After the ceremony...

[silverclaw]

"Ah," Silverclaw said with understanding, "I see your point." She shook her head and gazed down at her paws. "I suppose it's my own fear speaking. I should know better than this." She looked over to Bluesky at the freshkill pile, which was lessening each passing moon. Looking back to Lightfur she said, "Please, if my judgment clouds any further tell me. Be harsh as the times are harsh." A pleading light shown briefly in her eyes.

Silverclaw redirected her gaze to Bluesky once more. Something seemed amiss. There was something obvious in the picture. Her gaze hardened, Lightfur and the rest of her surroundings silent and blurry. As her brow lifted, a thought entered slowly into her mind. The answer was clear. "Lightfur! We must be careful. There's no need to wonder about the birds." Silverclaw flicked her tail over at the freshkill pile. "I'm sure you've noticed the freshkill is lessening every day. Have you wondered why?" She directed her gaze in Lightfurs eyes, determined, frightened, and ready to make a move. "It isn't that we need more Warriors to hunt. There /are/ more birds. They must be picking off all of our food. There's no other explanation at this time. All we have to do is pinpoint their location."

Silverclaw knew some of what she had said made sense, but after her last opinion she was suddenly unsure of herself. She shuffled her paws uneasily and anxiously awaited her deputy's answer. Was what she said too obvious? Shame and uncertainty lingered at the back of her mind and she did all she could to push it away.

[Wildstar]

Wildstar had been standing next to the trio in a numb state, her cloudy thoughts enveloping her once more. Silverclaw's words clearly and forcefully caught her off-guard.
"Foxdung!" she spat carelessly. "You're completely right Silverclaw. StarClan was telling me of something stifling, like giant, thick wings. Those birds must be it."
The she-cat leader's senses immediately went into a form of overdrive, catching herself before she dashed out of MountainClan's camp.
Those birds would pay, but, approaching a serious situation with little thought to the matter would clearly become destruction.

"It's best we let the others know what's going on, so they can be alert of the possible danger while we are away."

[Bluesky]

Bluesky had her ears swiveled back, and gasped inwardly. Immediately, her appetite was gone with the wind, as her wandering mother Heathercloud would say. She turned about and scooted back over to her clanmates. "What?!?", She exclaimed. "Did I hear you right, there are birds stealing our prey?!? What will we do?" Her claws ripped at the soft grass and harsh rack under it, feeling the ruff material tearing at the skin that held her black-thorn sharp claws in. Bluesky glared at them ruefully, at one time, they had seemed like the most StarClan giving thing a cat could wish for, now they were no better than lumps of rock. When put against a pack of savage birds of prey, the cats didn't stand a chance. The birds could fly, and mob the cats, picking them off one by one. Even if they didn't, they would stave the cats by stuffing their beaks with the cat's only source of food. Her eyes darted around desperately. "What will happen to us? Where will we get food? How will we live?", She babbled hopelessly, her former faith in StarClan and the clan's 'talent' was gone like mist on a sunny day.

[Wildstar]

"Calm yourself!" Wildstar snapped, overly harsh. "These birds, or, rather, whatever it is that is stealing our prey, haven't killed us yet, and approaching such a dire situation with fevered rationality will not help us.
"First, we need our Clan to know of this problem. Second, we need to set up a guard around the camp. Third, we need a scouting party. Not just for the Clan borders, but, to find these predators."

[Lightfur]

Lightfur's eyes narrowed, and the fur on her shoulders prickled slightly. "Enemies from the air…" she muttered to herself, then shook her head. "Indeed, Wildstar, we need to keep our heads." The deputy looked over at Silverclaw, her eyes smiling briefly. "Well reasoned, though, Silverclaw. Who knows, without your making the connection, they might have taken a kit or some such before we could prepare." She dipped her head to the warrior in respect for a moment before she continued voicing her flickering thoughts on the crisis.

"Bluesky... No, Silverclaw, perhaps you would like to take charge of getting all of the kits, elders and queens informed and safe, and then assist Wildstar in organizing a guard? I believe that Bluesky and I should be able to handle a quick patrol." She had thought first to have Bluesky working in the camp, but realized that the distraught warrior might not be the best candidate for such, as kits, elders and queens tended to be frightened easily. Silverclaw could be diplomatic. Of course, she didn't blame Bluesky at all. The birds frightened her as well, sort of, but she tucked the fear away because right now she was needed to act as deputy. If she wasn't needed so severely, Lightfur wasn't so sure she would be keeping a cool head herself.

"This is -not- a good time to have a warrior injured." she muttered, talking to herself again. "But she can still be a lookout. Oh, yes!" she spoke a little louder. "We'll need someone watching the skies at all times. That might be a good job for the younger apprentices. And on any excursions for bedding for the elders or hunting, no apprentices should go alone."

Birds! Argh. Lightfur hadn't thought such creatures grouped together in such a way… But it was hugely unlikely that the mountain territory could support both the birds and the cats. And when the prey ran out… Well, to the birds, MountainClan -was- prey.

[Bluesky]

Bluesky nodded tensely, trying to keep calm. She nodded again and mewed quickly her agreement. She glanced around, her tail-tip twitching. She gazed at the Warrior's den, Sunwing would be in there...but no one else. Why were there so little Warriors...? She glanced around again. "Hrm...", She muttered. "I wonder...?" Bluesky let the thought hang in the air, and nodded again as Lightfur talked. Her tail twitched again.

[sunwing]

Ooc:// I'm so sorry! I got grounded for a month because my mom got really mad at me for saying rude things to her!

Bic:// Sunwing awoke, startled, to the rising murmur of voices outside, some angry, some ashamed, and some... afraid. She blinked open emerald eyes and rose unsteadily to her paws, stretching as best she could before pushing through the thick fronds that covered the entrance of the warrior's den. Sunwing limped across to the gathering of warrior under Wildstar, their eyes wide with shock and disbelief. She pushed through the mass of cats to stare Wildstar in the eye.

"Does this mean... the bird that attacked me... it has a clan?" Her eyes narrowed and she, to her own shock, purred in amusement. "I beat that stupid bird. It was only bad luck that I fell off a cliff in doing it. We'll have no trouble beating the featherbrained birds!"

Her gaze swept over the assembled cats, and she hoped that she'd have helped calm them down. By no means was she trying to uproot Lightfur or Wildstar, but hoped to calm the fear in her clanmates' eyes. She'd fight as best as she could, injured paw or no.

Turning to Lightfur, she mewed, "I'm not useless just because my paw is unjured. I can go on patrols and keep watch, too."

[Wildstar]

"Now, Sunwing. None of us ever said that bird had a Clan. In fact, we don't even necessarily know how many of them there are, seeing as we haven't had a chance to look," Wildstar replied calmly.

[Bluesky]

Bluesky gulped, the unfinished sentence she had began probably couldn't be followed by a brilliant idea. She racked through her head, everything that she knew about birds of prey."Hey!" She exclaimed suddenly. "How do we know that the it's the birds taking the prey? Maybe there was only one, and there's something else taking the prey? There isn't much proof that the birds are taking them. Maybe a new owl family moved in, or raccoons of some sort?" She wasn't sure what raccoons ate, or how many owls there would need to be to do that much damage, but they might not be as bad as the birds-of-prey theory. They could fight raccoons, and probably owls, too. In her mind, they weren't as big a danger as owls would be.

[Lightfur]

Lightfur looked over at Sunwing, trying to find the right tone of voice. "Sunwing, we all know you're not useless. No on said you were. It's just that, with a sprained paw, patrolling and such isn't a good idea. One misstep and you've hurt your paw even more, and then you'll be out of things for even longer. In a fight, you're a skilled fighter but a sprained paw will be a liability and might fail you at a crucial moment. What would we do if we lost you? Right now, we need warriors to be strong for their Clan, and for you that means resting until Leopardmask proclaims you perfectly sound. I don't want you stepping a paw out of camp until then. You can stand guard at the fringes of the camp and watch for enemies, but I don't want you tackling any more birds on your own unless there's absolutely no one else." The deputy blinked, hoping that Sunwing would understand her position. The Clan needed the other warrior to heal as quickly as possible, and if she was straining it too much, it would end up just getting worse.

Now she turned her attention to Bluesky. "It's possible, very possible." she told the other cat. "Still, the best course of action in any case is to do exactly what we're doing. Set up guards, alert the Clan to the possibility of danger, take safety precautions for hunters and so on, and send out a patrol to figure out exactly what's happening." The tip of her tail twitched steadily, a sure sign that the deputy was thinking. "Wildstar, perhaps about two hours after sunhigh, you might send out another warrior to join us in our search? If the camp's in order by then, that is." She didn't want to stay out there with only two warriors for too long, as unknown enemies seemed to be lurking about. The others could probably handle things in the camp pretty quickly, and then perhaps Silverclaw or one of the others could join them.

"Bluesky, let's go." Lightfur told the other cat, and turning,began to make her way towards the edge of camp before pausing. "If it's possible to send someone out, have them meet us at the tree that was struck by lightning two moons ago, please." she told her leader, and then continued out to begin the patrol.

OoC: Naturesong said she'd try to join this, so maybe we'll have another warrior. xD

[Bluesky]

((Yay!))

Bluesky nodded grimly, her faint, vain hope flickering out. "Right!" She sprang to her paws and sped after her deputy, flicking her tail as she began to pass Lightfur. "I'll wait at the top of the rocks." And she raced out of camp and, without a second thought, gave a tremendous leap. Her claws slid out and sank into thick moss. She had jumped up to the middle of the second rock, and her tail brushed the other half, flat rock. She hauled herself up, and looked back down. There was a path leading up from the camp entrance, which was made up of rock leading up, most of them were thick with springy moss, except for the one spot. It was completely flat, and a cat could have it's claws filed all the way to the bottom trying to claw up it. It was also too long to jump, and therefore the only way up was the way she had come, a flying leap from a running start.

Bluesky spat at the bare spot with triumph, for she had been the one who had found what damage the spot could do to a cat's claws. She then turned and hopped energetically up to the next rock, then the next, and the next. At the top she lay down on the soft moss to catch her breath and watched the camp entrance for Lightfur. Her ears pricked and swiveled back to listen to the spaces she wasn't watching with her eyes. She was initially thinking of prey, then realized that she also needed to listen for the deadly birds-of-prey or other enemies that may have moved in. An ambush was the last thing the clan needed right now!

[naturesong]

Hard paw pads made their way through the forest. Orange and dark gray fur brushed against the side of a tree. The stripes of the smooth coat shone in the light. It practically was a campfire, blazing in the forest. A large, juicy rabbit hopped right in front of the crouching figure. Eyes with the color and depth of the ocean glinted off the calming rays of light as the young she-cat observed the creature that sat at her paws. Naturesong watched it with unmoving eyes, deciding what would be best to do with it. In a quick moment unsheathed paws met prey, and that alone was death in itself. Quickly she picked it up and brought it back to her small storage. Though she had been hunting all day, she had only found two mice, a thrush, and the rabbit she had just killed. One more piece and she'd go back to camp with food that wouldn't help the whole camp, but would do something. Slowly she stalked away once more.

Opening her mouth, she breathed in to find the scents of a small stream mingling with a stale scent of rabbit blood from her most recent catch. But there was another scent in the air that she didn't find familiar. She though it smelt similar to the prey bird that she caught, but different. Suddenly a screech burst from the sky, drowning Naturesong in a deafening blow. Soon it came into sight, though she could tell it was a ways off. Knowing that it could easily get to her prey, she sprinted back and opened her mouth wide to fit it all in. She looked back to see that the bird was gaining, and ran straight for the camp. But then she realized that that wouldn't be the best thing to do, because she might lead the bird to get to one of the cats. She slowly began to turn to the side, hoping to come across a patrol or hunting group. 'Oh, please StarClan,' she whimpered in her head. 'save me!'

[Bluesky]

Bluesky's ears pricked up at a deafening screech. She raced toward it, jaws parted. Naturesong! She thought. A huge bird was swooping down on her, just like the one Sunwing had killed! Bluesky burst out of the undergrowth and launched herself onto the bird. She skidded a little, and dug in her claws. She bit down hard on the back of it's head, blood spurting out and slapping her face as the bird trying to lift into flight unevenly. She moved over, so that she was balanced in between the birds great wings, clawing madly at the blueish black feathers. She unhooked her jaws from the stinking head, and gasped for breath as the bird swung around in a crazed sort of flight, but never getting very high. Bluesky sung her blackthorn sharp teeth back in, this time closer to the spine. Then, suddenly, she felt herself shaken loose, and falling, falling, down. She hit the undergrowth hard and bounced before landing back down on a cushion of springy ferns. It all seemed surreal to her as the bird screeched again, apparently with no intention of leaving.

[naturesong]

Naturesong spit out the prey and glanced and Bluesky. "Thank you..." she breathed. "I'm sure we can defeat it together." She looked around in the sky, her mouth open, to figure out where the bird would swoop down. If it went for Bluesky, then the prey would be safe and she could deal the defeating blow. If not, she would have to risk some of the prey. It didn't seem to be moving, other then it's wings to keep it up. Soon, however, it collapsed in front of the two warriors. Still, it got up, though didn't attempt to take flight again. Suddenly Naturesong realized it was her chance, and she leaped at the bird, using all her power to knock it over and pin it down. Digging her hind claws into the ground, she scratched madly at the squawking thing. It seemed bigger then it did when it was about to tackle her, none the less she bit down into what appeared to be the neck and continues until her teeth touched. Quickly she bounded off the creature back to her kill, and watched as the creature had a few spasms, then halted completely.

Naturesong breathed deeply, calming her nerves. Why were there such large birds in the territory? She'd never come across one, and was stunned by it. Realizing she'd forgotten about Bluesky's traumatizing fall, she padded over and pressed her muzzle to the she-cat's flank. "Are you ok?" She meowed. "You took quite a fall, and I'd be devastated if you were injured badly!" Naturesong turned to the bird. "Have you ever seen a bird like that attack someone? It was so scary. I would've been crow food if not for you!"

[Lightfur]

OoC: Oh, oops. I forgot to reply to this. x3 When I do I'll make Lightfur have been delayed just inside the camp, and be astonished to come out and find them with the dead bird. (I'm too busy to post right now.)