L.ive like we're dying [Moony/Open]

[ooc/ Okay, before reading know that it's a 986 word post that I got a little carried away with. ^-^; But hey, it's an intro. [Haha, nice excuse, right?] It's sort of an average word length for me but I'll be bringing it down to like, 300-500 in my responding posts so I don't go ahead and kill myself since I RP on other sites too xD
Oh, and grammar is a little bad .-. I am going to modify tomorrow but I wanted to get it up soon. :] Hope you don't mind.]

Light-tail
.live like we're dying.

A thick, bushy tail twitched in the air just a few tail-lengths from her eager paws, the wait was killing her. The musky scent she knew as squirrel had filled her nostrils long ago and since then she had waited to be able to see it in the pale moonlight. 'Just a little longer, I know I can wait..' She though to herself, muscles starting to ache from crouching in such a way for so long. The dark gray tail started to twitch and suddenly fell out of her sight, a small head rising up instead and looking every which way. 'This is it!' She thought excitedly, the critter would probably run anytime now but she was ready for this moment entirely, all she had to do was catch and kill it fast enough. She slowly extended her claws, gathering her writhing energy up from the wait, and leapt forward onto the small brown critter's back. It let out a terrible screech and she brought her teeth to it's neck, easily silencing the thing. "Ha! Another squirrel!" She whispered, tail twitching back and forth with her still pent up energy. She didn't exactly love the flavor of squirrel but she prided herself each time that she managed to catch one. The things were small, quick and most of the time, more nimble then she was. They were harder to catch than the rabbits that swarmed the open moor but she didn't mind that while she picked up the dark form, it's coarse fur catching between her teeth and leaving a rather bad taste. "I think I can afford to stay out for a little while longer, everyone is asleep back at camp anyway." She murmured through the fur, hardly able to hear her own words.

The moon barely lit her world, casting a slight glow on things but only once they moved could the she-cat see the contrast and make sense of it. She even spooked at a rock when it appeared so suddenly out of the corner of her eye, the blackened form of it scaring her out of her wits. She took off, long legs working as fast as they could without the equally as non-proportionate paws tripping them. Though the squirrel, that was probably almost as big as she was, didn't make running easier. To be honest, it was a surprise she got as far as she did with it dragging alongside of her. She did end up falling flat on her face though, only once reaching the near bottom of the stream where it emptied out into the lake. The taste of dirt instantly forced her to sit up, spitting out the ground as she did so. Her catch had been strewn somewhere not visible to her, the dirt and fur still caught up in her teeth distracting her from finding the kill. Her ears flicked forward, catching the lapping of small waves against the shore. "I must be near the lake.. Aw fox-dung! My squirrel fell in didn't it?" She cried, long tail twitching again in anger. It'd taken her forever to catch that thing and now it was gone?! She spat and walked towards the creek, it was swollen from a recent snow melt. Scanning the silver water she looked up and down it, noticing just a few rocks here and there until she saw something a little downstream. It caught her eye and she made a dash towards it, clearly spotting the limp body of the squirrel among the water. "Well, I guess I'll go get it." She muttered angrily to herself and started to scramble down the side to where her catch was caught on a rock.

Shakily she put a paw into the water, pulling it out fast when the chill shocked her. "I really don't see why Riverclan would want to live in this, it's horrible." She continued to mumble to herself all the while maneuvering around from rock to rock, or at least from dull spot to dull spot where the contrast seemed a little fuzzy against the bright ripples. Though she finally did reach a spot somewhat near her catch, after almost falling in a couple times. Well, her fur was fluffed up and she felt herself starting to shake but other than that she was satisfied with herself for making it this far. "Hah! I got it now." She exclaimed, feeling her pride glow a little. Normally she'd never do this for a piece of prey unless it was leaf-bare, but it was a squirrel. She simply could not allow such a great significance to just float away to rot in the lake, so as the form started to move she leapt onto a rock that was closer, claws fully extended. Slowly she reached a paw forward, claw barely snagging on the gray blob that she took to be a tail. She pulled, releasing the body from the rocks and suddenly letting it fall under the current. She hissed and jumped in after it, hardly aware at how shocking the water's chill was as it dragged her catch closer to the lake. She felt her luck swelling, the stream-bed was shallow enough on the side to where she could walk if she kept just her head above water. Being pushed by the current and the luck of having long legs, she managed to catch up with the squirrel and grabbed it between her teeth. Quickly she hauled herself up back onto the side of the stream-bed, now just letting the water lap at her legs as she scrambled out. "W-well, that wa-was f-fun." She stuttered once back on the solid ground and dropped her soaked prey onto the grass along with herself. Panting she lapped her tongue over her completely drenched self, trying to dry off and warm up in the least bit.

Spiritpaw seemed to have all the luck in the world. First, he was woken early after a visit with his father; and those apparently affect you when you are awake not just asleep. Second, Hazelstar had finally taken him out to do some training, but because of being so tired he did a horrible job. And third, he had snook out of camp because he couldn't sleep even though he was extremely tired. Yup, Spiritpaw was the luckiest cat in the world at the moment.

The world outside of camp was much different from inside of camp. Spiritpaw didn't feel confined by the gorse barrier and crowded by the forms of cats tossing and turning in their sleep. Outside of camp, he could run and be free. But as the young tom did, he found himself at the ThunderClan border; and yet again he felt confined. Even out of camp he was confined, the only thing that was different was that he had more space. Spiritpaw sighed. His life was turning out very different then he imagined it would. When he was a kit, before he knew about Nightstalker and his power of healing, before he was apprenticed to the great and wise leader Hazelstar, all he had to worry about was becoming the greatest leader and getting rid of Eclipseclaw. It was almost funny how life could change with just a dream...Almost.

Spiritpaw stared into the dark forest beyond the border. The pale light of the moon gave just enough light for him to see shadows upon shadows of trees and moving things. If they were animals or bushes, leaves or cats, Spiritpaw couldn't tell. He could see just a couple of fox lengths in front of him enough to tell what things were, beyond the were shadows. Like the forest. Then Spiritpaw remembered. In that forest was his sister. Starpaw of ThunderClan. How was she feeling? Was she asleep? Was she visiting Nightstalker and the rest of their family? Spiritpaw wished Duskpaw was here, perhaps she could help him make sense of his feelings. Or even realize his mistake.

The black tom sighed once more before turning to follow the stream. His dark amber eyes were focused on the ground. His thoughts wandering in confusion. What he needed was sleep, and good amount of it without Nightstalker calling him to a meeting. Although it was only every now-and-then that the apprentice was called, the times when he wasn't he was kept awake by some feeling or another. Of loneliness, of hate, of confusion like he was tonight. Spiritpaw wished he could tell someone of his dreams, his parents, his powers. But if he did, they would reject him, chase him out and never welcome him back again. And his father might kill him, like he had threatened in that first dream.

In his thinking, Spiritpaw had not paid attention to where he was going. But when a splash in the darkness met his ears, he was full alert. If there was trouble coming, he would be prepared. Even if he was tired, inexperienced, and didn't even now if it had come from behind or ahead. Seeing as I would have met whatever had made that sound if it was behind me, it must be ahead of me. Spiritpaw concluded as he began to slowly creep forward. His ears were bent forward, picking up every small sound he could. A night owl hooting in the ThunderClan forest, the trickle of the stream beside him, the splashing of paws in that stream. Who in their right mind would swim at night? Well, RiverClan would. But why would they be all the way over here? The apprentice continued to creep forward. His claws where out and muscles tense, ready for a battle. But Spiritpaw was only slightly disappointed when he saw one cat come out of the stream. But that disappointment was erased as he saw what was in the cat's mouth; WindClan prey.

But as Spiritpaw looked at the cat, he couldn't help but think she looked familiar. He had to get closer to be sure, but her build sure did look like one of the WindClan cats. Placing one paw in front of the other, Spiritpaw looked hard at the cat. He jumped when she spoke. Fun? Well that certainly is not a RiverClan warrior. And ThunderClan are to scared to even place a paw in the water. I doubt ShadowClan would come all the way across the lake. So this must be a WindClan cat.

Spiritpaw only slightly relaxed. He couldn't be for sure if this was a fellow WindClan, so he had to be prepared. Padding forward he called out to the soaking wet cat "What are you doing?"

Light-tail

A breeze began to pick up, making the she-cat start to consider the wind to be punishing her for doing something so stupid at this time of night. A chill crept down her spine and the chattering of her teeth completely distracted her ears from doing their job of alerting her whenever some other cat happened to come near. Yeah, it could be said that she was careless even with her condition. So when her ears finally twitched at the last second and caught her fellow cat's words, she happened to jump almost out of her own skin. "Wh-what?" She sputtered in her confusion, twisting in circles to try and find the cat who had spoken. "Where are you?" She asked after a few moments when she finally just froze in her circles, gaze still pointlessly scanning the blackened scape.

She felt her stomach churn uneasily at her sudden helplessness. What if he was an enemy? Then what would she do? She was unable to see him (probably due to a very dark coat) so she would be unable to fight him. The thought sent her heart racing, what kind of warrior was she? Apparently one that couldn't even find the cat that she might have to fight. She kind of started to doubt that he wasn't from Windclan, her senses were even relaxing a little. She sighed and shook her still drenched self with whatever dignity she had left from her swim. "What am I doing? Isn't it obvious?" She inquired and sat down, trying to ignore the heat that she felt rushing to her face. Normally she would of been even more alert but being water logged didn't help her senses that much. The least she could deduct was that he was probably one of her clan-mates.. Even more, he was probably also one of her clan-mates that she had terrible luck with the names of. After all, he hadn't attacked her and didn't carry a scent of anything other than what she was used to. "I was retrieving my catch from that stupid stream that decided to fill up overnight." She paused for a second, still kind of ticked for being so stupid as to drop her own catch into the water in the first place. "Before you say anything, it wasn't my fault." She muttered, whiskers twitching as each drop of water plip, plopped onto the grass.

Annoyance started to plant itself in her thoughts, dragging and fading most of her happy moods that would normally keep it contained. "Say, why are you up at this time of night anyway?" She paused, flicking her tail as she stood up, finally finding his (extremely) dark form. He looked like he was still younger than her by his size, though she wasn't exactly sure. The only reason she wasn't mistaken as an apprentice still was because her long legs had managed to give her the height of a normal warrior, and for that she was thankful. Though she shook her head, knowing already that a normal response that she would give if in his situation would be completely innocent. Well, her reasons were but his lack of a catch lead her to not believe that he had been hunting. "And don't tell me that you're out hunting or gathering plants. I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night." She finished, dragging her squirrel back up in front of her paws so she could snatch it when she felt like moving. Which by her reckoning, would probably be sometime soon. A few clouds were starting to whisk their way across the sky and she knew that she would have to make it someplace that was more familiar if she wanted to make it back to camp in complete blindness.

A cold breeze started to pick up, starting her shivering all over again. 'It's cold out tonight, I ought to get back to the top of the moorland soon.' She thought to herself and shifted her gaze from where it had drifted to the moon, back to the tom. "Maybe we should move away from the lake?" She asked, making it more of an order than a question in tone. "The cold air coming off of it is freezing me to death and I don't think you'd appreciate carrying my corpse back to camp." She chuckled quietly, slightly amused at the idea. The wind picked up suddenly, howling in her ears and causing the clouds to cover the moon in the near direct second after she had spoken. "Aw, fox-dung!" She scoffed, now just blinking into the pitch black at a worthless attempt to see.

This she-cat was a very interesting she-cat. She seemed to talk and not care for a reply. He could see what she was doing, spinning around looking for him. He just wanted to be sure she was from WindClan; and apparently she was. Spiritpaw sighed at her question. "Well, let's just say I couldn't sleep." Even though I feel like a boulder walking on four think sticks. Although now that he thought about it, he did feel like he could at least have done something useful instead of pitying himself. Which was really out of character for him. But then again, ever since he accepted training from Nightstalker he felt like his whole life was out of character for him.

As the wind picked up, and the clouds covered the moon making the world go dark. He had to agree with the she-cat. It was much colder by the lake then it had been further into the moorland. Although anytime you were in the moors and it was windy it was cold. When the curse tickled his ears, Spiritpaw huffed. "You know, cursing won't make the clouds disappear."

[/b]Spiritpaw turned and began to pad up into the moorland. "You got any more prey other then that soaking wet squirrel? Oh, and do you got a name? He might as well do something that felt right at the moment. Which, to tell the truth, has felt right for a long time. If he thought about it hard, it felt right ever since he met Duskpaw. Her attitude was addicting and she was the closet, maybe only, friend he had. And he might have ruined it by accepting Nightstalker's training. [/blockquote][/size]