Recap: uhhhh it's been a long time but it's raining a lot and everyone is quite concerned. Also chucking in an UPDATED allegiance because it's actually been years since the last one was written. It's kinda janky to just drop it in the middle/end of the story but whatever you'll all just have to cope
PureClan
Leader:
Morningstar: golden she-cat with dark, tawny dapples and hard amber eyes
Medicine Cat, Male:
Sorrelstorm: ginger tom with darker streaks
Apprentice: Pinepaw
Medicine Cat, Female:
Sparkpool: plump, sandy ginger she-cat
Warriors, Male:
Fussyfur: spiky-furred grey tabby tom (paired to Littlefern)
Coldbone: thin grey tom with erratic stripes (paired to Fallenfeather)
Tallstorm: lanky black tom with yellow eyes (paired to Shimmerleaf)
Gorsespots: ginger tabby tom with white belly, legs and chin (paired to Meadowmist)
Thornstreak: dark tabby tom with bobbed tail and scarred throat (paired to Morningstar)
Tornear: large, scarred brown tom (paired to Redsong)
Sleetclaw: pale grey tom with blue-grey patches (paired to Swanpath)
Fleetstorm: soft-pelted grey tom (paired to Charpool)
Apprentice: Duskpaw
Strongclaw: blue-eyed white tom with cream-and-tabby patches
Slatethorn: pale grey tabby tom with gold eyes (paired to Streamshade)
Apprentice: Dewpaw
Scarpelt: muscular dark ginger tom (paired to Dawnshadow)
Firestorm: bright ginger tom with white stripe on his back and yellow eyes (paired to Mossfall)
Cloudstrike: fluffy white tom with orange face and tail (paired to Embershade)
Nightwhisker: black-and-white tom with blue eyes (paired to Fernstep)
Littlefrost: slender, pale tabby tom speckled with gold, and amber-green eyes (paired to Flutterwing)
Willowfang: burly tabby tom with gold patch over one eye (paired to Flurrycloud)
Voletooth: large black tom with amber eyes (paired to Sunfeather)
Mallowblaze: small dark brown tabby (paired to Goldpool)
Burrwing: dappled dark brown tom with green eyes (paired to Swiftriver)
Warriors, Female:
Fallenfeather: light sorrel she-cat (paired to Coldbone)
Apprentice: Flowerpaw
Littlefern: pale, creamy-furred she-cat with pale brown rosettes (paired to Fussyfur)
Crookedflower: small tortoiseshell she-cat
Shimmerleaf: black-and-white she-cat with blue eyes (paired to Tallstorm)
Redsong: white she-cat splashed with reddish patches (paired to Tornear)
Meadowmist: white she-cat with green eyes (paired to Gorsespots)
Swanpath: thin white she-cat with black paws (paired to Sleetclaw)
Apprentice: Mistpaw
Nettlecloud: dappled fawn she-cat with wide green eyes
Charpool: grey tabby with thick, ashy stripes (paired to Fleetstorm)
Flutterwing: pale brown tabby with white chest and round amber eyes (paired to Littlefrost)
Goldpool: small golden tabby with blue eyes (paired to Mallowblaze)
Ashflower: very pale silver she-cat with white belly, muzzle, and chest, and bright blue-green eyes
Swiftriver: white she-cat with ginger patches and copper eyes (paired to Burrwing)
Dawnshadow: large dark golden she-cat with light brown speckles and green eyes (paired to Scarpelt)
Fernstep: pale grey she-cat with luminous blue eyes (paired to Nightwhisker)
Mossfall: tabby she-cat with pale brown paws (paired to Firestorm)
Fawnflight: pale fawn she-cat with snowy underbelly
Embershade: green-eyed black she-cat with four white paws (paired to Cloudstrike)
Apprentices, Male:
Pinepaw: russet tom
Duskpaw: dark grey tom with black muzzle and ears
Dewpaw: dappled smokey-grey tom
Apprentices, Female:
Flowerpaw: thin white she-cat with sooty legs and muzzle
Mistpaw: blue-eyed pale silver tabby
Queens:
Streamshade: mottled grey she-cat with black paws (paired to Slatethorn)
(Kits:
Goosekit: dark grey tom with hazel eyes
Puddlekit: white she-kit with pale grey patches)
Flurrycloud: white she-cat with ginger spots (paired to Willowfang)
Sunfeather: bright golden she-cat with amber eyes (paired to Voletooth)
Elders:
Webtail: stocky dark grey tom
Snowdapple: white she-cat with faint grey dapples
Tawnypetal: cream tabby she-cat
It doesn't seem like much at first.
Cariad has a pretty high threshold now, for the strange and perverse. A few clouds, a little thunder? Weather? Boring.
It turns out to be anything but.
The rain comes down, and in symphony, the clouds crack apart and lash lightning across the purple sky. Cariad stares up at the spectacle. He's never seen its like, or the match of its infinite, untouchable rage. Maybe that's a lie. Morningstar's own divine brand of anger might come pretty close.
He looks around for Strongclaw, vividly recalling the other warrior telling him about his aching bones and how it might rain later. But he's already gone, vanished into shelter with the rest of Clan. Within seconds he's the only living thing left in the clearing, fur electrified by unseen currents, slicked to the bone with chilled rain. Stupid city tom, he thinks to himself, hurring to the warriors den. Everyone else cleared out at the first drop of rain, but you - you wanted to watch the pretty storm. Maybe he's joined their ranks, maybe he sleeps with monsters, but he's not truly a Clanner. And now, as his induction draws even tighter, noose-like, he must remember this.
Cariad pushes his way into the den: the warriors hiss at him and shrink back as water runs from his fur, soaking the floor of the den and the odd, unfortunate nest. Dawnshadow is watching from the black fringes, her lip curling with some inexplicable show of disgust. She's liable to murder him for getting her feet wet, so he stays away. Not that he was planning on venturing closer, in any case.
In the back of the den, he spots his refuge. Sunfeather. She's curled tightly around herself, in almost forceful compression. Her eyes are closed, but when it comes to his pair, that doesn't mean anything. Cariad tiptoes closer and shakes, as clandestine as he can make it. A drop must land on Fleetstorm, because he snarls and shivers with little too much vigour. It's only water. Surely the key to PureClan's defeat is not melting them with rainfall?
"Ahmm," he coughs, sitting on the edge of his nest. Sunfeather has baldly staked her claim on its center, and has dragged it closer to her own nest. She cracks open a grim yellow eye and looks at him.
Too late, before he can stop himself, Cariad slaps his best, placating 'this-situation-is-fine' look on his face.
Sunfeather closes the eye and curls up again. Her spine looks contorted, stretched, but she seems comfortable. Cariad knows simple comforts elude her most days.
"Some storm," he comments, conversational, as he attempts to flatten out a tidy little corner of his own nest. He doesn't want to curl up with her, even if he could: PureClan warriors don't cuddle. He's observed this much, at least. "Lots of rain. Thunder." Wind shakes the branches of the den, violently, as though to vindicate him.
Sunfeather cocks an unimpressed eyebrow, looking thoroughly disdainful, even with closed eyes.
Perhaps she just wants to sleep. He should let her.
"I only saw one big storm in the city," he remarks, unable to stop himself. A conversation needs two parts, so he'll own both himself, filled with some need to talk and be heard, and to listen. "When I lived in the basement. It rained so much it started to flood, so they had to move all of us upstairs for a week. Annoyed the guards incessantly. They couldn't figure out how to get the water out, so they had to let it drain away itself. There was lots of mildew after that. Always smelled."
He stops, getting the distinct feeling Sunfeather's not really listening. He's almost annoyed. It's one of his fondest childhood memories: escaping the basement, Khia in tow, if only for a week. But he has no right to be annoyed.
Tentatively, he tries asking, "How are you feeling?"
He's tried to be accomodating, ever since that day in the training hollow, but his pair won't have a bar of it. She seems to be endlessly frustrated with him: he can tell, even when she tries to hide it, to bury it down where he can't see. Still, she's told him the news has pleased her mother, and they've both done their duty for now. For now. It sounds so ominous and foreboding he dreads to think of the day that tiny scrap of a promise is snatched from them.
"Fine," she says, her voice a little husky. It endears her to Cariad, but he doesn't let it show.
"Fine," he echoes, drawing out the word with unnecessary resonance. "That word doesn't mean much to me."
She doesn't say anything else, so Cariad perks his ears and tunes in to the conversations around him: Fleetstorm talking about Duskpaw, his apprentice, and his impending warrior ceremony; Tallstorm and Fussyfur complaining of their warrior duties and "frail old bones" (which he doubts very much, since each tom looks, if a little grey in certain light, still robust enough to rip his head off); some of the younger warriors are complaining Dewpaw and Mistpaw should have been assigned to them, and not the old maids of PureClan. Standard gossip, he thinks. Nothing of substance.
At least they're not tallying body counts and kill streaks.
Cariad looks closer at the young warriors, the nexus of the den, the aloof, frightening nucleus. Here, camped in the same, tight huddle, they seem even more intimidating: it's almost hard to tell where one ends and the next begins. They're an entity, an evil. Only Dawnshadow sits apart from them, peering out the exit with an entranced look on her face. Perhaps she, too, likes storms.
Sunfeather shifts sharply beside him and jabs a claw into his ribs. Cariad jumps and looks down; she wears a hard expression, but there's something taut beneath. He panics immediately.
"What?" he hisses, too low for the others to hear. "Does it hurt?" It's too soon: she's not due yet for a moon and half, or even longer.
"Yes," she snaps back, rolling her eyes.
She breathes out - the sound is lost in the clamour above them, and no one takes the pain to notice. Sunfeather's eyes flick up to meet his own. Beneath that brave warrior facade she wears so often, she just seems young, and scared. Cariad wants to hurt for her, if only it meant she didn't have to bear it alone.
"I'll get the medicine cat," he says, after a cautious moment. The words are strange in his mouth. The city never worries about ills or medicines.
"Not here," Sunfeather says, furtively. "Outside. In the nursery. I'll meet you there."
The golden she-cat rises and walks smoothly to the den entrance. She does look fine. Only Cariad knows something's amiss.
After a beat, Cariad stands and follows, once again irritating Fleetstorm by standing on his tail. He can only wince and apologise.
Sunfeather has already slipped out into the storm by the time he reaches the entrance. He looks out, but she's lost to it; not even a blur in the rain or the suggestion of a shadow in the dark. Cariad steels himself and walks back out. His fur is slicked back into spikes within moments. There's something in the rain, a chilling malignancy. As he walks out, the storm seems to redouble its efforts, as though attempting to sweep him off the face of the earth. It feels like more than a storm. Cariad doesn't have the words for it, but he's sure Strongclaw would come up with something suitably mystical and vague.
Through the haze of ceaseless rain, the black-and-silver curtain descended of the sky, he has to squint to find the medicine den. He's never used it: they never even offered him its services after his bout with Volepaw, after he allegedly became one of them. He's not sure which shapeless heap it is.
He sets off in a random direction, only aware he's headed toward the edge of camp. At first he stumbles into the forest, where the deluge is not so much allayed as aggrandized into fuller, heavier raindrops. There's not so much mud, though. He hadn't noticed the mud. Gritting his teeth, Cariad turns and follows the line of the clearing. There's a grass tunnel up ahead, and, even through the rain, the faint scent of herbs lingers. He hurries into it.
The tunnel is shaded, the roof full and thick, but water leaks through and splashes on his fur. He wonders if there will be a tunnel left by the time the storm's done.
"Hello...?" Cariad calls, unsure. The tunnel forks into two dark dens, and he's not sure which one to check. Guessing, following an uneasy instinct, he peers into the den on the left.
He sees nothing, until two yellow eyes blink open, slow and thought flashes across his mind - perhaps Morningstar stores her mad berserkers here, instead of medicine cats. But the other cat doesn't move, doesn't blink. Cariad deduces he's a tom, a scrawny ginger. Beyond him another tom is curled up, muzzle pressed into his tail. He's bigger than the first, more intimidating, but he doesn't even stir.
"My pair...sir," Cariad says, feeling uneasy as he speaks. His voice, only a whisper, sounds much too loud for this cramped place. "She needs your help."
The tom just flicks his ear. "Not my domain," he says. "Go next door."
And he lays his head on his paws, staring into the darkness behind Cariad. Unsettled, he backs away and sidesteps into the den on his right. A she-cat crouches by the wall, furiously slapping wet leaves to a hole in the wall. It doesn't achieve much; the leaves just slide away, and rain oozes through. Cariad doesn't have the heart to point out its futility: besides, he needs this cat to want to help him.
"I'm Voletooth," he begins, feeling an introduction is in order. The name comes so easily to his tongue now. He hasn't called himself by his own name in what could be years. "My pair needs your help. Sunfeather. She's pregnant."
That isn't easy to say. He doubts it will ever feel natural.
The medicine cat throws a final, disgusted look at her leaky wall.
"Let me guess," she says, throwing a few leaves in a pile, barely sparing him a glance. "You want me to go outside in that."
"Yes," says Cariad, sympathetically.
The she-cat looks down at her disorganized little pile, sprinkling a few dark leaves on top for what could be, as far as he knows, all for aesthetic effect.
"Right she says. "Carry that."
And she bustles out of the den before he can say another word. Cariad regards the pile with little amusement, wondering what a few pieces of greenery can really accomplish. Still, dutifully, he picks them up, tries not to swallow, and carries them back out into the downpour.
The medicine cat is already hustling across camp, fur plastered to her round sides, mud caking her paws. Cariad doubts he's ever seen anything quite so plump move so fast. Signing, resigned, ignoring the bitterness of the leaves in his mouth, Cariad ducks his head and bounds after her. The rain strikes him now with some sense of urgency, painfully pinging off his spine. Even the sound of his loud splashing through puddles is lost to the din above.
The she-cat disappears into some shadowy den on the fringe of camp. Cariad's never noticed it before, let alone looked at it. The nursery, he supposes. The sight of it is almost familiar, nostalgic. Even the most foreboding warriors of the Clan were tiny kits here shuffles in: it's darker still in here, and the back of the den is a mere black pit. Sunfeather sits against one wall, ramrod straight, refusing the small, vulnerable concession of lying down. She looks at him as he enters: nothing very soft, very maternal is conveyed in that gaze. She might blame him for this, but there's blame to share, and Morningstar has the lion's cut.
He lies the herbs on the ground, but there's no helping the aftertaste that lingers in his mouth. He puts on a smile anyway. No one else is bothering to act particularly jovial.
"Thank you Sparkpool, Voletooth," Sunfeather says. Her voice is flat: the pain she felt is gone, or she's stubborn enough to speak around it. "You can go, Voletooth. This isn't warrior business."
Cariad slants his eyes. He feels, oddly, betrayed. She's all he has, and she knows it. Is she punishing him? Everything in this camp seems designed to exclude him, and now she's doing it too, even as he tries to absolve himself of some unspeakable crime?
Maybe she's only being dutiful. He shouldn't be hanging around her as though he cared. Yet he knows it runs deeper, is rooted is something beyond the grounds of the Code.
"I'll see you later," he manages, matching her brusque tone. Sparkpool doesn't seem to notice anything at all: this division is standard, the building hostility a perfect norm. Cariad leaves with his head held high, even as he trails water all over the place, and imprints the tidy floor with his muddy footprints. But he doesn't go far: just to the shadows outside the den, pressed firmly against the wall where he's afforded some modicum of shelter, where the words spoken in the sanctity of the den just trickle out, barely whispers among the storm's commotion. As he watches, rancid yellow lightning splits the sky. Pathetic fallacy, Cariad thinks, then turns himself to wondering what meaning is really intended in pathetic. Nothing it implies, surely, is very nice.
Half-attuned to the conversation in the nursery, half-watching the implosion of the storm around him, Cariad spots that familiar, loathsome glint of dark gold. It's Dawnshadow, from the corner of the warrior den, staring very intently into the maelstrom. Cariad feels his lip curling at the sight of her. She is fixated: on the storm, he thinks at first. But he follows her gaze, looks to the hill, feeling a strange and unbidden chill stagger across his skin.
It's Morningstar. At least, the shell of her, the carapace, dark and drowned as it sits dumbly on the hill, staring at nothing, staring through it. Lightning splinters itself against the impenetrable sky: pangs of thunder die and are reborn with fervour; veils of rain cloak the air and smother the ground. And she sits in the midst of it all - the terror, the tenor, the absolution - and seems to wait.
Cariad turns his face away. He doesn't need to see her to know she sits there still, hollow, awaiting some certain death.
hope you're all doing well!
