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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Kier liked to spend as little time around his only son as possible. He told himself he simply didn't like him, it was as simple as that — a parent didn't need to like a child. He could make sure he had enough to eat, that he had a roof over his head, that he had... playmates, and some sort of maternal figure, even if she was only a rather stern sort of she-cat who had no obvious love for the bastard kits under her care until they were fully weaned. Part of him felt some faint, unpleasant flutter of guilt, some thought that he should have found someone softer for them, someone gentler; the other part brushed that off and snapped at the weaker part of himself and asserted that his kits didn't need love, they needed to be unseen. The knowledge that he was treating his son how Rhiannon had treated him was an uncomfortable one, and it only added to the mire of uncomfortable feelings that surrounded his relationship with Strawkit. With Disappointment. He wanted to love him — or, rather, he didn't want to. And forcing himself not to love the kit was more difficult than anything. Because despite everything, Kier did have a natural paternal care — he wanted to be close to them; he wanted to raise them, to nurture them, to sleep curled around them. There was a part of him, a tremendous part, that wept for him, that smashed itself against the wall Kier had built around himself.
But, with all the emotional repression and the bitterness over his own upbringing, with all the twisted jealousy and the gnawing, silent insecurity that he wouldn't be good at it, with the grief over his and Eris' lost kits and the fear of getting close to these ones, with all the true, real parts of himself, the parts that cried and laughed and glowed warm and so, so young, he hid away behind the masks, he couldn't. The Kier he presented to the world, the Kier who didn't care for his kits, was the most insincere role he'd ever played. On the inside, he longed for them.
But that part would never surface.
It wasn't what he and NightClan needed.
It wasn't what Eris needed.
Padding down the slope into the small stone den Disappointment and his siblings lived in, he didn't acknowledge his son as he turned around and sat beside him, stiff and withdrawn. "I've heard you might have been unwell," he said, and his voice was cold, quiet. He still didn't look at him, just gazed straight ahead with an icy gaze and slow blinks. His tail was wrapped tight and unmoving around his paws, like a tether, or something to separate himself and his son. "There has been greencough in the camp and the medicine cat said you were coughing." He never said Twilightdance's name anymore, not since she failed to save his kits. "If you haven't, I can go."
He was listlessly pushing around a tiny stone, watching it shove through the dirt and then letting it roll back down the small incline without his support. There was something on the repetitive repeat of the motion that was soothing, like a kit kneading at their mothers belly. He had learned it safer to keep his anxious habits as unobtrusive as possible, finding it easier without a need to explain himself to anyone who might think to question him. He worried that as he and his sisters got older there would be more push back; more obnoxious airheads that wished to prove themselves by pitting themselves against the leaders kits. Strawdisappointment had no desire to get caught up in such pointless displays of bluster.
It was as the little pebbled rolled back to his awaiting paw he heard the steps of an approaching cat. His fur rose and he repressed the urge to shiver in nervousness. Only Kier came to their little secluded den, their caretaker had a strict schedule of when she would leave and when she would return; predictable.
His father was the opposite, Straw never knew when he might appear and it churned his gut at times. In the quiet mornings when he could almost relax around his sisters the anxiety of a possible visit from their father would drive him to the dark shadows of the den, just in case. It was easier to hide if one was never spotted in the first place.
Glancing up he peeked towards the approaching figure and realized it was much to late to make a retreat and tightened his muscles to keep himself from fleeing. His breath got stuck in his throat as his father sat besides him and he bit down hard on his tongue, tasting blood, so he wouldn't fidget needlessly. At Kiers words he was automatically preparing to assure him nothing was wrong before he heard the last statement and froze the words before they could escape him.
Regardless of his anxiety around his father, that small part of him that he refused to acknowledge on most days unfurled at the prospect of his fathers company. Just himself and Kier; none of his sisters to draw his eye away. A larger part of himself remembered cold glances and the dismissive actions but it couldn't quite take away the sun from that little flower of hope.
"I had a cough last night." He agreed with a small nod and then feeling foolish with such a meager statement tacked on, "I had no idea there has been greencough in camp... isn't that, well, should there be concern?"
At his son's confirmation, Kier's eyes flicked down to him, though his chin remained impassively raised and his muzzle stayed pointed forward. "I don't see why you ought to know," he replied, but it was more dry than cold. At the kit's comment, like the adults of the Clan were so failing and he alone saw the gravity of the situation, Kier scoffed a nasty little laugh, the corner of his lip twitching, and looked away. Though his son meant nothing by it, it prodded at that twisted, niggling jealousy Kier felt towards him, at that bristling insecurity, like the second he grew up, he would usurp him. Already he thought he knew better; already he was making little suggestions. One day, they would be more than that. No son wanted to live in his father's shadow. "Of course there should be concern," he replied, tight and mocking, like Disappointment was an idiot. Kier stood and padded a little away, his shoulder fur bristling slightly. It had started to do that more and more often. "But there's no reason for you to be. I, like I always do, have it handled." The need to justify himself to his son; he seethed at it.
With his back to him, he tried to calm himself; there was just something about his son that prevented him from being civil with him for more than a minute, something that sent him down paths of anger, self-consciousness, resentment. But he wasn't here for that now. He was going to be civil, was going to get through this gently, he and his son would share a moment of closeness, and then he could go. When Kier turned back to him, it was clear that he was trying to be the bigger person and put on a loving façade; usually he was a superb actor, but, always feeling like his son's gaze was picking him apart, he faltered whenever he was in his presence. The inexplicable anger still radiated off him in waves. Padding around behind him, he sat down in his shadow and, after a moment's unwilling hesitation, bent down and began to groom the kit's head. It was stiff and uncomfortable; Kier was tensed, like he would have rather been anywhere else. His face was set in a slight grimace, but still he persisted. Eventually, he forced himself to soften and the strokes of his tongue grew more languid, more tender, passing over his ears and forehead.
"Next time you feel unwell," he told him, and his low voice was calmer than it had been before, "tell your nursemaid to come to Snowblister or I directly. It wouldn't look good for my own kit to die of some preventable malady." Preventable, like there was some cure reserved for the upper echelon, some cure he was keeping secret from the rest of the Clan. You would never see a Royal or Superior die from illness, suspiciously so, and even if his son was of the lowest class, he was still, however regrettably, his son. And members of the royal family, however removed, couldn't go about dying of common colds.
While Kier tried to smooth his fur and fall back into a fatherly role the illusion had already been shattered, the curtain had been pulled back and allowed Disappointment to see a peak behind it. His muscles had tensed up once again and he felt shuttered, his eyes finding the dirt and rocks by his paws and ants crawling along his skin. He knew they were not truly there but the urge to scratch, to bite, was almost undeniable as the tension grew the longer it took for his father to return to his side. He flinched at the first rasp of the tongue across his head and then had to force himself to still. It seemed his father would graciously ignore it or simply hadn't noticed though as he continued with nary a pause.
He supposed the instructions were supposed to be perceived to come from a place of warmth, of care, but Disappointment only felt like an obligation. Like it was a box Kier was checking of his list, something he was saying to make sure the image of himself and those around him he wanted to portray to the clan stayed stable. Already it felt like a mistake to mention any cough, to have let himself have some hope for this surprise visit. His eyes strayed to the side and he desperately wished someone would come call Kier away or one of his sisters would arrive and sweep his attention away from Disappointment.
There was nothing for him to say to the instructions other than an appeasement, "I'll make sure to do that next time." What more could he say than that. The silence felt extra loud after his own words, spoken towards the dirt, but he knew better than to make the same mistake of trying to break it as he had before. No matter how the temptation to try and make some suggestion reminding Kier that he probably had others things to do tugged at him.
For all his bitter feelings for his son, the hollow silence made his chest ache. Because fundamentally, they were the same. And that was where the tragedy lay: Kier was treating him precisely the way he had been treated as a kit, and so the cycle continued. And yet, even as he thought it, resentment stubbornly scratched out the pity — at least his son had siblings who loved him. At least he had that. Kier had had nothing, and still he'd clawed his way up to a crown, to greatness — by himself. Not by asking for handouts, not by sitting around and feeling so terribly sorry for himself — his son had to learn that. But even that resolve crumbled. He doesn't need to, a quiet voice said. Kier was in power; he was supposed to give his kits more than he had had himself, supposed to give them a better life precisely because his had been so difficult. But how was he supposed to do that? How was he supposed to do that, when the pain of his own childhood, the resentment of it, enveloped him every time he saw one of his kits smiling, every time he saw them laughing? When that dark cloud of jealousy crushed over him? He was just a broken boy inflicting his brokenness on others to make himself feel stronger.
But right then, in a moment of weakness, of clarity, he didn't let the knowledge make him close up, didn't let the guilt turn him to snapping stone. Instead, letting out a breath, so unused to this feeling of opening up, of being gentle, that it felt like his chest was being physically pried open, like he was walking through a resistant mire of molasses, Kier gave Disappointment's fur a last lick and then stepped around to lie down in front of him. Neat and uncomfortable. Tense but trying to force himself not to be. Everything within him, everything violent and stubborn and so afraid of his own feelings, screamed at him to get up and walk out. He was too young; too young to be a father. But he didn't. He stayed there, lying on his stomach, looking into his son's eyes.
"Listen," he began, and his voice was quiet. His whole being screamed and thrashed at the honesty dripping off his tongue. His chest squirmed with the pain of it, the discomfort. He rearranged himself slightly, just to try and alleviate some of it. He didn't know how to speak to kits, beyond a certain softness, and so he didn't try; he just spoke to him like he would have spoken to anyone. But that wasn't precisely true either, was it? Not really. This guilty patience wasn't for anyone else. "My own kithood was..." Kier glanced down to his paws, looking for the word. "Not what it ought to have been. I didn't have a mother, just as you don't." His eyes didn't leave his son's. "And it did terrible things to me. My father, too," he looked down again, but this time it was because his voice failed him, his throat closing up slightly. It didn't show on his face, but he wouldn't risk Disappointment glimpsing something in his eyes. He was silent for a second, collecting himself, and then he looked up again. His voice was more brisk as he jumped over the hurdle of the truth. "My father wasn't what a father should have been. He didn't love me the way I needed to be loved. And I'm... very sorry if you feel like that as well. About me. About yourself. If I've..." He rearranged himself again, heart suddenly thudding from the sick stress of it. His mouth felt dry. He looked away, eager to get this over with; he pushed down the growing surge of anger, of irritated frustration, that threatened to erupt just to disrupt this and protect himself from the depths of these feelings. He finished without looking at his son. "If I've made you feel like that." He cleared his throat and looked down at the ground, brushing his paw against the dust to collect it in a small heap and then flatten it out again. Realising that wasn't very kingly, he forced his paw to still and lie flat. "So," he finished, awkward and tense and ill to his stomach. That was the most awful thing he had ever done. He wanted to run and hide.
[ could be cause i'm listening to really sad music, but I do have tears in my eyes. beautiful character development here. ]
The young kit stared at his father and could find no words, in truth he felt like a butterfly pinned to a board by his fathers gaze. When Kier had laid down in front of him he had expected perhaps another attempt at comfort, at a pitiful conversation that would lead them nowhere and leave Stawkit feeling as bereft and helpless as all interactions with his father left him.
Instead, instead, he had gotten this.
Already the words felt crushing, he felt as if they were not meant to be aired, as if Kier was speaking of the bogeymen that hid in the dark and should never be brought to light lest the sight of them turn you into a monster too. More than that though he felt a spark of anger, of frustrated anguish. How dare his father speak to him like this! How dare he look him in the eye and give his apologies when Starwkit had no choice but to accept them. How dare he justify his own behavior with the faults of another, with those of cats Strawkit had never met and likely never would.
There were horrible creatures roaming Nightclan's caves, horrible monsters that boldly walked among them without an ounce of shame without bothering to don a mask. They wore their wickedness with pride and held their heads high, as Kier lead them too; as Kiers behavior comforted them to. For his father to come to him, to try and connect to him and accept his flaws while still blaming them on others was an insult. As if this would erase the first moons of his life being plagued by anxious flights from shadow to shadow to avoid the others sights. To have started his life feeling like a mistake, like the others biggest regret.
More than all of that though, Stawkit felt gutted by the others sincerity, how did he respond to such open communication. There family did not do this. Stawkit couldn't deal with this. He wanted to scream but more than that he wanted to cry. The smile he gave his father was wobbly and his eyes watery as he did his best to not appear weak in front of this tom who only moments ago scorned him for it and now seemed so ready to forget it. He could not trust it, he knew that Kier would be his regular self in public if only because he couldn't afford not to be. Strawkit had done not much else but watch hidden from others as he was and understood more than most would give him credit for.
"Thank-you for telling me... father." It felt odd, cloying on his tongue to address the tom as such. "I- at-least I have my sisters." The words were choked and he ducked his head in embarrassment flagellating himself for his stupid words. This is why Kier would forget his heartfelt statements in a moment, because he would be reminded what a failure Strawkit was.
