Post by pepperpaw on Aug 13, 2011 15:23:49 GMT -5
[/U]
OOC: whoot! so excited.
SETTING: fourtrees, dusk
TAGGED: brittlebreeze
WORDS: 665. i need to break 600 words!
CREDIT TO: my friend for coding, photobucket for icon. edited the coding slightly, Foxy. x'D
"pepper talking" pepper thinking "another person talking"[/div]
ALONE AGAIN WAS one way of putting it. Pepperpaw, being a social creature, craved attention. Sadly her Clanmates had little tolerance for the spunky apprentice. She was not ShadowClan material. The petite black she-cat was not fond of getting her paws dirty hunting through the swamp. She couldn't "just ignore it" as the warriors say. On patrols her mind wandered, and yuck! You wouldn't catch her eating a frog or lizard. She'd hunt one, sure, for the Clan. But back to her Clan; every apprentice goes through the faze of not fitting in. They feel they can't go further and feel like an outcast among family. Pepperpaw didn't. She was so busy thinking of random things - random thoughts that zipped through her mind all at once - that she hadn't noticed ShadowClan's apparent segregation. ShadowClan cats were dignified, proud and feared by all the other Clans.
She was none of those things.
Some can argue. She was incredibly proud...of herself. Dignified? Perhaps vain. So maybe alone wasn't the word for it. Abandoned. Friendless. It was as if her parents knew she'd become a bratty, hyperactive young cat and got rid of her in advance. Tossed away like spoiled moss.
The apprentice didn't like being alone. She scarcely remembered her parents. She didn't understand the concept of parents. An older queen nursed her. It was that queen who didn't smell like her that Pepperpaw saw when she first opened her eyes. Some she-cat visited once or twice, then stopped coming. The queen said "that's who named you" but no kinship was felt.
It was rather sad that she couldn't remember who birthed her. Pepperpaw still had family in ShadowClan; her actual parents were not dead. They gave her up. Having kits dampened their relationship. Being such responsible cats, they decided to live their lives and to heck with their daughter.
No great loss.
She was happy. Continually happy.
"Not getting past me!" a wheezy laugh escaped her muzzle. The young she-cat twirled on the spot, flexing her body so that it bended. She snapped at her own tail before kicking her back legs. She was pretending her front was her. The back she was controlling to make an enemy. The back legs were supposed to be front claws, snapping jaws, anything! The tail was just the mark. She had to get past the legs - aka the hurtful stuff - to land a blow. It was good exercise and making training into a game provided much more fun. Pepperpaw thought it a good idea to train secretly. It was the better of her ideas. After the Gathering her sensible mind shouted at her to practice. She had to. Hunting was fine but what if she got cornered? She'd die! Dying would be horrible. She'd never get to see the sun rise or set... No more waking up to birds chirping. No more training lessons with Smallclaw, no more joking with Nettlepaw. No more boring as-usual-ShadowClan! She'd miss life.
And life would miss me! she thought, stopping her secret-awesome-training to sit on the cooling grass. I hope. Yes. Yes, it would! Somebody would miss me. Smallclaw wouldn't be able to train me. Nettlepaw and I couldn't find the blue squirrels. So many great things left undiscovered. Blue squirrels. They would find them.
But for now, sitting at Fourtrees, she felt sleep come over her. The scents of many cats - River, Wind, Thunder and of course Shadow - mingled together still even after days of the Gathering ended. It didn't help the herbs had grown hot in the day sun, the breeze stirring up now wafted their sweet smells toward her. The perfect setting of sweet dreams. Pepperpaw felt her eyes grow heavy, legs yearning to lie down. But...but... She wasn't in her own territory. She trained for two hours and had to get home. She couldn't stay outside camp. Everybody would be furious. She'd cause so much trouble!
It was so tempting though.