Mūsų Vaikai [closed]

Beecloud had wandered the RiverClan border for days, hunting for a suitable warrior for his position, and feigning some kind of menial task to each guard who accompanied him. It was getting harder and harder to come up with excuses, and he was getting very desperate. They needed an ally in RiverClan, but not just any cat would do. He often made rounds near Sunningrocks, but on the usually crowded stones he found only a smattering of apprentices, closely protected queens and elders, and group patrols. He needed a warrior, and a warrior alone. The lack of luck in his ventures weighed heavily on him, and Beecloud swiftly found that his patience was wearing whisker-thin.

Standing on Sunningrocks, watching the ripples of fractured, icy water undulate against the shoreline, the warrior began to wonder if he was going to have any luck here, or if he was going to have to trust that SkyClan cat to spread the message to RiverClan, and by extension, WindClan. It was beginning to look like a lost cause on his end. Could he afford to cut corners? How long could he even avoid suspicion, returning to the same place for every solo patrol he took? Fluffing up his fur against the wind, he contemplated his options before rising to his paws and setting out for the northern stretch of the river, towards Fourtrees. He doubted the Asylum cat with him would let him get anywhere near the sacred clearing, but it was a boundary that was meant to be tested.

The grass beneath him was frosty and crunched under his pads, and with each crunch and crackle his legs moved a little slower, until he began to meander. Beecloud was vaguely aware of the guard, who was obviously rather bored, wandering out a few foxlengths before returning to him, then hanging around for a minute or two, before repeating the cycle and moving out in any one direction to explore once more. The warrior scoffed, and hoped the cat was enjoying the stolen stomping grounds they now investigated with leisure. Beecloud's amber eyes were the only warm spot on the landscape as the treeline began to thin and the river began to bend. If he were to follow it past this point, he'd pass the gorge, and happen upon WindClan in the east, which looked rather barren to a homebody ThunderClan warrior, hardly out of his own territory. There was a new scent blowing towards him, twisting in a muddy, unfamiliar scent with the heather, rye, and spare aspen trees. Sure enough, there was a figure looming, and coming closer. It was a fox, as far as he could tell from where he stood, but he knew better than to make such assumptions anymore (especially due to the unnatural and catlike way it prowled down the riverbank). His own guard had ambled off to some nearby place.

"Little far from WindClan, aren't you?" he shouted across the way. "We have plenty of your lot in ThunderClan. Trust me. We don't need another one.

Thalia was taking the task of watching the borders seriously, of course, but that didn't mean she enjoyed it at all. It felt like a symbol, a fact that she didn't belong anymore. She'd heard whispers of cats who stirred up trouble in their assigned clans, sure, but as far as she could tell none of them had ended up in her position - that was to say, none of them had been outright banished from their assignments as she had. She wore her fox pelt more often now; it served well as a shield from the reality she wasn't yet prepared to face, guarding her dark expression from even herself when she glanced at the water. It covered her face, hid her anger and her worries and all her insecurities. All she saw was all that she was - a killer wearing someone else's skin, no better than those she still held such contempt for. At least they couldn't see the weakness she felt.

She was stirred from the dangerous path of her thoughts when she realized a Clan cat was nearby, presumably alongside one of her own; more so when he addressed her directly.

Trust me, I have no desire to hear anything about WindClan!

Of course, she knew better than to say something like that, lest she give herself away as the monster she was. What scraps of anonymity she could manage to achieve were well worth trying to keep. "You're rather far from home yourself," she replied, not bothering to respond to the other comment. It wasn't like she had any plan or desire to see the rest of their camps, anyway. One had been more than enough for a lifetime.

"This forest is my home," he said, drawing closer against his better judgement. A smarter cat might have kept his distance, but Beecloud was finding grey furs on his head lately. He'd aged 70 moons in a season, and he was grizzled. Bitter. With the matter at hand, he had taken upon himself the disposition of a crotchety elder, and the Asylum cat's returning quip was, to him, a challenge. She had engaged him. "From the Moonstone to the Southern Twolegplace. This home which was stolen by cats who, apparently, have more land than they know what to do with."

Beecloud was rolling now. Intuitive as he was, the warrior instantly recognized the turmoil bubbling beneath her pelt. She was volatile. He was ticked off. It was the perfect storm, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and Beecloud would not be through until she was very, very sorry for herself. "Where does it end?" he spat. "How much do you possibly need? It's gluttony. It's surplus. Our territories have always been enough for us... and this forest is home to hundreds, even without you. We never needed more than this. How many tribes, clans, and bands have you pillaged after getting fat off of their prey?"

The warrior began to walk closer, still. "Do you believe any of it? Look into my eyes, and really tell me that when you look around these clans, you see happiness and prosperity. Tell me you see the new nightstrikers, scouts, and standards you were looking to gain. Tell me that this land is becoming yours. And I'll tell you you're a liar. No matter how you've chipped away at it, you've covered no ground. You are exactly where you were when you came to this place. Because your mission is failing."

The stranger kept drawing closer, and she wanted to take a step back each time he moved forward, but something kept her in place. A sense of duty, perhaps, or simple stubborn pride - either way, she stood her ground, a defiant glare hidden beneath the fox that shielded her face. He hated her already, everything she was and everything she stood for, without knowing her at all - and it wasn't like she'd blame him.

(After all, that made two of them, didn't it?)

Still, he kept talking; asking about the places they'd pillaged, when they had come to this place, and she had no answer as she met his gaze, trying not to falter even as his words cut deep. And he was coming closer and closer, and this was far too close to the last time; she couldn't help the panic. "S-stay away! Don't come any closer!"

She was lost and afraid, of herself and the world and even the Asylum, but to admit it would be weakness. To show it would be weakness. That was something she couldn't risk, not in the presence of a stranger, not after she'd already failed in the simplest task she could have had. Instead, she gathered what little strength still remained. "Do you honestly think I might have anything to say in my own defense, or do you just want to pick fights so you can laugh at a stranger? You're all the same, every last one of you! And maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was, but at least I don't pretend I'm better than you just because of where I'm from like the rest of you do!"

The fear was building in the back of her mind, but the anger drowned it out; though she was careful to keep her distance. There was enough blood on her paws, and no need to add to it.

She took a deep breath, taking a single solitary step forward. She just had to tell herself that she was in control. Don't show weakness, project confidence; she willed herself to act the way she wanted to feel. "You don't know me. You don't even know my name, and I don't know yours. So I don't want to hear your pathetic attempts at judgment when you can't even see that I'm not just some nameless savage without an identity of my own, or whatever it is we are to you."

Despite her protests, her growing peril, and how much pity Beecloud felt deep down in his heart for this cat that was far out of her depth, his paws pressed forward. He advanced on her faster this time. The more she spoke, the more she reminded him of Gingerpaw, and the warrior noted the way she cowered, and how her eyes danced back and forth as if looking for a way out. If she ran, he wouldn't block her way. "I don't need to know who you are," he admonished. "It's not hard to figure out. You speak like an apprentice. You're nearly a kitten, and you've had the wool pulled over your eyes your entire life. You're awfully young to be wearing such a gruesome disguise... How they make it seem so normal is completely beyond me. Did you ever stop to think about exactly what you're wearing?"

Beecloud was a foxlength from her now. He lifted his enormous paw to jab at her pelt. "Are they still bloody when you first put them on? Where do you put a skinned fox after you've removed its fur? It's morbid. Look at yourself, and what they taught you to be. Come on. You know how wrong this all is. I can see you hesitating."

Jaw set. Tail lashing. Ears pulled back harshly against his skull. His brow was locked tight against his deep-set eyes, leering. "I spent my whole life shrinking myself down, softening every feature, hiding. I didn't want to ever be a disturbance, or terrify my clanmates, or be some beast that cats had to reckon with. But I'm not young anymore." Within claws-reach, now. "I know what I look like. And I think that you're afraid of it."

His claws silently extended.

"If you're passing judgments, I think you do. But as for this disguise... I killed it myself, some time ago." A ghost of a smile slipped into her voice as she spoke. "That was one of the best days of my life."

Was it possible to be right and wrong at the same time? It seemed the ThunderClan cat had managed it; he'd accurately identified that she was much younger than he seemed to be as well as her discomfort, though he seemed to have gotten entirely the wrong idea about the cause behind it. Truthfully, she'd never thought of her pelt as something gruesome - it was something she wore proudly when she chose to, a reminder of her partner even when they were separated. It was her shield, her safe place; but it wasn't her face she was so afraid of.

"I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of myself," she spoke the words and willed them true. She wasn't afraid of him, not really, that much was honest - it was more that she was afraid of what he represented; the whole of the clans that had driven her to this. Her pelt was loose as it always was - she wore it less as a utility, and so rarely bothered with getting it to stick, so it was easy to let it slip, much as it had the first night in WindClan. The mask had slipped, and there was a curious glint in her amber eyes. "And now you stand face-to-face with a killer. Tell me, nameless stranger: was this what you wanted to see?"

Beecloud stopped in his advance to hear what she had to say, though the bile rising in his throat at the thought of stripping an animal bare after killing it was far from his personal tastes, as much of an understatement as it was. Though it was shocking, that a cat so small could take down a predator with ease, the warrior was, admittedly, impressed. She was not helpless, and perhaps Beecloud had judged her wrongly... but before all else, she was Asylum. A cog in the machine, but a cog no less. There was nothing more to be said about it. And, without his guard here to stop him, he could send her fleeing back to where she came from. With ease, he could spook her enough to get her back across the moor, and out of his fur, and all the pent-up frustration of the past moon could fizzle out. Everything could be okay, for just an afternoon, maybe.

The tom wished he had done it. Instead, when her hood slipped, Beecloud gazed right into her gleaming eyes. Her round face, her splotches of calico. Now, with a face to match her voice, the warrior was struck with an awful sense of deja vu.

"Stars," he whispered, eyes brimming with salty tears, "It's not possible. It just can't be. Not like this... look what they've done." Beecloud felt faint, and his heart began to crack inside him.

The same way it did on the night she went missing.

Sucked back in time, Beecloud saw it all unfold again. They woke up to the panicked sound of a queen in mourning. A tragedy. She disappeared in the cold Leaf-Fall evening, that tiny rogue kitten. They had only just brought her in, and now she was gone again. He saw himself in another, happier time, on an uncharacteristically horrible morning, searching every rock, bush, and tree. He called her name with the search party. They waited for her all day. She was too little to have just meandered out all by herself, but surely nobody took her with them? They would be back by now, and besides, what warrior whisks a kit away without warning the queens first? Beecloud remembered how indignant his mother had been in private, that such a thing could even happen right under every cat's nose. But such was the way of the forest. Kits died, especially in the waning moons of a frigid season. Predators were hungrier. Disease was hardier. Danger was everywhere.

But then, the Gathering came, and it was not so strange and tragic anymore. Every single clan, every single nursery. It was as if StarClan had plucked them out in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. The same hour. The same night. All at once, gone in a whisper. They were tiny. It wasn't as if they were useful, or good food, or valuable enough to risk disrupting a den of feral cats. Some theorized about twolegs, but twolegs were dumb, slow, and stank to high StarClan. They couldn't have gotten in unnoticed. As time went on, they lost hope. Then, the Asylum came, and no cat had time for missing kits anymore. There was no one to blame. There were no leads. There were no signs. The ancestors had not given them a clue, so perhaps it was just a terrible coincidence after all. The clans were too preoccupied with invasion to investigate it. Those poor queens, Beecloud remembered thinking, those poor queens.

She was the right age. And yet, there was a part of him still in disbelief. Mouth hanging open, Beecloud reached forward like a crack of lightning and yanked the rest of the pelt from her face, finally locking eyes with her unobscured. The warrior was never so horrified to be proven right.

"Laurelkit."

Confusion replaced Thalia's curious expression, then anger as he grabbed at her pelt - her safety net - followed by concern as he suddenly seemed so much more vulnerable. "I don't know who you're talking about," she said, voice softer - a little more sympathetic. "My name is Thalia."

In one swift movement, she snatched her pelt back and threw it over herself once more. Somehow, she felt as though she were suddenly seeking answers to questions she couldn't yet place. Even as she left, though, she took a moment to call over her shoulder, "You're pretty close to the border without an escort. I'd go find them before someone else catches you, if I somehow found myself in your place."

The name meant nothing to her, and it seemed that as soon as she had recoiled to fix her pelt, his guard had found him again. The pelted cat took him by the scruff with an affronted yowl. Beecloud gasped in discomfort as the Asylum guard began to pull with all their might, dragging him despite his avid resistance.

"NO!" he screamed, tearing against his opponent, his vision blurring with the intense pain of his scars pulling in every wrong direction. The warrior hooked his claws into the ground. "YOU WERE ONE OF US! LAURELKIT, STOP! YOU WERE STOLEN! WE LOST YOU! Let me go, you foxhearted mangy son of a badger, dung-smelling, dog-breath — OW!"

Her silhouette faded farther and farther into the horizon, crossing the border between ThunderClan and WindClan. Beecloud, and any ThunderClan cat for that matter, had never been meant to see her. "Our kits, how many of them did you take!?" he snarled at the guard, trying with all of his remaining energy to claw or bite him, to fight free from this grasp, to run towards his lost clanmate. It was no use now. He had seen too much, and now he was going back to camp, empty handed and destitute.

The missing kits had never left the forest. Stolen, separated, indoctrinated, and sent to fight a war against their sister and brothers, without a clue to their own origins. Laurelkit had no idea who she was.

None of them did.

But Beecloud knew.