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☆ Hello lovelies!! This is the first of the NC-PI conflict plot threads, a precursor to bigger things to come! It's a dishonourable sneak attack at the heart of the Mansion while the League is sleeping, meant to send a message. It starts in the hunter's room, with all the NightClan cats given one dose of poison to use, but feel free to take it to other places, to go wake Bermondsey and the proxies raise the alarm, whatever you like! There's only a loose ending planned out — mainly NightClan fleeing back out into the night, the victors of this little declaration of war — so go nuts. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of the leaders or deputies!
☆ This takes place after the first trial but before the kidnapping of Ber and Eshek's kits, to keep the timeline as smooth as possible ♡
☆ If you don't have a NightClan or Primal Instinct character, feel free to create one just for this thread (or permanently!) to kill or interact with; NPCs, even without names, are totally allowed!
☆ Inferiors can participate, and are encouraged to!
When NightClan came to the Mansion, they came like spiders. Not through the front door, but through the windows, the attic, the basement. Not at dawn, with the mist and the rising sun blinding their enemies’ eyes, but in the night. They came in silently, silent as thieves and silent as the dark. Up the walls; across the roof, scuttling and creeping silhouettes black against a blacker sky; easing open the shutters and slithering in through the windows; slipping along beams high above, their tails curling around the chipped wood; dropping down onto the ground with soft, sinewy paws silent as insects and sharply-boned as corpses. They welcomed themselves into this home, and all the while the League slept.
Kier padded in after them all, less interested in stealth as he made his way up the steps to the front door while they fanned out up walls and through windows. He was silent, far more familiar with this Mansion than any of the others. But as he padded into the marble entry hall, Druzyprince dutifully beside him, there was no interest or recognition in his expression; his eyes didn’t flick to take in the surroundings. He just crossed the floor and trotted quickly up the staircase like he didn’t know it at all, like he hadn’t met Laertes in this very hall, like his brother hadn’t made him bleed on these very stairs. He padded quickly up them, as the NightClan cats slithered over the bannisters and dropped down from the second floor windows over the landing, and he carefully cared for none of it. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and slowly turned to look out over the moon-soaked entry hall. “Shock and awe, I believe they call it,” he murmured quietly, half to Laertes and half to no one. Without raising his head, his eyes rose to the ceiling teaming with cats dropping down from the windows and the beams. “Well. This is subterfuge.” And then, with a last, long, numbly uncaring look, he turned and padded on.
It had been happening for a while, in small and jutting ways — provocations that showed more the depth of Kier’s irritated venom than they did any real might, like hints of what was to come, like sprinkled smatterings of he hasn’t forgotten. They came in the form of general, casual, lordly disrespect — smiling encouragement for NightClan cats to make themselves at home on League territory, to leave prey bones and unabashed, arrogant scent; to attack patrols; to pick off a life here, a life there, and leave the corpse there as a gift — and to a tyrant who brutalised his Clanmates nightly, that pettiness ought to have been more a threat than any outright bloodshed: because it was like tickling the claws of a lion, the constant harassing and haranguing, the cheery opting for a policy of blameless sleep deprivation over warfare — always building, always promising. He hasn’t forgotten; he hasn’t forgotten — that was what it all meant, and the ceaseless benignity of it, the poisonous, vindictive benevolence, the obsessiveness of the constancy of it: that was where the threat lay. But the petty phases of wars always end — and though tonight wasn’t to be slaughter in the fullest sense, though it was still to be understated, it marked a clear ending, a clear line in the sand between what had come before and what would now come after. It was to be a declaration — and once it was delivered, the victors of this little bit of war would slip back out into the night with their standard of all-out violence trailing in the air behind them. They had been the victims of the start of war — Eris had. Now they would be the catalysts, the escalators; they would regain their dignity, claw it back from where it had been taken, hang it back around their necks with this initiation. No longer would NightClan be the ones who had had violence inflicted upon them, who had suffered indignity in the form of brutality against their queen; they would be the perpetrators.
Even if there was no honour in this unscrupulous duplicity, this sneak attack, this guerilla warfare — there was honour in that.
Kier padded quietly, unhurriedly, down the hall, turning his head to look in at sleeping cats in the different rooms as he passed — the trainees, with the windowseat upon which he’d once liked to look out at the moonlit world and dream of greater things where he was important; the nursery, and here his nose twitched with some deep hatred repressed for this night, because it was hell to be here, within claw’s reach, and not himself take care of the deed he had sent the traitor to do; the hunters. And here, slowly, he stopped. It had been a gamble bringing Laertes here — to his home, to his people; he might catch a glimpse of his sisters, of his mother, of his accursed father; might smell the air of home and realise he’d made the wrong choice. Even in meetings, he tried to keep him as far away from mentions of the League as possible — when it came time to discuss it, or when someone else said the name, he’d turn with a certain guilty quiet to his protégé and tell him gently, and with all the awkwardness Kier was capable of, ’why don’t you go wait outside; catch up on some sleep.’ And then he’d smile, but as much as he cared, as much as he worried, it was never an offer. Even now, even with the great love Kier had for Laertes that even he couldn’t quite reconcile or name, there were selfish reasons for him being here that conflicted with the lie he told: he didn’t want to actually participate, but he wanted to watch — that was true. He needed his faithful bodyguard here, in case any inbred thought to end the war by taking him out. He wanted to measure how close to the League Druzyprince could actually get before the discomfort, the guilt, overruled everything, wanted to measure whether he could handle his former Clanmates dying in the house he’d lived in so close to his family by blood — that was truer. He loved Laertes; this was still an experiment in devotion, in grooming. And he’d taken measures; the boy, his boy, not Bermondsey’s, had coated himself in the ash of SunClan’s volcanoes. It was a poor trick, and a superficial one, but he was darker, and it did at a pinch. He wasn’t expecting any particular attention to be paid to his own shadow.
Kier stood in the entry way to the hunters’ room, looking down at them sleeping, and slowly NightClan began to creep and mass around him, peering in around the doorframe and slithering into the room, pelts sliding against walls. He wanted to pad into the Nemesis’ quarters, wanted to look down at him as he slept, wanted to hold that brittle, silent, tooth-twitching moment of I could kill you; wanted to creep close and lean down to his ear and whisper, with such trembling venom so unlike his usual cocky theatricality, I will be the last thing you see. But he didn’t. Resisted. Instead, standing in the doorway of the hunters’ lodge, Kier tilted his head, eyes so gently predatory as he watched them sleep. “Well,” he murmured quietly. NightClan warriors, apprentices, guards, began to bristle with anticipation, their backs slowly rising.
“Let’s begin.”
And the world exploded into screeching.
Speedyraptor had been half-through a window, perched there with violent excitement with his hindlegs still scraping the outside stone wall and his fore-claws curled around the edge of the windowsill, staring down wide-eyed and smiling at the nameless hunters. The air reeked with them.
And then, at the word from his leader, he leaped from the window and collided with the first sleeping League cat he saw. All the NightClan cats had been given a vial of poison round their necks; now, Speedyraptor viciously pried open the jaws of the cat, struggling to hold them open as they woke up in terror and he tried to unplug the vial and pour it down their throat.
All around him, silhouetted black against windows and pale walls, NightClan cats gripped throats, slammed heads against walls, taking advantage in any way they could of those precious few seconds before the League cats were fully awake. Some of the cats had started early — sleeping throats had been slit in the silver-lit silence, and League cats had gone on sleeping beside corpses growing cold and stiff; teeth had been eased open with gentle care and poison had been poured onto tongues without the cat ever waking. And now, as the League cats awoke in the confused chaos, it was to trip over bodies that had already grown icy.
He would mark this down as one of the worst days of his life, competing only with the time he nearly drowned his sister and the time he nearly fell from the great pines of the League on his first day of training.
Usually, when Druzyprince took his place beside Kier, as the bodyguard, the assistant, he was threateningly quiet, but he was still alive; during the walk to the League, he was very much the same, but he seemed elsewhere, distracted. He hadn't intended to be back so soon, to be back at all. He'd hurt his family and he'd left them to face it, disappeared into the night without a trace. They weren't aware of where he had gone, if he was alive, he was sure of it — if they knew, they would have taken him back by now, surely? No matter his protests or his objections, he would have been home had they known. He wondered if they thought he was dead; he wondered if they were secretly relieved. He reappeared during the night in much the same way, unknowingly, secretly, quietly and without a trace, and in the same vain they wouldn't know he was here either. His coat was darkened, and even though his features stood out as more identifiable than many, he wasn't the only one with them. The ash clung to his pelt, itchy and dusty and unpleasant, but he said not a word about it. His nerves settled into a slight tremour of his tail and a rolling, gross feeling in his stomach, a churning anxiety, and he tried to ignore it, he really did, because this wasn't his home anymore, he shouldn't still be attached, he shouldn't still feel bad. He shouldn't be distracted, it was official business, after all, he was here only to watch. It wouldn't be him taking lives. Innocent lives, for the most part.
They slipped through the metal fence, the same one he would pass to meet Kier, and before he could even prepare himself, they were in front of the Mansion. His stomach twisted. Once more, he ignored it. Following at Kier's side in nearly a soldier march, he followed him inside, paws as light as feathers, but the moment they were alone he dropped the act, let his shoulders slump into their natural slouch and took a quick, steadying breath. Druzyprince still didn't speak. He stopped at the top of the stairs, eyes fixated on the spot he had first met Kier, as an arrogant, fearful little kit with too much ego, expecting everything to be served on a silver platter. These were the same stairs he struggled walking down his first time out of his family's room, and now they just seemed like baby steps. He'd been humbled and coarsened since then. Shock and awe, I believe they call it. Druzyprince only gave a quiet, uninterested hum in response. He bit the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. He supposed he ought to feel better about it, because they were getting glory, getting revenge — not Druzyprince, of course, he hadn't been slighted by the League, and he hadn't exactly found a proper home in Nightclan to care about their politics. It was Kier who was getting it all, and he should feel glad for that.
When they passed the rooms, Druzyprince didn't tear his gaze away to look like Kier had done. He stuck beside him like the soldier he was supposed to be, eyes trained ahead as if he wore blinders that kept them that way. When Kier stopped in front of the hunters' room, Druzyprince stopped beside him, though he turned his back to them, pretending to focus on potential rear-end attacks. He knew there wouldn't be any, they had the element of surprise on their side. Let’s begin.
At the explosion of noise, he turned back around, gave Kier a nudge on the shoulder with his nose and directed down the hall, leaning in close to murmur in his ear, "we should find a better place to sit." His voice was taut, dull but not in the way it usually was. Regretful. He pulled back, eyes not leaving Kier because if they did they would land on the scene before him. He feared he wouldn't be able to pull them away.
Oleanderpaw would mark this as one of the best days of her life. The excitement, the flare, the eccentricity of the poison when they simply could use blunt force, though some still did despite that. She was at the front of their marching line, dragging Leveretpaw, who she'd pressured into coming and wouldn't have taken no for an answer, beside her. The poison vial, crushed flowers and whatever other dangerous plants that could be found, weighed slightly against her chest, and her paws were just itching to use it. With this attack, she could prove herself — perhaps she would get promoted, perhaps she would instantly become a Royal Guard member and everybody would respect her, praise her, for her skill in battle. Her tail flicked in excitement, and even though she tried to still it in her attempt to be silent, it still twitched with impatience. She slunk up to the window that Speedyraptor — newest Royal Guard member — hovered in, leaning her paws against the wall beside it and trying to move her head around the ginger tom to peer inside. The Mansion was beautiful, it really was, and she wondered if blood would make it look better or worse. Probably worse, and it was a shame, really.
Let’s begin.
She shoved Speedraptor just as he leapt inside, scrambling through the window and into the den, staring around wild-eyed and bristling, a wild sort of excitement. She had been aiming for the same League cat that Speedraptor currently occupied, and with a growl she shoved past him to the next one, who had awoken with a startle. Her flank hit the tom in her haste, and she shot a venomous look over her shoulder. "Watch it, handsome," she growled, and somehow she made it sound like an insult. Her snarl faded immediately as she turned to the she-cat below her, drowsy and confused. Oleanderpaw pinned her down with a unsheathed claws on her neck, ushering Leveretpaw closer with a flick of her tail. Her and she League cat wrestled for a moment, her attempts to escape from under Oleanderpaw were desperate and, though they tumbled for a moment, she eventually held her down, pried her mouth open with one paw, violent in her frustration and exhilaration, and dropped some poison into it. She scrambled away, kicking Oleanderpaw backwards. There was hardly any strength to it, as the combination of shock and the poison rendered her weak. It only took moments before she gave out, foam forming at the corners of her mouth. There was a slight hint of something in her stomach, a tiny twist, but she ignored it entirely, choosing to let out a loud, single note of mocking laughter. She padded up to Leveretpaw, would have leaned an elbow on his shoulder if she could, but instead simply stood beside him.
"I did it!" She shouted, eyes ablaze. "This is so exciting, isn't it? Oh my God — is Bumblebeepaw here? Stay here — or do something, I don't know, I'll be right back!" She squealed in excitement, setting off immediately amidst the crowd of chaos, stepping over slumping or writhing bodies in her search for Bumblebeepaw.
my favourite pastime is murder too! me and nightclan have so much in common haha!
Of course Bumblebeepaw was there, it would have been insane to think they wouldn't have been. They could have been sick and dying, could have lost a limb, could have had anything in the world happen to them, and they would have still dragged themselves out of their nest and made the call to duty. The very thought of a battle was like some latent dream they'd never known they had being realized; they'd always loved stories of cats going off to battle, of war heros and triumphant victories, and they had spent their early childhood raised on tales of the sort of valiant fights and legendary battles that kitty-pets thought clans had in the same sort of starry-eyed re-imagining that modern men have at the idea of knighthood and chivalry. It was all mythological, illusionary, glowed up with perfect heros, near god-like pinnacles of skill and goodness fighting for virtuous causes that were always worth the spilling of any amount of blood to defend. And yet, in spite of how fake, how dreamy and made up they were, it were those tales that cemented combat — combat for their clan especially — as some sort of glorious undertaking.
They had been part of the group that had slipped in into the attic, moving with quiet pawsteps as they joined others like living shadows as the dropped down from above, pressing near into walls and moving through hallways with a trance-like excitement. There was of course the spike of adrenaline, the tenseness of anticipation, but there were other emotions — much stronger emotions, ones that burned more brilliantly in them and made any fear or uncertainty fade to nothingness in its presence. A sense of unity, and even more so a sense of heritage. They had come from clan blood, and so in flashes the wondered if their mother once stalked like this through foriegn territory. Had their grandmother, their grandfather, and those even before them? Bumblebeepaw was certain the answer was yes, and they too were partaking in a long tradition; one of valor, one of glory, the same kind of fight that the stories they were told has a kit had been born from. Nevermind the fact that this was guerilla warfare, nevermind the fact the they were spineless intruders making sneak attacks in the middle of the night, nevermind the fact they were foreign bodies crawling through halls and doorways to make off easy pickings like roaches scuttering in the cover of darkness. It didn't matter much, not now, not when everything was tinted with the bleeding heart patriotism and the illusion of a noble fight.
They had leaned into the wall the few moments before the battle, feeling the way that their breath moved in and out of their chest, lingering in that almost opressive moment of still anticipation like waiting for the roar of thunder after lighting, like the shatter right after a vase dropped. It was that mesmerizing sort of intensity, one that was so thick to could almost feel it like it was a physical presence in and of itself; and Bumblebeepaw savored it, closing their eyes as if it would make the moment last forever, or maybe it would make its end come sooner. They didn't know which they wanted more. But they opened their eyes again, returned back to the opressive hush of the mansion around them, just in time to see Kier's mouth start to part.
They did't even have to hear the words come out of his mouth, noise didn't even had to touch air before they felt the shattering of wait turn into the roar of combat. They felt their sides jostled as they joined in a eager race to get into the room, to make first kills and just start it all already. And they had they luxury of joining in it, being one of ther first. Before the screaming, before the full awareness of the horror that had begun had even hit the last moment of peace in the hunter's den, they had ever so quietly snuck beside one of the sleeping hunters. Someone large, someone imposing, someone who looked in every way like trouble who has been sleeping silently, and then they had taken a single golden paw and ever so gently widened his mouth enough to pour their share of poison into it. They had just managed to make sure the last drop had been slid down the hunter's throat when the first shriek sounded. For a moment, they saw the tom in front of them rouse, and Bumblebeepaw had scattered back a bit; but the other cat's return to the world had not lasted long; it was only moments later that he was shaking with convulsions, pupil's blown and foaming at the mouth so violently that even if he had been alive much longer, he couldn't have moved to do anything. Either way, Bumblebeepaw had no intention of seeing the death through; in fact, ridding the poison had just been to make sure that it was no longer a factor they had to worry about. It was the one thing, the only thing, really, that had felt truly dishonorable to them; there was something more noble, something much more traditional and admirable about actually fighting an enemy one on one, or at least using one's on claws to end a life. Or so they told themselves, ignoring the slight hint of terror at the fact that they no longer had any excuse, that now they were reduced to slitting throats and learning, for the first time of their life experiencing, what it would be like to end a life.
It was over now though, it was done. There was no more poison, and so both by instinct and a primal necessity they unsheathed their claws, scouring the area for another sleeping body or barely awake hunter who would make an easy target.
ithout a moment's more hesitation, they were shoving into what was now a mass of cats, league and nightclan, some of their clan-mates already engaging in genuine battle, others slitting the throats of heavy sleepers, and some still more forcing poison down the throats of the barely awake. They were so lost in trying to find someone, something, that they barely heard their name being said, barely even knew who had said it. For a second they were compelled to call out just out of sheer curiosity, or perhaps it was moreso to find some stability of something or someone they knew in the burdgeoning chaos; but the fray of cats seemed imposing to try and push through, and the thought of bringing more attention to themselves as more and more league hunters seemed to be awakening to the nightmare the had found themselves felt incredibly compromising at that moment. So, in some silent, subconcious compromise, Bumblebeepaw pressed closer to where they had heard their name seemingly being mentioned, though making sure to prioritize any opportunity to pick off any more league cats on the way.
Rasalas was certainly not the first league cat to awake to the attack, but he had been quick to react. From his small nest at the corner of the room, the rise of what sounded like a gurgled cry had been somewhat far and distant, but it didn't matter. He was a light sleeper, he had been for a long time, and the sound had awoken some old nightmarish panic, allowed some faded trauma to resurface in a terrified jolt. Shaken, horrified, Rasalas had pressed back a bit as he had scattered to get to his paws, only managing up to a sit before he realized first, with a momentary calm, he was in the Mansion. The walls around him were foreign, unfamiliar, almost cruel in their strangness, but he had grown to love the for their immediate reassurance that he was there and not where he was terrified he would one day re-awake at. He drew in a breath, a quick take of air to find his nerves — and then the second wave of panic rushed through him. Before he had even realized that the shifting shapes around him of Nightclan cats were unusual, before he had even recognized that many of the league cats around him were scrambeling to their paws in a panic, he noticed the foreign scent in the air, and then the immediately terror-inducing fact it was mingeling with blood.
He'd just managed to barely scramble to his feet with a wave of newfound urgency when he felt himself violently knocked into by another cat, only narrowly keeping himself on his paws as he found himself tossed forward out of his nest. In a panic Rasalas turned, eyes catching sight of one of the intruders fallen to the ground, half coated in dirt that he realized the Nightclan warrior had probably tripped on. Even in his horror he would tell with an aching, irrational anger that the other had just stumbled and crushed one of the few plants he had oh so gently place by his nest in some vain attempt at comfort and keeping some frail sense of company, and his gut reaction, even outweighing the horror of the situation, was rage.
His claw unsheathed, a growl burning in the back of his throat — it had been a long time since he had found it in him to actually lay a claw on another cat, but as the other laid helpless, pathetic, exposed, there was an opportunistic rush to take advantage of the situation. For a second, a burning, passionate second, he had been about to dig into them, to unsheath his claws, to bite into their throat and take out some petty sense of retribution; but then another scream sounded behind him. Panicked, desperate, dying — he knew the sound so well it sent a violent shiver down his spine, and he turned his head to see if he could catch sight of who it had come from, wide-eyed and scanning. But there was nothing; nothing bar an even more hopeless sight, with what seemed like an unfathomable swarm of these foreigners moving among them, doing gods knew what. He watched, for one silent, frozen moment as one of the Nightclan cats pinned one of his league-mates down, started shoving something down their thoat, but he didn't dare observe the scene a moment longer — he heard the sound of rustling behind him. Head snapping back, all rage washed away into sheer, cold realization and trembling mortal terror, he caught the gaze of the Nightclan warrior — a sort of visceral, sickening, animalistic anger mixed with some wild glee in their eyes, their claws scrapping the ground as they tore their way back to their feet. And all Rasalas could think to do was run.
Run where? He didn't have the slightest clue. He was shoving past cats, half tripping-over nests and those still coiled up in them. It was fleeing, irrational fleeing, but it didn't take long for subconcious traumas and habits to formulate into plans. He had been in fights before, many in fact. So many that the fact he was so shaken now was laughable; but they had been nothing like this. They had always taken place with him gaurded by someone else, with friendly faces, or even not-so-friendly faces, there to protect him; cats that would have died five times over than have let him get a scratch to his muzzle, and that had made most of the fights he had ever been in a joke, a mere opportunity to walk around a battlefield like it was a parade and flaunt the fact that he was untouchable. But here he knew so few cats, he couldn't think of one who would drop everything to protect him. In fact, he only knew one cat in particular better than the most menial of passing small talk, and even then it was doubtful he'd risk his life for him. But even still, it was something, and he needed something. He certainly couldn't fight, and there was no way he could talk himself out of full blown battle. He supposed he could run and run and keep running, run until the Mansion was a faded line over the treetops in the distance, and then keep running till he found somewhere else to live — but he was so damn tired of running, and he had staked so much of his fortune on this. He couldn't leave, he just couldn't, and so he found himself instead staking his life on a slim hope.
"Sinclair!" Rasalas called out, his voice a panicked cry barely audible over the screaming and yelling all around him. He wasn't even sure if the tom was in the same room as the rest of them, and if he wasn't he didn't know if he could make it out alive to find him. But he had few options — no options, really, and so he continued on his pitiful search; only every once in a while pausing and bothering to check to see if one of the cats still lying in a nest nearby was who he was looking for, and if not, giving them the roughest shake he could manage before heading on his way. He was only barely aware of the fact that every so often his paw would be met with a wet sensation, ever so slightly aware of the fact that the scent of blood and salivia were starting to follow his pawsteps; but what meager amount that he was sent a sickening twist of dread knotting in his stomach, so painfully wretched he nearly found himself wanting to just give up and sit down just to sob amongst the pain, death, and chaos. Like that would help; he'd be dead in an instant if he did, and he was fully aware of it. So instead he turned his near sobs into more calls, barely staying still in some pitiful hope it would make him a less viable target.
Bermondsey had never been a deep sleeper. No, he was far too paranoid for that. Perhaps it was a soldier's birthright, to never sleep properly, to always be a little to uneasy, a little too skeptical, and while he had relaxed around his league mates, surrounded himself with assassins and proxies and everything to protect himself, he had always been terrified of anything happening to his family. Having witnessed his sister kill his mother during the first few moons of his life, and then the rest of his family fall, one by one, into mania or death, there was this deep-seated neuroticism that never truly left. A family curse was like the roots of the great oak, reaching its fingers deep into his chest, cutting into his sternum like a knife, spreading through his blood like a cancerous mass that never left him alone, spilling out of his mouth and the green of his eyes, resurfacing whenever things were just a little too close to home.
It was true, he had 'defeated' that curse the moment he had received his lives, and he had reassured Eshek that it was no longer plaguing him, but he was always a convincing liar. For a while, it had been easy to pretend, but when his son disappeared and with the ever-growing rift between the mother of his kits and himself, it was harder and harder to pretend that things were going well. He knew that when the time came, he had been just as bad as the rest; he had taken lives from the cat who had believed in him as a son. The former nemesis still stood in his dreams, green eyes glowing in the background, the same green eyes as his prodigal son, the same as his own...
The screeching woke him up, and for a moment, he was between dreams and reality, uncertain whether it was all in his head or whether the night was alive with the sound of a battle. It took him a few moments to realize that he was, in fact, not dreaming at all. Immediately turning to Eshek, his glowing green eyes were fierce, leaving no room to argue. "Hide the kits," he snarled, as Nour stirred, blinking sleep from her eyes.
"Mama, what's happening?" she mumbled, "are we fighting the sink rats?"
Bermondsey didn't have time to respond, he had immediately leaped into action. He hated the fact that Elizabeth was gone; he often relied on her more than he would admit, but there was no time for it now. Immediately bounding towards the hunter's den, he spotted...apprentices? He didn't recognize these cats at all...except...
A dark shape, large ears and a slim form...he knew that cat. Kate had told him about her brother once, warned him about the dangers he proposed, and suddenly a chill ran down his spine. Was this the gods' revenge? That he had intervened and killed NightClan's former leader, and now this was what they sent for him? Rage filled him, and he immediately leaped into action, from the bannister to the crowd below, landing on a pale apprentice. It was unfortunate for Oleanderpaw, that she was now the carpet beneath the Nemesis' paws, claws to her throat.
His lips curled into a snarl, and the usual slim tom bristled, murder in his gaze as his paw pressed her throat to the ground. "Your leader sent a kit to attack?" he sneered, "and I thought we were the heartless ones."
Rhiannon and Hywel had immediately woke at the cry. Immediately moving into action, it was Rhiannon who grinned, with that excitement in her eye at the thought of a battle. Immediately rushing out, it was her brother who pulled her back by the tail. "Get out of here," he immediately warned, blue eyes without the twinkle they always had. "I need you to get Doefreckle and leave," he snapped, immediately searching for the tortoiseshell tom.
"You're not my keeper," she snapped back, as she disappeared into the crowd of writhing cats. She didn't recognize half of them, but the moment Rasalas cried out, her eyes flickered to her league mates. What was happening? She immediately disappeared into the shadows, trying to avoid the mass of screeching cats. Her furrowed brow etched on her face and her grey eyes searching around, she spotted a familiar shadow, a shape in the distance.
Kier? Oh, how intriguing. Batting away a NightClan cat, she immediately began her pursuit. After all, it was her life goal to take as many of her own son's lives as possible; there was much to be gained, after all.
Bunnypaw flicked silently along with his clanmates claws flexing, Was this his chance? he thought. A chance to be made into a warrior! his soft yellow eyes flicked from cat to cat, pride and excitement welling in him. To him, this was a chance to prove his worth, to prove his loyalty, and do what he does best, sneak lie and kill.
He glanced around to see if he could spot his siblings, of course he spotted bumblebeepaw. of course! they would never miss this chance! he thought to himself with amusement.
Flicking his attention back to the action, Bunnypaw watched kier with a hunger to fight, waiting for the signal. in, out, in, out, he watched his breathing slowly creeping towards the goal.
Let’s begin. {I am killing my own pi cat ;-; rip shiver <3} Bunnypaw leapt into the sleeping cats wiping his ears to and froe looking for his first fight. there A white mass lay, he would not win a fight against the strong build, but with the poison. Quickly and skillfully he popped the vial open and rammed it down the white toms throat, Shiver coughed and sputtered as the poison was shoved into his mouth while he slept and let out a choked screech.
{wrenpansy bunnypaw wants to pick a fight with rasalas} There he watched oleanderpaw burst past hearing her say she was looking for his sibling. "Over there!" he flicked her with his tail then pointed to where Bumblebeepaw was. scanning again his eyes landed on a panicked cat scrambling around yelling It was Rasalas. Bunnypaw bolted towards the cat full speed screeching a battlecry. _____________________________________________________________________________
{fox kurma wants to fight speedyraptor} Kurma woke with a fright her orange eyes sharp and wild, looking franticly back and forth at the sudden commotion around her. A fight! she let out a hiss and scrabbled to her paws. taking in her surroundings she spotted speedyraptor on top of her clanmate, rage heated her fur and she barreled into the nightclan cat.
Blood soaked the path before her, staining her soft white paws, leaving tracks in her wake. Oleanderpaw looked around at the fighting. The poison was hardly of use now, not only because many had used theirs up, but because the surprise had been lost, the League cats knew they were there and the only way to get rid of them now was by brute force. She didn't care for it, even though the slight curl of her lip at the blood at her feet spoke differently — but that was only because it would take forever to get out of her fur, right? She would have to scrub. And white fur always stained so easily. She skipped away from Leveretpaw, catching Bunnypaw's direction and giving a quick nod of acknowledgement. She jumped around fighting masses, coming to a slow in a clearer spot in the center of the den. Bumblebeepaw clearly had heard her call. Surely it was exciting for them both, another apprenticeship adventure; it certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that she felt the need to spend more and more time around them and the fact that if they were going to do anything like this it should be with her.
"Bumblebeepaw! Look —" Her words were cut off, and for a moment she was too dazed to realize why. Pain exploded from where Bermondsey had landed on her, but before she could yell out in frustration a claws were at her throat. She gagged on her words. Her back legs kicked out uselessly, and her head was beginning to hurt. Your leader sent a kit to attack? Oleanderpaw was able to catch his words, snarling from under his paw, "'M not a kit! Let me go! Let me go, let me go, let me go!" Her words were strained with the pressure, but she still kicked and writhed more violently now, attempting to move her head close enough to his foreleg to bite it, but his claws sunk deeper. She felt a warmness on her neck. achromatic
Everything had been almost fine for Druzyprince, just enough that he could maybe get over it, that he could maybe even sleep tonight, but then he saw the form that landed amidst the crowd. Even in his drop, and the glimpse he caught of him on top of one of their apprentices — the loud one, though he forgot her name — was unmistakable. It was Bermondsey. His mouth parted only briefly before he clenched his jaw, nudged Kier a little harsher this time, away from the doorway, away from Bermondsey. His tail quivered, and loose ash fluttered around him. It was a shoddy disguise, it was a terrible idea, he was going to get caught and he wasn't sure what his father would do then. He'd been so angry when Druzyprince almost killed Nour — he knew why, but it still hurt — and to find out he'd run off to Nightclan, the very same clan that was invading his group and killing its members? He preferred Bermondsey keep up the pretense that Laertes had disappeared, that he wasn't wasn't here watching the carnage, that he wasn't a traitor.
"Kier —" he snapped, something he usually would never do in front of anyone, "move. Move, we have to find some place else. He's probably looking for you." Druzyprince didn't need to specify who the he was, but it was a flimsy excuse. He did care more for Kier's safety than he did his own, it was instinct by now, but he knew, regrettably, that his haste was rooted in selfishness. He didn't want to face his father. fox
Sinclair didn't sleep with the other hunters. He wasn't very social with them, either, and sharing a room felt all too intimate, and caused a slight prickle of paranoia. He didn't know them, he wasn't sure who to trust and who not to, and so being dead asleep next to them, unaware, was not something he wanted to do. The risks seemed apparent to him. Most would call it unreasonable, but perhaps not tonight. The screaming was a distant thing, soft as early morning birdsong, a gentle coaxing awake, though when he finally lifted his head and registered the sounds, he shot up. Certainly that wasn't normal. He'd been in the League for his fair share of nights by now, and never once had he been awoken by screams of terror, of pain. Something wriggled in his gut.
He should stay on the couch in the old, dusty lounge he'd chosen to sleep on, and at first he didn't move at all, and then he jumped onto the chilly floor, taking tentative steps towards the arched door to the hallway and poking only his head around the side. It was dark, moonlight flittering in through the windows, and it would almost be peaceful had it not been interrupted by the sounds of a fight. Sinclair wasn't a fighter, his life before had been peaceful, hadn't it? His claws had no use in the flesh of others. Stepping down the hall, his hazel eyes were wide and alert, his fur prickled along his back, and his ears twitched with every sound.
Another set of pawsteps joined his own. He froze. Sinclair! It was distant, so drowned out he wasn't sure if he'd heard it or not, but still, the voice was uniquely familiar. Rasalas. "I'm here!" He called out in response, moving forward again, a new usher in his steps. "I'm —" His hallway opened up to two separate ones leading down different paths left and right, a wall in front of him. The noise sounded louder down one, and he turned towards it. He quickened his pace, stumbling to a halt near the hunters' room, hardly seeing the chaos inside, though his eyes could make out where Raslas' voice had called him, his frantic movements. Sinclair went to call out again, but he was interrupted by Bunnypaw's cry, the glint of the apprentice's claws the only thing he could see next.
It seemed like he blinked and he was somewhere else, but usually when that happened he was in a different place, a different time; now, he was in the place Rasalas once was, having shoved him out of the way to face Bunnypaw himself. He came to awareness suddenly, stumbling back — a terrible disadvantage in the heat of battle, he knew that — but, after trying to steady his shaky paws, he stood in a defensive crouch, lip curled. He wasn't a violent cat, he hardly cared for chaos or blood, and though his stomach twisted with anxiety, he stood his ground. He wouldn't be able to guess why, because for the most part he looked out for himself and himself only; perhaps it was the slight fondness he'd developed for the other amidst his loneliness, like a saving grace in the unfamiliar world he'd thrown himself into. Rasalas wasn't the only one, Verne too, he would have done the same. They felt pain, they died, but Sinclair had done that all before and he'd chosen to come back. It was a gamble if he would get the same option, but he took it anyway, even if it had been subconscious. vexing_odewrenpansy
When Oleanderpaw leapt at the same time as him, there was a brief moment in the air when she and Speedyraptor were almost entangled, shoving and colliding; and when he landed, clumsy and unbalanced, he turned his head to hiss at her open-mouthed. Most of his attention was on her even as he held the League cat’s mouth open, struggling with the plug of the vial — “watch it, princess,” he snapped back, holding the cat down. And then, just as he jimmied the plug off, her flank bumped him — and he lost his grip on the glass. He fumbled in the air, but even when he caught it again, only his splayed hindpaw on the League cat’s chest holding them in place, the majority of the poison gushed out onto the rug. “Oh,” he snapped again at Oleanderpaw, the she-cat now occupied by her own victim; Speedyraptor still pried the now sobbing League cat’s jaws open with his claws and, with a great deal of preoccupied, crass disinterest in them and far more in Oleanderpaw, kept his eyes on her even as he shook the remaining drops of poison into the wailing, struggling cat’s mouth — “good goin’, beautiful.” It sounded just as much like an insult as her handsome had, just as insincere. “Look what you did — now I’m gonna get all messy. Thanks, Oleanderpaw — thanks.” Still seething, he turned back to the coughing she-cat still beneath him and, tilting his head, plunged his teeth into her throat. “Mess!” he reiterated to Oleanderpaw nearby, his voice muffled by fur and blood; as much as he vied for combat, he hated blood. And now it gushed into his mouth, his jaws clamped around the pleading, choking she-cat with her paws pushing desperately at his chest. And then it all faded; even with his irritation — and his temper was so short it was easier than anything to make him irritated — he gave her a gentle, easy death, easing her slowly down to the floor. He held her throat for a few more moments after her pulse stopped, and then finally rose his head, pale jaws covered in blood and gore—
And he was immediately barrelled into. “Oh—“ he grunted in surprised frustration, half a curse as he was thrown onto his side, driving the air from his lungs and winding him. He twisted to look up at the attacking she-cat. “What’s the problem?!” he exclaimed, staring up at her looming over him, his expression a bewildered half-snarl, like she had affronted him. He threw his forepaws about in a huh? Then, snapping them up to suddenly grab either side of her neck, he shot his hindpaws out to catch her in the stomach and force her through the air a few feet away from him. Young NightClan cats like him were given only the most basic of battle training, but they picked up what they lacked from watching and learning in ominous silence, and that pure, violent instinct, unburdened by any honourable idea of not killing to triumph, was as frantic and vicious as any pretty, perfect tutelage. Children are very quick learners. Scrambling to his paws, Speedyraptor spit out a mouthful of blood, now truly, hotly irritated, and hunkered down, side-on and bony, to face the League she-cat. vexing_ode
The whole march to the League, conducted in silence through the dripping pines and the ferns and then the unfamiliar territory that swallowed him like thick black sludge and had him glancing fearfully between the trees and pressing closer to Oleanderpaw, Leveretpaw had been miserable. Trembling. But he’d gone, because when they’d padded along lines of eager, waiting apprentices back in the NightClan camp, scrutinising and letting the silence hang and spread to incite excitement in some and terror in others, Leveretpaw had not dared refuse when he’d been chosen. And when Oleanderpaw had scrambled up the wall and perched in the window, he had followed. Because he always followed.
And when she’d leaped into the fray, he had slipped in more quietly, staring about in wide-eyed, turning terror at the violent chaos, the screaming, the writhing, shoved this way and that by bodies until he was smeared in other cats’ blood and so unbalanced he could hardly tell what was the roof and what was the floor. When she urged him closer with a flick of her tail, he stumbled over, too terrified, too sick with gasping guilt, to do anything but obey. “I’m all bloody!” he sobbed to Oleanderpaw, quiet and non-sensical and close to panic, like she could help, like she could understand. “I’m all bloody and it’s not my b—“ And then she was pouring the poison down the she-cat’s throat, and the League cat was sputtering and foaming and dying, and Leveretpaw’s eyes widened impossibly. He stumbled back, staring down at her — and when Oleanderpaw laughed, he flinched and jerked his head to stare at her instead. I did it! He couldn’t say anything; he just stared, frozen in place, and when she moved off to find Bumblebeepaw, he unfroze and followed, at first in a trance and then hurrying to fall in beside her amid the screaming, warring cats. “Ollie, you don’t have to actually kill them,” he begged, like some terrified advisor, “ — there’s so much going on,” he leaped back and watched in horror as a cat was thrown down in front of him and a NightClan cat fell on them, snarling and going for the throat; he side-stepped around them and hurried after Oleanderpaw, “no one will notice if you don’t!” As if he hadn’t tried that; as if he still wasn’t waiting until his name was called to go up on trial for it. He risked a glance at Kier in the doorway, but he was distracted, head turned to say something to Druzyprince and eyes on the ground. Leveretpaw opened his mouth to speak again, eyes still on their leader—
And then a grey tom was barrelling Oleanderpaw to the ground. Leveretpaw let out an involuntary cry of startled fear, staggering back a few paces before his paws rooted themselves to the rug. And as he watched the tom push his paw into her throat, the terror that flooded his chest, his gut, was new and unknown — because this wasn’t terror for himself, this wasn’t guilt for others: this was the terror of loss. This was terror for his best friend. Because if he lost her, if he lost the only good thing he had in NightClan, the only warm thing — he would be empty. For a long moment he stood there, eyes wide, legs stiff and trembling and paws frozen to the rug, face twisted in desperate fear — and he warred with himself, with his own cowardice, with his own need to survive that was growing stronger and stronger, more selfish, with every passing day. Until, finally, drawing in a great, shuddering breath that held some semblance of a whimper, he scrambled forward, a mess of limbs, and caught Bermondsey’s scruff in his teeth. He was slender, he was untrained — but he was the same height as the unknown Nemesis, and that counted for something. He pulled with all his might, paws pushing and sliding desperately against the rug and making it bunch up in waves, trying to force Bermondsey enough off his friend that she could at least save herself. He let out a high, fearful sound from the effort of it, from the fear of what this cat could do — and had he known this was the Nemesis, that fear would have turned to utter terror. But all he knew was that helping his best friend outweighed even his own life. achromaticwrenpansy
Kier’s ear twitched when Laertes murmured into it, his eyes not leaving the scene in front of them as he listened; whenever Laertes spoke to him, he was always immediately intent, the rest of the world fading out into background noise, though he would have denied it. He said nothing when he nudged his shoulder, just allowed it, even as it was forceful enough — the boy was still learning just how large he had gotten — to lift his forepaw and unbalance him slightly. Laertes was the only one who touch-repulsed Kier let touch him so casually. We should find a better place to sit. He turned his head to answer, his eyes on the rug between them. “There’s no better place to sit, not if I want to see all of it.” He didn’t mind being pushed and shoved, not for all this — the delight of the violent apprentices so eager for blood, just to please him — and at the moment he wasn’t being. He felt he had a duty to stay, for them, so they could feel seen; it stroked his ego terribly, and it was a welcome reprieve from the other mess of feelings this attack had brought up. His eyes flicked up to meet Laertes’, and the strange look that had been in them the whole march to the Mansion gave way to faint, gentle teasing. “You can protect me,” he added with the tiniest hint of a grin.
And then, his eyes slipped from Laertes’ and wandered past his shoulder — and locked with his mother’s. Immediately, Kier’s gaze sparked with something and he scrambled backwards, an utterly involuntary fear response. “Laertes—“ he choked out, at the same time he snapped Kier. He dragged his eyes from his mother to look up at him, too bewildered to think anything of his rudeness. He’s probably looking for you. For a moment he just stared up at him, uncomprehending — and then, finally, movement at the edge of his vision caught his eye and he turned his head to see Bermondsey. “Oh,” he blurted out immediately, taking a few hasty steps back. “Well —“ he amended, stopping. “Good! He ought to be—“ And then his mind caught up again and his eyes flicked back to Laertes, filling with some sort of sympathy; he tilted his head. “But of course that would be terrible for you. Yes, we’ll go— we’ll go.” He padded back a few more steps, eyes drifting past Laertes back to his mother — he was far more concerned by her than he was about Laertes’ father; that was because it would unravel all his plans, this was because she’d already killed him once. Bermondsey might want to, but he hadn’t — and so, Rhiannon was a far more immediate threat. Kier wanted to stay, wanted to gloat, wanted to go over to Bermondsey and be all cocky and rub it in his face, no matter how stupid that would be, no matter how much a guaranteed risk that would be to his life. But, more than that — well, if not more, then equally — if Laertes’ haste was selfish, Kier’s was fearfully selfless: he’d had Eris beside him last time Rhiannon had threatened him, now he had Laertes. It seemed the cruellest of fates, that he was destined to be with the one he cared most about when she came calling. “Come, Laertes.” They were the old words guaranteed to make Druzyprince’s paws move. Flicking his head further down the hall, he half-turned, glancing at Rhiannon again and making sure Laertes was following — an insane part of him wanted him in front of him, not behind, so he was safe — Kier first trotted faux-casually down the hallway, like he wasn’t bothered, and then bounded around the corner, heading for the attic. Will I never be rid of you? he wanted to shriek at his mother. Will you always be here to ruin everything I have? Every occasion that means something to me? “That she-cat back there, the one doubtless following us,” he began to Laertes, half-glancing back at him. It was briefly clearer here, quiet and empty, all the screeching of the adjacent rooms muffled by the walls — but then a door to the hunter’s den burst open, the wood almost shattering against the wall behind it, and screeching cats came tumbling out, bloodied and frothing. Kier flinched back, backing into Laertes. He drew in a breath, and finished in a voice that almost sounded afraid. Subconsciously, in that moment of stillness, he touched a paw to the scar on his throat. “Is my mother.” He picked his way round the screaming cats, stepping over bodies, and continued on, heart thudding with silent, discomforting fear. goldcrest
i still have two other characters to add but i'll post this first since i don't think those will impact anyone IAUSGDUAGSDS LOVIN THIS GOOD JOB TEAM
"Bumblebeepaw! Look —" Bumblebeepaw had heard the start of Oleanderpaw's words before they even saw her, at first prepared to meet, what sounded like an excited cry, with a grin. A look of, "Oh hey! Found you!" that would have pratically been an invite for the other apprentice to join along; but any hint of a smile broke the moment Oleanderpaw's voice was cut off, Bumblebeepaw's gaze landing on Oleanderpaw just at the moment Besmondey made impact with the other apprentice, eyes widening in a mixture of shock and horror as they felt their stomach twist with a newfound terror. It was odd, almost illusion-shattering, how intimately nightmarish seeing Oleanderpaw wriggling, straining under Besmondey's claws was. A few hours ago they had been in the same room together, the apprentice den in a buzz about the excitement of going off to war, a frenzy of vibrant air and eager, anticipatory chatter. Light and easy, bravado-filled lockeroom talk; had the sense of impending doom ever existed, it had been swallowed down by bets on kill-counts and who would come out a war hero. Even in those few moments before battle, the walk over in their seperated ranks, their infiltartion into the Mansion, it had all felt surreal and fantastical. The weight of what was to come had been heavy, but not stifling; intense, but in a way that only egged on the monumentousness, the glorious importance of what they would be particpating in.
Now however, glory had faded into terror, grandiousness into a churning sense of dread as Oleanderpaw writhed under Besmondey's claws. For a moment they stood there, frozen by the full impact of what was taking place in front of them; but inevitably, when it settled — and it settled quickly — they found a growl bubbling in their throat; before they could even process their own actions, they were charging into combat with the Nemesis who, despite being a smaller cat in himself, was probably near double, if not triple their size. Not that it mattered to them, it wasn't exactly as if they were logically considering odds in the moment. All the knew was that one of their den-mates was second away from having her throat slit, and they wouldn't sit by and watch.
It was only midway through their charge that they even took notice of Leveretpaw, the other apprentice snapping onto Besmondey's scruff just moment's before they could get to him. Of course, even in the intensity and the blur of adrenaline shooting through them, they could guess it wouldn't be enough to draw the tom off of Oleanderpaw. Even if it had been, they would have still joined in. They weren't just commited to getting Besmondey off of Oleanderpaw, there was a much more brutal emotions that arose from in the midst of their lunge forward, like a gut reaction from the bravery that had turned their prior terror into something bitter, something angry. As if fear and the courage of what they were doing at the moment couldn't exist simultaneously, and so it had to turn into something more vengeful. Now they wanted to make the Nemesis pay for even daring to do what they did in the first place.
Their maw snapped onto Besmondey, teeth sinking deep into the shoulder of the tom as they yanked, pratically threw all their body weight back in a desperate, agressive attempt to throw the tom off balance and rip him off the apprentice he had trapped below him; taking advantage of the fact that Leveretpaw was yanking the direction in hopes that between the combined effort they could topple the the tom. They had no clue what they would do if they succeeded — they were near certain that it would be a deadly fight if the two went at it alone, and already they were doubtful Leveretpaw was going to be much support. And that, of course, was if he even stayed to help, and Bumblebeepaw didn't feel very confident in the hope of that either. But what they would do once they got Besmondey off didn't matter in the moment — nothing did, bar making sure that Oleanderpaw didn't end up with her throat slit, and the tom who's shoulder they were tearing into paid for trying to even do so to begin with. achromaticfoxgoldcrest
"Sinclair!" It had been one more pitiful yelps stacked onto a series of others as Rasalas paused to shake awake another hunter; fruitlessly, this time, because they were limp and lifeless under his paws, and he half recoiled, half jumped forward, scattering through the hunter's den acting as half a fleeing, terrified victim in all this, and half a last ditch alarm to anyone who slept so deep as to not be awake to the break of warfare heating up around them. Of course with every moment the amount of cats who were actually asleep was getting smaller and smaller; some thanks to him, others thanks to the fact it was getting to the point you would have literally had to been able to sleep through a hurricane to still be deaf to the screams and yowls and the sickening violent noises of combat that had began to split the slience open and goudged out any hint of nocturnal peace.
He had been about to pause to shake another body in a nest — unaware, in his panic, whether they were alive or dead and not bothering to stick around to long to find out — when he heard the sound of a battlecry behind him. Rasalas barely caught sight of the apprentice, just taking long enough to truly take in who was even chasing him; and disgust and dispair burned in his throat so visciously that he choked on a sound that probably, to the average listener, might have sounded like a sob. Bunnypaw was barely more than a kitten, barely more than what one would take for a young apprentice, and the realization clawed at him. He'd taken note of it even in his frantic searching and darting from nest to nest that half these attackers were barely more than young children and teens, and that had made him hate this awful situation even more than he already did. He hated child soldiers, he hated them; mostly because there were no good answers for how to deal with them. Surely, likely, he could turn back to Bunnypaw and probably put up a fair fight against him. He might have died thanks to his lack of fighting skills, or he might, in the end, from sheer size and weight, have managed it alive — in fact, the younger Nightclan apprentices were one of the few attackers here that he was sure he might have been able to skirmish with and leave with his throat in tact and live to see another day. But that didn't matter, because the idea of laying a paw on them was sickening to him, and he couldn't imagine trying to kill one of them — even if he knew that was what he would have to do if inevitably Bunnypaw caught up with him. At this point he was fleeing the apprentice less from pure terror (though he was certainly scared that if there was a tussel, he might die — he wasn't confident that Bunnypaw wouldn't kill him just from pure superior combat knowledge alone) but more from just the thought of facing the potential of having to hurt what was little more than a child. It was horrible, it was all awful, and he was about to let out another pathetic cry for Sinclair when he felt himself shoved to the side, only briefly catching the sight of grey and black fur as he stumbled back. He only barely managed to keep his footing, but even still he wasted no time in confirming what he had only hoped he had seen a second ago — Sinclair standing between him and Bunnypaw.
To call it relief would have been to understate the utter wash of joy, the complete, unfathomably consuming sense of luck and safety and the first glimpse of golden-threaded hope that came at realizing that Sinclair was there — and better yet, he had come there to protect him. He could have sobbed, he could have screamed; but the flood of emotions were so burning and turbulent that all that managed to rumble in his throat was some sort of desperate amalgamation between a purr and a whimper as he stood there, not entirely sure that this wasn't a dream. It felt like one; at least like a miracle, and for a moment he was frozen with the full weight that this was actually playing out in front of him.
But when one wave of reality hit, soon came another. They were still in combat, Sinclair arriving hadn't made everything disapear, hadn't made it all go away. Even if he did finally have someone to hide behind, someone standing between him and immediate death, that would be meaningless if Sinclair himself died. Not to mention, the moment itself might have been enough to form some speed-bonding through the pure trauma of the situation, because while a second ago Rasalas might have been near content to sit by and purr out "My hero!" in lavishing tones and bat fawning eyes as some sort of meager repayment; the very fact that Sinclair had come left some sense of needing to do at least something to ensure he hadn't just called the tom into a death trap with no support. Scrambeling just behind Sinclair from where he had been shoved, claw unsheathed, he tried his best to look as imposing as possible in contrast to the fleeing mess he had been before. He was still perfectly aware he would be almost no help at all, bar perhaps a thorn in Bunnypaw's side and the cause of a fair amount of slashes in the apprentice if he decided to actually attack, but Rasalas hoped — prayed, really, that the apprentice would have better sense, would see two full grown hunters with their claws out and decided that perhaps this was a battle they couldn't win. vexing_odegoldcrest
“Hide the kits?” Eshek echoed indignantly, half-pushing herself up as Bermondsey made for the door and left the warmth of their bed. “Hide the— I’m your proxy, you scrawny possum — I should be the one hiding you. How do you expect— and he’s gone,” she added to her kits, nodding to herself in anger and looking down at them.
Mama, what’s happening? Are we fighting the sink rats? She smoothed her paw over her daughter’s head, nodding and giving a wry half-smile that was just as annoyed as she felt — not with Nour, but with this battle. She was a killer; she wasn’t afraid, wasn’t incensed at them coming into her home to slaughter — she was annoyed at losing sleep. The exhilaration would come later. “Yeah, baby, you could call them that.” Heaving herself up with a groaning sigh like she were ten years older than she really was and her bones were aching, she herded her daughters together and padded calmly over to the windowseat, her tail curled around them to keep them together. Even though it was, she acted like this wasn’t the first time this had happened, and the reason was simple: she’d lost her first litter, and she’d spent most of her motherhood this time sure the universe would come to take back these ones as well. And so hiding her kits, saving her kits — it was the most natural thing in the world to her, if the most painful; she’d already worked out all the places she could secret them away. Pushing open the lid of the hidden cavity within it, she held it open with her paw, bathed in silver moonlight, and smiled down at her kits with all the cheery, unbothered confidence she could muster. Her smile was strained — not with fear for herself, or with fear of them, but with fear of what might happen if someone found the Nemesis’ children. “In you go,” she told them calmly. “And don’t come out until your father or I come to get you. Yeah?” She smiled and, giving them each a kiss on the forehead, turned and left, not waiting to see if they actually obeyed.
Which, being the daughters of a paranoid, control-freak Nemesis and a reckless mother, they probably didn’t.
But it was too painful for her to linger, to look back, and so instead she emerged into the hall — and was immediately met by close-up screeching, blood, death. She stood there, unbothered by a dead cat heaped heavily at her paws and their blood seeping into her fur, and looked around. Little did she know, amid the crowd, she was standing within yards of her son, close enough to touch. Her eyes found Bermondsey, snarling bloody murder into an apprentice’s face — and then getting swamped by two more. Pushing aside the brief, hot thrill that coursed through her — she’d never really seen Bermondsey in battle before, all angry and murderous, and even if she was still mad with him, it did things to her — she threw her head back and let out a cackle. Her son was having to listen to his mother laugh and she didn’t even know it. “Yeah, Ber, you get ‘em! You tell ‘em! And then you,” she began to advance, “can tell me,” she drew closer, “how I’m meant to stay with the kids.” As soon as she said it, she snapped out quick as a viper and caught the side of Bumblebeepaw’s neck in her jaws. They were smaller than she was — far smaller — and, giving their muzzle a sharp thwack with her claws to try to force them to let go of Bermondsey’s shoulder, she tore them away — hopefully not with a strip of the Nemesis’ flesh attached — and slammed them against the wall. “Hi,” she greeted with a manic smile, holding the apprentice off the floor with her claws against their throat. “You’re cute. But don’t do that.” She turned her head ever so slightly to shout back at Ber, her eyes never leaving Bumblebeepaw’s, “just kill the girl and the twerp, Ber! Even you should be able to handle that.”
As soon as Bumblebeepaw had been torn away, Leveretpaw had let go of Bermondsey, instead staring at him in terror like the rabid dog he’d been poking with a stick had just broken free. When the other apprentice had first joined his attempt to help Oleanderpaw, he'd been indescribably wary, casting them a startled, wide-eyed look like he was somehow doing something wrong — it was just so unthinkable that after everything that had happened between them, and now the weeks of avoidance, they would be allies. But then he'd been relieved, grateful — because Bumblebeepaw would save the day; Bumblebeepaw would know what to do. And now they were gone. And he was left staring at the Nemesis. His paws trembled slightly but he stayed put, and the fluttering, defiant glow in his chest, if only there for Oleanderpaw's sake, could almost be called courage. goldcrestwrenpansyachromatic
Bunnypaw jolted with surprise and spat at Sinclair's interruption, skidding to a halt. the shock faded fast, This wasn't is original target, but a league cat was a league cat. "I guess you are a good target too!" the two hunters before him didn't fase him much, he would do what he could to rise the ranks, and if that meant taking both of them on he would, and with a grin the pretty tom leapt at Sinclair, shoving all of his weight into the tom. gripping his teeth into his shoulder and pushing him back. Bunnypaw felt the sick satisfaction as his teeth sank into flesh, and a shiver ran down his spine making his bangle pelt spike up.
___________________________________________
Kurma was not built for battle, her build was better suited for sneak attacks. Lucky for speedyraptor, her small weight was easy to force back. The sharp pain form his blow shocked her, blinking back the pain she got back to her paws and charged him again, claws stretched out to grab him, but just at the last second, she side stepped him, an attempt to make him stumble. with a swift movement of her paw she ran her claws along his side as she passed.
One apprentice was annoying. Two ignited a rage in him. Three...three was starting to become trouble. Bermondsey wasn't a massive cat; long legs and a slim frame meant he wasn't a force of brute strength like his predecessor was. Snarling, he whirled around, keeping a paw still tight on Oleanderpaw's throat, dragging her as he turned around to snap at the two apprentices now digging their teeth and claws into his pelt. He could deal with two, but the third was just irritating. The apprentice gripping onto his scruff was his next target. He made his decision in a lightning's flash. If he let the girl go, she'd surely be a thorn in the side, and these two other brats were clearly only on him because of her. Lips twitching in a smirk, he moved quickly, releasing her for a moment only for his claws to slash across her throat as he whirled around in order to flip Leveretpaw on top of him in a twist.
Except for that idiot on his shoulder was still not letting go. Had he not been there, perhaps his blow would've killed Oleanderpaw, but alas, it was a little too shallow, a little off to the side. It missed her jugular and her trachea; what a shame. When Eshek showed up and pulled Bumblebeepaw off of him, it was already a little too late; he wasn't in the right position to try again, but surely his claws had sunk deep enough to injure her, or at least scare her into fleeing. He'd deal with that disappointment later. Her sass was expected; he knew how irritable Eshek got whenever he used that 'voice' to tell her to do anything. She was, after all, a cat who refused to listen to anything other than whatever whimsy she was in at the moment. He respected that, but at the same time, her being here meant the kits were alone.
"They're unprotected?" he snapped, for a moment, fear flashing across his eyes. He was certain they were in a good hiding place, of course, and in another situation, he'd have sent an assassin or what not to look after them, but he had yet to see Chelsea in the fray and Elizabeth wasn't here. "You know they never sit still! Gods if I end up seeing Nour or Tilly out here I'm going to kill them and bring them back to life just to kill them again."
Still, Bumblebeepaw being taken care of meant that now, he only had to care about the cat who was on his scruff. He sneered, immediately using his weight to shift to the side, whirling around as if he was a bull and Leveretpaw was the cowboy trying to stay on as long as he could. The other cat's height at least, played to an advantage, because a quick lunge later, the tom's leg was now held in Bermondsey's grasp, as he felt for the sciatic nerve, jaws clamped tightly on the soft bend of his heel before yanking as hard as he could, his green eyes blazing.
"Give me one reason I shouldn't break your leg so you can never walk again," he spoke, his voice cold and calculating, the rage had turned into an unfeeling amusement as if he cultivated any feelings of helplessness from their attackers, keeping all of his emotions reigned in as he tightened his grip once more, a visible threat. "What would your clan say if you, a cripple, have nothing left to offer them?" fox
Rhiannon was perfectly sane, thank you very much, even if her brother would disagree in jest, even as her pupils dilated in pleasure at this opportunity, so much that her eyes seemed completely black. Even as she ignored every cat, every dying leaguemate for the sake of her target. Oh, the thrill! She loved the way there was a fear in Kier's eyes whenever he saw her; she never fancied herself as anything more than a mere cat with a small dream, keeping to the side of things, never quite stirring the pot, but the night she had drank his lives with glee had given her a taste of something more. A taste of something she wanted.
Power.
She had never actively fought for it, never sought it more than mere rumours and other stories, found it fascinating to hear of gods and other religions, but she was easily pleased, almost complacent in her search for eternal life. It was a minor footnote in the essay of her life, all until now. Oh, she wanted to drink his blood like a vampire, absorb whatever life she could with the bonus of getting rid of whatever kits she had left. There was more than just disdain now as she stalked forward, forever amused by how he was dragging a mere kit as a bodyguard, and how even in all of this mess, he had only himself. There was no cat protecting him with their lives; dust returned to dust, they were all born alone and they'd surely die the same way, no?
"Oh Kier!" she called out in a sing-song voice, a grin upon her face as feral as the look in her gaze, "did you bring a little gift? A snack for us both? You didn't plan on coming here without saying hello to your dear mommy did you?"
Hywel couldn't find Doefreckle at all. In his search, he soon came across Sinclair. A cat he never met, surely, but he could see the younger tom chasing after him; it was clear enough who was a league cat and who wasn't. Oh he wasn't going to let his denmates get hurt so easily; he had already seen enough dead cats lying around. The large tom was a lover not a fighter, but he wasn't going to let these cats get away with anything. No more dead cats. Racing over, he grasped the other cat's scruff in order to pull him off. "Leave him alone!" he snarled. He didn't want to hurt a younger cat, but he'd do so if he had to. vexing_ode
In the heat of the moment, all Bumblebeepaw could see was the slash accross Oleanderpaw throat, smell an outpouring of blood in the air, and that had only made their grip onto the tom tighten. There were thoughts in the midst of the moment, hazy horror and rage-fuelled thoughts that the bastard had actually killed her, that had been about to fuel an attempt at a lunge, an actual snap at catching Besmondey's own throat. It was perfect timing really, and horrible timing for them, that when right as Bumblebeepaw was loosening their grip to do so, Eshek's jaw met their throat, and they felt a blow against the muzzle. In the moment they could barely recognize the pain, only the fact that the brute force had bashed their muzzle away, and there was now the sensation of pressure and what felt like pins and needles on their throat. There had been a small, brief moment where the apprentice had managed to barely cock their head enough in the proxy's grasp to see who was attacking them, to take note of pale fur and a she cat's silhouette, but whatever time to notice what was actually going on was short-lived; as Eshek tossed them their vision blurred once more and they were left, for the first time in the while, with a sensation of burning, aching pain that shot through their whole body as they were thwakced against the wall.
But the pain lasted only a slight moment, because it broke way to a more primal panic as they realized they could barely breath. It was a race to re-orient themselves and blink stars from their eyes to even be able to see and fully grasp what was happening, writhing violently all the while, making themselves as hard to grasp onto as they could because that was pure, visceral instinct. But after a while of struggle, of gasping for air and snarling out cries that broke into heavy, shuddered attempt to take in air, they manages to catch enough sense to atually meet Eshek's gaze and hear her speak.
“You’re cute. But don’t do that.” Even now, in a half-sensible state as oxygen was literally being deprived from their body and they were being shoved against the wall by their throat, a second away from being gutted like some butcher's fresh meat, they still, pitifully, tried to choke out a measely come back. "And you're —" it broke into a gag and a gasp, that slipped into a violent growl, which returned back into another gasp for air in some pathetic, violent cycle that made them angrier than they were scared. The weight of death knocking at their door-step hadn't hit, they were just angry — enraged really — seething that they were being held there and unable to do anything in payback. The black spots starting to lightly dot their vision were an annoyance, the growing mistiness of the world around them a frustration; and even in those moment where they were teetering on potentially dying from lack of air, they were far more concerned with making sure Eshek bled for this, for daring to do this.
They took a pause, a small moment from chocking on their insults and desperate writhing to try and evaluate the bare minimum they could actually do. There was no way by brute force they could pry her claws off their kneck, they knew that much. And long and lanky as the she cat way, there was no slicing her face with their back or front paws to make her think twice about it all. So the aimed — with less intent to be free as it was to just cause pain (although they certainly hoped that would be a possible outcome, but they weren't banking on it) — to claw and shred and bash and pummel with their back legs as much of her leg and shoulder as they could hit, front paws piercing into her own at their much as they could manage. They didn't think it would make her let go, they just wanted her to hurt. In that moment that was all that mattered — that in some measely, minor way, she hurt for this. fox
For one brief moment, Rasalas had hoped that Bunnypaw wouldn't do it. When the apprentice had skidded to a halt, he had hoped for some measely, pitiful second that they would just back off. He had even bristled his fur a bit more, tried to make himself looked big, menacing; something that Bunnypaw wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. But even still, Rasalas knew, he knew it wouldn't work. He knew too well the way Bunnypaw probably thought; there was probably hardly any sense of self preservation and concern for his own skin in the apprentice, and how could he be expeted to have any? He was too young to fully understand death, his own mortality, and that, likely mixed with some nightmarish rhetoric of the glory of dying in battle for his clan, of the honor he would recieve for throwing himself with no hold barred into the turbulence of warfare and slaughtering the enemy, made an oponnent who would ignore almost all odds, all likelihoods, if they thought there was a gleam of a chance they could win. And children, unfortunately, were never very good at judging odds.
There was sickening sense of disapair that washed over him as Bunnypaw lunged, and he felt himself, despite his prior resolve to help, feel faint on his legs. He couldn't stand by while Sinclair was attacked — the very thought of being that useless repulsed. But equally, there was some bitter empathy he had for what was barely more than a kit; it was unfair, it was cruel, it was heartless, Bunnypaw shouldn't have been here — none of them should have. And yet there they were, and no amount of standing by and emotionally decrying the horrible unjustness would fix they fact that the bengal apprentice was there, tearing into Sinclair's shoulder.
He was just about to make some bare minimum attempt at combat, at dragging Bunnypaw off of Sinclair himself, when Rasalas caught sight of Hywel out of the corner of his eye racing over, and, slightly more emboldened, was enough to make Rasalas join in right about the same time as the other hunter caught Bunnypaw's scruff, he himself taking to bopping and batting with only half unsheathed claws at the apprenticed muzzle, trying to bludgeon the apprentice into letting go. And, after a few second of that, he made the added effort of sinking his teeth into Bunnypaw's own shoulder fur for good measure, trying not to break more than superficial skin as he attempted to drag the apprentice off at same was a Hywel. goldcrestachromaticvexing_ode
She could spit at the Nemesis before her — though, if she knew, she'd probably not have been so bold — she could try to bite, to kick, to be bold and thrash around, but it wouldn't stop the ever slight, silent plead in the look she shot towards Leveretpaw as he stood frozen. Her eyes grew increasingly wider, more wild, more alarmed as Bermondsey's grip didn't lessen. When he finally moved to grip Bermondsey's scruff and pull him off, her teeth flashed in a smile, and she would have cheered had the grip on her throat loosened. It only widened when Bumblebeepaw joined, tugging and pulling at the Nemesis, and though all three were small or weak, much younger than the hunters they were surrounded by and the tom they were fighting, surely he would see that a three-versus-one wasn't going to end well for him. Still, his grasp didn't lift, his claws still dug into her throat.
And then she was free, about to to scramble up and backwards in the split second in which nothing happened at all, the moment before the strike. The only thing she felt was a pressure, painless but distracting, and then the warmth of blood as it poured from her neck. Oleanderpaw didn't notice the sudden absence of Bumblebeepaw, and neither did she realize that Bermondsey was now occupied with Leveretpaw, as she had managed to get to her paws and step backwards, but her legs shook too much, felt too weak to hold her upright, so she fell. It wasn't deep enough to be fatal — at least not instantly — as her vocal cords, her windpipe, important arteries had all been missed or scraped just barely, but the gash was enough to let blood run down her neck and onto her paws, almost as if she'd stepped in the puddles around her, but she knew she was making her own. Forcing words up her throat, breathing, all felt too painful. One of her paws reached up to cover the cut, to keep her blood in, but the feeling of opened flesh and the throb that came with it made her recoil. Though her eyes blurred and her head spun, she could make out the shapes of Bermondsey and Leveretpaw, the obvious victor between the two. She would have helped if she could, but her legs lay uselessly, stunned.
SHE WONT DIE! PROMISE!
You can protect me. Druzyprince's nod didn't match Kier's humour, it held hesitance, it held guilt, it held frustration. There was no doubt he would, but it was Kier's refusal to move in the moment that made his face twist into a grimace, partway a sneer, but he said nothing more. He would have given up after that, resigned to his leader's side with his father mere feet away, having to watch and listen to the massacre of the cats of his old home.
The sudden fear in Kier's eyes startled him, and when he stumbled away from him, Druzyprince took a step back himself, finally noticing that the leader wasn't looking at him, but instead over his shoulder. He shot a glance over his shoulder, seeing nothing but another League cat, though he still moved to stand defensively beside Kier, half in front of him like a shield. Yes, we’ll go— we’ll go. There was unease in his eyes, but Druzyprince couldn't help but feel relieved as they finally moved to leave the doorway. Come, Laertes. From the spot he'd been rooted in while Kier moved, he padded after him as if the words had activated some second nature of sorts, an instinct. They slipped around a corner and, though they hardly got far away at all, the noise seemed more distant. Even though it was just a hallway, it felt like another world away, like he could affectively shake his apprehensiveness away in their moment of silence. The door burst open before he could catch his breath, the screeching brought towards them once more. When Kier bumped into him, Druzyprince moved to the side, still behind him, and gave a steadying touch of his tail to Kier's back.
His mother. He went to look back again, but Kier was already moving on, picking through the crowd to the other side, and Druzyprince made haste to follow him, ears flicking backwards towards a gleeful, unnerving songbird call, yelling out Kier's name. He ground his teeth together, making a split decision to shove Kier forward, knocking over anyone in his rush to get the other away. They both feared running into their parents, and the relatability to his mentor only made him more devout. Getting through the rest of the fighting was a quicker process, and before long they were standing on the other side, though he still ushered him forward, away from the voice and away from the fighting, away from Kier's mother and Druzyprince's father. foxachromatic
PRIMAL INSTINCT
Sinclair hadn't expected his opponent to be so kit-faced, so small and young, and though he was obvious as viscious as any other fighter, Sinclair found some of his tenseness fading away. I guess you are a good target too! It was spoken as if it were a game of pretend, the young tom playing the loyal, brave knight, slaying the angry dragon that guarded the castle all before his mother called him for a snack of apple slices and juice. He was confused, because who would ever let anyone like that fight in a room full of adult hunters who would surely fight back. Perhaps it was his lack of defensiveness that made him fall backwards as Bunnypaw leapt at him, teeth digging into his shoulder and throwing him back onto the ground. He felt the pressure, not the pain, even though a few specks of blood bubbled from the wound.
At first, Sinclair didn't fight back at all, stared and blinked up at the apprentice as if he were expecting something more, like he was unimpressed — though certainly he wasn't. He could see the cruelty in it, but was caught by the foolish bravery of a kid chasing glory.
While Hywel took Bunnypaw's scruff and Rasalas pulled at his shoulder, Sinclair pushed up partly in a kick, though it wasn't as rough, and knocked the apprentice backwards, slipping out from his place on the floor and shaking out his pelt as if it had only been a minor inconvenience. He gave a quizzical look, only briefly, before it erupted into a slight grin. He nodded at the others to hold Bunnypaw back, not only so he didn't attempt to try to strike again, but so he didn't run off and pick a fight with someone who had less of a moral compass than they did. He gave a look around, the screeching numbed in his ears but the smell of blood potent and sickening.
"Settle down, kid," he leaned forward, "what are you doing in this bloodbath? Surely you aren't fit for it." His words weren't intentionally malicious, only slightly teasing, a comment on both his age and the brutality that he was there in the first place. vexing_odewrenpansy
“No, no, no— please, please—“ Leveretpaw babbled in a blind, desperate panic, his words blurring together and half a wail. He scrabbled his paws against Bermondsey’s cheek, his muzzle, eyes huge and tearful with fear as he tried to dislodge his grip. The teeth in his heel burned; but the yank was excruciating, and he let out an involuntary cry that verged on a scream.
And still none of it was as bad as seeing his best friend on the rumpled rug in front of him, half of her splayed out on the cold floorboards, blood gushing from her throat and her usually electric eyes so dazed and harmless. She looked like no more than a kit. Even as the Nemesis’ — and he’d worked out who he was now; he knew from painful experience that no one spoke with this commanding cruelty if they weren’t the leader — teeth lay imbedded in his leg; even as his own fur burned with the heat of his blood; even amid all the pain and all the terror — none of it was Oleanderpaw. “Please don’t— Please, I’ll leave now, I’ll take her away. I—“ Everything faded as he looked down at her, his paws gripping Bermondsey’s flank with a numb calmness, a strange sadness, like he’d made a choice. A final choice. The world grew quiet, like all the voices beyond Bermondsey and himself were distant and unimportant, like everything in the world was just him, the Nemesis, and Oleanderpaw bleeding out in front of him. His voice grew quiet, desperate and self-loathing — pained, half a reluctant choke, but not from the Nemesis’ teeth. “I know things— I can tell you them— just please don’t kill her. Please.” achromaticgoldcrest
PRIMAL INSTINCT
“Oh, calm down,” Eshek scolded Bermondsey, even as she held Bumblebeepaw against the wall, even as they choked and spluttered, “if they don’t know not to play hopscotch during a war, maybe they deserve what’s comin’.” She pulled a face, leaning back as she looked at them distastefully. “This one’s gettin’ spit all over me. I should’a gone for the girl.”
And then their hindpaw caught her in the gut. She let out a choked burst of air, doubling over slightly in surprise. For a second her grip loosened — and then, pulling her lips back over her teeth, she forced herself back up, still winded, to snap her other forepaw against Bumblebeepaw’s throat. “Don’t,” she told them again, her voice now decidedly weaker and decidedly more angry, “do that.” Withdrawing her right paw, she slapped it across the apprentice’s face with all the brute force she had in her, releasing them from the wall only to send them reeling. She dropped back down to the ground, taking a second to shake the droplets of blood from her back and shoulders that Bumblebeepaw’s flailing claws had drawn. As she did, her paws dropped into a pool of blood and she looked down, raising her forepaw to look at the pads. Turning her head, her eyes found Oleanderpaw lying in it, her white fur stained. To her, it looked like her flanks were hardly moving. “Oh!” she exclaimed to Bermondsey. “You did it! G’job.” Truthfully, she wasn’t giving Bumblebeepaw any of the regard or respect another combatant needed — she was sure of herself; they were an apprentice; she could take her eyes off them, have a sip of metaphorical energy drink, and still finish them off. And that, perhaps, was to her detriment.
Finally, she turned her head back to Bumblebeepaw, about to advance. She tilted her head and gave them a smile. “So. Where were—“
And then a slender grey shape dropped onto her face. wrenpansy
NIGHTCLAN
Of course Brat wasn’t going to be left behind. A war — the chance to get out of camp and see the world — the chance to tag along with the big kids and prove that she deserved to finally be made an apprentice; how could she miss it? She’d tagged along with the war patrol, scampering along in their shadow or at their side, staying out of her dad’s sight. When they’d reached the Mansion, she’d waited for everyone else to disappear into it, her father last of all, and then scrambled up to the attic. Ever since then, she’d been padding along the beams directly over the fighting. She’d expected to be exhilarated, and in a way she was — but mostly, there was just heart-pounding fear. It wasn’t like a trial, with its theatrical and expected spurt of blood at the end, set to cheering; it wasn’t like the times she’d seen apprentices scrapping in the middle of camp over some affront to their masculinity or a flirtation with a girl the both of them liked — this was… chaos. And she liked chaos — but not like this. Everything was lost in it. Every so often, as she padded slowly back and forth along the narrow beam, crouched low, she’d draw her lips back in a forced, frowning half-grin and let out a laugh, trying to enjoy it, but it was frightened and insincere. She’d resolved herself to staying up here and then— she didn’t know what. Hope she could drop down and scramble out after the rest of NightClan when they retreated, victorious? Hope no one — least of all her father — saw her follow them back into camp?
And then she saw Bumblebeepaw. Oleanderpaw. And she was frozen with fear for only a second. This was what she was good at: being an irritant. This was where her fear could give way to something more. Immediately, she scuttled along the beam, peering down at the pale she-cat advancing on the bengal apprentice — and then hopped off the edge. She fell for only a second — shorter than she’d been expecting — before she collided with Eshek. Not giving herself time to be stunned, she gripped the proxy round the jaw, completely obscuring her vision against her chest fur — not trying to hurt her; just trying to be annoying. Just trying to be a brat.
“Wh—“ Eshek sputtered, staggering backward as she swiped at the lump against her face, at first confusedly and then with increasing force, increasing, frantic, irritated aggression. “They got drop babies?!” The bewildered question was a shriek against the kit’s fur.
“They got drop babies!” Brat confirmed, and now her verve came back. She laughed.
Unwittingly, still stumbling blindly backwards and unable to dislodge her, Eshek made her way towards the stairs — and then, her hindpaw slipping off the top, tumbled down them. Brat leaped backwards just as the proxy went over the edge, crashing down the stairs backwards. It was a humiliating defeat. The kit laughed — “yes!” she hissed — and spun about in the air to face Bumblebeepaw. “This is great!” she exclaimed — and though her legs trembled with fear, and her voice was strained by it, and her eyes were foggy with stress, it was at least half genuine. The other half was just trying to seem brave and grown-up. And then her eyes found Oleanderpaw, wallowing in a pool of her own blood. The fun flooded away; the sick fear came back. Her expression grew dull with it, with all the things she couldn’t process; she was still too young for this. Too young to be here. And her ears, her fur, her wrong pupil — it was clear who she belonged to. All of it made her a target. wrenpansyachromatic
When Laertes touched his tail to his back, Kier drew in a shuddering breath, like the reassurance, the urging to calm himself, did its job and broke through, like it left him feeling obligated to try and calm down for Laertes. “You know,” he laughed as Druzyprince shoved him forward, letting it happen without protest and only trying to right himself as he staggered on the landing; he let himself be jostled and manhandled, let himself bump against walls, like he’d surrendered and entrusted himself to Laertes’ better judgement. He ignored Rhiannon’s call. “It’s really all very funny — everyone’s so afraid of me, and here I am running from my mother.” He would never say anything like that to anyone else, would never be so honest, would never address the fact he knew the hold he had over everyone else — far better to let it be believed he was blissfully blind to it, or to at least let it be in question. “Well — she is a monster.”
He rounded the next corner with quick steps — and it became apparent that he’d forgotten more of the Mansion’s layout than he’d thought he had. He’d thought it would be like stepping back, like a conqueror, into his trainee days — instead, a drop opened up in front of him. The end of the hall was a dead-end, opening up on the left with a metre of wooden bannisters that looked down over the marble entry hall they’d come in across, the entry hall now filled with fighting cats — a widow’s walk. Kier slowed to a stop in front of the posts. “Ah,” he said — and it was clear, from the confronted, calm way he said it, that he didn’t have another plan. Kier, who always had another plan, who was always ten steps ahead, who could be in a jail cell at dawn and sitting on a plush pillow eating quail’s eggs at dusk with half the guards owing him money — didn’t have another plan. “Well.” He turned around to look down the hall to the far corner they’d come round, standing beside Laertes, waiting. The height difference between them was as jarring as ever, even more so because it was clear which of them held the power. “This is rather the pickle.”
He was casual about it — but all that usually meant for Kier was that he’d given up. He was flooded with fear, he was already surrendering — and on the outside he became casual, like he didn’t care a fig. For the few who knew him, and there were only really two in the world, it was a clear sign of fear so absolute, so profound, that he sank to his knees and bowed to it. Submitted. Just waited for it to be over. He hadn’t felt it since he’d last seen his brother. The cobwebs of the attic, the old wardrobes and the hidden eaves, all the things he’d already made a plan for — they all faded away into nothing, because he hadn’t accounted for this widow’s walk. And now all he could think to do was stand there and wait for his mother to leach another life from him, like a traumatised, broken kit who knew to lie still and let it happen. goldcrestachromatic
PRIMAL INSTINCT
This could not be happening. This could not be real. He was cursed — and because, this time, he had no great love for the Clan he was staying with, Doefreckle, amid his pounding-heart fear, could actually feel the unbelievable absurdity of it. He still looked terrified — he was crouched close to the floor, his ears back and his eyes wide — but, inside, he could almost have laughed. First SummerClan, now the League — he was like a beacon for NightClan invasions. Wherever he was, his birth Clan was sure to think you know where we should invade? It was only two times, but god, it was weird that it had happened twice. He had been sleeping away from Hywel — and this was the last time he ever tried to use demure chastity to make a tom like him more; clearly it only led to open warfare — and wasn’t that just the greatest mistake of his life. So many other nights he’d slept curled up, warm and purring, with him — and on this one, he just happened to want to sleep separately. Oh, this was unbelievable. He was almost annoyed — he was really becoming an old-hand at invasions if he could feel that amid all this.
But mostly, there was just terror. He was a soft thing, and he was afraid. He stumbled and ducked through the warring cats just as blindly as Rasalas had, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself — he couldn’t defend himself. And then, amid it all, he left a room and came out almost atop Hywel. “Hywel!” he burst out, scrambling back just as Rasalas helped hold the apprentice back and Sinclair confronted him; even though there was clear, gasping relief in his voice, there was almost something like accusation as well — he was terrified, and he had to blame someone, and so it was Hywel’s fault that they had been separated. It was a love of its own, the domestic, irrational anger of it. Even though Hywel was clearly busy with the NightClan apprentice, his mouth full of his scruff, Doe lingered beside him, looking bewildered — he had nowhere else to go, and so he’d unwittingly fallen in with this threesome of toms and the apprentice between them. He’d found Hywel, and at least this time he didn’t need to worry about Shaded, or Sunpetal, or kits on a beach — he just had to stay here. There was stubborn, obstinate bravery to it: nothing could make him leave, and he’d throw a tantrum if anyone tried. The madly polite part of him felt he ought to interrupt things to quickly introduce himself to the black and white cat gripping the apprentice’s shoulder and the tom leaning into him with that faint sneer. He didn’t. Cleared his throat faintly and swallowed it back, tucking his chin into his throat. Now wasn't the time. achromaticgoldcrestwrenpansy
i'll add speedy in a bit, i knew i was missing someone!!! <333
Hyenaprowl When night descended and the screaming came, a savagery was awoken in him once again, too long dormant in the crux of his soul. He’d been asleep since Snakeshiver had died — no, that was false, he hadn’t been asleep all these moons, he had been in a state of heightened awareness — but there came a point where awareness was as stagnating at sloth. Now he only saw red — his claws drank red as they raked, as they mauled. An empty face loomed before him, blinking away sleep, and it was torn away into nothing. He was on auto-pilot, ironically, truly operating on ‘primal instinct,’ so stooped in his possession that awareness eluded him; the screaming he heard was coming from him.
His claws fastened around a new pelt, and with a start he realized that this one was on his side, a Nightclan apprentice with an anonymous face. So young, kit-faced, nothing like Hyenaprowl’s long worn snout, tight-skinned, skeletal. This one had been enjoying himself in his brutality he saw, as the enjoyment slowly drained out of his witless face. As Hyenaprowl’s paws fastened tighter around his throat, his mouth bobbed open and closed silently like a fish, before he made an ungainly noise, like the sound of a deflating balloon. Hyenaprowl psted in disgust and shoved him aside, rearing around for a new enemy to engage.
The label of ‘clan-cat’ fit loosely around Hyenaprowl’s gaunt shoulders — he felt no allegiance to that apprentice or to Kier or Snowblister, or to any idealism of what Nightclan had been before them. He’d resigned long ago that he was a debased creature that operated solely on survival impulse — he had no qualms about savaging someone for his next meal, or for his lot in his corner of the cave. He’d brought no vial of poison with him; all the damage he would do would be written in his own penmenship. Hyenaprowl had to find a way to prove his independence after all; he needed to have his little disobedience.
Primal Instinct
Matilde She could smell the blood. Even from the dark cubby her mother had stashed her in, it wafted through the gap in the door, and washed the room with its strange iron scent. Blood wasn’t new to Matilde. Growing up with three rambunctious siblings, the occasional cut and scrape could be expected. But the volume of it was staggering — she could believe all the world was bleeding out there. But Matilde wasn’t cowering, she was standing upright, practically on her toes, eager to get a better sense of the action. Were they winning?
She fell back on her haunches, and glanced over at her siblings hunched in the gloom. The breath in her little chest was quickened with excitement. “She doesn’t actually expect us to stay in here, does she?” Her blue gaze was searching, awaiting reciprocation of her excitement; her eyes mostly lingered on Nour. Despite their differences, Tilly could count on Nour to be wholehearted when an adventure presented itself. Her question hung in the air for approval — but Matilde was already stepping towards the door, drawing her sisters to follow her.
Verne Verne stumbled forward, a syringe stuck in her back. She didn’t know where it’d come from or who’d jabbed her while she slept, but someone had filled their poison into a syringe instead of a vial, and squeezed the plunger empty. The poison had crashed into her body like lightning, had brought a new meaning to waking up on the wrong side of the bed. She blinked over her shoulder and down at it with the crossness of interrupted sleep, off in her own world as the chaos of battle stormed about her.
Nobody had attacked her yet. Maybe they expected her to keel over any moment. But the minutes drew on, and she didn’t. So, she glanced in Bermondsey’s general direction, as he struggled with his apprentices, and then she turned towards Sinclair’s familiar face, who looked to be taking a pause to console some kid. She felt quite embarrassed, her expression reading, ’I know you’re all very busy, but can someone help me take this thing out?’ Meanwhile, she stood next to the unfolding tragedy; a poor apprentice bleeding through her friend's paws and into the floorboards, so out of respect she took a few steps to the right, the needle biting into her skin uncomfortably.
{sadly no killing of bunny, he will have future children }
bunnypaw hissed, THREE now he was definitely out matched, "I'm no kid!" he spat, "I will be a warrior after this!" his words where brave but he stepped back from the advancing league cats. he glanced over his shoulder to see the wall advancing, quickly he ducked to the side and bolted away from the cats. he would either be chased or they would leave him to find a new target... he doubted they would just leave an enemy apprentice go, so he ran right towards the thickest part of the battle. perhaps he could lose them in the chaos.
“Oh,” Doefreckle murmured sympathetically when the she-cat came over with the syringe in her back — where on earth had someone found a syringe? He gave her a gentle, consolatory look, all frowns and soft eyes as he limped closer around Hywel, in the backdrop of the scene with Bunnypaw, and, with teeth as gentle as possible, drew the empty glass from Verne’s back. “That’s no good,” he told her quietly, offering a small, vaguely sorrowful smile as he tucked the needle away at the base of the decrepit wainscoting where hopefully no one else would stumble across it; it was an odd moment of gentle companionship amid screaming war.
His head whipped around, his good paw dropping down softly to the rug and his broken one cradled delicately against his stomach, at the NightClan apprentice’s hiss. When he ran off, heading for the thick fighting, Doe was at Hywel’s side before he could run off after him, at least slowing him if not preventing him. “Well done!” he gushed, breathless and bright, his eyes wide in the moonlight streaming through the windows. It was only an apprentice, but to someone who never fought at all nowadays, who only admired or turned his nose up at the toms who did, everything was worthy of admiration. He and Rasalas seemed to be the same, both predisposed to fawning over the accomplishments of the two other toms more suited to protecting them, more suited to violence and chivalry. In the brief reprieve, Doe turned his head to look at the chaos around them, the chaos that poured down the staircase and onto the marble entry hall below. He felt hot liquid on his paws and looked down, following the blood to a white apprentice lying a little way away. His expression twisted slightly in uncomfortable, pitying sympathy as he gazed at her, at the weak rise and fall of her ribs, miserable and soft-hearted and conflicted; if he had stayed in NightClan, he might have known her. They might share blood, somewhere up the tree. Looking away before his heart could burst with confused, guilty grief, he looked back up at Hywel, still surrounded by this odd band of strangers that felt, to him, so bizarrely, warmly companionable. “I think this is my fault,” he joked weakly to Hywel, giving him a pained sort of crooked half-grin that didn’t reach his eyes; it was strange, to joke in the midst of a war, but he was an old hand at this. “I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near camps.”
Movement caught his eye and he idly followed Hywel’s sister with his gaze as she rushed past, a maniacal, predatory look on her face as she pursued a small black tom. All he knew about the she-cat who amounted to his distasteful sister-in-law told him she wouldn’t get involved in just any League business. With Hywel at his side, Doe felt safe to briefly stay stationary; he knew he would protect him. “Who’s Rhiannon after?” he asked with a wary, uneasy feeling in his gut and a sense that it didn’t bode well for anyone, his ears pressed back with faint sympathetic fear. achromaticwrenpansygoldcrestvexing_odebauble
NIGHTCLAN
“Oo-ow?” Speedyraptor exclaimed when the League she-cat raked her claws along his side, the pained cry something out as a frustrated, accusing question, like she shouldn’t have hurt him in the middle of a battle. He twisted his neck to look at the blood now pulsing from his side. “What the hell, man!” The Royal Guard exclaimed in dismay. “Total low blow. I wasn’t even ready.” Shaking himself off and regaining his footing, he slunk to the side, locking with her in a circle as he sized her up and looked for an opening. Then, finally, putting his name to good use, he suddenly hooked up a mess of bedding in one paw’s claws and, between one blink and the next, tossed it as her face. As it rained down and briefly obscured the fighting of even those around them, he seemed to disappear, there one heartbeat and gone the next. A second later, he reappeared, rearing behind her with a glint in his eye and catching her round the neck. He pulled her off balance backwards, catching her atop him and pummelling her spine with his back claws. And then, from where he was half-obscured from the world behind the fur of her shoulder, he spotted Bunnypaw, seemingly retreating.
“Heey— ayo, you’re runnin’ already?” he called to him as he gripped the she-cat atop him, shredding at her back with his hindpaws. He was perfectly within his rights as a Royal Guard to catch him, turn him around, and force him back into the fighting — even though this was a quick get in, get out mission that didn’t necessitate that level of complete force and compulsion, he’d still been wanting to try it out, just to have the rush of authority that would come of saying hey! You! Get back in there and don’t come back out till you’re dead or someone else is. But he let it slide; he didn’t exactly look authoritative, lying on his back half-crushed beneath the weight of this scrabbling, half-mad she-cat. Although, that would be one of the better ways to go. vexing_ode
"not running away!" bunnypaw panted glancing over his shoulder, no followers? no followers. skidding to a halt he mewed breathlessly, "Just running to a more fair fight..." the small tom glanced around quickly before pouncing on a random cat in the mass. _____
Kurma blinked in surprise as the bedding flew up in front of her face, her vison obscured. where did they go!!! she hissed and swung her paws only grasping air and bedding. A screech left her as she was pulled backwards, "mouse brain!" she hissed writhing. she twisted to the side feeling the rip of his teeth in her scruff as she struggled to pull away, gritting her teeth against the pain. she kicked out with her back legs trying to get a hold of the ground to push away farther.
If they could have managed the breath to do it, Bumblebeepaw probably would have laughed the moment their paw had hit Eshek's stomach; unfortunately, they were taking the small release to gasp for the first lungful of air that they had manage to take in in what felt like ages, though something akin to an amused grin played on their muzzle even as they were taking in desperate gulps of air. Of course the relief didn't last long, a second later their neck being clamped down on again and their breathing restricted. The only small blessing this time was that Bumblebeepaw had enough air in their lungs to effectively start to snarl out a choked response to her comment, but it was cut short before the words could even leave their mouth, the apprentice tossed back from the wall to the ground a little ways away. In almost perfect parallel to the last time they were sent reeling, the pain of the slap against their face didn't even register, but the feeling of their body colliding with the floor, winding all the air from their lungs, caused a shock of pain through them, and they felt their teeth they had gritted through the pain snap open to make for a second round of desperate gasps for air, this time more violent. In the moment, the burning of their chest felt more pressing, more violent than the pain, the way the feeling of it lunging up and down hurt in its own uniquely awful, exhausting way. But even still, they caught sight of Eshek in their blurred vision, the sound of her voice like a distant echo in their ears, and so they forced themselves in a mad scramble to their paws, every movement shooting a new round of pain in their chest like it was goading on their agony. But somehow, some way, the found themselves on their feet, head still hazy, the world still feeling like some awful, fantastical nightmare, like some faux backdrop around them instead of their present reality. But they held strong, if only by pure bitterness, pure resilience, and even though they must have looked pitiful, their body still visibly shaking with every breath, the still lowered into a combative stance, ready to redeem themselves, to give Eshek hell.
But then, out of nowhere, a flash of grey fur dropped down from above onto Eshek's face, and Bumblebeepaw was forced to watch — both out of sheer, dumbfounded confusion, and also because, without the immediate adrenaline spike from a clear life or death scenario, they weren't sure they could force their aching limbs to move — as Brat manage to send the life proxy tumbling down the stairs. There was a brief moment where Bumblebeepaw thought it had to be a dream, a hallucination; their eyes darted to the ground to check it to see if it was pooling with their own blood, as if by chance this was the byproduct of delusion from a ton of blood-loss. But they didn't see blood, at least nothing more than a speckling of it that had dripped from their now-bleeding face, their eyes instead landing on Brat.
“This is great!” For a second Bumblebeepaw opened their mouth to speak, their head still reeling, but now they were overcome with a wash of emotion they were completely unprepared to handle. After a couple moments they couldn't even remember what the kit had said, it was like a distant memory that had been aged by the absolute shock at what they were seeing. And so, they just said the first thing that came into their mind, like every rational barrier that might have made them hold their tongue (although it wasn't like there was much of a barrier there on a good day either, so maybe that was a moot point) had been broken and they were just a vessel for whatever wisp of an idea their brain could form into coherency.
"Brat?! What are you doing here?!" It was probably the closest thing to a shrill, girlish bawk that Bumblebeepaw had made since coming to Nightclan, and at any other time the would have been in horror at it. In the moment, however, it didn't matter. Their voice didn't even feel like their own, it was more like their own thoughts had possessed them and they were a slave to them. Still, even then they were getting their grounding, taking a moment to look around; to gather their bearings and start to forge some sort of plan of action. And in doing so they were met with two different horrific sights: there was Leveretpaw, one on one with the Nemesis, and then, of course, there was Oleanderpaw bleeding out on the ground, and Bumblebeepaw had to resist the urge to leave Brat right where she was and race over to them and then — and then do something. They'd figure it when they got there, they were sure. But then their gaze flickered down again, and they were reminded that Brat was still there; she wasn't some figment of their imagination, and she was standing there at their paws, looking almost as shaky as they did. They took in a deep breath, this one a little less painful, a little less desperate, and gathered themselves a bit, managing to regain some measly composure.
"Okay, listen. I don't know how you got here, but you have to stick with me okay? You can't just go running around here, you'll get yourself—" A scream cut off their words; they didn't know from whom or from where, and so by instinct they turned back to Oleanderpaw still bleeding out on the ground, to Leveretpaw who they were sure was a second away from ending up worse than his friend was. Bumblebeepaw's eyes flickered down to Brat, a new shudder of urgency taking over them, and they abandoned saying the inevitable, instead putting a slightly protective step over her, so they were giving her a hint of shelter from anyone who might have wanted to make a grab or a snap at the kit.
"Yeah okay, we have to move. I don't care what you do but at least stay close to me, can you do that?" It was half a command, half a desperate plea for Brat to just please, please work with them. Their paws itched to go back into the throws of combat, to do something, but even as they leaned forward on their heels towards where Oleanderpaw and Leveretpaw were, they didn't budge; too afraid that if they charged off that Brat would have laughed them off and not followed, and then they would be spending their time panicking over where she was for the rest of the fight. foxachromatic
PRIMAL INSTINCT
Rasalas had tried his best to hold Bunnypaw down, but it was in his own, awkward, terrified way, pinning Bunnypaw down with all the strength he could muster, but at the same time keeping the rest of his body far away and drawn back from the apprentice; like Bunnypaw was some wild, writhing beast that he had to keep at the edge of his paws or he'd be dead in an instant. Really he probably would have just ended up with a few slashes and cuts, but he wasn't willing to risk the slim possibility that the apprentice would manage to somehow slice open his eye on accident in their struggle to break free, or that he might manage a very well place cut on his throat by somehow twisting at the right angle. Still, his attempt at holding Bunnypaw down, even for a short while, felt like an uncomfortable calm in the chaos, and it gave enough time for Rasalas to at least notice Doefreckle had joined the three of them, giving a small flick of a tail in the best greeting he could muster.
It wasn't until a moment later that he caught sight of Verne, but by that time Doefreckle was already padding off to her aid, and his gaze lingered on her warily, uneasily, as if like the rest he too expected her to drop dead at any moment — it was really a miracle she hadn't yet and Rasalas only could assume that she had gotten incredibly lucky and the poison was poorly mixed, or she was about to face the effects at any moment and he'd have to watch one more cat keel over in a horrific fit. Perhaps that was why his eyes wandered, catching sight of Oleanderpaw at the same time as Doefreckle, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. There was momentary ache, a chill of horror and, similar to Doefreckle, an unspeakable mixture of pity and longing to do something. It was nonsensical really, because had he been in her situation she likely would have slit his throat open even more, and at the very least Oleanderpaw seemed a little older than some of the other apprentices here; but in spite of all reason there was no swallowing down the sheer shock and horror of seeing another young life likely so soon to be snuffed by the this sudden battle. He felt his legs weaken just from another sickening wave of disgust and abject dread at the scene, and it came at the worst possible time as he heard Bunnypaw's voice rise up at about the exact same moment.
"I'm no kid! I will be a warrior after this!" Rasalas had snapped his head back to the apprentice, clearly ready to make some response to the little declaration, but it wasn't even a second later he felt Bunnypaw get enough to his paws to back up and break free from what measly grip that he had been keeping on him, leaving Rasalas tumbling back as he tried his best to avoid any flailing claws or any chance of finding himself locked in the apprentice's teeth. Of course that's not what happened; apparently three hunters against him and a fourth joining in for good measure was enough to convince Bunnypaw this wasn't a fight he could win, and Rasalas stared after the apprentice for a long moment as he raced back into the fray. His body tensed a little, he leaned forward as if he was about to chase after him, but his legs wouldn't move: It might have been partly out fear of what would happen if he did; the fear that if he chased after the apprentice he would be outmatched in a fight while trying to drag him back, or that if someone else found him first before he grabbed Bunnypaw, he would be be signing his own death certificate. But more so than fear, it was the screaming of the logical part of his brain that it would do no good, that there were a thousand other apprentices here, that dragging the apprentice back kicking and screaming wouldn't end in anything more than the four of them playing baby-sitter while the rest of these invaders mauled, poisoned, and killed others around them; perhaps eventually turning to them as well. And so he slowly leaned back and turned to the group he had found himself with, taking them in with a cautious gaze. It was certainly better to be with all of them than to be completely alone, and at least Hywel looked a little formidable in combat based on size alone. He gave a small dip of the head in greeting to them all — trying to as cordially acknowledge their presence as possible given the situation — before he moved over to Sinclair's side as politely and gracefully as he could managed, like a guest moving beside the only person they knew at the worst dinner party in the world.
He paused a moment, as if lingering in the small, brief seconds before they would all likely be tossed into combat once again, before he tilted his head towards Sinclair every so slightly, his voice barely loud enough to by heard by anyone but the hunter the side him. "Thank you." Rasalas said, his voice coming out more shaky than he intended. There was part of him that wanted to lavish on more praise, to say that Sinclair saved him, that he was amazing, wonderful really, that he was so valiant to have done what he did and that he had looked very fierce — but all of those felt too flimsy, too insincere, and while normally he could have put on an act to make it all feel as real as it felt to him, he didn't trust himself for it to not all sound like breathless and babbling nonsense and pointless flattery. So he just let his soft words stand alone for the time being, existing by themselves in some fragile genuineness.
He only took his attention off Sinclair for a moment to trace Doefreckle's gaze, following it to where he was looking after the she cat — but it was in that hesitant, only vaguely interested sort of way. The way someone who knew that it wasn't their business to question into it, humoring the mention of her for the sake of some frail air of decorum in a place where all courteousness likely should have fallen to the waste side. achromaticgoldcrestbaublefoxvexing_ode
Bermondsey drank in the apprentice's desperation like a fine wine. He always claimed he wasn't like his father nor his mother; he wasn't a cat with a silver tongue, so arrogant to think he'd get out of anything unscathed with just a quip or a couple of words, and he wasn't a fiery emperor with an inherent power, as if gifted by the gods, that one look from their eyes would have the gods strike their enemies blind. He said he'd be less cruel than they were, less arrogant, that he'd learn from their mistakes, and yet...in that moment, all he could do was bask in the bloodlust, bear witness to the terror in the tom's eyes and revel in all of its power. Oh, but he had learned not to revel for too long; he had a job to do.
"I'm listening," he spoke, tightening the grip once more, teeth grazing the bone he was ready to break, the nerve he was planning to sever, "give me something I'd never find out and perhaps I'll take it easy on you and your little friends."
Of course, Bermondsey had never planned on going through with that. He had no sympathy for any cat willing to throw themselves in the jaws of death, either naive enough to think they'd survive a brush with death or arrogant enough to believe themselves to be a higher power, for whom death could not touch. If he could have his way, all of these idiotic apprentices would be dead, their necks cracked in his jaws like a starving dog seeking marrow from their meal, but alas, he'd settle for a loss for now, as long as he had enough to tide over in the future. fox
It was no surprise to anyone that Nour was a hundred percent up for any sort of adventure. She had heard the screeching and smelled the blood, and her curiosity was piqued more than anything else. She knew there was something going on, and she didn't trust any of the older cats to give her the tea afterwards; they all still thought she was just some stupid youngling without any brains. Frankly, it was irritating to deal with the lot of them; overprotective, bratty, small thinkers, she'd call it.
"Let's go," she replied with a wide grin. Even if their mother had told them to stay, Eshek had never really gotten mad at them for anything. A no was a yes, and a yes was an emphatic yes. Was she a spoiled little brat? Yes, clearly, but was she able to fend for herself? Well, it was clearly time to find out. She didn't wait for Tilly's lead, already finding her way out of the cubby, before her ears perked at a sudden idea.
"Should we go through the pipes?" she asked brightly, "you know we can get up to the other towers and find a good seat to watch everything!" bauble
Hywel almost breathed a sigh of relief when the cat decided to make a run for it rather than to fight, and he truly felt his heart calm at the sight of Doefreckle, safe and unscathed. Gods, he truly thought there was a chance of losing the other tom, and now that he was surely alive, everything was fine again. Even in the fray of a battle, things felt still and calm once more, now that he knew everything would be okay. When Doefreckle gave him the brightest smile, a congratulations he didn't quite deserve, the world seemed to melt aside, and suddenly everything was silent. All he could do was pull the other tom closer, his head resting on Doefreckle's forehead in a gentle touch.
"I thought I lost you just now," he admitted, his voice hushed, breathless in wonder, "I'm glad you're safe."
There were things that he could only admit in the heat of the moment. Things he was still afraid to say. For a moment, he nearly spilled an endless confession, of how much he adored Doefreckle, how much he absolutely loved the other cat and how nothing mattered as long as the other tom was safe, and in the heat of a battle, when everything could be won or lost, he'd say it again and again and again, how it was him, it was always him, how Doefreckle's will was in his paws and how he'd walk on water, perform miracles if only to be with him.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Doefreckle was a step ahead. He frowned at the other cat's words, brow furrowed and head tilted to the side. "What do you mean it's your fault?" it took him a few moments to realize. Right, SummerClan had been invaded by these cats too. He bumped his head with the other tom gently, tilting Doefreckle's chin to face him, his blue eyes soft and sympathetic. "It's not your fault," he murmured, his tone leaving no room to argue, "I'm sorry they came here, but it has nothing to do with you." Of course, he had no idea what this was all about, but he doubted that these cats held such a vendetta against Doefreckle that it'd be about him at all. He knew of the rising tensions between Bermondsey and Aspenstar at the end of her days; everyone had whispered about it, after all.
Still, Doefreckle's next words made him still. Rhiannon. He had forgotten all about his sister. No, his declaration of love could wait; where the hell was his sister? His blue eyes darted left and right until he found her dark pelt, climbing up the stairs to reach another cat. Who was she chasing? He squinted, glancing to the smaller black cat, disappearing with what appeared to be practically a kit, except they looked familiar...
"Kier?" he exclaimed, gasping in surprise. Gods, was this about him? He had no idea what this was all about, but Rhiannon's stance was a clear read; she was ready to kill the other cat. He glanced towards Doefreckle with an alarmed expression. "We need to stop her," he spoke immediately, his protective heart had pulled Kier to his side, seeing him as family and nothing else, "I'm sorry I don't want to drag you into this, but we can't let her kill her son. I'll explain later, I promise." fox
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