Midnightpaw wanted to learn something different. Something a little bit more difficult than what she had already learned. The prospect of flaying was intimidating, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to approach her mentor with something like that–she wasn't sure what Hazelstripe thought of the tradition, and she didn't want to approach her with the possibility that she might react poorly.
So, who to ask, right? Dawnstar was a little intimidating, and seeing as the leader probably had a lot on her plate, she decided to steer clear of asking her, too. What about an enforcer? Surely an enforcer would be willing to teach her, right? She thought to ask Hawkbite initially, she had started to really like him. He had become quite familiar to her over the last few moons as an apprentice, but… She decided against it upon finding Mistlewhisker first.
Inhaling sharply, Midnightpaw shook away the few thoughts of doubt that invaded her mind, and decided to just go and ask her for some training. “Mistlewhisker! Hello! Apologies if I'm interrupting anything. I wanted to ask you if you'd help me with some training–I'd like to learn how to flay.”
Mistlewhisker
ShadowClan Enforcer
she/her | 38 moons
[Large black cat with a half white muzzle and a pale green eye (left gouged out)] Purrks: Beefed Up T3, Shadow Fiend
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[Midnightpaw - @Omari ]
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Mistlewhisker looked up from where she was grooming her toe beans, mud from the melting marsh stuck in the short fur between them. Midnightpaw was... asking her how to flay. The enforcer set her leg down, regarding Midnightpaw with a one-eyed gaze. "Flaying is a gruesome skill, and not for the faint of heart. Do you think you can handle it?" Mistlewhisker remembered the last time she flayed something--a fox she had tousled with a few moons ago. The pelt now wrapped in her nest had kept her warm all leafbare. She would be willing to teach the apprentice, and perhaps be impressed at the young cat's iron stomach if she handled it well.
Being beneath Mistlewhisker’s gaze gave her… A bit of anxiety, if she were being honest. She was pretty intimidating, after all–but onward she must go!
“I believe so. At the very least, I would like to give it an attempt.” She would like to be able to say that she had at least tried it. Besides, she believes that she had it in her to learn this skill! “I enjoy learning new things, and I understand that this is anything but a light lesson… Which is why I am asking for that experience specifically.”
Midnightpaw had a gentle heart, one that had been protected up until the very moment that her father and brothers had all disappeared. At that very moment, there was nobody else who would protect her anymore. She had been left alone to defend herself–including her heart. If she could create a thick barrier around her heart, then she could protect it all by herself. Perhaps this experience would help her build the foundation needed to build the rest of her barrier.
Mistlewhisker
ShadowClan Enforcer
she/her | 39 moons
[Large black cat with a half white muzzle and a pale green eye (left gouged out)] Purrks: Beefed Up T3, Shadow Fiend
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[Midnightpaw - @Omari ]
· · ────────────── · · [CW: This rp will have descriptions of skinning a squirrel. Please do not read if you are uncomfortable with that]
Mistlewhisker eyed Midnightpaw, gauging the truth in the apprentice's words. Well then. Mistlewhisker nodded and the gestured for Midnightpaw to follow her.
Mistlewhisker lead her out into the territory to a clearing they could hunt in. They needed something close in size to a cat or fox, but nothing like that would go down easily. She glanced at Midnightpaw. "Right. First we hunt. It is best to skin something that is recently dead."
It did not take long to find not one large squirrel but two--StarClan must have blessed this training session or something--snuffling about in the undergrowth. It wasn't hard to catch, and soon Mistlewhisker and Midnightpaw were standing over a dead squirrel each.
"The first thing you want to do is lay it out like so," she began, spreading each of the squirrel's limbs out. Mistlewhisker then unsheathed her claws, the wicked hooks still flecked with blood from the kill. "Next, you need to separate the bottom legs from the rest of the pelt." Reaching down to take the squirrel's hind leg in her mouth, she used her claw to slice the skin in a ring around the base of its paw. She repeated the process for the next leg.
With that step done, Mistlewhisker waited for Midnightpaw to copy her process.
Much to her own pleasure, Mistlewhisker had accepted Midnightpaw’s request. While she followed the enforcer out of camp, she kept quiet. She didn’t know Mistlewhisker very well–if at all–so she didn’t want to push any of her buttons, so it was best to just keep her mouth shut.
Upon arrival at the clearing, her green eyes shifted from the dirt below, up to the intimidating cat before her. Again, quietly, she nodded her head in understanding. She’d make note that it was easier to skin something that had just recently died–for future reference.
After they had taken the time to hunt, Midnightpaw sat with a squirrel before her, and her big green eyes peering at the enforcer who, similarly, sat with a squirrel before her as well. Owlishly, she blinked, waiting for the lesson to begin.
Lay it out, like so. Midnightpaw followed along accordingly, using her paw to carefully draw out the squirrel’s limbs. Her eyes flicked from her own squirrel, over to Mistlewhisker’s, and then to her paws–to which, she unsheathed her own claws. In comparison, hers were much cleaner… Obviously. Separate the bottom legs.. She lowered her head, lifting one of the squirrel’s hind legs with the use of her teeth before she paused, watching Mistlewhisker again. With one of her unsheathed claws, she pierced the tip of her claw beneath the squirrel’s skin, dragging her claw along the base of its paw, opening up a bloodied ring. Again, with gritted teeth and an uncomfortable heat beneath her fur, she did the same to the other hind leg.
Once finished the initial step, she looked up to Mistlewhisker. “Done. Did I do that right?”
Mistlewhisker
ShadowClan Enforcer
she/her | 39 moons
[Large black cat with a half white muzzle and a pale green eye (left gouged out)] Purrks: Beefed Up T3, Shadow Fiend
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[Midnightpaw - @Omari ]
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Mistlewhisker watched intently out of her right eye as Midnightpaw copied her. Her work was a little sloppy, but for her first time, she handled it well. Mistlewhisker nodded approvingly. "Good. Next step--"
Mistlewhisker repeated the action on the squirrel's front paws. "Once all the paws are separated, draw an arc from one hind leg to the other hind leg, separating the pelt from the hind quarters of the squirrel." She hooked her claw under the separated skin of the squirrel's left hind leg, showing Midnightpaw as she sliced up and over the squirrel's butt to meet the circular cut around the squirrel's right hind paw. "Repeat that process on the other side." She did so, flipping the squirrel around so Midnightpaw could watch and follow along as she sliced over the squirrel's lower stomach.
"From here--" She reached down, clamping her mouth over the squirrel's tail and snapping the bone with a sickening crunch. "The tail, once separated, will come off with the rest of the pelt." She waited for Midnightpaw to finish, then continued. "Next, we will take the squirrel's hind paws in our mouths, then pull the skin down until its over the head. Watch as I do it." She took the squirrel's paws in her mouth, sitting upright on her hind legs so she could reach better, and hooked her claws into the sliced flesh of it's legs. She dragged it down over its body, the pink and red muscle glinting wetly in the sunlight. Setting the squirrel down, its ripped flesh picking up pine needles and dirt, she gestured for Midnightpaw to do it. The fur pelt of the squirrel now hung over the squirrel's head like a shirt it couldn't quite get off.
Midnightpaw nodded her head, but she kept quiet, deciding not to make any prideful comments for the sake of her own confidence. A simple good from Mistlewhisker had done that well enough for her.
When she saw that Mistlewhisker was repeating the work that they had previously done on the other leg to the rest, she proceeded to do so as well. Carefully, albeit a bit messy due to her inexperience–each movement was more confident than the last. She watched Mistlewhisker continue the process, ah, it was getting more gross. Suppose I signed up for this, though.
With another nod, she carved an arc across the squirrel’s back, and then carefully flipped it around to do the same over it’s stomach. Lowering her head to take the squirrel’s tail between her jaws, she bit down hard, earning a similar crunch from the deceased creature’s bones. Immediately, she dropped the tail from her mouth, allowing it to thud black to the ground below.
A shaky sigh escaped her as she shifted her attention once more, watching as Mistlewhisker peeled pelt from muscle, the grotesque image urging her to look away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Both because she was trying to learn this questionable skill, and it was one of those bizarre things that you wanted to look away from but wouldn’t be able to even if you tried really hard to.
Dipping her head again, she took the hind paws of the squirrel into her mouth and sat upright, hesitantly lifting her paws to sink her claws into the detached flesh of the prey. Carefully, she pulled downward, her ears flattening against her head as she listened to the sickening slick sounds of the prey’s pelt being torn from the rest of it’s body. Oh, gross.
She dropped the squirrel down to the ground haphazardly, an almost anxious chuckle escaping her. “This is really weird an’ gross. In an interesting way, though. I really am appreciating this lesson, though. It’s interesting in a gross kind of way.”
[ @Mica SORRY THIS TOOK A BILLION YEARS AAAUUGHH ]
Mistlewhisker
ShadowClan Enforcer
she/her | 39 moons
[Large black cat with a half white muzzle and a pale green eye (left gouged out)] Purrks: Beefed Up T3, Shadow Fiend
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[Midnightpaw - @Omari ]
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Mistlewhisker watched like a hawk as Midnightpaw replicated her work. She seemed to gain more confidence as she went, even though discomfort seemed to settle in her movements as she pulled the pelt from the squirrel.
The apprentice's nervous chuckle earned nothing but a grunt from the Enforcer. Gross in an interesting way, interesting in a gross way. Mistlewhisker liked that.
"The final step in removing the pelt from the squirrel's body is quick. Slice around its neck to sever from the head. Pull the pelt over the head." Mistlewhisker then demonstrated, holding a tube of squirrel fur in her mouth. She set it down, looking fully at Midnightpaw. "After that is washing the skin of any blood. You can leave it like this--" she swung her tail at the squirrel fur jacket. "Or, you could slice along the flanks and create two separate pelts. One of the stomach, and one of the back."
Well, her work was almost done, it seemed. It brought her a bit of relief, if she were honest. Following along with Mistlewhisker’s demonstration, she hooked her claw beneath the squirrel’s skin once again, drawing a circle around it’s neck before she lifted both paws to pull the squirrel’s pelt over it’s head like a tight shirt.
With a grin, pleased with herself, she placed the pelt to the ground near her paws, looking up to the huge molly before her. “Great!” She chirped, jovial despite the questionable lesson that she had just taken on. “We should wash it off in some water then, right..?”
Mistlewhisker
ShadowClan Enforcer
she/her | 39 moons
[Large black cat with a half white muzzle and a pale green eye (left gouged out)] Purrks: Beefed Up T3, Shadow Fiend
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[Midnightpaw - @Omari ]
· · ────────────── · · "Correct." Mistlewhisker meowed. "Give me your skin, and take the prey with us." Picking up the skins, Mistlewhisker padded to a stream that cut through the territory. An offshoot of Sunkissed Creek, if she recalled. Dunking her skin into the water, she watched as fat and tissue trailed behind it. While it was mostly clean, some bits would require a little bit of picking in order to make it perfect. Pelts got easier and more clean with each skinning. Practice makes perfect, as they say.
Once they were done, Mistlewhisker set her pelt on a rock to dry, the fur facing the sun. She turned to Midnightpaw with the squirrels.
"Now, we eat. It does no one any good to leave perfectly good prey here." While they could bury it and return it to camp, seeing a skinned animal was not something most queens preferred their kits seeing.
While the skins dried on a sunny rock, Mistlewhisker crouched down and at the squirrel she had used for the demonstration. The meal was spent in silence, but it wasn't tense. Once she was done, Mistlewhisker buried her remains and padded over to the skins, now only slightly damp rather than soaked. "We will bring these back to camp and hang them on a branch. Never bring a wet pelt into the den. Mold could grow." A novice mistake anyone could make, but one that has the whole den smelling musty for moons.
Teach Me to be the Best! [p]
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