Six spent her time alone; she had been without lengthy companionship since her adolescent years. That didn't mean that she was a lonely cat by any means, she was just used to the quiet and never sought out the company of others. She'd exchange news with passerby if they were friendly, but never prey or shelter. It was safer that way and she'd found that usually others tended to keep to themselves, at least, that's how it had been when she was growing up.
In recent moons, things were different. Cats were chattier, more pleasant. She knew more than a couple cats who she'd spoken with about the Clans who had barged into the neighborhood and when she never saw those loners again, she suspected they'd been recruited into the Clans they spoke of, or killed. That was always an option when you lived in the wilderness alone.
The pond was frequented by predators and cats alike, so there was always the risk of going there instead of one of the offshoots of the main river. The river that the group called StoneClan had seemed to claim entirely for itself. She rolled her eyes and scoffed. As if you could own a river. The notion of keeping a territory any bigger than a single nest was an odd one. Clan cats sounded so stupid, and so selfish, to try and claim entire forests and rivers and mountains to themselves. Loner colonies weren't much better and she stayed far away from those, too. Family groups or imaginative zealots - the loner colonies in the area wouldn't want Six, who preferred her freedom to travel and she didn't care for any scars to mess up her pretty visage.
With the likelihood of predators showing up at the pond increasing during the evening hours, Six opted to go in the daytime. She lingered for a while on the tree line as she observed another tomcat drinking from the pond. She was willing to wait until he'd finished drinking, but instead he spotted her and invited her to join him. Ah, yet another chatty feline.
Strolling out from under the shade of the trees into the broad daylight, she closed the distance between herself and the tomcat.
"Hello." She mewed, stopping two tail lengths away from the tomcat. She lowered her head to the water and kept her eyes on him for a moment, before closing them and focusing on taking long, quick gulps. She wanted to quench her thirst quickly if this loner had mal intent he was hiding behind his smile.
When at last she raised her muzzle from the water, she mewed.
"Pleasant weather; I should hope it'll persist for another moon or so before the cold begins to come down from the mountains." She sniffed, trying to pick up some territorial scent from him, or the stink of a Clan cat. She could smell none; if anything, he seemed to smell like the wind that traveled through the wilds. That, at least, was a familiar scent to her; she imagined her own pelt carried it.
"My name is Six. Who might you be... friend?" She wasn't ever quick to call someone a friend, for admittedly friends weren't something you got if you were constantly on the move. Still, he'd been polite enough to extend the invitation and it was just a word after all. If this went like any of her other interactions with loners, she likely would never see this tomcat again.
@NatiStorm
