[Neptune.]

*-Lark'star'-*
She/her | 19 moons | Mind Reader - ACTIVE
A sleek dilute tortie she-cat with green eyes

Strange, the fish seems to be running pretty sparse. Larkwing had expected this of land prey, but the river is usually reliable. Now, though, it's as iff the fish decided to learn from the mice or the squirrels and make themselves scarce... Frowning, green eyes track movement in the water, but it's scarce and far between. Perhaps she should give up on the river for now..? The idea of that makes her uneasy. What would they do without the river to support them through Leaf-Bare?

[roll to catch: 12]
Wanting to grab at least one more fish before she finds some land prey, Larkwing waits patiently again until a fish swims close to the bank. Skillfully, though maybe slightly distracted, she scoops the thing out of the water and kills it on land, umami flavor making her mouth water and stomach growl, but she ignores it. She isn't hunting for herself. Now, though, she has three fish - not a lot, but she doesn't want to over hunt in the river that seems to already lack important prey.

Picking up her three fish, the leader carries them a little further into the territory where she finds some leaf litter to cover them with for the moment. She should grab as much as she can carry... probably only a couple more things. Opening her mouth to scent the air, tilting her head and running it close to the ground, the fresh scent of squirrel makes itself known. Following the trail, she finds it at the base of a tree.

[roll to catch: 8]
She pounces a little too early and, while she does manage to get the thing, she also slams her head into the tree. "Ah..." she winces softly, rubbing her head with a paw. Hopefully none of the patrol saw that... but she's still not done, she can still carry something else. She covers the squirrel in leaf litter, ignoring how her head throbs, and begins to follow a new scent trail - mouse.

[roll to catch: 1]
Maybe it was her head disorienting her, maybe she'd been too distracted, but several things go wrong immediately when she spies the mouse. For starters, she stepped on a twig and alerted the creature to her presence, second, the wind changed directions and the mouse could smell her, and third, when she decided to give chase, she'd perhaps overdone herself and felt pain tear through her side as the claw wound that had been healing reasonably well tore open. And the mouse vanished into a hole in the ground before she could so much as swipe at its retreating tail.

Frustrated tears welled in her eyes. Why wasn't this going right for her? She was a good hunter! She was! Was this StarClan, or better yet, that Dark Forest cat, laughing at her from beyond their stupid graves? Lark wanted to yell, to scream and rip something up. Fortunately, there was a poor fallen tree nearby that she could claw the bark off of, so that was what she did. Venting her frustrations on the peeling birch bark, ripping it to shreds, Larkwing let out an angry, frustrated growl, lamenting her misfortunes.

She didn't feel any better when she was finished.

Unwilling to continue hunting after such failures, Larkwing went and retrieved the prey she'd already caught. Three perch and a squirrel. Not very impressive, she could carry more, but she was still upset, falling into the mindset of a scorned child quickly. Stars, she needed to pull herself together, everyone has bad days, but this measly catch swirled guilt in her gut. She could do more, should do more. But she didn't want to, so she returned to the place where the group had split up and set her catch in front of her before taking a few breaths until she was calmer. She'd wait here until the rest of the patrol returned.

__________

[ the dice hate her today good lord ]
[ @Silver. // @redshiftreign // @Leafy ]