see, eelpaw was already teaching him smart and sane stuff. don’t yell encouraging phrases when someone is trying to hunt. that was useful information for future reference. he’d keep it in mind!

“you’re right! i’ll try being smarter .. starting now!” he mumbled, keeping his mouth shut before he said something that would ruin his attempt at Being Smart. eelplaw’s question sort of required an answer, though, so dayheart wasn’t able to keep up his silence for long. “yea! go for it! try your best!” the warrior whispered, excited watch whatever ensued.

his green eyes were kept on eelpaw as he watched unblinkingly, not wanting to miss any of the ‘action’. the warrior was slightly taken aback when eelpaw entered the pond, but dayheart sort of understood why? he’d probably do the same thing if he was in eelpaw’s place, although… probably for pretty different reasons. sure, there was some logic to what eelee was doing, but dayheart would just hypothetically do it so he could see all the pretty stuff in the pond while getting ready to hunt something. that was the whole .. thing eelpaw was trying to teach him, though, so it seemed like they were doing a good job! logic over seeing pretty water stuffs. dayheart just had to get that ingrained into his brain, and he’d be able to be smart and sane .. or at least, he’d be better at being both of those. maybe it wasn’t something that was taught, like eelee said.

looking as eelpaw paddled somewhere, dayheart took a few tiny steps so he’d have a better view of what they were doing. he was emotionally attached to this hunting story now; he was on his toes waiting to see what happened next, and he felt a rush of secondhand adrenaline as eelpaw moved. the calico’s eyes darted around, making sense of the quick events of the catch, and dayheart beamed as he realized eelpaw’s success. he was so tempted to… just… woooop. but.. it wasn’t smart. “woooooo!!” he murmured softly, but his idea of staying quiet to be smart and sane was shoved out of his brain when eelee started exclaiming too.

“woooo! good job! ‘m so proud of you! of course you’re very useful!! :)”

dayheart dashed over, deciding to walk around the pond instead of testing out his swimming — he already knew he would be distracted by all of the cool pond things he could look at — and looked at the tern they’d caught. it was a cool bird, and a cool catch! eelee did such a nice job!! he reached over to aim a pat at the apprentice’s head, nodding up and down and up and down approvingly.