Druzyprince had been quiet after the battle, and though he usually was — many of Nightclan's members had yet to hear his voice at all — it was noticeable when he was with Kier. Partially, it was because of the event as a whole, he'd seen his old home, his family, brutally attacked, he'd witnessed bloodshed and murder and he had fought, and he couldn't get it out of his head, but it was also the wave of exhaustion that hadn't left him yet. After they had returned home, he had chosen to rest immediately, sitting only through Kier's speech before turning to retire for the night. He slept in Kier's den — to make sure he was alright, because he cared for Druzyprince. Sometimes, it felt like Kier was the only one who did. Briefly, quietly, he wondered how his family was doing in the aftermath of it. He worried especially for Matilde, and there was bitterness at not being able to check up on her now. She was the baby, she was the sweet, the innocent, she wasn't supposed to have been there at all. He hardly paid any mind to his own state, despite the sudden onset drowsiness, the bouts of nausea, the headaches and the itching, burning feeling where the vial had been broken upon contact. He didn't mention it — he didn't think he needed to, and Kier's softness after the battle proved it. 

He tried to be more energetic on the trip to Summerclan. It was a dream of his, to visit each and every clan; he could remember Bermondsey's words when he first told him of them, of their strange diversity, up in the treetops of the League when he was a kit, too young to have met Kier yet, small and fearful of everything. He decided then that he wanted to see it all, and the idea had never left. Nightclan was checked off his list. He'd planned for Sunclan next, it was nearby, but it had been destroyed. He wondered what was left of them. Summerclan wasn't supposed to be so soon, he'd expected to wait longer to reach the mountain, but he wouldn't complain, not when it was so beautiful. The flowers smelled strong, the daylight burned his night-adjusted eyes and he could do nothing but attempt to blink it away every few moments. He heard buzzing. The sky was clear and bright and nearly cloudless. The sun was warm on his fur. His pace was slow beside Kier, and he didn't skip like the other did; Druzyprince simply observed, attempting to name every flower they came across just to test himself. Bluebells, valerian, daisies and poppies and tallgrass. 

"Indeed it is," he hummed in response, a soft murmur as he stalled to stare at some cornflowers. How are you feeling? He caught up again, trailing at Kier's side. "Fine, I suppose. It's a nice day," he looked towards the sky, only able to stare up for a few seconds before the sun made his eyes hurt and he had to look down again. "How about you?" 

im so, so sorry in advance you know its about to be a lot when i scrap my normal formatting
tldr; the last eight paragraphs have the most actual content thats relevant and basically kier and fox already know each other (fox didn't realize that kier was leader) and sunrisepaw is donkey-kicking kittens (;

all of summerclan is welcome to join in after this post !
Aspenstar stared down at the little thing with an adoring look in her eye. Even now, now that she had made herself a god, even now that SummerClan quaked in her presence, she couldn't shake the fondness she had for the boy. She'd always been fond of him. She couldn't help it; there was something special about Foxpaw. She couldn't tell what, exactly, made him special, but she'd always felt protective over him. Even before Phantomfox had confessed his love to her, groveled at her feet, she had been dutiful to ensure he was provided for. In a lot of ways, she took credit for the tom's survival. Of course, she wouldn't tell his father that (although she might be willing to rub it in the face of Rosethorn). Foxpaw survived because she was willing to divest resources, significant resources, no less, to ensure that he did. Had he not been so darling, she simply wouldn't have. But, she favored him, perhaps more than she favored her own nieces and nephews. Foxpaw knew it, too, knew that the world would simply bend to his will if he batted his big silver eyes at her and asked. She knew enough of the little thing to also know he wouldn't ask her. Perhaps that was why she liked him so much: there was a part of her that could recognize herself, or at least, remnants of herself. Had things gone a little differently, she'd probably be just like him: pure, innocent, naïve, dedicated to a cause.

She reached down, closing the distance between the two and offering the young apprentice a lick on his head. Foxpaw instinctively shrunk back. She frowned slightly at the tom's reflex; at one point, the little tom quite enjoyed affection displayed by Auntie Aspen. Still, she supposed that she couldn't blame him; after all, she was in the process of causing a little... hell for him. She almost regretted it; if it wasn't for how easily she knew she could overthrow SummerClan, perhaps his presence alone would have saved the clan from her depravity. Unfortunately for him, though, her affections didn't run that deep; when the devil called, she knew she'd do whatever needed to be done, even if Foxpaw could be caught in the crossfire. Not that she'd let that happen - the first cat to lay a single hair on his head would be the next cat whose blood would paint the forest.

"Now, Foxy, you needn't be so abrasive," she chided him gently, although her tone lacked its normal insidiousness when she spoke to him. "We still love you, you know." She leaned in closer to the tom, whispering the next part. "All you would have to do is come back to us, and this could all be over. You could come back to NightClan and take your position next to the throne. You could be so powerful, my boy."

Foxpaw couldn't help but let a shudder move through his body. "I've told you this before," he murmured quietly, careful not to let his eyes meet her's. "I'm not coming back." Even though Aspenstar was not large herself, he seemed particularly tiny next to her, meek, every bit the child he was.

Aspenstar frowned. This hadn't been the first time she would ask him to return home, and it wouldn't be the last. After all, she didn't like getting her way. She always got what she wanted, and what she wanted was Foxpaw. "Well, if you change your mind," she meowed with a bored blink, "you know where to find me. Until then, they won't touch a single fur on your pretty little head," she promised him, a sinister smile inked across her face. "But, unless you come with me, there's going to be a day I can't protect you, my boy." Her tone became serious; the day would be far in the future, but there would come a point, somewhere down the line, where he would have to stand up for himself. "One day, the devil will come calling for you, and there won't be anything I can do to stop it. On that day, promise me something, Foxy. Promise me you won't be afraid." She used her tail to pull his chin up, forcing him to look her in her eye. She held his gaze for a long moment, before shrugging, and slinking back to wherever she had come from.

The day had finally come. The devil was finally at his door. The words of the former NightClan leader rang in his head. Promise me you won't be afraid. He could hear her words so clearly; it was almost as if she was there, standing next to him. Perhaps it would have been easier not to let fear overcome him if she were. No matter how much of a terrorist Aspenstar proved to be to other cats, there wasn't a bone in his body that feared her. He'd seen too much of her tenderness, been comforted too many times by her half smile. His father, he was afraid of. Phantomfox was a rabid dog, one who was completely unpredictable. He feared his father would kill his mother, genuinely feared what the scarred tom was capable of. But, Aspenstar? He'd seen her tear through the throats of her adversaries, but there was always a part of him, a selfish part of him, that knew that the former NightClan leader would protect him. No matter how many other cats died, in the presence of Aspenstar, he would be safe. If she were here, she'd give him a nod, tell him to buckle down, remind him not to bow under the pressure, maybe he wouldn’t feel a soft fear that his day of reckoning had finally come.

It was fitting, though, that as he considered the situation, NightClan once again invading his home, his first thoughts went to the cat who had always been nearly as protective of him as his own mother. After all, it was her fault. It really was, all of it. She'd brought SummerClan to its knees. She'd put her successor into power. He imagined that, where ever she was, she was laughing at how things had turned out. He could almost imagine that she'd orchestrated it all, played with the chords of his fate in just the right way to make her promise ring true. The devil did call, and she wasn't there. It was his time not to be afraid.

Eveninglily had come running in here just moments before NightClan entered the camp. His cousin’s gaze had been terrified, truly terrified, in a way that he’d only seen once before. In a trembling murmur, she confirmed with him what her eyes had already told him: There was a patrol of NightClan cats, and they had already infiltrated the territory. The devil was on his way.

Instantly, the tom had dropped whatever it had been he was doing, an almost frenzied look in his eye, a mix of fear, desperation, and something untraceable. They had prepared for this. All it took was to go down surprised once to learn to never go down again without swinging. They would be okay. He would be okay.

“Warn the others,” he meowed to the other cats he had been with in his den. He then looked back at Eveninglily. Already, her gaze was vacant. She had been doing so well, and now…. He could already tell that her recovery from this night would be just as prolonged as her recovery from the other, especially if blood was shed.

Of course, blood was going to be shed, right? This was NightClan, of course they were going to attack. In every defensive manuever (whatever Foxstar lost in physical strength, he gained in strategy), he had prepared SummerClan for another round of senseless violence. They knew what to do, right? They had to.

And then, the devil literally called.

Oh, Fooooooooooooxstar. For the briefest of moments, the tom’s blood went cold as he heard a voice he didn’t quite recognize. But, he blinked to himself a few times as he closed the distance, trying to make it so that by the time he was in front of him, he looked completely unphased by the intrusion. After all, if he’d learned anything from his psychopathic step-mother, it was to not show weakness. When she made him promise not to be afraid when the devil came, she was really trying to make him promise to show no weakness, or at least, no more weakness than he inherently did as a scraggly, bony, often wheezing borderline child. He was weak enough by nature.

Before he approached Kier, the tom let his gaze sweep around the clan. Anger filled his eyes when he saw the warrior go for the kittens: even in their first attack, NightClan hadn’t done anything so savage as to scare them immediately (two apprentices had been stationed at the Nursery entrance that first time, but they had been under strict orders not to let anything happen to the babies). He almost diverted his path completely to address that problem, which would have left Kier completely ignored. However, just when he started to turn, he saw Sunrisepaw. She’d be able to take care of it, he decided. Or, really, she’d be loud enough that someone, preferably Radiantcosmos, would be brought over to her.

He let out a sigh, before letting his gaze finally shift to the NightClan leader. He had expected another tendril of fear to rattle through his small frame, but when he looked at Kier, he found himself more stunned than afraid. That was – no, it couldn’t be – was it?

“Kier?” he sputtered out. The last time the two had interacted, they’d both been apprentices. He’d reeked of Primal Instinct, and he looked like he was about to cry. Foxstar found himself slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the connection, but it had been a while since the leader had found himself at a gathering where NightClan was involved (his father was out there somewhere, so even while he was deputy, Sunstar had given him permission to hang back). “Is that… is that you?” Confusion swelled in his gaze: what the hell was happening? “Why are you…. How are you….”

His voice trailed off as he realized the answer to his question. It was Aspenstar. Of course, it was Aspenstar. She preyed on the weak, the hurt, the unwanted, gave them a home, told them that they meant something to her. She molded them like clay into whatever she had wanted. Of course, when she laid eyes on the other, she would have seen a prize in him. For a moment, pity rang through his gaze: what had she made him do? There was no entrance into the fawn-white she-cat’s kingdom without a price, what had his price been?

He shook his head, trying to clear it. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how he had gotten to this moment, what had happened to the other since their last encounter. All that mattered was that he was here, that his clan was terrorizing his camp…

He cleared his voice. “Never mind that. What are you doing here, and why, pray tell, are you sitting on my perch?”
-
The moment that Sneakysnap went towards the nursery, the black and white apprentice was on it. Not that she particularly wanted to defend the kittens. Most of them were stinky, about half of them were Petuniakit and her stupid siblings, she wouldn’t lie and say that she had any real attachment to any of them. She did, though, have her parent’s blood, and she was sure Crow would have been mightily disappointed in her if she let the stupid ugly annoying things fend for themselves. Plus, she knew intimately how it felt to be caged, afraid for your life. She had lived through that herself, and, although she wouldn’t admit it, she didn’t want any other kit in the clan to live through that themselves. They were young and defenseless.

She tore to the nursery with a fervor before throwing her body in the small gap that Sneakysnap had left between her face and the cowering children. Of course, a newly named apprentice was probably not your best bet to save anyone, especially when half the clan was quite certain she only cared about herself (that was a lie, she also cared about Middie, and the rest of her family, even Foxstar, at least when he wasn’t being annoying and ruining her life). But, what she lacked in skill, training or size, she made up for with a huge mouth. Foxstar was right. Someone was bound to hear her and come help.

Without looking backwards at the kittens, Sunrisepaw gave a good donkey kick backwards, creating artificial distance between Sneakysnap and the kids. She couldn’t imagine that they enjoyed it, but she didn’t care. They needed to get back. She may not have liked the kittens, and she may have been so glad to not have to share a den with them, she wouldn’t let them get hurt if there was anything she could do about it.

“Um, excuse me, ugly, fat thing, but I think we have a little bit of a misunderstanding.” Sunrisepaw was already yelling at the top of her lungs. “If you think you’re going to come here and harass children, you’re sorely mistaken. If anyone’s going to ruin their day, it’s going to be me, so back off or I swear to all things holy, I will personally rip out every, single one of your claws. Got it, freakshow? Now why don’t you go take a bath, or better yet, go back to whatever hell-hole you peered your alien looking head out from.”

He hadn’t expected Foxstar’s reaction. He’d expected validating surprise, disbelief he could relish — anger, maybe. Not this. And so, when the other leader approached him, though the haughty little grin stayed on his face, his chest flooded with sickness.

He almost felt… sad. Guilty. This wasn’t what was meant to happen — Foxstar, Foxpaw last he’d seen him, wasn’t meant to approach him with such bewilderment, such concern, such gentleness. It made Kier’s stomach knot with the same feeling he always got when faced with even the slightest ounce of kindness, the one that made him feel unworthy, and sick with panicked need, and like nothing more than an unwanted kitten. It was strong enough that it almost made him want to apologise and leave. If he had been standing, he would have taken a few anxious, hounded half-steps back; as it was, he gripped and ungripped the edge of the perch with his paw. He did have a soft spot for soft toms — and for just a moment, for a moment when Kier’s humanity, his lost youth, was stronger than anything else, he wanted to leave Foxstar in peace, leave him to his flowers. But maybe it was a form of self-punishment, of just as acute awareness as Foxstar of what he’d become since he was a trainee, of ‘if they think I’m a monster then I’ll be a monster’, of having to punish himself by severing that final connection between him and anything soft and driving home to Foxstar precisely how different he was — maybe it was a faint self-hatred that so rarely crawled out of the narcissism…. But the cruelty felt lonely. It felt indescribably lonely. He was grey with it.

And because he had that brief bout of grief, he had to be a thousand times worse. Once again, all of Kier’s reason, everything he’d intended, planned for, went out the window in the fact of pure emotion. Despite his eerie calm, his utter self-control, he was always, fundamentally, one step away from a complete psychological breakdown — and this, being faced with kindness, made the need to be seen as a monster completely obsessive.

So, he just smiled through Foxstar’s sputtering, looking down at him from his slight vantage point. There had been a time when he’d had a faint crush on him; now, despite their same age, he just looked such a delicate thing. So sweetly fragile. So unlike everything Kier had twisted and corrupted himself into and blamed the world for. “Oh,” he purred lowly, leaning forward and resting his chin on his upturned paw, eyes hooded, “you say my name so prettily.” His little grin lingered for a moment. Then: “My, well,” he went on cheerily, leaning back, “— you’ve certainly grown since that gawky little apprentice I poisoned. How are those lungs?” It was more than a cruel jab: it was a bombshell. What are you doing here? “Yes — you know, I’ve always found that about the Clans. They’re not terribly inviting. I think we ought to change that — if you’re ever in the area, you’re more than welcome to pop by NightClan. I’m just here for a visit, Foxstar.” He gave his head a little shake on ‘visit’, leaning forward, his voice adopting that tone that said he really was overreacting over nothing, really was being such a woman about this. Sweeping his paw out towards the patrol around the camp, he added, “and the children fancied a little outing. I’m very doting, you know, I couldn’t say no.” Kier looked back to Foxstar with a beaming little grin and a faint giggle. He grinned down at him for a moment of silence, like he was thinking — and then, seeming to decide on something, he launched into a new topic, his voice ever so slightly more tentative around the grin and the blasé warmth, like he’d learned from Moonblight that he’d get a beating for things like this but he couldn’t hold back. Not now. Not when Foxstar had tried to show him gentleness. “You know, we’re practically family. Last I heard,” and, truthfully, his intel had been spotty in the last weeks and moons, since he had become so much more focused on and embroiled in NightClan; he leaned in, his eyes hooding, his voice so smilingly taunting — like he was playfully trying to get this right, like he was congratulating his good fortune, like he was bonding over degrading conquests, “you had eyes for the cute little medicine cat… and I’m sleeping with her sister-in-law.” It wasn’t a prudent thing to say, but Kier was never prudent when he was emotional. He suddenly looked around, pushing himself up slightly as he strained his neck about, trying to make him feel uncomfortable and dominated in his own home. “Is she here? I’m desperate to see the family resemblance.”

And then he spotted her. Slipping down from his perch, he brushed past Foxstar, ignoring him in favour of prettier things, and slunk over to Sunveins. He stopped in front of her, his eyes widening appreciatively as he looked her up and down with the air of an excited predator. And then, as he spoke, his eyes never left hers, like she were the centre of his universe; for all the world, Foxstar didn’t exist, but he was so tantalisingly aware of him behind him. “So this is the famous Sunveins. My, well, your brother was keeping you under wraps for good reason — you are stunning.” He leaned in, giving her a grin that was as overly faux-chivalrous as it was lecherous, his paw brushing up to briefly touch her chin; his voice dropped lower, intimate, just for them, but he made sure it was still loud enough for Foxstar to hear. “If you ever fancy a change of scenery, I’ll find a pretty use for you in NightClan.”

He held her gaze for a moment longer, close and grinning. Oh, what a thing to cuckold a leader in his own kingdom, his own throne moon — what a thing, in a sick fantasy, to have both Moonblight’s sister and his mate. And then, suddenly, he whirled back around to face Foxstar. “Come on, Foxstar!” he goaded from where he stood too close beside the medicine cat. “You’re a leader, aren’t you? You can take what you like — any she-cat would be lucky to lick the dirt you walk on. Look at her, look at that face —“ he half-turned back to Sunveins without looking at her, gripping her face in his gently prickling claws, eyes boring into Foxstar, “she probably has all sorts of torrid dreams about you. She’s practically begging.” He let go of Sunveins, a bit too rough, and leaned in towards the leader, like it were a business deal between two toms that the little lady shouldn’t hear, despite her being right beside him. “I’d be more than happy to take her off your hands if you aren’t going to.” He grinned, sleazy and teasing and inordinately proud of himself. Whatever softness Foxstar had given him, it had been a mistake; he was one step away from the deep end, acting out like he was on a bender. To anyone who truly knew him, it was clear what he wanted, what he was angling for — hit me; beat me up; hate me. Beneath the grinning bravado, he was spiralling, he was near-hysterical, he was near trembling. He needed to be hated, because it was the only comfort for whatever wound Foxstar had inadvertently inflicted.

And yet, through it all, he still played it the way he had meant to — he was grappling with a crisis, but he was still here to do a job, and he did it. Kier the leader had a tad more of a grip than Kier the young tom. He made sure SummerClan heard the loud expressions of reunion, and he made sure they didn’t hear this, the low-voiced, dripping cuckoldry, didn’t hear the things that cast their Clans’ relations in an unfavourable light: Foxstar was a friend of NightClan.

---

Sneakysnap listened, and then she threw her head back and laughed. Looking back down at the young apprentice, she let out another series of low, humming laughs, the comedown of hilarity. “Look at you and your feminine instincts — protecting the nursery.” She’d always had a rather deep voice, a voice that belonged to many a girl before they made it higher, made it sweeter, for boys. She’d never had that problem; a tom said something, she pushed him right back, beat him down in the middle of camp till he was more girl than she was. It was the voice of a soccer player in the locker room. “In NightClan, we’d cut out your tongue if you talked to a tom like that. So don’t use it on me either.” She wasn’t going to rise to the bait of a kit.

Speedyraptor, still sniffing at the fresh-kill pile, suddenly sensed a figure behind him and let out a strangled shout of surprise, spinning around. “Get goin’, rat,” he snapped at Midnightpaw, shoving her away and stalking across the camp. He shuddered at the close contact. Padding past the apprentice and warrior dens, he scraped threatening looks across those peering out of them, herding them further into the den and ominously discouraging any from trying to step out and join his leader in the clearing.

Scuttling over, Brat ducked in beside Sneakysnap. “She doesn’t mean it,” she told Sunrisepaw with an apologetic laugh. “No one’s hurtin’ anyone — wasn’t in the tarot. Everybody’s just here to talk. Promise. On my life.” She gave a sheepish little grin.

“For now,” Sneakysnap growled, the fur along the back of her neck prickling up. Then, she whirled about to go join Ratsneer.

hi once again i'm the worst but this one is only three pages instead of four

For a moment, he could almost see the cat he had met that night, slightly confused, boyish just like him. His eyes remained softer than they should have as to not enhance the suspicion of a particularly observant cat; let them talk a small voice in his head. His clan mate’s talk would be worth it, if Foxstar could reach him. The SummerClan leader could only imagine what Kier’s last few moons had consisted of. He was certain it couldn’t have been good. If it had, they wouldn’t be there, face to face, because if his last few moons had been good, truly good, Kier wouldn’t have been at the front of the NightClan army. Perhaps Kier himself thought that he had had a good few moons; after all, what scared, vulnerable kid didn’t like to be selected from the masses and made king? Foxstar was sure he felt powerful, that he’d unleashed whatever darkness that Aspenstar had seen in him, hell, Kier might have even thought he was having the time of his life. Foxstar knew differently, though. He knew better. He knew that deep down, behind all of the pomp and circumstance, Kier was probably just a lost kid. How’d he know this? It was simple: he felt the same way. Underneath all of his smiles and his awkward bumbling around camp, Foxstar was a lost kid too. They were both too young to have the weight of the world on their shoulder, both too young to see the things that he was quite positive they had both seen. They both faced the same, cruel world every morning, a world that had damned them to their respective positions. Kier could put on a show, but Foxstar knew (or at least, he thought he knew) that deep down, no matter how much the two had changed in the last few moons, they were still one in the same. It was because of this that he was certain that he could reach him. He was confident that if Kier hadn’t changed, not fully, if he was right, there was one way to reach him. He had to show him the exact same kindness that he had showed him the first night, the night that their fates had inadvertently become entwined. His clan mates be damned, if he could show the tom kindness, even just for a moment before the world fell into flames, he would.

When Kier tried to goad him on the first time, he only flicked his ear. “I could say the same for you, Kier. You look like you’ve done… well for yourself.” He shifted slightly to look at him better, his silver gaze locked on his. “In general, I’ve found that clans are much more hospitable when you don’t bring what looks like a war party to their front door,” he interjected, his tone rather soft as he stated the fact. His brow was slightly furrowed as he looked up at the other, making no move to join him. “If you wanted to visit, I’m sure we could have accommodated it with enough notice. But, since you’re already here, there’s a meadow not too far from here, perhaps we could move our visit there?” He’d be much more comfortable out of camp. At least then, when his strategic misstep (he knew entertaining Kier was just that, a strategic misstep) backfired, like he knew it inevitably would, they would be away from the kittens. They didn’t need to see whatever was going to happen. “It’s much prettier there, for the kids, you know. Radiantcosmos can set off a hunting patrol, and I can get a nice meal set up there. If I would have had more time,” there was a slight chide in his tone here, “I could have fixed us one of my special feasts, but, here we are.” He frowned slightly, before blinking. “But, nothing can be done about that, so we can make the best of what we’ve got. We can have a nice afternoon, maybe we could even teach you all to make flower crowns? And then you and I could catch up. It’s been too long.” He could sense his own clan mate’s agitation, their distrust of his decision making, but he ignored it. Right now, their support wasn’t important. What was important was letting Kier know that someone would show him care, no matter how ridiculous it was to treat an invader with anything but tempered hostility. He needed Kier to know that if he wanted him to, Foxstar would still be his friend. He’d figure out what that meant with his clan mates later. He’d probably just tell them to get over themselves, remind them that cruelty wasn’t a good look on anyone’s face. He’d assure them that his friendship with the NightClan leader did not mean that the groups were friends, that Foxstar would help him in whatever bloodthirsty tomfoolery NightClan was up to. It just meant that if the tom needed someone to listen to him, to offer him a shoulder, Foxstar would be there for him, probably disapproving of his antics, unafraid to call him out, but quietly loving all of the same.

He started to blush at his implication about the medicine cat, bashfully looking away. Did the whole forest know? He didn’t have time to ponder this, because then Kier spoke of sleeping with Sunveins’ sister-in-law. His eyes widened again. Why would… The concern that had been in his eyes for Kier was only deepened by the other leader’s newest revelation. If Kier wasn’t lying, it meant that something happened, something bad. The last he knew, Sagebristle was deeply in love with Moonblight… More had happened in NightClan, it seemed, than he could have anticipated.

And then it didn’t matter what Kier said about Sagebristle. As soon as he moved in the medicine cat’s direction, Foxstar stopped listening to what he had to say. Everything else in the world fell away. SummerClan was no longer important, his friendship with Kier was no longer important, none of it. The only thing that was important was her. As Kier spoke to her, his gaze anxiously flicked across her. She was quite capable of coming back with a retort, but he couldn’t help but watch for any sign that she needed his help.

It was only when Kier referred to him again directly that his attention tore from Sunveins alone and slid back to him. He watched in disbelief as the tom grazed her with his unsheathed claws. For the first time in his life, Foxstar felt the call of darkness. When he watched his claws grace Sunveins, there was a part of him that wanted to leap into action, to tear the tom’s throat out right there. SummerClan camp had already been desecrated with blood before without reason, at least now, it would be deserved. He had nine lives, even if he had to lose all of them to protect her, to make him regret ever even looking in her direction, there was a part of him that would.

But, of course, that part of him didn’t win. Foxstar would have genuinely rather died than let that part of him win. He’d fought for so long to keep his golden heart, keep the love in his heart, and he would put himself in the ground before he lost himself completely. If Phantomfox couldn’t turn his heart cold when he plunged his claws into his son’s chest, left the three ragged claw marks as a permanent reminder of his cruelty, neither could Kier. He’s just acting out. Did you expect he would behave?, the little voice reminded him.

Still, he couldn’t let him just get away with manhandling her. A mix of chivalry (one must always be willing to defend a lady) and jealous anger (although he wouldn’t admit that was what it was) wouldn’t let Foxstar just let him do what he wanted. Even if it wasn’t Sunveins, he couldn’t let him rough up his clan mates without consequence.

He batted Kier’s paw away with a quick precision, a hard slap on the wrist like an old school teacher would do to a troublesome first grader. It wasn’t meant to hurt, just to warn him. “I recommend that you keep your paws to yourself, Kier,” he meowed, his voice lacking the previous warmth. His gaze then slid to Sunveins, concern clear in it. Was she okay? He didn’t think Kier had clawed her hard enough to break the skin, but if he did…

“As for taking whatever I want, being leader does not make me god,” he meowed, his tone now relaxing into a soft disappointment. “You might be good to remember that.”

He blinked a few times as Kier continued, his ears pinning back slightly. With every word that he said about Sunveins, Foxstar’s temperature raised another degree. He needed to be careful, even more so than normal. “Don’t talk about Sunveins like that,” he then added, his words once again an order. “You’ll find that my hospitality runs dry quickly when you insult the one I,” his eyes widened slightly as he realized what he was about to say. “The ones,” he corrected, emphasizing the plurality, “that I love. Are we understood?”

-
“Well good thing I ain’t talkin’ to a tom, innit? It looks like I’m talking to three squirrels in a trench coat and a bad wig parading around like she owns the place,” Sunrisepaw retorted, her fur bristling. “Feminine instincts? Oh yeah? You sure it isn’t just the instincts not to be a raging asshole to cats who can’t fight back?” Sneakysnap didn’t know who she was talking to. Once you got her going, she wouldn’t stop, and she had gotten her going. She was just about to wield another insult when Brat popped in. She looked deeply dissatisfied at the sudden appearance- how many dumb cats had NightClan brought? But, at least this one didn’t make her nauseous to look at.

“Gods, they feed her too much,” why was Sunrisepaw still on the fat kick? Sneakyraptor wasn’t fat? “and you not enough. What is with your clan? You could probably pop a balloon with those hip bones. I held on more weight than you when I was literally in prison for three months. If you’re not here to try to duke it out, is that why you’re here? Looking for some diet regulation advice? You certainly look like you could use it.”

{GASP i am late to the party ;-;}

RADIANTCOSMO glanced franticly around the sudden chaos spotting foxstar and sunveins with... was it... him. A cat she only knew from stories. A cat she hated without ever needing to meet. As she watched kier grab sunveins, her pelt bristled and she steaked across the camp, dodging in and out of the cats.

As she approached she skid to a halt next to Foxstar. Radiantcosmo gave him a look, one word from him and she would pounce, willing to do the dirty work for him. She got a better look now, giving the leader of Nightclan a good once over. The stories, they had prepared her for the most part, but she had been an adventurer before becoming deputy. Radiantcosmo had lucked out on meeting the fabled Kier until now. she began needing her claws into the dirt waiting.

"when you insult the one I,” as she suspected, but with a flick of her ears she decided she did not hear that, it wasn't her business, but the safety of her clan was.