The future's in your paws. Shape it well.Roleplay in a cat Clan of warriors. Based off the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. Takes place in an AU before the cats in the books existed.
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One of the highlights of Fawnpatch’s day was when she checked in with Mistyfalcon. She had alerted all of her fellow Dark Forest cats that Mistyfalcon was not to eat unless she brought him food, and she’d made sure the Dark Forest cats let the clan cats know as well. There would be no feeding Mistyfalcon. It would ruin the fun. She’d made sure to give him just one meal a day. If she was the only one delivering food, then she would be the one who he started to rely on, even unconsciously. It was so fun.
She entered the elder’s den, a squirrel between her teeth. She set it down at Mistyfalcon’s nest. “And how are we doing today?” she asked with a smile as she sat before him. Her gaze looked him over, checking if her efforts had led to any physical changes in the elder.
The nights had been growing warmer, though the lack of leafbare's chill or snow on the now muddy ground brought little comfort. Mistyfalcon's head rested on his paws, eyes only half-closed in the gloom of the den as he eyed the entrance, watching the movement from outside the den expectantly. Any moment, he told himself foolishly, Basilbloom or Fuzzypaw would tell him that Murkystar had finally woken. He knew better of course, no stars speckled the dark sky above, and the stench of death in camp was overwhelming. But clinging to foolish hope seemed to be all he had. For the complete lack of good it did. His kits with Murkystar and Batglow had kept him busy, much too young and innocent to understand the perils of the world they lived in. For their sake, he hoped the stars might return, even if he would rather they all stayed where they belonged - not interfering with the living, whether dark forest or Starclan.
His dark eyes narrowed farther as a shape blocked the entrance of the den, bringing with it the smell of death and fresh kill. Foxheart would've been a better name for the she-cat, he thought as she entered the den. A tattered ear twitched as she spoke, sounding for all the world like a cheery youth rather than a thing of evil that should've stayed buried in the dark forest from where she'd come from.
His stomach growled audibly at the sight of the squirrel. Part of him - the prideful part - wished to ignore it and pretend he wasn't hungry. Not that anyone could believe such, with his ribs showing clearly through his graying, stress-thinned pelt. The rational part of him knew this was likely the only fresh-kill he'd be seeing. "Just fine." He bit out in response to the dead she-cat's words. The words were quite obviously a lie, but he would never admit what troubled him to these fiends.
Fawnpatch offered Mistyfalcon a cruel smile in response to his short words. “Well isn’t that just lovely?” she cooed in a sickeningly sweet voice. “I do hope you’re hungry. I picked out a delicious piece of prey just for you.” In reality, it was not only an old squirrel—one that would be close to being thrown out, for fear of it becoming crowfood—but it was also one of the skinniest in the pile. No doubt that was why it had been left for so long. Still, Mistyfalcon rarely got a meal with Fawnpatch around, so he would have to eat this; and Fawnpatch would enjoy watching him struggle to find much to chew on.
“You know,” she mewed as she laid down before him, getting comfortable and making it clear that she was not leaving any time soon, “It is a real shame about Murkystar. You were close with her, weren’t you? And now she’s poof…gone to the wind. And yet you still hold onto her body, foolishly hoping that StarClan will return her spirit. What will you do when she decomposes into crowfood? No one will even want to touch her to go out and bury her, or whatever you lot do with your dead nowadays.” She shook her head. “If she had simply done better, she wouldn’t have died, of course. Or perhaps it was that medicine cat that’s too blame. Basilbloom is her child, isn’t she? And she couldn’t even save her own mother from her kitting? ShadowClan has gone quite downhill since I was around.” She groomed her paw as she spoke, acting nonchalant, but she kept her gaze on Mistyfalcon out of the corner of her eye. She knew that Basilbloom was his child too.
"Oh, how kind of you." Mistyfalcon eyed the thin, old squirrel as it was set before him, stubbornly not moving towards it. Had he done so, he was sure he might've choked on it as Fawnpatch continued to speak.
"Keep Murkystar's name out of your mouth." He spit. "It wasn't her fault, and it wasn't Basilbloom's fault either." Mistyfalcon growled in response, tattered ears flattening as his lip lifted in a snarl. He did not have the energy to pretend that her words didn't make him want to claw her fur off, not that it would do the thin elder any good. His claws didn't remain sheathed, flexing into the ground beneath, but he forced himself to stay where he was, not making a move against Fawnpatch, seething with frustration.
There we go. Fawnpatch feigned surprise at Mistyfalcon’s vicious retort, though it was hard not to hide the amused smile that wiggled its way onto her maw. “Oh no, did I strike a nerve? Oh my apologies, darling elder.” She folded her paws in front of her, not seeming intimidated by the claws that dug into the ground beneath him. She knew that he wouldn’t try anything against her. “All I’m saying is that it was lucky that StarClan had granted her all of those lives. What a silly way for her life to end, dying in kitting. Pathetic, honestly.” She shook he head and gave him another thin smile. “Almost as pathetic as choosing to starve to death to…what? Save face against me?”
"What's pathetic is your presence." He muttered darkly. "She'd be alive and well by now if not for you." Mistyfalcon was not religious in the slightest, but the lack of the stars in the sky, the faint outline of the dead spirits, and these stars-forsaken beasts walking Shadowclan territory was enough. That Murkystar couldn't resurrect, well, it didn't take a genius to connect the dots. He'd been raised on tales of the Righteous Few, and the battle that had banished them back to where they'd come from, too.
"Right, because you would let me have any more than this? How long has that been on the kill pile, exactly?" The squirrel had been old and skinny before death as far as he could tell, and however long it had sat on the fresh kill pile hadn't made much of an improvement in its' appearance. Or taste, or anything else, he was willing to bet. "Such a generous keeper, truly." He added, tone heavy with bitter sarcasm.
“She would be alive because StarClan decided she was worth nine cats in total,” Fawnpatch meowed blandly. “Have you never found it a bit unfair, that some cats are given nine whole chances at life, while the rest of us are only given the one? Especially looking at something like RiverClan. From what I’ve heard, their line of leaders all came from the same lineage.” She snorted and shook her head. “What makes Murkystar more worthy to live nine times over than someone like you, for instance? Or for that matter, those…oh what were their names…Loudnose, Ratrunner? Why should Murkystar be granted another life after she wasted it dying to something like kitting, but those two shouldn’t get another chance after being so ruthlessly harmed?”
Fawnpatch moved past the topic quickly. It was not her goal to actually convince Mistyfalcon of anything; perhaps work him up into such a state that he keeled over. Wouldn’t that be funny? Instead she batted at the squirrel a bit with her paw, scooching it closer to him. “I’m a far better keeper than others. Many Dark Forest cats see elders as a complete waste of resources. A lot of them would rather kill you themselves, and in a far more brutal fashion than starvation. Would you rather that this be the only meal a kit gets instead? I’m happy to take it to the nursery.” She smiled, giving him a challenging look.
"Murkystar is a far better cat than most. Especially the likes of you." Mistyfalcon muttered irritably. His tail twitched back and forth, the old tom quickly starting to grow impatient as the dark forester prattled on. "Don't act like you cared whether any of them lived or died."
His stomach rumbled audibly at the threat to take the meal to the nursery instead, and Mistyfalcon glared down at his forepaws, silently cursing that betrayal. "Let the queens pick prey suitable for a kit to eat." He sighed. That old squirrel most certainly wasn't. It was suitable for a half-starved elder who had no other option, though, and Mistyfalcon reluctantly sliced a claw through the squirrel's fur, head lowering. Still, he never took his eyes off of Fawnpatch, far too awry of her scheming to attempt to enjoy this pitiful meal.
Fawnpatch smiled smugly when Mistyfalcon finally relented and began to eat. “Well there; that wasn’t so hard, now was it? I’m sure your stomach will appreciate it.” She rested her head on her paws. She always stayed for the duration of him eating and took away the scraps when he was finished, like the good caretaker she was. She had nothing more to prod him with this evening, and so she would just allow her presence to be the last annoyance for him until tomorrow when the process would start all over again.
