The future's in your paws. Shape it well.Roleplay in a cat Clan of warriors. Based off the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. Takes place in an AU before the cats in the books existed.
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Subject: The Bearer of Bad News [Birdchaser] Tue 6 Dec 2022 - 18:36
Exhaustion tugged at Beechfang as she walked, head and tail lowered. Her single, yellow-green eye darted around warily, ears twitching as she picked up on every snapped twig, every rustled leaf, every unfamiliar noise in the distance. Every muscle was tense, poised to spring at the first sign of danger.
She hadn't come this far into clan territory in a long time. Even now, she wasn't sure she wanted to. She certainly shouldn't have been doing so, but someone had to. Unfortunately, that someone seemed to be her. The scents of other clans mingled in the air, but they were strangely faded. All except one. Had Skyclan been the only one to flee to fourtrees? The thought of anything else disastrous happening was always a possibility... One that Beechfang wasn't keen on entertaining. Enough had already happened, the forest didn't need more. Skyclan didn't need more. They didn't, but that was what they would get. More bad news, and their exiled clanmate to bear it.
Beechfang eyed one of the twoleg traps that sat nestled carefully within the underbrush with a silent snarl, and gave the foul thing a wide berth as she finally approached fourtrees. Skyclan scent was the only clan scent that was fresh, and the one-eyed tabby slowed, for a moment uncertain. Briarstar... The stars wouldn't help her, she knew that now. She'd made Skyclan her home despite everything, and the stars were happy to wrest her away from it, as they had done so many times before. The news, she expected, would not be taken well.
From within the bushes, Beechfang stared down at the hollow for a moment. Weary-faced cats milled about, looking tired and miserable. There was one face she sought out in particular at the moment, and her eyes locked onto her daughter's gray tabby and white pelt near the edge of the hollow. Birdchaser had been made deputy young, just as Beechfang had become a medicine cat young. It was not what she would have wished for any of her kits, and yet, that seemed to be the fate of three of them. Fog, Plum, Bird... She never would have thought for Skyclan to be in the paws of more of her kin, much less her own kits. Not after being exiled and Briarstar taking over. But here they were. And the forest seemed just as intent on destroying a clan's leadership at it always had. Beechfang closed her eyes for a moment, opening them to gaze upon Birdchaser for another few heartbeats.
She didn't want to be the bearer of yet more bad news. But someone had to. She was so very tired. Her own flight from the nests of twolegplace had led her to find SKyclan in chaos, and after doing what could be done for Briarstar, their grim trek toward fourtrees had ended in fleeing from more of them, carrying the same gray-vined, cold cages with them as were scattered among the forest now. Beechfang had gotten away, only because she hadn't been injured to the point of death. Briarstar...
Beechfang inhaled slowly. She was stalling.
"Birdchaser!" She called, striding forward once more. Even to her ears, her voice was tired, strained. "Briarstar... She was well enough to come to fourtrees finally. We found twolegs instead." Beechfang dropped to her haunches, lacking the energy to hide her own weariness. "I'm sorry."
Subject: Re: The Bearer of Bad News [Birdchaser] Wed 7 Dec 2022 - 0:31
Birdchaser
How many days-- weeks? --had passed by now? How long had it been since a crumbling earth and collapsing trees drove SkyClan from their home? Birdchaser had long since lost count. Even if she had been counting before, the recent scourge had dwarfed all previous thoughts. It had been at least a... pawful of days since that. The twolegs' arrival was still fresh, and yet she couldn't even count that. She was just so tired. There was one thought that had lingered though, needling the back of her mind from day one, even though most of her thoughts had descended into strictly misery and survival.
Where was Briarstar?
It was something she didn't want to think about. When she thought about it, her chest got tight and her nostrils flared with desperate breaths and her heavy limbs quivered and she thought she would melt into a puddle. But at the same time, she couldn't help but think of it. SkyClan needed her, they needed their leader. She needed Briarstar. Birdchaser desperately wanted help, or guidance, or even just to not bear the weight of responsibility for a few moments. The last time she saw Briarstar, she was being pulled from under a tree by Bloodstrike and Beechfang, of all cats. Others, too, but those were the ones that stood out. Briarstar had not followed them to Fourtrees; Dawnfeather had, though she'd been taken only days later; Fogfeather, Beechfang, Bloodstrike... all missing. She could only pray they hadn't been captured, that they had found sanctuary somewhere between the trees.
Just as she was closing her eyes against her thoughts, a voice shocked her to attention. For a long few beats, even as she turned and saw her mother's blessedly-familiar pelt, she was convinced she had been imagining thing. She'd just let her thoughts wander too far, and now she was conjuring sights and sounds to comfort herself. But the Beechfang in front of her looked just as ragged and exhausted as the rest of them. It took every ounce of willpower Birdchaser held within her to not just close the gap between them and collapse against her mother, fall wordlessly into her side and hope that it would fix all that was currently wrong in the world. Facing Beechfang always made her feel small again, like she was a kit in need of protection and care. She was about to falter, forego any pleasantries or reputation to seek comfort, but Beechfang's next words made her stall.
"You found twolegs instead." She echoed numbly. Immediately, Birdchaser dropped her gaze, looking at her paws. She pressed them into the grass, watching the blades bend and shift against her weight, brushing over her toes. Her paws were starting to shake. "Briarstar was taken." It wasn't a hard conclusion to reach. It was all that came after it that felt impossible. "Well, she's going to come back." The argument was half-hearted. Even as she said it, Birdchaser knew better. Briarstar may come back one day, yes, and SkyClan would celebrate when she did, but...
Slowly, as if the action pained every part of her, Birdchaser turned away. Her dulled gaze looked over the crowd of cats. Those who had watched her grow up, those who she'd grown up with, those who she watched grow. Even though many were heedless to the conversation being had (though some had caught sight of Beechfang and were watching curiously), it felt suddenly as if every head had snapped around to stare directly at her. She had been guiding them through this tragedy for days; even before that, she had been conducting ceremonies, supporting them, making relationships with the important names of other Clans. But now--
Now their lives were in her paws. Her trembling, feeble paws.
As desperately-- desperately --as she wanted to, she could not hold off on the thin hope that Briarstar would manage to escape swiftly. It could be mere days, or it could be moons, seasons before she returned. It could be never. Birdchaser couldn't allow SkyClan to remain leaderless for so long. Her body felt suddenly heavier, as if stones had been piled onto her shoulder. In a way, they had been.
Maybe she would get lucky, and she would venture to Highstones and StarClan would deny her, or inform her of where Briarstar was being kept so she might return with their proper leader. But-- oh, Highstones. She would have to go to Highstones, speak with StarClan. She couldn't-- it felt-- it just felt wrong. So, so wrong. Everything did.
Weakly, and without looking up, Birdchaser shuffled closer to lean gingerly against Beechfang's side. "That means I have to go to the Moonstone, doesn't it?" The question came softly, weakly. She already knew the answer, but she couldn't deny the flicker of hope that Beechfang would say otherwise.
Subject: Re: The Bearer of Bad News [Birdchaser] Wed 7 Dec 2022 - 17:09
"I'm sorry." 'No,' she wanted to lie, say that Briarstar hadn't been taken, that she was going to be fine. That she would come back. They didn't know she wouldn't, after all, but her condition had been rough, and the twolegs far too fast to keep up with even before they made it to their monsters that spat clouds of fetid, acrid smoke into the air. Briarstar would've been long gone before Beechfang could race them to the fence... And she had tried, despite her exhaustion.
Birdchaser's reaction hadn't been what Beechfang expected. No, she'd expected a tantrum, yelling. Something she would've done. And had done, memories of a bloody Sagelight laying in the middle of camp, of pacing an unfamiliar den surrounded by unfamiliar herbs, when around here stood injured clanmates with their leader vanished into the night, and their deputy grieving for them both--
Beechfang shook off the memory. She hadn't thought of that in seasons, but the situation was similar enough. And here too, a clan she'd let down, even if they weren't technically hers any longer. She watched Birdchaser's exhausted face shift, emotions Beechfang was well-acquainted with flickering across her daughter's expression even as Birdchaser turned away to stare over the pelts of her clanmates. Their lives were on her shoulders now, in a way that they hadn't been when Briarstar's disappearance wasn't confirmed. Clanmates that were slowly growing more unfamiliar with each passing moon, Beechfang realized. This was not the Skyclan Beechfang had known, despite her children who lived within their ranks. Times had changed. Perhaps, perhaps Skyclan had too. For the better, she could only hope.
Birdchaser shuffled closer, leaning against her, and Beechfang curled instinctively around her daughter as if she were still a kit, cheek resting against the top of Birdchaser's head. Their audience didn't matter to her, in the moment. "Highstones." She agreed quietly, bitterly. "They won't make it easy for you. You're not much older than I was when Sagelight passed, leaving me the only medicine cat of a broken clan." She'd known that, but to speak that truth out loud was still a shock. Birdchaser, her siblings, they were all so young still. Deputy, soon to be leader, and two already fully-fledged medicine cats... And already they faced nothing but trials from this harsh forest and the world beyond it. Trials they had no control over, that no cat possibly could.
"Your clanmates will rely on you more than ever. You can rely on them, too, I think. Don't fall into the same mistakes I did." She cautioned softly, "Work with your siblings. If anyone is there to share the burden of leadership, it's your medicine cats. Keep them close. Don't dismiss them or their advice. Whoever you choose for deputy, it must be someone you trust who can do the same." She added, "Someone level headed, if I were you." It was the only thing she knew of that could potentially help. Even if this wasn't her clan any longer, Beechfang wanted her kits to have a better time of it than she had, to make better choices than she had.
