Without a jump, a frog is nothing [Open::RC]

By the time Sleetpaw had dragged him into camp, Frogpaw was delirious in pain. His concussion rendering him useless, one pupil far more dilated than the other as he looked off into the blue sky that looked weirdly serene in contrast to the pain that wracked him. Weakly panting, he let himself be dragged, unable to move a muscle as small spasms tore away any control he had over himself. When finally dropped in the centre of camp, he drooled in puddle until a sudden burst of agony had him spasming on the ground.

White froth came out as he wheezed weakly, too tired to scream anymore.

If he had any consciousness left, he would have apologised to Sleetpaw for having to listen to his screams all the way here. He couldn't help it, he couldn't even clamp his own jaw shut, it just hung at a weird angle, off-centre and clearly broken.

He thought he'd go insane on the way back. His mind replayed the scene over and over again, every one of Frogpaw's screams peeling away at a little strip of him, and by the time they'd reached camp, he was hollow, nothing left except the cold numbing pit in his stomach. Sleetpaw couldn't stare at his jaw for long, not without wanting to hurl up the fish he'd had before the patrol. His own jaw ached, his neck, his paws, his whole body from having to pull him the whole way there, but he could barely focus on that. "Cloudstone..." he muttered, his voice sounding even hoarser than Frogpaw's. "Fishstar!"

Frogpaw had screamed for her when it'd happened, and the name felt etched into his bones, burned into his thoughts.

WindClan. There weren't any doubts now. They'd tried peace, and this is what it got them. He raked his claws through the dirt, fluffing out his fur and lashing his tail. "FISHSTAR!" he yowled, letting his voice ring through the clearing. Frogpaw needed her. They all needed her.

Though she was not exactly Fishstar, Tawnystorm still stuck her head out of her den What was going on? Clearly, it was important, clearly, something big had happened.... But her thoughts were cut off as she saw Frogpaw. Her mouth gaped open in shock, and she tried not to flinch. She'd fought many a bloody battle in her life, seen seemingly infinite amounts of cats die, but this...this was just grotesque. The apprentice looked as though he was in so much agony - maybe the worst part of this was that he had survived.

The warrior rushed over as fast as she could, shaking with anger. First Shellpaw, now this? "Frogpaw! Who did this to you? Somebody get Cloudstone!" she yelled.

Squirrelkit skidded out of her nursery—she was too big for it anyway—and, looking wildly around, the tabby kit listened to hear where the screams were coming from.

She watched, frozen, as the warriors called, the body spasming on the ground, and, nodding vigorously with no words for once, she darted off as fast as her small legs could carry her, all the while yelling for Cloudstone.

Fracturedpaw crept out of the apprentices den, the distressed mews from other cats calling to his attention. What his eyes fell on shocked him almost as much as the flood. He cringed at the sight of the withered apprentice, watched as foam gurgled from his mouth. He didn’t know this apprentice too well, just he had heard his name was Frogpaw.

His just must be broken... He thought in utter shock at the sight of the mangled lower lip. It had to be, he had never seen a jaw bone bend like that, and judging by the apprentices action, he was in real pain, with only backed up his first question, confirming it. He snapped himself from his trance of thought, quickly padding up to Frogpaw’s side, along Tawnystorm’s flank.

"Is there anything I can do?" He asked, keeping his voice straight. He didn’t want to just stand around and watch, he didn’t want to feel useless when a den mate was in pain.

Sootwhisper padded into camp as well, his usual neutral expression replaced by a frown and his tail lashing angrily from side to side. He could understand one or two warriors getting out of hand when you’re a leader, but your own deputy? He hissed softly at the thought and started to look around, trying to find either Cloudstone or Fishstar around the camp, and when he didn’t see them he did what many would’ve thought unthinkable coming from the quiet tom… “Cloudstone! Fishstar!” His deep voice, usually low and barely audible for those not right next to him, echoed across the camp, indignation and worry clear on it.

His eyes landed on Fracturedpaw as soon as he offered his help “Please, find Fishstar, Cloudstone, Ivyfall…anybody! Frogpaw needs help and quick!” He urged the younger cat as he looked at Frogpaw, this was bad…way too bad. With a low hiss of frustration, he tried his best to comfort the injured apprentice, cursing his lack of skills while doing so “Hold on, just a little longer, help is coming”.

Shellpaw ran out of the medicine cats' den at Sleetpaw's yowl to see Frogpaw lying on the ground. His injuries were grotesque, and the she-cat winced at the thought of her friend's pain. She wasn't Cloudstone, far from it, but she immediately grabbed some moss and eased it under the tom's head. "Shhh, Frogpaw, help's coming. It's okay, you're home now. Save your strength." Though the scratches all across her pelt and face still ached and were far from healed (perhaps they never would, Cloudstone had told her), her problems paled in comparison. The mottled she-cat felt sick inside. What monsters could do this to a cat? She pressed comfortingly against a trembling Sleetpaw. "Don't worry, Sleetpaw. He'll be f-f-fine." Her own voice started to tremble, and she felt that she was comforting herself as much as her den mate.

Fracturedpaw nodded, he hadn't a clue on where to find any of those cats if they weren't already here, but he offered help, so that's what he would do. The older apprentice skipped to the side, glancing around the camp as he dashed from one corner of camp to the next, looking for the familiar pelts of either the leader, deputy, or medicine cat.

Swiftpaw ran out to the terrified calls. She saw Frogpaw laying there, a broken jaw. "FISHSTAR! CLOUDSTONE!" she joined in with the calls.

With a growl, Stormpaw pushed his way through the crowd of warriors and apprentices that had pooled around Frogpaw's limp form. "Outta my way," he growled, shoving Fracturedpaw roughly aside. When Frogpaw finally came into view, Stormpaw's eyes widened in disbelief.

For not even a second did he doubt whose fault this was. His claws unsheathed instinctively as the anger set in, and he dug them into the tender ground beneath his paws. "This is WindClan's fault," he spat, the fur along his spine bristling. Those fox-hearts. They hurt my brother. "I'm going to claw all of their faces off!"

More quietly, Snakepaw slunk up behind him and stiffened at the sight. "Oh, StarClan," he breathed, incredulous. He hadn't even been aware of the fact that a cat's jaw could be twisted so badly. He, too, could feel his pelt prickle with a rising anger as he beheld the damage done.

WindClan had no honour or mercy, and after this, they deserved no such courtesies from RiverClan.

---

For the second time in three sunrises, the smell of blood hit the RiverClan leader's nostrils.

Fishstar had been busily repairing a collapsed part of the elder's den when several panicked voices pierced the quiet hum of the afternoon, and the familiar rank odour of blood wafted past her. Immediately, she released the sticks that had been in her jaw and leaped out of the tangle of branches she been ensnared in.

Not again, not again, she kept repeating in her head as she scrambled over to the source of all the commotion. There were a hundred possibilities as to why someone could had been injured, but the only thing she could think about was what had happened to Shellpaw. Clearly, someone had not just slipped and fallen on a wet rock.. Why would half the Clan be panicking if that was the case? With Leafbare right around the corner, the last thing any Clan needed was violent conflict with another Clan. As furious as Fishstar was with WindClan, with the weather turning, herbs and prey to treat and feed injured cats became much harder to come by..

And then, as Fishstar scrabbled around a throng of reeds, the scene came into view.

Frogpaw had been the victim this time. Fishstar froze a little ways away from his collapsed form, her heart hammering in her chest. Her blood, her only remaining kit through Otterfur, had been mutilated. His jaw was hanging strangely off to the side, and the debilitating fear and pain of whatever had just occurred was clear to see in his eyes. For a moment, all the spotted she-cat could was stare incredulously down at her son. One didn't have to be a medicine cat to see that this wasn't the result of some sort of mouse-brained accident. It all hit her, then. Her mate was gone. Her sister was gone. Her other sister - and former deputy - was crippled. Now, Frogpaw had been brutally attacked.

In an instant, Fishstar's shock turned into a white-hot fury. In a voice cracking with rage, she hissed, "Who did this?"

"Oh—oh!" Squirrelkit bounded up to the Stormpaw and Snakepaw's sides, panting slightly, her eyes wide with fear and disbelief. She was basically as old as them; and besides, in this case, it didn't matter anyway.
The older kit had never seen anything like Frogpaw, in her entire life. Her paws shook slightly as she stared at the tom, wide-eyed. Finally she plopped down on the moist dirt, looking around at the clan with bewildered eyes as Fishstar's words rung in her ears.
Who did this?

Sootwhisper padded towards Fishstar as soon as he came into view, this was the first time in the whole life of the tom that he not only was furious enough for a frown to replace his usually neutral expression, but also for his voice to raise and go against the trait that granted him his name during his warrior ceremony. The fur on his back and tail was standing on end and his claws were half unsheathed “What if I told you that WindClan’s deputy himself mutilated Frogpaw right at the border” He hissed, his deep voice leaking rage with each word.

“That fox-hearted cat that goes by the name of Smokepelt was leading a patrol on his side and we crossed paths. Without any kind of provocation of our part he looked at us like we were stealing prey or crossing the border. I won’t deny that some sharp words were exchanged on both sides with his reaction, but I wasn’t expecting him to jump across the small gap that separated our patrols at the Gorge and started attacking Frogpaw like that. By the way he slammed his head against the ground, we should be grateful that it was only his jaw and not his whole skull what he managed to break” Sootwhisper explained what had happened to Fishstar and all the cats around him, talking more to the cats of the clan than ever before in his whole life, anger loosening his tongue. Now, he wasn’t saying that Frogpaw’s injuries weren’t serious, all the other way around, but he just wanted to let the leader know that, by the way Smokepelt had battled, he probably could’ve killed the apprentice instead of just injuring him.

The scent of blood mingled with that of panic and despair. As she lead her hunting patrol back to camp, Ivyfall closed her eyes and prayed to StarClan that it wasn't another one of their own injured or worse. Shellpaw's injuries had been gruesome enough, and Silenkit's body washed up on the sand still haunted her dreams. Clamping her jaw tightly around the sparrow, enough to grind the small bird's bones to crack, she rose out of the waters to enter the newly rebuilt camp.

It was Frogpaw. Fishstar's only living kit.

"No." Ivyfall whispered, looking up at the sky as if asking them why this was happening.

Otterleap, who was beside her, snarled like their TigerClan ancestors of old. "WindClan! You can smell it too, right Ivyfall? They... They did this! How dare they?! After what they did to Shellpaw! Wasn't that enough!"

Once upon a time, she would have preached being calm and rational. But how could she now? She'd assumed that Ashstar would be wise, would be clever but apparently she'd expected too much of WindClan. Her foolishness in assuming that there was some scrap of honour left in WindClan had lead to this, another apprentice was mangled and it was on them. They were warriors, they should have defended their apprentices. "Did... Did you just say that Smokepelt did this? The deputy of WindClan did this to an apprentice half his size?"

Shellpaw's nuzzlings felt a world away. Through all the shocked and outraged yowls, he could barely hear her, or anyone, as he stared at Frogpaw's mutilation. Would any medicine cat be able to set that back into place? Or would he carry that for the rest of his life, if he could even use a mouth like that? "Yes, Shellpaw..." he lied, his voice sounding strangely distant. Even now, he couldn't help but notice the scars from her maiming. A second apprentice, attacked. If it'd been him out there alone, would he have ever returned to camp?

What was the cat's name again? Smokepelt, the deputy? Ashstar chose that foxheart to lead after her? Her words from the Gathering rung in his ears, about peace and trust, and how she'd be the first cat to punish any code-breaker in her own Clan... He didn't know Ashstar, and he'd always heard in their nursery games that she was a good and honest warrior, but how hollow that all sounded now. A whole WindClan patrol had been there and watched him do it, and her own hand-picked successor had done it. It wasn't an accident, he'd even looked proud of how he'd crippled a cat half his size.

"This is what happens when you mess with WindClan!"

He pulled away, the fur along his spine bristling. Disbelief rippled through the Clan on how a warrior could do such a thing, but it was all true. "It was Smokepelt!" he yowled, fury shaking his voice. "I watched it happen! Our patrol was scouting the gorge when WindClan came and Smokepelt crossed the border to attack him." What kind of warrior picked on the weak? There weren't any doubts now. "WindClan thinks we're mice they can toy with! They have no respect for our warriors or for the code! We have to get them back." Sleetpaw wouldn't be able to sleep until the fox den they lived in was in tatters. They had to teach the entire forest that RiverClan still had claws. "And we should start by dragging Smokepelt back here by the scruff so he can pay for his crime!"

"WindClan? WindClan? Those foxhearts!" Tawnystorm's anger only grew as she heard of the recent developments. How could she be expected to keep her temper in check now? Maybe it was too much to ask of Ashstar and WindClan. She should have known better, than to think that they had some dignity - maybe it was just one warrior that had attacked Shellpaw, but the deputy had so viciously mangled Frogpaw's jaw? Were they falling to pieces? Was Ashstar incapable of leading a clan with a scrap of honour? It certainly seemed like it. It disgusted her - a warrior attacking an apprentice was bad - but the deputy mutilating an apprentice half his size? " Smokepelt did this? The deputy of WindClan did this?" Her eyes burned with a red-hot rage never seen before, digging her claws into the dirt, and her voice trebled with fury. "That heartless monster! That...that despicable WindClan, with their incompetent leader and vile, fish-faced deputy! We-we'll make them pay!"