I was going to wait until I had written the next chapter... but I had to before I forgot. I'm sorry... Lots of things have been happening, good and bad, and I basically feel like shit every day. Don't ask me how I managed to pull this out of my ass.
Oliver's hatred for his brother grew every moon. The Storm had to stop searching for him because leafbare had caused the group of cats to slowly starve. There was no time to search because everyone had to pitch in to find food.
Now that leafbare was over, Oliver's most trusted cats, including Claw, could go out and search for him, but even his most trusted cats had doubts the Skunkfur was close by, or even alive.
Claw was leading a group of cats: Tooth, Blood, Death, Fluffy, and Skittles. They were out of the Storm's vast territory, and had walked a long way. Blood and Skittles had been thinking of leaving Oliver, and Claw couldn't blame them.
"Hello." A cat suddenly appeared. Her pelt was red with a black patch on her back. Her dark green eyes neither looked friendly nor hostile.
"Who are you?" Claw decided to act the same way; neither friendly nor hostile.
"My name…" she paused, glancing warily at them. "Fear."
"I'm Claw," he replied gruffly.
"What are you doing here?" the cat who called herself Fear asked.
"That is none of your business," Claw retorted.
"Actually…" The she-cat came closer, causing the six cats to stiffen, ready to unsheathe their claws. She got extremely close to Claw, their faces really close. "It is my business." She padded away from him.
"This is my territory," she explained. "I have every right to know what you're doing on it."
Claw's eyes sparked with amusement. "There's one of you and six of us."
Fear gave him a sly gaze. "I'm not alone. Are you all mouse-brained? You missed the border and you didn't notice the scents of all the cats around you." Claw growled. her heard his group behind him growl, too.
But she was right. Claw just realized the stale scents of cats around him. He huffed. "Fine."
"Now, let me try again. What are you doing on my territory?"
Claw smirked. "We could attack and kill you right here and leave before anyone found you."
"I'm a fast runner. And you don't know my territory like I do," she replied smoothly.
Claw paused. "Perhaps you're right," he finally said. "We're looking for a cat named Skunkfur. Do you know where he is?"
Fear shook her head. "I'm afraid not, sorry." She looked like she was hiding something…
"Okay, well, sorry to take up your time. We'll be going, now." He turned, seeing the incredulous faces of his comrades. He just shook his head and started to head to the border. They, of course, followed him, but had questioning faces.
When the cats went off the territory and out of sight, Rosefrost regained her senses. What did she just do? That wasn't like her at all. What she'd just done… she had been so… confident. How did she do that? The confidence had co out of nowhere.
She started to go back to camp, but then she remembered suddenly that the reason she'd left camp was to hunt. She sniffed the air, immediately catching the strong scent of mouse. She smiled as she saw a hole in a dead, hollow tree.
She stuck her head in. Two mice quivered in fear. The bigger one had a lame leg, and the other as trying to help it. Rosefrost grinned and swiped a paw at the larger one. They both screamed.
After a bit of playing with the mice, she killed them both, first the bigger, then the smaller. She gave the smaller a bit of time to grieve and feel guilt before she killed it with a bite to its neck.
Without even thanking StarClan, she grabbed the mice by their tails and gleefully ran back to camp.
Runningstorm noticed her as she entered. He smiled at his friend and met her at the fresh kill pile.
"Those mice look a bit beaten up, he remarked.
She put them down on top of the pile. 'They ran into a thornbush when I was chasing them."
Runningstorm nodded in understanding, a small smile on his face. "I'll go give one of these to Redstrike." Rosefrost's tail twitched in acknowledgement as the older cat took the larger mouse to the nursery, where the new queen was now expecting Skunkstar's kits.
Shadowwhisker placed her tail on Rosefrost's back, shocking her.
The deputy purred in slight amusement. "Sorry. You're coming on a border patrol."
"Alright!" She smiled and followed the deputy to a small group of cats waiting by the entrance.
She stayed a few tail lengths behind the group of cats. She wasn't really close to any of them, except maybe Silvercreek, who was messing with Aspenfrost. Blossomstep and Ravenpelt were chatting, Whitemist was chastising Stormpaw for something, and Shadowwhisker was listening to one of Swifthawk's stories. She wished she had more friends than just Runningstorm, but it was really hard...
Blossomstep froze, tasting the air. "There's a stale scent of other cats. They'd crossed our border."
Rosefrost looked around. Yes, it was the same place where she'd chased off those cats that were looking for Skunkstar. Everyone started renewing the border, and then they continued.
"Maybe I should assign more frequent border patrols," Shadowwhisker mused. "At least those rogues are gone."
"I sense they were here for more than just prey." Stormpaw looked at Rosefrost as she said this. Did she know something?
Everyone either ignored Stormpaw or didn't hear her. She moved to Rosefrost's side. "I know how you feel," she said in a low voice.
"What are you talking about?" she replied defensively.
"You feel like you don't belong. You feel like something is missing. Right?"
Rosefrost hesitated. "No."
Stormpaw rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
When the border patrol got back to camp, Rosefrost immediately went to search for Runningstorm. She searched all over camp, but he wasn't anywhere. She even checked the nursery, which was strangely empty. Redstrike should have been there. She frowned, realizing that Redstrike wasn't in the camp, either. She was a queen; she should be resting in the nursery, not going out of the camp and hunting.
She saw Skyleap, and went over to her. "Have you seen Runningstorm or Redstrike?"
The she-cat nodded. "In fact, I saw them leaving the camp together."
"Okay, thanks." She exited the camp, tasting the air. She found their recent scents and followed them.
Just as she was starting to lose their scent, she was run over by none other than Redstrike.
"Oh, Rosefrost, it's terrible! Runningstorm and I were talking on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and he fell!" she cried hysterically.
"What?!" she shouted, probably scaring away all the prey in the forest. "There's no way...! He's...?!"
"I-I tried to look for his body, but I...I think the impact of the water k-killed him..."
"But... he can't...!" Her emotions rapidly morphed into anger. "You pushed him, didn't you?!"
Redstrike looked shocked. "What?! Why would I do that?!"
"He can't have just 'fallen'!" she cried angrily. "You pushed him!" She lashed out with unsheathed claws, clawing at the she-cat's throat. Blood filled Redstrike's mouth, and she choked a few times, before falling lifeless to the ground. For good measure, Rosefrost ripped open her stomach, making sure the kits wouldn't live.
"Hey, Rosefrost, I smell—" Shadowwhisker froze, looking at her, and looking at Redstrike's body. Her eyes flashed with fury, and she charged at Rosefrost. She immediately reacted by fleeing. She definitely couldn't go back to PondClan, now, after she'd gotten rid of that foxheart that everyone seemed to love.
She found that she didn't regret what she did at all. In fact, she felt her work was unfinished. She needed to kill Skunkstar, Redstrike's beloved. Once he was gone, she'd be satisfied.
She was chased a very long way. Shadowwhisker just wasn't giving up. She saw a twoleg nest, and crawled into a small space underneath it, after she quickly brushed through a patch of catmint.
Shadowwhisker was there for quite a while, trying to find her scent. Rosefrost took this time to clean the blood off of her pelt. After quite some time, when the sun was low in the sky, the deputy gave up and left.
Rosefrost crawled out of the space, stretching her body out and yawning. She gasped in surprise when she saw the monster in front of the twoleg nest. She hadn't noticed it earlier.
"Hello!" Rosefrost almost jumped out of her pelt in surprise. She turned around, and saw a light ginger tom. "What are you doing here? Are you lost?"
The tom seemed pretty friendly, so Rosefrost put up a similar demeanor. "Yes. I can't find my clan camp," she answered.
"Oh! Are you a forest cat?" he asked curiously, getting closer to her. She nodded.
"I'm sure my housefolk would welcome you, at least for a night!" he said. "You must be tired and hungry."
"Oh, really? I'd love that!" she answered. "I'm starving!"
He purred. "Okay, come on!" He led her to the entrance to the nest, which was a flap. He let her go in first.
The first thing she felt was warmth. She also felt the strange flatness of the ground. It was a bit slippery. A female twoleg gasped, and started saying things that Rosefrost couldn't understand. When she was picked up, she resisted the urge to claw her way out of the twoleg's grasp.
She was put down in front of a shiny thing, with things that looked like rabbit dung, but smelled like stale prey. She hesitantly took a bite. It wasn't too bad.
An identical shiny thing was put next to the other one, and this one had milk in it. She drank it up happily. It was warm and pleasant.
The tom purred from behind her. "Feeling better?"
Rosefrost nodded, turning around.
He gasped. "I'm sorry, I haven't told you my name! My name is Flames."
"I'm Rosefrost." She yawned.
"Are you tired? I'll show you my nest!" he led her to a place where the ground was soft and she could dig her claws into it.
"Hey, don't do that!" he said when he saw her unsheath her claws into the ground. "My housefolk will get mad!"
"Oh, sorry," she answered quietly, carefully sheathing her claws again. He nodded.
"It's alright. Here's my nest." It was a soft... thing, on the ground. She stepped onto it, immediately taking a liking to it and laying down.
"Wow, this is really nice," she purred. He settled in next to her.
"I know." They both fell asleep like that. Luckily, the female twoleg prevented the twoleg kit from picking Rosefrost up, so they stayed asleep for quite some time.
Heheheheheheh. Your pain fuels me.