--up and at 'em [july border patrol]

[littlestorm]

Littlestorm woke with a start, her heart racing. Her dreams had been pleasant enough at first, filled with the thrill of chasing after prey all over WildClan's huge territory. Then, however, she had sensed the unmistakable scent of dog, omnipotent. In her dream, the smell had been overpowering, filling her nose and mouth with its stinking taste, the sound of its heavy breath and baritone growl coming from all sides, each bark booming off every tree. Perhaps worst of all, Littlestorm never saw the dog in her dream; filled with terror and adrenaline, the rest of the dream before waking had been played out with her searching frantically for the source of the noise. Littlestorm brushed off the dream-turned-nightmare with light shake of her short pelt, feeling her stretch send shivers down her spine. She tried to dismiss any unease; despite the triumph of chasing off a dog with her mentor shortly before becoming a warrior, there was always some... lingering dreams, clinging to her subconscious like cobwebs.

Today, however, was a somewhat more exciting day than usual. She had been selected to lead one of the border patrols down by the river, and though she tried her best to keep her face neutral, she couldn't help but feel herself lightening up at the prospect. First to wake the other lumps... Littlestorm quickly identified the the two sleeping balls of fur from the Warrior's den that were joining her, giving them a not-so-gentle nudge and a jerk of her head to signify that they should meet her outside. Then, without another glance, she turned and slipped out of the Warrior's den, crossing the camp to do the same in the Apprentice's. It was no trouble to find Patchpaw; her long fur and coloring made it easy to spot, and she woke the apprentice in the same brusque fashion. Looking at some of the sleeping forms of older apprentices, Littlestorm could see that they had already passed her in size. Pah, well, didn't mean a damned thing about whether they could fight. With that thought, Littlestorm turned and exited the Apprentice's den as well, flexing her claws and working her limbs to prepare herself for the morning's work.

Dawn patrol. There certainly wasn't much glory to it, but it beat nightmares of vicious dogs any day.

[emberblaze]

Emberblaze’s sleep had been dreamless and rather fitful – so when Littlestorm nudged him with a none-too-careful paw, he was awake in an instant. Of course, that didn’t mean his mind was quite as awake, and it took him a moment to understand why she had woken him. A few confused blinks later, the unspoken message got through (not that Littlestorm had waited for him to react before moving on to wake the other patrol members) and Emberblaze forced himself to his paws in slow, grudging movements. He wasn’t going to voice his distaste for the dawn patrol, but he certainly wasn’t going to feign excitement for it.

Slipping out into the camp hollow, Emberblaze slumped down into a comfortable crouch. His tail curled around his paws and the tip flicked lightly as he waited for the rest of the patrol to gather – seeing as Littlestorm was just making her way back from the apprentice den. He didn’t give a word of greeting, but he did dip his head just slightly – enough of a “good morning” coming from him. Hey, he might even make it through the whole dawn patrol without having to say a word. He could just lag back slightly from his clanmates and keep his head down; he could be relatively unnoticeable if he wanted, even if he wasn’t quite as diminutive as Littlestorm was. They probably wouldn’t mind anyway – Emberblaze knew he wasn’t anyone’s favorite company anyway.