summer coming to an end (timberpaw)

The heat was unbearable and it definitely didn't do her clanmates any good. Under the sunlight, they were likely to tire more easily and get grumpy which Brindlepaw never liked. Whilst she wasn't so much as scared of the other cats in the clan, she did often fear about getting on the wrong side of them and tried to be careful with what she said and did. It affected her too and sometimes she had to stop herself from getting snappy at anybody and remind herself they had done nothing wrong. Despite all of this, she did not want greenleaf to come to an end; leaf-bare was the time that she heard the clans started to struggle and by no-leaf the herbs growing would be few in number and there was likely to be a lack of prey. She didn't want either of those things. It tore at her heartstrings to hear the kits crying when they hurt themselves and so she could not imagine the wailing when they went to sleep still hungry. From a young age she had always been excited to see snow but the tales that she had been told about the trouble it caused had sounded horrific and took away any of her excitement. Now she dreaded it and wished that greenleaf would last forever. Of course, it wasn't going to and they just needed to face up to what was ahead of them. The clan was strong and Brindlepaw knew, or at least hoped, they would all be able to support one another until new-leaf came around.

Sooner or later, Brindlepaw realised that she was just going to have to face the warmth. There was no point in spending all day inside as it clearly was not going to go away. Slowly the she-cat got to her paws and lingered in a stretch for a few brief moments until she began to make her way outside. There was nothing in particular that she needed to do out there but to not go out and enjoy it seemed somewhat wrong. In a short while she would be wishing that it would be greenleaf again and she decided that was enough motive to be happy with the weather whilst she could be.

She looked around the camp, trying to catch sight of anywhere where there may be shared, although she imagined that any shade available would already have been snatched up by the exhausted warriors. Part of her wondered how they dealt with hunting when it was as hot as it was today and felt proud to call them her clanmates for even though they most likely would prefer to stay in their nests, they still went out to catch prey for the clan. For her, that was enough cause for them to be respected. It frustrated her when she heard of apprentices giving their mentors attitude and liked to believe that she didn't do that, although she couldn't be sure as she wasn't Mintnose. Being disrespectful was just rude and most of the time, uncalled for, as well as unnecessary.

Eventually she came to the decision to exit the camp as at least that way she would be moving around instead of sitting and feeling bored. Brindlepaw had probably been very difficult to entertain when she was younger all because there was only one thing she wanted. Which was to go and explore the territory surrounding WindClan. Even as she headed out now, despite being able to go out for a moon now, she still felt excited and a spring in her step occurred. Suddenly the heat no longer bothered her - all she cared about was the rolling hills before her. The next thing she knew, she had given into temptation and had sped up into a run.

The running wasn't even for a particular reason. It was simply for her own happiness. Whilst others may have gotten competitive and liked to race as fast as they could, this didn't include her; it didn't matter how fast she was going, all that mattered to her was simply the thrill of it. Multiple times did she almost trip over the occasional rock and yet she was not bothered about anyone else potentially seeing her and thinking she was clumsy. In fact, she only stopped when she felt that she could run no more and finally she took a sit down. It was only then that she felt the sun on her once more and she let out a loud groan. Now she could relate to what the warriors felt when they came back from a hunting patrol and she looked around in hope of catching sight of a puddle left over from a previous thunderstorm. She should have known better as there appeared to be none which had her feeling slightly disappointed. At least she was happy though. All she could think about was the energy that she had felt during her sprint and how much she loved it.

tags: LOST
words: 833