The kitttypet smiled a bit in response to Graybird's question, looking a tad amused. She wondered why -- had she said something dumb? Her question made sense, though, right? Through her years in ShadowClan she had picked up that kittypets were at the opposite end of the spectrum as the warriors: cats who were given food instead of hunted for it, spent most of their time with humans instead of others of their own species, and stayed inside instead of living in and exploring the great outdoors. If the stranger was actually used to being outside, Graybird couldn't imagine why it wouldn't want to just stay there. After all, being a Clan cat who made their home in the forests was much better than being stuck in a Twoleg nest all day long.

Her contemplation lasted only a moment, though, and ended as the other cat started to speak without missing a beat. "No, they open the doors every once in a while to let us breathe." Unfortunately, this only added to Graybird's confusion. "To let you... breathe...?" She asked, repeating the kittypet's words. In an attempt to hide her lack of understanding of the facetious comment, she let out a short monosyllabic laugh. Her shifting eyes gave her away, though, and she guessed that the other cat could see through her act into her confusion.

"I thought kittypets just stayed inside all the time," she said, trying to explain what had befuddled her. "I'm a Clan cat, you know--" would the kittypet know what that was? She guessed they would. Maybe they knew about warriors just as the Clan cats knew about them. But, she thought, Maybe I don't know that much after all. "-- so I just live outside all the time, and I can't imagine what it must be like to always be enclosed and stuck with Twolegs." Graybird wrinkled her nose in disgust. She would never be able to do that and, fortunately, never would have to. There were stories, though, of cats who had been captured by Twolegs, and these tales were told by queens to their kits to keep them from wandering off too close to the Twoleg nests.

Graybird had to visit a few Twoleg nests to gather the herbs that grew in their overrun gardens, but these nests had been abandoned long ago and even the scent of Twolegs was covered by those of the dust that coated the walls and the mice that ran through them. She would never dare to go to them if they were still occupied, and if she had to, she'd bring along a warrior to protect her. She had been taught, though, that if captured by a Twoleg the best way to get away was to purr and pretend to be friendly, and then run when the Twoleg relaxed their grip. This made sense, Graybird supposed, and stifled a laugh as she thought of the biggest warriors in her Clan purring and cuddling up to a Twoleg.

These thoughts of the humans reminded the Clan cat of her unnaturally close proximity to them, and she glanced up worriedly at the nest she stood near to. What if they came out and tried to capture her? The kittypet seemed relaxed, so Graybird wasn't too worried. After all, if the Twolegs came out, they'd most likely go for their own cat instead of her. Maybe she didn't have to be worried.


[569 words. Sorry for a) it be shorter than the others, and b) taking a few days to reply.]

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