Go with the Flow

Turnip had seen more in just two days time than she ever had in the moons she’d spent on the farm. Her paws might be sore and her ear tips might be numb from the chill in the air, but her heart was light as the tall grasses of unplowed fields turned into pebbled shores of a river.
Faintly, she could pick up the stale scent of other cats as she continued to follow the riverbend. Odd-- she had picked up something similar back in those fields. Just how many cats live around here, anyway? Turnip thought with a twitch of her whiskers. She didn’t dwell on the possible answer for long as she came upon the mass of boulders jutting challengingly out of the river’s bank. With a childish wiggle of her haunches, she dropped into a crouch to leap the nearest boulder. She successfully managed to scramble to the top a little less than gracefully-- heaving a sigh, she sat down. She could do with a little rest.

Mothheart trotted along the riverbank, unaffected by the chilly air, unable to penetrate his thick pelt. The brilliant colors of leaf-fall had already begun to fade to the muted browns and grey of leaf-bare. Despite a couple early snows, that had already melted away, the river had yet to freeze over. The glassy surface dark where undisturbed by ripples.

As he rounded a bend, pushing his way through a clump of tall reeds, the scent of an unfamiliar cat hit him. His brow furrowed, it certainly didn't smell like Thunderclan or Skyclan which would be who he'd expect to catch a whiff of by this section of river. His pace quickened as he followed the blown scent upriver. Mothheart paused, catching sight of a pretty she-cat scrambling up onto the rocks. He definitely didn't recognize seeing her before. When the grey and white tabby sat he quickly shook himself, making his way towards her.
"Hey! I don't recognize you, what are you doing all the way out here?" He called out brightly as he approached, bushy tail swishing pleasantly.

Turnip turned to see Mothheart trotting over to her, regarding the tom cat with a wave of her tail. “‘Lo, there,” she called back brightly as she sank down to lay out on her rocky perch. She watched him draw closer, eyes narrowed with good natured scrutiny. She’d never met any cat with so much fur before. “You live around here, huh? Awfully chilly, if you ask me. S’pose it doesn’t bother you none, though,” she chuckled, rolling over to scratch her back against the rock beneath her. “Name’s Turnip. What’s yours, woolly?”

Mothheart tipped his head slightly in greeting as the she-cat settled on the rocks. "Yeah, this is Riverclan territory." He flicked his fluffy tail in mild amusement as she rolled over on the rocks and introduced herself. Turnip. It seemed like a strange name, but from what he'd heard most non-clan cats tended to. "I'm Mothheart," he mewed, settling himself on a nearby rock. "And if you find it cold couldn't you just go back to wherever you came from? I'd imagine it'd be warmer than being exposed out by the river."

“Mothheart, huh? Bit of a mouthful, if you ask me...” So she was in RiverClan territory. Whatever that meant. Hopper had told her some cats weren’t the welcoming type, so maybe “territory” meant the cats around these parts were the kind he’d warned her about. But this Mothheart seemed to be nice enough. She let out a short laugh when he asked her about “where ever” she’d came from. Maybe he was just too polite to ask her to leave out right.
“S’pose that’s your way of asking me to leave RiverClan territory,” she chuckled, rolling back upright. “It’d be a bit warmer, yeah, but it’s long past harvest and the winds are cold there, all the same as they are here. Besides,” she paused and brought a paw up to scratch behind her ear. “It’s terrible boring there. We don’t have any RiverClans or woolly cats that way.”

Mothheart blinked. His name was perfectly normal, but quickly brushed it off. Again, non-clan cat with their weird names. "Well, I suppose you're not doing any harm here, though some cats might not agree," he could imagine the uproar some cats would throw, just like they had when he'd brought Thornkit, well, Thornpaw, now back to camp. Wolfstorm had scolded him for it and he'd nodded along but it still didn't make sense.
He wasn't sure what harvest meant but nodded anyway, "I suppose the winds of leaf-bare are pretty much the same everywhere unless you're sheltered in a warm nest." His tail swished over the rocks to cover his paws, "What's so boring about it?" he asked, head tipping slightly. "There should be plenty of fun stuff to do if you look around."
"And I'm sure there wouldn't be any RiverClan cat out there," he purred, "we generally stick to our territory, no reason to wander off to unexplored areas when our territory is perfectly good."

Turnip rolled her shoulders into a small shrug at his question. Whatever territory Riverclan had, it sounded like they had a serious lack of farms-- and the knowledge of how repetitive life on one was. “Sometimes a cat can use a little change in life, don’t you think?” She asked, pausing for a moment. She didn’t come all this way to think about home. “Well, what about Riverclan? What do you cats do for fun?”

Mothheart tipped his head at the question. He'd never really considered... change. He went on patrols and hunted and trained with his clanmates and hung out with his friends... Why would he want to change anything? He dismissed the thought at her next question. "Well, for fun there's always swimming! Not as fun when it's cold since the water is cold and then it's harder to dry off but still fun! And there's always training and playing with kits. Or just hanging out with clanmates if you aren't on a patrol, or while on a patrol!" He grinned, really there wasn't much he didn't find something fun in.