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There was not a cloud in the sky. The cats below her gathered anxiously. Typically, NightClan would be forming a patrol for the gathering, but there was something... off. The cenote appeared... decorated? Stones were carefully placed throughout, flowers were strewn down the center of the clearing. The leader was no where to be seen. The cats nervously spoke between themselves. Was this going to confirm their suspicions, that Aspenstar had gone off the deep end. Any cat that had been worried when Larkspur disappeared should be terrified by this point. After the leader had returned from SummerClan, her eyes burned with nothing more than hate. Few cats had seen her over the last few days; she'd spent most of her time alone, leaving her den only to disappear into the night. Any cat who tried to ask her what was wrong was met with her silence. She had changed.
Just as anxiety started to pitch, a noise came from the entrance of the clearing. Silence befell the clan as the leader made her way into the clearing. Her normally fawn colored fur was meticulously striped with black. There was a certain ominousness to this, one that was only amplified by the slow, ritualistic gait that she took as she parted the crowds. There was no emotion in her eyes as she made her way to her perch, leaping up. Only then did she look at any other NightClan cat, after she turned and cleared her voice.
A smile crept on her face, one that was... wrong. A different kind of wrong than her smiles had been before. It was a strange mix of overjoyed and thirsty for blood, met by an unapologetically crazed look in her eye. "Good evening, NightClan," she meowed, her voice devoid of the normal affection it carried when she spoke to her underlings. Any affection had been drained from her the day that her group had failed her, fallen from her graces. "As you might have guessed, I have something a little... different planned for us tonight." The bell of her laughter chimed, before she let out a sigh. Her tail wrapped around her stomach instincively, and for a moment, a pang of something else flashed in her gaze. There was no reason to protect her stomach anymore. Stormreign had ensured that.
"Tonight, I wanted to gather you all here instead of going to that pesky gathering. You see, we have a lot to take care of tonight, things that the other clans just won't understand. It is better for us to just gather by ourselves." Her whiskers twitched, before she notioned them all to sit. Tonight, we will remember the cause, consider all that was lost, and then we have a special guest coming in before we are able to celebrate justice together." Her claws unsheathed beneath her. She was excited for that part; she could barely wait for the pomp and circumstance to get to the main event. Watching Stormreign's life drain out of him would be the most satisfying. But, alas, good things came to those who were willing to wait.
"But first, I'd like to open the floor to reflection. What weaknesses must we turn into strengths?"
Sagebristle was... concerned about Aspenstar. Ever since they'd lost control of Summerclan, she'd seemed different. It wasn't her place to question her though- not as a Loyal Guard Member. So she kept her place among the crowd and kept her chin lifted high, though her honey-colored gaze darted occasionally in Moonblight's direction, wondering how he felt about the energy shift.
She wasn't about to be the first to answer, though. It was strange enough that they weren't going to the gathering, but she couldn't get a read on what Aspenstar wanted to do here, what information she wanted cats to volunteer. So Sagebristle stayed silent.
“Ooh, ooh, I know!” A voice at the back of the crowd piped up. Kier had slipped into the cenote and was sitting, perfectly at home, behind the NightClan cats. Though he was, for all intents and purposes, an unwelcome trespasser, it was clear from the tranquility he held in Aspenstar’s presence, like they were in on a joke all these dim-witted, inferior little cats weren’t, that he was not only allowed, but privileged. And what a wonderful feeling that was. “Your utter inability to follow and carry out orders with any semblance of competency,” he continued, standing and winding his way through the crowd toward the front as he criticised the NightClan cats, cheerful and at ease as he lavished smiles this way and that; as always, he’d done his homework, “your blind devotion not to your anointed leader but to some vague concept of ’good’, the failure of the one thing that makes you in any way unique — your partner training — when it actually counted and could have helped…”
He stopped and turned, sitting neatly beneath Aspenstar’s perch and tilting his head to the crowd of NightClan cats with a smile. “Frankly, I’m amazed any of you can sit here in front of her without being completely — humiliated.” The last word was said over a nasty, faux-disbelieving laugh, like they were indeed braver than he, this unnamed stranger in their home, was. His presence alone, unexplained to the Clan, was an ominous question, an unnerving prologue to a new, dark play they would find themselves in when the curtain went up.
Post by achromatic on Dec 21, 2021 11:17:03 GMT -5
The youngest of the loyal guards often kept his mouth shut in any situations like this, and he was definitely a 'improvise, adapt, overcome' kind of cat, but even he had moments of clarity and bravery. Of course, he knew Aspenstar would be furious at what happened in SummerClan, and of course, part of it was his fault too in some twisted sense. The discovery, that his sister was well and alive and living in SummerClan all this time had made him...uncomfortable to say the least. He didn't know how he'd go crawling back there to confront all of this but he needed that closure, and the gathering should've given him that except now they were all here, sitting around listening to this...
Who was this cat anyway?
"He doesn't even go here!" he shouted from the back, before ducking under. What the hell was going on in NightClan these days, and what in the world were the rest of the guard doing, letting this cat speak, letting him stand in the middle of the cenote like this? He turned to Sagebristle in a confused look; should they be tackling the intruder?
He had not been allowed to leave NightClan, and so his knowledge of what happened in SummerClan was quite limited. Dawnbringer rarely spoke to others either, and rumors were never the most trustworthy source. Of course, he could listen to rumors and attempt to pick out the fact from fiction, but he quite frankly just didn't care enough to. Plus, for his own sake, he tried to limit his involvement when it came to Aspenstar as much as the Loyal Guard member could. He was on thin ice around her, and he knew it, despite never having done or said anything to make her doubt his loyalty. He had long since perfected the mask that covered his anger, but he doubted that she didn't know. Still, his loyalty would always be with NightClan.
The brown tabby sat silently, never having been one to talk first - or much at all, really. Especially in situations like this. But then the strange outsider spoke up, and Dawnbringer's vibrant green eyes shot to him, narrowed with distrust. He may not have known what was going on - another thing that he masked - but he knew enough to decide that he certainly wasn't going to like it. The fact that this stranger was so at home here, that he seemed to know exactly what had happened, and that Aspenstar had not already done something about it, could only mean that, whoever this cat was, he was here with the leader's blessing, and that was very unsettling.
Snowblister had not been too concerned about Aspenstar, though she wasn’t the biggest fan of the disorder that her distance had caused within Nightclan. She tried to go about her regular day, but the anxiety had made her usually cheerful face falter. Her respect for her leader was backhanded, she though of her as twisted, an evil that had to be eradicated, a stain on Nightclan’s name, but she admired her in the same breath.
When Aspenstar appeared, Snowblister’s eyes didn’t leave her, and there was an indistinguishable look inside of them. She went to speak up, explain in depth how Nightclan can be better, yet a different voice beat her to it. She swivelled to look at him, eyes expecting anything but a little cat who looked like he had only just stumbled out of the nursery, but her ears twitched with interest.
He doesn't even go here! She hardly gave the tom a glance, eyes still fixated on the intruder. “Well,” she cleared her throat, trying to turn the attention to herself, “I think he has a point. The input of an intruder could be quite useful now — especially because it was some of our own who had failed us.” She craned her neck, gave a small, crooked grin at Aspenstar.
If you want to shine like the sun, first you must burn like the sun ~ SunClan High Priestess
6,904 posts
Post by racer on Dec 21, 2021 21:27:31 GMT -5
Turbulentsea sat off on his own, he wasn't quite sure where all this was headed but he was sure that it wasn't good. One ear flicked backwards, yellow eyes simply watching the proceedings. It was the full moon, they should be at the gathering. Even if StarClan didn't care, the other clans would. It was just an invitation for trouble, but perhaps that is exactly what Aspenstar was looking for here. It just didn't seem like the wisest choice in her.... condition.
“Thank you, Snowblister,” Kier purred, leaning forward slightly to hold her gaze; he’d studied all their names before arriving, and unlike the other League cats he had no condescending distaste for their two-part names. He ignored Moonblight’s interjection; he remembered him from when he’d watched the stand-off between Aspenstar and Regulus’ patrol, remembered the way Laertes’ father had seemed so thrown off by him, but so far he hadn’t been able to find out why.
So, instead, his eyes just flicked briefly up from Snowblister to Moonblight half-lost in the crowd, his gaze and expression uncharacteristically serious, before blinking and sweeping his attention across the crowd and back up to the leader behind him, the smile back on his face. Despite Moonblight being either a little older than him or the same age, he considered himself far older and wiser; the other tom was just an idiotic pretty boy who danced to Aspenstar’s tune, and soon, if all went to plan, his as well.
Post by achromatic on Dec 22, 2021 18:08:13 GMT -5
Moonblight wasn't the kind of cat who'd be impulsive, but when it came to defending his girlfriend's honour, he was a little more outspoken than the usual, happy-go-lucky tom who seemed completely unaware of anything going around. As often as he pretended to be rather stupid and daft, ignorant of the social happenings and cues around him. Still, his eyes narrowed at Kier, observing him impassively; he didn't matter at all to the young tom.
"Well I disagree," he spoke, looking towards Snowblister, before glancing at Kier, not long enough for his gaze to linger, "I didn't see you there, a shame really, since you're so confident that you could've single-handedly taken them down, but there was no way we would've won if we didn't see their first move coming." His voice was quiet but it wasn't the tentative, nervous tone that was often last to pipe up in a conversation anymore. There was a hard glint in his eye; the tom had changed since, and maybe the others couldn't see the simmering rage that often threatened to rise in those of their blood. Moonblight rarely spoke out, but when he did, there was a hushed seriousness that seemed antithetical to his character.
"We were outnumbered in their territory because we had the impression that they were weak, and they used that to their advantage," he spoke, matter-of-factly, as if he was almost bored, "they knew the terrain, they knew our impression of them, and they knew we'd be distracted over the fact that their king was practically dead, and that they were a chicken without a head, and so they used what they knew best. They became water; they were formless, shapeless, but that meant wherever we were, they'd disappear and head where we were weakest. They broke us apart pretty easily because we were unprepared. We made it easier for them because we didn't read the arena, and we reacted instead of countered."
He turned to Sagebristle for a brief moment for reassurance, before turning his gaze, finally, to Aspenstar. "Our weakness was that we never took time to know the enemy," he spoke quietly, "we only paid attention to what we thought they were like and therefore when they didn't act like weak, spineless flower-crown making hippies, we were caught off guard."
His eyes turned to Snowblister, his golden eyes boring into the stranger, "Is that enough for you?" Those same, burning eyes turned to Kier, narrowing slightly as if almost pitying the other cat. "I'm amazed you can stand here and completely miss the most obvious fact, but I guess you'd have to be there to know."
He felt no shame for his own failure; despite the meticulous training Aspenstar and Phantomfox had drilled into him, there was a part of him deep inside, that had been glad they had failed, and that his paws weren't stained with the blood of his sister's windpipe, and for right now, that was enough. No punishment would change that for him.
Sagebristle's eyes crinkled in a half smile before returning to her neutral expression. Her mate had taken the words right out of her mouth- if it had been anyone else, she'd have been annoyed, but she was fiercely proud of Moonblight for cutting straight to the point.
"Moonblight's right." The small, wiry russet tabby stepped forward, her unfriendly honey gaze sweeping the crowd. Everything was in flux as of late, but she still retained her position- for the time being- of second-in-command of the Loyal Guard. Even if that came with stipulations, she refused to be lectured by this unfamiliar cat and she kept that icy pride in her voice.
"We underestimated our opponent, plain and simple. As a result, we sent too few soldiers and were too lax with our restrictions. We got lazy. That's obvious. What isn't obvious," she added, zeroing in on Kier, "is why we're being lectured by a skeletal bat that wasn't there when any of this went down. Who are you? Actually, to be clear, I don't care about that- who do you think you are, and what gives you the right to waltz in and pass judgment on anything we do?"
As Moonblight and Sagebristle had their very impressive moment of rhetorical skill, Kier just kept smiling, like an adult humouring squabbling brats. He looked perfectly, eerily calm, unbothered and faintly amused, despite the fiery annoyance burning in his chest. Those two would be the first he’d have to break the spirits of when everything came together, or else they’d have to go. Certainly they’d be of no use to Aspenstar, just two failed experiments in devotion.
Truthfully, he had no interest in responding; Sagebristle’s insults were embarrassingly run of the mill and Moonblight’s bored arrogance was enough to embarrass himself without Kier’s help. But if he were to prove himself to Aspenstar, he had to assert some level of dominance over the Clan. He could be fawning and flattering to her, but to her Clan there had to be some measure of brutality; it was why she’d sought him out.
“Well, I can see why you lost,” he replied at last, still smiling and not raising his voice. “There’s no healthy dose of fear. You think you can say what you like and get away with it.” That will be the first thing to change in this new order, was the unspoken ending. Now, as he leaned forward slightly, the smile faded and his reproach became more serious. “Your leader has called a meeting and instead of showing her the deferential respect that she is owed, you sit here showing off your strategic expertise that would have been so nice to have had when it actually mattered, preening for your mate, and throwing around tired old insults. Well done. You’ve proven my point. You are a disgrace to the Clan that took you in when you were nothing, and rather than admitting to that fact you posture behind self-congratulating arrogance. You are NOT accomplished warriors. You are NOT competent guards. You FAILED. You are children who have failed their leader, and you are children who are CONTINUING to fail their leader by partaking in a pissing contest when you should be shutting your insolent mouths.”
At last his voice rose — but not out of anger, out of complete and utter disapproval. “So why don’t you sit down and listen?”
He sat back, returning the right to speak to Aspenstar.
dm me if you want to listen to me ramble about the interstellar soundtrack
2,314 posts
Post by achromatic on Dec 23, 2021 3:49:56 GMT -5
Moonblight understood a need to keep his cool. In fact, he probably understood that more than anyone. Moons ago he had been chosen for this position for that very fact, that he knew how to keep his cool, he knew how to keep his emotions locked behind multiple doors. He knew how to compartmentalise. Yet right now, that same facade was cracking, showing the face under the mask.
That face was the face of fury.
Still, his lips twisted into a small smile, his disdainful look never changing from his face. Amusing really, that this cat saw an understanding as arrogance. Seems like he wasn’t used to anyone talking back.
“Hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it?” he mused, the arrogance had always been an inherited trait even if Moonblight kept it locked up, deep inside, “it’s easier to see a chess board when all the pieces were played, when you can see where you went wrong. Anyone who’s ever fought a battle should know that; it’s how we learn from our mistakes, isn’t that why Aspenstar called this meeting? For a stranger here to…help,” he lingered on the word for a couple of seconds, “I would’ve assumed you knew better than to make the same mistakes we made in that battle.”
Kier was assuming things. He assumed that no one would’ve fought back. That no one would question him, that they’d just follow blindly without a thought. His ear flicked; if he assumed that he could just take up a spot at the top of the ladder without working for it at all, he’d be wrong. NightClan doesn’t take well to outsiders, Larkspur once told him, other than those who were young enough to be molded by it. He, like many others, were loyal to Aspenstar, not just any brat who tried to kiss ass to the top.
Still, that faint little amused smirk stood on his face as the bat-like cat continued on his bored tirade, and by the end, it just sounded like a kit squeaking loudly trying to be heard. What a stupid cat, Moonblight thought, so many words and not a single point actually made. Kier thought he could force his way here and be entitled to loyalty…well that was never going to happen.
“Are you sure you’re not just projecting? Mr. wander into another clan cos they seem unwanted at home just to say some words and pretend they understand the world? Are you sure you’re not the one who failed at home somehow, because no one gets that angry over something they didn’t participate in, you know” he raised a brow, that playful look Moonblight had no longer held the light in his eyes, just a sense of ‘are we done here?’ He didn’t need to dignify his little rant with an emotional response. Kier wasn’t worth his time. Instead, he moved closer to his mate, tossing a smirk to the kit who seemed to want shoes too big to fill, before turning to Aspenstar with a slightly more apologetic dip of his head.
There was no way he’d ever respect this stranger who came sauntering in; he’d be in hell beating up his dead ancestors before that happened.
There was a roar of laughter that came from the leader, one that eminated from the very core of her. There was a violent craze in her eyes, a clear desire to let her claws grace the pelt of each of them. She shook her head slowly, what a foolish response. We underestimated them. Kier was right, they stood arrogantly with this assertion. It was bold, being that Moonblight and Sagebristle had spent a lot of time in SummerClan. Her guard had known their orders: if there was even a hint that they needed assistance, they were to report back to her. They didn't. Her guard was no different from the others, creatures that had once come so close to perfection, only to flounder. She had told Stormreign that he had been useless, but he hadn't been the only one to fail her. Aspenstar had had so much hope for the group. They had come so close. She had expected too much of them. She had thought that SummerClan had been taken down because the cats around her were as close to divine as she was. In hindsight, she had realized that the only reason it had worked was not that NightClan had overcome them, that NightClan had put fear into SummerClan with the raw display of their might. NightClan really had no part it in it all. SummerClan hadn't been afraid of NightClan; they had been afraid of her. Without her it had fallen apart. She would not have underestimated the group. She would have been able to read the signs, would have kept it locked down, would have spilled blood to remind them that she was in charge. It was foolish to expect that anyone but her would have been able to do this.
"He is angry because it should have been simple." The words were completely devoid of emotion. "It should have been so simple, if any of my warriors had been as dedicated as I thought they were. To stop all of the pointless bickering, I'll tell you all exactly where we went wrong. I expected too much of you all. I expected that you would be able to hold your own without me holding your hand. I thought maybe, just maybe, the power that I displayed in taking SummerClan down was a power that was universally held. I thought you all were gods, able and willing to follow orders until the end, able to see what should have been so clear. You think we didn't send enough warriors? It was your job to tell me that. Never once did I suggest that once we held SummerClan, we should stop fighting, stop training, assume they would stay under us like sheep. The fact that it caught you off guard is disgusting. SummerClan should never have caught NightClan off guard, unless NightClan was not the clan I expected it to be." As she spoke, disappointment rang through her words. She was angry, don't get her wrong, but more than that, she was disappointed.
"Part of the greatness that I thought I saw in all of you is the ability to read the entire chess board. Notice your weaknesses, notice every possibility, and then act accordingly. Call for assistance when necessary. But, perhaps, again, this is where I went wrong. I shouldn't have assumed that you all knew that, that you all were capable of that. I am disheartened to have been wrong. And then, to add insult to my injury, no one thought it was a good idea to tell me immediately. Where were any of you the night of the battle? Why did not a single cat run to NightClan? Only the arrogant or the willing to lose see their inevitable loss and do not seek assistance from the hand that feeds them."
The leader sighed. There was no way her words were going to end well. They would be angry with her, perhaps furious at her implication that they were worth so less than she thought. She knew this, but she was beyond the point of particularly caring if her clan mate's feelings were hurt. Her feelings had been hurt by the ultimate incompetency her underlings had shown. Although it was Stormreign that took her kittens from her, each of the cats that had been there at that battle had a hand in the murder of her kittens. If they had been better, if they had realized they needed help before they did, her children would have been born on the solstice.
She then turned to the cat in the back. "Kier, why don't you join me? It seems that our peers are a little... unnerved by your presence in the back. Perhaps joining me on your rightful perch next to me would soften their hearts."
Kier just dismissed Moonblight with a little, disinterested flick of his paw, turning his head away in pointed tedium - I'm done with you, it said; he was grasping at straws and failing to hit any sort of mark. Maybe when he was younger the jibe about his family would have held some truth, but Kier was not that cat anymore; it was difficult for his father to be disappointed in him when he'd ripped out his throat, and what his mother and siblings did was of little interest to him. It seemed very much to him like he was the one who had succeeded, and what his little country bumpkin family thought of him was irrelevant.
When Aspenstar began to speak, preceded by a mad burst of laughter, it was a tremendous relief; at last, they could get past petty hysterics. As he listened to her, first craning his neck to look up at her with a thin, attentive-eyed smile, and then turning to look out over the crowd as they listened with his gaze more narrowed and the smile more predatory, it was like plunging into a cold river - the relaxation was immediate. More often than not, Kier had to pretend to agree with things he couldn't care about less; but as she spoke, he found himself agreeing utterly and completely. Serving and supporting her wouldn't be such a dreary task after all; they seemed kindred spirits, their ideas of how to run a Clan aligning again and again. Finally, someone who thought sensibly, who spoke decisively, who would meet insubordination with violent discipline. What had started as a fawning lie was, as he sat there, quickly becoming the foundations of a working partnership that couldn't have been more suited to the both of them if they'd tried. Oh, fate worked in funny ways.
When she addressed him, stirring him from his reverie, Kier looked up with a smile. And when she invited him to join her, it was exceedingly difficult to keep the smugness from his face; in fact, he didn't try at all. In that moment, as he picked Sagebristle out in the crowd and gave her a nasty, narrow-eyed smile, he felt untouchable - and he was. "It would be my honour, Aspenstar," he replied with the deepest respect in his voice, scraping his gaze away from the Guard to bow his head to her. Then, turning, he scrabbled up the perch, leaving long talon marks in the stone, and clawed his way up beside Aspenstar. Sitting beside her, he wrapped his tail tidily around his forepaws and looked out over the crowd below with a joyful, glittering-eyed smile, dark and sadistic and pleased beyond anything he'd ever felt before in his life. "It's my dearest hope that from now on, we are going to have a," he tilted his head, eyes slitting up a little more as he addressed NightClan in a clear, warm voice, "deeply fulfilling working relationship together. Things will change, but I know that by the end of it you'll be unceasingly thankful for them." Then, bowing his head to the leader beside him deferentially as he returned the power to her, he murmured, "Aspenstar."
Sitting up again, he fell back to silence with a cheerful smile on his face and a quiet purr in his throat as he looked out over the Clan. They looked so small, so insignificant, from up here. He had to hold back an excited shiver at the thought, focusing on looking harmless and amenable. This was the beginning of great things.
Post by achromatic on Dec 26, 2021 21:25:59 GMT -5
Moonblight had never felt this emotion before, such a dark feeling that twisted inside of the pit of his stomach like a sentient being, growing like a parasite within him with the disgust so powerful it crawled up his throat, making his paws tingle with this immense need to lash out. He never wanted to attack anyone so badly, to see the world burn down in a rain of fire and brimstone as he cackled madly in the background because it served them right. It’d serve them all right.
His claws itched to be around Kier’s throat, suffocating the younger cat and watching the life seep out of him. He never dreamed of wanting to kill anyone so badly but right now, the maelstrom of emotions seemed to whirl inside of him, catching him in the riptide and dragging him out to sea. He was always a cat who compartmentalised and yet right now, he could feel it sweep him up like a hundred meter wave. Defensiveness and rage, fury and anger seemed to radiate from his eyes for a moment like he was a cat on edge, forcing his fur to lie flat and his expression to remain the same as his eyes watched this smug little kit saunter away in Aspenstar’s good graces.
It was like watching a lifetime of loyalty and admiration disappear in a moment.
He had always trusted Aspenstar’s judgment and aimed to please her as much as possible. All the training, all the adoration, did it truly amount to nothing? All he could think of was how stupid it was, to see a snake and consider it a friend. After god created the rattlesnake and the toad and every disgusting beast he sent into the world, the remains of the dark tar, he surely made it into this cat, with a backbone like jelly, a waterlogged brain and a tumour for a heart.
It was the first time he truly felt hatred for another cat, and whether he’d ever admit it to himself, all of this anger and fury was a shield against what he truly felt, a feeling he had avoided for years.
Shame.
He wasn’t embarrassed for what he did that night, saving his sister, but for once he felt like he could no longer be honest to himself. He was a chameleon on the outside but he always knew who he was and yet now…what was he? Who was he to anyone other than a failure to those who saw him, an outsider to this family he had trusted, standing alone in his indignance while the rest remained silent? His own grief after losing his mentor, the confusion of finding his sister, his anger at this new cat and the indignance of anyone who dared to insult his mate… He was embarrassed for the clan he grew up in who took insults as if they were merely sheep, and even more so at himself, for ever believing that he’d be accepted and cared for and fulfilled in this space.
These were emotions he was unfit to handle, and in that moment, something about his expression changed. No longer did he have that thread of desire that motivated him to please everyone for the sake of himself. In that moment, the red string snapped and that unyielding, unquestioning loyalty was gone, replaced only by narrowed eyes and an unreadable expression.
All he knew was self preservation, so he drowned his shame in rage and dressed it in a quiet fury, and buried that part of him, the part that hoped and dreamed and wished his sister well and wanted, no dreamed of acceptance, deep inside the walled city of his heart as he remained still as a rock, already plotting either his escape of this wretched creature’s downfall.
Aspenstar watched the others, a frenzied look in her eye, before letting out a sigh. "I suppose we can get to the main event. We'll discuss changes to NightClan afterwords, but I'm getting a little... antsy." The leader's claws instinctively unsheathed. It wouldn't be long now until she could have her revenge. The revenge was two fold. First, it was a revenge to secure justice for the transgression against NightClan. Stormreign had killed their leader; that was a crime against the whole. The second revenge, though, was more personal. Although she didn't mourn for her kittens, not the way a sane person would, the loss of the one thing she had wanted had filled her with a wrath she had never felt before. His bloodshed would not fix that anger, but it would sooth it, make it manageable.
"Bring him out," she then called into the night, her voice booming. "It is time."
And just like that, the prisoner was lead into the clearing, and a smile twisted across her lips.
Floodfate stared up at Kier in shock — what was a hunter doing at their leader’s shoulder?
He twisted around as the prisoner was led out. Floodfate barely reacted; he didn’t know him well, but there was an uneasy sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Prisoner, murderer, monarch, he bore his titles with a defiantly craned neck and a twisted, shivering, broad grin. The king had all eyes on him and his glory, he may be a prisoner but he has served his role well and he had tasted the leader’s blood on his tongue, and he was going to walk out here with all his pride intact and insist nothing could hurt him. He was above them all, they knew he was worth more than their insanity-stricken leader, really there was sympathy in his intense eyes as he looked at all these poor cats with their wills bent to this tyrant. Sympathy… but fear as well, because marching from a prison to his death in the dark beneath the ground brought back painful memories that he struggled to bear.
“I’m back,” he called lightly to his clan, cocking his head, imbuing his crooked grin with a little more confidence, as if that might shield his fear. “Really, I was as disappointed as you to see Aspenstar get back up after her timely death.”
Near the back of the crowd, a dark form loomed some distance away from the rest of the NightClan cats. After being unable to find Stormstar at the gathering and NightClan mysterious absence, a certain cat had came to investigate. For now not causing trouble, so much as watching like the other shadows cast onto he cenote's walls from the moonlight. The only sign he was there at all, a light glint of blue from the darkness
