Any day now. Just any day now, thought Heathkit happily, glancing up at the Tallrock. Any one of these days, Fernstar was going to leap up onto that rock and make him an apprentice. They'd be cheering his name, Heathpaw, each and every one of them. His mother, Breezeflower, Redfang, even his father, Rustlepelt, looking on from StarClan. It would be great. Just any day now. And then, he could join the apprentices, and train to become a great and powerful warrior, like Rustlepelt or Redfang. With that thought in mind, he sighed happily and turned back to head into the nursery. Any day now. Just, any day now.
However, upon entering the nursery, he found his path blocked by a familiar face. "Hey Tawnypaw!" he said enthusiastically, an action that he quickly regretted as he saw her freakout. That was right... ever since the incident, she was never quite the same energetic cat that she used to be. Heathkit kept forgetting that.
Not that he was quite certain what had happened, anyway. Breezeflower hadn't told him, and she'd expressly forbidden Heathkit from asking Tawnypaw. He had a feeling that Redfang might have let him know, but he hadn't seen hide nor hair of that cat since days before the incident. All he knew was that one day, the three of them slipped out, and Tawnykit had came back alone, battered, and, well, the way she was now.
"Sorry about that..." said Heathkit, quieting down, and bending down to nose at the moss ball. "Hey, this is mine, isn't it? You're cleaning out the bedding, aren't you? Whew, it must be fun to be an apprentice. Uhm... would you mind if I lent a paw? I'm going to be an apprentice any day now, you know," he said, his eyes twinkling in a cat-smile.
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Last Edit: Aug 22, 2010 21:35:46 GMT -5 by Heathclaw
Glancing up at Heathkit out of the corner of her eye, Tawnypaw muttered something resembling an apology. "Sorry, I'm sorry, you surprised me." The slight-bodied she-cat forced herself to look up and meet the soon-to-be apprentice's eyes. Why was that simple action so hard? She stared blankly at him, trying to collect her scattered thoughts enough to remember what she had been doing before he arrived. "Yours? Bedding? Oh, oh right, the moss. Your nest. Oh, um-" And she was rambling. Tawnypaw made herself focus, be succinct. And for the first time that morning, she smiled a little.
"You want to help? Be my guest. I certainly don't mind; every apprentice probably wishes they had someone to help them clear moss." Turning her attention back to her previously-gathered heap of moss, she saw that it had lost most of its shape when she had dropped it. Tawnypaw gestured towards the pile of slightly pungent bedding with one paw, and then bent to retrieve it, speaking as she did so. "Just gather it into a big clump, like this," she explained, pressing the moss back into a ball, "and then grab it so you can bring it outside. We're just going to leave it right outside the entrance for now, until we're done clearing it all out and putting the new stuff in."[/color][/justify][/ul][/size]
Last Edit: Aug 23, 2010 0:34:06 GMT -5 by Sporelett
"Alright!" said Heathkit enthusiastically, forgetting himself in his excitement. "Erm.. I mean, alright. If you're sure it's alright. I've never done apprentice stuff before. Uhm, so yeah... I'm going to go now." And he brushed past Tawnypaw and back into the nursery, darting around a couple of kits playing tug of war and moving over to their nests, bunching them up into big clumps, just like Tawnypaw had shown him. Unfortunately, he didn't do quite a good job of it, and the ball collapsed into bunches as he approached Tawnypaw.
"Oh, shoot- eek!" cried Heathkit, springing back as a beetle zipped out of the ball of moss. "Sorry! Sorrysorry!" said Heathkit anxiously. However, he'd attracted the attention of the other two kits with this.
"Hey! You scareded the beetle away!"
"You putted a beetle in my nest, Sedgekit? How mean!"
"It was a present, Heatherkit!"
"Hey you two, calm down!" said Heathkit, trying to keep track of Tawnypaw, the kits, and the beetle all at the same time.
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Last Edit: Aug 25, 2010 18:42:33 GMT -5 by Heathclaw
[/b] she murmured somewhat unsteadily, and turned to do so. Padding over to another nest, feeling the soft tickle of moss squishing beneath her pads as she trod over some spare scraps, the tiny apprentice sunk her claws into the browning mass. The musty, slightly pungent scent of used-bedding coalesced thickly in her airways as she pulled the nest towards her and worked at padding it into a workable ball. Behind her, she heard Heathkit gathering some moss of his own, and smiled a bit at her friend's willingness to help out.
Where would she be now if not for her Clanmates? Probably long-since dead, but that didn't bear thinking about. She could feel her heart beginning to flutter and stumble in her chest at the thought of that horrible experience a moon ago, and fought against the blackness that wanted to claim her. Just focus on the present. Concentrate on what you're doing. You missed a scrap of moss, gather it up, that's right. Tawnypaw reached out and snagged the small piece on one claw, paying vague attention to the sound of Heathkit shuffling across the nursery behind her.
Suddenly a squeal pierced the air, and she felt something skitter lightly across one of her paws. Tawnypaw inhaled sharply and whirled around, leaping back from the tickle and landing in her own ball of moss. Half-dried clods of bedding tumbled everywhere, and she looked around for the source of the shriek. Heathkit was already apologising anxiously, but it took her a moment to realize that there was no danger. Tawnypaw tried to flatten her fur as a pair of young, overeager kits stumbled their way over and began remarking on the mess Heathkit had made of his moss ball.
They were saying something about a beetle... She looked down. A bug, large and shiny and black, was crawling by her foot. It must have been what tickled her before. A hasty, yet well-aimed swipe sent the beetle sailing out of the nursery entrance. She was sure the queens didn't want it in there. More importantly, though, there was spilt moss all over the floor, and she was feeling rather harried. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, the mess was getting on her nerves, and she just couldn't take it any more. "Everyone shut up! Just be quiet for a minute, okay?" Tawnypaw was breathing heavily, looking wild-eyed and harassed, and obviously wasn't having a good time. "Um, okay, just... we should get this cleaned up. Right." Mindlessly she began scraping her clotted scraps of moss and bracken back together into a ball, but she didn't seem to be gathering as much as she had before.
She had forgotten that she was sitting on most of it.[/color][/justify][/ul][/size]
Last Edit: Aug 26, 2010 12:50:22 GMT -5 by Sporelett
Heathkit was a bit stung by Tawnypaw's cry of shut up, he had only been trying to help, after all. How was he supposed to know that there had been a beetle hidden in that ball of moss? "There, do you see what you did?" asked Heathkit, turning sternly towards the two younger kits. "No loud noises when Tawnypaw's in the nursery, understand?"
"Sowwy, Heathkit," squeaked Sedgekit. "D'you want us to help?"
"Uhm..." said Heathkit, with a quick glance at Tawnypaw. "Not yet. Here- look after these for me, would you?" he said, detaching two moss balls from the pile and tossing one to each kit. As the two of them ran off with their prizes, Heathkit went back to gathering the rest of the moss that he spilled. "Sorry again, Tawnypaw. I'll try to do better next time." He was almost supposed to be an apprentice, after all. He needed to show that he was skilled enough for the job. "Uhm... Tawnypaw? I think you're sitting on something," Heathkit observed, looking up after bundling his moss ball for the second time.
[/i] - Tawnypaw blinked slowly as his words hit her. She looked down and saw that she was sitting on the majority of the moss she had gathered, and was overcome with dismay. Any normal cat made mistakes. Tawnypaw made disasters. Was this just an absentminded slip, or the precursor to a mental breakdown? Hestitantly she summoned up a weak smile. "H-eh, even dirty moss is comfortable," she mewed lamely. "I'll just... go clean it up now."
And she shrugged her skinny shoulders and began scraping together the last of her pile into a ball, squishing it just as tightly as she had the first time so she could carry it to the exit. Tawnypaw picked up the carefully-made clump and minced with it out of the den, nearly running in her haste. Outside, she dumped her pile by the entrance and sat in the relative shelter of the gorse barrier. And breathed. [/color][/justify][/ul][/size]
Post by Heathclaw on Sept 26, 2010 14:42:56 GMT -5
So, that's how you do it... thought Heathkit, as he watched Tawnypaw bunch the moss together in a tight, tight ball. He tried it himself, and found that he'd created a heavily packed little patch of moss. In fact, as he rolled it around, he found that the moss clung more to itself than to the ground, and that gave him an idea. "Hey, Sedgekit, Heatherkit! Let's play a game of dodgeball! I'm the target, and the moss is the ball. Come on!"
The two kits, of course, jumped at the opportunity to try a new game, and started running about, gathering moss and chucking it at him. Heathkit, for his part, made a show of ducking and weaving around, dodging most of the grassy projectiles. When one hit him on the ear, though, he had another idea. "Okay, you got me! It's my turn now, we switch sides! Oh, and you can grab the moss and pack it into a big ball to hide behind, too! That might help."
And he set about picking up the rest of the moss, tossing them at the two kits and making sure to just miss them with each toss. When all the moss was on one side, he ran back up to his denmates, and at their considerably large moss ball. "Okay! Now, we make a biiiig moss ball. Pack on as much as you can- it'll be a record! No, not the moss that's already outside, Sedgekit. Alright! We're good? Puuuush! We're going to roll the moss boulder outside of the nursery! Puuuush!"
"Hey, Tawnypaw!" Heathkit called as they got close to the entrance. "We finished!"
[/i] Tawnypaw mused to herself. She didn't want to, but she couldn't leave the job all to a kit. Besides, it was her job to complete, not his. She wouldn't take advantage of his offer of help just so that she wouldn't have to do her work. Getting to her paws, the slender she-cat hesitated at sounds of laughter and muffled shrieks coming from the nursery. She dreaded to think of the mess inside; it probably looked like a war zone. From the sounds of things, Heathkit's well-intentioned help had devolved into a game with the other nursery residents. She couldn't say that she blamed him (gathering moss wasn't exactly a riveting activity), but still, she didn't look forward to cleaning up after the rambunctious kits by herself.
Steeling herself, the young apprentice poked her head around the nursery and glanced inside. What she saw was not at all what she had been expecting. Instead of a mess of scuffed moss and playing kits, Tawnypaw was greeted with the sight of an enormous ball of moss rolling slowly in her direction. She squeaked and pulled her face back from the nursery entrance as Heathkit and his helpers neared it with their load. It looked like the entire contents of the nursery were all bundled into that one ball! She wouldn't have been entirely surprised to see an unwary kit pop out from its spongy confines after being packed into the construction by overzealous comrades.
"Heathkit, are you sure that's such a good idea?" she asked, creeping back into view so she could watch the boulder's progress. "I don't know if that much moss is going to be able to fit through the entrance." It did look awfully big... She could just imagine the thorns tugging at the edges of the mass as it rolled through, tearing it apart until it was just a huge pile of dirty bedding blocking the way in. What would they do if the ball didn't fit?[/color][/justify][/ul][/size]
Last Edit: Oct 21, 2010 16:15:11 GMT -5 by Sporelett
"What do you mean it won't fit?" asked Heathkit quizzically, as he saw Tawnypaw reemerge at the nursery entrance. "Of course it should fit. If all of it could fit coming into the nursery, it should all fit while coming out of the nursery, shouldn't it?" And, firm in the belief that that kit logic had granted him, Heathkit directed his denmates to give the ball one final push.
And with that last heave, the ball rolled forward just a bit more, until it caught the downward slop of the nursery entrance, and started rolling on its own. Tawnypaw might have been shouting something at this point, but Heathkit wouldn't have noticed- he was too enthralled at the progression of his moss ball down the tunnel. I did this! This was my idea! And it worked!
And then, the moss ball came to a complete stop, smack dab in the middle of the nursery entrance. "Uhm... Tawnypaw? I think we might have a problem..." called Heathkit, bounding forward so that he was right up to the mossball. He gave it another push- the ball wouldn't budge. "Yep... I think we're stuck..."
