bottlecaplogs | April Catch-all

As always, Firepaw will take every opportunity he can to hang out with anyone vaguely cat-shaped. He invited Siffrin along to mushroom-hunt, but it's mostly just an excuse to chatter, and maybe share some of his knowledge of how to cat. They're about halfway to the mushroom patch he picked out, when a thought occurs to him.

"Hey - did you ever end up remembering your name?"

That seems important - he's been referring to them as Shinx but never actually followed up on the name thing.

Siffrin is much more comfortable on four paws at this point than about a month ago! Which isn't to say they can match up to Firepaw's level of coordination yet, particularly with their depth perception problems. But they can trot alongside him confidently enough, leaping over tree roots and not having to worry about getting their legs tangled if they're not thinking about it.

(They do miss having thumbs, though.)

Oh! They never did let him know, right. They didn't mind Firepaw still calling them Shinx - when it's just coming from one person, it seems more like a friendly nickname than a replacement.

"I did! It's Siffrin."

It must be, with how familiar it felt, even though they still have the nagging feeling they're missing something. But they've already been telling everyone to call them that, so!

"I still don't remember much from before I showed up here, but since that came back, I'm sure it all will eventually."

It's kind of a relief to think it's the fog's fault, and that if something gives them a terrible feeling, they don't have to try harder to remember it. It'll come back at the fog's pace, they're not to blame!

"Oh good - Siffrin it is, then."

Every human (or at least non-cat) name he's heard so far sounds foreign to him, but so did his own housecat name. Who knows what 'Rusty' means, not him.

"Well, I'd love to hear about everything you can remember - and that goes for whenever the rest comes back too. Everyone's worlds are very different, and that alone makes them worth talking about."

Firepaw himself isn't entirely sure if he wants to fog gone, but he hasn't really told anyone about that. It feels a lot more comfortable to hunt wildlife, when they're acting berserk anyway. But he'll definitely work toward clearing the fog if it helps Siffrin out.

Let's see - what do they remember, that Firepaw might be interested in? It's kind of in bits and pieces, all over the place. They remember much more about their friends, now, though embarrassingly still not their names. They remember they were on a quest to stop someone who was freezing the country of Vaugarde in time, which is interesting, but kind of dark as casual conversation material.

"I traveled a lot, so it's hard to know where to start..."

They remember sitting under a tree for a while, or maybe over and over. They're not sure why that was so important, or who they were talking to, though...

They raise their nose to sniff the air, trying to practice what Firepaw was telling them about scents. The smell of wet dirt makes them think of storms, and reminds them of something else:

"Oh! There's a lot more types here, than there were in the place I came from. And it's kind of weird that they're not connected to shaping the world around you." Or at least not as directly...

"Did the place you came from have less types too?"

His ears perk up at the mention of traveling - it sounds interesting, the same way that the exploration quests have been. ThunderClan cats normally stay in their territory, so patrolling felt like an adventure until he got the lay of the land and then started feeling more like a chore.

"I guess everything in my world would be Normal type... except maybe the monsters." He shrugs. "Twolegs - humans - had big monsters they would ride in the bellies of. Some had big claws to shape the earth, or mouths that could eat trees. The humans built wide, stinking paths for the monsters to run on, and they could kill a cat without even noticing or coming back to eat it, like we were just bugs to crush underfoot. I think folk here call them 'cars'."

He's focused enough on telling his ghost story that he ends up tripping over a large mushroom, although he manages to catch himself well enough.

"I've never heard of anything like that!" Siffrin can feel the fur around their shoulders bristling up. The humans where Firepaw comes from sound scary! If Siffrin's remembering right, didn't Firepaw say they didn't talk, too?

"The biggest thing humans ride on where I'm from are horses. They're still pretty big, but..." Not so big that they wouldn't notice a cat. Or eat trees!

(Technically, the biggest things are ships, and those are certainly something Siffrin is familiar with. But right now, based on Firepaw's descriptions, they're only thinking of creatures!)

The Shinx sticks out a paw to catch Firepaw when he trips, but pulls it back immediately when they see him recover by himself. Instead they poke the mushroom with one claw, trying to see if they can remember which kind this is. Is it one they're supposed to gather?

"We had horses in our world too - I've never seen one, but I think there's some near RiverClan's territory."

Okay, now to focus on this mushroom... he sniffs it carefully, trying just as hard to remember what exactly they're supposed to look like. It does smell edible, or as edible as plants ever smell, so he carefully cuts the stalk with one of his claws.

"I think this is the right one... wow, it's really big, though... Do you think it'll matter if we cut it up so it fits in the bag?"

Siffrin also gives the mushroom a sniff after watching Firepaw - though in their case, they're trying to memorize the scent.

"It should be fine, I think? It'll last longer if it's whole, but..." But Bottlecap Bay goes through a lot of supplies, on the daily. These mushrooms aren't going to be stored long enough to worry about it!

Eyeing how Firepaw did it, they extend a claw again to try and cut the mushroom. It's... less straightforward than Firepaw made it seem; they're struggling to get neat slices. (Not that they need to, when the goal's just making it fit, but they can't shake the feeling that a certain one of their friends would be annoyed. Siffrin used to be a good choice for veggie prep, if not necessarily cooking!)

Siffrin puffs out a slightly frustrated breath, ruffling the tuft of fur above their eyes. "This would be a lot easier with a knife. And hands."

"Knife-? Wait, right, I know what those are." He's seen them in Bottlecap Bay, and his owners had a few back home. But it's never been an interesting item, and he only recently learned the name. "It would probably be easier to use something else... when you use your claws, you have to keep one toe out while the rest are tucked in, which takes a lot of practice."

And also is much harder for a Litten than a cat, possibly because cats can only do this in Firepaw's universe.

Firepaw himself isn't able to get clean slices either, but he lends a paw as best he can, and stuffs the chunks into his satchel.

"Let's try to just get the ones that look like that one... we can try pulling on them with our teeth too, but the flesh is soft enough that we might just break them."

"Yeah. Like a claw for humans, since we don't have our own." It really is kinda like that, isn't it? Their trusty dagger was used for a lot of things, but fighting was definitely one of them.

Siffrin helps nudge mushroom chunks into Firepaw's bag, then licks their paw and claws to clean them off - pausing self-consciously, then resuming equally self-consciously when they realize Firepaw is a former actual cat and won't judge them for following this body's instincts. It would probably be ruder to stop in front of him.

They nod in response. "They'd probably just split. If we can get our claws underneath the stump, we might be able to pick them out? As long as we leave the roots alone, they'll grow back eventually."

Or... whatever it is mushrooms have. Siffrin just thinks of them as roots.

They circle around the area, sticking their head into spots that seem damper than others. Where there's one mushroom, there are often more nearby.

Firepaw doesn't know anything about mushrooms, so he doesn't know much better than Siffrin. They look like plants - or at least not like animals - so roots make sense. He just nods, as though he feels confident about what they're doing, because pretending is half the battle.

There are a lot more mushrooms around here, now that they're looking for them - which is great for Firepaw, since he won't have to walk as much. He sits himself down in front of a patch with a few different mushrooms, picking them and cutting them up as best he can.

"Are there cats in your world?" The thought occurs to him randomly - it's been a while since he asked anyone. "Some of the folk here hadn't heard of them before. And I think some worlds have cats that are different from me."

Siffrin ranges a bit further, pulling up mushrooms and dropping them in a pile near Firepaw's collection. They're not quite as run ragged yet, though they've been definitely been tossing themself into any quest they can find to prove themself useful. They had their enforced rest in the clinic when they first arrived, and they just straight up haven't been here as long as Firepaw.

"There were! The ones I knew about all lived with humans. Some just because humans liked having them around," which is the most neutral way they can think of to describe pet cats, when they're not sure how weird that would be when they're talking to a cat, "And some were more like... partners? Working cats, like ships' cats."

Yeah, now that they're thinking about it - they remember making friends with a lot of ships' cats while traveling. And, when they were younger, they...

...? Hm. Must just be another memory the fog's keeping from them. It's fine, they're sure they'll get it back eventually.

"It's kind of silly - it's supposed to be bad luck to sail without one, but you don't need luck to explain why things would go wrong without a cat onboard."

"Guilmon mentioned that he was friends with his human, too. And Akechi and Ren used to be friends with a cat in their world... it seems like in a lot of worlds, humans and animals get along better than in mine."

He's sure the humans in his world mean well. But the cats he spent most of his time around certainly didn't care for them - Graypaw nearly wretched the one time he suggested trying to get adopted.

"I think I know what a ship is... they're like a den that goes on the water, right? I don't know why a cat would want to be on one..."

A... den? Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Siffrin nods.

"Humans use the larger ones for moving loads around - like food."

They pause for a moment as they focus on picking another large-ish mushroom. They return with it in their mouth - which also feels like a food hygiene faux pas, but it's not like they have any other options - and settle down to slice it up next to Firepaw.

"Even if you're moving something else, you need enough food stored to survive for weeks or months out on sea. So there's usually a lot of rats that sneak on board."

"They hunt rats? Those must be very brave cats."

Or Firepaw's just a wuss. Realistically, he's been hunting bigger things than rats since coming here, and things that fight back much harder, but he still remembers how scared he was of them when he was a cat.

"I heard ShadowClan cats hunt rats, too - they were a different group of cats that lived in a different part of the forest. But they eat all sorts of nasty things, like toads and crowfood."

Although he isn't... actually sure how much of that is true, ThunderClan cats really like trashing on ShadowClan cats.

"Rats, mice, whatever else sneaks on." Siffrin's never thought about the cats maybe being nervous about it! All the ships' cats they've seen never seemed to hesitate, no matter how big the rats got. But then again, that's probably why they got picked as ships' cats.

"Maybe they know the humans on board would help them out if they got hurt...?" Who knows.

Siffrin wrinkles up their nose and sticks out their tongue for a moment. Ew. "I've had frog legs before, but I don't think I could eat toad."

April Catch-all

Mush to be Done (Siffrin)

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