Insults for Kicks

[♫.Starredmyst]

Ghost listened to Twigtail's comment with a half-smile, but just shrugged; it'd been an offhand name and not really one of his best. He remained sitting, a little uncertainly, as Twigtail rose and stretched, wondering if the warrior was about to take his leave of him, but his smile widened into a real one at the name.

"Twigtail. Right. I'll remember that." He laughed a little. "Let me know next time we're in front of a cat you want to tell your story to -- I can give the innocent look another try."

But then Twigtail ordered him to go get some food; suddenly very eager indeed, the tom leapt to his paws, shaking himself like a dog in an attempt to kill the numbness that had been seeping up into his body from the ground. He bounded a few steps forward to catch up with the tom, then paused long enough to catch sight and scent of the trail Twigtail had indicated.

"I'll be right back!"

Ghost hurried after the trail, slowing down as it grew fresh; with a self-conscious glance back at Twigtail, who wasn't yet out of sight, he dropped into a hunting crouch. He knew there was something wrong with it, there had to be; he had tried to mimic what he'd seen some of the other loners doing when they caught the odd rat, but standing like this had always set him off-balance, made him feel like he was about to fall over. Still -- it worked, when he could hold himself still enough and moved very, very slowly.

Which he did now; one paw in front of the other, shoulders close to the ground, back legs aching with the effort it took to hold the awkward position. One step...another...another, and the mouse was in sight. It was alone yet; nibbling, having found some bit of garbage that had escaped its can. Just a little more...

Oh, forget it --

Perhaps half a tail-length too far away to begin with, Ghost tried to finish off with the pounce he'd seen rogues do, surging up out of their crouch and onto their hapless prey. "Tried to" being the key word of the moment; he didn't even manage to jump the distance a cat would have normally, let alone his extra space --

The tom attempted to throw himself forward, only to have his wobbling hindquarters give out on him; he pushed off, traveled a very small distance, stumbled and tripped over his own paws. The mouse, startled, looked up, dropped its meal, and skittered away. Ghost snarled a curse ugly enough to melt an innocent cat's ears and followed it with the somewhat more mundane, "Ancestors curse it!" as he picked himself up off the ground.

He turned, ears heating up in anticipatory embarrassment, to see if Twigtail had seen his not-so-narrow miss.

[Twigtail]

Of course Twigtail had seen the sorry attempt at hunting, watching with pale eyes as the loner bounded forward after the trail, and dropped into a crouch. At least, the warrior thought that was what Ghost was attempting. The white cat’s chest seemed to be much too low to the ground in proportion to his hindquarters. The ginger tom shook his head, amused and smiling slightly at the silly position; if he’d known the human “wheelbarrow” game involving one person holding another person’s legs and that person moving forward on their hands, he might have compared this pathetic form with that. How does that cat feed himself with a technique like that? he wondered, entertained by the comical stance.

Apparently, he doesn’t, Twigtail concluded as he watched Ghost tumble, white on white, into the snow, as suddenly as if someone had knocked his paws out from under him. Laughing brashly in amusement, he trotted towards the crumpled heap as it righted itself, Ghost turning to look at the Clan cat as he did so. “Well, now,” the ginger tom guffawed as he approached, “count me stupid. I should have guessed, what with that earlier performance. Very entertaining.” And now the warrior was near the younger cat, wicked amusement in his broad grin, which seemed too big for his narrow face.

“I’m so very curious, Great Hunter,” he meowed as he circled the white cat, tail flicking with derision, “how did you survive without eating for all these moons? Come now, don’t be shy, that’s sheer genius.” Chortling again, Twigtail stopped vaguely in front of Ghost. Like a switch had been flipped, the ginger tom’s eyes swapped mockery for thoughtfulness. I do like this cat, though, he decided. Spirited little thing he is, and he’s a funny one. Ah… I’ll help him. The older tom was really growing quite fond of this sour-mouthed youth, which was more than he could say for – well, pretty much all other cats. They just didn’t have senses of humor.

“You were unsteady on your hindquarters, sonny. How do you expect to leap?” Explaining, Twigtail felt as if he was explaining to a kit (one he didn’t eat, of course), all of this seemed so obvious. But then again, he had to remember that most cats didn’t quite catch on as quickly as he did. “When you leap, you rely on your hind legs. You need to put more weight on them, concentrate less on forelegs. More weight on your hindquarters, more weight is propelled forward when you jump, gotcha? And if you concentrate on hind limbs, forelimbs will follow.” Demonstrating, he dropped his muscles, concentrating his weight in his haunches, and, slowly, used his forepaws to pull himself forward. “Forelimbs are only for direction,” he added, noting how his scrawny body moved. “Hindlimbs are for power.”

And then he stood, popping out of his crouch with a slight cracking sound in his limbs, but Twigtail pretended he didn’t notice the noises his bony body made. “Go on. Redeem yourself, sonny.” He abided by his “where there’s one mouse, there’s more” speech, hinting that there were probably other critters scampering around, weighting to be caught. But instead of looking around, the mangy tom looked up. Seeing another ledge high on the side of the Twoleg nest, he paced towards it, and, hopping, scrabbled onto the smooth material. There he sat, surveying the white ground with narrowed eyes, looking for a place little Ghost might try for a bite. Seeing none immediately, he glanced down and meowed to the loner, "Keep practicing, kit," and padded to the other side of the ledge, still looking.

[♫.Starredmyst]

It was every bit as bad as he'd expected; Twigtail came forward after a moment, meeting Ghost as the young tom shook the snow out of his fur. He was laughing. Humiliated, Ghost glared at the ground, eyes narrowing in unspoken resentment as the older tom mocked out his lack of talent; he had opened his mouth to make a sharp retort, something to the effect of never having learned in the first place and thanks a lot for no help, and had already turned his glare full-on the other tom, when he realized that Twigtail's expression had changed in the blink of an eye.

“You were unsteady on your hindquarters, sonny. How do you expect to leap?”

Apparently the warrior did mean to help him after all. Still feeling a little offended, but well aware of his need to learn, Ghost stifled his anger and paid close attention to Twigtail's lesson. More the words than the demonstration; he'd watched for the form plenty of times before, and it obviously hadn't done him much good.

So if I'm up too high in back -- I guess that would make sense. But I'll feel like an idiot, shuffling around trying to get it right...

Not that he didn't feel like one already; and an idiot with a mouse in his jaws was better than an idiot without one. So he gritted his teeth and got ready to try again, trying not to look too relieved when Twigtail leapt up onto a windowledge and told him to practice.

Lower in the hindquarters...take less energy, use the power to move yourself forward. Right. Ghost felt himself flush again, imagining how stupid he must have looked with his butt in the air, then irritably told himself to stop standing around like a fool and focus.

He dropped down close to the ground, front legs first as always; then scowled, having no idea how to get into the right position from there. Gingerly, with a control that made his legs ache, he lowered himself down; but it still felt wrong, like there was no strength to spare.

"Twigtail?" he called, uncertainly. "What am I doing wrong? Am I too close to the ground?"

[Twigtail]

StarClan must have been positioned against him today, because Twigtail didn’t see any places that the mice might be hiding. He stretched his long neck forward, jaws parted as he tasted the air. Heck, maybe that one that keeps getting away’s got a nest ‘round here we can track it to, he thought. Yes… if they were lucky, that little mouse that was giving the pair of them such trouble had a right little bunch of mice it was hiding in wherever it spent these cold moons. He had just crouched lightly on the ledge to leap down and look for the trail again when he heard his name called from below. The warrior groaned; hadn’t he just told Ghost what to do? But he hopped off the ledge nonetheless and padded over to the young white cat.

After circling the white tom once to see what the problem was, Twigtail groaned again. “Didn’t you listen?” he moaned, exasperated. He was going about it all the same again! “Alright, listen up, and listen up good,” he growled, crouching in front of the other tom. “There are a couple different ways of stalking, depending on what you want to do. What you’re doing right now is not for creeping up and leaping. If you want to sneak up on a mouse, you want to stay low to the ground, yeah, but with your rear!” With that, the ginger tom reached forward to whap the younger tom, pushing up his chest. Then the warrior skittered around to the youth’s rear to bat that down. “If you’re sneaking, and are gonna pounce to catch your prey, you need to center your balance towards your rear. You can keep your weight on your hind legs when you rear up, cantcha? Well, since yer gonna be rearing up soon anyway, get ready!”

The older warrior crouched beside the loner, folding both his hind and fore limbs at the same time, and rocked back to keep more weight on his hind legs, like he was about to jump. That gave him an idea on illustration. “Get down like you’re gonna jump, but don’t jump right away.” With that, and bunched muscles in his hindquarters, Twigtail slowly drew himself forward, then thrust with his hind legs, springing in a rounded arc over the snowy ground.

Turning to face Ghost, the ginger tom meowed, “You’re body’s in a position for faster stalking, not creeping. That’s for if you’re after something that’s in a position to get away from you real fast, like a bird.” To demonstrate, Twigtail mimicked the loner’s earlier pose, forelegs folded and hind legs barely bent, and quickly padded along the ground in a fast but low-balanced trot. “See, with this one, you’re in a position to run after you’re prey, not to pounce!” The ginger tom rose to his full height and spun to face the loner. “Now don’t make me do it again!” he meowed irritably. “I showed you once, I showed you twice, and I ain’t gonna do it again. Now, decide: you gonna rely on stealth or speed to catch this d*mn mouse?” Without waiting for an answer, the ginger cat spun around again and lowered his narrow face, scanning the snow-dusted ground with twitching whiskers. After stalking around a minute, he raised his head, satisfied.

“There went the squeaker. Now go get ‘im, Ghosty. Wait outside his hidey-hole if you got to, but see what you can do with what I just showed you!” Twigtail stood away from the faint trail in the snow, watching the loner with intense eyes. When the youth took the lead, the warrior would follow from a few tail-lengths behind, and see what this cat could do.

[♫.Starredmyst]

Ghost listened to the other tom's lecture with a growing exasperation to match Twigtail's own; it wasn't as though he wasn't trying! Couldn't the scrawny warrior at least do him the favor of noticing it? If there was one thing he hated, it was being treated like a stupid little kit --

But he once again forced down his anger and clamped his jaws shut, hiding his frustration the best he could; it showed only in the narrow set of his eyes and the stiff startlement he reacted with when Twigtail pushed him into the right position. As if his tone wasn't rude enough to begin with --

But, standing as he now was, Ghost could feel the difference in weight distribution, realized that he could stand still without feeling like he was going to fall apart. He took a tentative step forward, settling himself into the position -- now that he had the feel of it, he wouldn't lose it again. Somehow it had never occurred to him that there could be more than one position to use when you stalked...

Not that that made him feel any better. As Twigtail padded around, hunting for the mouse's trail, the young tom tried an experimental jump. Much easier, and much farther than he'd done before -- and, Ghost was satisfied to find, he didn't have any trouble getting in the right position again. He had good muscle memory, but somehow just watching didn't help.

Not that I'm gonna tell him his pushiness actually helped --

Twigtail called him over, having found the trail. Taking a deep breath and telling himself anger issues weren't going to help catch mice, Ghost dipped his own head, studying the tracks, taking in the scent. Then, carefully dropping into the position Twigtail had just showed him -- allowing himself a brief moment's satisfaction in the way it "clicked" into a natural pose this time -- he began, slowly and carefully, to stalk forward.

The mouse would be on guard this time, after being chased twice; Twigtail was probably right in that it had found a safe hole. Still, if that was the case there'd be more -- and possibly one would be young and stupid, and decide to venture out of the nest.

Carefully, quietly, Ghost crept forward; forward a bit, then around the corner of a den for several tail-lengths --

And the trail ended, right next to the den itself.

Scowling, Ghost cast around a bit, but found no other tracks; after a moment, mentally cursing his own stupidity, it occurred to him to check the den itself. There, at the base of the thing, was a small hole chewed into the wood -- surely a cozy little home for its inhabitants, but quite the nuisance for a tom with a growling stomach. Stifling a sigh of frustration, Ghost backed off a pace or two to where the snow had built up, to hide him white-on-white, and settled in to wait.

He didn't have long to sit there; even as he made himself comfortable, a pink nose poked out of the nest, whiskers twitching. Ghost froze, remembered that he needed to breathe, untensed a little, and waited impatiently for the mouse to come out.

It did, with agonizing slowness. Nose twitch -- scampering out a few steps -- another twitch -- a few steps more. The tip of Ghost's tail wouldn't stop flicking; while he could hold the rest of him still, that part just didn't stop moving. He could smell it from here -- so tantalizing -- but he didn't dare catch it yet, didn't want the rest of the nest to see --

Finally, finally, the stupid rodent turned and pattered out of the nest's line-of-sight. In two careful, but relatively swift steps Ghost had closed most of the distance between them -- and he leaped --

Small, soft body between his paws. Frantic scrabbling -- he had to get it before it squealed -- swift, instinctive bite, breaking the neck, and sweet blood flowed into his mouth.

Hurriedly, carefully exercising the control it took not to bite down, Ghost carried the mouse back to his earlier hiding place and buried it in the small mound of snow. He glanced up to see Twigtail close by, and shook his head silently before returning to his crouch -- that mouse was for Canary. He needed one more.

[Twigtail]

Twigtail snorted in quiet exasperation. Well, what do you know, it did take him shoving the other cat into the right position to get him to start it off right. The warrior waited for the white cat to creep around the side of the nest before, mimicking his earlier stalking crouch, the ginger cat followed, keeping lower than necessary, white belly skimming a purer-colored snow. As he wasn’t hunting himself, the ginger tom would have to keep out of the way of the loner.

Pausing at the corner, where he could still see the white-on-white form that was Ghost, Twigtail sat to wait. His shoulders were hunched and his head held low as he watched the youth slinking around. Still, the warrior didn’t like sitting around with nothing to do; it was flat-out boring. He shifted his hind legs beneath him, feeling the skinny limbs grow stiff in the frigid cold. Tail flickering restlessly, the ginger tom rolled his neck, briefly wondering how he’d come to this. Well, really! I begin hunting a mouse, and now I’m helping some stranger to get it? he thought, a little dubious about his own behavior. Abruptly, his thoughts found an answer. Ah, he’s an interesting fella. Don’t see why not.

While Twigtail had his inner mini-debate, his eyes suddenly caught a flash of movement from Ghost, other than his twitching tail, that is. Looking up in time to see the youth pounce, the ginger tom’s whiskers twitched with his wacky amusement. If he didn’t catch it this time, we’ll have to give up on this nest, he thought, rising to stiff paws. But Ghost was padding towards him, a mouse limp in his frost-colored jaws. Suddenly grinning appreciatively, the warrior turned after the other cat and padded, closer behind him, as he went off to bury his prey.

But why…? When Ghost looked up, Twigtail opened his jaws to ask the question, seemingly at the same moment the loner shook his head. Closing his mouth, he tilted his head, wondering why this cat couldn’t be satisfied with just one. As the youth returned to his crouch, the ginger cat turned and walked away, dropping into a crouch to show the loner that he was going hunting for himself, lowering his forepaws in the position he’d showed earlier to quickly trot forward, head low and jaws parted, this time not to speak. It wasn’t until the Clan cat rounded the Twoleg nest that he remembered his young compatriot mentioning a canary.

Though exactly what a canary is, I don’t know, Twigtail thought to himself as he skimmed the dusting of snow, eyes darting around in active pursuit of prey while his mind darted around in active pursuit of curiosity. What he didn’t know frustrated him, because he didn’t like being one-upped, even if by a loner with whom he was somewhat friendly. Apparently, Ghost knew what a canary was. It’s probably the name of some cat, the ginger tom finally decided, peering down an empty alleyway between houses. Still, what the heck does it MEAN?

Twigtail had just started padding forward again when his head snapped back to the alleyway, tattered ears pricked excitedly. Why, hello there, love, he thought, eyes widening at the pleasant surprise. What he’d thought was an empty space actually had an occupant, shoved inconspicuously against a Twoleg nest. This occupant had wooden slats and was the same uniform shape as the nests, and wasn’t exactly alive, but pricked ears could hear the light scrabbling against the wood. Crouching into the low stealth position into which he’d forced Ghost, the warrior slunk forward, towards the crate that undoubtedly held something tasty.

There was room between the wood slats, and, as the ginger tom crouched outside the crate, he heard the scratchy sound of tiny claws close by the shadowy space between wood. Twigtail thrust his paw into the space, and, clawing, withdrew a small, fuzzy brown creature. Unpleasantness coated his oversized paw, but beneath the Twoleg rubbish the mouse squirmed. Bowing his head to break the spine, the tom’s ears flicked towards the crate again. Oh ho? What’s this? More scrabbling? The warrior finished off his rodent and pounced to the top of the crate. Doubtlessly, he heard another mouse crawling around somewhere beneath his paws. But how to make it come out?

Twigtail padded to the edge of the crate… and tried to concentrate all his weight on that very edge. He felt the surface beneath his paws lurch sideways, tipping under the ginger cat. “Gangway!” the warrior howled as he took a flying leap off the box. The crate crashed onto its side, and out rolled a very disoriented tannish-gray mouse. Skidding in the snow, the warrior spun to face it, as it scrabbled to its tiny paws and stumbled a few dazed steps. Not bothering to crouch, the warrior pounced, paws landing squarely on the rodent. The tom dug in his teeth to break the little animal’s spine, and felt it go limp in his jaws.

Chuckling to himself, he meowed, “Twigtail, you rascal, you’ve done ‘er again.” He grabbed the mouse by its tail, letting it dangle from his jaws, and returned to his earlier kill to hold it likewise. The warrior turned and padded out of the alley, the mice hanging from his mouth like grisly ornaments, and headed back to where he’d last seen Ghost, wondering briefly how the little loner was doing in his escapades.