Caught in the Spider Web [Spiderquill]

Beechface slowed her pace to accommodate Spiderquill- Dennis, rather, as they trekked towards the clan territories. She'd wanted to speak to him about what she'd seen, but was uncomfortable in doing so around the Shadowclan leader and medicine cat, and she had never been comfortable with Softbreeze to begin with. And the news didn't involve the other clans, to begin with. They had no need to know just what Skyclan had suffered.

She wasn't even sure she wanted Spiderquill to know how much they had suffered recently. But she'd do anything in her power to get back what belonged to Skyclan. Mountainkit's face flashed before her eyes, and Beechface took a shuddering breath as she worked out how to approach this.

Her first instinct was to leap for Spiderquill and demand answers. Maybe she would have if she wasn't... just a little embarrassed about having done that earlier. Instead, she turned towards the older medicine cat and began to pace, discomfort making her steps quick as her fluffy tail twitched back and forth.

"I had a- a... revelation. I saw three of your warriors fighting a hawk. One of them was Ivystar, and... a cream-furred she-cat and a gray she-cat. Your deputy, I think? I can't recall their names. It's... been a while." She began, throat suddenly tight. She'd thought those kits dead and gone. If they were alive...

"One of them knocked the hawk out of the sky. I didn't understand why they'd attack it at first, until I saw what the hawk had in its' grasp. Two kits. One was silvery and lacked a tail, the other was black and white. Around two moons old, three at most." Her voice was suddenly ragged, and Beechface had to stop for a moment, remembering how she'd returned to camp to find Ashstorm and Smokefeather inconsolable. They and Blossomstep had chased that hawk until they physically couldn't anymore.

"Did the kits survive? They were called Mountainkit and Sneezingkit. Mountainkit is my little sister. They're Skyclan." And if they were in Riverclan, they didn't belong there, went left unsaid. "Their mothers were distraught over the loss. They chased the hawk until they physically couldn't anymore. We thought they were gone."

She stopped pacing then, dark gaze turning to Spiderquill. She was not letting him leave without an answer, she couldn't.

OOC: very very late I'm sorry! Also it's bad but it always is with me so pls forgib lmao

Dennis was exhausted, mentally and physically. Hopping around on three legs was gruelling at the best of times, but add to that the two-way journey to Highstones and his practically nonexistent stamina and you've got yourself one tired tomcat. So tired, in fact, that he barely registered Beechface's presence next to him until they got to the river. He turned to the younger cat with the intention of thanking her and going home, but then she started to talk.

And suddenly the little tom was wide awake. Beechface was scary, even when she didn't try to be, and whether she intended it or not the agitation in her voice sent warning signals flaring in his brain. Prey mentality, though he could hardly help it. He stood there, feigning calm, while she described her trip to StarClan. He watched as Beechface got steadily more stressed. Clearly these kits meant something to her, and it almost made him feel sympathetic. He thought of Lilypaw, the realisation that he would never see her again... He swallowed it down as the pacing stopped and SkyClan's medicine cat had her full attention on him. He wished he could dissolve, his fight-or-flight response flaring to life. He was cornered, at least in his mind. What was he supposed to say? He knew the kits, of course. They were safe and sound, probably curled up together in some physics-defying sleeping position while they dreamed of whatever nonsense floated around their brains. That's all he had to say: "They're fine, they're safe. Your sister is alive."

But... he didn't want to. It was selfish of him, bordering on cruel. The cat before him was clearly desperate for good news. These kits were important to her, Mountainkit at the very least, and Dennis understood that. Really. But as irrational fear flooded his brain at being questioned by the huge cat, he didn't want his younger sisters to go back to SkyClan. RiverClan was all he knew of the forest, and it was safe. How was he supposed to know if SkyClan was safe or not? Those two kits were idiots, in the kindest way possible, and if there was even an ounce of danger in SkyClan then they would surely find themselves in it. No, those were RiverClan kits. He wouldn't let them get harmed. He couldn't lose another young life under his care. They were staying where they were, so help him StarClan.

He pushed back waves of nauseating guilt as he looked up at Beechface, opening his mouth soundlessly for a second before finding his voice. "I- I'm sorry. The kits... My mothers fought off the hawk, and brought the kits home. But they'd lost so much blood, and-" He looked away, voice catching. He hoped she'd see it as sadness and not his nausea at lying about something this important. "There was nothing I could do. They're... They didn't make it."

Beechface watched Spiderquill's reaction, ears instinctively flicking back in dismay at the catch in his voice and the way he spoke. Stars take that hawk. Beechface stared down at her paws, claws sinking into the dirt, wishing they were sinking into that hawk's feathers instead. She couldn't snap at Spiderquill, he and his clanmates had tried. Smokefeather and Ashstorm had genuinely believed the kits were dead. Spiderquill had only confirmed it.

Starclan enjoyed taunting her, it seemed. Every dream was something she couldn't change, or they told her nothing at all. Never anything useful, never anything she could use to actually help her clan. What use were they to her? What good was a moonstone visit when the stars were so utterly worthless? Did they care at all about the forest? Beechface didn't think they did, not at all.

"I know Ivystar would've done anything she could have to keep a kit safe." Still, she'd been too slow. Spiderquill had been too slow. If Skyclan's own warriors had been just a bit faster that hawk would've never left camp at all, let alone have been able to grab two kits that had been full of life.

Suddenly she wanted to be nowhere near Spiderquill. She... Needed to be alone, needed to clear her head.

"Thanks" for nothing, "I... Should get back to my clan. There's sick and wounded to tend to." Beechface said, tone flat. She turned away from him, tail lashing in frustration as she glared at the stepping stones that spanned the river, almost as if they had personally offended her. Another heartbeat, and she started for them with quick, angry steps, abandoning the slower pace she'd accommodated Spiderquill with earlier.