Lounging and Feasting

[::Key::Lime/\RainyC::]

Talon padded underneath a suspended monster truck. This was the place where he rested and ate. It wasn't where he permanently lived because a lot of nights he just slept where he was at the moment that he decided that he was tired. But it was were he slept and hung out most of the time. He stretched and settled down. The tabby tom set the fat mouse that was between his jaws between his paws and yawned. His green-yellow eyes stared down at the mouse. It was a pitiful catch but it would hold him over till he decided to go back out and hunt some more. There was nothing much else to do around here. Malice was still off making mischief with the clans and the other rogues were stealing through the shadows of the junkyard. Again Talon yawned then he took a famished bite of the mouse. The metal part of his collar make a 'pinkk' noise when it clinked of his fangs. Irritably Talon hissed and slipped the bottom half of his jaw over the green piece of fabric and he began to chew. But it was a well made collar and no matter how hard Talon tried the collar wound not come off. He sighed and went back to eating his prey.
Suddenly Talon heard a rustle outside of the bottom of the truck. His ears pricked up and the brown tom raised his head. Who was there? A growl started in his throat.

Word Count :: 251

[Shinko]

"Hiding out again, I see" Malice meowed, padded out towards him. "I hear you had a run-in with the leader of RainClan. I confess myself surprised that you did not give me away to save yourself."

The bengal she cat kept a respectful distance, giving Talon space without showing any sign of fear for the huge tom. She still carried the scents of mist and moor from the CloudClan territory, and a few small scratches from her brief scuffle with Goldenpaw. She gave her paw a few licks and ran it across her ear, golden eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Moonstar is a powerful warrior," she remarked. "You must be far stronger than you appear, to have escaped your encounter with her relatively unscathed."

[::Key::Lime/\RainyC::]

Talon didn't know what to think when the she-cat approached him. her first words sounded sort of friendly but when she said that he must've been far stronger than he appeared left him to think if that was a complement or not. He nodded and suppressed a small grunt. "Well we wouldn't want your plan to go to waste now would we." He meowed gruffly. "So Moonstar is that she-cat's name eh? 'star. Doesn't that mean something, like a leader?" Talon wasn't very familiar with the clans. After all the tabby tom had only been there for about a year. He blinked. Looking down at his prey he meowed. "So how'd the trap-setting work out? You smell of clan cats, did you run into them?"

Word Count :: 137

[Shinko]

Malice flicked her tail. She wasn't sure how far she could trust this tom, but she decided that his earlier reticence under Moonstar's interrogation had earned him the benefit of the doubt. "Yes," she meowed. "A puny apprentice and and overconfident newly made warrior. The apprentice caught me, but she's got none of the courage that those idiot Clan cats prize so; a snarl from me and she was practically telling the RainClan warrior that she had killed that tom, fearful as she was acting." Malice laughed, but there was no humor in it. Her voice was full of scorn.

"To answer your previous question," she went on, "Yes; cats with the word 'star' in their names are Clan leaders. For future reference, if a cat has the word 'paw' in their name, it means they are an apprentice. A trainee of sorts."

Her mouth quirked into a smile; let him wonder how she knew so much about the Clan ways. If he figured out the truth of her past, it made no difference to her. All of the rouges had pasts that wouldn't necessarily mark them as trustworthy. If he was foolish enough to throw stones from withing his glass house, that was his problem.

[::Key::Lime/\RainyC::]

Talon cocked his head to one side. "You sure know a lot about these cats." He meowed. No emotion seeped through his words, just a statement that Malice may or may not expand on. Talon didn't give a mouse-tail about any cat's past and he wasn't sure how much to expand on this conversation. All of the rogues were unpredictable unless you really know them and Talon didn't really know any of them. He finished up the mouse in a couple more bites and licked his jaws. The big tabby tom was not satisfied with this puny mouse. He decided to throw a one more stone into the pile which resembled the two cats' conversation.
"If I didn't know better I'd think you used to be one of those pests." He got to his paws and padded past Malice into the open sun to catch a couple more mice before it got dark. As he walked by her Talon kept his distance. You never know what will happen when you walk past a out-of-control fire.

Word Count :: 185

[Shinko]

Malice chuckled. He was perceptive, she granted him that much. He had courage too. The she-cat made a mental note to keep on the toms good side. She wasn't afraid of him, but it was always a good idea to keep good relationship with those who might be of use. After all, he clearly detested the Clans as much as she did, and he might be willing to help her at some later date if she didn't offend him.

This would take careful maneuvering, but what did that matter? The Clans weren't going t up and run away. Malice had time.

Huh, she thought. It might be to my benefit to make a good name for myself with the rest of the rogues as well. Granted, none of them show nearly the intelligence and ingenuity that this tom does, but if nothing else they would make it easier to confuse the Clans by providing more than one unfamiliar scent at their borders. If it's always me, they'll recognize it and get suspicious.

Stretching luxuriously, and as he walked by she meowed, "You knew my name the moment you saw me; I assume you heard it from the other rogues. You never did tell me yours."

[::Key::Lime/\RainyC::]

Talon halted. It was true. Talon had heard Malice's name through the grape vine, her name was popular among the rogues. By now everyone had known her plan to start a fight between two of the clans and all the cats believed that it was a smart maneuver. He decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to tell her his name. "Talon" he meowed. his voice betrayed no emotion as he spoke. Typical for him. "My name is Talon"
For a moment Talon just took in what was around him. He looked at the she-cat. She was very intelligent, and very.....secretive. From what he could gather Talon knew that she betrayed nothing that she didn't need to. There was more behind trying to start this battle then she was telling. But he wouldn't ask, he didn't need to know. He began to walk again, more slowly this time. His tail swiped forward and Talon jerked his head sideways. "I'm guessing you didn't grab a rabbit on your way back. Want to hunt?" He made the invitation with haste and he said it carefully. For he was uncertain of the outcome of this offer. But the words already spilled out of his jaws, so all he could do was wait for the she-cat to reply, no harm done in trying to get on a dangerous cat's good side, right?

Word Count :: 240

[Shinko]

The bengal she-cat licked a paw idly. "It would have been foolish of me to hunt while still in the Clan territories. They would have smelled the blood from my kill, and my unfamiliar scent, and that would have made them suspicious of the true nature of the RainClan warrior's death." She swiped the paw over an ear thoughtfully, then stood. This friendly overture of his had more of the feeling of placation then a genuine desire for her company. Having spent most of her youth as the unpopular halfClan apprentice, she knew the difference; the only ones who had ever made the offer and sounded genuine where Redfern and Rowanwind. And Rowanwind betrayed me in the end. I don't need friendship. Tolerance is good enough.

"Your offer is generous," she meowed, "And two noses are better than one, particularly with the stink of all this twoleg rubbish confusing the issue. I accept."

[::Key::Lime/\RainyC::]

The tabby tom nodded and turned around without waiting for another word. Malice was a smart she-cat to think of that, he himself would have never thought of it that way. Maybe because he was not around the cats of the clans as much as she was. He pulled out of underneath the truck and looked about. He took in the scents about him. Talon was used to the smells of twolegs so he pushed most of that small to the back of his mind and focused on living, breathing, moving things. Talon could detect the smell of multiple other rogues, including himself and Malice. He pricked his ears up as well. Most was quiet, but he could hear the gentle rustling of cats, switching their position wherever they were. At the moment his eyes were useless, Talon wouldn't mind being blind actually. But having eyes he might as well put them to some use. Talon looked about and caught the sight of something moving, almost instinctively he bent down into a hunter's crouch.

Word Count :: 177

[Shinko]

Malice watched with some amusement as he fell into the crouch; Having grown up hunting in patrols with upwards of three or four other warriors, she was better able to distinguish the sounds of cats shifting about and the scuffling of prey animals. A slight rustle to her right alerted her; the whisper of feathers. With a tremendous leap, her long legs bounding across the rubbish with ease, she pounced on a crow, coming up with the black bird limp in her jaws.

For a moment, her mind was awash with memories; CloudClan rarely hunted birds, favoring rabbits and occasionally mice. The technique for bird-hunting taught in that Clan was imperfect. She had learned to hunt them effectively from her old LeafClan mate, Redfern.

Shaking off the mental image of the cream and ginger tom nuzzling her comfortingly after a particularly frustration lesson, she padded back towards Talon to see how he was doing.