A few days have passed since Talon's visit to the lake and clan life proceeds as per usual in his alley. From atop his wall, the dark grey cat watches daily life going on among his clanmates. Hunters and gatherers moving out to catch and find food. Only every third hunt ends with prey being caught, but between that and he shallow but semi constant stream of scraps that the gatherers bring back they can feed themselves acceptably well for now. The warriors not hunting, gathering or patrolling are training with each other to hone their skills. Their healer Venom rests in the shade by the healer's den, having returned from another search for herbs not long ago. Talon takes the fall off the wall, gracefully landing on his paws, his reinforcing claws clacking upon impact, before approaching the she-cat. She nods her head in respectful greeting, looking up to speak to the dark furred warrior

„Greetings, Venom. The healer's den faring well?"

The she-cat sits up for a moment, her otherwise pretty fur unkept from the continuous searches for more herbs.

„As well as circumstance allows, Talon. Lantern and Clover seem like they'll get through their injuries from the fight at Granite's border just fine, thankfully. Rover's gash are all superficial luckily. If that mousebrain spars wearing his dogteeth again, I'll do worse to him myself"

She sighs, looking over to the den, nestled in a small abandoned room in the building, entered through a large crack in the wall

„But that only remains true as long as none of the wounds get infected, let alone if a sickness were to go round. We are nearly out of everything, as always. Few things grow around here, all we got ample of are cobwebs"

Talon hums, following her eyes to the cracked wall as the she-cat's explanation continues

„Not much of use growing in Twolegplace. And the few places the where Twolegs grow things, they made very clear that we're not wanted"

Worry clouds her eyes. She lowers her voice to avoid any cat listening in

„If there is to be big fights for the clan, I don't know how much I could do, Talon. Training injuries that come to me immediately are one thing, but deeper gashes, let alone bites or worse?"

She slowly shakes her head. Talon nods, eyes remaining fixed on the healer's den.

„I imagine most of the other factions are looking at much the same problem. Most of them don't even have a healer"

Venom hums, winding her tail around her front paws, looking up in thought

„No. I know that Valerie remains in Granite's group and I heard that Kestrel has been trying to teach a new healer but they have no cat to properly teach the young one. It's not much, but it may save a life or two in his group on the long term. Neither of them would have much more herbs to work with than we do though"

„Which means that even if cats survive the fighting, they may die afterwards anyway… one of the reasons we're not at each other's throats already, I suppose"

The she-cat nods at that, her ears drooping low as she lets out a sigh. The exhaustion of her fruitless efforts to better their supply situation visible upon her face

„I'm sorry, Talon, I'm doing all I can, but…"

Talon raises his paw, silencing her

„You can't work if there's nothing to work with. We all know the situation is bleak, no cat blames you for that. We are lucky to have you at all."

He hums in thought. There is little point in unifying Bloodclan if it means that most of it ends up dead in the attempt. It would defy the very point and purpose of Bloodclan. There must be a solution of some kind. More supplies are needed, but where would one find… Talon's eyes shine as the idea first vaguely sparks in his head, quickly growing into a plan to help his faction. Venom notices and tilts her head, her ears rising up attentively

„You wouldn't have an idea, right?"

„Possibly. But it will need some planning to pull through without needless fighting. Our cats need to remain ready, we can't risk them getting injured pointlessly now, even less so before we actually get those herbs"

The she-cat's eyes light up with hope at the prospect, but soon a slight shadow of doubt begins clouding it

„And what would this idea entail, Talon? I don't think the other groups would have much stored that'd be worth stealing, remember?"

„Not Bloodclan, no… but the forrest clans might. They must have herbs. It is a forrest, herbs should be growing all over the place there"

The healer gives a small chuckle at Talon's apparent lack of horticultural knowledge and shakes her head, but the hopeful spark returns to her gaze

„That is not quite how it works, Talon. But they should have a more than we do for sure. The question is how to get it. I don't think we have enough warriors to openly attack one of their camps just yet, not without using up most of the herbs we stand to gain to heal our own cats right after"

Talon shakes his head

„No. Even if we were to win, risking too many of our warriors getting injured could invite any other faction to attack us while we're weakened. Even if we have the herbs to help them heal faster, we'd not be ready fast enough again. We can not yet rely on force alone, so we need to be cunning instead."

Talon looks around, quickly finding Frost nearby, seemingly returning from a gathering run, carrying some food in his jaws that he's bringing to the food pile. Talon sways his tail, getting the white furred warrior's attention

„Gather our veteran warriors by the wall, Frost! We got some planning to do!"

The second-in-commands eyes widen in surprise, but he nods before he hurries to deposit the food. After that, the white furred second-in-command wastes no time to bolt through the camp gathering the veteran warriors of Talon's faction.

„You come too, Venom. You are our healer, you know what precisely we might need"

She nods her head and follows the dark grey tom to his wall.

The excitement in the camp grows within moments as the word quickly spreads that something is happening. As the veteran warriors one after the other approach the wall, many of the other cats watch from a bit further away. As the last of the veteran warriors arrives and greets Talon, the red eyed tom begins

„We all know that the fighting for Bloodclan will break out eventually. We have one advantage that few others have, one of Bloodclan's healers"

The veterans's eyes rest for a moment on the, compared to most of them rather small she-cat.

„There will be more than one fight ahead of us till we reach our goal, warriors will get injured. Untreated, many will die needlessly. We still have the same trouble that Bloodclan's always had, Twoleg-place bears few herbs for healers to do their job. If we can acquire a plentiful enough stock for Venom, we won't have to hold back as much. We'll be free to fight for our cause without risking our warriors's lives."

The seasoned warriors look to each other, muttering and counceling, but most of them nod in agreement. Talon waits patiently until their chatter dies down and their attention rests on him once more. He knows that comes next may divide them a lot more in their opinions. Speaking with authority und banishing even the faintest trace of uncertainty from his voice, he continues

„The one place that has herbs in enough quantities are the territories of the forrest clans. From the battle of the forrest we know they too have healers. They must have reserves of herbs in their camps. We will acquire those reserves for ourselves."

This time the warriors speak no longer in mutters, their circle rapidly growing louder as the debate grows. Silver addresses Talon first, calmer than his peers his green eyes observe Talon inquisitively

„How are we to get them?"

Frost smirks toothily, his voice ringing proudly as he responds before Talon gets a chance

„We are Bloodclan, that is how! If it means securing our future, we can sweep away some forrest cats."

While Owl nods in approval to Frost's statement, Moon shakes her head. Her one good eye resting on Frost with an expression of tired exasperation

„We shouldn't rush into battle so eagerly. We don't know how many cats they have, nor even where their camp is. We'd be running blind."

A debate breaks out, going back and forth for a while. Talon waits for it to quiet down again, only to find that it doesn't, not of it's own. Talon's head aches at the noise. Scourge would not have let this bickering go on… As their voices grow even louder, Talon hisses, pressing his reinforced claws firmly against the pavement, before pulling his paw back forcefully in a moment of stress fuelled anger. The teeth grinding against each other and the pavement creates an awful, shrill, ear piercing sound, breaking the circle of seasoned warriors from their arguing, eyes all focused on Talon once more, whom's narrowed eyes glance over each of them.

„We will not openly fight them, not yet. We will need to plan this out and do so well if we are to get what we need."

There is no speaking this time, their eyes and ears all trained on Talon, each intrigued to know what exactly he has in mind. As he looks over them, he can see that some of them are a bit shaken from his little action a moment ago, but in many eyes he finds a reminiscing respect. It seems Scourge's lessons still remain instilled in many of them, when the leader speaks there be silence. Talon takes a breath, his anger subsiding a bit, before he elaborates

„The forrest clans have set patrol patterns. It will take several days, but we can learn how they move their sundown patrols. They seem not to send any out after that one, which means most of them will be resting sometime after it. Given a bit of time, we'll find a camp mostly asleep, leaving only that night's sentries to be dealt with. If we are swift and if we are silent, we can get in, grab what we need and get out before their warriors can rise to oppose us. It goes without saying, this will be risky. Any cat alerts them too early, we will have to fight our way out, any cat falls behind will be lucky to get out with their pelt still on their back. But if we succeed, we will hold the advantage against our estranged clanmates."

Murmurs of agreement make their round among the veteran warriors. Some of them hold some worry in their eyes, most however seem ecstatic about the new course of action. The prospect of both gaining an advantage over the other groups of Bloodclan, as well as delivering payback on the forrest clans spreading an eager anticipation among the warriors, their claws having been idle for too long.

„We will try to not kill any of the forrest cats. We can not put ourselves in a position where we need to worry about retaliations from the forrest clans while we got our own clanmates to worry about already. As we grow closer to realising our plan, Venom will tell our warriors what to look out for, or if it should come to an early retreat, what to prioritise. The forrest cats will never know what hit them, and we will be one pawstep closer to bringing our clan back together!"

A displeased look enters the eyes of Frost and Owl at that, but the veteran warriors all nod and with a flick of Talon's tail, they disperse through the camp, spreading the news and explaining the plan to the other warriors. As Talon climbs back onto his wall, overlooking his alley, he finds cats running to train with each other, asking hunters to take them with on their next stalk to hone their sneaking, or excitedly sharing tongues with their clanmates. This will be Talon's first move in the elaborate game for Bloodclan and these cats that have followed him, have placed their trust and hopes in him. Now approaches the time where he proves to them that they were right to do so.

As he beholds this scene, anticipation begins rising in him, just like his followers. However the dark shadow of his awareness of the risks remains in the back of his mind at all times, like a merciless fog. Closing his eyes, he refuses to let it grow too prominent today, not now. Now, at last, it is time to begin. It is time to leave his mark and prepare make his bid for leadership, for the legacy of Scourge.