Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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Faith ♡ (this is the world's longest starter so no pressure to match the length ♡♡)
It had been two days since Eshek had gasped alive in that cold, misty marshland. Mist had hung over the thick clumps of swamp grass. Chilly water had seeped into her fur, leaving one half of her body cold and wet. Pine trees had ringed the vast expanse of flat, boggy marsh, black against the heavy grey sky, and everywhere it was empty. So empty...
It had been two days since her breath had fogged in the still, silent dusk. Two days since she'd gathered up the courage to look down at her stomach and found it flat.
Two days since her screams had sent crows thrashing into the sky.
Well, two days for her. Two days and two years for everyone else.
At first, on numb, trembling paws, she'd staggered out of the dark marsh in the vague direction of the League. Her head had been quiet. Cold. It was a rare thing for Eshek - to be silent, to be still. Her jaw had been set in a heartbreaking show of stubbornness, her eyes squeezing constantly to blink away panicked tears; she'd had to stop constantly to swipe a paw over her cheeks, the movements becoming more and more frustrated and violent as the tears kept coming. Ordinarily she was alive in screaming colour, a speakeasy jazz queen of old, too loud and larger-than-life to be quietened by any storm or god. Now, there was only terror coiling tight around her chest, constricting each ragged breath. She knew, but she refused to accept it. She knew, but she didn't want to. Something deep inside her soul whispered 'everything is different, little torturer. Everything is changed.' She closed her ears against it.
She'd get to the mansion and Funk would be there. She'd get home and trot up to her marble suite and collapse on the padded windowsill in the last, pale shafts of sunlight, and someone would come in and say 'why, Eshek, where have you been?', and she'd snap something back with wit and charm and authority, and everything would be as it had been. As it was. As it still was. It had only been a second. Just a single, fleeting second.
And then, she'd passed what should have been WaterClan territory. It was flood-ruined, desolate, grey. No cat had lived there for years. She'd stood there staring for a long time, at the empty wasteland that had been filled with life a day ago. Just stared... Then she'd continued on shaky legs, shaking the truth from her thoughts like blood from her whiskers and stumbling as her paws slipped into old prey warrens. She'd continued on, clamping her jaws shut and humming a cheerful, tearful tune as she went. Her eyes had been wide, hunted, frenzied; she'd tripped and staggered and wept; and all the while she'd hummed, happy and constricted and unhinged. Everything would be fine. Nothing was wrong. She'd get back and there'd be a sun-warmed stone left by a trainee on her bed to warm it, and Innocentia would skip up with a cat's severed hind leg in her mouth to greet her, and Funk would touch his nose to hers and deadpan some stupid quip, and everything would be normal.
It was a sound to break your heart.
Eventually, she'd come to the mansion. Silent. Broken. Empty. She'd wandered the desolate halls; the kitchen with grass sprouting through the cracked tiles; the great, echoing ballroom with its mirrors reflecting her single, lonely form to infinity. Sat on the windowsill of the Nemesis' room, with Funk's scent all but faded. Nosed open the door to her old room and gazed about in numb, blank silence. Voices echoed around her; she turned in slow circles, listening. The cavalry has arrived! Cutest little bunches of insanity we are. You know me, darlin'. I ain't giving up on this just 'cause you stop me once. She drew a velvet pillow to her and clutched it to her muzzle, closing her eyes and breathing in the lingering scents of Funk and Lorah and herself. She'd stood in the entry hall, a tiny, pale shape in the vast silence, and stared up at the hole in the ceiling. The chandelier was smashed on the floorboards beneath her paws. She'd stepped over the broken glass and walked silently from the old, empty house.
Her proxyship was gone. Her kits were gone. Her family - that warm, mismatched little flock she'd cobbled together out of nothing; they were gone. Her place in the world was gone. Funk was gone - she was certain about that in a way she wouldn't survive thinking about now, in a way she knew to be true like some sick, black half-memory lodged in her stomach, like raw grief, like disease. All that love, all that newfound joy at being a mother, at being needed, at belonging... Gone. Gone. Gone. She started screaming, and for a long time she didn't stop. She just sat there in the ruins of her life and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Till her cheek fur was wet with tears and the screams had turned to raw, rasping sobs.
The only things left there for her now were ghosts.
And then, still not having uttered a single word, Eshek had walked. And walked. And walked. She'd walked from the shadows of the only home she'd only known. She'd walked passed the bright, sweet world of SummerClan. She'd walked, without knowing where she was going. She didn't eat. She didn't drink. She wasn't even aware she was breathing. And then, one morning, two days later, she found herself standing blindly outside the golden peace of DayClan, a sun-specked forest stretching out in front of her. The air smelled like sugar and wheat. Despite everything, breathing it in comforted her. Some half-numb memory pushed its way through the haze behind her eyes: a Gathering; the dark warmth of trees hemming her in; Lucistic pinned against a pine trunk. He split his time between here and home. Home. Her eyes squeezed shut. She hissed out a wince, bowing her head and sucking in a shuddering breath past tight-clenched teeth. Her claws sank into the soft earth. That was two years ago. Two years. Lucistic thinks I've been dead all that time, she thought, and the sound of her own voice sent a wave of nausea up her throat.He might be dead. Maybe he finally found someone who wouldn't stop when the torture got good.
Slowly, uncertainly, she sat down. And waited. There was no where else to go. Innocentia, Senescence, Miracle, Lorah - she had no clue where they were now. Without consciously realising it, her paws had carried her to the only place she had left, the only place there was at least the vaguest hope she'd find familiarity and comfort and friendship, the one place which might hold the cat she needed most in that moment if everyone else was dead and gone: Lucistic.
Dark waters engulfed his body, the rising sun above him blurred and swirled, even if its holy light couldn't shed a ray down to him. His back hit the pond floor, for a moment he could pretend there were thorn restraints holding him down by a rock. Instead he would just have to resist the urge to struggle as the air slowly left him. Drowning was the most painful, dangerous too, anything could go wrong, but he lived for that rough punishing pain. Pain was more important, more sought after by him than any affinity he had for air. Of course, he wished to visit his paradise of pain again he would have to resurface. Death would end his heaven of pain on earth so that just couldn't happen to him.
However he hardly had time to wait for the passing moments where his air supply became more ragged, when the darling despair would set in as numb as he was to it. A shadow passed by the pond, moving along its border.
When someone leaves your life suddenly there's always a feeling that you're missing something. You look for it wherever you go, it's in the back of your mind. A hope that no amount of logic could extinguish for as long as that love for the person lasted. So there was something inside of him when he saw that shadow that made his heart stop, a sense of urgency to see, and somehow a knowledge of who it was, no matter the impossibility. The feeling was almost supernatural.
Rising to the water choking Lucistic shook himself off, the shadow gone by then. Trailing after the scent he could already feel a somber emotion moving through him before even understanding what his brain couldn't catch up with.
Eshek was standing there, alive, at least so it seemed. His eyes were already filling up with tears as he smiled at her, "I just want you to know that I'm happy to see you," He said as he met the distance between them, "And-" He stared into her eyes, but now no longer had the hesitance, it really was her, "I've pictured a moment like this almost everyday. I think I might cry, I literally thought this wasn't going to happen, even though I couldn't stop imagining this moment, but it's happening."
On the long walk from the old mansion to DayClan's border, Esh had had a lot of time to think. She'd been mostly in shock, her thoughts swirling indistinguishably through the grey gaze, but one thing had broken past all the others: what would she say to Luc? She knew snippets of his life story - she knew his father had been demonic, knew his mother was an anarchist with a loose relationship to time and ageing and allegiance, knew he likely wouldn't baulk at anything otherworldly or strange; hell, he was otherworldly and strange. Still, she'd worried. Then there'd be her own reaction; she'd imagined she'd be too numb to say much at all, too numb to feel much at all. A simple hey, Luc and that would be that.
How wrong she had been.
The second he appeared, water dripping from his sleek black fur and pooling at his paws in the golden grass, with a tearful smile on his face that was soft enough to make her heart shatter, Eshek was sobbing. She stood listening, a goofy smile quivering on her lips from the combination of grief and joy and relief, brows upturned as her gaze flicked between his eyes, paws kneading anxiously at the ground - like if she didn't touch him soon he'd disappear and she'd be left alone; like if she didn't speak, didn't ask him to stay, he'd vanish into thin air. The second Lucistic stopped talking, she launched herself at him, burying her head under his chin and sobbing into his short, wet fur. "You big idiot," she laughed, sniffling. "As if I came back from the dead just to listen to you get all embarrassing and sentimental."
"Are you kidding me!? Dude I haven't seen you in forever, let me have my moment" Lucistic enthused, his tail was wagging like a dogs as he wiped at his eyes a bit, "I don't even understand it to be honest, but like, hey, that's cool. Like if you're a ghost or maybe a ghoul, I'm all for that ride, let's do this. But um... How are you back? Like I love the mystery and all, but I'm sort of dying to know. Might want to try out the trick sometime for myself."
Esh squeezed one eye shut as Luc’s tail wagging sent water droplets splattering over her, her grin all scrunched up and crooked. Might want to try the trick out sometime for myself. She sat back on her hindlegs, reached up, and pulled Luc down into a headlock with one paw to rub her other roughly between his ears. “What, so I get to finally kill you and make you shut up?” she laughed.
Shoving him away, the frenzied grin at seeing her friend again faded into something slightly more wistful and haunted. “I don’t know,” she replied more quietly, meeting his gaze for a moment, uncertainty and hope and fear traveling between them, before bowing her head. Esh pulled at the grass with her claws. “When I woke up, it felt like I’d only had my eyes closed for a second. Just... a single second. I remembered being—“ Her voice choked; she touched a forepaw to her belly — and then immediately snapped it away, shaking her head and wiping her eyes with a frustrated growl. “I remembered falling from the roof, and then nothing. Next thing I knew I was by myself. I have no idea how long it’s been, but I... I know that Funk’s dead, I know the League has moved or—or been destroyed, whatever, good riddance I guess. I don’t know how it happened, or why I’m back, but,” She looked back up at the black tom, “I’m here. All of me. Not a ghost.” Switching emotions in a heartbeat, she dropped into a crouch, waggling her haunches like a hunter and grinning up at Luc like she was about to attack him. “So sorry to rain on your parade, boyo, but you don’t have a cool ghost friend to brag about you absolute loser.” She reached out and swiped at him with a forepaw, landing a soft blow on the side of his head.
“So, what, you live a normal life now? Here? With ya mama and those kits you were so terrified of being anywhere near? Oh my God,” She hid her face in her paws, her voice muffled, “it’s happened, you’ve gotten boring in your old age.” She fanned her face with a paw like she was trying to stave off disgusted tears.
"Hey, you came back so if you taught it to me then I'd enjoy the final whispers of pain that comes with death and then come back," Lucistic defended quickly, with a laugh, his smirking grin hanging off by the side of his lips. He was practically blushing at the thought that anyone would even say he'd want to die rather than live longer and experience more pain. As if any one pain could be worth death in the face of a lifetime of hurt.
However as his gaze shifted back to Eshek's he almost froze. He had never seen her with an expression of- well actually he had just never seen her look vulnerable for even a moment. Lucistic tracked her paws movement, but almost wished he hadn't, immediately acting like he hadn't paid attention to the way her paw moved over her stomach. Maybe it was wrong, but he had tried his best not to hear any of the details into her death. He knew Funk was devastated, he was pretty certain it had been suicide, but like with all things, when there were kits mentioned he tried to tune it out. But now he was pretty certain she had been pregnant at the time. For a moment he was stiff watching her drop down into a pounce position. For a moment he had his moms instinct to talk about understanding emotions... But he didn't want to push Eshek to do the responsible thing, he just wanted her to be happy. If she wanted to skip the whole in dismay, terrified, and coming to grips with the loss of existence for years then that was fine, he was all for that. This was good too!
"Ohh, you're such a tease today," Lucistic taunted feeling the soft blow hit the side of his head. He smiled lazily at her before shaking his pelt off, intentionally splashing more droplets of water at her, "Oh yeah, super normal. My daughters in charge of keeping peace, such a disappointment to the chaotic life I had hoped for her. She never did stand a chance being raised by her mother. Oh and then speaking of her mother, Gravel got imprisoned by the Regime and then decided that life in prison was better than having Foxstar back as leader with Glowstar. Oh and I'm a servant now, but he's so abusive, he won't hit me, he just gives me half attempts at demeaning me. I've never felt weak in the legs once from his comments, it's awful, truly," He said dramatically with a paw to his forehead. In the back of his head he hoped he had switched back to his normal self as well as she had. But considering he was still thinking about her and that fearful look on her face he clearly was still feeling off his game about Eshek.
"Your mom and Foxstar, huh?" Esh purred, trying to ignore the way Luc's face had fallen. "And here I was thinking murder might get in the way of romance. Love is found in unexpected places, I guess. And, wait - servants? I thought DayClan was all about," her voice took on a posh, stuffy tone; she pulled a face and raised her paw to her eye like she was fixing her monacle, sitting up on her hindlegs, "equality and rights." She snickered, voice returning to normal as she dropped back down to her paws. "Injustice gets us all in the end. It'll get you, too, don't worry - now I'm here, I can make you scream daily." She winked.
Slowly, when the laughter at Luc's antics subsided and her grin faded, all that was left was a thin, fragile smile. Her eyes were the softest they'd ever been, pleading with him more than she could ever bring herself to do out loud. "I'll be ready to talk about it eventually, Luc," she murmured quietly, voice disarmingly sincere. Gentle. Sane. She smiled up at him softly. "Just be patient with me. Right now I just need my best friend. That's still you, right?" Her smile crooked up on one side, eyes glittering faintly.
In that same bubble of sincerity, she looked down, brushing her paw back and forth against the ground. She hadn't though this far ahead, hadn't even really considered what she might do once she got to DayClan and found him. Now, sitting there in front of him, this was the only place she could imagine being. The only place she wanted to be. She was tired, and she was broken, and she wanted somewhere to lay her head where she knew the only cat she truly trusted in all the world would be watching her back. Just until she'd recovered enough. Just until then... "I want to join DayClan," she told him quietly. "But... I'm not ready to face Glowstar and Foxstar. They were Funk's mates and... even if they didn't have a problem with me, I couldn't bear having to dredge up all those feelings every time I saw them. Will you..." She looked up at Luc from where she'd been pawing at the ground, brow furrowed in the most vulnerable display of emotion Esh had ever let herself show. "Will you help make sure they don't find out who I am?"
"Huh," Lucistic asked scratching at the inside of his ear. His green eyes almost glowed at Eshek's comment, "Oh yeah, but I mean, I'd probably propose to Gravel quick as lightning if she had knocked me dead and I came back to life too. I mean the passion someone would have to see right before demise, oooh, makes me shiver thinking how I'll only experience death once. And it could just happen in my sleep, wouldn't that be awful? Missing the best moment of my life and just sleeping through it." he commented with a smirk. He was about to comment further when the words got stuck in his throat, eyes caught on her with a wide eyed stare like he had just come across a intimidating monster. Only in this case it was the sincerity that flew from Eshek's very presence, it was more than he'd ever seen from her. Like all this time he'd been playing in a bed of thorns, wrapped up in all this beautiful pain only to realize that his tormentor wasn't as frightening as her pain, but soft and gentle even. He tried to smile away the bashful feeling overcoming him. Dismiss this side of her with a passing joke. Instead he found himself blushing with a wide smile, "I'll always be your loyal dog and only yours," Lucistic said with a wry smile before giving her an obnoxious slobbery lick across the cheek. Still he couldn't shake off the warmth he felt around the tips of his ears.
He laughed a little, but straightened up at her proposal, "Yes!" He said immediately before even thinking about what that entailed. But hey, that was kind of his whole shtick. If he thought everything through then he wouldn't suffer any beautiful beatings or the perfect punishments leaders, especially like Foxstar loved to come up with. So it just felt like a win win to agree to just about anything if it meant trouble.
Lucistic circled around Eshek once looking her over, "My mom wasn't really around when you were there so she shouldn't know you. Not that I know of and I don't think Foxstar would either. So your look should be alright, maybe we should just lie, claim you came from hmm. Let's say you came from SpringClan, that's a safe bet, far away, DayClan doesn't mix with them, and they have a positive reputation so DayClan wouldn't be too wary of you. Although if we're acting buddy buddy my mom will notice and probably make you a maverick. She just doesn't trust my friends or Senescence's mate. I mean like, sheesh, picky much? I promise my friends won't get blood on DayClan's imported carpeted grass," He laughed before pausing, "Wait, so that means we should probably pick a warrior name for you right?"
Esh pulled a face when Luc licked her face, smile beaming and one eye scrunched up. It was their thing and she’d missed it. “Down, boy,” she murmured while wiping her cheek with the back of her paw, the quip sounding unexpectedly soft and sentimental.
She sat in place as the black tom circled around her, pulling a face - rolling her eyes, smirking, sneering melodramatically - at each of his comments, either in agreement or silent protest, but not interrupting. She followed his movement with her head, only falling still to listen and nod along quietly each time he slipped behind her. “SpringClan?” Esh finally interrupted, her face disgusted. “Could you have picked a less-me Clan if you tried, Luc?” But she reluctantly agreed - his reasoning was sound. She’d just have to try not to gag every time she spoke nostalgically of her charming home. And she’d have to come up with a STORYYYYY - she held back a groan and fought not to slump over with exhaustion and just lie face down in the grass.
“Senescence’s mate?” Eshek echoed excitedly, a big, wide-eyed smile on her face, open-mouthed and surprised and delighted. “Innocentia? Is she here too? Oh my gosh they finally got together! That’s so cute, Tia always had the biggest crush for God knows what reason - no offence,” she added off-handedly, remembering that Senescence was Luc’s sister. And, no, she did understand Tia’s crush - the other she-cat was terrifying and imposing and dangerous and mysterious; if Esh weren’t so frightened of her, she’d probably have the hots too. As it was, she preferred Lucistic - menacing and insane, but in a goofy, puppy dog way, like if he was going to kill you you’d probably get a comedy show beforehand and get so lulled into the laughter you didn’t notice he’d slipped into the shadows and there were now glowing eyes behind you. Murder, but the sort that would make you go ‘oh, you old cad! You got me, good for you!’ She’d never said it and never would, but he’d always had a sort of easy, alluring charisma. So! Two proxies from her heyday - DayClan was becoming a mini-League. She held back some snide joke about Glowstar throwing stones in a glass house - she didn’t know the fully story of Luc’s mother, but an ex-assassin, ex-proxy, widow-of-a-demon-and-a-Nemesis-and-current-wife-of-a-tyrannical-psychopath anarchist turning around and scolding cats for dark behaviour because she didn’t want her pretty little doll’s house full of pretty little cats to be tarnished was pretty funny; or would be, if it weren’t slightly annoying and hypocritical. She snorted at Luc’s joke about the imported carpeted grass, an ugly sort of snort; she was very good at wasting her pretty features.
“Oh, God, Lucistic, not a warrior naaaaame,” she groaned, closing her eyes and throwing her head back into a petulant, bratty tantrum. “Fine,” she said at last, “but you make it up. I’ll probably break some unspoken naming rule and get picked on and then I might cry. And slaughter your mum’s Clan, but mostly cry.”
"Yeah they hooked up," He said with a loose smirk that only a proud brother could carry for his gloomy sister finding love. He was quick to nudge Eshek though when she began to complain about a warrior name, "Oh suck it up, I got a stupid pet name and now you get one too. Now, let me think of something good for you, maybe uh, Smileysunshine, or Unicornrainbows..." He said with a serious expression, that broke into a smile and a bout of laughter, like sunlight breaking through dark clouds.
Regaining his focus he tilted his head back to the sky, blinking twice in thought. His head turned back to Eshek, as though she were more art than beauty. Something not meant to be fawned over, but pondered about. The type of person one could never find absolute understanding of their characteristics, but there were attributes of her to be admired, and details of herself to be explored. Relinquishing a breath he nodded solemnly, like he had solved a mystery that had long gone cold. "I've got it, hold onto your paws because I'm about to knock them off with this one."
"Carriondare."
Lucistic fell into his laughter, his joy always felt like a spiral that started high and slowly descended into longer drawn out fits before fading to an end. He smiled widely at her, "I mean right? Because you're the corpse who dared to live."
A saner cat might have been offended by the name - by Lucistic's casual irreverence for decency or feelings that could be so easily hurt, by having trauma turned into a joke. But Eshek wasn't sane, and though she saw the humour in it, the name didn't feel like a joke to her - it felt beautiful. Defiant. Dangerous. Uncooperative and reckless, like it was spitting in the face of fate itself. It felt like her. Even Lucistic's explanation of it felt good.
She grinned through his burst of laughter, her shoulders shaking with a bit of her own because you couldn't be so close to Luc laughing and not get a bit infected by it, not lap some of it up. But as soon as he was done, she replied, completely heartfelt, "it's perfect." Her big blue eyes had more life in them than they had since she came back. "Carriondare and Leucisticcrow. What a sordid pair." The earnestness of her smile hooked up into a more deadly glittering grin, a she-villain reborn.
