Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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There was nothing unusual about this night. The NightClan cats milled about the cenote taking care of their various tasks, patrols starting to assemble, and kits impeding underneath the warriors' paws. It was a fair bit chilly, but with all the movement and socialization that went on in the camp, the energy kept all the bodies warm and the protective rock walls kept it bound to the camp, shielded from the frosted wilderness. Not a single one of the nocturnal warriors would sense the pangs of vengeance thrilling through the air nor the bated breath of the intruder snaking through the territory.
Crow crept through the shadows and clung to the ferns, nothing more than a suggestion of life against the void of night. He knew little about the well-traveled paths of the territory and even less about how to navigate the area that were sparsely frequented, but determination bit back any and every shudder of apprehension that might have warned him from the act he was prepared to commit. I have to know -- the thought coursed through his brain and lent speed to his step, despite the limp that impeded him. Ahead of him, the copse began to thin and the cracks in the earth trailed towards where the NightClan camp was carved into its crust.
Bracing himself, he marched right on past the threshold until he reached the center of the cenote, eyes of all colors and intensities turning to regard the intruder who stank of SummerClan. "I'm here for my sister and I won't hesitate to kill anyone who stands in my way," he announced, emboldened by his shuddering heart, which was tiptoeing the line between hope and disbelief. After so long of believing his beloved sibling to be dead, after thinking the ashes that settled in SunClan's ravaged territory were all that remained of her, nothing and no one would be able to stop the rugged tom and his army of one.
Aspenstar had been sitting in her den when she heard the voice, desperately trying to wake up from a poor day's sleep in order to prepare for her day, and she couldn't help but to sigh in frustration. Already? Is this really how I'm going to start my day? There were a million things that she would rather be doing than dealing with this, but especially lacking a deputy, she figured she had to. With a grumble, she rose to her paws, exiting her den and padding into the cenote.
Her tail twitched in irritation as she saw the tom. Inhaling the air to try to distinguish a scent, Aspenstar found herself even more annoyed. Hadn't she just established a working relationship with Ratstar? And this was how she was being repaid? She made a note to express her concerns to the tom the next time she met. Although she had no qualms with allowing Phantomfox and Rosethorn freely enter and exit the NightClan territory, it wasn't an open invitation to just any SummerClan cat who wanted to waltz in and cause some chaos.
"Are we supposed to know who you are?" The leader asked flatly, her gaze locked intensely on the tom. "Last I checked, I don't have a meeting scheduled with any random black tom, so unless I'm mistaken, I do have to say I enjoy the gall it takes to stroll into my camp like you own the place. A piece of advice, though. If you want to get what you want, probably don't threaten murder in a situation where twenty-six warriors could pile drive you with little preparation."
His resolve faltered only for a moment before Crow's flaring personality was ignited by her blasé remark. "My name is Crow," he sniped back at her, fury not withheld from his tone. "My sister is a prisoner here and I'm here to rescue her." He should have been unnerved by the crowd beginning to assemble, particularly when he noted the appearance of Rosethorn's really scary boyfriend, but Crow had never claimed to be good at math and clearly didn't care about his calculations being so drastically off and out of his favor.
A shadow coalescing at Aspenstar's side, any enticement he'd felt by the prospect of a battle were frozen by indifference, and Phantomfox brandished his own level of annoyance at the intrusion of his mate's sister's mate. "He's all talk," grunted the chocolate tom. "But we do have a SunClan apprentice in our prison, if memory serves." He only offered this information as a formality, but the bristling black cat would find himself low on allies if he expected the former leader to reserve his aggressions.
Like all other evenings, Soot/Raypaw was tucked away in the prisoner's den, and sleeping like a rock. Her wounds had almost entirely healed in the months since the fire. She had some nasty scars from all the burned spots dotting her flank, but nothing terrible, at least from just looking at her. One part of her never healed correctly: her lungs. While she could now speak without having a hacking fit, she still got winded far faster than she should have. But having not left the camp in a long time, she did not know the full extent of this.
She woke to the sounds of shouting coming from the outside. She opened her eyes and peeked out of the den's exit. All she could see was the bare rock of the cave, but the voice sounded very familiar... but she couldn't quite place it.
Aspenstar rolled her eyes at the tom. "A rescue mission of one, how charming," she found herself spurting out at him, her gaze critical. When Phantomfox spoke, it made sense. Of course, this cat was looking for a SunClan cat.
"Thank you for the context," she meowed to her loyal guard. "Apparently he was too daft to let me know himself, but what can I expect from one of them ." The cats of SunClan, and any cat who even remotely was related to the group, were a bunch of nutcases who couldn't help but start fires.
She then turned back to Crow. "If you would have been a little nicer, maybe I would be more inclined to help you. Your sister was a prisoner before I rose to the rank, and I have less use for her than I do of any cat who lives in my land. I would have just given her to you. One less cult member to feed is never a bad thing." Her head tilted to the side. "But, you came in here guns ablazing, and that makes me much less interested."
She glanced back to Phantomfox, her gaze a little softer than when she gazed at the intruder. "Fetch the prisoner, for me, would you?"
At this point she would glimpse the white hot rage begin to slip, diffusing while guilt manifested in its stead. The recent events following his arrival to SummerClan had left him feeling invincible, and when Crow had been warned of a cat imprisoned in NightClan that sounded far too similar to the description of his dead sibling, the heights of his victory urged him forward with no clear plan or consideration. "I'm sorry." He meant it. His tone was raw with the sentiment, guard falling and posture relaxing. "I thought she was dead..."
In the moments that came after, Phantomfox shifted out of sight to carry out the request poised to him, his footfalls otherwise silent as he entered the prisoners' den. He didn't bother to wake or warn Soot to the matter unfolding just outside, opting instead to merely reach down and lift her unceremoniously by the scruff, and he used similar vigor when he dropped her back to the ground in the middle of the cenote, her brother's bonfire eyes flickering with a handful of new emotions. "R-ray?"
Soot did her best to ignore the shouting and all the commotion outside, but it apparently found her. As Phantomfox pulled her up by the scruff she let out the nastiest hiss she could muster. It sounded as if he were trying to take away her kits. "Hey, I know you love body art Sir Has-been, but I have plenty." She rolled her eyes as she winced from the cave's stones digging into her flesh. "And, total offense intended, you suck at it. Who in their right mind would--". Another growl sounded from her throat when she saw the odd-eyed leader Aspenstar. "Great, the two-eyed twit is helping you too? It's like a ---"
R-ray? She stopped, and her breathing hitched. How could it be... she kept her head low for a few seconds. She didn't want to look up and find it wasn't real. But if it was... she slowly lifted her head, and found herself staring into the amber eyes she knew so well. "C-crowpaw?" She broke down into a coughing fit after she shouted his name. How did he know that she was here? She looked up again and stared into his eyes. They... looked different. She couldn't see the anger in him anymore. The snow bengal could only see relief... and maybe some hope?
The reek of an intruder assaulted his nose. The small warrior stalked from the shade of the warrior's den to watch the proceedings, overall uninterested, until the arrival of the prisoner.
So this little apprentice was Soot's brother? Floodfate's chilled gaze swept over him, taking note of his irate and then guilty expression with renewed interest. It was incredibly stupid of him to walk this far into the camp without a plan other than demanding the release of his sister, but even stranger was that it was working. Aspenstar actually fetched the prisoner.
"Surely you're not actually giving her up?" His rounded ears twitched as he stared at Aspenstar in disbelief. "She's our prisoner."
He didn't care about the eyes on him or Phantomfox still looming over her, Crow rushing forward to nose into Raypaw's fur. Her scent enveloped him and threatened to break the dam that he had erected around his grief, tears spilling over with no regard to the audience surrounding them nor the leader whose imperial stare was fixated on the reunited siblings. "We thought you were dead, Ray. I'm so sorry, we thought you were safe and protected and...and then we couldn't find you again. Mom and I, we went look and.. we thought you'd died." Everything tumbled out of him in a rush of sobs, apologies ripped right from his very core.
"I haven't decided," she meowed to Floodfate with a flick of her ear. She didn't know the story behind the SunClan hostage, but there was a large part of her that actually didn't care at all. Imagine, being stuck with a former leader's business that you didn't want. "Personally, she's the single most irritating cat that takes residence here, and keeping kidnapped cult members seems like it opens us up for a whole lot of drama that I am completely uninterested in." The leader and the prisoner had... not had good interactions in the past, and maybe that was part of the reason she was more willing to even consider the proposition, that on top of the fact that she didn't want to give Bloodystar and his band of freaks knocking at her door. "That being said, I will not make a decision that would harm NightClan. Things are... more complicated than they seem." As much as she wanted to keep SunClan off her neck, she also didn't want to rock the boat with NightClan's newest ally.
She turned her gaze to the other cat who was now crying. How tactless was this cat? It was almost shocking. Her tail tip twitched slightly; there was no fun in tormenting a clearly ... emotionally fragile tom, but she also knew that she couldn't tolerate outsiders commanding her to do things. It made NightClan seem weak, which seemed to be confirmed by Floodfate. She took a moment to glare at Phantomfox, the look in her eyes clear; this should be your job, and you're certainly lucky I did you a favor.
She then let out an a-hem, ready to speak to Crow again. "I would appreciate if you... stopped with the waterworks. It isn't productive for any of us, and whining gives me a headache." Her lips twitched, but it was indiscernible whether in a smile or a frown. "You have precisely one minute to explain to me why I should give her to you. If I permit you to take her, NightClan loses a den-keeper, and my apprentices have been quite happy that they've been able to avoid such duties. Normally, I would expect something in return, but..." She narrowed her eyes again. "I highly doubt you came prepared."
Nineteen hours after Aspenstar gave him one minute to persuade her, Crow was able to collect himself enough to speak. "I apologize for my entrance, errrr somethingstar. I don't know your name, sorry. I'm pretty sure Flamingstar is the last NightClan leader I've heard of but to be honest, a lot of my memories of childhood have been repressed and I've been...busy with....stuff lately so I'm not sure who's leader of where anym-- anyway, I digress." Why was he so rambley? Not too long ago he was a leader himself, albeit his force consisted of a total of about nine other cats in a group that his roleplayer forgot to make threads for, and he'd refined himself from the blubbering, hasty apprentice he'd been in SunClan, or so he thought he had.
Taking another moment to gather his thoughts, Crow's eyes flickering back to Raypaw briefly to stabilize his resolve before they returned to Aspenstar's mismatched gaze. "Raypaw is here because of me, because I wasn't a good enough brother to protect her. I failed her in SunClan. I failed her when she needed me the most. Do you have siblings? Wouldn't you do the same for them if you were in my position?" He poised the question and then fell silent, hoping that this leader did, in fact, have littermates. "When Raypaw and I were apprenticed in SunClan, it was on the eve of our father's execution by Bloodystar. He was accused of a crime I know he didn't commit. We weren't just rogue kits anymore. We were a murderer's kits as far as the clan was concerned. We were all we had left after that, and then..." His voice threatened to crack again, the pain underneath it flaring through, "the war happened, and we were all split up, and I thought my sister was dead until now. Please, please don't make me leave her behind again."
Aspenstar took note of the long pause, her nose wrinkling at the fact that the tom couldn't even get it together enough to respond to her in a timely fashion. "Aspenstar," she meowed when he questioned her name, her head tilted to the side. What an interesting thing to say, that you didn't remember much because your memories were repressed. "Calm down, child," she then meowed to him before he spoke again, resting her tail on his shoulder for just a moment. Aspenstar didn't like outsiders, this was true, but she also wasn't heartless. She could see that the tom was... going through it, and her impulse to make it better for him transcended the irritation at the storming of the camp.
She pulled her tail away only a mere moment after she rested it on him, listening to his words. "I have four," she responded to his question, thinking about the group of toms that she was never quite too far from. When Oakpaw was hurt, little Aspenpaw had been devistated. She had failed to protect him, and it almost cost him his life. She blinked the faint memory away, of finding the small tom in a pool of his own blood, barely holding on to life. Crow had said precisely what he needed to say to soften her. She couldn't imagine her life without the toms or their parents. This was in part cultural; NightClan was a group of felines where family meant everything. She had real personal stakes, though, too. He had struck a nerve. Her muscles tightened and then relaxed, before she sighed.
"Although I still think that you're assinine for attempting things the way you did, NightClan is no monster. I am no monster. Had you waited at the border for a warrior to bring you to camp, I would have released her without qualm." Her tail flicked, knowing that Floodfate and the others might not have appreciated that much. She didn't care; in the end, especially without a deputy, this was her decision alone.
She turned to Soot, her eyes completely devoid of emotion. "I am giving you grace once, not because I believe you have earned it. I do not. If I intended to give you the fate I thought you deserved, you'd be in my prison for a long time, if only because you're rude and obnoxious." The words she spoke were cold, much different than the soft tone she had just used for the feline's brother. "As such, I am releasing you today out of pity for your brother. You have him to thank for your life."
Aspenstar then looked back to Crow. "Do not forget my kindness here today, Crow. As I am giving you a life today, you owe my clan a return of the favor. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but there will come a point where I need you. If you fail to comply when the time to return the favor comes, I will tell my guard to hunt down and return Soot. Do you understand the conditions?"
(Sorry this is so late/short. I promise the next one will be better)
For the most part Soot tuned out what Crow said. For the first time in moons, she felt safe. She felt like she was worth something to someone, not just someone's puppet to avoid doing chores. She just kept embracing him, still unsure on some level if he was real. She pulled away and turned to face Aspenstar. Instead of being grateful, this newfound spoken freedom only emboldened her. As far as she was concerned, she was already gone. "Well, whatever. What you call rude and obnoxious I call witty, but you're a twit. I wouldn't expect you to understand that."
His maw was open to accept Aspenstar's graciousness, to fumble through several mentions of gratitude and apologies, when Raypaw interrupted instead, and Crow wasted no time in stuffing his tail into her mouth. "Ray, shut up," he hissed against her ear. Of course, she had to go on and open her big dumb mouth and say something rude to the cat that was letting her go. He could have killed her. "Don't mind her, Aspenstar, please. She's always been a little behind upstairs, yknow. We appreciate the gesture and I swear I will repay this debt to you someday."
How dare he say that? What gave him the right? Anger boiled up in her chest at his hiss, and then boiled over when he shoved his tail in her mouth. No. Way. She growled and did the only thing that seemed logical when a sibling stuffs their tail into their sister's mouth: she chomped down and gave it a nice firm, fast tug before spitting it out. "Pffft. I'm not 'behind', you dumb pigeon!" She lashed her tail and looked back to Aspenstar. "Me and dodo bird here are gonna leave. Screw off if you have a problem with it."
