TREASON ON HIGH
Shadow, Wind, River, Thunder, Sky: separate and defined. So it always has been and always shall be. Those who choose to cross these sacred lines betray all those who worked to raise them and protect them. Blood traitors, all of you, dismantling clans and kin for your own selfish desires. You were not made to run moorland with your webbed paws, nor can you climb the trees with your marsh-sodden coat. Behold the power of StarClan, and be weakened. Without the strength of your clan's ancestors pulsing through your blood, do you think this new clan will want you? They do not care for you, they do not know who you are. We do.
If the leaders of the earthen ground will not punish your treason, you will face the wrath of the stars. You were warned.
A sudden spike in clan hopping and romance that defies clan borders has taken siege of the clans. As some leaders sit back and allow their clanmates to come and go, StarClan becomes more enraged at their ineptitude. A war among the stars, pulling the very heavens into factions. The traitors of the forest will be punished for their wishy-washy morals as tension splits the sky. Return to the clan you abandoned so easily, or feel the plagues of weakness and pain.
Prologue: C O D E
The great leaders, deputies, and medicine cats of the past meet in the star-dusted fields of their clan, whole and undivided.
They see a future to be feared, one of betrayal and savagery that cannot be ignored. How could the leaders they granted nine sacred lives be so naive as to allow their own kin to come and go as they please? Tension breaks out among the group. Names are dragged through the heavenly mud as each starry cat struggles to maintain neutrality.
Of course, if WindClan wasn't so this.
If SkyClan hadn't done that.
You picked the wrong deputy.
I'm never wrong.
A great thundering, the crashing of lightning, and StarClan can agree on only one thing: the clans were not meant to be one in the same. The great laws of the forest would be enforced. It was time for a message.Chapter 1: S I G N S
Medicine cats will be given an omen at the first medicine cat meeting after Chapter 1 begins and will be subject to a disturbing vision.
In a thousand echoes, a chorus of StarClan cats will give the message as stated above in italics. Whether they choose to reveal this to anyone or not is their choice to make. StarClan has already made their decision. They cease contact with the forest. The medicine cats are not given another sign.
Across the forest, strange happenings will start popping up in every single clan. They're all poor omens. A more liberal clan leader may bite into a piece of prey and find it is full of maggots, despite appearing completely untouched to the outside. Five dead squirrels may shore up on the river bank, drowned. A group of rowdy twoleg teenagers may fire at a clan cat straying too far from home with one of their thundersticks, killing or mortally injuring them. Danger at all borders is a key. Vipers, snares, unstable ground, all potentially knocking out a cat who happens to roll over a 5.
Only at the border, only when they step over their clan’s line. It feels uncanny. It feels wrong. Everybody is on edge and wary. What has the forest become? Everyone is trying to interpret the signs.
It is at this time that StarClan selects their messenger. Clearly, they decide, Lichenmask’s problem was being born for his role. This time, the role was born for its bearers.
Five cats, one from each clan, of pure blood and residing in the clan of their birth, face near-death due to one of the many border disasters. The ancestors of their clan come in a haze, offering life in exchange for a critical role in the saving of the forest. They show the messengers visions of war and loss, pain and devastation, and promise that by interpreting the signs, they can stop the war that will come of the blood traitors. The cats accept their task, and they are revived.
Chapter 2: P L A G U E
Reluctantly or vigorously, these messengers share their gift with the clans. They begin to predict the tragedies that occur around the forest. They know a storm is brewing, but no matter how they're pressed they simply don't have the answers. The medicine cats convene after speaking with their clan's messenger and come to the conclusion that their last omen and the messengers are intertwined. A
horrible plague will come, and those living outside of their birth clan will feel the venom of their betrayal. The medicine cats cannot heal them. They cannot be healed until they return to their "true" clan, no matter how long they've been away from it. Perhaps some leaders try to fight the stars for those they now call clanmates. Perhaps some proselytize the message of StarClan. The only ones who find salvation are the ones who return. All seems for naught. The plague is slowly killing those left.
Eventually, the unclean ones are so weak that they cannot eat.
Out of options, the leaders of the clans decide to bring the sick cats to Fourtrees on the night of the full moon in the hopes that the neutral territory will spare them. The messengers' visions have not stopped. Everywhere around them, they have terrible visions of the sick and dying. They're slowly losing their own humanity. They accepted the call of the stars with the hope that they could save the forest from the horrible doom that was prophesied. Now, all they see is blood on their own paws. Tensions are building at Fourtrees, each clan blaming another, and as the yowls begin to turn to war cries, the messengers can only look on in horror.
This is the "final battle" portion of the plot, if you couldn't tell. One of them, realizing that
this was the fate StarClan was desperately trying to avoid, climbs Highstock for a last-ditch effort to save their home.
Chapter 3: N O T O U R W A R T O F I G H T
The messengers defy StarClan, daring them to come down from the heavens and face the destruction they have caused. The star comply, revealing themselves to the living cats and bringing the full-scale war to a sudden halt. The StarClan cats stand among their clans, hackles raised, still ready to watch their clanmates die for the cause. The messengers force the StarClan cats to understand that this was a war of the dead, forced on the living, and that it never had to go this far. StarClan refuses to back down without getting what they want: the promise of clan loyalty enforced across the forest.
TENTATIVE ENDING: (very subject to change, this was just what I had in mind)
The messengers offer their lives and gifts in exchange for the healing of the sick and their total acceptance into the clan. The messengers die heroes. The sick cats are healed. StarClan affirms that betraying your clan is breaking the code, just as a forbidden romance is as well. They expect the cooperation of the leaders henceforth in punishing those who betray their clan and demanding undying loyalty from those who seek refuge in their home. Maybe this means forcing any clan-hoppers to begin their apprenticeship over again. Maybe it means tighter reins. Either way, those who clan-hopped before the plot are off the hook. StarClan disappears, vague as ever, and the clans must pick up the pieces and bury the messengers with the honor they deserve.
PROS OF THE PLOT: Add some real consequence to hopping around the forest like it's nbd, incorporates a final battle, allows characters to be given a glorious send-off in the form of martyred prophets
CONS OF THE PLOT: I don't have a solid plan for the ending and it may have to be patched as the plot starts coming near a close, we have to somehow find mostly pure cats, everybody might hate StarClan after this one lol
There's my big boy plot idea. Yeehaw
