Hey guys, Brighteyes here. I know some of y'all have read my story The Great Divide, and I know I haven't updated it for almost exactly three months.
It's just that...I don't know, guys, I'm not feeling that style or maybe it's parts of the plot line, but I got to thinking, and I'm going to rewrite it. Like...all of it.
Of course, I'll keep some of the better bits and the plot line base, but right now it feels a bit dry and tasteless. It needs some pizazz!
So, the rewrite will be under the same story title but with some great new stuff I've come up with while lying in the dark with a blanket over my head, cat by my side, and notebook and pen in my hands. Crazy night.
Anyway, I'll give you a little taste of what's to come...I hope you're not angry with me for this not being a "real" update on Promise or Warrior's Couple's Counseling. I swear to whatever God you believe in that I'm working on the next chapter of each right now. With Promise, I will answer every single one of your questions in the next AN and with WCC Mapleshade and Silverstream will have their paws full with this couple...in more ays than expected. Jayfeather will be making an appearance.
So...presenting the new, improved, REWRITE SNEAK PEEK:
Thunder roared and lightning blazed, yet no rain poured from the ominous clouds. The six Clans were gathered beneath Fourtrees at midnight. There was no full moon to be seen, and no stars glimmered in the stormy, inky darkness that enveloped the glade. Ripplestar gazed up at the other leaders situated on the Great Rock with malice clear in her dark amber gaze. Behind her, her clanmates gathered with bristled pelts and malevolent expressions, evidently poised to attack upon their leader's command.
"Mutiny!" Ravenstar snarled from his throne-like seat at the topmost point of the stone. His shadow cast the Clan before him into further blackness, from which only their eyes gleamed.
"That is why you have called us here, Ravenstar?" Ripplestar hissed impatiently beneath the gray tom. Ravenstar leaned forward, the charcoal streaks in his pelt enhanced with stripey shadows, causing him to take on the menacing stature of his namesake.
"You know very well why we've called you here to gather when it isn't the full moon," The icy voice of Echostar sounded from behind her fellow. The glowing she-cat cast a withering look at Ripplestar, and padded up to the tip of the Great Rock, where Ravenstar stepped back to admit the she-cat to the front. "You have committed treason. We reserve the right to punish you for crimes against Starclan and their noble code of the Clans." Echostar announced. Her long, silver pelt shone in the illuminating flashes of lightning, giving her the appearance of a spirit or ghost. Cats below shivered in her presence. Ripplestar maintained her expression, adding a sneer of contempt.
"You have no right! Moonclan has done no wrong." Ripplestar growled.
"No wrong? No wrong?" A loud voice jeered. From beside Ravenstar, cloaked in shadow, emerged a figure. It was wiry and slender, but its muscles were clearly defined beneath its thin and ragged pelt. Its muzzle was coated in gray, ears shredded, and whiskers askew. One eye was clouded over and slitted, with four long claw scars crossing it. The fur on that side of the cat's face was gone, and on the other side it was shedding in large tawny clumps. It's second eye was sharp and clear, a hard, cold topaz gleaming brilliantly from the mangled face. Almost every cat flinched back as this leader took Echostar's place. It opened it's mouth to speak, revealing rotting, jagged yellow teeth and a tongue split in half with a score of claw marks hanging from the once-broken, grizzled muzzle.
"You say no wrong, no harm Moonclan has done to this forest, Ripplestar. You say, you say!" It cackled; the voice was clacking and clattering and cracking, as a crow's beak would sound, with the l's and s's slippery, slithery and nearly unrecognizable as the tattered tongue darted between gray gums.
"And I speak truth, Badgerstar." Ripplestar called up defiantly.
"Truth, even truth would be lies off of your tongue!" Badgerstar's voice wasn't even a voice, it was a choking, hacking, hissing sound that formed words, "Tried in vain to seize the territories, you have! Succeed you did not. You killed...how many dare I name? You killed Dawnstar, and Seedstar. You killed Fallenpetal, Stoneshade, Creekleg, Fadedmist, Embersky, Fleetrunner, and Goldenpaw, Greenpaw, Jumppaw, Larkpaw, and we shall not even go into queens and kits! You consorted with those of dark nature, and those stained with blood for eternities." The old tom clacked.
"In the name of the greater good!For the best interests of Moonclan!" Ripplestar screamed to the leaders.
"In the name of all the Clans, you have disgraced yourselves! Everything should be in the interest of all six! Great Starclan, you fool!" A fiery red-pelted she-cat yowled from the rock, causing the elderly tom to step back on his twisted limbs to give her the speaking point.
"Your very being shames the entire history of the Clans, Ripplestar! Mutiny! Treason! Treachery and betrayal, by any name are still the same. No cat can change the past, Ripplestar, and you have left permanent red on our ledger that will take centuries of season cycles to fade! And you of all cats should know, Ripplestar, the past never fades." The flame-furred leader's fierce blue gaze bore into the black and silver tabby below.
"Russetstar," Ripplestar began cooly, only to bare her teeth, "I regret nothing." She hissed.
"Then, on your head, so be it." The final leader, an enormous white tom who stood regally off to the side, announced, his booming, deep voice ricocheting in the glade like the thunder overhead.
"Rue the day, Ripplestar, when you crossed the line. For the last time." Echostar said, and, with an air of finality, she turned, tail swooping as she melted into the shadows.
"Even Starclan no longer watches you, Ripplestar. I hope you're proud." Russetstar snarled, stalking off into the darkness behind Echostar.
"Your body is whole, yet your spirit broke with every life you took. Suffering, Ripplestar, I condemn you to." Badgerstar meowed. He, however, did not move from his seat on the cold stone.
"Owlstar, may I be so honored as to carry out the sentence?" Ravenstar asked, voice silkily smooth and coated with malicious glee.
"Ripplestar, for crimes committed against Starclan, the Code, and the Six Clans, we sentence you to death, and Moonclan to exile. From this ,night forth and forevermore, there will be only fives Clans in the forest." Owlstar rumbled. He followed Echostar and Russetstar away from the point of the Great Rock. Now, only Ravenstar and Badgerstar remained situated upon the gargantuan boulder. Ripplestar glared insolently from the base, emerald filled with wrath. Her clanmates watched her fearfully. The whispers began amongst the ranks.
"Death?"
"Exile?"
"We'll have no leader,"
"No leader, no home, what will we do?"
"Where will we go?"
"There's no other place for us than the forest!"
"The kittens can't walk to a new territory, they're too young,"
"How will we survive?"
"It's nearly Leafbare, snow will be here soon,"
"Ripplestar, please step forward." Ravenstar called, making his way carefully down the craggy face. The silver and black tabby leader took three stiff steps toward the tom, whose yellow eye glinted in the flashes of purple-white light.
"I renounce, in the name of Starclan and the Code and the remaining Clans, your leadership status. Ripple, you are hear-by condemned to death." Ravenstar grinned in the darkness, baring his pearly fangs. Without another word, he slashed the throat of the she-cat before him. Ripple fell to the ground, choking and twitching for three long seconds before she went still. Ravenstar shook his forepaw, splattering tiny spots of blood onto the forest floor. They fell, staining the dry, crackling leaves crimson, as did the small pol of blood at the neck of the fallen she-cat. Ravenstar began to leave the clearing, and spoke in his passing of the body.
"Rot in hell." He spat at the motionless form of Ripple. Ravenstar vanished into the night, as the previous three had, leading away his Clan, Skyclan. Riverclan had left the glade following Echostar, and Shadowclan and Thunderclan had exited with Owlstar and Russetstar, respectively.
Now, only Badgerstar remained in the glade. He had sent Windclan home with Russetstar, so his clanmates needn't witness the execution of the criminal. He closed his remaining eyes and tilted his ragged head toward the starless heavens. What had been seen could never be unseen. He sent a silent prayer to Starclan that they watch over the five Clans of the forest, and that Ripple be sent to where she deserved. Opening his eye, Badgerstar regarded the Moonclan cats. He limped down the rock on his gnarled, twisted limbs and stared at the Moonclan cats. They cowered in the darkness, leaderless and afraid.
"Leave us your young, your sick and your old. They are no use to you, and will not survive the journey," He croaked, "You will travel long and hard and far, and the lives of yours will not be easy. There...there will be a time. A time when your leader will face one of the hardest moments in history.
The one they love, they'll lose,
gaining something even more cherished in the end.
Their cats will be torn within their hearts and thoughts, these wounds not to be healed overtime.
Bodies will break, blood will be spilled, there is no turning back.
The clan will broken,
something they cannot stop,
loyalties split
in the Great Divide." Badgerstar whispered in his mangled meow. A kit watched the old leader carefully.
"Darkkit, what're you thinking about?" The tom beside her asked sharply.
"Nothing, Pa..." The dark-silver she-cat said slowly. She felt as though these words held greater meaning than she would know for a long, long time.
"Nothing at all..."