The Clan Renaissance

An Alternate Universe Warriors Roleplay

Zinnia stepped back to glance over each nest in the apprentice’s den. All were nice and tidy now, with fresh moss. Though the other apprentices seemed to hate the duty of cleaning out the nests, for some reason the black she-cat didn’t mind it so much. Something about it was soothing, and she was sure that the others liked having their beds not full of shed claws and thorns that they carried in on their pelts. But now it was time to go see what else in the camp needed doing, seeing as she had finished in here. The other nests could wait a little while longer.

Emerging from the apprentice’s den, she gazed around the camp. It seemed pretty empty, though she knew a lot if not all the other apprentices had probably gone off with someone to go train by now. She knew she needed to catch up on her training too, but fighting just didn’t interest her that much. Hunting, on the other paw, was more her style.

Before she could become too lost in her own thoughts she noticed Clover and lifted her tail in greeting. She liked the tabby she-cat, though she didn’t know her too well yet. She called back as she began walking towards Clover, “Absolutely! I’d love to come hunting with you. Where were you going to hunt at?”

Zinniapaw returned the trill as she approached Clover. Hunting was always better with someone rather than doing it alone. Sometimes one cat could smell something that another cat couldn’t, and if there was trouble then there was another cat to go get help if needed.

“Ooh, I haven’t done much fishing yet,” Zinniapaw mewed, looking up at Clover. “I’d love to learn to fish better!” It was currently one of her weaker points, though she wasn’t the best at forest hunting either. She was getting used to it.

“Let’s go!” she said, bouncing on her paws. Normally she was more laid back, but she hadn’t been awake long and she was bursting with energy to do something. Hopefully the fishing would be just the thing to get her back into her more mellow self.

The black she-cat was intrigued by the prospect of fishing, something that she hadn’t been taught yet. In her head she could hardly imagine how a cat could catch a fish, especially without going into the water, so she was eager to watch how Clover did it.

She listened intently as the other she-cat explained that fish could feel the vibrations of your paws from the shore. Glancing down, she supposed that made sense; there were tons of tiny pebbles that clacked together whenever she walked on them, so once it was mentioned to her she placed her paws down much lighter, slinking forward until she was close enough to peer over Clover’s shoulder.

Her heartbeat grew quicker as she caught sight of the fish that the tabby she-cat was aiming for. Zinniapaw didn’t dare breathe in case it disturbed the fish, and she waited still as stone as Clover’s paw hovered over the water. Then…

Splash!

She was sitting so close to Clover that she got wet, too. Zinniapaw leaped backwards and shook off the water. Then, she laughed. “Alright, I think that fish got both of us.”

“This fish fights at least,” she purred, licking her paw and drawing it over her face to dry off. Zinniapaw hadn’t quite been expecting to get splashed, but she wasn’t mad about it at least. There were worse things than getting wet.

As she groomed her fur, she wondered if it would be possible for her to try catching a fish. She’d only seen the move once though, and it hadn’t worked, so she determined she’d watch Clover try again before she gave it a go. She wanted to watch a bit closer to see exactly how it was done.

“It might be,” she meowed. “But I think it’d be better to try further down the bank. We don’t want it to jump out and smack us with its tail!” As joking as she might have sounded, she wasn’t sure that the fish wouldn’t do just that. It had already slipped past Clover, and it was probably somewhere snickering at them from under the waves of the river.

Zinniapaw’s whiskers twitched as she laughed, “Maybe so!” It was a ridiculous thought, but an amusing one nonetheless. Fishing certainly seemed tricky, so it might take a while for either of them to really get the hang of it.

When Clover questioned her, she opened her mouth to draw in the scent on the breeze. It smelled odd, almost dog-like but not. Her yellow gaze flicked to Clover momentarily, full of confusion and concern, then turned toward where the smell was coming from.

Her fur began to stand on end as an orange tail poked above the reeds, and she stepped back when a similarly colored muzzle poked through. A fox had decided to come down to the river to drink, and its eyes were glittering at them with malice. Zinniapaw’s tail fluffed out in alarm as she thought back to the stories Flare had told her and Lily about foxes.

Zinniapaw could barely hear Clover over the beating of her own heart. Even if she had wanted to run, her paws felt like they were full of stones. The muzzle of the fox split into a row of teeth as it snarled at them. Would it attack them? There were two of them, but the fox still seemed like it had the upper paw with its two rows of sharp yellowish teeth. As it started them down, weighing its options, Zinniapaw stole another glance at Clover who seemed absolutely petrified. She didn’t blame the older cat; she felt the same way about this unwanted guest.

Suddenly the fox lunged at them, its jaws only a few mouse lengths from Zinniapaw’s face as it snapped down to startle them. It worked. Spittle caught on her face and finally gave her what she needed to move her heavy paws and flee. All she could think about was escaping the fox, not wanting to become a casualty so early on in her apprenticeship.

At first, the fox gave chase, as if this were some sort of game to it. Zinniapaw could hear its black paws pounding on the ground behind her as she raced after Clover. Thump, thump, thump, it was like its feet and her heart were one. The feeling of hot breath on her tail sent her scurrying faster after her Clanmate.

Finally, the sound of pursuit ended, the growling stopped, and once they had run on a little more and they had entered a clearing Zinniapaw called out, “I have to rest!,” before flopping down in the center of it, panting hard. That had been the most terrifying experience of her life.

It took several pawfuls of labored breathing before Zinniapaw could catch her breath enough to speak. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice shaky more from her exhaustion than from anything else now. They seemed safe enough where they were, and the fox wasn’t pursuing them anymore. Her words took more out of her than she realized, though, for she had to take yet more gasping breaths to find her voice again.

“It’s okay,” she said again as Clover buried her face into the black cat’s shoulder. “We both managed to escape, and that’s what’s important. Besides, I don’t blame you for running. That thing was huge.” She had only heard stories of foxes before and knew they could be bad-tempered, but hadn’t dreamed of actually finding one here near the shore.

Licking Clover’s head, she meowed, “We should let the others know about the fox. Maybe if there’s more of us we can drive it away so no one else will get ambushed by it.” The thought of her father having to go after a fox terrified her, but what else could they do? They couldn’t just leave it there to possibly injure someone else that didn’t know about it.