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: Wolfpaw's Moonstone Journey Mon 7 Oct 2024 - 1:49
NIGHTOWL
Is it easy to keep so quiet?
Nightowl was not fond of his life of late, to say the least.
It had started with Heatherberry's disappearance. Then Wolfpaw's little stunt. Then the wolves... he shuddered to think of them even now. Their chilling howls still echoed around his mind, even after the attack. And now, now, Wolfpaw was free, and Nightowl was taking him on his Moonstone journey.
It was entirely insane. This was a cat that wanted to kill him. This was a cat that had shown, time and time again, that he would kill anyone he thought was any kind of a threat. Nightowl often wondered, when he was alone with his thoughts, if the deranged apprentice hadn't done something to Heatherberry. It would explain an awful lot.
But he couldn't run from this. He couldn't hide. All he could do was stay on alert, and maybe hope Wolfpaw was too tired to tear him to shreds the moment they left camp together. Nightowl flexed his claws and tried to smooth his fur, but to no avail. His heart was racing like a rabbit in his chest. Will he kill me out there? It seemed like a real possibility.
The tom ducked his head into the apprentices' den and tried to fight the tremble in his voice as he spoke. "Come on, Wolfpaw. Moonstone." Perhaps, the less he said, the less Wolfpaw could get angry about, and the less he risked his life on this stupid outing. Why hadn't Leopardstar offered someone to go with him? He'd told her that Wolfpaw had threatened his life before; did she not care?
Luckily, the journey was short, and Wolfpaw did not try to say anything to him. Every time the apprentice so much as flicked an ear, Nightowl almost jumped, sure he was making some sort of move to attack him; but the attack never came. Instead, Nightowl stayed in a constant state of flinching, and unease settled in the pit of his stomach like a boulder.
As the pair padded up to the tunnels, Nightowl hesitated. Then he dipped his head, motioning Wolfpaw to walk ahead of him. He usually led the way, but the cavern was a straight shot; Wolfpaw just had to follow the glow of the Moonstone. Nightowl was certainly not going to let the tom walk behind him, out of sight. No, it was safer back here, where he could watch Wolfpaw's every pawstep and tail twitch. He didn't trust the apprentice to not attack him from behind.
"Okay. Sit, put your nose to the stone, and dream." The tuxedo meowed flatly, settling himself beside the entrance to the cave in case he needed to run. Did Wolfpaw dream? It seemed unlikely. Maybe the stars would not appear for him.
Wolfpaw had been waiting for Nightowl. He had heard whispers before it had happened, and sure enough, the medicine cat had come to collect him. He was unsurprised, that once he was freed from his confines, the system moved quickly. He was an impeccable addition to the clan. Proficient in hunting, exemplary in fighting. Even his intuition, though so quickly disregarded, was spot on. They would come to know soon enough that he was right all along.
He did say little on the journey. What was there to say? That meagre, brief interaction with Nightowl all those moons ago had done it for him. The fear scent was dripping off of the otherwise seemingly composed tom. He could practically drink it, it made him feel giddy; like the air-scent before it rained. That lightness, for all intents and purposes.
He paused at the entrance to Mothermouth. He could feel the hatred roiling off of the stone within. Moons ago, he would have scoffed at the notion of the Other. Surely, it could not exist. But now he knew. Now he knew the stars the clans loved so, so dearly were nothing but false and cruel. Twisting the minds of their followers to do their bidding. He turned to Nightowl, expression blank as always, but that flickering ember of... something in the very pits of his eyes.
"Medicine cat," He meowed, low and sombre. "Do you think it was an omen? That Gathering. The wolves. Do you think it was an omen, that my very namesake killed so many? Leopardstar, Juniperhunt. Maimed my brother. Or," He ran his tongue over his lips. "Do you think it was a promise? The very night you say your beloved 'StarClan' is watching over you, sent you wolves."
Subject: Re: Wolfpaw's Moonstone Journey Sat 19 Oct 2024 - 19:15
NIGHTOWL
Is it easy to keep so quiet?
The way Wolfpaw paused at the entrance to the cavern made Nightowl seethe. Could they not just get this over with? Did Wolfpaw find pleasure in all of this? Playing these sick games, messing with cats like he and Fishpaw and Quillsplash... was it so enjoyable for him? The medicine cat had half a mind to push Wolfpaw forward into the cave, but he'd seen the way he had scarred Fishpaw's pelt. He could easily maul Nightowl without a second thought, and ShadowClan would be even worse off, two medics gone missing by a place that was supposed to be so sacred as the Highstones.
The tuxedo only listened to the crazed ramblings of Wolfpaw for a moment before he regarded him with a fixed, stern look. Maybe he would shut up once he found that Nightowl wasn't affected by his odd threats and musings. But the issue was that he was affected by them. He hated to admit it, but... any time Nightowl went out to gather herbs, he'd look twice over both shoulders. Any time he left his den - stars, every time he settled down to sleep, he found that the idea of Wolfpaw's presence lurked over him, followed him like a bloodthirsty shadow. Of course Wolfpaw was never really there. Not that Nightowl ever saw. But that didn't help his fur lie flat or his heart settle in his chest.
Though he supposed his fear had sparked into anger plenty of times before. He remembered Silverhawk's training, the first time he'd ever drawn another cat's blood. That power was something he always craved. It was growing now, the longer this Wolfpaw nonsense went on. Nightowl was tired of being terrified every waking moment of his life. He wished he could do something about it.
"Do you know what I think, Wolfpaw? Honestly?" Nightowl answered finally, his voice taut. He fought to keep himself as composed as he had during the journey so far. "I think you're just some half-wit lunatic who never should have been allowed out of the nursery. But if you are threatening to kill as your namesake did, I would have to tell Leopardstar - and I don't think she would be happy to hear you making such threats on your first day out of confinement. Unless you're content to be Wolfpaw forever." Nightowl fixed the apprentice with a glare that he could only hope disguised his fear. Was this how he was meant to live forever, his fear and his anger always vying for the spotlight, fighting for his attention? It was frustrating. "Now go."
Characters : [C]indersky, [W]olfpaw [D]aytrader, [R]yepaw Clan/Rank : RiverClan, T4 Deputy | ShadowClan, Apprentice| T1 Loner | WindClan Apprentice Number of posts : 554 Gender : They/She Age : 20
Subject: Re: Wolfpaw's Moonstone Journey Sun 20 Oct 2024 - 8:03
Wolfpaw
Did I play games in my youth?..
There was a long moment in which Wolfpaw said nothing. His eyes moved from the toms mouth to his eyes, and the longer he spoke, the more wicked his expression grew. Widened eyes, though dark and hollow with an absence of anything but dark, morbid enjoyment at his prattling, and a parted mouth with corners just turned slight in a smile. Or maybe it was a snarl. He ran his tongue over his lips, lowering his head as though he were to begin a pounce, stalking to the side to regard Nightowl just that moment longer. No, no. He would not kill as his namesake. He could do so much more than that.
"Leopardstar is afraid of me," He purred. "And you know it. She spoke to me before she granted me my freedom again. Made sure to stay as far away from me as she could. A star, with nine lives. What could she possibly be afraid of?" He pivoted, turning to the dark, gaping maw of Mothermouth and the leering spectres within. "She is afraid of me, for the reason you should be. You, joint at the hip with the stars you worship. Not I. I am not bound. Stay safe, medicine cat."
He turned with a wide arced swing of his tail and vanished into the shadowy archway. Smooth stone underpaw, the occasional rock batted away with his heavy footfall. A place of reverence, to most. He felt a nausea in his stomach, growing to a lump in his neck as he lay eyes on the Moonstone. Translucent, shining surface. His eyes moved upward, as though the precipice of the rock beckoned him. He swallowed, and came to its side.
"I bring you to me, now," He murmured, lowering down to his haunches. His lips curled at his reflection in the expanse of rock. "But you are still watching me. I know you are. Do your worst, and I will return it tenfold."
The day Burdockroot would ever grant Wolfpaw the audience of a perfectly reasonable StarClan cat would be the day she walked into the Dark Forest herself. The fact that Leopardstar has even allowed the tom this far in life, clan, and rank infuriated Burdockroot into fits she hadn't seen in moons while she was alive. The constant rage and apathy the medicine cat had struggled her entire life to suppress and overcome was worse than ever. Almost constantly she flipped from natural-born thoughts to taught-thoughts. She would see Fawn one second and Heatherberry the next. The angel and devil, so to speak. Constantly talking in her ear, pleading their case.
'Burdockroot, let him give into the temptations you denied yourself in life. Leopardstar is doing this to herself.' Fawn would say.
'Burdockroot, he needs help like you did.' Heather would say.
She had always believed that when she died, she would finally be at peace. That was what was promised to her. But ever since her death, she was more on edge than ever. If StarClan changed at all, it would have worn paths from her paws pacing - pacing - pacing. Nothing she has done has worked so far. In fact, it has only made him worse. Delusional. Insane. Why would Leopardstar let him free? To remain? The former medicine cat wanted to do nothing but go down there, scream, and shred the leader's face before taking away all of her lives for being so careless.
But she couldn't. She was stuck here. In front of him.
"Hello, Wolfpaw." Came her voice through the mists of dream as they faded to Wolfpaw to show him StarClan's version of ShadowClan. "Congradulations. You're speaking to StarClan. Something even I didn't do. I bet you feel so proud." The she-cat paused to sneer. "So, ask away Wolfpaw. What burning questions do you have for me? This is your time after all." Her multi-colored gaze could burn holes through his pelt.
It would never be revealed to the apprentice, but Burdockroot couldn't control and manipulate this place - this pocket - of StarClan like she could as he dreamed. The illusion must remain though - that she could change this on her whim - in order to keep him in line as best she could.
moonazyne
Characters : [C]indersky, [W]olfpaw [D]aytrader, [R]yepaw Clan/Rank : RiverClan, T4 Deputy | ShadowClan, Apprentice| T1 Loner | WindClan Apprentice Number of posts : 554 Gender : They/She Age : 20
Wolfpaw moved, creeping through the star-laden mirage of the camp he knew so very well. His eyes narrowed, mouth parted to draw in the scents, or lack thereof. There was no smell of anything, and he wagered that if he bit into the soil, it would taste of nothing either. But there was one thing, though. And that was her. Horrid, horrendous, heretical her. A low growl rumbled in his throat, twisting his paws to circle around her, not that he could ever escape her gaze. He drew close, stopping all but a step away from her and narrowed his eyes.
"Proud," He echoed, tone dripping with malcontent. "Proud. Would that not be you? The Clan, squashed under your paw with no free will of their own. All bound to your beck and call, and they don't even know it. Like you are the only thing keeping them alive, and if they move out of line, think for themselves, they will be culled."
He licked his lips, already feeling his mouth begin to water. His eyes, though trained on hers, betrayed him and it took all his will to keep them focused. A sweet pulse point, something his teeth could sink into. His tail lashed. "And they will be culled. You have tried. I thought for myself, and you couldn't let it be. I try to protect my family, free them from your clutches and you torment me until I give in. I will not."
He took a breath, silent and steady. He could hear his blood roaring in his ears, like a mantra of 'kill, kill, kill', the very thing he was made to do. He knew it. He was meant to. "Maybe it was an omen. A promise. The wolves descending on the Gathering. The bloodshed. Doing what I could not. And then, maybe," He lowered his head, a slow sneer growing on his face. "Perhaps I was not meant to kill Fishpaw or Quillsplash first, but another. The one spinning the web."
There was something about Wolfpaw that was even startling to Burdockroot. Something had happened to him after they last... talked. No, not to him. With him. As if the last vision had snapped his remaining sanity in two, crushed it up, stomped on it, and made dirt on it. Only the ever so slightest flick of her ear betrayed her thoughts as her ever expresionless face remained black and icy cool. Nothing more than a habit of flicking a bug away perhaps. He circled her, as if she was the prey in the situation. As if he had any authority, power, or influence in this holy place of stars. Somewhere he should not have been walking in the first place. The apprentice neared and Burdockroot slowly rotated her head to be staring down at the apprentice as he snarled up at her. Most cats, the cats before - they would wither and freeze under the gaze she stared at Wolfpaw with. A gaze of an utter lack of emotions and empathy. Born of pure ice. Her name may have been changed to what it was now from Frostednight... But the name was still more fitting to her personality than Burdockroot ever would have been.
"Your problem, Wolfpaw, has always been your lack of intelligence. I see it is not letting you down now." Her voice a deep rumble - hinted with a snarl - the distant thunder before a rain storm that pelted your bones and beg for cover. One that Wolfpaw would not find in this land not his own. "I did not send those wolves, we do not have the power to control such beasts. Although your name sake is fitting for the monster you are. Pride is not something I have ever felt, nor have I felt anything of the sort besides the anger that you let fill you." The scarred molly's lips turned to a sneer, her ears lowering as she slowly stood to her full height.
"Oh how I so desperatley wish my life now was how you cry and mewl. But it is not. You feel as if you have it all figured out. It makes so much sense in your head. But you've never stopped to truly think of why I made an appearance to you. Why I have tried everything to save your mother from the heartbreak you will cause her and your family." She slowly strode forward with heavy, unsheathed claws towards Wolfpaw to close the distance. A grumble, deep in her chest as her gaze turned to honed jagged spikes of ice and swirling darkness.
"I was born of darkness, Wolfpaw. Born on the eclipse that brought the Dark Forest to our camp. My real mother slaughtered moments after my birth. Raised by the paw of a Dark Forest cat herself. Raised with the hatred and violence coursing through your bones. I know you, Wolfpaw, more than any living cat does. I know you are weak, and a coward. Unable to sit back and realize how he wastes his life, his claws away towards his own selfish rhetoric instead of observing and learning how to assimilate with the Clan and be the son your mother deserves. You allowed yourself to get swept up in your grandiose beliefs that you are something more than a speck of cat-dirt on your clan's soul. You took the easy road, and you are a coward for it." Her speech ended in a booming snarl, the storm finally overhead.
In the wake of the clap of her thunder-laced cry of rage, she slammed her paw into the apprentice's side and sent him tumbling to the ground. For a cat so large, she moved like a flash of a lightening bolt on top of him. Large paw pinned his spine to the ground as she leaned her full weight into his chest. Eyes swirled with moons of repressed rage, anger, and seething hatred. A soul corrupted - if temporarily - by everything she hid from herself and her clan. With lips curled her fangs gleamed in the sparkling light of her prison-home where she felt more powerless than at any moment of her life. Strange things happened then as she leaned over Wolfpaw's face as if she was going in to snip a prey-creature's life short. Claws dug into his long fur but did not pierce skin. The stars fluttered and shimmered in an unpredictable pattern and strobed the sky around them like the worst storm ever seen by cat.
"You are [i]weak and worthless, Wolfpaw, and there is no saving you."
"When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire."
moonazyne
Characters : [C]indersky, [W]olfpaw [D]aytrader, [R]yepaw Clan/Rank : RiverClan, T4 Deputy | ShadowClan, Apprentice| T1 Loner | WindClan Apprentice Number of posts : 554 Gender : They/She Age : 20
Subject: Re: Wolfpaw's Moonstone Journey Sat 2 Nov 2024 - 18:38
Wolfpaw
Did I play games in my youth?..
His stomach churned. Not in a fear or nausea sense, but in that kind of sense that made him want to bite and tear and every ounce of his will was needed to keep himself rooted on the spot. She blabbered on, about being forged by darkness and another following sob story that made everything she had ever done make sense. Made it settle into place like the final piece of a puzzle. The couplet of the rhyme. He let out one singular bark like laugh, a sharp clap of air, and beamed.
"You, you, you-- That is what you are doing. You had no family. And so you seek to destroy mine. You were frightened of the gift you were given. I like it. If it were not for my want to see my family safe, I would wash the marsh in blood. Drip, drip, and start with Quillsplash. Then Fishpaw. Little fishy. Onto Nightowl and Leopardstar. And even, even--" A face flashed in his mind that made him halt. The face that gazed down on him as he nursed, the one that carried them from the territory when the forest starved them out. The one that--
He let out a furious shriek, slamming a paw down onto the ground with enough force it made his teeth chatter. And then the wind was ripped from his lungs and he was sent sprawling, only to see the nigh translucent ground of the stars beneath him and an agonisingly heavy weight on his back. And he laughed then, long and gleeful and it seemed like he would never stop. "What is there to save?" He crowed, voice muffled by the floor. "What is there to save, Burdockroot?"
There was nothing to stop him here. He could already taste it before he moved, that sweet life essence. No witnesses. Nothing that could go wrong, and he thought-- What ever could? The Clan could not stop him. Leopardstar proved that. She released him without second thought. He took a breath, and with strength finally free from inhibition, surged up and twisted with all his might. He swung, hooked claws outstretched to catch the very first thing he could. The side of her jaw, of course. Cutting down into flesh and slicing out, and he decided what he would do then. He was going to kill her.
Number of posts : 1975 Gender : she/her || they/them || he/him Age : 26
Subject: Re: Wolfpaw's Moonstone Journey Sun 10 Nov 2024 - 8:02
She wasn't surprised. The second Wolfpaw's first breath was drawn, she knew what came next was an attack. But her rage had put her into a hard spot. At least, her natural instincts said that. But was she really in danger of dying when she was already dead? The apprentice was trying the theory, so she supposed it would be soon the theory would be put to the test. Besides- was this existence in StarClan for eternity really worth living? Floating around, doing nothing? For most of her life until she began a medicine cat, she didn't even believe in StarClan. When she was a medicine cat, she didn't even care about StarClan? All she knew was that when this was over, she was done.
It was more pressure than pain as her starry flesh tore open. Her blood no longer wore red. It was downright black with speckled white as if the entire night sky poured out of her wounds.
"You little-" she hissed, shaking the droplets everywhere. They flung across the clearing but disappeared before they hit the ground and dissolving like reverse-rain drops. Seething rage pounded her chest and her vision blurred from the pure fury. With a roar, she slammed her large paws down on Wolfpaw over and over again. She would crush his chest in if she had to. Smash it to bits. Maybe, hopefully it would kill him in the real world too. Maybe she could rid ShadowClan of the filth herself if Leopardstar refused to.
He roared with laughter, choked and battered with every thunderous beat of her furious paws against his chest. He cough and spluttered, feeling things crack and break and blood pooled around his tongue and dribbled down the side of his maw. She did not bleed red. Of course she didn't. She was no cat, not really. A fiend. A monster. Some hideous creation.
He craned his neck forward, timing it just right with one of her rears, and as her paws heaved down he clamped his teeth down around her ankle. He bit as tight as he could, tighter and deeper until he felt things sever, give way, make room for him. He jerked his head, aiming to knock her off balance. And once she had, he took the centre stage. He pulled himself up though every movement was fiery pain and hot with anger borne not just from him, but from the very air that surrounded them. He only released her leg once he was above her, and with a cackle, slammed his paws down on the back of her neck.
"You thought I needed saving," He meowed, so calm despite every word bringing forth a stutter, or the blood oozing from his nostrils. "But look at you. Doesn't it feel good, to hurt? To be stronger. To be..." He leaned down, aiming for the side of her neck to sink his teeth into. To rip and tear.
