Sky Glade

[poppy]

Skyfall
purrk(s): kitty softpaws (ACTIVE)

The petite, cool colored she-cat padded daintily onto the moor, and the second she got out onto the open air she was running. Perhaps that was why a few of her Clanmates referred to her as Breezy (oh, she knew it was, but she understood why he did in these moments), sprinting along, ducking through heather as easily as a fish would dart through water, feeling the cold wind flow through her thick light blue-gray fur, and she dashed around. The zoomies were the not-so-scientific classification for what she was experiencing, and bright, crystalline blue eyes widened as she looked up at the blur that was the sky.

Dark clouds covered the sky, and most sane cats would head back to camp at the sight of rainclouds rolling across the sky, but not Skyfall. She relished the scent of the rain, but the rumble of thunder had her twitching an ear. Yes, a sane cat would head back to the safety of camp, because it was cold and a cat of her size and build could get sick fairly easily if she stayed out in the cold and the rain, but Skyfall had never been the sanest. Instead, she stopped her little running episode, standing in front of the abandoned tunnel set. They reminded her of the tunnels where Mitepaw had used to frolick. She had never understood how he could stand being in such an enclosed space.... in the dark... where all kinds of creepy little creatures could lurk. Like a specific slithery thing that didn't have enough legs, and another specific species of crawly things that had too many legs.

Shuddering internally, the light blue-gray and white molly stood at the mouth of the tunnel, nose twitching. "Helloooo?" She called softly, listening to her voice echo into the earthy hole, shivering as she stepped back. Ugh, she couldn't imagine going in there. That was absolutely petrifying, the cold, damp earth closing in around her.... things creeping around on the ceilings and by her paws.

No thanks. She'd stay up on the moor, where she could run and see the sky and be in the light. That was the only rational thing that one could do, in her opinion.

[ OPENNN ]

[Luck]

CROWLIGHT
warrior - forty-eight moons - voice claim: alan rickman
@poppy.

Between selecting the mouse from the fresh-kill pile and finishing it in a ravenous manner, Crowlight took note of the guilt he now felt squirming in his belly like worms. It wasn't a crime to eat, no, but he had yet to hunt today. It was time to remedy that though as he stares down at the bones remaining from his meal, pawing them absentmindedly while the tip of his tail flicks to and fro on the ground beside him. Jaws part to airlift the remnants of his meal and paws bring him over to a small space just beyond the entrance of their camp, near the bramble wall. The skinny tom makes quick work of burying them and snaps his head up to continue out onto the territory.

Rain was well on its way if the scent and dark clouds above were anything to go off of. A snarl works its way out of his throat and he lashes his feather-tipped tail. Rain was fine by him but not when it came to hunting. Scenting would be rendered useless and most prey would return to the safety of their dry burrows. He would need to move quick and fast if he wanted to secure a morsal for his Clan.

Tracking the trail left behind of what seems to be a family of mice, Crowlight finds himself slinking along the Sky Glade. Gray eyes focus on the task at paw, but it becomes difficult to continue when a new scent wafts his way - one of a Clanmate. Abandoning his search the tom lifts himself from his crouch to see Skyfall nearby, also out here by themselves it appears. Yawning before her is the mouth to the tunnels and for a moment he watches to see if she plans to go inside. She doesn't, and he tips his head curiously.He wonders if she's spotted something distastful, and though he isn't one for social interaction he heads over anyways.

"No one to answer your call?" He offers his own commentary as he nears her, motioning to the cave's mouth with a nod of his small head. The breeze had carried her words to him, her greeting call to... what appeared to be nothing. The tom blinks at her again.

[poppy]

Skyfall
purrk(s): kitty softpaws (ACTIVE)

The gaping mouth of the tunnel loomed over her, and while Skyfall didn't feel an overwhelming sense of dread, she wasn't a fan of how... cramped it looked. Her mind briefly wandered to the strange possibility that perhaps her brother's ghost still haunted the tunnel network, if he still played around in the places he spent most of his life. The places that eventually became the death of him. If he was haunting a place, she'd rather it be the tunnels. They were polar opposites, he seemed to live and breathe tunneling and could navigate it easily, while she could barely make it through the entrance without wanting to crawl out of her pelt with paranoia.

A small raindrop fell from the sky, and she blinked it from her long lashed, dark rimmed eyes, shaking her head slightly at the uncomfortable sensation. Like she was crying but it was cold and foreign and... unwelcome. She liked to cry, usually. It let all the pressure out of her mind and body and she usually felt refreshed and renewed afterwards. She just felt annoyed, now.

Not the most attentive, the molly was too caught up in mentally swearing at the raindrop to notice a nearby Clanmate, and let out a soft huff of surprise when he spoke and twisted around, reflexively readying herself to duck a swing or something, even though his voice was anything but hostile. A small, shy smile wormed itself onto her face as she recognized a denmate of hers, and the molly tipped her head to the side, briefly meeting his gaze with her lucid sapphire gaze before turning her head back to the tunnel. "Not really. Worth a shot, though. Maybe I'll find a new friend down there one of these times."

After a moment of mulling over possible scenarios of a random cat popping out of the tunnels to answer her calls, she spoke again with a playful flick of her tail, eyes still locked on the void of darkness. "Technically someone did answer my calls, they just came from the wrong direction." Perhaps it was an odd thing to say, and if he didn't understand that she was referring to him then she was going to look like a total weirdo, but he seemed like a relatively smart guy. She usually wasn't one to interact with cats and wasn't the greatest judge of character, but if someone approached her like Crowlight just did, she would make conversation. Not like, heavy emotional and sappy conversation because that was a total drag, but conversation.

If he hadn't come up and initiated the interaction she probably wouldn't have noticed him, lost in her own little world. Her eyes darted up to the sky, going briefly cross eyed to stare at a rogue raindrop that plopped onto the bridge of her nose, slowly and meaningfully wiping her nose dry, forehead wrinkling and shaking her head slightly. "I'm not sure if I'd rather get rained on or spend a few hours in the tunnels, so hopefully it doesn't rain too much, but the clouds aren't too dark so I think it'll just be a sprinkle." The dainty she-cat turned her head slightly to look at him, wondering if he felt the same amount of disdain for the tunnels that she did. She wouldn't be surprised if he didn't; she was quite claustrophobic but also the stereotypical feline when it came to water- she preferred to keep herself and water away from each other. So if it started pouring rain, she would be, in the most literal sense of the word, very screwed.

[ @Luck ]

[Luck]

CROWLIGHT
warrior - forty-eight moons - voice claim: alan rickman
@poppy.

A new... friend? Rather odd and peculiar, though many things were these days Crowlight begins to realize. His gray orbs blink once more as he takes in the rest of the scene and his Clanmate looking back towards the tunnel's entrance. "...The only thing you're likely to find down there... are bugs." He doesn't mean for it to come out blunt, but his voice feels strained with the forced small talk and the skinny tom ducks his head down as if to keep the embarrassment off his face. He has an odd way of speaking, a trait of which had unfortunately stalked him like a shadow from his younger moons, the taboo side of not getting involved in many Clan activities or "putting himself out there" as his mother always says.

Ears perk up though at her next statement, and Crowlight lifts his head once more to look upon Skyfall. If he isn't mistaken, he detects a bit of humor in her tone - lighthearted of course, and nothing ill-intended or teasing-like. A moment passes, then another, before a hint of a smile upturns his muzzle. "...I suppose you are right about that," he answers softly, padding closer to inspect the tunnel mouth himself. Dark and a bit drafty from the breeze blowing against their backs, rolling off the tall heather-filled moors.

Standing closer to her now allows him to watch as a raindrop falls and lands right on the center of her nose. This has him lift his dark eyes towards the sky, noticing the droplets starting to fall here and there. Not enough for a drizzle, per-say. "I can smell it," he murmurs, casting a look over his shoulder towards the clouds that are rolling up behind the others, all of them gray in coloring. "The rain coming, I mean." Just so that he wouldn't sound odd for mentioning just being able to smell something, though a little voice in his head tells him afterwards that Skyfall understood what he meant without the clarification.

"These tunnels... I do wonder if they extend underneath all of the Clans." A small change in the subject as him peering into the gaping mouth once more, wondering what all lay beyond the abyss. Did they truly go all the way underneath RiverClan? ThunderClan? What about ShadowClan? A network of tunnels often runs further than one thinks, so Crowlight isn't surprised to find his mind answering 'yes' for him. "Or if cats like us ever lived in them, as we do here." Shifting his gaze back to Skyfall, he adds almost apologetically, "I apologize, you don't seem all that warm towards the tunnels, and talking about them, I fear, might not help that."

[poppy]

Skyfall

The daintily built molly scrunched her nose in response to his mentioning of bugs, repulsed by the thought. She liked insects, stuff that could fly, harmless creatures that flitted around near flowers, and she didn't mind worms too much (although they were like snakes just less scary- looking, they looked like snakes that were inside-out) but bugs were the bane of the dreamer's existence, shivering slightly at the mere thought of them. Ants, beetles, spiders.

The blue-gray and white damsel shivered slightly at a chilly breeze, her petite build and shorter fur causing her to unfortunately be more easily chilled. She was already dreading the leaf-bare months, where she would be in and out of the medicine den with countless colds and coughs. Last leaf-bare she had come down with a nasty bout of greencough that had left her quarantined for a few weeks. A highly restless cat, she had nearly gone insane with boredom.

He seemed to regret the blunt words, luckily for him Skyfall didn't really take offense to it- she tended to come off blunt or even rude sometimes accidentally, so she'd be a hypocrite if she got worked up over it. Plus, he was correct, wasn't he? Nothing wrong with being right, nothing wrong at all.

Her face brightened slightly at his grin- ah, so he could smile, she had doubted his abilities for a moment there. Elegant tail brushed the ground as he agreed with her, understanding her taking a small chance with her odd wording, and not seeming to confuse her words with meaning something else. Her eyes followed his to the sky, nose twitching as she breathed in the fresh, wet scent of rainfall. "Me too. I've always liked the smell, it's so... clear and clean." And when she woke up for her morning sprint through the territory and it had rained overnight... the scent on the breeze made up for the muddy paws she had to suffer through constantly throughout the rainy season.

"That would be cool, using the tunnels to travel right underneath the other Clans without them knowing. Me and my brother used to play in the tunnels when we were kids, although it wasn't the smartest it was always fun to explore." Before the tunnels collapsed in on him and her daydreaming briefly turned into imagining the same thing happening to her, drowning in dirt, alone, in the darkness, without a sliver of hope. Thus, her era of intense claustrophobia had begun, one of the only marks her brother's death had left on her permanently. She wasn't traumatized, but... her imagination had spun a web of terror and something in her head would scream at her that she would meet the same fate as her littermate should she reenter the tunnels.

"It would be cool if cats lived in there. Maybe there's a whole underground Clan, the real BunnyClan. Imagine Dawnstar's reaction to that." She chuckled softly at the statement, recalling the ShadowClan leader's endless namecalling. The other Clans referred to WindClan as BunnyClan, but imagine if there really was a BunnyClan, existing somewhere underground. She would go insane if she was in their hypothetical place, and was glad she was born in one the much more real, above-ground Clans. It was unlikely, but fun to imagine.

Blinking her crystalline blue gaze at his apologetic tone, she shook her head slightly with a hopefully comforting smile, white tipped tail skimming the ground as she replied. "I don't mind talking about them, it's just thinking about going inside them that gives me the... the heebie jeebies. I much prefer to stay above ground. They're interesting to talk about though, it's not a problem at all." Just like she commended Dustbunny for being able to tunnel so well, and how she admired Mitepaw's bravery, but she knew that she could never do that. Staying on solid ground was more her forte.

"Have you ever been in the tunnels before?"

[ @Luck ]

[Luck]

CROWLIGHT
warrior - forty-eight moons - voice claim: alan rickman
@poppy.

His face scrunches up in thought, eyes peering back inside of the tunnels while his mind contemplates Skyfall's thoughts on a 'BunnyClan'. Quite humorous it would be if a Clan that was named after the creatures who mainly inhabited the tunnels lived among them. Crowlight lets out a humorous snort and nods, finally taking a step back from the entrance. "Perhaps then she would have something else to focus on rather than settling the score." Alight with watered-down amusement his dark eyes slide over to his Clanmate. "Maybe they make a rare appearance whenever we are not here. Even bunnies have to come up for air..." It dawns on him after the words leave his mouth how rather idiotic that is.

Turning away to look up the slope of land Crowlight feels relief that his commentary on the innerworkings of the underground pathways that criss-cross below the earth's surface don't bother Skyfall. "A few times," he sighs, deciding to take a seat if only to be polite. He feels awkward standing seeing as they're not walking anywhere - certainly not into the tunnels. "My mentor introduced me to them. Taught me how to hunt and navigate. That was... many moons ago now, though." And as with all skills, his are have rusted with the changing of the seasons. Looking down at his white paws, Crowlight is certain that he would be of no use underground in his current state.

Looking back over to the blue-gray-white warrior he tips his head out of curiosity. Though he knew mostly ever Clanmate by name he was not the best in keeping up with familiar relations. "That sounds like a lovely memory," he murmurs, circling back around to her mention of traversing the tunnels with her brother. Mitepaw, if memory serves him right. "...Did you enjoy them? Before, I mean..." Is it appropriate for him to ask? The black warrior isn't too sure but lets the question hang nonetheless. Gray eyes blink towards Skyfall, cautionary wisps within them reassuring her that she doesn't have to answer if she doesn't wish to.

[poppy]

Skyfall

Making a rare act of eye contact her eyes drifted to meet his as he mentioned bunnies coming up for air, smiling and nodding slowly. That was... an odd thing to say, but not stupid odd, funny odd. She decided against chuckling, because while she found it amusing he didn't seem to think it was a smart thing to say and rather looked a bit embarrassed, so instead she moved onto his next response, a small smile growing on her lips.

She sat down not long after he sat, still fidgeting slightly, because she felt the overwhelming urge to continue her random little sprint around the glade. But she assumed if she dashed off mid-conversation it may hurt his feelings, so she decided against it. "I never could learn how to hunt down there. I was too worried about all the creepy crawly things, hopping around like the ground was on fire." She remembered hating those training sessions. Poor Rabbitleap had had the curse to teach her how to hunt and stuff in the tunnels, which she allowed Sky to skip after Mitepaw's passing.

Her face brightened as he mentioned her memory sounding lovely, and she nodded in agreement. "It was a lovely time." She confirmed, clear gaze darting back to the tunnels at his next query. Skyfall didn't have a problem talking about her brother; she liked talking about him, and didn't understand why everyone tiptoed around the subject like so. "I hated them. Too dark." The confession was accompanied by her laugh, high and clear as a bell as she recalled her misery. "But he loved it and he was always acting like an idiot so it was fun. He made them enjoyable, and now... well, he's not here anymore so they're just some dark, damp holes in the ground."

[ @Luck ]

[Luck]

CROWLIGHT
warrior - forty-eight moons - voice claim: alan rickman
@poppy.

Her laugh rings through the open land like bells and makes Crowlight feel relief. So the question had not been one that would bring about despair and instead invited a bout of fondness. The small uptick of the corners of his muzzle twitches again, the beginnings of a soft smile evident before it vanishes completely. "They can be... quite dark, yes," he muses thoughtfully with another sidelong glance towards them. For him, they had always provided a sort of trance-like curiosity, as if he could stare at the entrance of them for hours and not realize time slipping away.

Much like he was doing now. Realizing the silence is dragging on he clacks his teeth together, a sneeze causing his thin head to shake. "Excuse me," comes the hasty somewhat apology. Heat fills his ears and and they twitch. "Your brother... he sounds like he was quite the apprentice." Seeing how easy it is for Skyfall to speak on her slain kin makes Crowlight feel as though he can talk about him more easily. "The tunnels can be enjoyable... if you know how to navigate them." A look in Skyfall's direction. "But you are right... without it, they are just dark, damp holes... in the ground."

His mind circles back around to her first statement, and Crowlight racks his brain for faded memories of lessons long past taught. "...If you're ever interested," he begins, his voice slightly more withdrawn as his gaze goes back up towards the sky. Another drop of rain falls, whizzing just past his ear as it flicks out of the way. "I could teach you how to hunt in them. Maybe... there is a spot with no bugs." The warrior is almost positive his offer would be rejected, but he offers it anyway. Gray eyes finally shift back to her, almost too shy at first to fully meet her gaze - but then they lift, and the small smile-twitch appears again.

[poppy]

Skyfall

He was a strange cat, Skyfall was determining. Actually, to be more specific, he reminded her of herself. A bit. And he wasn't strange in a bad way, no he was very interesting. Lucid blues widened a bit in surprise at the sudden sound as he sneezed, not really noticing the silence because she was too busy getting lost in her imagination.

"He certainly was." She purred lightly, smiling fondly at the memory of her brother. She was glad that she could talk about him with Crowlight; in her family, Mitepaw was a rather sensitive subject because no one had processed the grief quite like she did, and she vented and honored his memory by talking about it, which always ended up being incredibly depressing whenever she tried to talk about it with her mothers or siblings. So this was nice.

Chuckling softly, tail tip twitching resolutely, she tipped her head to the side with a shy grin. "I can't navigate down there worth crap, it's all so... similar, it smells the same and it's dark..." She just didn't understand the appeal, but she was willing to try.

At his offer, her face brightens, and after a brief moment she nods slowly. Maybe this wasn't a good time to mention her claustrophobia and deathly fear of little critters. "That would be great! It's about time I learn how to hunt down there. I do worry that I might cause a cave-in if I see a spider or something; it's almost happened before. So as long as you're okay with the possibility of dying due to me being afraid of something I'm 10 times the size of, then I would love to learn." Her loud screams were notorious throughout her family, piercing shrieks and the clawing at walls to escape... Crowlight was a nice guy, and she wouldn't want to submit him to that kind of torture without disclosing first.

[ @Luck ]

[Luck]

CROWLIGHT
warrior - forty-eight moons - voice claim: alan rickman
@poppy.

Much to his surprise the offer extended is taken, and Crowlight nods in confirmation. "Once you get used to it... and your eyes adjust... it's not so bad." But that is coming from him who has always enjoyed the deep dark areas of life, often letting himself sink into them both physically and metaphorically. Gray eyes shift over to Skyfall and a touch of humor sparks within them. "I did vow... to give my life in service of WindClan," he remarks with another try at an awkward half-smile, though once again it disappears before much time.

"Spiders can be quite... terrifying. Especially if you do not see them. So, I do not blame you," Crowlight decides to add, recalling a rather particularly dreadful memory of waking up to one crawling into his nest with him when he had been an apprentice. Truly frightful, and it had landed him in some hot water from all his shrieks with his denmates at the time.

Up above another rain drop falls just past the black tom's nose. He shakes his head and stands to his paws, feeling another one splash onto his haunches. "The rain appears to have come," he points out matter-of-factly with a turn of his nose to the sky. The clouds have darkened and a chill in the breeze sweeps through, ruffling his fur and brushing his whiskers back. "I came out here to hunt before returning - if you are up for it... we could work together to bring something back before the rain washes everything away?" They still have time... hopefully. Crowlight watches Skyfall with a soft, inquisitive yet almost shy gaze, as if he is fully expecting her to decline.