Karma's Debt [OPEN TO TC]

It was just beginning to break dawn, the sky turning from dark into a mottled pelt of pink and yellow and white, and illuminating the forest with the promise of another hot, miserable day in the clans’ territories. Whatever birds that hadn’t fled during the SkyClan fire were singing in the morning air, taking advantage of the briefest of time after daybreak, before it grew truly unbearable. The skeleton of a once-green leaf, decimated in the blaze and now controlled by a fleeting breeze, twisted in lazy spirals on its way to the ground. It landed in a puddle of blood, several fox-lengths from the ThunderClan camp’s entrance.

The tang of death hung thick and heavy in the air like a dark cloud, and the source of the odor was not hard to find even if one weren’t looking for it. A shape, on ThunderClan’s main path towards the river, lay still in the grass. A tom, his patched face shredded nearly to ribbons only on the right side, his pelt heavy with blood, and a wide, gaping wound where his throat had once been. Jaydream’s pelt held the scent of ThunderClan, just barely, and his sightless eyes were cold and half-lidded. His white paws were curled in, and dark with dried blood to which tufts of white and gray striped fur clung. There was no mistake - another cat had done this, and the body had been moved to this spot.

For once, Cherryblossom had decided to get up early and get a head start on her daily hunting, though she took a moment to observe the sunrise and the way that it painted the sky so many colors. Despite wanting to get out there and hunt, she had been wary about going out of camp alone since Rainstrike's exile, as she was certain that the estranged she-cat wouldn't pass up the chance to get her revenge in some way.

So, she waited for someone else to join her in the clearing, that would hopefully be up for going on  a hunting trip with her.

Cedarheart spotted the other she-cat, and padded up towards her. ”Good morning. Wanna go hunt?” The brown tabby yawned. She had gotten back to camp while it was still dark, and in all honesty, she wouldn’t have been awake if not for the stirring around her last night. Her eyelids drooped, she was especially sleepy. But she forced herself to stay awake, and to seem as bright and cheery as normal. She didn’t want anyone to know about Smallbean, about her sneaking out every night. It wasn’t exactly following the code, but it was a distraction. From all of the drama happening within the clan.

Thankfully, Cherryblossom didn't have to wait for too long for someone else to push their way into the early morning air after her, joining her in the nearly empty clearing. She smiled as Cedarheart approached her with a greeting, and returned it in the same vein.
"Good morning to you too! I was hoping for a hunting partner, so this works out great!"

She rose to her paws and began to lead the way out of camp, turning back to Cedarheart, mouth open to ask a question.
"So, did you have a place in mind for where we should hunt to... day.....?"

Her question trailed off as the scent of death hit her immediately after stepping out of the tunnel leading out of camp, and instinctively, her ears flattened, hackles rose, and tail bushed out as she tried to pinpoint the source of the smell. Before she could open her mouth to warn Cedarheart, she stumbled across the cooling body, her paws skidding in the slowly congealing blood that had poured from its throat and face.

Cherryblossom felt her heart begin to pound and her voice choke as she fully processed just who was laying dead before her, and she fought the urge to crumple to the ground and press her face into his cold fur. Tears pricked her eyes as she stared in shock at Jaydream's mutilated body, and within moments, tears joined the puddle of blood that she now stood in.

The only words she could choke out were,
"He was trying to come home."

Cedarheart smiled, walking with Cherryblossom. Looking ahead of her, she didn’t notice the limp body until her paw gently touched it and she looked down in horror. Jaydream. A dead body she had seen before, but nothing so..torn apart. It was horrifying, the work of an animal that was truly not right in the brain.

The warrior didn’t know him very well, but she knew some if his family better. Suddenly, she looked over at her partner. Poor Cherryblossom. This was her brother! She leaned into the she-cat, pressing her fur against her’s, giving her support.

”Oh, Cherryblossom, I’m so sorry.” She coildn’t think of much to say. ”We should bring him back to camp. We can properly mourn him.” she explained. Her eyes flickered back toward Jaydream’s body, and she winced at the sight. Inside, she wondered what had done this. Maybe she could get a scent from him, but later. Now she had to bring him back to the camp. She wasn’t quite sure how to do this, seeing as he was pretty large.

She gingerly picked him up with her mouth, and started to try to drag him back. She made sure that his body wasn’t getting caught on anything, and walked slowly. Cherryblossom was probably feeling such sadness, and the brown warrior felt sad for her. When she had lost her siblings, she had been a kit. It had seemed easier then, somehow. When they got home, maybe they could mourn properly.

She could hardly process anything going on around her, until Cedarheart went to start dragging Jaydream back into camp. Truthfully, she'd wanted to be the one to carry him back herself, but she knew that she was too small to manage it alone, and she didn't have the mental capacity to voice that want anyway. So, she wedged her shoulder under the cooling body of her brother, and carried his back half across her back, following Cedarheart's lead into camp.

The humid air around ThunderClan's camp suddenly cleared into horrifying, unimaginable clarity. Pinepaw was the first to lock eyes with his sister as the tabby made her way under the brambles. Draped over her back was Jaydream, unmoving, and mutilated. The tom had been a former ThunderClan warrior, leaving to become a loner before Pinepaw had been born. Locking his jaw and swallowing back his apprehension, Pinepaw put on a sturdy demeanor and padded over to the pair, ears flicking towards Cherryblossom as she emerged right behind. Stars... Jaydream was her brother... The apprentice's eyes only glanced towards hers, trying to calculate the correct way to offer support or care. It wasn't his specialty. The only thing Pinepaw thought of now was to how to proceed with the fallen warrior. How did Jaydream die? "Cedarheart..." Pinepaw whispered towards his sister, feeling the familiar scent of bile rising in his throat. Blood... he didn't like blood.

Holding back a wretch, Pinepaw instead filled his maw with questions, wanting to gain control of the situation before his heart did. "What happened? Dogs? Foxes?" As the she-cat kept walking, Pinepaw had to turn away, unable to look into Jaydream's lifeless eyes. The scent of blood was too strong, and he occupied himself instead with staring at Cherryblossom blankly. I'm sorry... He wanted to say, but his mind had shut down, opting to simply be in the face of death.

Rosepaw's ears pricked up as Cherryblossom and Cedarheart returned to camp, carrying something. Pinepaw was also gathered around them. Curious, she dashed towards them. The scent of death instantly hit her nose and Rosepaw gasped in surprise. The cat was a young tom, and he had scratches all over his pelt. "What--who--" The apprentice's eyes drifted over to Cherryblossom. The warrior seemed like she knew and cared about this stranger of a cat. Rosepaw started to step back, figuring they would need some space.

The scent of blood.

It was something that was quickly becoming too familiar to the ThunderClan camp.

Minkstream felt a twinge of dread start up from the bottom of his toes and coil in the pit of his stomach, the fur along his spine bristling as he looked up cleaning out his and Batbite's nest, crusted pieces of dried moss on his paws. Not again. Maybe this time it would just be a wound, a scratch from a raccoon, or... something.

But no.

As he paced out of the den, the stench of death hit him full force, bristling what fur hadn't already risen into spiked clumps, and he broke into a lope, sudden fear clutching at his throat, a dark sense swirling in the back of his mind. Visions of Dacedream's broken body turned to Batbite's, or maybe one of his kits, and he almost missed the actual blood-stained pelt as he skidded to a halt, their fur swimming in the fear of his imagination. And then his breath caught, almost choked, bile rising in the back of his throat.

Jaydream?!

Dacedream's kit, stiff and lifeless, his milky, dead eyes staring at nothing, his mouth slightly open and laced with rusted blood. Nausea churned in the pit of Minkstream's stomach at the savage lines cut through the young tom's face, and he clenched his jaw, forcing it back. Those wounds... not a predator's. It was savage, but it was purposeful - and slashed down the right side of his face. If that hadn't been enough, tufts of grey-striped fur clung to his stiff, folded paws. He hadn't just been killed.

He'd been murdered.

A growl rose from the back of his throat, and he felt his tail lash behind him, his claws sinking into the earth. Rainstrike. Red pushed at the edges of his vision, and he took a deep breath in through his teeth, his eyes narrowed to murderous slits, a feeling like sharp-edged ice cutting through his heart. "That fox-hearted, snake-tongued pile of frog-dung," He gritted, somewhere between a hiss and a muttering growl low in his throat. I should have joined Vixenpaw at the medicine den. We should have killed her when we had the chance.

The flow of his bitter thoughts broke as the medicine cat den came to mind, and he snapped back to himself, suddenly taking in Cherryblossom, Cedarheart, and the two apprentices. And the expression on Cherryblossom's face.... He turned, feeling his ears flatten against his head, the shard of ice twisting in his chest, and took a deep breath, fixing his eyes on the young she-cat closest to him. "Rosepaw, get Oakheart and Nettlefire." He glanced back in the mutilated body's direction, adding almost reluctantly, like the words were thorns stuck in his throat, "And Mossbloom."

She couldn't give any help to Jaydream, but she knew the herbs to prepare his burial. He stepped forward, padding up to the young tom, feeling an icy hollow open in his chest as he stopped a paw's length away and reached forwards, gently closing the tom's remaining eye. "Good hunting, Jaydream," He mewed quietly, an edge of huskiness in his voice.

He took in a slightly shuddering breath, turning his eyes away from the wounds as he stepped back again, not looking up at either of the she-cats. "He shouldn't have died like this."

(Imma just say Sablepaw's out. The child has had enough trauma)