Climbing [open]

[{Otter}]

"Snow....Cardinal. Sparrow."

Broken words rose into the crisp leafbare air as a lean form pulled himself higher and higher into the branches of a tall oak tree. Whenever there was no near branch to jump to, he simply hooked his claws into the rough bark and clawed his way up to the next branch. The going was vigorous and gruelling, but the lovely blue-gray tomcat didn't even seem to notice. No, he was too busy reciting the three new words he'd recently learned. An uncommonly friendly cat had welcomed his attention, and had taught him these new words.

Snow...that was what cats called the cold white stuff that fell from the sky now. It had blanketed the forest floor and the branches of the trees, so that icy coldness soaked into his paws as he moved. Cardinal...that was the little red bird he was following up here. It had flown up very high, and was now perched on one of the highest branches. Zephyr wasn't worried about heights. He was a great climber, and never before had he fallen from any tree at all.

Sparrow. That was the little brown bird he saw all the time. There were always tons of them in this part of the land, even in leafbare. Apparently those Clan cats ate sparrows a lot.

Storm-gray eyes locked on the small red creature, which was now just a few branches away. It was looking at him, tilting its head from side-to-side as though to see him better, but it wasn't moving. Perhaps because it figured he wouldn't go much further. Most cats wouldn't even be this far up in a tree, much less go those extra two branches to reach one little piece of prey. But Zephyr wasn't most cats.

Finally, he pulled himself up to the branch below the bird. Now the little "cardinal" looked alarmed, hopping further away form him and staring at him as if to say "you're such an idiot, cat! I can fly, and you can't!" Even so, it utilized those special skills a bit too late. Zephyr tensed the muscles in his powerful hind legs and leaped onto the bird's branch, and as the cardinal began to flutter into the sky, he reared up on his hind paws, teetering precariously on the relatively thin branch, and clasped the bird between his forepaws, bringing it down with a hard "thump" against the hard tree branch.

For a long moment the lovely gray eyes stared at the little red bird, fluttering helplessly in his grasp. It wasn't that he was demented--Zephyr did not like to see things suffer. He was just intrigued. "Cardinal," he mewed, the word hesitant as he tried to pronounce it correctly. "Car..din...al." That was it! It sounded the way that friendly cat had said it. Satisfied, he ended the cardinal's life with a quick bite, then sat back on the branch to scan the world around him.

He was high into the tree, with only a few fox-lengths of branches above him. From here Zephyr could see all around, because there were no leaves to impair his vision. There were dozens of trees, hundreds of them! And dozens of cardinals and sparrows...and little blue birds he didn't know the name of. Why they hadn't left the forest and found a warmer place, he didn't know, but they sure did pose a lovely sight.

The blue-gray tomcat began to feast on his little catch, in complete disregard for the fact that this was ThunderClan territory. He didn't really care, nor did he understand. What was a Clan? What did they need borders for? He didn't do boundaries, and he wasn't about to obey something he didn't understand at all.

[dewcloud]

ASHENBERRY

Ashenberry shivered, his short pelt not enough to protect him from the harsh leafbare weather. However, that was not the only thing that was ailing him. He had been told to go "make himself useful" and quit "flopping around camp like some half-dead fish RiverClan was torturing". He, with a whimper and a downtrodden look on his grey and white face, had slowly padded out of the camp to go figure out how to please them.

He had decided to hunt, but his hunting skills weren't the best - his large paws had many seasons of experience, but they never quit made it to the "large and skilled" status. I'm not much use to the Clan at all, really. Thoughts of inadequacy colored his actions; he decided to take a little rest before he attempted the misery that was hunting. His true strength lied in protecting ThunderClan against intruders, as he had no qualms about killing in the name of love.

He settled himself beneath the barren branches of a once prolific oak tree, his white and grey pelt blending in with the snowy scenery with ease. He heard the branches creaking as he closed his amber eyes, figuring that it was only the sound of water freezing and expanding in the crevices of the bark. Then, he heard the sound of a cat saying something with unsteady words.

"Cardinal, cardinal," the voice repeated. Ashenberry wondered idly who it could be, who was hunting when it was so freezing outside. He looked up calmly, not expecting anything out of the ordinary - a restless apprentice, perhaps, or another cat told to go do something useful. His spirits were dampened again, as he was reminded of that. He gave a deep sigh - comparative in size to his own - and looked up.

"H-Hello," the senior warrior said with a slight stammer. He could barely see a blue-grey form in the clutches of the branches. He wasn't close enough to get his scent - not that the snow wouldn't muffle it, anyway. Nevertheless, he wasn't sure who this cat was...

[/blockquote]

[{Otter}]

"H-hello."

The words rose softly from the ground, lightening and softening even further as they traveled up the many tail-lengths it took to reach Zephyr. In fact, he barely heard the words. Blue-gray ears twitched in surprise at the soft sound, and his storm-gray gaze shifted from the small red bird (made even redder by the blood that now saturated its feathers and his lovely paws), downward, towards the forest floor far below.

There was a creature standing below, gazing up at him through the several thick, barren branches, though Zephyr could scarcely make out the form, or even color, of the stranger. Ashenberry's partially white fur blended in with the thin layer of snow that blanketed the ground, so that he seemed to be just half a cat, or something. Intrigued, Zephyr dug his claws into the bark of his branch and leaned half his body into thin air, narrowing his strange gray eyes in an attempt to see more clearly this strange, patchy cat. If, in fact, it was a cat.

But it could not be a dog, he decided, as the words were too well-pronounced. Stammered or not, Zephyr could tell the difference between a cat accent and a dog accent. And so, the only real option left, was that a cat had discovered him and was no doubt wondering who on earth was so high up in a tree.

A wiser cat might have felt a bit of alarm at this moment. For one thing, Zephyr was amazed that he'd even been detected. He was so high up! But what should have alarmed him further was that this cat standing below was probably a ThunderClan cat of some sort and, in the minds of the Clan cats, Zephyr was trespassing.

But no, he didn't really care so much about boundaries. What excited him beyond measure was the fact that, for the first time, a cat had spoken to him! He hadn't had to even look for someone to talk to...they'd just walked right up and said hello! There was no time to waste--Zephyr didn't want this stranger to wander away now. Lifting the bloody cardinal into his mouth, he hopped down from branch to branch until he reached the lowest one. Here he paused, storm-gray eyes widening slowly as he finally took in the stranger.

The ThunderClan cat (for he knew it was ThunderClan by the scent that now flooded his nostrils) was huge, with thick muscles and large, powerful-looking paws. Even Zephyr, as friendly as he was, couldn't help but feel a bit unnerved by the sheer size of this stranger, and his solid blue-gray fur began to bristle slightly along his spine.

Stop that, Zephyr! he thought with a shrug, setting the cardinal on the branch and giving his shoulders a few swift licks (which succeeded only in smearing some cardinal-blood over his lovely, thick fur). You just learned three new words...now you can learn more! This was all he really cared about, and so he ignored his instinctual unease and mewed cheerfully, "Hi. I catch...c-cardinal." He stuttered over the last word, for simply reciting it to himself was one thing, while actually using it in a sentence was much, much harder. Storm-gray eyes widened as he tilted his head to one side, taking in the white-and-gray tomcat standing just a tail-length or two below him. He'd never seen such a large cat before! Maybe bigger cats knew more words.