Recap: Embershade is NOT getting along with Cloudstrike, her pair (pureclan is so proud :') ) and also banished Skah from the territory. She's also been fairly suspicious of Morningstar's recent behaviour and so set off on a mysterious reconnaissance mission, the findings of which are yet to be divulged…
"Marigold for the scratch, thyme for the stress, and... borage for the fever."
Embershade stands, shrouded, and listens to the rustle of leaves. It's a peaceful sound, and she can almost fool herself into thinking that the morning is ordinary, and nothing is wrong.
"Chew these, and I'll dress the wound."
Wound. Embershade wants to snort, but she can't give away her presence. If that's what she calls it these days. Sparkpool is, at least, being a remarkably good sport. There's barely a tremor of fear in her voice. Most learn to mask fear early on, but Sparkpool is a medicine cat, more sheltered and tame than her peers. Embershade has never had cause to use her services, but that record is about to come to an end. They're better off allies, or even uneasy acquaintances, than strangers.
"Come back tomorrow, and I'll see how it's healing." She even sounds professional, as though she hadn't been plonked into a role that doesn't quite fit, by fortune of birth.
"No."
Embershade could roll her eyes, but she's busy further shielding herself in long grass, hiding the bland whiteness of her paws in the dirt. It wouldn't do any good to be found. Not at all. In the next moment, Morningstar strides from the medicine den, leaving the scent of herbs in her wake. On her shoulder, wetly coated with a poultice, lies the barest gleam of red. The wound. She must be in so much pain. Without so much as a limp the leader turns sharply and disappears into her den. Embershade's mild subterfuge, for now, has gone unnoticed. She, in an ode to her stout ego, is not surprised.
Waiting for a moment, in case Morningstar decides to re-emerge, Embershade stands and stretches. She must go and find a patch of ferns to roll in, in case the proximity to the den means she too smells like camp is mostly empty, so she slides unnoticed into the shadows of the forest. The touch of autumn on the air seems to energize the Clan. Perhaps it makes them nervous. Winter is never easy to bear. Regardless, more are active now, hunting and patrolling, perhaps searching hopefully for rogues on the edges of the territory. This means, at least, that the long and lazy summer is finally over.
Not that it has been uneventful. Volepaw has been killed and replaced - in a manner that still doesn't sit right with her; Peppermask has been ousted and supposedly killed, though she knows better; Oakpaw's disappeared and hasn't been sighted since; Embershade has finally ascended to the rank of warrior, and fallen into all the shackles that come with such a title; and, more recently, Dawnshadow and her dark circle dragged a band of rogues into camp and slaughtered them for a lack of any other bright ideas. She knows that Cloudstrike was involved. She wants to pummel him. No doubt the circle would leap to his hapless aid.
Embershade grits her teeth for a moment, already rolling in her designated fern plant. It's not too far from camp: she can still hear an undercurrent of faint conversation. Morningstar's imperious tones aren't among the mix.
Her thoughts begin to linger again on Morningstar. The dear leader. She's a constant feature in Embershade's mind, a symptom only exacerbated by her findings, by that one day on which she decided to spy for herself. She went so deep into the forest she wasn't sure she could find her way back out.
Her investigation isn't over. She's not even sure why she's doing this, when PureClan has only one figure of authority, the very source of her intrigue. Embershde has always has an innate sense of curiosity, inborn. She simply can't stay away from a mystery. This time, for now, it might pay to keep her mouth shut: she can hardly make a report. But she knows information is important, and secrets are a black market trade. There must be a use for what she's doing.
Embershade begins to make her way back to camp - to the medicine den. She must make herself acquainted with Sparkpool.
The cut on her leg has stopped bleeding. It's a mild thing - Embershade would normally leave it to heal naturally, if she noticed it at all - but it warrants Sparkpool's attention anyway. In fact, Embershade can't recall ever actually stepping foot in the medicine den's (because spying from afar, as it always does, never counts). Perhaps that's why Sparkpool is now regarding her with cool suspicion.
"A thorn, you said?" she asks, poking the offending foreleg. The royal treatment only seems to extend so far (to Morningstar, and no further). "You did this with a thorn?"
"I was careless," Embershade says, flippantly. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"Obviously," Sparkpool replies. She begins to dab at it with a wad of chewed green leaves.
Feigning curiosity, Embershade asks, "What's that?" The green blob has been seasoned with a few orange petals, also chewed. Perhaps it's a leftover from the leader's visit.
"Marigold," Sparkpool says, after she lays it aside. "It will help soothe and heal the wound. Such as it is."
The scratch is almost invisible against her dark fur, but it's long, and deep in one corner where the thorn went in further than she first intended. In all appearances, it should be almost identical to Morningstar's. A twin in conspiracy. Now, it's covered in a thin green veil of poultice.
"Right," muses Sparkpool. "You've already pulled the thorn out, and it's no longer bleeding, so this is all I can do."
Embershade wants to roll her eyes. How many souls does she have to murder to get Morningstar's special treatment?
"But what if it gets infected? What if my leg falls off?"
"It won't," Sparkpool says, in a far from reassuring tone. "It's a small scratch. As long as you keep it clean and let it scab over, it will be okay."
"Perhaps I should come back tomorrow, to see how it's healing," Embershade says. She stands and stretches her leg, which is, by all accounts, feeling fine. Sparkpool just shrugs at her.
"If you want," she says. "I'm not exactly run off my feet every day down here."
"Oh really? I saw Morningstar in here earlier. She's not sick, is she?" Embershade has been waiting for the chance to bring this up, though by the look on the medic's face, it seems like she shouldn't have bothered.
"Sick? Morningstar?" Sparkpool shakes her head. "She doesn't know the meaning of the word. It's a mild scratch, nothing more. And that's all I'll say about it, so don't go probing me for information." She pauses to squint at Embershade. "I thought you were her lackey, anyway? Don't you already know everything?"
"Oh," Embershade says, in passing. "Just enough."
Outside, her fur seems to stand on end, electrified by the smothering tension of the air. She looks to the sky, which is already darkening, stained from one corner of the horizon to the other, though it's only early afternoon. Clouds swell above the forest, a bruised purple-black.
"Storm's coming," says Strongclaw, from his dusty little bed in the long grass beside the medicine den. He sounds like an old crone, forecasting the weather based on the particular way their bones ached this morning. Embershade casts a sidelong glance at him.
"What gives you that impression?"
Embershade still keeps him at a healthy distance. She can't imagine doing it any other way.
"Hard to say," Strongclaw replies, imperiously, though he has raise his voice at her retreating back. "I just know."
She has to roll her eyes. Sometimes that's the only way she can deal with Strongclaw, or even the mere thought of him. Even if he's right; even if the thing itself is obvious. Embershade can tell some things for herself.
Still, she doesn't want to venture far from camp if there's going to be a downpour. Ever since her last visit, she's been wanting to pay a visit to Skah's spot, just to make sure he's really gone - she isn't sure she can boss him around at all, despite the long list of threats she's made against him. He still doesn't understand the Clan and their creed, or the danger they pose. She can only hope he's taken her advice and scarpered. The visit will have to wait.
Embershade picks a tree just shy of camp and climbs into its branches. It's a front-row view for watching those coming in and out, and she can make out the cats in the clearing too. From here, Morningstar's den is the focal point of the camp. For now, though, she remains hidden. Meanwhile, Cloudstrike sits with Dawnshadow and Firestorm. Their heads are close together, as though they're plotting; as she watches, Dawnshadow lifts her square, bulky head and stares at Voletooth, who has paused beside Strongclaw. It's not a glare, not a thing of animosity, but Embershade is unnerved by its intensity. It's not hate, but calculation.
Embershade wrests her eyes away. Perhaps she will tell Morningstar, when she's due to report all her gathered Clan gossip. It might focus her attention, which has been so transient of late.
After a moment, she shakes her head. The idea is a fanciful one. Morningstar has become so untethered from the Clan reality that she can no longer fit back into the space she occupied. The decline has been a long one, perhaps dating back to Sablefrost's time. Whatever Morningstar is now, she's a fraction of the being she used to be, a black hole of unsteady proportions, a creature of shadows that shrinks and wanes with the passing of the sun.
No one can predict what she'll do next: not even Morningstar knows, in the moments before she acts.
Embershade has watched the Clan for as long as she can remember; the kits, the warriors, the elders. And, though they possess no quantifiable redeeming qualities, she almost cares for them. It's sentimentality, in a way. It's just the notion that she doesn't want to see them destroyed, led along by the mad and the blind, until not even the semblance of the Clan survives. And it's for this reason, among her more selfish ideals, that's led Embershade to her decision.
Morningstar must go. She has to be deposed from her throne, cut away from her crown. Embershade, a lifelong puppet, will begin to pull the strings of her own machinations.
She flexes her claws and thinks of the day, as the bark in her grip twists and crumbles. Above her, in conspiracy, the clouds swell. Lightning begins to light the dark sky above her; in the distance, there's thunder.
this chapter was brought to you by strongclaw the meterologist
