#leopardchaser

[dawngen]

The walk of shame back to camp was undeniable.

All eyes fixed on Dappleddusk and Oatstar as they nudged their way through one of the hidden entryways into the camp, and Dappleddusk felt it keenly. Her fur felt flea-bitten with how keenly her clanmates stared, though she felt a smidge better knowing she had not only been able to convince Oatstar to return, but also to hold his head high.

Even if it was not what he felt, he had to appear and play the part of the leader he was supposed to be.

Whispers rippled through, and Dappleddusk silenced them with a sweep of her cold yellow stare. She walked with Oatstar until they were at the base of the Great Oak, going to sit in her spot at its roots as he clambered up.

"Cats of DawnClan," Oatstar began, his voice echoing out over the clearing, and drawing back his once dispersed audience. "I... I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly. But StarClan granted me a vision in the forest."

Dappleddusk's ears twitched.

She hadn't expected him to apologize, let alone follow it up with a lie. A bold-faced one that she could see in her doubting peers' expressions, the gaggle of medicine cats whispering in concern in the far back of the group. Beewatcher caught her eye, shooting a worried look.

Dappleddusk glanced back away. Her stomach turned uneasily, like she had eaten crowfood.

"Eagleburn will find redemption in guiding DawnClan," Oatstar declared. Dappleddusk could hear Sandfeather hiss, and saw Sparrowshadow move to console her out of the corner of her eye. She continued to stare ahead, off into the distance beyond the camp.

"StarClan has shown me that while the crime of killing another cat, let alone a clanmate, is an impossible sin, it is one that under these special circumstances can be forgiven if Eagleburn works hard to prove his loyalty to the clan," continued Oatstar, tail tip flicking back and forth. "I won't listen to any protests about this. This was the decree of StarClan--and we shall not defy them."

He knows how to talk big when he feels like this, Dappleddusk thought to herself, and wondered how many times Eagleburn had coached him through past speeches. How much of it was Eagleburn, and how much of it was Oatstar? Was that cat even capable of individual thought?

She felt deafened, numbed to the whispers in the camp and did not try to quiet her clanmates again, and luckily, it did not seem to perturb Oatstar. She imagined he was feeling better knowing Eagleburn would soon be back to clean up his messes.

"Eagleburn will be reinstated at the next light of dawn. If you disagree with this, then..."

Hearing a flicker of hesitance in his voice, Dappleddusk glanced up. She could tell this was off-script, newly thought of, and focused on one particular set of cats. She followed his gaze, and it landed upon Bayspots' kits.

"You are welcome to leave. No warrior that chooses to go will be harmed, but they will not be allowed to return to DawnClan. Not if they can't stand by its decisions."

Like a river waiting to overflow, the camp burst into chaos.

Sandfeather, seemingly about to cool down, yowled her fury, barely held back by Sparrowshadow and Suntuft. Leopardchaser seemed pleased, smug even, but was wisely stepping out of swiping range of Sandfeather as he went to the warriors' den.

In the distance, Dappleddusk caught a glimpse of Brightstorm shrinking back away from her devastated kit, and when she looked away, back to the Great Oak, Oatstar was already clambering down.

"Oatstar, you cannot just--"

"If they want to make decisions, they can make decisions out on their own."

Oatstar cut off her whispered hiss with a sharp murmur back, his ears flat to his skull as he stalked swiftly off to the medicine cats' den before anyone could intercept him.

Shocked, dismayed, and caught in a rare state of uncertainty of what to do, Dappleddusk caught her daughter's eye again, and Beewatcher's gaze seemed to reflect her same internal anxiety.

[dawngen]

It took several more sunrises until finally, Oatstar seemed ready to face the clan, and address what was destined for Eagleburn. Without his trusted deputy at his side, he seemed uncertain and tentative, incapable of providing the guidance that the clan needed. Dappleddusk, especially, noticed this.

And she was the reason why he had managed to drag his sorry pelt to the Great Oak.

You cannot avoid this forever, she had hissed at him in his den, frustrated with his lack of action. No matter if Eagleburn killed Bayspots' out of self-defense or not, he can't keep rotting away in the medicine cats' den, and you cannot keep hiding.

"Is he finally calling a clan meeting?"

Ears perking, Dappleddusk's harsh expression softened at the sight of her daughter, Beewatcher. Flanking her was her son, Sunnydash, and she greeted both with a purr and a headbutt--though not without a quick groom of Sunnydash's fluffy gray head, which he happily endured. He had always been a mama's boy.

"Yes, finally." Dappleddusk sighed, her tail tip twitching in irritation as she looked back to where Oatstar was visibly collecting himself.

"Did he tell you what he's going to be doing?" asked Sunnydash,

Dappleddusk laid her ears back, flexing her claws into the dirt.

"No," she stiffly answered. "I'm hoping to find that out now."

"All warriors, please gather beneath the Great Oak!"

"He's excluding apprentices...?" whispered Beewatcher, mimicking her mother's irritated look. "What is he thinking? This affects the whole clan!"

Dappleddusk could only shake her head, her kits falling to silence as they looked to their leader. Unlike Leopardchaser's ceremony, Oatstar seemed uneasy and lacking confidence.

As cats gathered, Dappleddusk made a note of Leopardchaser emerging from the medicine cats' den. He had volunteered for every shift he could for watching over Eagleburn, and she sensed the only reason he had come out was to see if Oatstar had decided his former mentor's fate.

In tandem, the Bayspots' litter joined the clan, and Dappleddusk noted that Sandfeather seemed especially on edge. Unsurprising, given she had been the most volatile at the discovery of her mother's death. When Brightstorm left the nursery to join them, Sandfeather made a point of walking around and keeping distance between them by using Frostspots as a physical barrier.

Dappleddusk looked away before she could see Brightstorm's disappointment.

"As we all know," Oatstar began, bringing the clan to a quiet. "We have had some... Issues in the clan, regarding Eagleburn."

"Yeah, no foxdung," grumbled Sandfeather, who was promptly quieted by Sparrowshadow.

"Given as this affects the whole clan, I was thinking of... taking a vote."

Disbelief rippled through the crowd, and Dappleddusk felt her hackles raise. What kind of spineless act was this? Their leader was to guide them and provide definitive answers! Was Oatstar going to evade his duties by forcing them onto his clan?

"Does the vote include exile?" Sandfeather asked loudly, and was met with a hiss to be quiet by Sparrowshadow. "What? He killed! Whether or not it was in self-defense, he murdered one of us--"

"Eagleburn has done nothing but support you and your kin, along with the whole clan, this whole time!"

The rising whispers silenced with the caterwaul of Leopardchaser, eyes turning upon the once meek apprentice, now bristled warrior, as he stared Sandfeather down. The she-cat met his gaze with a flinch of surprise, but she merely flattened her ears.

"Is killing my mother supportive?!" she countered, and Leopardchaser slammed a forepaw against the dirt.

"She attacked him! Eagleburn has done nothing but be a truthful member of this clan, why would he start lying now? He said he knew what he did was wrong and turned himself in--a murderer would have tried to hide it! Or dumped the body!"

"My mother would never just--"

"Enough!"

Nose-to-nose, the battle-ready warriors were split up by Dappleddusk diving between them, pushing them apart with broad, scarred shoulders.

"Oatstar!"

Turning, tail lashing, she met the timid gaze of their leader.

"We need your guidance on this. This is not a decision the clan can make--" She flicked her tail in reference to the two agitated cats on either side of her. "Without ripping each other's pelts off."

"Ah, well, but..."

Oatstar shrunk, and Dappleddusk felt all of her faith slowly drain. Was Eagleburn really the true leader of this clan, simply operating in the shadows?

"We need your guidance, Oatstar," called Beewatcher, and was met by an uneasy chorus of her peers who, too, needed the voice of a strong leader to show them the way. Yet, Oatstar only shrunk further back against the Great Oak, though with leaf-bare upon them, the branches of the Great Oak offered no coverage for the anxious tom-cat.

"I... I... I actually need to... Talk to... StarClan about this."

"What?"

Before Dappleddusk could follow up on her shock--Oatstar was on the move.

Incredulous, she could only watch as their valiant leader appointed by none other than Darkstar herself fled with his tail between his legs, scrabbling down the claw-marked bark of the Great Oak.

"Is he--?"

Beewatcher's whispered dismay reflected Dappleddusk's own shocked heart as Oatstar took off into the surrounding forest, darting around an apprentice who had sneaked out to see the drama. He wasn't headed in the direction of the Sky Splinter.

What did Darkstar see in this pathetic tom?

[dawngen]

"All cats old enough to catch their own prey, gather beneath the Great Oak!"

Ever since Eagleburn had returned with Bayspots' still-warm body, the camp had been thick with a palpable tension. No one cat had been able to keep still or to keep quiet as gossip as to what was to happen spread like wildfire through the chilly camp. Opinions were starkly divided as to what should be done, and the crux of it all was Eagleburn's contributions to DawnClan.

Such as seen in physical form as young Leopardpaw, flanked by Beewatcher, approached the Great Oak. The apprentice, already fully grown and sleek with toned muscle beneath his dappled coat, looked smaller than he should next to the medicine cat.

As Oatstar clambered up the tree overarching the camp, peering down below, he, too, shared in Leopardpaw's visible anxiety.

Eagleburn's absence was felt with a distinctive, ominous air. Many had begun to realize how he was the sticky sap keeping them all together, Oatstar's necessary shadow and guiding paw. It had been three days since Eagleburn's banishment to the medicine cats' den, and little had been decided.

But, at the deputy's insistence, Oatstar had conceded that the clan needed this bright spot of hope more than ever.

"It has been a tough few days, but I hope you all can find joy in this moment like I will," Oatstar began, looking out over his collected clan. He noted that the Bayspots' litter were absent, and Suntuft and Brightstorm were in the mouth of the nursery, watching, but distant. He tried not to think of it, looking down and spotting Leopardpaw anxiously shifting from paw to paw among the crowd.

"We have an apprentice overdue for his ceremony, that he has very much become deserving of. Leopardpaw, could you please step forward towards the Great Oak?" The whispering among the felines settled as all eyes focused upon Leopardpaw, and in that moment, the young cat figured out why his mentor pushed so much for him to have his ceremony without him. It was a distraction from the tragedy that had befallen their clan, a necessary one. He felt their gazes upon him, but unlike what he had anticipated, it felt... Warm. Joyous.

He could see his siblings, who had obtained their warrior names a moon before, sitting in the crowd, looking upon him with pride. Wolverinefreckle lifted her good paw, and Rowandawn flicked his bushy gray tail, both wearing such warm expressions.

They had led different paths--Wolverinefreckle a medicine cat and Rowandawn a mediator--which had caused them to separate from a young age, but these clan ties kept them bound together, and reminded Leopardpaw that the clan was not doomed over one incident. He could only hope they would be stronger for it.

"In place of your mentor--Beewatcher, do you believe this young cat is ready for his warrior name?"

Pulling herself up beside Leopardpaw, they shared a glance, and Beewatcher lifted her head high.

"Undoubtedly. He has demonstrated the courage and loyalty of a clan cat, and the heart of a warrior."

Oatstar nodded.

"Leopardpaw--do you promise to uphold our code, and to defend DawnClan to your dying breath?"

"I do."

"Then I declare you Leopardchaser. May your courageous heart continue to guide you along StarClan's path."

With a bunch of his haunches, Oatstar leaped down to the gathering place where newly named Leopardchaser awaited. His anxiety melted away, finally did the younger tom stand like the warrior he should be, and in his posture and lifted head, Oatstar saw a reflection of Eagleburn.

Padding forward, with the distance closed, the two cats briefly shared tongues, Oatstar licking the shoulder of Leopardchaser and Leopardchaser mimicking him.

"DawnClan, meet your newest warrior!"

His tail flagged high, and with Oatstar's cry, a chorus of Leopardchaser's new name rung out across the clearing.

Leopardchaser! Leopardchaser! Leopardchaser!

Overwhelmed with joy, as his siblings approached to give their congratulations, out of the corner of his eye, Leopardchaser spotted a black tail slipping back into the medicine cats' den. His heart swelled with an indescribable feeling, one he would not forget as he accepted the congratulations of his peers with a deep purr.