The tom's keen ears swiveled back towards the rear of the warrior's den to where the sleepy voice had sounded, shrewd eyes later following the movement of his auditories. He looked over the swirled feline briefly with his scrutinizing pair of amber pools before he once more turned his back on his clanmates, facing the outdoors that were tainted a golden hue by the increasing daylight. "A good warrior rises and falls with the sun." He finally rumbled to break the silent hum of sleeping figures, shifting to pull his muscular form closer towards the den's exit. He was almost always first to volunteer to head out on Briarsong's dawn patrol- he'd say that he was a morning cat, but he was also somewhat of a night owl. Whatever they needed, he would be just that thing.

Anything to heal his fragmented reputation.

He had learned many things under Lynxstar's tutorship, back when their revered leader was an ambitious warrior that shared Hawktalon's loathing for his sister. Now, he took pride in the fact that the cat that taught him everything he knew had rose up to become a respected leader of his clan. He would stop at nothing to live up to the tom's level of prestige.

Wait- wasn't this tom going to have kits of his own? The fleeting thought caused the spiky-furred ThunderClanner to turn his attention back towards Soft-tail with narrowed eyes. "Aren't you going to be a father? You won't be sleeping in like this, not much longer." Hawktalon had no kits of his own, nor was he interested in fathering a litter anytime soon, but everyone knew how troublesome kits tended to be. After all, it took an entire clan to raise but one.

Ioana003

((Sure, if we can find someone))

"Hmph." Clearly, he wasn't keen on that much. If anything, he believed that the classic tabby tom should be preparing himself to get up at premature dawn, rather than indulging himself in prolonged sleep and get caught off-guard when he was being forced to wake several hours earlier. Good warriors were always prepared, ready to tackle any situation at any moment. Hawktalon was proud to be one of those few- or so he so arrogantly thought.

The thick-furred tabby narrowed his eyes. A cat like Hawktalon, be a father to a litter of kittens? Preposterous- he had no time for a mate or little furballs to chase after, family yielded nothing but disappointment and betrayal. Not that he was going to shoot such a crude statement at the young warrior near him, someone had to populate ThunderClan with decent future warriors. Indeed, Hawktalon did have good genes (when not considering the freak that was his sister, of course) and it would be reasonable for him to procreate in an effort to make more good warriors, but...the idea disturbed him. He was better off training apprentices and putting good ideas into their thick skulls to ensure that they served ThunderClan until their ultimate demise. The family life-style? It wasn't for him.

"Pick a good mate, and raise them right." Short and sweet. Well, perhaps he didn't put it into the sweetest of terms- Hawktalon as about as cuddly as a thorn bush. He had put a sort of dark, twisted emphasize into the "good mate" bit, because he clearly meant that Soft-tail should pick a ThunderClan mate that would not produce any dark-element kittens. Otherwise, the older tom wouldn't hesitate to chase the kits out personally. They had no room for failure, nor did they have any room for traitors.

Ioana003