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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Larkspur awoke with a gasp, her shoulders heaving as her breath came heavily. The nightmare she’d just had covered her clan in flames, burning up Aspenstar, Phantomfox, Pinesimmer, along a few others. As much as she despised Pinesimmer, seeing him burst into flame was not something she would’ve ever wished on anyone.
the black she-cat noses Aspenstar, worry in her blue eyes. “aspen, love. Are you awake?” She whispers softly, the feeling in the pit of her stomach full of dread. She couldn’t shake the notion that this nightmare meant something. It felt too real.
"I always am," mused the leader, who had been staring at the walls of the den for most of the day. She'd watched the sun rise, reach its peak, and then start to descend with ambivalence; the passage of time was nothing to her anymore. It, like everything else, was a silly little game. Time marched forward with the same ambivalence that she watched it with. Time didn't care if she couldn't sleep, if her mind was spinning a million miles an hour. Time didn't care, and neither did she.
Sensing Larkspur's discomfort, the leader gingerly wrapped her tail around the other's side. Larkspur was the only feline that still secured Aspen's delicacy. Her affections for her deputy were sweet, a longing remnant of a past that once was. They had met in the twilight of Aspenstar's life; Larkspur was a physical manifestation of the sweet summer song that once was the leader's life. Things had been so much simpler back then, when Larkspur's black furs were first a source of the leader's comfort, back when Aspenstar still felt value in fighting the good fight. Larkspur was the last remaining part of that old her, the one who still saw the good in her. She was the only cat that made a small part of Aspen want to be good. And for a while, their twilight evening had been warm. She had fought tooth and nail to keep the good. But, no matter how hard Aspen fought, she couldn't fight the passage of time. Soon, twilight faded to night. The good in Aspenstar was destroyed, yet she still clung to Larkspur, a memory of what could have been. Larkspur was the last good in her life. Would the metaphoric night that had settled be too cold for her? Aspenstar was unsure.
"What's wrong?" she murmured, her voice soft. "Bad dream?"
She inhales sharply at the touch, at first startling her before comforting. Larkspur allows a moment to pass for her breath to even and slow before she nestled slightly closer to Aspenstar, closing her blue eyes, picking out the dream that had come to her. The deputy shudders as the images pass through her mind again, tongue catching between her teeth. It takes her another long moment to gather her thoughts, her paws tucking uneasily beneath her body.
"Everything was on fire." she begins to explain, her ears drawing tightly against her skull. "Everything in Nightclan. You, Phantomfox. The clan. The camp. I was frozen in place, I couldn't move and I couldn't help. I tried to scream but no sound would come out. I just had to sit and watch everything engulf in flame." She closes her eyes tightly, shaking her head out in attempts to break up the memory. It felt so real, and it was terrifying.
Aspen listened quietly, laying next to her as she spoke. Ah, the nightmares. The leader knew a thing or two about those, at least, she did before she turned away from StarClan. Before that moment, any time the clan was in danger, she would get a nightmare, one that pulled the sleep from her eyes. Now, she didn't dream at all; these days, no dream dared to infiltrate the sleeping mind of the NightClan leader.
"I used to have those," she meowed quietly. "Well, not quite like that, but nightmares all the same." She leaned over to lick her deputy between her ears gently, another surprisingly tender move for the leader. "Are you worried about something when you're awake? Mom always told me that nightmares were projections of the unconscious."
Larkspur was surprised at the affection Aspenstar was showing her, she wasn't usually like this. It made her slightly uneasy, all things considered. She mulls over her thoughts for awhile, unsure of what to say, or really, how to say what she wanted to say.
"I haven't had a dream or nightmare like that before." She expresses, exasperation in her voice. "I don't know why it felt like I could touch the fire. I could feel the smoke in my lungs."
Larkspur winces at Aspenstar's question. She takes a deep breath in preparation. "I'm nervous about being in Summerclan." Larkspur's voice trembles. She was well aware this was opening Pandora's box.
Aspenstar nodded along as she spoke about the nightmare, remembering without fondness the nightmares that used to plague her. She opened her mouth to respond, only to quickly shut it when Larkspur continued. The leader tipped her head to the side, pulling away slightly. It wasn't an... aggressive motion, simply one that expressed she was taken back. As a general rule, cats didn't express concerns to her about her actions. They followed her orders regardless of how they felt about them, and they knew better than to question them to her face. If it had been any other cat, perhaps this disruption would have made her angry. But, instead, confusion welled in her gaze, the product of being challenged for the first time in a long time.
"Oh?" was her first response, although it wasn't an angry oh. The half blind leader let out a sigh. "Why are you nervous?" It was a genuine question, one that she said quietly as her gaze shifted from Larkspur to the den around them. She genuinely wanted to know. Did Larkspur not trust her? That would be ... a problem that would arise. But, that didn't mean the leader didn't want her deputy to make her case. If she was nervous enough to bring it up, surely she had a defense of it, right?
Larkspur, for as neutral as she was on most things, found herself against everything happening. Morally, taking over a clan that had just lost their leader and was down on their luck wasn't correct. The she-cat's downfall would be that she had an extreme moral compass, always deciding if a situation was morally good or corrupt. Maybe she wasn't neutral, per say, but constantly struggling with that inner compass of hers.
"I just." Larkspur sighs, noticing the expressions Aspenstar had. This was starting off better than she thought it would, but she couldn't imagine it going uphill from here. "Are we truly helping do you think? Do they need us?" she was quiet, thoughtful. All the words she said placed blame on no one. She was just throwing questions into the open.
Aspenstar tilted her head slightly at the question, considering it in its entirety. There were so many ways the leader could answer, each avenue with its own risks and benefits. Part of the leader wanted to ask if it mattered if they were helping or not. In her mind, it didn't, because at the end of the day, her goal was never to help SummerClan. It was to ensure that NightClan was seen as a formidable force. The clan had too long been suffocated by the past, a history of divided loyalty, of betrayal, of sitting on the sideline and letting things happen to them. They had been suffocated into almost nothing, stripped of respect as an entity, their power challenged by inaction. Aspenstar was tired of inaction, tired of being seen as less than. This act marked a change in NightClan. No longer were they passive. Instead, they were once again a force to be reckoned with. That had been the goal all along: to bring glory to NightClan, to shed the chains of passivity that had, in her mind, haunted the clan for so long. Why did it matter who got hurt along the way? Why did it matter if they were truly there to help? In her mind, it didn't. With no moral compass of her own, and with no length too great to ensure NightClan's success, she didn't care about the cats that were hurt. They were means to an end, nothing more, nothing less. SummerClan had to die for NightClan to be revived. It was as simple as that.
Yet, the leader knew that was not the path to take with Larkspur. Her dogmatism that NightClan would go down in history as a victor was something she knew would be completely meaningless to her deputy. So, instead of launching into an in depth analysis as to why SummerClan were mere pawns in the game, she let out a faint sigh.
"It is hard to see now, Larkspur, but I promise you that in the long run, we are helping them. They do not see it as helping them. Hell, obviously you don't either. And, if we only look at the moment from the perspective of the present, perhaps we are not." Her tail twitched. "But, at the end of the day, we are doing for SummerClan what no other clan has ever done: we are causing them to sink or swim. SummerClan, like NightClan, has been perceived as weak. Perceived, perhaps, is not the word I'm looking for. SummerClan is weak. They bent to a will that wasn't their own with little push back. They shattered under even the smallest pressure. They were unfit to self-govern; if they were not, their empire would not have fallen in a day. We have made them realize this, and in making them realize this, we have given them a choice: they will either live or die. Accept their fates or use it as a way to strengthen themselves. If they choose the former, then we have given them the help they need to survive a cruel world that does not value their softness. If they choose the latter, they will band together and rise, a phoenix from the ashes. In that, we have provided them with more help than they will ever recognize."
Larkspur flicks an ear back at Aspenstar's explanation, the churning feeling only growing in her stomach. She knew that truly, Aspenstar believed what she was doing was correct, but in Larkspur's mind, there were a million other ways to prove they were strong. "I will continue to put borders down and create the patrols to do so. We must strengthen our bonds here if we're ever to be perceived as strong." The words were said quickly.
"I think Summerclan will surprise us. The bonds created within their borders are stronger than the ones we have." It was true, Nightclan's bonds to one another, besides maybe in the Loyal Guard, were weak. Cats kept to themselves in the clan. Larkspur felt as though they should start at home before taking over another clan.
Aspenstar nodded at her deputy's words. "I'd ask you to do no more," she meowed. There was a slight... terseness to her tone, one that was unlike how she normally responded to Larkspur. It's reasoning was simple: Aspenstar was, albeit implicitly, recognizing that she could not allow Larkspur any closer, not if Aspenstar couldn't trust Larkspur's head to be fully in the game. Was that it? Did Aspenstar really not trust her deputy? It pained her to think about, gnawed at her stomach. She hated to think of herself as a distrustful cat, but the list of those she trusted was growing shorter and shorter by the day.
Aspenstar let out a low warning growl when Larkspur pointed out the weakness of the clan. NightClan was supposed to be a clan who were committed, first and foremost, to each other. Aspenstar was, in her own twisted way. Her dedication to NightClan was the only thing that rivaled the she-cat's dedication to herself. The idea that her clanmates didn't feel the same angered her. If cats didn't fully and devotedly anchor their lives to the cause, to the betterment of their group, what was the point of being a NightClan cat at all? It was this philosophy that tempered Aspenstar's reaction to Larkspur's over all words; they may not agree on what was for the betterment of the group these days, but her deputy was one of the only cats whose dedication to the group matched her own. She let out an apologetic sigh, realizing her growl. Her ear twitched.
"That needs to be addressed. NightClan is supposed to be one," she meowed with a flick of her ear. "How do you propose we strengthen the bonds?"
