Aw man, he wanted to be up front where all the action was! Gracklepaw pouted for a moment; alas, it twasn't mean to be.

That being said... he was still getting to tunnel, and that was rad.

Giving a firm nod and a grin (his brief disappointment already forgotten), Gracklepaw sauntered over to Hollyhawk and Nectarpaw, his blue eyes bright.

"Dontcha worry — I'm gonna make sure not a single pebble falls!" The gray-and-beige apprentice boldly assured, puffing out his chest. His confidence was nearly infectious, despite his relative lack of experience with the tunnels. That'd changed for the training tunneler, of course, but right now it was all bluff and big dreams — those could carry him far. At least in his own mind.

@Alchemist Kitsune - Gnawingpaw
As more cats gathered around and started doing as they pleased, Leechscar glanced at the apprentice who asked about keeping the bones. He peered at Gnawingpaw with some apprehension but then figured to each their own. Leechscar didn't see the appeal of having relics of the dead in the place you sleep, but since it was more or less harmless unless Gnawingpaw decided to wack a cat with said bone he didn't see any reason she couldn't take any bones she found with her.

"If you wanna keep what you find, I don't care. So long as it's only one bone. I doubt Twilightstar or Crowtooth will throw a fuss so long as whatever you take doesn't smell and won't cause problems with your den mates." He replied while swinging his tail behind his back.

The massive fury looked over at Cottonpaw, a little surprised that the apprentice was helping with the bones. Considering how difficult it was for him to cope with killing prey, Leechscar assumed the tom wouldn't like that resembled death, but apparently, his squeamishness only applied to taking a life, not death itself.

Leechscar worked on digging up some small bones and started making a pile of the ones that were going into the walls. He had a tunneling lesson some moons back when he became a fury because his mother demanded it. Vinesmoke was going to try using the bones for shoring the walls, or something like that. He wished he knew exactly how big or small the bones needed to be to help stabilize the tunnels. Uncertain about the size, Leechscar started sorting his bones into three piles, the utterly useless bones that were too big and too small, the second pile for the maybe bones that should fit in the divots in the walls, and miscellaneous bones that he had no clue what to do with.

His ears perked up and his head swung in the direction of Gnawingpaw when the apprentice started meowing in the old timer's voice. That was sort of impressive. Cats with that weird-ass skill to mimic voices seemed to be popping up more frequently these days. He didn't get it but didn't question it any more than he questions the dead coming back to life. Strange things were easily normalized in the clans, he discovered as he grew.

Having gathered quite the piles, he eventually paused, uncertain how many bones Vinesmoke needed, He couldn't help himself, and off to the side, he began reassembling the skeleton of a mink. He found the fully intact skull and slowly began putting the spine together.

[Open if anyone wants to help him put together a mink skeleton]