A Thief in Your Midst

[Cloud]

The gray and white Clanner was alert, taking in all the discussion as it came to her old ears. Unfortunately, she did deserve to be punished like some naughty kit. But she could bear it.

However, she took comfort in the fact that Patchfur and Dingypaw were defending her, to an extent. Surely Spiderstripe knew the truth, too. She sighed.

"I don't bite anyone who disagrees, Shortwhisker. I was just pressured, and needed your attention. I am sorry that I bit you, I truly am, and I know I deserve to be punished. But please, why can you not try and look outside your line of vision? Why would it hurt you to at least try and see things from another point of view, just for a little bit? And evil does deserve punishment; but it's not what you think it is. I'm not asking you to change your mind right away; and besides-" Here her voice hardened. "-who was the one who attacked Patchfur when he disagreed with you?"

Then she groaned. That - ...non insult. She would. Not. Insult him. Painstakingly making her voice gentle, she said "I think leaders are more important than just telling cats what to do, Shortwhisker. But it's more complicated than that. And Patchfur and Dingypaw have points. I'll give you a scenario, Shortwhisker: What if you, as a kit, had died simply because more food had gone to leader than you because they're leader, and you'd died? We wouldn't want that.

And yes, he has a point. But I didn't attack him because I disagreed with him; I attacked him, though I didn't want to, to try and get his attention."

Then she turned back to Shortwhisker. "What would I have to do for you to forgive me? Maybe that should be my punishment." She was serious, too. She did not want to hate and be hated by Shortwhisker. She wanted to try and connect with him ,and eventually open his mind, even if Patchfur didn't like him.

[duckyaisha]

"I can see why ya did it- and frankly I don't blame ya- but ya gotta show some self control. I'd expect such a thing from him, maybe, bu' not from you. Yer gonna have to be punished, of course, but it don't need to be too bad. After all, if there ain't no discipline, cats're gonna start running around and killin' each other without a secn'd glance. Some part o'me thinks Dottedfoot's right- yer too narrow-minded, Shorty. How ya ever gonna make friends if yer never gonna try an' see things from a different point of view? You can disagree with someone an' still respect 'em. Like me'n Patchfur here. We don't agree on the subject of a leader, but you don't see us trying to claw each other's eyes out, now do ya? I'm not gonna repeat myself about the worth of a cat's life, you all know my opinion 'bout that already."

Dingypaw felt like she had contributed quite a bit to the conversation. Hopefully the others would realize she was more than just a burden on the Clan that needed to be fed often and didn't give anything back- while she didn't obsess about what others thought, she preferred to be thought highly of in others' minds. Mentally, she compared her speech to the ones the other cats had given. She didn't use very many big words, and probably didn't sound as smart as Woodstripe or Spiderstripe. But what she said made sense, and that was all that mattered.

"Thank you for bringing that up, Dottedfoot," Patchfur meowed, glad that he finally had a chance to throw his own words at Shortwhisker. And they weren't going to be as positive as the ones the other cats had been gently laying at his feet either. Oh, no. That was not his style, especially not when Shortwhisker was involved. "Every time you and I get into an argument, who's the one who starts the physical fighting? You are. And I never complain, not once, even though I can't stand fighting with claws instead of words. You attack me every time I say something you think is out of line, and here you are whining because Dottedfoot bit you when you were the one who wasn't paying attention to her! Hypocrite! When you gush on and on about the many virtues of a leader and naively proclaim that they are more important than kits, you have no idea how much I want to attack you. But I don't, because one, I don't like fighting, and two, I have enough self-control that I don't do such things. If Dottedfoot is to be punished because she bit you, then I believe you should be punished for all the times you attacked me over trivial things as well."

Thinking himself the clear winner of this argument, Patchfur sat down, his triumphant attitude obvious from the way he held his body, keeping his head high and his chest slightly out, though not so puffed up as to look pompous. Casually, he lifted a paw and washed it, showing how confident he was about his victory. It was a little rude, but he could help it when in the presence of Shortwhisker. Tweaking his whiskers was a form of entertainment for the patched tom. He grinned at Dottedfoot as if to say,' "I'm on your side," and tried to imagine how Shortwhisker, who had a brain barely big enough to give him the ability to speak, would come up with a counterargument for that.

[Gosh]

Spiderstripe mentally glared at Patchfur - there was no need to escalate the argument. She cleared her throat and began to speak. "Well, as Dingypaw said, Dottedfoot, it was wrong to bite Shortwhisker, but it is not something that warrants a large punishment at all. Perhaps next time you can just let it slide, whatever 'it' happens to be. That goes for everyone, by the way. Just agree to disagree and take a break from arguing." She looked at Patchfur and added, "There's also no need to restart past arguments."

She thought about replying to some of Shortwhisker's remarks about kits and leaders, but she didn't want to start another argument, and besides, the tom seriously had his head in the sand. Although.. She was leader of the Experiment; maybe he would listen to her. But not right now - he needed to cool off first.

[Ten]

Ignoring everyone else, Shortwhisker nodded the entire time that Spiderstripe was speaking. He was glad to know that he was right about Dottedfoot not being allowed to bite him, and so whatever else they claimed he was wrong about, this proved he knew something. He also nodded at Spiderstripe's ordered break from arguing and, although irritated with them all, disregarded everything the others had said in order to obey her. But since his leader hadn't said anything about there not being any punishment for the elder at all, he piped up, "So how will you punish her?"


ooc| Y'all gave him too much to respond to. x) Can't overload him like that. Try and confront him with the same stuff later in smaller chunks so you don't turn off his brain. His limits are a little frustrating for me at times like this, because I would've loved for him to answer Dottedfoot's question about feeding a leader instead of him, but he can't respond to all these cats ranting at him. He just shuts down.

[Gosh]

"You shouldn't be so eager for her punishment," Spiderstripe meowed gently. "But it's true that there should be no violence between cats at all, so..." Her gaze fell on Dottedfoot. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't really think of a suitable punishment for such a small crime. No one ever focused on things like this in the debates! They asked about the punishment for theft, or murder. No one asked about the small stuff, like the punishment for biting an annoying tom in the leg. She was going to ask for suggestions when she started to wonder if Shortwhisker would think her a weaker leader for not knowing. This was a ridiculous notion; she didn't care how the tom thought about her, she told herself, although she had to concede that if he revered her more, she might be able to.. able to what? Change his opinions? Maybe, but the fact that his opinions might be able to be changed by her just because she was a leader showed that he would probably still have his head in the sand, no matter his actions. So... what, then? She struggled to think of a suitable punishment for Dottedfoot. Perhaps some sort of privilege could be taken away? Well, she couldn't really think of anything that she could take away (other than food, or water, and biting Shortwhisker did not warrant such a thing.) She looked around at the group. Unsure of what to do, she hesitated a moment and then thought, Okay, whatever, I'll just ask for help. She cleared her throat and meowed, "I confess I'm unsure of a suitable punishment for such a small occurrence," making sure to use occurrence instead of crime. "Does anyone have any suggestions?"

[duckyaisha]

Dingypaw didn't really think Dottedfoot deserved punishment. It was Shortwhisker, after all. But allowing cats to get away with minor things like this could soon escalate, and even allowing them to get away with a multitude of minor crimes could lead to a lack of discipline within the experiment. And without discipline, where would they be? Besides, even though a small bite on the leg wasn't serious, it was absolutely necessary to keep the cats of the Experiment on good terms. They were a giant family now, and had to act as such. There would be a learning curve of course, but cats had to learn that violence was unacceptable.

She was interested in seeing how Spiderstripe would assert herself as leader. Would she be stern, but caring, like a mother? That was the best way to go, in Dingypaw's opinion. Spiderstripe had to be authoritative in this, it was essential in earning cats' respect. If she wanted to be a true leader, she had to /lead/, and that meant making her own decisions. The fact that she was now asking for help set off a few alarm calls in the elder's head.

Thinking back to when she was a hotheaded youngster- much like Patchfur, now that she thought about it- she tried to remember what she would've thought about this situation back then. After all, the majority of the experiment cats were young, and she had to try and get into their minds. It was difficult though, since some of them had rocks for brains, Shortwhisker especially. She probably would've thought Spiderstripe was being fair by letting the cats decide instead of her making the decision without any input, but that she was weak and uncertain of her own judgement. So she was doing the right thing in the minds of these cats.

Now for the punishment. What would be a consequence that would hammer the message into her brain that this was not to be done, but wasn't too harsh. Something simple, but effective. Once she focused her thoughts on it, the answer was simple. Removal of food. Having Dottedfoot miss a meal would ensure that she knew better and never bit anyone again (After all, Dingypaw herself knew quite a bit about missing meals, though in her position it was by accident) but it wasn't a ridiculously strict punishment.

"I think Dottedfoot shouldn' be allowed to eat no food 'til dawn t'morrow. That don't seem too harsh to me, I missed plenty o' meals in my lifetime, and I ain't any worse off for it."

[Cloud]

The gray and white elder nodded. Though it would not be very pleasant, there were worse things and she'd gone through it before. "I agree. It's fair yet not too harsh. But I want to know what Shortwhisker thinks." She said, looking at the black and white tom. The fact that he hadn't responded to any of her recent words was strange. Did he have a mental problem that involved being unable to process information when there was a lot being said?

[Ten]

Shortwhisker jumped. She wanted to know what he thought? He looked to Spiderstripe, who had asked for the group's opinion, then to Dingypaw, then to Dottedfoot, who had asked for his opinion, then to the ground. Not feeding her didn't seem like it would do anything, because she was used to no one else providing food for her and what would Spiderstripe do if Dottedfoot rebelled and ate anyway? He glared at Patchfur. That insurrectionist. This was all his fault.

"I-I think... I th-think you should st-stop t-talking to P-Patchfur." Then he added, "...for the rest of the experiment," for he remembered that Spiderstripe's power was limited and he didn't want to seem like he was claiming more authority than Spiderstripe.

[Gosh]

"Dottedfoot missing a meal sounds reasonable," she meowed in response to Dingypaw. Then she processed Shortwhisker's input. "...Wait, what?" Spiderstripe asked, very confused. "Shortwhisker, I'm not sure how not talking to Patchfur would be a real punishment, and I'm also puzzled as to why you would suggest this. Could you please explain?"

[Cloud]

Dottedfoot rolled her eyes. Help. Someone. Anyone. Augh. Trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, she said, "While I'm sure what you say is meant with good intent, I don't think it's the answer. Although..." She said as a thought struck her. Though if she agreed to this it meant a great inconvenience, if she kept her promise Shortwhisker might start to forgive her. And it was only for the Experiment, after all. He had said nothing about after it. She'd just have to do it. Throwing a pleading look at the ginger and white tom, she dipped her head to Shortwhisker and said, "As you wish. I'll agree to it."