Thinking About Other Things

Kestrelpaw walked in the territory; head down, tail drooping. He passed trees and bushes, feeling terrible, and about what? Oh, he couldn't say, random depression in the morning. He smelled prey, but wasn't motivated to chase it, to try and catch like he knew ole Griffinshade would want him to do. Griffinshade. Foxpaw. StarClan! Why was it all so frustrating? So tiring? Why was he always so angry? He couldn't place it. His fur always seemed to be hot with frustration and anger, and it only got worse when he wanted it to go away. It was like being in camp fueled it.

He felt isolated in some way.

Cloudfrost plunged through the undergrowth after a rabbit, his sightless eyes blazing with anger. He'd already missed one this morning! It had taken him half-way to sunrise to find this... No way was he going to lose it!

The gray warrior's claws were outstretched as he pushed himself harder, faster, to catch this prey. His belly rumbled with hunger but he ignored it. He whipped around a corner, hard on the rabbit's heels. He smelled the tang of damp earth and knew the burrow was close. He also scented ShadowClan scent, but that was distant. He didn't care, currently. He shot one paw out, tripping the fast moving animal directly in his path. He curled in on himself, grasping the rabbit's sides in his claws as he sank his teeth into it's throat.

Unknowingly he had swerved right in front of Kestrelpaw.

Kestrelpaw stopped when he heard the rushing of leaves. Suddenly he saw a rabbit crash through the bushes, and on it's tail Cloudfrost. In the next moment it was in his jaws, dead, and ready to be eaten.

That blind old cat caught a rabbit. Humphf. "Lucky you," he almost growled to the cat. Ugh. Why did he have to be here? Of all the places?

Cloudfrost pricked his ears, just noticing Kestrelpaw. Aw great... He'd obtained a strong disliking for Griffonshade's apprentice... He was arrogant, obnoxious, cold, and tried to push everyone away. With a smirk he realized that he had been the same way. Followed by his apprentice Griffonshade.

"It's not luck." he growled, swishing his tail and setting his rabbit on the ground.

"Oh, really?" What foxdung. Not luck. "Is that what you say for motivation?" He didn't believe this at all. No blind cat could catch a rabbit without luck. What was he even doing out of camp? He should be in the Elder's Den.

Okay.... Now this was really irritating. Most cats seemed to think this of him, but really? To be so persistent.. And upfront about it? Not anything he'd ever heard before. Cloudfrost's cold blue gaze landed on the apprentice, as if he could actually see him. "Being blind is not a curse, as some would think," he hissed.

Kestrelpaw grunted. "I never said it was," he mewed cooly, "I'm simply saying it makes you an unfit warrior." He flicked his tail without a care, his words coming out as easily as air goes in. "Why don't you just except it already and go to the Elder's Den where you belong?" Cloudfrost couldn't even be a medicine cat, in his opinion.

Cloudfrost tipped his head to the side. "I'm still young. A young warrior shouldn't go to the elder's den." he said, his voice rough with slight anger and amusement. He started scraping at the ground, taking his gaze off of Kestrelpaw to focus on the hole he was digging in the earth.

After a few moments, he stuck one paw in the hole, feeling how deep it was. It came up about a mouse-tail's-length up his leg. "Good." he mumbled absently, grabbing the rabbit and dropping it in the hole. He scraped the earth back over it and lifted his muzzle to the sky, opening his jaws to let air pass over his scent glands.

"But a blind one should," he countered back. He didn't want to have this conversation with Cloudfrost anymore. He felt like he was repeating himself, and he was tired of it, he was tired of everything. At least he'd managed to keep calm and to not anger himself because of this cat.

"I'd like to leave now," he said to him, his tone holding a slight quirk or superiority, "so could you please move out of the way. Unless you don't know where that is."

Surprisingly he didn't fly off the handle and attack Kestrelpaw. Instead, Cloudfrost simply stepped out of the way. "I may be blind, but I'm not an elder. And I won't be for some time." He suddenly jerked his head to the side, hearing a rustle in the undergrowth. He crouched down low, his eyes round and shining like miniature moons. He pinpointed the prey with scent and feel and sound; the tasty smell of mouse, the minuscule heartbeat against the forest floor, the faint chewing sound as it chewed open a seed.

His muscles uncurled like springs as he leaped, disappearing into the thick tangle of ferns and trapping the mouse between his paws. A terrified squeak was cut off as he nipped it's neck, and the quivering plants became motionless.

Kestrelpaw started to leave, but as he did Cloudfrost jumped off into a bush. He was unconcerned about this. He figured the warrior was just trying to show off, some tyoe of stunt to prove something that didn't exist, but in the next moment he her a squeak of surprise that was cut off. One cut off in the classic way of death, he knew it.

Kestrelpaw stopped in his tracks and looked back at the bush. Something compelled him to make sure that Cloudfrost didn't come out with a mouse.

The gray warrior poked his head out of the bush, a thin mouse dangling from his jaws. He tugged the briars and ferns from around his paws in annoyance, knowing he'd have a heck of a job cleaning his pelt afterwards. But the Clan needed food, right?

He scented Kestrelpaw's hesitation, and set down his prey, resisting the urge to devour it for himself. "What?"

Kestrelpaw breathed a sharp intake of breath and his eye widened some. He could feel the fur on his back prickle with some type of anxiety. He'd caught it, he'd caught the mouse, just like that. He himself hadn't even scented it, hadn't even heard it, and it was that close, right there, less than a tail-length away. And how? Luck? Not twice, those things didn't happen twice.

He narrowed his eyes and glared at the ground. Teeth bared and newly unsheathed claws scraping at the ground with irritation, with anger.

"Nothing." He growled, forcing himself to move, but he could only take a step before he felt paralyzed.

Cloudfrost's gaze locked on Kestrelpaw. "How come your fur's bristling and your claws are out?" he asked observantly. Who cared if he was being obnoxious? He'd hunted when the younger cat had thought he couldn't. He could boast about his ability when he wanted... He just rarely felt like it.

How... how did he even know that? How could he tell something like that!? How!? His anger grew. Something about it all made his anger grow and grow and grow. But why? He'd never care about these things. He never cared about this cat. So why? Why? Why Why? It was so frustrating. How he wanted it to just stop.

He whipped around at the older tom. "Because you're irritating me that's why!" He yowled at him. Couldn't he just shut up and go away?

Cloudfrost's eyes widened. "I'm just being myself. Get used to it." he growled, irritation creeping into his tone. He could sense his surprise; it was a thick layer in the air. Hard to miss, actually.

"You're showing off, that's what you're doing," Kestrelpaw hissed. Couldn't he just leave so he could shut up? He was sounding like an idiot. He could hear himself. He sounded stupid. What were with these conflicting thoughts? He hated himself now, but he hated Cloudfrost more. Or did he? What was he angry for? Because of Cloudfrost. No. Maybe. Yes? He couldn't tell anymore. He felt like he was angry at nothing. Couldn't he just calm down? No, that was too difficult, and it made him angrier.

"How am I showing off? I do this every day." Cloudfrost shrugged and buried the mouse. "It's simple." Yep. He'd figured out how to hunt using his blindness. By using his other senses.

"Simple? How is that simple!" He didn't get it, simple. Catching a mouse that was a tail-length away from you without it even hearing you was simple. Doing it without even stalking first was not! There was no creep, no crouch, no silent step. He just snatched it from the bush like it was moss! Moss!

Cloudfrost blinked. "Oh. Yeah. I forgot." He paused for a second. "I had to find a way to hunt without my sight. After doing it for a few seasons you get used to it..."

OOC: CLoud, go be a shrink. XD

Kestrelpaw hissed at the tom. Oh, he just got used to it. He hated the way he said it. After a couple seasons you get used to it... It made his blood boil. It made him want to hurt something, someone. Maybe it would go away then. It was so convincing to. Bring pain to lose pain. Like simple chemistry. All of this was so utterly frustrating. "I bet it came as natural as StarClan," Kestrelpaw muttered under his breath.

He pricked his ears. "No, it actually didn't," he admitted. "I was born blind, so I'd had to get used to using my other senses around camp. But to hunt..." Cloudfrost trailed off. What would this apprentice care?

"What? It's just a bigger camp. How hard could it be?" Well, a bigger camp that had your only food and six other borders you had to watch out for. Maybe it wasn't as simple as being in a second camp. There were walls in camp. No walls out here. But he bet all his food that he could just close his eyes and navigate perfect around here. He'd walked it so much, he knew every twist, every turn. He knew where each root was and every bush. It was all just memoriztion, right?

It had to have been. Had to!

"No. Because out here the plants continue growing... I have to learn it all over every day." Cloudfrost twitched his ears and sat down, feeling the rain soaking his pelt. He kept his tail free, so that it could wave over the ground. As if it had a life of it's own.

"They do?" Kestrelpaw looked around the forest. It all looked the same as it had yesterday. The same as it had looked for moons. Plants continue growing? Where? He knew they grew, but... he'd never seen anything knew. It all looked the same. Had he been missing it? "How can you even tell?" He suddenly snapped.

His anger was starting to die away, slowly. The simple conversation began to calm him. It was civil unthreatening, and yet, even so he tried to hang onto what anger he could. He tried to find some reason to keep being angry. And why? He didn't know.