Recap: Ember's a sneaky bab so naturally she's keeping secrets from Morningstar and is employing(?) a city snob just in case it comes in handy. Hmm. Seems unlikely.
I can feel your breath
I can feel my death
I want to know you
I want to see
-Twenty One Pilots, Trees
She can only blink as Sunfeather and that strange, lucky tom disappear into the forest. The past few minutes have been a blur, and Emberpaw's not sure she even believes it. A Tainted. One of our own. Has Morningstar gone mad? She looks sane enough, but she always does, despite the untamed malice lurking beneath her eyes. In short, the same Morningstar she's always known. As she processes the leader's potential insanity, the golden-furred she-cat begins to head her way. Emberpaw dips her head, cautiously keeping her distance, just in case.
"Emberpaw," the leader barks. "Why aren't you following them?" She flickers her tail irately in the direction of her daughter and the city tom. Emberpaw suppresses the urge to roll her eyes and just nods again, although she can't dislodge the irritated grimace from her muzzle. Morningstar just looks at her, uncaring and expectant, and so she trots quietly into the forest, leaping with ease onto a low branch. From there, she makes her way into the canopy, though the pair's scent is still strong and easy to follow. His is still acerbic, as bitter as the day he stepped out of the city. Sunfeather is someone she's never paid particular interest to; by PureClan standards, she seems nice, and boring, despite her heritage. Bland enough, and probably not someone worth spying on. Until now.
Emberpaw catches up to them easily, traversing several broken branches that had not been there a few days ago. Their murmuring reaches her first, soft and distant. She can't decipher it, and so hurries faster, ignoring the brittle noises of protest beneath her paws. "Teach you the code…" echoes through the trees as she stumbles upon them at last. They stand below her, a safe distance between them, although Voletooth (the same seems like a joke, but she doesn't know what else to call him) already looks far too comfortable. It seems like he's already forgetting the scabbing wounds on his pelt and the crusty blood on his chest. It blends in well, like a second dark skin over his pelt. Volepaw has died, and now in some hideous masquerade his murderer has taken over his life. Emberpaw is happy, that for once the underdog was not slaughtered. Still, the cost seems too high. Too much. She's not sure she can ever like this tom, who took Volepaw's life and name without so much as batting an eyelash.
"It reeks…" Sunfeather is saying lowly, clearly disgusted, and Emberpaw shifts uncomfortably, wondering if her own scent has drifted down...but she can't smell that bad. The pair move off again, and Emberpaw belatedly realizes Voletooth needs a tour of the territory- and she's going to have to trek all over with them. She heaves a sigh and starts off after them, keeping close tabs on their conversation, though she listens only half-heartedly.
"-every warrior has a pair, like a contractual obligation. We're just supposed to have kits and nothing more. As a warrior, you'll also fight, mentor the young, hunt…"
"Raid the city?" Voletooth asks, sounding carefully neutral. He seems disarmingly uninterested, but she wonders, if the moment they take him back...will he try to run?
"Possibly," Sunfeather says cautiously. "Raids have been...postponed for now." She doesn't mention why, though it seems glaringly obvious; Ice and the rabble he fled to join, the city cats and their strange agenda. Emberpaw wonders if this tom was a part of that- she can't imagine anyone ambushing a Clanner for the fun of it. She makes a note to keep a close eye on him, though she does not doubt that Morningstar will be doing the same. Perhaps Skah will know… He tipped her off a few days ago, alerting her to the two strangers lurking by the river- it wasn't pure luck that had her lingering by the river on the day of the attack. Still, he didn't seem to know much at all about them, describing them as a 'dark stranger' and 'tiny pipsqueak'. He was not exactly wrong.
Emberpaw knows it's nothing short of a miracle that no one else has discovered him, and every day anticipates his discovery and subsequent death. He was stupid to seek them out, but perhaps not entirely deserving of a brutal death at their claws.
The pair below are silent as they walk through the territory- Sunfeather occasionally points out landmarks; the ancient oak tree, the meadow, the gorge. They reach the river, although Voletooth is already intricately familiar with this area. She remembers standing on the riverbank, beating him down, subduing him. She had not thought he'd live to see the sunrise, yet here he stands, one of them. A comrade, of all things. Emberpaw watches his face and the stray flickers of emotions that run across it. The water is too slow, too sluggish to throw himself into in hopes of escape. Voletooth does not appear to acknowledge this, and Emberpaw's not sure if he's even thinking of escape at all. A spy, then.
"What is it like here?" Voletooth asks in a low voice. Assessing, calculating. Weighing the risk of remaining against the danger of fleeing. Either way, he he skating across thin ice, and there will be cracks no matter where he chooses to stand. He could make it, she muses, if he's quick. Iceface took the entire Clan by surprise, and Morningstar is not willing to make that mistake again. If he escapes, he must be relentlessly quick, unforgivably resilient, innately cunning. Emberpaw suspects he is merely one of those things, if at all, and this alone will not aid him. Therefore, she supposes, he's going to be here for a long time.
"Harsh," Sunfeather says after a moment. "Cold. Lonely. Violent. Take your pick." Ruthless, Emberpaw adds. Detached, isolated, invincible. It all fits. Sunfeather's expression mirrors hers, as they give their glowing descriptions of their home. Still, Emberpaw cannot forsake this place and these cats entirely. She was born, raised and is likely to die here, with those that have always surrounded her. This in itself seems comforting; the pattern and routine of PureClan keeps her grounded, cemented, sane. She would be aimless without it, and this is a daunting prospect. It may be all those awful things, but it is familiar.
"What do you live for?" Cariad asks, bemused. He does not understand it so clearly, she sees now; the allure of a warrior name, of working your way towards a rank, of certain and assured superiority. He has had it all handed to him, and does not know now what to do.
Vaguely, Sunfeather says, "I'd rather live like this than die." Unbidden, this provokes thoughts of Sablefrost, though she pushes them away. She'd chosen to die, and she perhaps saw something that the rest of them did not. Emberpaw shakes her head to clear it. As she does so, a flash of something pale in her peripheral vision catches her immediate attention. Flattening her ears against her head she glances down again, though the pair seem oblivious to what lurks on the opposite bank. She grits her teeth and leaps from branch to branch, a mere flitting shadow through the trees. Crossing above the river fills her with some small sense of trepidation, but she manages it soundlessly. Emberpaw creeps down the slim trunk of an ash tree, masked amid the bright green leaves that are beginning to wilt beneath the sun's glare. With a small snarl, she leaps upon the white figure poorly concealed behind a juniper bush. He yelps as she pounces on him, and his head knocks resoundingly against a thick branch laden with berries. They pelt his face as he falls back; Emberpaw, satisfied, sits down and watches the fiasco.
"If I were anyone else," she says, warningly, "you would have been dead before your head hit the branch." Cowed, and no doubt aching, Skah sits up and gingerly touches his muzzle with a paw.
"Good thing you're a softie," he says, grinning. The gravity of the situation rarely seems to grasp Skah, and it has not done so today. It never ceases to irritate her. Still, he's proven his meagre usefulness, so she's decided to keep him around. Emberpaw lets the comment slide; she won't prove him wrong, not today.
"What's going on in the city?" Emberpaw asks, suddenly serious. Skah just blinks at her with his mismatched eyes, looking decisively furtive.
"Why do you want to know?" he asks slyly. He's seen her with Morningstar- he must know Emberpaw reports to her, and only her, unfailingly. Mostly. She'll have to convince him if she's to gain any insight- convince him with her words, and not her claws. It might be difficult.
"Something's happening," she says, in what may very well be her most persuasive tone, "I can tell. Our deputy is gone. That black tom ambushed one of our own. I've heard talk of kits and training and I can't make sense of any of it. My brother has disappeared. I want to know what's happened to him, or if anything is going to happen to me. I don't have a death wish, Skah." She convinces him of her normality with every breath; her utter averageness, her inlaid benevolence.
Her lying has improved.
Skah quakes under her imploring gaze. "I can't tell you much," he murmurs. "But there is something happening. Turmoil, unrest. A...change. The city is no longer a placid beast, Sable. Be wary of that."
"What do you mean?" she hisses. He knows more, she's sure of it. But he's so damned enigmatic...and this city business is so cryptic, no matter who she talks to.
Skah looks conflicted, as though he's said more than he was supposed to mention. "Keep away from them," he says finally. "Far away. I suspect it's already too late for your brother."
"He's dead?" she asks, pausing to consider the very idea. It is not possible. "He is not dead, Skah, you can't tell me that." He is a fighter, a warrior- not one to kneel and die before the wretched city cats. She doesn't overtly care for him, but it is upsetting to realize her only surviving family might have already left her. Gone, where no one can see. She hates the overwhelming loneliness that threatens to swamp her. Even Skah is refusing to look sympathetic.
"I have to go," she mutters. She doesn't want to look at his stupid, stoic face, so without pity she cannot stand it. He sees her as something that does not deserve his compassion, and perhaps rightly so. She can't say anyone in the Clan would treat her differently. Skah doesn't say a word as she darts away, stumbling through bushes then fleeing, hidden into the canopy above. She can't stand him, the city, her brother for leaving her. He ran into his own trap, didn't he? Oakpaw did not bother to turn around when it became clear he would not win the chase. All she has left is duty. It is not a reassuring idea.
Emberpaw finds her targets again without much effort on her part. She's feeling nauseous, so she steps down from her trees, finding little solace in the stability of solid ground. Voletooth nearly walks right into her, and she recoils with a snarl. Sunfeather stops, regarding her with apathy, but her is attention is fixed solely on the usurper standing before her.
"Watch where you're going," she growls. "You can't settle for murdering one of us- you have to trample the rest too?"
"My apologies," Voletooth says politely, looking weary. Rightly so. "I didn't see you there." This seems more condescending than placating, and her hackles rise in response.
"What have they done with my brother?" she hisses. She'll be blunt; there's no point in skirting around the subject with niceties. Emberpaw feels that today, right now, it's simply not within her capabilities. "What the hell is your lot planning?"
"Emberpaw," Sunfeather interjected softly, looking concerned.
Voletooth stares down at her, inscrutable. They could be a match, two sides of the same coin, an oddly warped reflection. It's as though her own face is staring back at her, distorted and huge. She lashes her tail at their likeness. Sharing anything with this city beast is an insult.
"I don't know what happened to your brother," he says, shrugging. "He's probably fine, though. Our kind aren't like yours." Cold, harsh, violent.
"Your kind is my kind," Emberpaw says contemptuously, "now." The thought doesn't seem to please either of them. "Good luck back at camp," she continues, coldly. "I have a hunch someone will murder you before dawn." With this final scathing remark, she stalks away, leaving Voletooth gaping. Morningstar might murder her for botching her silent spying mission, but she can't bring herself to stalk his sorry ass any longer. Not with thought of the city and Oakpaw running tumultuously through her mind.
She flings herself into camp, ignoring the cats around her. On her way back she has managed to catch a squirrel, which might at least appease her mentor. Morningstar lurks beside her den, once talking to Strongclaw with an avid glare fixed firmly in place.
"-contribute to the Clan, Strongclaw. Go hunting, fetch fresh moss, I don't care what. It's time to be functional again, my patience is running out."
"No, not your patience!" Strongclaw gasps, mock-aghast. "Whatever will we do without it?"
Morningstar closes her eyes and heaves a deep breath. "You don't want to find out, son." Emberpaw suspects, however, that Strongclaw already knows what happens when Morningstar's finite patience runs too low. All too well, she thinks.
"Hello, small sneaky one," Strongclaw says, at last noticing the waiting apprentice. "If you're spying on us, you're doing a terrible job." His eyes are feverishly bright, though his pelt is clean for once. He does not seem fixed, but better. Emberpaw wonders how much of this is all for show.
"I wasn't, actually," she replies dryly. "I wanted to talk about my brother."
"What about him?" Morningstar asks, looking dismissive. She's examining her claws, as if conversation with the two of them has taxed her.
"He's...err...gone?" Emberpaw says, wondering if the leader has even noticed. "He chased away the other city cat, and I think maybe...they've got him. I talked to Voletooth, and that was my impression." She leaves out Skah's cryptic comments. She wasn't lying; she doesn't have a deathwish.
"I can't do anything about it," Morningstar snaps. "The city is too volatile right now We'll just have to wait, Emberpaw." She looks resigned- to a fate that is not her own, that does not affect her. "What did my daughter and Voletooth do?"
"Toured the territory. She told him of his expectations here, nothing exciting." Emberpaw is reluctant to let the topic go, but knows she'll get nothing further out of the leader. Oakpaw, if he's alive, is now truly on his own. Just as she is. Surrounded by beating hearts, but none are the ones she truly wants to hear.
"Hmm," Morningstar sighs. "Well. Keep an eye on them. And-" she adds sharply, severe enough to make her breath catch. Does she suspect, does she know something? Her pulses stutters, but she keeps her expression blank. "You're doing well, Emberpaw. Your warrior ceremony is less than a moon away if you keep this up."
Emberpaw's whiskers twitch in pleasant surprise. She hasn't thought about this, not for a long while. In truth, it still seemed so far away. She's not foolish enough to expect any kind of freedom from Morningstar; she may be a warrior, but she'll always be Morningstar's apprentice. "Thank you," she replies, because some kind of response seems due. She nods, and Morningstar immediately dismisses her. She begins to walk away, and mere moments later Strongclaw is at her heels.
"I'm sorry about Oakpaw," he says. Emberpaw remains silent. Ah, a scrap of pity, for her. It does exist. "If anyone could survive, it would be him. Out of sheer stubbornness." She knows this. There's no need to tell her. However, if there were ever one for pointless talking, it would be Strongclaw.
"Yes," Emberpaw says. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Strongclaw staring at her.
"She didn't like talking to me either," Strongclaw says airily, though his tone is bittersweet. "Looks like she passed it on."
Emberpaw risks a glance at him, his unfathomable blue eyes. It unnerves her. She wonders if all he can see is a ghost. It might as well be true. She turns away. She is not in the mood to be someone else's phantom.
i wasn't lying shit is about to go down real soon i promise
until then here's some strongclaw to tide you over
