A/N: Welcome to Spottedfur's Pride! This'll be my first go at a long-term multi-chaptered fic, so be patient with me, please! Updates will be sporadic and slow, but I hope the fic makes up for it, haha.
As a fair warning, this fic is very dark even for WC, mainly in the death department. It's pretty edgy, but death is as edgy as it'll get (no abuse, etc.).
Without further ado, enjoy!
The pristine snow covering the ElmClan ground was a relief to see. Spottedpaw watched as Shellfoot's kits stumbled about in it — it was the first time they had ever seen snow, and their mother was watching close behind as they played. It was as lazy a day as the tireless Falconstar could allow, which wasn't something Spottedpaw had seen since the first moons of his apprenticeship. The Clan was a working body, unable to risk a day without hunting or training, much less in leaf-bare, but the lull of the afternoon, with the sun high in the sky, was hard to resist even in the chilled weather.
Spottedpaw was keeping an eye on Oakkit, the tiny gray-brown molly intently watching a bug skitter across a frost-covered branch. He wasn't sure what the other cats were doing, though he could hear Nettlepaw and Sorrelpaw's conversation from a tail-length away. There was no need to focus on it — the Clan was on no high alert for once.
Something in the air soon shifted, however. The frost was growing heavier, the snow no longer a comfort but a pain. Spottedpaw could feel his pads sting against the hardened ice as he followed Shellfoot and her kits back into the nursery. As the wind picked up, snowflakes clinging to the pelts of the cats unwise enough to not return to their dens, the sound of rustling near the camp entrance was unnoticed until a blue tom stumbled in, blood leaking from a ripped ear.
Snow was kicked up as he frantically staggered to the middle of camp, wound staining the ice below him a dark red as his chest rose and fell. It took a moment to catch his breath, some of his Clanmates — Falconstar included — emerging from their homes to watch with wide eyes. "What happened, Pinestripe?" The ElmClan leader questioned, though her ever-stern mew made it sound more like a demand.
"Sss—" Pinestripe began, tossing a stricken look over his shoulder into the frosted forest behind him. Every shiver of his gray body brought another crimson stain to the snow. "Outs-side, by the river— IvyClan's in our territory."
Those words seemed to unleash Falconstar's full anger, and Pinestripe jolted at the sudden fire in her eyes. "And they did that to you?" She didn't wait for Pinestripe's nod as she turned her head to call into the leader's den where her deputy lay, "Daisyheart, get the nursery cats and elders safe inside! If they're attacking at sunhigh without warning, those brutes won't discriminate."
She ushered Pinestripe into the direction of the medicine den with her bushy tail, padding into the middle of camp, about to bark another order when a snow-pelted patrol burst into camp, claws gleaming. The cat at the front of the patrol, a skinny gray-brown tom, lept for Falconstar and the retreating wounded warrior as his fellow cats dispersed to attack the camp.
In an instant, Spottedpaw realized a blur of cream and brown was hurtling towards him, and he was thrown into the snow by a colorpoint IvyClan molly. Her scarred lips were curled back in a snarl, and Spottedpaw's short legs didn't do as much damage kicking the lean cat as he would've liked. Twisting out of her grip just as she raised a clawed paw to slice at him, Spottedpaw landed a blow against her forehead with a thwack. With a sneer, the molly tackled him again, knocking the wind out of him as snow splashed around the two in a flurry. Struggling against her grip, he managed to sink his fangs into her leg, and the molly's blood stained his tongue as she pulled away to torment another cat.
The pristine snow the Clan had been marveling at moments ago was now closer to slippery slush against the dirt, trampled to the forest floor by the warring, bleeding cats. Cold dirt was stuck between his toes, alongside clumps of his adversary's fur, and he panted to try and get a grip on things. The sound of screeching and the overwhelming scent of blood and injury made it difficult, but he could just make out Falconstar chasing after the brown tom, yowling something he couldn't quite decipher.
Hearing a loud sound next to him, different from the usual noises of battle, Spottedpaw turned to find a fighting cat collapsed in the frost. Taking a step back in surprise, he realized it was one of his own. Maplepelt, a ginger warrior, lay still on the camp floor, flecks of her skull embedded in a stone jutting from the ground, blood still seeping from the fresh crack in her head. He looked up fearfully, finding the perpetrator, a black-and-white tom whose pelt was stained red. Before the IvyClan cat could realize his presence and bash him against the same stone, a flurry of long golden fur and sharpened claws appeared to bowl the larger tom over.
Tawnyfur, Maplepelt's mate, was now fighting the enemy and losing. Spottedpaw remembered distinctly in the warrior code, an honorable warrior need not kill another cat to win a battle, but it seemed IvyClan was not out for justice, or any honorable goal - simply bloodshed.
"Rotten cowards, spawn of the Dark Forest, all of you! Every last one!" Tawnyfur was screeching as he struggled beneath the other cat's grip. With another yowl, he opened his jaws to fight with his fangs, only to be pushed back to the ground and bitten himself.
Forcing himself to move as the IvyClan warrior sunk his teeth into Tawnyfur's exposed throat, Spottedpaw lunged for the black-and-white cat as hard as his short legs could manage. If nothing else, it was a distraction, and it worked. Tawnyfur was dropped to the frozen ground like a piece of fresh-kill in favor of his attacker attempting to shake Spottedpaw off of him. The small tom latched himself onto the other cat's back, forcing his claws into every crevice he could in an effort to make him surrender.
It wasn't working, and as he was about to be flung to the snow and pummeled, a hoarse yowl rang throughout the camp. Following the voice, Spottedpaw saw a dark gray molly he, strangely, hadn't seen amongst the fighting yet. "IvyClan, retreat!" Her blue eyes were wide at the massacre before her, and her short pelt made her look even smaller in the weather. The tom Spottedpaw was fighting shoved him away, and the ElmClan camp seemed to go still. When the other Clan made no motion to leave, the molly repeated, louder, "I said, retreat! What in the name of StarClan is wrong with you cats?!"
"Stormstar!" Falconstar glared in her direction as the wiry tom she was fighting retreated. "What's the meaning of this?! Can you not control your cats?" She snarled, relatively unscathed by the bloody skirmish her Clan was in. ElmClan and IvyClan paws alike pounded against the snow, the former in the direction of the medicine den, and the latter towards their leader.
Stormstar's ears were flat, and she shook her head, voice a blend of fearful for Falconstar and disappointed in her cats. "This isn't my doing. I don't know what cat organized this, but this is the first I'm hearing of it."
"Fox-dung!" Falconstar spat, and the ferocity in her voice made even Spottedpaw shiver. "Two of our warriors are dead! Are you so incompetent that you couldn't see this coming? StarClan should have your lives revoked for this!"
The other molly stared wide-eyed for a moment at the realization cats had died, and her voice was low when she whispered sympathetically, "I'm sorry." The empathy was not returned, Falconstar only watching her fellow leader with barely-restrained fury.
Spottedpaw could sense the small gray molly's fear, and he didn't think she was lying, but an apology wouldn't make up for this. Two cats had died in front of him, and for what? An underground battle plan from a group of disillusioned warriors? Stormstar's expression hardened, turning the attention to her own Clan. "Whoever planned this is going to be punished." Her gaze flickered to the cats, some of which were glaring back. Whatever their motivation was, they seemed set to it, and almost hurt that their leader didn't agree. "As will everyone involved."
Baring her teeth, Falconstar seemed unconvinced, and stared down the smaller molly for what felt like a minute. "Get out of my camp." She finally demanded, low voice laced with fury as her fur bristled along her back, parted by old gashes. "Before I bleed you out nine times over. How any cat can call you a leader is beyond me."
Beckoning her followers with her tail, Stormstar lightly shook the powdered snow from her pelt, eyes avoiding Falconstar's in shame. "If this disobedience means anything, no cat does," were her final words as she turned to lead the battle patrol back to their territory. Looking on it, it was only four cats, including the gray-brown tom at the head of the invasion, but those four cats had damaged ElmClan irreparably.
As IvyClan filtered out and the battered ElmClan cats looked over their camp for signs their kin weren't one of the two killed, Spottedpaw assessed the damage. There was a sting in his chest from the colorpoint molly's claws, but the blood covering his fur was not his. Maplepelt and Tawnyfur had died mere paw-steps away from him, and the latter's punctured throat bled harder than Spottedpaw even knew cats could. Just the smell alone was smothering, between the splatters on his own pelt and the scent of wounds throughout the Clan. When he stepped away from the corpses of the two dead mates to let other cats deal with them, he could hear a mournful wail from their daughter Sorrelpaw.
Spottedpaw would have been startled by how easily he went from going about his day to fighting IvyClan warriors, but grimly, this was not a new occurrence for ElmClan. He didn't even remember what they fought for, but the two Clans had been at odds for his entire life, and nicks and scratches were a common sight on nearly every cat from both sides. It was only a matter of time until the next full-scale battle broke out. What the other two Clans did with their time was beyond him, and he didn't know if he envied their security or not.
Acutely, he wondered why he had to live like this, but he knew there would be no answer. It was out of his paws - the Elm and Ivy dispute was to be settled by the older generations, and he never knew what was going through the heads of Falconstar and Stormstar. It would never be his place to, and so Spottedpaw had long since accepted that it was just a part of Clan life as any.