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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There was a light breeze through the air, and Kier was sitting at the border. The last time he’d strolled to one like this, it had been to conclude the business dealings with the rogue who’d borne his kits — hardly worth it now. Earlier that night, he’d passed along that border on the way to MoonClan’s, just padded with idle slowness along the boundary, looking out into the stretch of meadowy wilderness between this stretch of pines and the next, all lit up by shadows and silver moonlight, and wondering where the guards he’d left behind might have buried her body. There had been a smile on his face; it really was a lovely night. He’d breathed in the air and felt so happily at peace. He rarely felt like that nowadays.
He was calm as he sat there, healed tail-tip tapping gently, patiently against his forepaws. He could feel his heart, but it wasn’t pounding the way it so often was; he felt at ease. Not precisely because he was waiting for Puzzlemaker; not precisely not because of that. He was just in an uncommonly good mood. He’d lavished love on Eris before he’d come here, told her about the Minister he really had a bit of a passing schoolboy crush on, made sure she was alright for the night and with him going out and leaving her, groomed his fur to shining in their nest with any smoothing help she gave — and now, he was at peace. If peace had a quiet, settled sort of arrogance to it. Others might have found it strange, the openness of their marriage that contrasted so fluidly with the almost obsessive devotion; all Kier knew was that if she had a date — a real date, not this business meeting — with someone else, he’d pamper and preen her just the same beforehand.
Really, any fancy he might have had for the MoonClan leader was as superficial and shallow as whatever fancy Puzzlemaker had for him — it had been a fiery, electric connection, immediate and humourous; he was an ally and a supporter in a time when they were few and far between; he basked in the comfort and praise of that alliance; and he rather liked his blue eyes. It was as simple and frivolous as that. It might last for as long as they were leaders; it might reach its apex and fizzle out, and, ideally, they’d still continue their alliance — their sordid little trade deal — with the same affable mutual understanding, that same twisted reciprocal wavelength. He truthfully wasn’t much interested in anything else happening — the fun appeal of it would fade and grow disinteresting then, done to death. No, he much preferred to keep it platonic. There was a thrill of its own in that. Despite the obvious factor of his size, Kier was never the sort to make himself submissive on the few occasions he’d had some passing interest in another tom; he saw himself and Puzzlemaker as utter equals, unspoken but unshakeably, almost teasingly oppressive in the air around them, and indeed, maybe that was a reason why nothing more might have worked — Kier was unwilling to give up dominance, superiority; so, he imagined, was the Minister. Or maybe that was precisely why something would have been so thrilling. In any case, it hardly mattered. Just this once, he'd deny himself. Really, he was just happy to have something as frivolous as a crush amid all of this. It would end in nothing; it was nothing — there was calm in that.
He tilted his head back up to the stars, breathing in a lungful of warm, musty, pine-summer air and letting it out through his mouth.
To the entire world unacquainted with him of anything outside of his appearance, the large, lumbering figure of the Commissioner must have come accross as imposing, almost menacing. There was a low-lying stalk to his step, his movement seemingly very deliberate as he manuevered through the denseness of pine trees, underbrush, and an audience of casted shadows only broken by glimpses of moonlight. It was what always gave the false sense of something intimidating about the tom; even now, as he was panicking over having to deliver bad news, even now as his hesitant, anxious steps were only bringing him forward out of necessity — if you couldn't read them as the byproduct of an incredibly nervous tom forcing himself to do something he absolutely didn't want to do, it might have come accross as threatening.
But that didn't change the fact he was absolutely terrified of facing Kier, of being the one to give him bad news. When Puzzlemaker had told him he was busy, when he had been the one tasked with politely telling the Nightclan dictator that the Moonclan Minister couldn't talk with him that night, he'd practically wanted to curl up in the corner and hide instead of face the looming reality of having to speak — nevertheless bring bad news — to the tom. Windsweptashes wasn't ignorant to who Kier was; Nightclan had garnered a reputation for its reign of terror long before Moonclan's shift into it's modern state. First it had been the horrific rumors of Aspenstar and the murmuring fears of her activity, and now, it seemed, Nightclan's bloody terror had continued on with Kier at the helm; with even worse atrocities, if gossip was to be believed. Not, of course, that Windsweptashes was one for villianizing anyone just from idle rumors, but the sheer amount of talk was only aided in souring his opinion by the fact that the tom could remember tales of Nightclan being a menace as long back as his kithood, and the fact that it was a league tom at the helm seemed to lend credence to the thought that he...
No, but that was unfair. Even now — even as he felt creeping dread at the fact he could spy the Nightclan leader through the gaps in-betwen pines and shrubbery — he equally found himself chastizing the fact he would even think such things without ever even talking to him. What did being a league cat really say about him? His sister was a league cat, and she was perfectly kind, perfectly humane and reasonable, and nothing would ever convince him otherwise. And certainly Puzzlemaker wouldn't have made such eager dealing with a cat he thought was a monster; he knew for fact his uncle was better than that. Perhaps, just perhaps, Kier had been horribly mischaracterized, perhaps he had just inhereted a legacy of bloodshed that was terribly hard to change. It was wrong to make assumptions, it was wrong to already picture the tom ahead of him as some sort of twisted, harbringer of evil. Besides, he could make calls on character soon enough without basing them on whispers exchanged behind the backs and far away from anyone who could correct them. He had to talk with him after all, even if it was only for a short moment, that would be better for taking notes of who he was as a person than a life-time of second hand tales and spun-stories. It was some bare minimum assurance as Windsweptashes finally neared a reasonable distance to the Nightclan leader, near enough that if he hadn't seen him coming before, he would have then, and he gave a small flick of his tail in the most warm, disarming greeting he could muster.
He stopped, a slightly more than comfortable distance away, giving a small dip of his head as if layering on the extra polite gesture might save him from any unfortunate negative reaction would come from this bad news, forcing a cordial smile on his face as he did so that looked as shaky as he did. It was about at that moment the tom realized he had not planned anything to say at all, hadn't practiced a thousand times over like he usually did on the walk over just so he wouldn't mess it up, and he felt a wave of panic tear trough him that he barely managed to swallow down in time to not leave a completely awkward and uncomfortable silence. "Ehm, hello. I'm Windsweptashes, Moonclan's Commissioner." It felt like the easisest place to start, the smartest place. At least it would tell the Nightclan leader he was talking with someone of authority. "I'm terribly sorry to have to give you this news, but unfortunately Puzzlemaker won't be able to speak with you tonight. He's been very busy lately, I apologize."
There. It was out. He did it. And now all he wanted to do was turn and run back to the Manor, back to Puzzlemaker, tell him that he had done what he asked, and then curl in his nest and worry about how somehow, some way, after saying the briefest formal apology of all time, he had messed it up. But he didn't, he couldn't and wouldn't — he was sure scattering back home without letting Kier get a word in edgewise would be even more embaressing than if he had just stayed put anyways — and so instead he just waited there, his eyes flickering awkwardly to some meager attempt at eye contact and then back to his paws again as he silently prayed that the Nightclan leader would just say it was fine and dismiss him without a second thought, and this entire awkward encounter would be over.
When a twig snapped, Kier lowered his head from where he’d been looking up at the stars and turned it to the side, watching the approaching tom with no reaction. His size, his burliness, didn’t provoke any sort of fear; if Kier were afraid of every tom — every she-cat — larger than himself, he would never stop being afraid. When the Commissioner sat, when he spoke, when he introduced himself and delivered his news, Kier still gave no response. No reply. He just stayed calmly silent, gazing at him — and the gaze was unsettling. His eyes didn’t leave Windsweptashes’, not for a moment, not even when the Commissioner’s left his; he didn’t blink; he just stared, with such uncomprehending calmness that, after the silence stretched and stretched, it was almost like he couldn’t speak at all. Like he didn’t speak the same language.
And then, finally, he spoke. “You’re really very large. So large you should be in a—“ He waved his forepaw at him, twirling it in the air as he looked up at him, leaning back with an over-exaggeration intended to wound and humiliate. “In a freak show, you know. I,” he laughed, a sound full of air, “I’ve seen large cats before, but, my, you really do take the cake.” Another brief silence. “Long name, too. Exceedingly long.” Kier frowned for a second. This was all part of his general approach to diplomacy — toms of his own rank, he was always sure to be the first to assert not precisely dominance over, but an unshakeable and inarguable understanding that he was entirely equal to them; toms of the second rank, the deputies, he belittled, just to really drive home the fact he could do it. To drive home the fact they could do nothing about it. He looked up at him for a moment longer, almost smiling, before finally breaking the extended eye contact and looking down, brushing imaginary leaf litter from his chest. And now he returned back to the actual point of Windsweptashes’ address. “No? Well — that’s a pity. I’d been looking forward to speaking with him.” He looked back up and smiled. “You be sure to tell your Minister, won’t you, that I don’t like disappointment, even in a friend.” Especially in a friend. He didn’t like being told no, he didn’t like being stood up, and this felt very much like some sort of show of power over him — that Puzzlemaker was the more important leader because he hadn’t had time to come see him. “No — in fact, I don’t like it very much at all.” He turned slowly away, and as he did so, half-hidden from the Commissioner, the harmless smile turned to a venomous sneer. Kier padded slowly towards a patch of silver moonlight along the border, the one who held all the power and in no hurry. “It’s a good thing I’m known for being terribly honourable, or else I hate to think what might become of MoonClan if I were upset.” He laughed, like it were just idle chit-chat.
Sweeping around, he took a seat, wrapping his tail neatly around his paws and looking across to the Commissioner with a smile. The blinding moonlight washed his black fur a shining silver. “Windsweptashes?” he verified, frowning a little again as he leaned forward with such false, deferential politeness; but this time it was like he was ensuring he had the name right. The smile returned and, leaning back again, he patted the earth across from him. It clearly wasn’t an offer. “Come — sit. You must be tired after all that walking.” He said walking with a playful little shake of his head and that perfect, poison-eyed smile, his voice briefly taking on a throaty note, and something about it all said Kier was seethingly mad. “If Puzzlemaker can’t find the time to see me,” and what an unthinkable thought that was, that he, who had clawed his way to a crown, could still be treated like this, “then I’m sure you can answer all my questions.” He drew out the world ‘all’, hoping to watch the dread slowly fill the Commissioner’s eyes. Kier was inordinately good at squirrelling out which cats he could and couldn’t victimise, could and couldn’t bully, could and couldn’t caress the strings of, and Windsweptashes had passed that terrible test with flying colours.
