asylum family reunion

Shira waited for the response from Roe, but instead Spark spoke first.  Anger was building up inside of her and any distraction from what she was focusing on was making her rage grow.  And when he mentioned her "condition" she knew exactly what he meant, she just hoped no one else did.  Her head quickly turned towards Spark.  She knew he did not deserve any extra anger or pain than he already had, but she was just so full of rage that she, unfortunately, first took it out on Spark.

"You can't make that decision for me!  Spark, no one can make any decisions for me anymore."  She meant what she said, although would regret it when would eventually calm down.  "I can still do things even with my 'condition'.  I don't care what you or anyone else does, as long as you stay out of my way."

She turned back to Roe.  "So do you have an answer for me or should I go ask someone else."

Raisha looked at Thalia, suspicion in her gaze. "How did you find out? What makes you so special that you get to find out about this before the rest of us? How long have you known, anyway?" She knew she wasn't being fair. But Raisha was just so angry, and hurt, and confused. And Brick. She wasn't here. What was her sister, she was assuming Brick was still her sister, like Roe said, what was she going to think? She'll probably want to find their parents, if they were even out there. If they even cared. Why had they not searched for her? None of their parents had.

A million questions were swirling through her head, and she couldn't even think straight. She lied down, paws over her head. She needed to drown everything out. She needed to get her thoughts in order. Maybe this was all just a dream? Yes, a dream. She would wake up in RiverClan, Brick lying next to her. All of this would be behind her. Everything would go back to normal.

After all, this wasn't real. It couldn't be. She wouldn't let it be real.

Griffon could feel the change in t he air when Roe emerged. It was by no means the Nightstriker’s fault, but his expression told it all. His shoukders grew more stiff, and he glanced around nervously. Was their some strange news? Why would it be just the younger part of the Asylum that was being told? A plan, for the clans? He wasn’t quite sure. He took a step closer towards the older cat, snd listened intensely. It was as if the words were a tidal wave, crashing over him, drowning him. He inhaled sharply. The clans? That couldn’t be right. He had been told since he was young he had been taken in, after his parents had disappeared. He had always been outside of the clans.

His mind wandered towards teh kirs of Thunderclan, the warm nursery. He had been denied that. But the Asylum had been his home. His mind darted back and forth, trying to make a decision. Fid he resent the Asylum, or was he thankful for them? What would his life had been like if he hadn’t been stolen. Raised in whatever clan he had came from, given a name like the rest of them. He would have been an apprentice by now. He tried to remember, but he couldn’t even remember being taken in.He just remembered being assigned his faction, becoming a Standard. The scar on his shoulder was a mark of what he had always been. He may have been a clan cat, but the Asylum had made him one of their own.

"I wanna find out where I came from, who my family is. I...I don’t know how to feel yet." he said finally.

"I found out because a Clan cat with unresolved personal issues ripped off my pelt and recognized me. He called me a name I'd never even heard before," Thalia answered coolly, her gaze snapping up to Raisha once again. "It was just circumstance and coincidence, it could have happened to anyone in my position. And when I mentioned it to Roe, he told me the truth, because no one else had. I've only held on to this long enough to get as many of you here as I could, because it wasn't safe to tell you all individually when we might be watched or overheard. I thought it was best to do it all at once."

(She'd made another mistake, hadn't she? Was that all she could do now? She was talented and skilled and she prided herself on it, and yet she still wasn't capable of making a single right decision. Panic, a murder that got her banished from her post, letting her pelt fall, seeking answers to that ThunderClan cat's words... None of it was right, was it? Would it have been best, then, to keep this revelation to herself and never say anything at all? And yet she was sure she couldn't live with herself, if that was the choice she made.)

Thalia let herself sink down, shrinking into herself and sighing quietly as she stared at her paws. She'd run out of leads to follow and things to say, for the time being; and she'd more than ruined things enough for herself as well as everyone else. This time, the apology was silent. I've said that I'm sorry. But what would you have me do?

She was fairly certain that she didn't want to know the answer.

After Shira shouted back at him, Spark backed up. He didn't want to deal with her anger at the moment, and it seemed like she wasn't going to go back on her ideals. He understood that, and while he believed that the she-cat was making a big mistake by threatening to attack a cat while pregnant with kits, he couldn't do anything about it. "Very well," he said, stepping back into the crowd of cats.

With Thalia seemingly breaking down right next to him, the ginger tom identified that the best course of action would be to comfort her. "Thank you, Thalia, for sharing this with all of us," he said, walking right next to the Nightstriker. "No matter what, you can always talk to me if you need anything. After all, I'm always open to listening." He wasn't normally one to speak, but at this time he felt that it was important to comfort those he cared about, those who cared about him. And Thalia seemed to be in a bad place right now, so it was obvious to just offer a shoulder for her to lean on if she needed.

Any sense of comfort that Ceres had felt by simply being in the Asylum camp, surrounded by the same cats that she had known since she was a kit, seemed to drain into the earth and vanish in a matter of heartbeats. She felt a heavy weight crash onto her shoulders as her smile faded into a confused frown. She wasn't the type of cat to stay silent, in fact she was more than certain that most cats would categorize her as loud, but Ceres wasn't able to find the words this time. She listened and watched as the cats around her exploded into fits of rage and confusion that was fueled by betrayal and quite possibly even fear. The Standard didn't blame them at all for feeling this way. It was difficult to not feel afraid when the truth that you had followed your entire life turned out to be a deliberate lie. What good was a family if it was built on falsehoods? What was she supposed to do, now? The calico sank her claws into the dirt to steady herself as she sucked in a breath. No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to consider the fact that she had been born into the Clans that she looked at with such disdain today. A million questions raced through her mind, some of which were obvious. Who was her mother? Who was her father? Which Clan was she from? Most importantly, where was Mirae right now? She quietly rose to her paws, finding it difficult to look anyone directly in the eyes, especially Thalia.

"No... there's no way, right? This has gotta be a joke." Ceres was clinging to any shred of hope that this was all some sort of dream or some sort of sick prank, and when she opened her eyes, everything would be back to the way it was before.
"No... n-no, I'm an Asylum cat, not a Clan cat, right? You can say sike, now. We can all laugh it off and then go back to our posts at the Clans."
Her eyes held a glimmer of desperation in them. It was true, Ceres was desperate for more of an explanation. She needed to know more than she knew right now. What else was she supposed to feel when everything she knew was crumbling around her so quickly?
"Please. Please. This isn't fair! Why were we lied to? Families aren't supposed to lie, right? Right? What would've happened if Thalia never found out, huh? Would we have just lived to our final breath without knowing the truth? Do you know how sick that is?!"

Ceres had no idea who she was yelling at. In fact, she had no idea why she had raised her voice at all, but the panicked atmosphere and the yelling from the other so-called "missing kits" had sent her into a frenzy.

The quills of Mirae's pelt brushed against each other a familiar and comforting sound. Ever since Captain Iniko had died, she had worn it constantly. The inspiration he had given her while helping her catch it helped her persevere through the doubts she had about Asylum's treatments of the clan. If the former Standard Captain believed in the cause, then they had to be doing the right thing. Mirae took her time moving, but her mind stayed almost motionless. She let the surrounding world absorb her, the young she-cat only existing as a miniscule blade of grass in a vast field. Taking long walks like these calmed her and distracted from her worries. But, little did Mirae know, her relaxing venture would change. She knew that she'd get to the Asylum camp soon enough, and it wouldn't matter if everyone else had gotten there first. Humming softly, she approached the camp.

The sound of agitated voices reached Mirae's ears. She perked up, her mind focusing in on the voices, and started to speed up. One reached out to her the most: Ceres. Her sister sounded distressed. Maybe her lack of promptness had bitten her in the rear. Anxiety began to sink into her chest. She didn't want to intrude, so she peeked into the camp and stayed behind. Then, she made out what her sister was saying. We were lied to? Her heart felt as if it skipped a beat. Heat drained from her face and paws and her mouth hung open. Mirae shook her head. She couldn't be a clan cat. The ShadowClan nursery looked so secure, and safe, and warm. She could assume the other clans were the same, and clearly no cat would give their kits to the Asylum. The clans hated Asylum! Doubt wriggled its way into her mind. Did Iniko know?


No. He would have told them. There had to have been something up. Something only Eris would have known, maybe. If all of Asylum knew, some cat would have spoken up. Lacking any context aside from Ceres's words, Mirae felt horribly stranded and confused. Betrayed. The only way she could see clan kits going to Asylum would be by theft. Any good cat would try to return lost kits. Her world began to tip over. She didn't even notice her claws digging into the chilled ground so hard it hurt. Her eyes stayed on Ceres, then moved to Shira. They were her real sisters, right? Mirae needed that much; at least to keep her beloved sisters. That much had to be true.