I THINK I MIGHT'VE INHALED YOU [ pup ]

    For all intents and purposes entranced by the flickering movements of the approaching shadow, he thinks for a moment that perhaps he is imagining nothing more than another specter before him. The anticipation turns thick and bottoms out in his belly like a heavy stone, watching with wide, firefly bright eyes as the silhouette stalks out from the shadows and is bathed in moonlight.

    Whitewolf is not quite sure if his heart sinks or attempts to jump from his throat in alarm, as silver light meets dark, smoky stripes. Eyes that mirror his own in color bore holes into him, and the warrior realizes all too late that this is not at all the cat he had expected. The dark shape knocks into him with such a force that it leaves Whitewolf without breath for at least two bloodbeats. He gasps in an attempt to gather air despite the heavy weight crushing his chest.

    Falling into instinct as he feels claws against his thick fur, Whitewolf readies his back legs for a powerful kick to his attacker’s belly. The smell of ShadowClan overwhelms him, makes his head spin from all his thoughts of Lilacberry, that familiar smell of wetland and pines. This cat, this tom, to be precise, distinctly lacks the smells of sweet and sharp herbs alike that had always clung to her pelt. The RiverClanner feels his disappoint build into rage, golden eyes sharpening as he reels his muscles back to strike—“Whitewolf!?” He freezes, definitely not having expected his name to come from the cat who had just attempted to batter him into the ground. With a squint and balk combo, Whitewolf then immediately recognizes an equally-sized Rookjaw.

    The snow-furred tom wills his heart to stop furiously leaping at his ribs, pursing his maw in confusion. He lifts his scarred brow as Rookjaw begins to—rather, awkwardly excuse himself for his attack. Though… massive charcoal paws don’t seem to make any move to release him. Whitewolf blinks up at him, body tense but relatively unmoving. He exhales a long sigh, not only at the situation in its entirety, but half in some attempt to dispel the thoughts of his earlier dream-induced stupor.

    "Rookjaw," he finally acknowledges, "'truly flattered by this extended embrace, but, mind letting me up?"

♔ ferocious werepup

    Whitewolf grunts in some form of gratitude as the other finally backs off of him in a rather uncharacteristically bumbling fashion. He rolls onto his flank, then onto his belly and upright in one sweeping motion. With a full-body shake, he sends a light dusting of loose dirt and grass from his white pelt, flicking his ears and slashing the air with his tail accordingly. Bright eyes fall on the granite-striped ShadowClanner, forcing himself to don an attentive kind of expression. Though, with his typically surly and taciturn visage, it is likely hard to read at any rate.

    Rookjaw, he echoes his earlier recognition silently. He subconsciously recollects his meeting the tom on a couple of separate occasions at Gatherings. Whitewolf remembers his initial impression of the junior warrior, many moons his junior, in fact, having been that he thought him to look wild in appearance. His fur is a bit longer and thick, making him look even bigger than he already does with untamable fur sprouting from his ears, great bushy tail, an odd number of toes that housed big claws. Rookjaw truly holds the air of a cat descended from olden times, perhaps from a line of ancient Clan cats. Whilst upon expecting such a big, burly ShadowClan warrior to be crude upon their first interaction, Whitewolf had found him to be strangely polite, concise yet not completely lacking the decency of conversational skills.

    So, they are on friendly terms, even being from rival Clans. Whitewolf knows he carries himself well as a warrior and often finds cats of all walks finding him to be respectful, even admirable. He is, a master of his trade as Clan defender and protector, so it more than the case the cats of the same rank think highly of him. Whitewolf does not need admiration, but is not opposed to earning respect.

    "Mmhm." The big tom rumbles idly, brushing over the reaffirmed apology.

    His whiskers twitch, finding his mentioning of a sleepless night to be rather relevant to himself. "Couldn't sleep either." Whitewolf replies, the foggy dream still remarkably fresh in his mind, and he half-expects a thick mist to descend upon Fourtrees at any moment, for a certain dusty-pointed she-cat to come bounding from the treeline.

    "Came across a strange scent, wanted to investigate." It isn't exactly a lie, no, Whitewolf swears the sweetness of her still lingers in his nostrils even though he hasn't smelled it in many moons. He curses his subconscious so loudly in his head he visibly grits his fangs, ashamed at himself for letting such a fleeting thing consume him like a raging fire. Why now, after all this time, does the thought of her plague him so heavily?

    "'Guess I imagined it." The warrior meows flatly, glancing distantly towards the way Rookjaw had come from.

♔ ferocious werepup

    Whitewolf stares back, a bit uncaring that his lie had been seen through. It had not been a very good one, at any rate. He does not care for lying, preferring to be a plainly spoken cat. He flicks his ear, working on a reply.

    However, the big warrior before him continues on, changing the subject. It makes a chill run through his body, slip into his veins like ice water. The sound of her name spoken from some cat else’s maw burns his ears like stray embers from a fire. Whitewolf remains perfectly still, standing tall in the moonlight. He holds back the surge of expressions threatening to surface onto his face, the only sign he’d heard an acknowledgment in the form of a brief twitch of his whiskers. It takes great effort not to immediately ask what Rookjaw knows of the late medicine cat apprentice, being that they are—rather, were, Clanmates. By the sound of the wondering, tired note in his voice, Whitewolf can fancy a guess that Lilacberry has been long gone. To what end, however, still remains veiled in mystery.

    Trying to placate his prickling anxiety, Whitewolf clears his throat and nods once. "Just us." He agrees.

    A white paw gestures outward questioningly. "Not able to sleep still doesn't explain what you're doing out this far from home." He comments in a deep, drawling tone with a challenging raise of his brow.

♔ ferocious werepup

    Though it seems largely unintentional, the workout his heart is getting from Rookjaw’s choice of words is wearing on his thinning nerves. He cannot escape the trail of thought the comes back in full circle to the lost medicine cat apprentice, of all their unsanctioned half-moon nights spent together beneath the cloak of darkness, stars and moonlight. The fondness of them does not touch him like a memory of that sort should, it instead takes from him, leaves him feeling raw. He can still hear her laugh, a sound that had always soothed his mind and put a kind of fire in him that only the she-cat herself could kindle and tend to. Whitewolf had always thought the embers to that fire had died moons ago. Tonight is not the first time a dream of the same variety has haunted him, proving that those flames of yore still licked at his heels.

    Snorting, Whitewolf rolls his eyes. "Calling yourself old makes me damned ancient." He grumbles in a gravelly voice, but there is an edge of humor to it. "'Though you not getting your beauty rest puts you, looks-wise, about my equal."

    The RiverClan warrior stretches briefly, growing tired of his standing position. And, growing tired, in general. He opts to sit down; comfortable enough to drop his guard somewhat around his friend, he idly smooths his chest fur with his tongue. "Not sure if I'd set paw in your camp just to rat you out, probably not worth those uncivilized claws tearing at my ears." Whitewolf says with a lazy half-smirk, knowing Rookjaw understands his humor well enough to know his jabs aren't to be taken personally. However, when they are taken personally, he gets a bit of a good laugh out of it. Easily bruised egos are fun to... bruise.

    "Doubt you'd want to get wet just to tattle to Magpiestar, either." Whitewolf adds.

♔ ferocious werepup