Flight of the Crow [Open; All of Skyclan Needed]

The deputy was flustered underneath the weight of responsibility that had been so suddenly placed on his shoulders. For quite sometime now, Crowstar had been distant. Sure, he had been around, but the fluffy black leader hadn't been as active of a part of the clan as normal. Rippedsky had still consulted with him in private over certain matters. But things were still strange. He hope that Crowstar would sometime start to leave his den more often. However, it had only been worse since their run in with Twistedtail. His tail twitched uncomfortably at the memory of the whole situation. His Windclan friend had created a strange rift between him and the leader. It felt sometimes like Crowstar no longer trusted him. With a deep breath, Rippedsky tried to forget about it. He needed to go talk to the clan leader. They hadn't spoken for the past couple sunrises and the black and white tom simply assumed it meant his former mentor still resided in his den. His paws shuffled slightly hesitantly at the entrance before he finally called out, "Crowstar? May I come in?"

The sound of his own voice echoed back to him. If there was any cat inside, no sound came back. Rippedsky cocked his head in confusion. Due to the fact Crowstar was not in his den, or in camp, there wasn't really anywhere else he could be. The deputy had spent all of his waking moments organizing patrols and still hadn't seen his leader. After waiting a moment, the warrior tom padded slowly into the den. It was empty. Off to one side was a slightly unkempt nest and the remains of an old meal. Underneath the light smell of the stale carcass and bones was a faint scent of Crowstar. Rippedsky's nose twitched and his eyes went wide- there was not a fresh scent. Immediately, he turned and raced out into the clearing.

His eyes scanned the clearing for the familiar, fluffy black pelt. There wasn't one. Panic rose up in his chest. Where could he be? It appeared that the leader was gone. The fact that he hadn't been in his den for a while was alarming. Rippedsky looked over the camp one more. Nothing. As his gaze darted between the warriors, a loud and somewhat desperate meow built up in his throat, "Has anyone seen, Crowstar?"

Storm that Lights the Clouds was relaxing rather contently on 'his' side of the camp, still rather proudly refusing to sleep in the warriors den. His eyes were half open, not being awake for all that long as he watched the black and white tom that was the so-called deputy of SkyClan stroll into the leader's den only to come rushing back out only heartbeats later. Storm raised his head, his eyes narrowing with the slightest of concerns before the words even left Rippedsky's mouth.

Crowstar...Gone? His tail swished as he shifted his position, not sitting up but did give a more alertness to his poster. He said nothing, having little to say as a few questions ran across his mind. Now that the tom thought about, it had been a while since he had seen the leader but he had simply assumed it had been a normal thing for the Clan leaders to be...Distance unlike Stoneteller was to the Tribe. Perhaps he had assumed wrong...But he couldn't deny the curiosity that ate away at him but there was also fear - fear for the safety of his own Tribemates if the leader of SkyClan was suddenly gone without a word.

Bubblepaw padded over to her father. "Whats wrong Dad?" She meowed tilting her head.

Rabbitfoot was the first one out of her den at the sound of Rippedsky's loud and desperate question. She popped out and padded into the clearing faster than she was sure she had ever moved in her life. "Is he not here? Would... Would he have gone on a patrol?" she asked, currently not finding anything weird about this particular behavior. Crowstar had his own apprentices from time to time and he went on multiple patrols with cats. He was fairly involved considering his role in the clan. Was this much different? What worried the medicine cat, however, was the sound of Rippedsky's voice. Maybe something had gone terribly wrong...

Stoneteller had already been in the clearing of camp when Rippedsky had asked about Crowstar. The poor deputy looked scared almost as he asked anyone about the whereabouts of their leader. Cocking his head, the Healer stood up and instinctively began looking around the camp as if the leader had been playing a weird game of hide and seek. However, at the thought of the missing cat, the tom's stomach dropped. This couldn't be happening here too. No, that couldn't have followed them here. Immediately, the tom moved to where he was standing next to Storm that Lights the Clouds. The tom was always someone who the Healer could confide in, and this time was no different. "What do you think of this, Storm?" He asked, keeping his voice low and serious.

Dandelionpaw poked her head out from the nursery. There weren't any elders in SkyClan as long as she could remember, so the older cats just kind of told her to go help out the queens. She liked going in the nursery and seeing the younger cats and respected queens. The milky smell reminded her of her mother, who she could not remember. When she'd heard Rippedsky call out for Crowstar, she knew it wasn't normal. She hadn't seen him anywhere, although it might've been because she'd been helping out in the nursery all day. Still, wouldn't the Clan leader give any notice?

She parted her jaws and said, "I haven't seen him... are there any fresh scents of his anywhere? Oh! Maybe he sneaked out of camp and hid his trail. Maybe he's on a suuuper important mission!"

She said the first part because she herself liked to sneak out of camp with Rosepaw and knew to hide her trail so nobody knew. The second part was her kit-fluff showing, her imagination going wild with immaturity.

Storm watched as the Clan cats started to pulled themselves out of their dens, none of them having an answer for Rippedsky on the location of their leader. He could only watched in muted shock at this, his attention only drawn away when he caught the familiar scent of Stoneteller moving up to him. As his eyes focused on the Stoneteller, he found himself not having an answer for the healer...At least not until he caught on to what was running through the healer's head. In an instance he was sitting upright, his fur standing on edge as he stared at the elder tom. "Y-You can't be serious!" he hissed back in the same low, grave tone as he spared a worried glance at the Clan cats around them, hoping none was hearing. "You don't think that it...Followed us?" He took in a deep breath as he forced his fur down, trying not to draw attention to themselves. "I don't think its...Our issue," he said after a few moments, before pausing. "I can only hope it isn't...I barely escaped the first time."

"My father likes to be alone and go on solitary walks on occasion, I'm sure he'll be fine." Lilyheart meowed, but it was evident in her tone of her worry. Padding up to the gathering of cats, her tail high as she eyed down the tribe cats. What would they think of their leader disappearing? She continued to look at them, their faces looking panicky and distressed. "It's not unusual for him to disappear every once in a while." She softly stated before turning to look at Rippedsky.

"If it'll settle your nerves we can set up a search party, I can lead one and follow his scent trail if it isn't too stale. I could also look for him at his favourite spots." The black and white she-cat requested, but it seemed more like a command than anything. Being the leaders daughter tended to do that kind of stuff to a cat, turning around she surveyed the growing crowd. "If you want, I can take Hawkstrike and Pansyface. Unless you don't want me to lead a patrol or you already have cats in mind." She asked, raising a brow questioningly.

Rippedsky shook his head as Rabbitfoot and Dandelionpaw offered up suggestions for his whereabouts. The scent was too stale for just a walk or the length of a patrol. Regardless of what the leader did, he was always back in camp. Crowstar never simply abandoned his clan for days on end. When Lilyheart spoke up too, the deputy could to nothing more than shake his head again. No matter what was being mentioned, it was simply impossible the leader had just vanished for a couple sunset without a plausible explanation or any mention of plans to do so. Nothing made sense. He briefly noticed the tribe cats murmuring something to each other. Storm and Stoneteller both looked concerned. The deputy made a mental note to speak to Stoneteller later on. This was only one item on a list of many they had to discuss.

"His scent is far too stale, Lilyheart. I haven't seen him in two days. And from the smell of it... he hasn't been around for that long either." Rippedsky meowed, explaining the need for concern. The clan needed to know what was going on with their leader. A lot was being placed on the black and white cat's shoulders in the moment. If Crowstar was gone for now, that meant he would be in charge of the clan. He needed to show them that despite the fact they were currently without a leader, things would be okay. The tom took a deep breath before continuing, "Fine. Yes. Take out Hawkstrike and Pansyface. The three of you should check the territory. I doubt you will find anything fresh... but it is worth a try."

Swanpaw poked her head out of the apprentice's den when she heard a commotion outside. Crowstar was missing? The fluffy black leader had been part of the white she-cat's life for as long as she could remember. It seemed strange, bizarre even to suggest he disappeared without a trace. Stepping up to Rippedsky with a quizzical expression she asked, "Dad, are you absolutely sure he simply disappeared? It's possible he just went out and... and..." her scarred face scrunched up as she tried to think of something Crowstar could have been doing that could have caused him to leave like that. "Oh, um maybe he was checking the Twolegplace border when a twoleg kidnapped him and he's being held hostage! No wait, that would be unlikely..."


~


Jazz dragged a small pheasant into the camp clearing, dropping it on top of a measly pile of other birds they managed to salvage after the fire. Hunting definitely wasn't' going well. She turned as she noticed Rippedsky and the cat the other clan cats talking about a missing crowing star. No, that sounded wrong. After a moment, she realized they were talking about Crowstar. 'Stupid deaf ear.' As the black and white tom she knew as her mentor suggested a patrol, she sadly shook her head. "I just went through every darn foxlengh of this territory and Crowstar aint in it," she said,"Just a bunch of mist a-running round everywhere. Oh, and the ground's a strangely cold as ice. Besides that, nothin'."


OOC: mobile

The young cream tom was napping by the medicine cat's den, soaking up the warmth and enjoying his restoring health, when the voice of a clanmember woke him. It seemed like a serious situation. This... Crow in the Stars? The lead healer of SkyClan was gone, and no one knew where he was. Eye of the Prowling Lion was a little bit panicked and a little bit scared. The last cats he never saw again were his brothers and sisters, back when they lived in the Tall Peaks. Swoop, his mother, told him they had gone to hunt with the their ancestors, but he didn't understand at the time and he still didn't now.

Lion's Eye's amber eyes widened as he scanned the clearing, looking for his mother's pelt and not finding it. Instead he saw Stoneteller and Storm together, and he longed to hide in their pelts, but he realized that he was getting older and he would have to be brave. After a short pair of sneezes disrupted his thoughts, the kit scrambled to his paws and glanced around the camp, wishing he could be more helpful but knowing he was rather worthless in this particular situation.

Moonlight was well aware of the absence of Crowstar, but until Rippedsky had asked about him she just thought that she had missed him the times she had been in camp, as the black leader was known to like to go on patrols from time to time. But now there was no doubt, Crowstar was missing.

“Are you sure there isn’t any track left behind? Maybe we should check for signs of twolegs if Swanpaw is right? Or for predators just in case? After all, no cat vanishes into thin air, right?” Moonlight looked at Rippedsky with nervous eyes. They had to do something, Crowstar couldn’t be just gone like that. If there was any option left they would need to try it out. However, Jazz words made something click inside her mind “Mist? Like the one that covered the camp during the fire? Maybe Crowstar saw it too and decided to investigate?”

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Hawkstrike was taken off-guard by the news. Crowstar, missing? That couldn’t be true.

The chocolate tom entered into a state of denial at the idea, refusing to believe that the leader that had taken him in when none else would had disappeared. As soon as Lilyheart let his idea of a patrol be heard, he rushed towards her and Rippedsky, determination clear on his face “Just say when we leave and I’ll be ready. The scent may be stale, but if it’s there we may still have something to follow” His eyes traveled to Jazz as she spoke, hissing softly when she tried to discourage the deputy from sending patrols to look around for him by telling her own lack of fruitful searching “Maybe you just didn’t look around properly” He tried his best to keep his voice calm, but he couldn’t help but glare daggers at her as she spoke. He wasn’t going to just stay in camp and do nothing when Crowstar could be in trouble, and he wasn’t going to let a cat that didn’t even had a clan name or blood tell him otherwise.

"Crowstar's missing?" Pansyface dashed up to stand beside Lilyheart, Rippedsky, and Hawkstrike, the she-cat's green eyes wide with worry. Though she wasn't really that close to her leader, Crowstar was her grandfather, and she worried and cared about him like she would any family member. At her friend's suggestion of a patrol, the gray-and-white she-cat immediately brightened, a glimpse of hope shining in her eyes. With the three of them together, she knew that they would find Crowstar! Still though, there was a dark edge that seemed to shadow the whole situation, as if something much more sinister was at work that they couldn't see.

Firkit glanced up from her nest in the nursery when Eye of the Prowling Lion left. She still had trouble memorizing all the new series of noises the newcomers called each other, except for Stoneteller. His name was short, a relief to the deaf she-cat. Curious as to what caught the other kit's attention, the white and tan kitten padded to the entrance, gazing at the concerned faces of the other cats. Everyone kept saying one cat's name, Crowstar. Two low sounds, the first long and the other short. But where was he? By now even she would have responded to so many cats saying her name. Her already gangly legs took her just outside the den walls, far enough so that she could see everyone in the clearing.

Lion's Eye appeared just as confused as she was, but she was still a little too shy to ask the bigger cats what was wrong. They looked serious. She was born mostly deaf, and therefore did not know how to speak, but she tilted her head and frowned, trying to ask what was going on. She wished her brother were here. He always knew what she wanted to say.

Aspenkit peeked his head out of the medicine den, picking up the nervous chatter of the cats outside.
"Crowstar's gone?" he inquired in his head, padding out to see what was happening. He thought he could hear a multitude of Skyclan cats, including Rippedsky and those weird tribe cats, talking about the disappearance of the clan leader. He settled down on the ground, watching to see what would happen. Where was Crowstar?

Rosepaw padded out of the apprentice den only getting up from her nap cause of all these noises. Blinking sleep from her eyes she heard something about Crowstar her eyes instantly growing serious. Padding up to Rippedsky she meowed up, "What's wrong, dad? Is Crowstar gone? I'm sure there is nothing to worry about. He properly wanted a break from being leader and took a long walk or something."

She knew though something was not right as she glanced with worried eyes around the cats who has gathered around. Spotting Dandelionpaw she glanced at her father then made her way to her friend not wanting to annoy her father any more. She stood next to her friend and mumbled, "What's wrong? So Crowstar is gone, he will be back. What's the fuss?"