Warriors// A paw In everyplace

Chapter two (wandering around)

Poki was padding quietly through the woods, trying her hardest to use the lush undergrowth the forest provided as a way to keep herself hidden. With her bushy black tail low and nearly silent paw steps it was almost impossible to tell the tiny kitten was there, unless you looked really hard.

Poki was out pretty far into the forest now. She had passed by a few fallen trees and swam across a large river but other then that there was no real way for her to know exactly how far out she was.

She just knew that when she looked back she could no longer see then barn, just trees and undergrowth. Though she was sure she could find her way back so she wasn't too worried.

She could just scarcely hear the farm sounds over these new woodland ones.
The seemingly constant birdsong and other noises sounded way louder once you where inside the woods. Not loud to the point where it was unbearable, but loud enough to where Poki knew it would take her a while to get used to over hearing the cows and chickens instead.

Suddenly Poki stopped in her tracks as a new sound met her sensitive ears. It was the scuffling of prey, and it sounded very close.

She looked to her left where the sound came from, it was a brown squirrel. A rather plump one, and it was eating a nut on a tree root.

Poki crouched down low and stalked towards it. She tried to do what she saw her brothers do to hunt for mice back at the barn.
They crept up on it, they pounced, they killed it. The process seemed easy enough but when ever Poki tried it she would come up with empty paws and her brothers would have to go and catch the same mouse themselves.
They always told her that she was still young and she'll get the hang of it soon enough. But Poki wanted to be good at hunting now.
She didn't like to depend on her brothers for the things she needs. Sure she was only a tiny kitten, but she hated the thought of being incapable of doing something as important as hunting for herself.

She always screwed up with mice but maybe it would be different with this squirrel?

Poki got as close to the squirrel as she thought she could without spooking it away. And then with one final check on it's position she leaped at it, kicking up dirt with her back paws as she did.

The squirrel barely had time to run after dropping its nut. By the time it got onto all fours Poki was already on top of it.
For a moment Poki was surprised with herself, she'd never actually gotten this close to prey on purpose before.

For a second the squirrel slipped out from under her and started to run away but Poki quickly unsheathed her long claws and bolted after it. She cased it down for a few feet until the squirrel ran under a leafy plant and Poki swiftly followed it.

Though she stopped in her tracks when she saw the squirrel being tackled away by a black blur through the openings in the leaves.

She was too shocked to move for a few moments but ten she pulled herself together long enough to raise her head a little to look to where the squirrel had been tackled to.

She saw a black tom crouching over the now dead brown squirrel.

'A wild cat!' Poki thought in surprise and amazement. Though she wasn't too sure why she was so surprised to see a wild cat. She was in the forest after all.

His sleek tail flicked back and forth as he slowly got up. "What were you in such a hurry for..?" He said in a low voice as if he was thinking out loud. And then he raise his muzzle up and sniffed the air.

Poki hoped that the water from her drying pelt would be enough to mask her sent for now. The tom looked calm like he wouldn't want to fight her if he saw her but she still didn't want to be seen.

For a moment his deep green eyes looked suspicious, like he did actually smell her. But in the end he lowered his head and kicked some dirt over his catch and then stalked away through the undergrowth. Leaving a path a trembling plants where he had been.

Poki sighed in relief when the tom left. 'That was too close! I gotta find a way to mask my sent better.' She thought. She looked around for something- anything she could use.

There wasn't much of anything she could use but she did spot a small area of wet dirt. 'Mud! That should do!' She remembered when she was a bit younger she fell into some mud around the pig's pen. The mud there masked her sent so well it took Lodi and Envy all day to find where she ran off to. She just hoped the mud in the forest could have the same affect.

She quickly padded over the the small spot of mud and began rolling in it. She rolled and rolled until every patch of black and white was smeared with dark brown mud.

Her fluffy fur was now plastered to her sides as well. This made her look even smaller then the squirrel the tom cat had just hunted. Plus she was really unrecognizable now, all that really showed was her pale blue eyes.

Sure the mud was pretty heavy when it hung off of her fur but Poki was sure she could deal with it so she just ignored it for now.

Poki got out of the mud puddle and padded up to were the tom had left the squirrel as soon as she glanced at it her stomach growled.
And it was at that moment when she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten anything.

Without thinking or checking to see if the tom was still around Poki dashed to the squirrel and brushed the dirt off of it before tearing into its small body.

The taste was kind of like a mouses, but not quite. Poki didn't know if it was her hunger telling her this or just the actual taste of the squirrel but either way this tasted amazing!

She tore more and more into the squirrel until there was nothing but useless scraps left of the prey.

She wouldn't lick her lips because of the mud so she just smeared the blood in with the rest of the mud to hide it.

Her ears flicked at the sound of something coming closer to her so she quickly slipped into the undergrowth for cover and looked out through the gaps in the leaves to see what was going on. Her now dark brown fur should blend into the shadows pretty well. All she needed to do is stay quiet.

"What?" She heard the black tom exclaim as he looked at the eaten squirrel. "I leave it alone for only two heart beats!" He growled in frustration while pacing around his prey.

Poki kind of felt bad now, it wasn't her prey. Sure she chased it down but in the end he caught it.

She decided to leave him alone. She turned around to leave, causing the leaves around her to rustle a little by accident before slinking quietly through the undergrowth.

She got to the side of a tree that would hide her from the tom and clawed her way up it. She wasn't the best or fastest climber around but she climbed up well enough to get to a leafy branch that would hide her fairly well.

She looked down to see if the tom had noticed and it seemed like he may have. He was curiously sniffing the bush around where Poki had just left from.

He let out a frustrated sigh, Poki guessed it was because he couldn't get a good whiff of her real sent through the mud, then he whipped around and ran off to the right.

Poki wondered where he was off to in such a hurry. She's heard that wild cats often lived in groups so maybe he was heading off to his group, wherever they were.

Poki looked up in the sky, it was far from the time where the sun would set. Just about noon from what she could tell.

'Might as well see where he's going...' she thought before climbing back down and following his sent trail farther into the woods