Forest Run: Warrior Cats DnD [Semiclosed RP]

This is an RP thread for Warrior Cats DnD! It's a semiclosed RP—as in, we'd love to have you join, but you need to make a stop in our planning thread first, to make a cat and a mentor, and let us know you want to play. If we're in the middle of an adventure, we might ask you to wait, but otherwise it should be fine.

IMPORTANT THINGS GO HERE:

 

[SAVE!]

 

[SAVE!]

 

"The adventure begins on the Island—where the clans meet in peace for the monthly Gatherings. In hopes of forging closer ties between the Clans, each of the leaders has sent a group of young warriors here today. Your leaders have told you to be on your best behavior and to meet as many other young cats as you can.”

[As things have been fairly peaceful, the Clan Leaders have decided to hold a special daylight gathering on the island. Save for a few warriors left behind to watch over the camp, everyone has arrived—including the queens with their kits who are old enough to travel.]

 

Sockpaw almost didn’t recognize the island in the day time—he’d only been to one meeting since starting his apprenticeship, but it had been under the light of the full moon, which had softened the edges of the rocky shore and highlighted the miniature forest in shades of silver. If anything, though, having the meeting during the day had at least made the trip across the fallen oak log a little less harrowing; with such a short tail, he didn’t exactly have the best sense of balance, and Cinderfoot, his mentor, had to dutifully nudge him along from behind the whole way the first time around.

It wasn’t exactly the most flattering introduction to the rest of the clans.

This time, he was eager to redeem himself, gripping the water softened bark of the log with his claws and vaulting across it before he could think too long about the short drop into the lake. Once he’d cleared it, he’d settled in alongside the collection of queens and kits from ShadowClan, making a show of squinting at the warriors of other clans as they passed by. –Arguably not with any real degree of animosity, though. Like most apprentices his age, he didn’t quite grasp how lucky he was to have been born during a period of relative peace. His mentor, however, seemed to regard a few of the older warriors with some reservation, her tail flicking lightly at her side. She didn’t stray far from her apprentice, or the collection of kits, pretending to be absorbed in casual crowd watching, but he could see the way her ears twitched at the approach of anybody who wasn’t ShadowClan.

After a few minutes of posturing, he got bored, and settled down onto the patch of grass that surrounded the oak tree where the clan leaders would presumably give their address. He knew it was supposed to be a social event, though, so he kept his eyes on the crowd, trying to pick out somebody around his age. A lot of apprentices were making a showing, though, so it didn’t take long.

 

"You sure you don't want to swim there?"

"I'm good, thanks," Rhinopaw answered his mentor. "Wouldn't it be kind of showoffy, being the only ones to swim to the island?"

Duskstorm shrugged, though it was hard to tell in the water. "Alright, your loss." And then he swam towards the island.

Rhinopaw, on the other hand, simply walked, ending up joining the ranks of several other cats crossing the log onto the island. It seemed counterproductive to him to swim to the island; if this was a gathering of unity, why separate yourself by doing something none of the other clans could?

He settled himself down in the shade, not quite attached to the RiverClan group but not quite part of any other clan's group. And then he watched. One ShadowClan apprentice seemed to get fed up with waiting, and ended up wandering close to Rhinopaw; he tilted his head slightly, gaze wandering down to the apprentice's tail--or lack thereof. He gave a soft, amused churr. And here he was thinking he was the only cat in the Clans with a messed-up tail.

 

Minkpaw bounded across the fallen log ahead of Laceheart, then paused and waited for her mentor to catch up. "No reason to rush," Laceheart observed.

"There's no reason to delay," Minkpaw objected. "Inter-clan unity is important!"

"Where would I be without it? Oh, short an apprentice."

Minkpaw bristled. "That's -- different! You know I would never break the warrior code."

"Mmhmm. Well, go get friendly. Not too friendly."

Minkpaw glared and stalked off towards the other apprentices, although she made an effort to flatten her fur and relax her expression.

 

His whiskers stirred at the sound of the churr, and he craned his neck up to look at the apprentice standing over him. Sockpaw thought he might have seen him in passing at the last meeting, but he wasn’t sure—he’d definitely never spoken to him directly. Cinderfoot was usually a little touchy on the subject of clan intermingling, though mostly with WindClan. Whatever the case was, the other apprentice had him scrambling to his feet, back on alert, mostly out of embarrassment out of having been caught lazing around on the forest floor.

“What’s so funny?” Sockpaw’s tone definitely didn’t quite verge into unfriendly, but he did examine him with wide, curious eyes, noting the crooked tail. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another cat approaching.

 

Now this is more like it! Excitement! Adventure! A meeting of all the clans at daylight! Pansypaw was in fact, the most excited apprentice probably ever. Their paws were fairly sure footed, but their steps were light and graceful and downright bouncy as they went. Thistleclaw wasn't quite as amused, if only due to her somewhat stoic nature. She is a soft spoken warrior, picked to balance Pansy's relative noise and excitement levels. Sweeping along behind the light colored calico, the warrior watches as they bounce around, questions rolling out of their mouth a mile a minute.

Neither of them really discussed it, but Pansypaw already had decided they were going to swim their way to the island. Since their mentor wasn't opposed, they both made their way that way. Along the way Pansy noticed Rhinopaw's mentor, but not the other apprentice. Weird.

"Remember, use our quiet voice." Thistleclaw mumbles as they reach the shore. "We're here for peace, not to scream."

The young cat makes a face, and huffs. "Yes, I'll remember. No yelling, no talking." They immediately bolt their way over to the rest of the Riverclan cats, while their mentor moves at a much more leisurely pace. Sure, it's not Pansy's first meeting, but it always was exciting for them. Spotting Rhinopaw being aloof, they bounce over. Quickly attempt to bap him on the ear, then bounce off to peer at the other cats around. Oh! There's another clan apprentice with no tail at all.

"Hi there I noticed you don't have a tail did that hurt? Is that normal? Were you born with it?"

Thistleclaw can be seen looking mildly annoyed from where she'd settled with the rest of the Riverclan cats.

 

Minkpaw, already on her way over, watched the excitable apprentice - who she knew by sight, if not by name - practically bounce off of Rhinopaw, and then looked alarmed at their question. "I don't think that's polite?" she said, dubiously.

 

Cloverpaw might be able to give her a run for her money—if only for the fact that she's coming barreling over the tree branch at her top speed (and really, as a WindClan cat, that was pretty gosh darn fast), and heading right for a group of friendly-ish-looking apprentices. At least, no one had any fangs or claws out, which was really sort of weird, considering all the tall tales some of the elders told.

Not Sandblaze, though. Sandblaze seemed to know everyone.

As for poor Dawnfeather, she was streaking after her nuisancy apprentice, hoping to prevent any sort of chaos—"Cloverpaw!! We do not!! Run!!! AT THE GATHERING!!!"—annnnd there she went. Right into the old oak tree.
Dawnfeather stopped and sighed, trying to hide a whiskertwitch of amusement. "Have fun, then?"

"I will!!" Cloverpaw, who seemed to have taken the crash rather well (save for the fact that she was now upside down) beamed up at her fellow apprentices. "Hi! I'm Cloverpaw! Who are you guys?"

 

Sockpaw was a little taken aback by the rapid fire line of questioning, blinking owlishly, ears folding back on automatic. "Uh-- er--"

A sudden crash to his immediate side had him jumping a good six inches, giving a surprised yelp. That effectively derailed his train of thought clear off the tracks. ...Annnnd wow, that, looked like it smarted.

"--Are you okay?"

 

"...Hi," Minkpaw answered Cloverpaw, looking with some confusion into the other apprentice's upside-down face. "I'm Minkpaw. I don't... think we've met..?"

 

Now this is VERY EXCITING! They grin, trying to look as friendly as possible. These are times of peace! And that also means it is possible to be times of friend making. The cat that hit the tree seems to not be all that bad off, although the sudden noise makes Pansy literally jump in their spot. Happily they bounce over to look at Cloverpaw, before back to Sockpaw.

"Oh man did I talk too fast or something? Should I slow down? Also hi guys I don't remember names super well but I am Pansypaw and you all seem pretty great nice to meet you. I haven't seen most of your faces around here before!" Pansy just doesn't know when to stop yammering it seems.

 

Be on your best behavior. Brightfur's voice echoed in Mosspaw's ears as he steped carefully onto the fallen oak log. He'd never been to a gathering before -- he was supposed to go to last month's, but he and Brightfur had been stuck out late hunting and had missed the clan setting out, and by the time they had caught a few rabbits for the fresh-kill pile Mosspaw was too exhausted and slightly bruised to want to go anyway. But this time he was determined that everything would go smoothly -- Cloverpaw and Dawnfeather had gone up ahead, but Brightfur had stayed back and had given Mosspaw The Talk before she would allow him to even step onto the log. He could already hear the clamor and bustle of cats ahead and it's all he could do to contain his excitement.

The clearing was full of cats of all shapes and sizes, most of them looking close to his age. Looking around, he makes eye contact with a young grey tom who squints at him, and then quickly looks away. Upon closer look he can recognize a few cats from seeing them while out on patrol, but they seem larger than life here, when they're only separated by a few foxlengths instead of a clan boundary. Some of the cats look nervous, and others excited -- he notices, however, that Brightfur and the other older warriors seem tense, even as the apprentices mingle without care.

She nudges him and he jumps forward, one paw slipping into a mouse hole and sending him stumbling, almost colliding ears first into another cat.

"Sorry!" he meows quickly, trying to conserve some dignity even as he hears his mentor sigh softly. He sits down, taking a closer look at the cat he almost ran over.

 

"I'm, uh-- Sockpaw?" He seemed to be addressing this at really nobody in particular, gaze flitting between Minkpaw, Pansypaw, and Cloverpaw. ...He was ddddefinitely a little unbalanced by the SUDDEN INFLUX OF CATS, but it brought a certain level of energy that was usually absent in the needle padded forest of ShadowClan, which was weirdly refreshing. "My tail was always like this. Uh... our medicine cat says it happens, sometimes? So it's... really nothing bad, or whatever." Sockpaw's whiskers twitched again, as he audibly awkwardly stumbled through the explanation. The short tail hinted at kittypet blood somewhere down his ancestral line, which wasn't really a popular thread of conversation.

 

As the youngest of the Shadowclan apprentices, Thistlepaw had never been to the island before. She was eager to go to her first gathering, even if it wasn't an official nighttime one. When they reached the crossing, she dashed ahead of her mentor, Hazelfeather and onto the log.
"Watch out," he warned, "you're going to fa-"
"No, I'm not," she interrupted, jumping off the log and on to the other side.
"You, uh, need to be more careful. And quit running ahead of me."
Thistlepaw walked into the gather with her head held in the air, ready to make a good first impression. She sat down near where the other apprentices were gathering.

 

So much for "dignified"! Not that Cloverpaw was particularly concerned with first impressions or anything, but she had groomed her pelt to shine properly, and it was with no small amount of attempting to regain the tattered shreds of whatever decorum she might have had in the first place. "Oh, I'm fi–"

Irony at its finest—Mosspaw very nearly bumped ears with her, and Cloverpaw had to barely scramble out of his way to avoid a #windclanpileup. "Mosspaw! What took you so long? Dawnfeather said you two were right behind us!"

Oh, they were talking about the short-tail-cat. Cloverpaw tilted her head to sneak a peek, then shrugged. "If anything, it looks like a rabbit's tail! And they're decent runners still, so you really ought to be fine. Hi Minkpaw! And who are you?" The last question was directed at the thick-furred, apparently rather reticent RiverClan apprentice.

 

Watching all this, Rhinopaw's whiskers began twitching slightly until he was outright chuckling.

"Don't mind Pansypaw, they're always like this," he finally spoke up. "You'll get used to them eventually. Then again, looks like they aren't the only energetic one." This last bit was directed at the two WindClan apprentices. He nodded in greeting to each of the other apprentices, Sockpaw last of all.

"I wasn't laughing at you earlier, by the way. Just interested. Don't think I've met another cat with a weird tail before." But, then again, he tended to be somewhat reclusive anyways. As if to illustrate his point, he swept his own tail back and forth, highlighting the kink near the end.

"I'm Rhinopaw," he finally meowed simply.

 

Cats cats cats!! There's a lot of talking going on, most of it people introducing each other or chattering and it's not like Pansy was helping. The tail explanation did get caught, and it didn't really occur to Pansypaw that there would be a kittypet thing involved there. Or maybe they were just naturally obtuse. At least Rhinopaw seemed to be interacting with everyone. What a lazy cat, Pansy always thought he should maybe perk up a bit.

Happily they seem to just look between all the other apprentices that have gathered, their ears swiveling to catch all the words. All of them. "Do you normally run into trees? Also wow you all just seem to really be interested in piling up. Good job on narrowly avoiding it." They keep meowing, looking rather pleased with themself.

"Also I am not always like this, when I am sleeping I am quiet and not obtrusive or something. And when hunting! I know how to be quiet and not annoying."