revelations in blood [c]

She thought it was going to be difficult to get used to ShadowClan's territory, but the moons she'd spent in the Place of No Stars had prepared her for the cold, and the damp. When they'd been split up, each Dark Forest cat to go to a clan, part of Rainstrike wanted to return to ThunderClan. Her grandmother was still there, and it would have been nice to see the fear in ThunderClan's eyes once again, when the few who had been alive when she was recognized her... but tormenting her old clan was second on her agenda. Rainstrike was no fool... she had seen the Righteous Few come, and she'd seen them defeated, too, even after it'd seemed hopeless for the clans, like it did now. Eventually, the living would win. They always did. So while the cats of the Dark Forest ruled over the living clans, Rainstrike would fulfill her goal, and that started here, in ShadowClan.

Already it was warming... a sensation the former ThunderClanner hadn't felt in what seemed like a lifetime. The snow was melting, and each day the breeze grew gentler. This night, Rainstrike had plans, and as the sun set, casting the forest in shadow, she made her way towards the one cat she'd come here to see.

She waited until he was alone to approach, her head high, eyes keen and observant. He'd made himself into a fine warrior, somehow. Perhaps I was wrong about you, she considered... but regardless, he was the only capable, living link she had access to, so he would have to do. "Emberleap!" she called out as she approached. "Walk with me." It was not a request, but her voice wasn't altogether demanding, either, just firm, and insistent. Rainstrike turned towards the entrance of camp, and then looked over her shoulder to ensure he was following.

Emberleap took to the Dark Forest’s presence how he took to anything: quietly and without complaint. He had long ago learned the art of staying on his feet while the world collapsed around him; this was just more of the same. He’d even made a point of memorizing the walking corpses’ names, because it was the polite thing to do. Because he didn’t know which imperceptible misstep might offend them to the point of action. He refused to set the spark that led to more bloodshed. If that made him a coward or rogue-hearted, so be it; he couldn’t argue with that when braver, better warriors had already fought back and died for their trouble. But when ShadowClan rose up someday—because they would, the way they had risen up against Asylum—he would be alive to help them turn the tables.

(Or to die fighting beside them, which, frankly, was the only end to this. A dead cat couldn’t be killed. No hope, plan, or prayer could change that.)

A voice—a distinctly not-ShadowClan voice, at that—yanked him back to reality. First, he glanced over his shoulder as if some other Emberleap might have wandered into ShadowClan’s camp. When one failed to materialize, he looked to the voice’s source, putting a name to the scarred, shadow-spilling face. Rainstrike. Something about that rang familiar to his ears. Not so familiar that he thought anything of it, though; given the Clans’ limited pool of names, it would have been far stranger if he’d never heard of a rain-something before.

Suppressing a grimace as the scents of blood and rot rolled past his nose, he nodded. What she’d said didn’t fully sound like an order. That didn’t make it less of one. Emberleap very nearly turned to fetch his fox pelt, but Rainstrike’s gaze clung to him like a cluster of burrs wedged between his leg and his chest, and so he thought better of it, hurrying to follow her as every bone in his body sang a sharp alarm. Had he, in going about his pre-takeover duties, crossed an unspoken line? Had the Dark Forest taken his acceptance, his personal detachment from the stars, as approval? Honestly, he wasn’t sure which was worse. “Rainstrike, right?” As if he’d ever doubted it. Emberleap, standing on tiptoe, leaned left to get a better view of the dead she-cat’s expression. “Could I ask what this is about?”