The Fallen Bird [Open, MC/MCA and Crowstar needed]

Owlstrike limped behind the leader as he took him to his clan’s camp, for a good chunk of the walk he tried to act strong and ignored the pain from his wounds…but right now he was holding his head low, hissing softly each time he moved as the white-hot pain that his wounds caused hit him as hard as possible, his chocolate stripped coat had several patches stiff and covered with dried blood, the ones on his shoulders and legs still bright red as his movements didn’t allowed the wounds to close at all. However, the worst wound of them all was the one over his right eye, an irregular slash which went all the way from his forehead, over his eye and ended on top of his nose, droplets of crimson coming from the wound falling off his face and leaving a trail behind him. He couldn’t open his eyelid at all thanks to the pain, and though he hadn’t lost the eye he couldn’t help but worry, thinking he probably did.

He had refused the help of the black leader along the way, wanting to keep the little pride he still had left, determined to prove he wasn’t a weak kit in need of protection, though now such action was causing him to feel near to collapse, his body feeling a thousand times heavier than it really was on the tired exiled tom’s paws. He barely noticed when they arrived to camp at all, too focused on not tripping with his own paws and keep walking to see anything but the black pelt belonging to Crowstar as he led the way, his ears buzzing thanks to the exhaustion and not allowing him to take in the sounds of the other warriors as they carried on with their everyday lives.

It wasn’t until the leader stopped walking that he raised his head, noticing they had already arrived. He only had a couple seconds to look around before his paws finally gave in under his weight, causing him to fall with a soft thud, panting heavily and tasting his own blood as it flowed from the slash over his eye, dripping on his tongue as soon as he opened his mouth. The adrenaline that still flowed through him and his determination to not faint being the only things that kept him awake. His eyes traveled from cat to cat, wondering how the clan would react to his presence.

Crowstar had lead Owlstrike through the territory, concern ever growing for the warrior. Well rogue... But Crowstar had thought it through. He would claim Owlstrike was an old Skyclan warrior from a while ago that finally returned home.

Once they had reached camp, he meant to say something to the warrior, but the warrior had collapsed. He was losing a lot of blood and needed some care immediately. "Someone go get Oceanlight or Rabbitfoot." He barked the order at a random warrior.

He turned his attention back to the fallen warrior. "Just lay still for now Hawkstrike." The leader said with a look that told the warrior not to mention where he had come from. "They will get you back up to good health, and then we can get you reintroduced to your old camp. Skyclan welcomes your return." He said making sure anyone else listening in knew that this was an old warrior who had returned from being lost, and once the leader would introduce the warrior, it would reinforce the idea that Owlstrike was a lost warrior and not a former shadowclan warrior.

"Who is this?" Eagleheart strode up and growled, nose wrinkled. He had smelled the stench of rogue right after the pair entered the camp. This better not be another one of Crowstar's adoptions. Starclan only knows we have enough rogue cats here, The dark warrior thought as he looked over Hawkstrike.

Oceanlight sat in the den, eating a bird. Some weird feeling surged through her when she bit into it. It felt like numbness ran through her blood. She sensed something. 'Someone is injured.' she thought. She walked out and, indeed, someone was injured. Nobody she recognized. She saw his eye was slashed. She ran back and came out with a celandine flower, catchweed, with cobwebs on her front claws. She made sure the yellow flower was above the damaged eye. Slowly, she closed her mouth, sending juice dripping down onto the warrior's eyelid. Once the juice neared stopping she put it down. She then put a patch of cobwebs above it. The cobwebs had trouble keeping on the eyelid's fur. She placed some catchweed in between the patch and the fur, the burrs catching on both, keeping the cobweb patch on top of the eye. She'd need other cobwebs from time to time, eyes don't stop bleeding easily. For now, she shouldn't worry.


She looked at the wounds on Hawkstrike's legs. They weren't infected or that deep, plain cobwebs would do. She put some cobwebs on the wounds. "Follow me to my den, you just need rest." she meowed.

Hawkstrike? Old camp? Return?

The injured rogue looked at Crowstar with confused eyes until something finally clicked in his mind. Well, this wasn’t the first time he had to act something he really wasn’t, so it wouldn’t be a trouble for him to get used to this new identity of his. Plus, it felt kind of nice to get rid of the name that the same father that abandoned and almost killed him gave to him so many moons ago. It was like if they were never family at all.

His attention started to travel to the cats gathered around him, and he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of welcome he would get. There was at least one that was eyeing at him with clear distrust and he couldn’t really blame them, it was only logical to be wary of an unknown cat that walks into your camp after all.

As soon as the medicine cat from the clan padded towards him he decided to stay as still as possible to not make their work harder than it clearly was already, only moving lightly from time to time as an involuntary reaction to the pain as the herbs and cobwebs were applied to his open wounds “Thank you” His voice was raspy and couldn’t go anywhere beyond a whisper at this point. His paws protested and his body felt stuck to the ground as he got up to follow Oceanlight’s instructions, several wounds on his legs, shoulders and flanks reopening with the effort and causing him to let out a loud hiss of pain.

He hadn’t stopped to think about it until then, but it was clear that Mudfoot had done quite a number on him…but he would get stronger. Also next time he would be well fed, and not the thin and malnourished cat he was at the time…he wouldn’t be so lucky next time the crossed paths.

Slowly and limping, fighting against his body’s demands to just lie down and sleep, he made his way to the medicine cat’s den. He was tired, his whole body was in such pain that it was starting to feel numb, and the blood loss was making him dizzy, but he wasn’t going to give his father the satisfaction of knowing that his attacks were enough to finish him off.

Crowstar looked at Eagleheart, no emotion coming to the surface at this warrior's distrust. He had already seen it before. "That is Hawkstrike, an old skyclan warrior that went missing a while back. He some how managed to find his way back, but I guess Shadowclan found him before I did, or at least some other cat did.." The leader said to his warrior, his voice not wavering in his lie. "I'm glad he has returned to us though. It will help make up for the warriors that are temporarily taken from us." Eagleheart was a good warrior, but his own dislike of useful rogues and clan cats could get in the way sometimes.

Eagleheart accepted the leader's explanation with a nod. Nothing in the words made him think otherwise. Like any other clan cat, the warrior followed his leader judgement. Lately, that had meant even in time in which he disagreed. Instead of replying, he simply watched, waiting to greet his returned clanmate.