The rats that had taken up residence within Palmclan's territory were more than just a minor annoyance. Even after the group had managed to drive the rats out of their main camp, the brutal little creatures had remained, lingering around the territory. It was awful, especially as they were trying their best to just rebuild the camp after the rather sudden "attack" by the mischief of rats. It was difficult to properly rebuild, when your prey was constantly getting run off by rats, or they were occasionally coming back just to destroy things that the group was working hard on. So, Rhine had decided to take it upon himself to do a bit of hunting. He didn't actually want to eat any of the rats, since he was sure they would taste awful, and were carrying all sorts of strange diseases. No, instead, he just wanted to hunt them to make sure that they were gone, and that Palmclan could live in peace for a while. Or, at least, as peaceful as their group usually got. Which used to he quite a bit, but it really seemed as though the world was against them lately. Rhinestone's thoughts occasionally lingered on where the hell all of the rats had even come from, but that was a question for another day.

Today, the task at hand was rat hunting, and things had been going pretty damn well. Rhine had managed to take down around five rats already, and had begun to bury them all in one place, just so that they wouldn't be stinking things up. Maybe they could be added in with the crowfood for making fertilizer... that seemed like the best thing for them to do with the rats, honestly. The rusty red tom's thoughts had been drifting slightly as he brought his claws down upon a rat he had spotted near the cliffs. Unfortunately, the leader being more in his more head, rather than in the moment, proved to be a problem. Mainly because he hadn't been focused on something very important – his surroundings. As a result, he hadn't noticed one of the cliff snakes slithering towards him, the reptile having been hunting the rat he currently had pinned beneath his paw. Rhine had lowered his head to try and clamp his jaws on the rat he had pinned, but he was stopped by the snake's jaws coming down upon his shoulder, causing him to let out a yowl. Instantly, he was pulled from his thoughts, a harsh hiss leaving him as he let the rat go, refocusing his attention on the snake currently biting him.

Thankfully, it didn't take too much effort for Rhine to remove the snake from himself. He let out a hiss of pain as he reached one of his paws up, digging his claws into the reptile and ripping it from his shoulder. He let out a yowl of pain when the teeth released, but he didn't hesitate in lunging forward afterwards, crunching his fangs down upon the snake until it stopped moving. Once the snake was dead, the leader let out a quiet sigh of relief, sitting back and studying the new wound in his shoulder. It was deep, and bleeding, and every movement of his leg caused it to throb in pain. He muttered lowly, his ears pinning down against his head, "Damn it... stupid rats..." He knew it would be in his best interest to go and find Featherear, but his shoulder was hurting so much that he just sat there, needing to take a minute.

( for anybody who wants to try and treat rhine's bite: the snake wasn't poisonous, but the bite is very deep and bleeding heavily, and has a high risk of infection )

RHINESTONESTAR - PALMCLAN - PENNED BY STILLY