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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Surprise flitted through Ratpaw as she spoke to him. Frankly he hadn't expected a word from her, and it pleased him to hear the quiet murmur float his way. His mouth twisted in a wry sadistic smile as he readied his response, slowly inching his face closer to hers as his hot breath hit her. "I've been awaiting this day. Kier is a blessing to NightClan. With him all my ambitions are at my claws..." Ratpaw drifted off for a moment, feeling almost as if he were in a dream; one that he had dreamt many nights, awaiting the opportunity to wear his bestial tendencies like a badge. "The hot, sticky comfort of blood excites me. We are animals, after all. Beasts. Why would it not?"
For that moment, she felt like she could hardly breathe. Pantherpaw stood so motionlessly still. Her green eyes stared forward as she felt the tom brush against her side, his paw coming to give a tap along her belly. His breath was hot in her ear, and she was sure her heart would simply pound out of her chest. Very pretty lies. The hair on her pelt stood on end, and it was hard to hide her body language. Once he pulled away from her suddenly she sucked in sharp breath. She'd thought the moment would be over, and the full attention would note solely be on her, until his arm wrapped around her waist. Her ears flicked back, and then he was gone.
Pantherpaw could feel her paws shaking. The depth of their situation was dire, could mean her life. Her sisters life...her kits.
Her eyes then landed on Duskpaw, the sudden thud making her wince slightly. She straightened herself, so as not to be targeted once more. Pantherpaw had to be strong, quiet, innocent to crimes. She had to live... they all had to... Then Duskpaw nodded. It almost happened in slow motion, and shock shook her body. What had Duskpaw done?
Then, his words came to her ears. So quiet, so soft, almost... Almost like the Kier she had once imagined for such a short time. In a way, she could feel it now. She swallowed, and felt much less afraid. However, she couldn't show too little fear. She'd have to still seem scared, yet...
"Regardless of what my mother has done, I am not like her blood. It may run in my veins, but I control myself. My loyalty is to NightClan, to Kier, Snowblister." She spoke, almost as if repeating a fact. It seemed like she believed her own words.
Her defense was short lived compared to Cascadepaw, basically overshadowing her words entirely. It was almost like, no cat had even heard her. Perhaps it were for the better anyhow, the sister that didn't get seen. It mean at least, that she was not singled out. Cascadepaw was better with acting, better with words. At least, hers was believable. Duskpaw... Her eyes shifted along Kier as he instructed her to sit by Ratpaw.
It may run in my veins, but I control myself. Kier winced imperceptibly at that; it was a poor choice of words, as good as admitting that treason lay dormant. He returned to pacing slowly in the bare centre of the cavern, tail-tip twitching slightly back and forth in tense concentration as he listened. He was unspeakably grateful when she kept her defence short — less room for things to go wrong, and fewer things he had to protect her from. His work was hardly needed after all.
Physically deflating with relief — drunk and dizzy with it — he turned his head to Snowblister with a sluggish, cocky grin. “Well,” he declared cheerily, mightily pleased and eager to wrap things up before Pantherpaw could speak up again and incriminate herself. He was disappointed that the fear, the theatrics, couldn’t be dragged out more, and the sadistic part of him, the part of him willing to dangle Pantherpaw in front of the crowd for entertainment, hoped Snowblister would kick up a fuss. But mostly, he was simply happy to have won. Turning, Kier padded back towards his deputy. “If you have no further questions of the defendants, Snowblister,” he continued, loud enough for all to hear as he hopped up once more beside her, eyes never leaving hers; they held a violent challenge, even as his voice was cheerful and relaxed, “I think we can be in agreement about the verdicts. Pantherpaw and Cascadepaw perfectly innocent — though they will have their work cut out for them to retain that,” his shoulders shook slightly with laughter; then his voice became more brisk, “— and Duskpaw lined up for execution. Yes? Yes.” He sat down beside his lumbering deputy, wriggling for a second to get comfortable, and wrapped his tail around his forepaws. “No reason not to hold the execution right away — Duskpaw, sweetheart, why don’t you go up onto the podium so everyone can have a nice view. Ratpaw,” he nodded to the apprentice with a smile, “you may do the honours.”
He turned back to the accused, looking down at her from his perch; as he continued, he sounded not only bored by having to mention StarClan but slightly rushed, as though he were trying to hurry her execution through official channels before anyone could catch on and question the smokescreen he was throwing up around her sister. Someone had to die to appease the crowd and, by no fault of her own, it would be her. Sweet thing that she was, so young. Such a needless shame, Kier mused, so regrettable, and thought no more of it. Adept at compartmentalisation, he pushed it away and switched off. Such were the guiltless sacrifices of corruption. “Duskpaw, by the powers vested in me by almighty StarClan, you have been found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. May your ancestors have mercy on your soul. Ratpaw—“
(just a quick disclaimer that dusk isn’t actually going to die, so feel free to reply but stop just before the actual kill!)
This was it. The moment he had been waiting for all this time, not just to secure his first kill, but also to prove himself to Kier - that he was the cat for the job. Once more an almost greasy grin made its way onto his face as he followed Duskpaw up onto the podium, taking a moment to look across all the faces in the crowd. Many were looking on with as much eagerness as he felt, accompanied by those who were trying their hardest to conceal their horror at the situation at hand - Ratpaw reveled in it all. It felt as if his whole life had been leading up to this moment. As he followed Kier's words he shoved the she-cat onto the ground and held her there, unsheathing the claws on his right paw in preparation - he supposed a deep gash in her throat would do the job quite nicely. "May your ancestors have mercy on your soul. Ratpaw-" With this he poised his claws at one side of her throat and was seconds away from a swift killing swipe when he was interrupted by...
Duskpaw had bowed her head, eyes trailing the ground and refusing to look towards her executioner, for she was sure she would find a sickening grin. She supposed it was better than all three of them, the resentment not yet rolled in. Shakily, legs threatening to give, she stood and took a shameful step towards the podium, head tilted to blink up at the stone but not meet the eyes of anyone. She went to take another and the crowd blared in her ears.
"Overruled."
The voice was terribly gleeful, yet held an edge of suspicion, and though it wasn't quite a shout, the crowd fell silent regardless. Duskpaw snapped her head up to find the voice, eyes landing on the imposing form of Snowblister, leaning over her seat, eyes boring into Kier. The deputy didn't move, and the apprentice stopped in her tracks. Snowblister hummed, thoughtful, gaze tearing itself away from Kier's face to land on each of the accused, lingering on Pantherpaw. "Sorry, Ratpaw," she addressed the apprentice without looking at him, "you'll have to wait another time."
For a heartbeat, the air was icy, and when she spoke again her words carried an accusation. "You intervened, Kier. That's hardly fair. Obvious bias. . . pandering. . ." She trailed off, the smile fading from her lips. "You asked questions knowing the answer already, and there were no witnesses to dispute or concede. Two spoke honestly," her eyes flicked from Duskpaw on the floor to Cascadepaw on the podium, "the other lied through her teeth." She didn't spare Pantherpaw a glance. "How strange you didn't catch that." Shadows shifted on the edge of her vision. Usually, she wasn't opposed to bias from the judges, but Kier had been so obvious and so aggravating (one could argue it was because it was him, of all cats, and their relationship had never been smooth) that she felt no choice other than to speak up. The way he looked at Pantherpaw, his hatred of Duskpaw, his disregard for Cascadepaw despite her apparent loyalty, her air of superiority. He focused on the two that mattered the least.
"If those two are free, so is Duskpaw." The apprentice visibly relaxed, tension draining from her shoulders, if ever so slight. "But if you want an execution that badly, perhaps all three should go. Same blood, after all, and who's to say they won't try to avenge their fallen sister? Who's to say they won't want revenge?" Snowblister sat back, faint smile returning, letting the cave fall into a roaring silence. Her pale eyes didn't leave Kier's. She couldn't trust him, even with the most basic of things. He had glossed over her the entire trial, using her name for laughs and disregarding her position as deputy — he was undermining her, and it was something she wouldn't allow. She didn't care whether the apprentices lived or died, she would hardly spare them a glance afterwards outside of classes, she didn't feel driven to defend them for any personal reasons. It would bother him. It was petty. She stuck by her decision, daring him to object, to have to explain himself as to why he was so adamant about the conclusion he had put forth.
Kier’s head snapped to Snowblister, his eyes bright with disbelief, with indignation — like an insect had just told him to stop. There was undisguised fury there — which only made him angrier, because she looked so calm and he looked so deranged. As she listed off his violations and misdeeds, his interferences in the trial, he just stared at her with that same unmoving, eerily still anger, unblinking and hateful and refusing to dignify her accusations by breaking his silence. Because he couldn’t; because even as she was speaking, he was quickly piecing together a rebuttal. His fur prickled with heat as she continued, on and on and on, and it might have been called shame, humiliation, because the truth of her words echoed around the cavern for everyone to hear — but it wasn’t. It was hatred so fiery it felt like it was cracking his ribcage open. This was a character trial, he wanted to snap back, we didn’t need witnesses. He wanted to snap, I created the trials — I’m judge, jury and witness — I decide what passes for law. He wanted to snap, wanted to shout and snarl in her face, wanted to parade his anger and turn her words around on her to shield himself and humiliate her until she was ground into the dirt, you’ve forgotten your place — I’m the law here; it is whatever I say it is. But he didn’t; he couldn’t. And when she offered her alternative — the execution of them all — his hesitation, his continued silence, his reluctance, all held out his guilt for all to see. She had cornered him. No answer was a good one. He had never felt hatred for anyone like he felt for Snowblister in that awful moment of extended silence. Never before had he been backed into not knowing what to say; never before had his mind offered situations in which every outcome was bad and he had to swat them desperately away, away, away. He looked corrupt, or he looked weak, or he looked mad. To put the unspoken truth into words — these trials are only a technicality — would be to lose whatever claim to legality he had left; everyone knew, everyone in this cavern knew, and most wouldn’t care — but even them, even the cruel ones, the second Kier’s power faltered for just a single second in the future, they’d leap on that to depose him. She had cornered him into leniency, but it wasn’t about Duskpaw, not for either of them — this was a power contest, and the knowledge sank into the simmering pit in his chest that had been labelled inevitable since the night they made their deal. So it had come at last.
Snowblister had tired of being deputy.
Finally, scraping his eyes away from her, he looked down at Duskpaw. Still he was silent. His eyes didn’t leave her; he just stared. And then, lip twitching up for just a second, he conceded in such a dangerously quiet voice, “Snowblister’s right. I’ve been hasty.”
It was the greatest mistake he had ever made, giving her equal power as co-judge. He hadn’t expected it to ever actually be used — it was a gesture, and he’d thought both of them understood it was in name only. He was the judge. He was the king. But now she’d used it — and he couldn’t stop her.
The knowledge filled him with terrible, seething, frustrated anger, tinged with paranoia, with fear. Suddenly leaping down from his perch beside Snowblister, he raised his voice, stalking back and forth with fiery rage lighting his eyes. “Fine,” he snapped, and now their leader was a petrifying sight to behold, “if we can’t have Duskpaw, we’ll have to make do with someone else.” Stalking over to the crowd, he suddenly ripped free at random a kit-aged apprentice and threw her to the ground before Ratpaw, merciless and terrible in the randomness, the meaninglessness, of the atrocity. It could have been anyone. The appetites of the bloodhounds in the audience had to be satiated somehow, and Kier had to reclaim his inarguable power, his terror. It felt different now — this execution was not a theatrical joy, but an imposition of total tyranny. It was a punishment to Duskpaw as well — she would watch someone else die in her place because she wouldn’t die herself, because it was somehow her fault that his lies had come to light. It was redirected aggression he couldn’t take out on Snowblister — he had been embarrassed, and so someone had to pay because it couldn’t be her. “Ratpaw, have at it,” he ordered the Executioner, voice quick and so murderously, furiously civil, so chivalrously mocking, like all the toms understood a joke at Snowblister's expense; but even that was messed by his anger. “I’m so terribly sorry you’ve been denied the proper assessment you deserved, but we can’t all get what we want. Snowblister’s so intent on being a stickler to the law, on fair practice, so let’s humour her.” He refused to look at her, standing up there so grandly on her perch. Let him vilify her; let the Clan snarl and heckle their fair, noble deputy who’d denied them blood. Kier’s pelt twitching, he stalked around with his head thrust forward and his tail lashing, humiliated and incensed.
The kit-apprentice screamed and wailed on the ground in front of Ratpaw. Kier was deaf to it. He continued to stalk to and fro behind Ratpaw, watching her coldly. Then, suddenly, he made for the podium and ripped Duskpaw down, holding her close to him and forcing her eyes onto the victim lined up for execution. “Watch,” he hissed at her, lips drawn back in a snarl. “You wanted to live — so watch.” He held her closer, giving her a vicious shake to make sure her eyes were open, to make sure they were on the kit dying in her place. His voice sounded like vicious, backhanded congratulations, as hot as blood and cold as blame. “What a pretty thing it is that you’ve gone free.”
Ratpaw's claws had been so close to fulfilling their use when Snowblister's voice came into play. Still his paw lingered there moments longer - the ache of what could have been tingling his paws as his wild gaze turned to the deputy. His rampant thoughts were interrupted by Kier's wild splay of power; it fueled his own crazed anger, once again amped him up and brought him to the cliff of pure sadism. His eyes once more gleamed with pleasure and madness as a new target was thrown onto the playing field. Disappointment ran through his veins that Duskpaw would not be his victim today, but the randomness of this target, the complete surprise of it all, it made it all the more exciting. Perhaps the true reasons behind the clash of power were invisible to him, the tom being completely ignorant to the deeper meanings, only drawn in by his own twisted interests.
Without hesitation Ratpaw instead took his place upon this new victim, not even bothering to give her any final word. His gaze was intentionally set on Duskpaw as he placed his claws in the same place they had been on her throat minutes before. This was better, he had decided that as he saw the look on Duskpaw's face - this was truly the event of the evening. Unable to wait a moment longer, Ratpaw tore his claws across the innocent apprentice's throat, leaving a deep laceration in its wake. Hot blood flowed across his paw and he watched the cat fall to the ground without a second thought. The only emotion that ran through him was pride; proud he had finally achieved the first step of what he dreamt of, proud he was the one that was chosen to carry out such a deed, proud as he finally looked towards Kier, eyes wild and heaving breaths.
Duskpaw hardly risked moving at all, standing there near breathless as the two prattled to each other. The tension was sharp. Snowblister’s right. I’ve been hasty. She stilled at the voice, while up on the podium Snowblister sat back with a tight grin, the expression somewhere between annoyance and cheer. She didn't bat an eye as an apprentice was picked from the crowd, thrown to the floor to be torn about for no reason other than a sick sort of pettiness. Snowblister didn't care about justice. She cared about getting the upper hand. While the deputy settled down, Duskpaw could only watch in horror, lowering to a crouch where she stood, legs feeling more like twigs than flesh and bone. She didn't attempt to fight Kier off of her as he dragged her to watch, could only stand frozen, trying to block it out, to close her eyes, but the shake forced them open. She met Ratpaw's eyes, gold meeting gold.
The apprentice's throat was left a mangled mess, the body twitching briefly before lying still, and the chill of death seemed to fill the room. The crowd grew louder, some amused, some horrified, yet Duskpaw was having trouble hearing them. Her ears rang, her skin crawled, she felt too hot and too cold and like someone had torn out her throat instead of the apprentice's. Breaking out of Kier's grip, she stumbled back, eyes unable to leave the scene before her. Her fault, her fault, her fault, the mantra repeated in her head, louder than the voices around her, inescapable and brutally honest. She backed herself into the podium, finally letting herself slide into a sitting position.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." It was more a whisper than anything, barely audible but holding a desperation, begging to be in the apprentice's place instead. She hadn't been the one to interrupt, she hadn't meant any of it. That could have been her, but she was alive, breathing (hardly, with difficulty), yet it was the least comforting thing in the world. Her claws itched where they gripped the ground, sudden and jarring, making her startle and retract them. The feeling didn't leave. She wanted them out. Despite Duskpaw's obvious distress, her fear, her guilt, there were no tears, no shielding her eyes, nothing more than a few whispered apologies and a couple steps back; it all felt like too much, and so, as long as she was in the trial room, staring down at the still-bleeding corpse of her replacement, she would try to feel nothing at all. Horror was a numb thing, she realized, a dull, aching feeling that made her wonder if she was missing something, if it was just a nightmare, if it was all even real.
Hollowmoon didn't blink when the apprentice was slaughtered. Her expression didn't change as the acrid scent of iron filled the camp and the ground lapped thirstily at the blood it was offered. She knew something dangerous just happened between her leader and her deputy. Something shifted, like a tectonic plate deep in the ground, and she only wondered what the aftershocks would look like for the rest of the clan. If there was even a chance for survival, or if they were dead cats walking.
When the deed was done and the blood was spilled, Hollowmoon turned and left. Keir couldn't fault her for that. She had duties to attend to, and the trial was over. Her cream pelt disappeared behind the crush of bodies surrounding the killing field and using that cover, for that brief, brief period of time while Keir and Snowblister were distracted, she slipped into the apprentice den, glad for once they were all at the faux trial. The den was empty save for the mussed nests the young cats left behind.
Quickly finding Duskpaw's nest by her scent, Hollowmoon carefully rearranged the moss and tucked some of the loose down and feathers found across the den's floor into the she-cat's bed. She knew the apprentice had to be distraught beyond words, though it was only through covert means that Hollowmoon was able to provide any solace at all. Going into Snowblister's den was risky, but Hollowmoon made the snap judgement and followed her nose to the stash of herbs that smelled of peace and calm. She'd been given those same herbs as an apprentice following seeing her first death, and knew their effects in that capacity.
She dipped back into the apprentice den, growing wary that her time was running short, and stashed the fragrant herbs under Duskpaw's nest, hoping they could be there even if she didn't have the luxury of having another cat to help her. Her time was up. She knew it had to be, if it wasn't already. She slipped into the shadows and hastily made her way out of camp, hoping to use the excuse of having gone hunting to divert any suspicion that might fall to her. The air and the space were welcome companions to her as well, and she was grateful to have the night envelop her whole in its great, yawning maw.
BUNNYPAW With a mixture of shock and Adrenalin at the kill, Bunnypaw fell silent as the scene unfolded before him. Snapping back to reality he hopped to his paws and cheered on Ratpaw. A sickening visceral joy at the sight filled him head to toe.
MARINEWISP Watching with pain in her chest, her throat tight, ashamed in herself for being glad it wasn't one of her own being slaughtered. she glanced at each of her kits respectively making sure they where all intact, almost like they where the ones to be next. She felt sickened at her own relief having spotted them each of them, and even more sick when noticing their enthusiasm. Forcing herself to look back at the carnage on display she made note to hold her own silent vigil for the poor cat, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When Duskpaw ripped herself free of him, Kier clawed after her for a second, growling bloody murder and caught up in the furious, blood-scented mania that burned every one of his nerve endings, but finally he let her go, let her ruin herself staring, and turned back to the ruined corpse of the kit-apprentice with the low, dangerous growl still tearing through his throat. The death didn’t pacify him. The blood didn’t appease him. Because it wasn’t Snowblister with her jugular torn open; because that humiliation, that paranoia, still bristled hot in every strand of fur. The cheers and adulation may as well have been silent — Snowblister had ruined the night, soured the proceedings. Now he just wanted them over with. Now, the idiocy of the masses just filled him with contemptuous anger, with rage — now, the crowd dancing at the ends of his puppet strings was a livid sight, because they were so stupid, so eager to please and to survive, and he was so much cleverer. Fight back, he wanted to scream at them till he was hoarse, and he hated them because they didn’t. Because they were weak. Because they let themselves be afraid of his terror, of his wrath; usually it delighted him, filled him with that rush of power, how easily they’d been crushed, how easily they’d bowed, but now he curled his lip in disgust at their moral fragility. A king of sycophants. No one was worthy of him. He hated everyone and everything. When Ratpaw met his gaze with such wild, heaving-lunged hope for praise, Kier looked back with icy disfavour and his lip twitching around a snarl.
“Come,” he snapped to him, and gave no elaboration — he was so violently obsessed with reasserting his will, for showing up Snowblister, that a cat in that moment would have been torn apart for not reading his very mind. When the Executioner was in front of him, his paws still hot with the kit’s blood, Kier growled, “well done, Ratsneer. You’ve earned your warrior name.” It sounded almost mocking, sneering, like it was such a meaningless, girlish thing to want. The very suffix he chose reflected his mood, and once his rage burned away and faded, he’d regret it. Guilt would prickle. Shame, if only because an apprentice so devoted had deserved better, if only because Kier, for the first time, had let his public image slip and lost his temper. For the first time since the glee of his ascension, and since the rage at Kate, he was something other than calm, charming Kier, Kier who was so careful never to alienate anyone of loyal standing, so careful to nurture them. And in an hour, when he was composed again, that would churn his gut. It was the first warrior name he’d ever given, and he would have wanted the momentousness of that occasion to be at any other time than this. The brief ceremony was foul, rushed, dismissive — Kier valued Ratpaw like he valued few other apprentices, and in every other situation Ratpaw knew that, knew that the responsibilities and praise Kier lavished on him spoke of a deep regard. Ratpaw — Ratsneer — deserved better than this contempt. But right now, he couldn’t pretend he was anything other than seething. It was that sharp, impossible-to-predict juxtaposition between tender, gentle praise and snapping dismissal that had made more than one young cat desperate — insane — for Kier’s approval. The spitting displeasure stung because they never knew why it had suddenly appeared or what they had done.
Sweeping away without any mention of StarClan or any befitting intimate moment between leader and newly named warrior, Kier found Snowblister upon her perch and swept back into a mocking, exaggerated bow. “My Liege,” he greeted her, venom dripping from his tongue. It was little more than a hiss. Straightening in just as fluid a motion, he brushed roughly past the newly-named Ratsneer without a glance, stepped over the kit’s still-bleeding corpse and stalked out of the trial room. No look to Pantherpaw, like he had forgotten her, forgotten the chivalry he'd been such a she-cat to let blind him. Eris was the only one worthy; he just wanted to let her groom him till he stopped pacing, till he stopped snarling and spitting, till he stopped shaking, till the mania cleared and his pelt stopped burning with hate. “Court adjourned,” he snapped without looking back, his voice echoing down the tunnel from where he’d already disappeared from sight. “Back to your pathetic duties.”
The first of the cracks between leader and deputy had started to form.
