Rat Slaying }{ tag : kitty

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

"Aaaannnnnnnd we're out!"

Wiggling out from the cover of a low-hanging bush, Spiderkit scampered across the squashy ground of the marsh to stop next to a gnarled tree. His tail beckoned to his sister, whom he had for once dragged along on an adventure of his own instead of the other way around. The two of them made an interesting pair — a tomkit and a she-kit, one jet black and the other white as newly fallen snow. Both shared the same bright blue eyes, though, and had the same strength of character. It wasn't any surprise they were siblings.

"Come on," the black kit hissed. "I want to catch a huge snake! We'd better get away from camp, though."

The rule about kits not being allowed to hunt was stupid, Spiderkit thought. He had been watching the apprentices when they practised their moves in camp, and it didn't look so hard! He bet that everyone would be impressed when he and Frostkit came back with loads of prey. Maybe other kits weren't talented enough to hunt from the nursery, but obviously such limitations didn't apply to him.

Squelching through the muck, not knowing where he was going except that it was farther from camp, the young tom pricked his ears and tried to look around for something that looked like prey. Although he still wanted to find that mammoth snake, a small frog wouldn't go amiss. He had to start somewhere, after all.

[Kitty]

"Eugh!" the little kit cried as she slipped into a puddle of mud. Brown splattered up across her white fur, standing out obviously against the light spotless background. But the she-kit took no notice to the brown stuff clinging to her paws and leg and belly fur, instead working to pull one small paw free from the muck that had encased it. It came free with a quiet sucking noise, and the kit nearly stumbled into her black-pelted brother before she regained her balance. "Oops."

For once, Frostkit hadn't been the one to come up with their latest adventure. Instead, her usual partner-in-crime, Spiderkit, had approached her with talk of sneaking out of camp. Captivated by the idea of bringing back prey for the Clan and proving all those older cats that they could hunt, Frostkit had agreed instantaneously.

And here they were, black and white pelts moving through the swampy muck of ShadowClan's territory. Frostkit followed her brother, content to let him take the lead this time because it was his idea. "I want to catch a bird. A crow!" Frostkit meowed. Imagine how many cats that would feed! No one would ever say that she, Frostkit of ShadowClan, was unfit to hunt for her Clan after that! They would let Spiderkit and Frostkit go out whenever they wanted, with no stupid rules to hold them back. After they caught some prey, the rules wouldn't apply to them anymore!

Eyes and ears watchful for prey, the tiny she-kit found that the longer she walked across the swampy ground the easier it became. Before long most of her attention was devoted to prey hunting instead of walking. She paused to inhale deeply, taking in the scents around her. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, little toadies..." she murmured. Toads weren't as good as crows, but if she could catch anything, she'd be thankful.

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

Making his way squishily along, Spiderkit had to snicker at the spectacle of his sister slipping and stumbling as she got used to the mud. "Afraid of getting a little dirty, Frostkit?" he teased, and made sure that he was out of swatting range. He wouldn't put it past Frostkit to swipe at him when he wasn't looking.

Abruptly his attention was drawn elsewhere, when a short plop to his left made his ears twitch in that direction. Aha! he thought, and lowered into a childish parody of an apprentice's hunting crouch. Spiderkit oozed forward until he could see a spotted green frog sitting at the edge of a large puddle. My first prey of the night! His tail wiggled.

Closer he stalked, closer, until he couldn't bear the tension any longer. Spiderkit bunched his hindquarters and leapt, splashing mightily as he landed in the puddle and getting sludgy water everywhere. Eagerly he opened his paws to see if the frog was there, but he saw nothing but mud and water. Somehow in the commotion his prey had escaped him.

"Mouse dung!"

Now he was covered with water and green stuff and he had nothing to show for it. Spiderkit stomped back out of the puddle, shooting Frostkit a look that dared her to comment. He was undaunted, though, and continued the way he had been going before he'd seen the frog. He would do better with the snake, he was sure.

[Kitty]

Frostkit would have swatted at her brother had she been nearer. Instead she settled for a venomous icy glare and a huffed, "Oh, hush, Spiderkit! My paw just got stuck in the mud, that's all!" She would have said more, but then she realized that the black tom kit's attention was elsewhere, and she fell silent and stopped moving, watching her brother as he dropped into a hunter's crouch. It was a bit clumsy in comparison to the older apprentices' crouches, but you couldn't blame the kits! Maybe if someone would let them train, they would learn the hunting crouch the right way...

Nevertheless, Frostkit thought her brother was quiet impressive, and was certain he would catch the...whatever it was he was chasing. He soared through the air and came down in a mud puddle, and Frostkit let out an excited squeal. "Didja get it?" she asked, romping over to Spiderkit's side. But his cry of 'mouse dung!' gave her all the response she needed to know, and she sighed. "Guess not. Maybe next time, Spiderkit! Though with a clumsy technique like that you'll be lucky to catch a deaf mole!" She couldn't help but tease him.

With a little bounce to her step, the white she-kit pulled ahead of her brother by a bit, wandering the same direction they'd set out in from camp. If they went in a straight line they'd be able to get back to camp, no problem. It'd be embarrassing to get lost and be found out by a patrol as they were now, covered in slime and swamp muck without even a whiff of prey.

After a bit of walking, she began to wonder. Could Spiderkit have scared off all the little toadies with his loud splashing after his frog? Maybe they'd have to find somewhere else to hunt....she hoped not. "Spiderkit, you don't think you scared off all the prey, do you?" she dared to ask, risking the glare she was likely to earn from it.

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

"I'd like to see you do better!" Spiderkit said.

He might have missed his first kill, but Frostkit hadn't even found anything yet. At least he had managed the first part of the job. But anyway, she did have a point. He had been a bit louder than he'd meant, and he couldn't hear any sounds of frogs or toads nearby.

"Umm, maybe," he allowed. "I think I smell something this way, though. Maybe it's some new prey!"

Bolstered by this new thought, Spiderkit slogged away through the swamp, ignoring the glistening muck on his fur in favour of the strong, unfamiliar smell that was now assaulting his senses. Whatever it was must be nearby, because he couldn't smell anything else now. The stink was overwhelming.

Coming out from the shelter of a patch of rushes, Spiderkit stopped and stared in bewilderment at the sight of large, untidy hills of smelly substance rising in front of him. They sloped gradually down to the swamp to scatter over the mud, unhindered by the broken, shiny tendril fence that ran around the mounds.

And, he noticed after a moment, there was prey here, too! A shadowy shape almost as big as him darted out of a tin can and disappeared from view, but he could hear and see signs of more prey.

"What is this place?" he said, stupefied. He'd never seen anything like it. Then he scrunched his nose. "It smells like crowfood."

[Kitty]

Frostkit gave a little huff. "If you hadn't scared off all the prey, I could!" she grumped, plodding along behind her brother as they continued on through the marsh. She was pretty sure he had frightened away all the prey now, because they hadn't heard or seen a single animal since he made a ruckus going after that toad. Not even a frog or a lizard. Her enthusiasm for the hunt was fading as her irritation at the loss of the prey grew.

Soon, though, her brother announced that he could smell something. Inhaling deeply, she drew the smell across her scent glands. Yes, she could smell something too. Kind of like prey, in a way. Yes, there had to be prey this way! "I smell it too, Spiderkit!" she announced, her excitement restored.

Following the stench, the duo found it grow only stronger the farther they went, until it covered all other smells of ShadowClan's territory. She wrinkled her nose. What kind of new prey was this? Prey that smelled like crowfood, just like Spiderkit said. The scene stretched out before her confused the small white kit more than ever. Small hills stretched out across an area enclosed by a shiny fence. The hills were smaller than any Frostkit had ever seen, and steeper, too. Not to mention smelly. She'd never smelled such a stench.

But there was prey here! Every so often, Frostkit's blue eyes would catch the shadowy figure of some large rodent almost as big as she was. Recovering from her shock of the strange scenery, she instead gestured to the area around where the prey was skittering.

"Never mind where we are," she exclaimed, "look at the prey here! It would take two of us to catch one! Imagine how proud the Clan would be!"

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

Mounds of Twoleg garbage and crowfood stretched before them, releasing a stench that Spiderkit could scarcely comprehend and looking like nothing he'd ever seen or heard of before. But Frostkit was definitely right; there was prey here, and lots of it. All they needed to do was catch some of it, and they could return to camp as celebrated heroes.

"You're right, Frostkit," Spiderkit mewed, and glanced around. They'd need to pick a likely prospect to catch and then sneak up on it properly. Fortunately they wouldn't need to worry about their scent giving them away — it would be all sight and vibration. "Let's do.... that one!" He gestured towards a large, dark-furred rat scrabbling in a pile of something unrecognizable a short distance away. "I'll sneak up behind it, and then you come from the front. It won't have a chance!"

Immediately the kit slunk off to get in position behind the rat, taking care not to alert it. He couldn't see how the two of them together could possibly fail to bring it down... it was only prey, after all. Large prey, but still just a rat.

[Kitty]

After doing some looking of her own around the Twoleg carrion, Frostkit turned her eyes to the place Spiderkit gestured and, spying the furry black creature he had indicated, nodding furiously in agreement. Though there were many other rats around here, that one just happened to be in the open where it was more easily reachable by two kits. Many of the others were under Twoleg rubbish or back in crevices. Unluckily for this one, he chose the wrong day to be out and about.

"Okay! Let's do it!" she agreed with the plan Spiderkit laid out. It seemed to her that she got the short end of the stick in having to sneak up in front of the creature. If she scared it, Spiderkit would blame her! But she didn't complain, seeing as how someone had to do it and, well, she trusted herself to more than Spiderkit. After spotting her brother in position behind the rat, she sank down to a hunters crouch and began to move stealthily -- she hoped -- towards it.

No way was this rat getting away.

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

Okay, okay, here goes nothing. This is gonna be easy, I just gotta get on top of it so it can't get away, and then we can totally take it down. Don't be nervous, don't hesitate, just... get... ready...

Spiderkit's inner assurances repeated over and over in his head like a sacred mantra as he focused on keeping his nerve and getting ready to kill the hell out of this giant monster of a rat. His plan was flawless, of course; there was no way that it could fail. It was possible that Frostkit might mess up somehow and get herself injured, and he would have to drag her back to camp and explain how he'd gotten his kid sister injured, but- No! He couldn't think about that. They were going to own this rat, and that was just how it was.

His feet anchored solidly in some unidentifiable slimy substance, Spiderkit waited as Frostkit inched toward the rat from her side. It was hard keeping himself still until she was close enough; he wanted to pounce now! But the rat could escape if he moved too early, so he waited, and waited, until finally...

"Ha HA!"

With a mad screech, he scrabbled forward and flung himself at the large rodent. It squealed and twisted towards him, flailing its slick-furred body so that he had a difficult time keeping a hold of it. Nevertheless, Spiderkit was determined not to let it go, and dug in his claws with a hiss. "You're not getting away!"

[Kitty]

Frostkit remained poised in her hunting crouch for a few heartbeats, muscles tightening as she prepared to spring...and then Spiderkit leapt for the large rodent. She leapt only a mere heartbeat behind him, landing right in front of the rat while he landed on top of it. So she'd misjudged the distance. That was okay, though. Spiderkit managed to pin it, and he struggled with the large creature, trying to prevent it from moving and escaping. He hissed threats to it as he dug in his claws.

Well,

[/i] Frostkit thought. He's pinning it down, so here's my chance!

She wasn't really sure how she was supposed to kill a rat. In fact, the little white kit had never killed anything in her life. But she managed to get a good enough angle on the rat to claw at its throat. The first scratch barely broke through the fur; her kitten claws would need more than one hit to get through it. So she clawed a few more times, until red blood was flowing freely enough to stain her tiny white paws pink.

Hopefully that would be enough to kill it.[/blockquote]

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]

Spiderkit was barely aware of his surroundings as he struggled to keep a hold of the slippery, struggling rat. He saw flashes of white in at the edge of his vision as Frostkit leapt over to assist, but he couldn't manage anything other than a grunted "Kill it!" between trying to claw out tufts of rat fur and making sure it didn't escape. The convulsing rodent was almost as big as he was, and now that he was up close with it, it didn't look quite like the meek prey animal he had first assumed it to be. The rat's reddish eyes bulged as it twisted, yellowed teeth snapping, trying to find purchase in his flesh.

For a moment the knife-like incisors sank into his leg, causing him to squeal and lose his grip. Fortunately that was about when Frostkit finally got in a couple goods wipes at the rat's throat; it rolled free of Spiderkit and staggered several steps away, but its wound slowed it, and the black kit jumped back on top of it and bit hard into the back of its neck. The rat slumped to the ground, twitching, and was still.

Spiderkit stood over it, panting. He was covered in slime and muck, his foreleg stung nastily, and their prey looked like it had been rolled down a kill and used as a mossball. This adventure wasn't turning out quite as fun as he had envisioned it, and he wasn't feeling at all impressive despite having achieved his first (joint) kill. All Spiderkit could feel at the moment was tired and slightly nervous about the other rats watching them from various places nearby.

"Come on... let's get this back to camp. One kill is enough, right?"

Grabbing hold of the rat's fur, Spiderkit tried tugging it over the ground back the way they had come, but it was heavy. He could drag it a little, but he'd need help to get it all the way back to camp. A part of him thought that it was Impressive to have killed something he could barely carry, but the rest of him was just tired and hungry, and eager to get back home to his sisters and mother. It had been a long morning.

[Kitty]

It was a joint effort, killing the rat. But after a few more blows from both Frostkit and Spiderkit, they reigned victorious. The dark creature lay motionless on the ground. Admittedly, it was a sad-looking thing. It could have been a much cleaner kill; blood leaked out through several wounds throughout the rodent's body, leaving bright red trails that stood out in comparison to it's dark fur. Frostkit was a little surprised to see that its blood was the same color as her own. Shouldn't it be, like, blue or something? Maybe a sickly yellow? After all, that might explain why the rats chose to live in such a disgusting place.

But they'd done it. They'd achieved their first hunting kill. Adrenaline flashed through Frostkit as she let out a triumphant yowl. She turned to look at Spiderkit, a grin on her face, to share her enthusiasm at their success with her brother. He looked tired and worn out, though, and she recalled how much more work he'd had to do than she to stay clung to the rat's back. Seeing his tiredness suddenly made exhaustion sweep over her, lessening the thrill of their first prey. Still, she managed a chipper, "We did it!" to her brother.

Nodding in agreement to Spiderkit, she bent her head to the rat. One kill was plenty for a kit her size. She would've liked to hunt more, but she was feeling too tired at this point. Besides, realization was slowly dawning on her that she'd stayed away from camp without supervision for longer than ever before. The thought made her feel even more tired and long for her siblings and her mother. While proud of her kill -- especially since it took two kits to carry it -- she wanted nothing more than to get it home and curl up and nap.

Getting it home was the hard part.