Posts by RYLAND.

Following Nathanos and Icarus, the next to show his face at Creature's call for a meeting is Ryland, who actually seems to be gaining more clear interest in the ways of Bloodclan as of late. At least, he seems more interested than before, considering this time he's actually bothered to show up. He can't recall attending any meetings before this one, even though he had certainly been living in the clan for a couple moons; either he hadn't been interested in sitting and wasting his life listening to a leader talk at him, or maybe he didn't know what they were at the time. Probably a mix of both, really. Either way, the past is the past. The scruffy tabby is here now, and with curious gray eyes, he takes his place comfortably among the pews, tracing his eyes along the muscular build of their leader as the rest of the Bloodclanners gather around him. When she begins, his ears perk forward—oh, he should have chosen somewhere closer to the front where he could hear her better, rather than sitting all the way at the back, but he doesn't want to disturb the other Bloodclanners by moving now. Instead, he strains his ears, leaning forward and focusing carefully onto what the stocky black feline has to say.

She speaks first of leafbare, then the bats. The bats! She's saying they can eat the bats! Oh, he's going to be sick. Those things look like rats who grew an excess of skin and then began to fly with it—and if they look like skin-flap rats, they probably taste like skin-flap rats. Maybe if Holn brings him one, he'll try it once, but he doesn't have high hopes for the taste of a flying rat. The tabby can't help the little grimace of disgust that twists his muzzle, but he doesn't complain about their brand new food source. It's good, he guesses. Good for the clan, especially when it's so easy to starve in the colder months. But they also have another source of food: Skyclan. For some reason the mention of them makes something in his chest twist; it's not like they're hurting them in any way, right? They're only hunting in a portion of their territory... And yet Ryland feels incredibly bad to be doing that to them. But such is the way of life; though it's unfortunate, he knows he has to care about his own clan over the forest clans. The health of his clan determines his own health, after all. A slight nod of his head shows he understands, and then she moves on to ranks, something he doesn't exactly know or care much about. Ivorymoon and Sable are demoted, Asher is given praise. Nothing interesting. Maybe Nathanos and Icarus find politics interesting (what with them both being on the edge of their seats about the next choice of deputy), but Ryland could care less. He wants more interesting news. Hopefully she'll give it in time. For now, he merely sits, curiously waiting for Bloodclan's powerful leader to continue.

Ryland hasn't really made any plans to go out of his way and hunt a bat. Though they seem to have made their home among the rafters of the church in a swarm of little chittering brown bodies, they really haven't bothered him all that much, considering their soft squeaking is mostly lost on his crappy ears... Unlike many of his clanmates, who actually have to suffer through their noise all throughout the night. It's no wonder that the other cats want to kill them, but are they really all that bad? For a moment Ryland cranes his head up in the main room of the church, gray-blue eyes searching the darkness above him to try and catch a glimpse of their newest food source—they should be getting more active right now, considering the sun is setting and a cold blanket of darkness is settling upon Bloodclan's territory. And hey, he's right. After only a moment of watching, the flickering of a stray wing catches his eye, and he follows a dark silhouette as it glides from beam to beam. It's interesting to watch its strange, fluttering movements, seemingly without aim—that is, there is no aim until the creature suddenly swerves in its path, dipping down into the alter room.

With its appearance below the rafters, the peaceful bat-watching is ruined. Ryland hardly has time to process the fact that it's getting closer, hardly has time to duck or run or punch it in the face or anything. He has no time to respond other than to let his face crumple in horror before the thing swoops at him abruptly, teeth bared and wings flapping, beady eyes glistening under the pale light of dawn like some kind of demon-rat fresh out of the depths of the Dark Forest—and as soon as its angry dagger feet and Satan fingers latch themselves onto Ryland's face, a scream splits the air as if he's being murdered. "AAAAAAAAAAAAA!" the scruffy tabby shrieks, thrashing violently in a useless attempt to dislodge his tiny attacker, which really has no intention to harm him. It may just see him as somewhere to rest its little wings, but Ryland... Ryland is SURE that the little fucker is about to sink its tiny needle teeth right into his pretty nose! "GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!"

aah i hope your life gets back on track!! good luck <3

With Bloodclan comes freedom, yes. Freedom to roam, freedom to speak and act and do whatever one wants, whenever they want... But with that freedom comes an intense lack of rules. Cats can kill other cats for no reason if they want to, then cannibalize the corpses. They can attack the innocent, torture forest cat apprentices, ruin their lives... And suffer no punishment for it. With unlimited freedom, the line between moral and immoral is blurred; but does Coffee care? Likely not. Most cats in Bloodclan don't mind the bloodshed around them, and judging by the carefree pride for her clan that this molly carries with her, she likely doesn't mind, either. A shame, really—moral cats were so hard to come across nowadays. But as Ryland knows next to nothing about her yet, all he sees is a happy cat, and so as he approaches her, he offers her a warm smile paired with a wave of his chocolate-tipped tail. "Hey," he greets, "I don't think I've met you. What's your name?"

trackin.....:eyes:

Riverclan... They hadn't really done much, had they? They'd tried to piss Bloodclan off, sure—trash is now strewn haphazardly across the border that they're forced to mark every day, and the smell of carrion wafting up from the heap assaults the senses, but it isn't much more than a prank. But to Bloodclan, a clan filled with murderers and cannibals and monsters and brutes, a prank, no matter how harmless that prank is, is usually enough to tip the iceberg. Creekfang and the others may not have thought that their harmless fun would go anywhere other than some simple annoyance, but they were horribly, horribly wrong. The minute Asterpaw steps over the border, Nathanos is suddenly after him in a blur of brown fur, and following at the heels of the horrifying creature is the figure of a tom much less threatening than his predecessor. In chase of him is the scrawny form of Ryland, who had been near Nathanos when all of this had happened. He'd seen the spark of hellfire catch and spread through the maine coon's one remaining eye, and he'd seen the lust for blood in the way he looked at that little boy. He had no time to reach out, no time to try and stop the murderous tom cat, before he'd torn out from the shadows, eyes locked on his prey like a wolf ready to slaughter a rabbit. All that Ryland could do was follow him in a panic.

"Nathanos—!" a yell of his name slips Ryland's jaws, but it's much too late to stop him. Already his teeth have sunken into the scruff of the disobedient Riverclan apprentice—the same one Ryland had met before, who had spat at him across the river—and with maddening laughter and a voice that could only be described as being mentally unstable, he drags Asterpaw away in a terrible sight, promising harm to befall him because of all this. Ryland slows as Nathanos rounds a corner, his own breathing burning in his throat. His chest is heaving as he stumbles to a sudden halt amongst the filth and rubbish, watching helplessly as his wicked clanmate drags the kid off into an alleyway, and with wild eyes, he suddenly whips around to look at the trash strewn around their border, feeling strangely ill. Henpelt had already torn off after Nathanos—did he do this? All he smells is Riverclan; he's not all that great at distinguishing their scents yet. His whiskers press themselves backward, and his lips press themselves into a thin line. "Why would they do this?" he thinks to himself in silence, breath still heaving. After a moment he's able to breathe again, and he rips his eyes from the trash, one of his paws crushing a stray can with a scoff. "No one here plays nice," he then hisses under his breath, his breathing sounding oddly wheezy. "Ugh..."

Bloodclan is busy, that's for sure. Busy with politics, busy with bats... Busy with the slow budding of a mysterious sickness, too. Things seem to be tumbling out from between their paws lately, and with narrowed gray eyes and a worried frown set onto his face, Ryland looks like he fits right in with the rest of their struggles. Busy, busy. He paces the pews of the church corridor, his gaze sat firmly onto the ground beneath his paws, but as he passes a specific pew, he can't help but to hear the quiet groan that leaves Gaia. He'd been lost in thought, worrying about sickness and Riverclan and who knows what else, but for a moment his pacing stills. He flicks his eyes to his left; there lies a kitten, sprawled on her back, batting at the ceiling as if she's in the middle of an attack. Seconds later she seems to grow bored—and though Ryland isn't... The best with kittens, he can tell she wants attention. Isn't that always what kids want? Attention? Maybe talking to someone more carefree can comfort him in some way, take his mind off Bloodclan's issues. So, with a short leap, Ryland suddenly joins her on her pew, sitting a little ways away from her with a neat curl of his ragged tail around his paws. "Hey, kid. What's up?"

The booming voice of Nathanos outside startles Ryland, but what actually catches his attention is not the Bloodclanner's voice—it's the scent that tags after him. Riverclan, smelling of fish and water and reeds... A scent that Ryland actually quite enjoys, but one that will soon be replaced with the soot and thunderpath stench of his own home. For a moment, he peeks out from the door, and there he sees that Asterpaw had been captured—and from the looks of it, he's here to stay. At the time, Ryland had been under the assumption that the poor boy was going to be tortured, or even worse, killed. But... Does he want to stay? Nathanos speaks to him without much aggression, and with curious but guarded eyes, Ryland slinks from the entrance of the church, jumping up onto the pillars lining the stairs to watch the interaction from the sidelines. Creature approaches from behind him, asking questions, though he can't help the muffled snort of laughter that leaves him when she speaks. Why is this Riverclan apprentice still here and not thrown in the canal? "Probably because he can swim," Ryland jokes to himself under his breath, lying down where he sits to thump his chin onto his paws, where he will watch the exchange in silence from there on.

This announcement changes a lot for the cats of Bloodclan. Trouble is now allowed to befall the cats of Riverclan, and from a brief awkward glance to the other two city cats gathered in front of Creature, Ryland can already feel an uncomfortable prickling at the back of his neck because of this development. Nathanos laughs, low and dangerous sounding, and Fernonia is deadly silent. He can feel the anxious urge to talk bubbling up in his chest; he wants to say something to break the creepy silence, but he doesn't want to seem weak or incriminate himself in front of Creature. He may be friends with a Riverclanner, and he may adore the overall culture of the forest clans, but... He's not going to complain about this, or try to stop it, or break any rules that he's being given right now. If they aren't allowed across their border, then they aren't allowed. Frankly, he even agrees with his leader. He may not agree with attacking or killing anyone, but he agrees that Riverclanners don't belong here. They don't need to put themselves in danger just to piss off Bloodclan, even if his clan definitely deserves it. Maybe... Maybe fear will keep them away. He can only hope. "If we see 'em in Skyclan, do we, um... Trespass into Skyclan also? To go after them and chase 'em off? Like—past the place Heronstar told us we couldn't go?" he finally asks, relieved to be able to break the silence, but his voice is uncertain. "Or- would Heronstar get mad about that?"

As Gaia takes interest in her new company, crawling closer to him on her belly, Ryland can't help the soft sigh that slips from his nose, paired with a small smile. She's cute—untouched by the dangers of the world she lives in. Her heart is pure, not yet tainted from the filth of Bloodclan life. For a moment his eyes flicker upward to focus on a striped gray shape behind her; Fernonia rests a little ways away, watching him speak to her daughter intently, and for a moment he dips his head a little toward her. He obviously wouldn't ever hurt her goodhearted kitten, but the intent gaze of a mother is enough to make his smile turn sheepish. After a second he looks back down, and the tip of his tail flickers as he lifts his paw to ruffle the fur on the top of Gaia's head, right between her ears. "Nice to meet'cha, Gaia. My name's Ryland—you wanna find somethin' to do?"

Unlike Fernonia, this is Ryland's first ever Frostfall. He's never heard of cats celebrating Christmas like the twolegs do; of course, he'd lived in a twoleg home and he had experienced the twoleg way of life, with the strange sparkly tree being put up in the home, their loud gatherings, their exchange of strange bags and boxes... But the only things that Ryland had taken away from his single Christmas were the multitude of boxes to hide in, the soft petting from all the unfamiliar twolegs, and the catnip-filled toys that he'd been given for some reason. Their actual holiday was lost on him—but like they had celebrated a Thanksgiving type of holiday called Bloodmoon before, Bloodclan will celebrate their own type of Christmas as well. It's just cat-ified, into something called Frostfall. But of course, Ryland doesn't know any of that. He didn't know what Bloodmoon was before, and he won't know what Frostfall is now—until someone explains it to him, of course. All he thinks when he sees Nathanos putting twoleg trinkets on the front of the church is that it's just another one of his weird, kooky quirks. With a slight wrinkling of his nose, he stops in his tracks next to Fernonia, flicking gray-blue eyes over Nathanos in a guarded, uncertain manner. "Uh... What're you doing?"

"I don't either." Ryland murmurs a casual response to Sinclair's comment on the subject of Frostfall, one of his ears tilting slightly in his roommate's direction alongside a brief glance as they walk side by side through the church. They're having a simple chat as they search for the newest candidate to join the business—a kleptomaniac who goes by the name of Ridley, who definitely has some promise in Sinclair's little endeavor, at least in Ryland's humble opinion. He'd heard murmurings among Bloodclan that she can steal, and she can hoard: two traits that Ryland knows are highly appealing to his materialistic businesscat of a friend. And of course, as soon as he'd mentioned her to his boss, they were off trying to find her without a moment to waste. Ryland is, of course, merely along for the ride. He's Sinclair's right-hand man, his friend who he trusts to help him with these outings... And Ryland doesn't mind that at all. He's good at filing away these meetings somewhere in the back of his mind to call upon them whenever they're needed, and he's good at keeping an eye on things. Plus, as evident by their current chat, he's sure nice to talk to. "Guess it doesn't really do any harm, though. I'll give you a gift, bud," Ryland continues with a smile, before he briefly glances around himself, stilling in his path. "I think she lives around here somewhere."