Battle Confessions(OPEN)

Flickerpaw tried to help her brother Dappledpaw and herself to camp. The battle had taken its toll on the two apprentices, and they were barely able to stand. Though they did win the battle and were supposed to be triumphant, a more gloomy mood filled the air as they walked in, with the trail of blood they left all through the forest, and the faces of the apprentices that were sad, scared, and, on Flickerpaw, shame. "Maplepaw? Honeyspark? We- We need help." It wasn't the urgent yell it should have been. Flickerpaw had evidently seen or done something at the battle because she came back different. She was no longer the energetic, happy, wild cat she had once been. Now, or at the moment at least, she was quiet and reserved, wondering herself if she could have battled better. Did she have to die? Did I have to be the one to kill her? Why...

Dappledpaw was walking with his sister, ignoring everything but Flickerpaw. He didn't care anymore how much blood he was losing, or how much his injuries stung. He was still numb with shock at what happened. How had it even come to that? He rubbed his shoulder gently against his sister in an attempt to comfort her, when he himself was feeling despondent.

Maplepaw ran out of the Medicine cat's den at the sound of Flickerpaw's somewhat distressed call. When she laid her green eyes on them, she jumped out of her pelt. They looked terrible! They were covered in scars and scratches. Their expressions weren't any better. "What happened to you both Flickerpaw? Dappledpaw?" she asked as she raced up to them to check their injuries up close.

Flickerpaw glanced at Dappledpaw before looking back at Maplepaw. "We got into a fight at Sunningrocks. There were two Riverclan warriors." She said gloomily. It was as if she had lost the fight horribly.

Dappledpaw nodded. ”They would have beaten us, if it hadn’t been for...” Dappledpaw shuffled his paws awkwardly, glancing to Flickerpaw before continuing. ”O-one of them was...” His voice was barely a whisper at this point. ”Killed.”

(occ: At the moment, please don't count on Blizzardstar/Ink joining this topic until the weekend at least)

Leopardclaw's black-tipped ears twitched at the sound of anxious voices, and the napping golden tom lifted his head to gaze out from his place underneath the Highrock.  It seemed that, day by day, he was becoming more and more in-tune with the clan, his sleeping ears somehow able to pick out when one voice rose above the rest of the camp's comforting chatter.  Today though, instead of that voice being a warrior asking about patrols, or an apprentice wondering where their mentor was, it was Flickerpaw and Dappledpaw, their pelts criss-crossed with injuries.  His eyes widening in alarm, the spotted deputy jumped to his paws and trotted over to them, just in time to hear Dappledpaw say ”O-one of them was...killed.”

"Killed?!"  Instantly on high alert, with his heart pounding rapidly, the large tom-cat came to a halt next to the group of apprentices, which now included Maplepaw, diligently treating wounds.  Normally in any other case he would have let the medicine cat apprentice finish treating and patching up the cats in question, but this was different; a life was gone...and he didn't know which one.  "What happened?!  Who was killed, on which side?!"  His voice uncontrollably held a hint of a growl, but in the moment he didn't care.  For all he knew, one of his clanmates could be dead!

Wildpaw shoved, well, more squeezed herself past Leopardclaw to get to her siblings. She sniffed and fretted over them as an angry growl rose in her throat. She was grooming them both rather roughly with the pent up anger. It didn't matter if it was irrational, was angry they were hurt. "Let's deal with the RiverClan problem later," her claws dug in the snow. "We won't let them hurt either of you."

Flickerpaw saw Leopardclaw's agitated face, then looked at Wildpaw, and back at Leopardclaw and spoke again. "W- Wildpaw, they were hurt more than we were... A- And, Leopardclaw, the only Thunderclan cats on the patrol were Dappledpaw and I and we're alive. A- and, I... I k- k-" She stopped and took a big breath before saying it out loud. "I killed a Riverclan warrior!"

OOC: I know, that's why I put Leopardclaw/Blizzardstar instead of just Blizzardstar.

Dappledpaw buried his muzzle in Flickerpaw’s soft fur. What wild have happened, then, if he hadn’t pushed the warrior he was fighting off the rock? Would she have been able to save her in time, before Flickerpaw killed her? Probably. He pulled his muzzle away to speak and found it speckled with his sister’s blood. ”Don’t blame yourself too much. The other w-warrior might have been able to save her, if I hadn’t pushed her off the rocks. It was a battle. Lives are lost every day. It was both of our faults.” He tried to comfort his sister.

Leopardclaw felt as if his heart had stopped dead.

"You did WHAT?!  Never since the days of Rockthorn had Leopardclaw spoken to a clanmate with such anger and and shock apparent in his voice.  Oh StarClan, he couldn't believe this!  This was the last thing ThunderClan needed right now...if he knew anything about Ivystar, he knew that she could be marching over with a battle patrol to invade ThunderClan at this very moment!  "Great StarClan Flickerpaw, why?!"  His unsheathed claws scraping against the cold ground, the golden spotted tom paced back and forth for a moment, his mind whirling.  This is bad, this is really really bad!  Oh StarClan, what should I do?!  What would Blizzardstar do...  He stopped pacing, and closed his eyes for a moment as he took a deep, calming breath.  She would stay calm.

"Flickerpaw, I'm sure you're well aware of what the Warrior Code tells us.  Unless you clearly felt that your life was in imminent danger, killing a cat goes against the rules laid down by StarClan for us to follow.  Ottterleap broke that decree when he killed Thistlepaw...tell me, did you kill this RiverClan warrior in self-defense?"  The tom's voice was once again it's normal calm, but serious tone, making the atmosphere instantly less fiery.  His eyes though still burned with worry... worry for the apprentices, worry for the clan, worry for what the future would hold.  He prayed that the she-cat would have a good reason for what she had done...Oh please, don't let this be another pointless killing...

Flickerpaw was in no way comforted by Dappledpaw. "I know, I know! I didn't know what I was doing, I got too into it or something, she was a warrior and I was trying to win because I thought maybe a defeat would suffice but then she died, right there in my paws and now she's dead and you're going to exile me and I'm going to live the rest of my life as a lonely old rogue because I broke the Warrior Code and now I can't be a warrior and aaah!" She kept rambling on about how horrible she was. "And I'm going to be an outcast and scavenge for food in the Twolegplace and never see my family again and oh Starclan what am I going to do!?"

"You. Did. What?" The scarred warrior growled she had been watching this whole thing from the side of the leader's den. She was talking with Blizzardstar not long ago but she had gone out for a patrol in that time. She didn't know exactly where.

"What were you thinking?" The crippled warrior limped over to the apprentice. "Do you have a death wish?" This apprentice had just signed all of their lives over to Riverclan. Why.. Why did this have to happen? They already had enough issues as it is. "How in Starclan's name did you kill someone? Were you actually trying to kill that riverclan warrior? If you were just going to defeat her then she wouldn't have been killed!" She knew that as soon as Riverclan learned Ivystar was going to come marching through their camp entrance. Oh what were they going to do? The warrior's tailed lashed in anger. "We can't just ignore this issue and expect it to go away. This certainly isn't something that can be dealt with later either.. This has to be dealt with here and now." The warrior growled. She didn't mean to be stepping on the deputy's paws, but she knew how Blizzardstar would react in a situation like this.

Emberheart had been trying to ignore the commotion that Flickerpaw and Dappledpaw had caused coming into camp, not particularly out of malice but rather a habit of avoiding certain cats. Still, there was an unmistakeable shout that caught her attention.

"I killed a Riverclan warrior!"

She had to have misheard that, right? There was no way that she had heard that correctly. Still, since it was followed by Leopardclaw's shout, she rose to her paws and made her way to the gathering of cats, trying to remain calm. It was a struggle, especially when she saw the typically calm Leopardclaw look genuinely furious for perhaps the first time in her life, but she just barely managed.

And then her thoughts flew to what RiverClan would do when they found out, and her calm was replaced with a horrified stare directed at the apprentice, even as she tried to register what everyone else was saying.

Scarletpaw stared anxiously at the wounded apprentices. The commotion everyone else was causing didnt help either. "Flickerpaw killed a RiverClan warrior?" What would the leader of RiverClan do now?

Flickerpaw shrunk back from the scarred warrior. "I don't have a death wish, why would I? But if I COULD trade her life for mine, I would, because then Ivystar wouldn't come stomping in here and the rest of the Clan would be safe! I wish I hadn't killed her and she almost killed me, would you rathered me be killed!?"