;; Until the kick-back | Open, Sc territory

She strained her eyes while crouching down under the rosemarin bush. The smell of the plant flowed beneath her nostrils and she breathed in inaudibly. She prowled forward, her eyes on her prey. The bird had been sitting there for a few minutes. A fat pigeon; her best prey until now. Its grey-pink feathers looked lovely under the thin layer of water the morning drizzle had left everywhere in the forest. A split second, the apprentice watched in awe, until she realised the bird was mostly called 'food'. The patched she-cat squeezed her backside closer to the ground before jumping. She launched herself right onto the oh so beautiful bird, to kill it with a swift bite to the neck. Her claws stuck in its flesh, she swung herself back in thriumph. It shot away and crashed into a cat's muzzle. Oops.

The owner of the face, whose name echo believed to be Shadysedge - see, she got better at it! - uttered a pretty annoyed "Seriously?" Oops, not just annoyed. More like furious. "Kinda lucky," Echo laughed at the sight of the angry warrior. "Prey just flies into your face," Come on, it was somewhat funny. But as the she-cat seemed pretty mad, so the apprentice rcovered and straightened up. "Sorry though. It wasn't supposed to fly anymore after I killed it," she said, her face deadpanned. Not a laugh passed through.

Wasn't killed. Whut? A little bit stunned, Echo watched the tortoiseshell finally end the life of the bird. But... She'd done that! Exactly that! What went wrong? The small frown disappeared though, at the very moment she spotted a tiny grin over the other lady's snout. "I swear..." the apprentice began. "I swore to have broken his neck," Because having fun is a huge priority, but others in pain, even prey, wasn't fun. She wasn't a sadist in any way. In her head she apologized to the bird's soul, and hoped it'd hear her, even though she wasn't sure if the souls of other animals had a place to rest too.

She shrugged and told her the bird had been dead. But Echo couldn't tell whether she was lying or not. The beam on her snout gave away nothing. The patched apprentice nodded at the next question. "And you're Shadysedge, not? Beautiful name, I gotta say it," she casually nodded. It was a pretty and original name. Echo herself hoped on a beautiful name, like Echoflare, Echofrost or Echoburn. All would be nice, but if Shrewstar would come up with anything else, that'd be good too. She chortled at the next thing the warrior said. "I don't think he'd be proud, but thank you," Lurkingshade didn't really care much at all. Even so, the apprentice claimed the bird and nodded at it, kind of proud of herself. Which was also worth something.

So it was Shadysedge. Great. The she asked why her mentor wouldn't care about that bird. She was right. It was beautiful, fat, it'd definitely do something for their clan. Echopaw tilted her chin upwards. "My mentor's a little weird. He trained my in the first quarter moon non-stop, from really early until really late, and now he's stopped, doesn't care anymore at all. Has other things on his mind. So I asked Shrewstar for a new, and next ceremony I hope she'll grant me one," the young apprentice replied with a nod of her head. The fact her mentor stopped teaching her didn't stop her from being proud of herself when she caught prey.