The hiss in their ear sends them tumbling into memories-- bad ones, of their ears getting boxed and nearly dying--

The red tabby takes off like a shot, but the tom - who smells like a lot like Soot does, after visiting the Cabin Sect - steps in the way. They try to skid to a halt, trying to twist and turn as he closes in but their paws end up catching on a patch of ice, instead. Her paws slide out from under her, but she does keep herself from eating dirt.

He's talking, saying something, but it doesn't quite break through the pounding of their heart, thundering in her ears like it is.

Trapped, cornered, she rolls over and scales up the fence post. No time to stop, no time to think.

It's only once she reaches the top, clinging to it like he'll reach up and try to drag her back down to her death, that his words seem to properly process.

Where's Soot? Shit shit shit - I think one of my claws is stuck in the wood, she fights to control her breathing. How much could she tell? What answer would save her, make him go away?

Her eyes darting from him to where she's hooked into the wood and then to the distant barn and back to start all over again.

"S-so?" She finally manages, swallowing hard. If he'd assumed she was a clan cat and stalked over with ill intent, he'd likely react very poorly any explanation of her former Ridgeclan rank.

But, then again, she was not the best liar...

Their amber eyes widen when he leaps onto the first rail, realizing, as he struggles to get a good grip, that her panicked flight had only gotten the runty tabby even more trapped than before.

As the violent stranger spouts off something about Foxglove - fucking stars, someone must have cursed this life of hers - and manages to sloppily get to the next rail, the red spotted tabby turns to leap down, which should buy them time to at least get halfway to the barn--

Pain blossoms up their leg; they end up making an aborted jerking movement. A hiss slips free as they freeze in place.

Their claw is stuck.

Such am amateur move, not even apprentices fuck up like this after a moon or so of training! Stupid, stupid - gonna get your pelt ripped to shreds--

Twisting and pulling, they glance back at the tom; their stomach churns at his threats, time seeming to slow to a horrifying crawl as he got closer.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

"Don't!" The word is shrill as it cracks out of their throat, oddly long tail pulling inand tucking under them, against their belly, as they vividly picture him sinking his teeth into it - if he pulled them now, tried to pry them loose without any care, they'd loose a-a-

"YOoou can't!" Her wild eyes dart from him to her stuck claw now, trying to coax it free as quickly as possibly while also not taking her eyes off him for too long. It feels like their tongue as grown a mind of its own, given life possibly by the adrenaline pulsing through their veins.

"Soot will box your ears!" They visibly falter as the words burst out next, unbidden, and then she swallows at how they echo across the empty, snowy field; nonetheless, she forces herself to tact on: "W-we're cl-close! An-an' she's in the C-Cabin Sect too!"

Still jittery, they tense their frame for good measure - they might have do something... similarly violent as his threats if he keeps coming.

"I'm not even a cl-clan cat anymore - anyway!"

Shut up! Shut. Up.

Her knee-jerk reaction, as the tom moved closer after pausing, was the lash out with a back leg - perhaps she could have caught him in the face, knocked him off the fence?

As he swore, her hind leg jolted; it was only his comment on their "luck" that kept them from clocking him as he closed the distance between them. The last thing the red tabby wanted to do was give him an actual reason to hurt her.

Their bright fur stood on end and, when she leaned back, it was more of a still addle-brained, fear-fueled reaction to his proximity than any true obedience to the blue tom's orders; the spotted tabby's frame shuttered violently as he stuffed his paw under hers and, between his assistance and their still frantic pulling, she came free--

And almost promptly fell off the fence altogether. Thankfully, their other claws, still embedded, kept them from that embarrassing blunder.

Heart still fluttering about like it was trying to escape her chest, she shimmied around the fence post to perch on the actual railing; pointedly, she put the post between the two of him, leaving him on one side on a rail and themself on the other.

Their pawpad still tingled from that brief moment of fur to flesh contact and the way just recalling the physical touch of his help made them both want to both run and linger. Stars above, it made their fur crawl and they couldn't decide if it was pleasant or not... Even living in a clan, close quarters did not always mean close contact - or so Ant had learned - especially when few cats liked you; and even after so many moons of Soot reintroducing more tactile affections to the runty tabby's life, Ant still wasn't used to others touching them.

She lifted the paw and rubbed it against her chest nervously, cringing at his question - they just had to run their big, fat mouth, didn't they?

"The, the one nearby?" They winced, lashing swaying uneasily; it wasn't necessarily a lie, Ridgeclan was technically nearby, but it was obvious too that was not the whole truth either.

He's bluffing. They know he is; they saw how the mention of their friend gave him pause. Besides, Soot might be a faithful follower of Foxglove, but she wouldn't do anything to put Ant in danger...

Right? ...right.

Still, the notion of this tom coming back and purposefully looking for her makes her visibly flinch; another round of this? No thank you.

Ridgeclan had never done her any favors in life - even by association, that lot up the mountain slope had damned her. Why else would this be happening, if not for the fact she'd lived there? Never mind the 19 moons she'd suffered or the fact she wasn't even clan-kin, no, the only thing that mattered was her presence in their history; the knowledge reopened some old, unnamed injury deep in her soul, the kind that makes a cat angry in a defeatist kind of way: too tired to do anything about it but hurt nonetheless.

She should be eager to spill, shouldn't she? To strike back in some little way...

But Ant is nothing if not a coward; what if it came back on them, that angry clan cats found out they'd opened their mouth and helped an openly anti-clan group like the Cabin Sect?

No, the red spotted tabby shook her head, no, they couldn't. Wouldn't.

The blue rogue chuckled, laughing to himself as he got comfortable with the kind of self-assurance that caused a stone of dread plopped into her belly, the kind is proud to have cornered her and knows she has no where to go. And, ancestors, tey needed to go: to leave, and find some hay bales to hide in and never, ever come out; not the clans, not the Cabin Sect, and not their inner demons. They felt the stirrings in their frame - because, though Soot didn't believe them, running wasn't so hard once someone started...

"I left-left that behind me..." She's quivering now, grinding her paws deeper into the snow to hide how her claws peaked free, "The name, the, them, all of it." Didn't that count for something?

Why must the past always haunt them?

With a speed of cats with proper combat training, she struck out - and missed, only to purposefully fling snow into the tom's face. In the next heartbeat and half, the runty red pelt was streaking across the ground, headed straight for the barn.