she dies without direct sunlight [locustflight]

Squirrelfang worked her paws nervously in place for a few moments. How could Locustflight be so infuriatingly calm? The she-cat narrowed her eyes, her tail-tip lashed back and forth for a few moments. At least he hadn’t shooed her away. The she-cat loathed telling others that she was not comfortable or unhappy—okay not true the latter she definitely frequently told others about. In any case, she liked to keep her discomfort to herself. Especially if it centered, around, you know… her attitude.

Feeling rather like she’d been cornered suddenly, Squirrelfang bared her teeth. This she corrected by lowering her head so that she was peering up at Locustflight rather than directly looking at him. The ginger-and-white tabby crossly flicked her tail for a few moments, but at least he hadn’t said no. She glanced around before sitting in a sunbeam in a manner that wouldn’t cast her shadow over the pale-furred tom’s coat.

Squirrelfang swallowed. Where did she even start, for a moment she glared at her paws and it seemed like she wasn’t going to answer the tom. Finally, heaving an exhausted sigh she looked up, “It’s just—Lightpaw. No, there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s fine, if not a little opinionated.”

The she-cat talked as though she felt like there was something stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard, and glared up at the sky for a few moments. The she-cat’s pelt kept twitching and rippling—bright, burning ginger under the sunlight. It looked like she could hardly stand to sit still where she was for a few moments. As if she’d explode into action in a few moments, all fire and energy and twisting dances.

“You train Applepaw right? Lightpaw is… I’ve never had an apprentice before—tss of course you’re young too so…” Squirrelfang’s pelt was bristling the more she spoke. Her tone had taken on a defensive note and she sank her claws into the ground. “I just don’t know what to do—I can’t mess this up! That’s not fair to Lightpaw. If I can’t train her properly she’ll never be a good warrior, and then what? I’ll…”

“I don’t want to fail her,” Squirrelfang muttered, glaring at her paws. Shame made her ears burn, the idea that she could fail rubbed her pelt the wrong way. She had to be realistic. “So I was wondering… wondering if I could… ask you for advice… about connecting with and training apprentices. So that I don’t… ruin Lightpaw’s future.”

She spoke as though the words had to be clawed out of her. By the time she’d finished her claws were dug deep into the ground underpaw and she was avoiding Locustflight’s eyes. Her pelt crawled and she had to resist the urge to yell ‘HA! JUST KIDDING!’ and charge out of camp.

Squirrelfang’s eyes widened and she froze in place for a moment—what was this silly tom doing? Locustflight had rolled over onto his back and was lying there, staring up at her with his blue eyes. For a moment, Squirrelfang felt incredibly uncomfortable. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Self-consciously the she-cat’s hackles rose, but she didn’t snarl or do… well, anything. She simply stared at him, hear ears twitching as he spoke.

Eye contact? Squirrelfang’s pelt prickled. She liked making eye contact, but specifically only when she was going to fight someone else. Or argue with them. Wait, did that count as fighting? Eh, no. That was just words—that was totally different. Still, the she-cat narrowed her eyes and perked her ears forward.

Disappoint her? Make her angry? If Squirrelfang could avoid it she’d rather—her own relationship with her mentor had been a rocky one at best. At worst, she’d refused to listen to the older cat and had probably done more tick duty than any apprentice in the five Clans (okay that was unlikely but still). Squirrelfang’s tail twitched and she tipped her head in thought.

“Not sure if I’m great at the laughing thing,” Squirrelfang muttered honestly—a little bluntly. The she-cat had an awkward approach to humor, and could be a little rough around the edges at the best of times. Still, she huffed and twitched her whiskers. “But I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”

The ginger-and-white tabby’s tail twitching increased as Locustflight spoke, but the she-cat didn’t leap on him or anything. Fluff up like she was about to go into battle? Yes. But to actively attack her Clan-mate would have been over the top, even for her. Especially when he was speaking in such a soothing voice, and his eyes were so calm.

What? Sh-shut up! That didn’t happen!

“With her?” Squirrelfang blinked, amber eyes brightening with something like joy. That she could do—Lightpaw wasn’t just her apprentice! She was her Clan-mate! Sure, Squirrelfang was grumpy at the best of time, and had a reputation for her short temper, but she was still loyal to her Clan. She’d bleed every last drop of blood in her body for them. “Right, of course! I should have thought of that myself—mousebrain.”

The she-cat growled the words and squinted her eyes. She was still looking Locustflight in the face. In the eye. Abruptly—embarrassed—Squirrelfang jerked back and hopped away from him several pawsteps. She rapidly began licking her chest, but she couldn’t seem to get her fur to lie flat for some reason. Great StarClan, what now?

“Er—thanks, for the sage advice,” Squirrelfang’s whiskers twitched. She might have been making a joke, but it didn’t quite seem like it. “Do you always lie prone when you’re talking to cats or am I just a special case? Not that I want to be special or anything. Y’know.”

“Are you mocking—” Squirrelfang started to snap but closed her jaws and flicked her tail crossly. The she-cat’s pelt prickled even more than it had before and she squared her shoulders as though she were preparing to leap into battle. Okay, fine, she’d blundered head first into that. So what if she didn’t want to look Locustflight in the eyes? It had always seemed aggressive to her—eye contact that is—and the she-cat couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. Whenever she locked eyes with a cat it was a statement. A precursor. A sort of “you just asked for it buddy” before she started to tear their pelts off.

Granted, not everyone’s as aggressive as me, Squirrelfang curled her lip but didn’t say anything about this out loud. Her paws were tingling with energy and she longed to spar with someone to work it off. That wouldn’t work with Lightpaw, she didn’t want to terrify her own apprentice by acting like a huge brute just because she needed to work off some steam.

Then, like he’d read her mind—an uncomfortable thought Squirrelfang felt—Locustflight was rolling to his paws. She backed off a few pawsteps, eyes wary. She seemed more like an outer-clan cat than any warrior at the moment. On edge, as if she expected the world to fight her. Maybe that was her own doing though. Squirrelfang had always acted like she was ready to fight, ready to spring in claws-out and slash the pelts of her enemies. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d truly felt relaxed around another cat. Even her siblings.

Her ears pricked—a race? The she-cat felt her pelt prickle uncomfortably. What, was Locustflight supposed to be some sort of medicine cat? No—he’d probably just, read her body language or something. Stifling the urge to growl the she-cat leaned forward and felt interest line itself in the way she held her body. Locustflight had seemed so sleepy all the time, why was he challenging her to a race?

Before she could say anything he’d bounded off. With a snort the she-cat immediately sprang to her paws and pelted after him. Squirrelfang never did anything half-way—she was running full-pelt in a few moments. A streak of flame against the camp background, a blur of red and white—ready to fly into the forest at a speed that drove her earlier anger away.

This she could get behind. Talking had always been hard for Squirrelfang. Actions spoke louder than words. So she hared after Locustflight, exploded out of the camp and hurled herself after the dreamy-warrior. NOT. Not dreamy like… like dreamy, you know. Day-dreamy or lazy or relaxed—shut up. Squirrelfang did not think he was dreamy.

With a growl of affection the she-cat sprang for the other cat—was this supposed to be a race? All races ended with a tussle for her, and she longed to pounce on the cat and roll through the grass with him. Consider himself successfully with boundary-less Squirrelfang. There was little more that could get her to loosen up than a good competition. “Gotcha furbrain!”

This was how Squirrelfang liked her life. A fast blur, a whir of colors and a backdrop of deep deep spinning blue overhead. For a moment there was nothing but the fall, and it was fast and exciting. Like climbing to the top of a tree and diving to the soft ground below—without a worry or care whether the world would hurt you on its way down. No, there was nothing but color for a moment. Vivid and splashed bright against the whole of her world. She loved the way she was thrown by her own momentum, that she’d fallen head over heels through the undergrowth.

When everything was finally still it was all the she-cat could do not to laugh like she was an apprentice. No, younger. Apprentice-hood had been hard for Squirrelfang. It had been her rebelling against every word her mentor said, had been extra duties and arguments as she and the old tom had clashed at each corner. It wasn’t a good time for her—but there was a pristine memory locked amidst all the teasing she’d had as a kit. When her parents saying they were perfect hadn’t rubbed her pelt the wrong way and the world had been nothing but color like this.

Breathless, Squirrelfang rolled to her paws and shook out her pelt. Her amber gaze was blazing with joy, but she pressed herself flat to the cool forest ground when she noticed she’d landed behind the pale colored tom she’d been playing with. Good. She crept carefully into the shade of some undergrowth, dark ginger tabby pelt surprisingly difficult to spot when the vivid stripes were cast in shadow.

The she-cat had to stifle a purr of amusement as Locustflight attempted to seek her out in the undergrowth. Good luck with that! Squirrelfang crept forward, stealthy as a practiced warrior ought to have been. Her whiskers kept twitching with stifled laughter, and she knew that if she didn’t pounce soon she’d burst into it without even getting a tail-length from the cat.

So she crouched, squared her haunches—and made sure her claws were safely sheathed—before she sprang with a loud, “GRAAAH!” at her Clan-mate. Her battle cry turned into bubbling laughter as she landed, and she let her momentum carry herself just past the tom’s haunches so that she was standing next to him light on her paws. Amber eyes positively glowing, she spun around with a grin that flashed her abnormally long fangs confidently, “Surprise!”

The she-cat purred despite herself, springing for him this time. It wasn’t nearly as fun to wrestle with a cat that didn’t know you were coming after all. So she jumped up onto her hind paws and attempted to wrap them around Locustflight’s neck to pull him down for some sort of friendly mock fight. If some cat had asked her she wouldn’t have even tried to hide that she was having fun. She was relaxed and confident at the moment—the nervous fidgeting cat had been left far behind in camp. To Squirrelfang, it felt like she’d been close to Locustflight for moons.