[closed] Do Not Quail in the Face of Uncertainty

An uncharacteristically thick summer fog rolled over the moors, and the sun peering down through the mist cast an eerie, ghostly glow on the Clans below. It was still before sun-high, though it was hard to tell exactly where the sun was sitting through the thick silver-gray sheet. The ground was dewy, the day cool for greenleaf. Were the air not charged with tension and anxiety, it would be a groggy day with sparse patrols in WindClan and much time spent in lower dips in the earth to try to avoid the humidity. However, there were some who could not settle to take advantage of the hazy day.

Barleytuft moved from WindClan's camp at a hurried pace, though he frequently tried to remind himself to slow down to stay near his patrol companions. The tom's heart was pounding, and all his instincts inside were telling him to yowl his son's name. Quailpaw! he wailed inside. Quailpaw, where are you? He did not cry aloud, though; he couldn't alert every cat and predator from there to the lake. He needed to be rational.

The small ginger tom, his youngest son Quailpaw, seemed to have disappeared from camp sometime during the night. None of the apprentices had noticed his departure, though all of them confirmed he had been there when they fell asleep. The humidity in the air was muddling all the scents, but Quailpaw's was faint; he could have left camp before moon-high, for all they knew.

The senior WindClan warrior glanced to either side at his patrolmates, Grousefrost and Goldenpaw, Barleytuft's own daughter, trailing behind him. He felt heavy with worry at her presence, yet he knew he could never have prevented her from joining the patrol. Perhaps it would be better to have her near... He could keep an eye on her and save Graybriar a little stress. Cloverpaw remained in camp due to his injuries from the dog battle, and Graybriar had stayed with him along with Cloverpaw's "twin" sister, their eldest kit Mistypaw. The patrol had to be small to move swiftly; who knew where he could be? The thick fog had diluted all scents of the night. They had lost Quailpaw's path early in their search.

"Has anyone picked his scent back up?" Barleytuft asked, his voice edged with strain. "I just... I can't even think of where he might have gone off to, leaving camp on his own in the middle of the night like that..." His dark hazel eyes were storming with worry; he couldn't hide it from his daughter, and he hoped she didn't hold it against him.

The night before had come, and sleep found the light colored tabby apprentice, surrounded by her brothers and sister quickly. However, when she woke, there was an empty nest where Quailpaw normally slept. His scent was stale, his nest cold, and though it was certainly foggy that morning, making it hard to distinguish just what time it was, she was normally an early riser. Her golden pelt seemed to rise just as the sun did, preparing for day as it spread it's rays across the moors. As she stepped out of the apprentice den and stretched, she could just see the last tails of the dawn patrol leaving, and quickly padded forward to see if Quailpaw was among them. He was usually a late riser, but him being on patrol would certainly explain his empty nest, but not the coldness of it. Once she reached the entrance to camp and took a long sniff, a pang of panic filled her stomach as she couldn't distinguish Quailpaw's scent among them. Thus began her morning of searching, followed by speaking to Barleytuft, and practically forcing herself into the patrol that she was currently on, following beside Grousefrost behind her father. 

She stayed swift on her paw, occasionally pausing to smell a tuft of heather or grass to try to catch the scent path. She knew her brother's scent so well, so why couldn't she track it now? "Foxdung." She whispered as she lost the scent, tracking back to the last place she had smelled it. There was nothing indicating a direction, even in the dirt underpaw, and the panic started to rise again. Forcing it back down, she looked up at Barleytuft and Grousefrost, and shook her head. "I can't pick it up anywhere. If we follow the same direction he was going, it would probably be that way... But I can't think of anything he mentioned that was interesting that way." Her eyes mirrored the worry in her father's, and she moved closer to him with her tail hanging low. "He wouldn't have been rabbit-brained enough to try to find that dog, would he?" The words left her throat and she immediately felt chilled to the bone, her brother wasn't very outgoing, but maybe, just maybe, Cloverpaw's injuries had pushed him to feel the need to get revenge. 

Although an apprentice racing off alone wasn’t new. Grousefrost followed Barleytuft closely. His head lowered in an attempt to pick up any trace of the young tom’s scent. Blue eyes narrowed almost to the point of being closed as he padded around. ‘Foolish little tom. When we catch up, there will be many words about how clumsily ineffective this is.’

A sharp sneeze broke the tense silence as dust gathered in Grousefrost’s nose. His eyes blinking blearily from the surprise of it as he recovered quickly with a disgruntled expression before he lowered his nose again. Then paused. There was something unfamiliar. He couldn’t explain it, but he lifted his head, then rose onto his hind paws slightly.

Something was off. He knew WindClan’s moors like every inch on his pelt. There was something strange about the way the earth was in the distance. A tiny hill where there shouldn’t have been one. A growl tore from his throat as he sprung from his hindlegs into a headlong dash across the grass. A trail of dust and a flashing of his silver tail making his location obvious as he headed to a tunnel entrance.

Where there should have been an entrance. Since the moonstone, he had worked diligently to map out every single one. So seeing one caved in rang alarm bells in his mind so loud that he had to check on it. Maybe it was the dog, but just as likely, a foolish apprentice who decided a ‘midnight stroll was PERFECTLY acceptable ALONE.’

A moment of silence stretched between his question and a response from Barleytuft's patrolmates. Both of them were lost in their own thoughts, searching hopefully for their own scents. Whether they had stated it aloud or not, the three WindClan cats were searching for dog scent as well; though there'd been no sign of the mongrel which had nearly claimed Cloverpaw's life, the Clan seemed to be expecting its return every day, and they watched each other's backs a bit more nervously than before. There was no scent of dog, though, and sadly no scent of Quailpaw. Goldenpaw was the first to rise up again and proclaim so, looking more dejected than he had ever seen her.

The senior warrior took a few pawsteps towards his daughter, and for a moment he rested his tail across her back as she voiced her thoughts, and fears. The dog. It was mentioned, at last. "He's always trying to prove himself one way or another; anything is possible with him," Barleytuft mused with a dejected tone of admission. Of course Quailpaw might try to avenge his brother; seeing how close he was to death seemed to not be a lesson on how badly Quailpaw could get but rather how much he needed to be strong and fight and hurt the dog that hurt Cloverpaw.

Grousefrost sneezed, and Barleytuft glanced over, saying a quick, "Bless you." And then he noticed the strange look on Grousefrost's face. Barleytuft paused as well, watching him closely, and a moment later the sleek silvery tom had risen up while sitting on his hind legs, staring intently out between some hills. That was the moment that Barleytuft scented the change, too; the air was a little more musty upwind, as if dirt had been kicked up. It wasn't a scent he was used to being able to pick out, but his dreams of the tunnels had begun to become so real that now he could taste a cave-in in his waking hours. Grousefrost began to growl, and without wasting another second the younger warrior was on all fours, sprinting towards what he had seen in the distance. Barleytuft did not want to think of what Grousefrost had seen, but the dirt scent was unmistakable.

The tom did not need to flick Goldenpaw's shoulder with his tail to signal to her to follow, yet Barleytuft did so; they were both alert and attentive, and neither of them wasted any time in racing after Grouefrost.

Barleytuft had not known this specific series of tunnels, as he had devoted more of his time to the tunnels closest to camp and working on securing or preparing to collapse as necessary, but he had come to understand how tunnels moved through the territory and what it looked like when a series had collapsed. This one was not as massive as the one which had claimed Brookclover and Finchstar's lives, but it was clearly a cave-in nonetheless.... and one which could bury a small apprentice if he placed his paws wrong.

"Scent around," Barleytuft instructed briefly, his voice tense as it fought to stay even in the face of a growing terror, "and let's hope his scent isn't stronger over here." The tabby tom went right for the unevenly piled dirt; if Quailpaw had truly come this way and had truly been caught in the collapse, Barleytuft knew without a doubt that it was too late. The dirt  He hoped above all hope that he would not find what he feared, but he did not hesitate as he listened to the earth he walked on; deeper, some of the tunnels remained, thumping hollowly under his pawsteps - too deep to pose a risk now, if they had not collapsed with the rest of the tunnels already.

The warrior worked meticulously, following the set of recovery rules he hadn't known the first time he had to try to dig through a collapsed tunnel. Barleytuft scanned the surface frequently as he worked, searching for any signs of pelt or limb peeking through as he sifted through the loose earth to try to locate any signs of the source of the cave-in. His stomach was churning, and he felt more sick by the second; he was terrified of what he would find.

A whiff of Quailpaw's scent, thicker, but still stale, brushed his nose, and the WindClan warrior froze mid-dig, one paw suspended. It slowly dropped, and his head drooped to barely hang over the dirt. Suddenly, Barleytuft was exhausted. Please... Oh, please, tell me that wasn't real... I can't.

Her head lowered as her father laid his tail across her back, so she hadn't been the only one to think of the dog.... She huffed quietly, a low hum of fear in it. She couldn't lose her brother, not so soon after nearly losing Cloverpaw. She jumped as Grousefrost sneezed, and she pressed her nose to Barleytuft's shoulder briefly before she started to return to trying to scent her brother. 

Before she had really gotten started, she noticed that Grousefrost had stopped, peering at something in the distance. She followed his gaze, not sure what exactly she was looking at. She knew the territory well, but not well enough to distinguish the subtle differences in the landscape, especially with her limited knowledge of the tunnels. As she looked, she opened her mouth to scent the air, perhaps if she couldn't see the difference she could scent it. She had been correct, in the most gut-wrenching way she realized as she scented the earthy, musty smell of fresh dirt and old, long forgotten air. A growl, she wasn't sure if it was Grousefrost's, Barleytuft's, or her own, broke the tense silence right before Grousefrost dropped to all fours and sprinted towards the spot in the distance, and with a flick to her shoulders her father followed, Goldenpaw herself running at full-pelt by his side. Her legs weren't yet quite as long as the two warriors, but desperation and fear pushed her to keep her paws moving faster than she ever had before. 

As they stopped at the edge of the fresh dirt, dismay rooted her paws for a moment. No, there was no way. It wasn't possible. He couldn't be.... Her father's voice cut through her thoughts and she shook her head, beginning to circle the edge of the upturned earth as Barleytuft began to dig. A quarter of the way around, she caught of whiff of her brother's scent and froze, her eyes meeting Grousefrost as she felt her breath choke in her throat. "No...." she whispered as she scented again, the smell had dissipated, but it had been unmistakable. Every few tail lengths she would scent it again, striking fear anew in her heart with every whiff. Tears stung the corner of her eyes, and though she recognized it was stale, the scent was definitely present. Her father had stopped with a paw raised, and it lowered slowly. The look in his eyes told her that he had scented the same thing she had, and her paws started to shake. She whimpered as she watched from the edge of the unstable dirt, wanting to be near her father but terrified that she might make a wrong move or just get in the way. "Dad...." 

The entrance was definitely caved in. Grousefrost skidded to a stop at the edge of the recently disturbed dirt. His eyes observing it closely. He had gone through this patch of territory just the other day, working hard to find tunnel entrances and keep notes of distinguishing features. Eventually, he wanted to have a detailed knowledge of every tunnel, but that would take moons yet. None of it mattered except this entrance. It was marked by a sorrel plant that had been growing on top of it.

Now, the sorrel plant’s red leaves and foliage were twisted in the dirt, and it only took Grousefrost a few paw scoops of dirt to realise why. The plant must have made it unstable, the weight too much for the tunnel to handle as it grew. Perhaps Quailpaw had been particularly foolish and decided to mess with an exposed root.

It didn’t matter. Grousefrost dug steadily despite the snifflings and scuffling of the cats behind him. Seeking out the softest patches, where the scent was the strongest. The sheer amount of dirt was impressive. Perhaps, too impressive. For a long moment, he stood there. His paw in the dirt, extended and ready to pull out another large clump of it... but... was there a point? If the tom was under all this dirt, his body might never be found.

The little tom had been foolish, and he may have paid the price for it. Perhaps unfairly. He couldn't help but feel some of the blame for it since they still hadn’t shown cats how to navigate the tunnels, and now it was causing a danger for everyone. His gaze lifted to Barelytuft, to Goldenpaw….

“We need to talk to Finchstar.” He meowed curtly, glancing back at the pair. “We need to start making sure something this… never happens again.” he paused, dropping the word inefficient for once. It hardly needed to be said, the wounds were deep enough.

For a moment Barleytuft stood lost in a fog of melancholy and devastation, staring sightlessly at the earth clumped at his feet. He felt defeated, as if he himself were under the weight of an endless pile of earth. The way it settled and shifted beneath his paws, it had clearly collapsed quite a ways down into the earth - rainwater collected and loosened the earth around a boulder in a lower tunnel, perhaps. It would take all four of the cats with the StarClan-gifted tunneling knowledge to make it that deep. A soft, tearful voice sounded from over his shoulder, immediately breaking his focus. As the warrior turned to look over his shoulder at his daughter, a glinting tear rolled off his eyes and disappeared into the dirt. He didn't know when he'd started weeping.

He opened his mouth for only a moment; no sound came out but a soft croak. Barleytuft looked back towards Grousefrost, digging a few paw-steps away with his back turned. Another faint trail of Quailpaw's scent was breathed up from the earth, and Barleytuft clenched his jaw tightly, teeth grinding together as he watched his fellow warrior cease digging. So... that's it, then. Grousefrost was a skilled, intelligent tom. He was truly, actually StarClan-gifted at tunneling and navigating and tracking through the tunnels. If Grousefrost had come to the same conclusion that he had... Quailpaw was gone, and there would be no recovering him.

Barleytuft turned and immediately removed himself from the dirt pile, moving to embrace his daughter, Goldenpaw, and he felt his own resolve weaken as his shining eyes met hers and the tears that were growing heavily in them. He wrapped himself around her and rested his head on hers, drawing her into his chest as he drew in a shuddering breath, fighting off the growing urge to bawl like a kit. He turned his dark hazel eyes up to meet Grousefrost's piercing blue eyes; the wisdom the tom spoke hurt, and a well of guilt began to fill in the pit of his stomach. "You're... right, Grousefrost," Barleytuft answered; he sounded as though he were choking on a rabbit bone in his throat, "We haven't done what we were called to... to do." Not yet. Not until every cat knows how to prevent this. We failed Quailpaw.... I failed Quailpaw...

but I haven't yet failed my Clan. Barleytuft pulled his daughter closer. And I won't fail you.