You trip over an exposed root during patrol but quickly shake it off before anyone can make a snide remark.
A heated argument with a FluffClan patrol leaves you ruffled, claws itching for a fight.
WHY IS EVERYTHING GOING BADLY AAAAAAA-
Greenclaw is talking about a kittypet she met on patrol. You recall that kittypet as well. Small world!Greenclaw?!?!? Spoilers smh. The kittypet is Jirachi btw.
You take the long route back to camp after patrol just to have some time alone.
There's fun to be had this moon! Greenstar had suggested playing some games as a Clan. Your team won!
Yippee!
Greenstar no longer has a running nose.
Scalefleck is glad that his stomachache is finally gone.
Warmsmoke hopes the litter will be small - she feels overwhelmed at the idea of a big litter. She couldn't settle into the nursery fast enough.
YEAH. GOOD IDEA.
Yarrowash and Hemlockdazzle really think the Clan hasn't noticed how they feel about each other? Everycat carefully hides their smiles as they announce becoming mates.
:D :D :D YIPPEE!! TWO OF THE PRETTIEST AND BEST CATS IN THE CLANNNN!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!
Hemlockdazzle is no longer sore.
Hootpatch has recovered from his dislocated joint.
Hootpatch has gotten heat exhaustion.
Mistlestripe sits in the crowd, chest puffed out in pride as he watches Greenpaw be named Greenclaw, and honored for her hard work. He considers himself lucky to have been able to train such an amazing young cat, and looks forward to seeing the warrior she becomes.
There we go. Greenclaw! :3
We have new warriorsssssss!!!!!!!!! :D greenclaw is cunning, a good mediator AND a good tunneler. She believes in starclan when it suits her reputation. Windsnout is bloodthirsty (*sigh*), a talented swimmer and clever. However, he is open to learning about starclan. Anddd they’re the leader’s kits
PRETTYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! :D
Please dont die lmao
The pawprints lead to a trespassing rogue. Windsnout tries to set up a trap by using the tides to cut off the rogue's escape path, but he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. The trap fails, and the rogue wanders on.
L
The waves washed against the black sands, gentle and calm, as it always was on the Beach of Stars. The other clans had a different place, a pool surrounded by five old, twisted trees, but this, this was Hyacinthclan's alone.
Jackdawnudge sat just out of reach of the licking waves, heart heavy, his old bones aching from the climb up here and the damp.
His kits had fretted, had been fretting, but the old medicine cat had needed to come here.
How... How had they come to this? How was the clan spinning into disaster so quickly, at such an unstoppable pace?
Copsespots, the kits, now Ashtalon... Jackdawnudge could still smell the tide of blood as the sick queen bled out beneath his paws, his paws pressed so hard against her belly that he feared she would be bruised for moons, but it hadn't mattered. She had slipped away, the moss soaking wet beneath his paws from her blood, Plumsong and Wasp rushing in with herbs, keeping Ashtalon back, rushing the kits out...
Then the kits, Firkit and Shrewkit. Poor little scraps of fur, sick from the start.
They hadn't stood a chance, and Copsespots had taken them to Starclan less than a moon later. Not surprising, really. Copsespots had been so sick, had passed it onto her kits, and they had been born sickly. But Ashtalon's mournful howl still pierced his ears late in the night, and he had wanted to scream with the tom. But he couldn't. He was the medicine cat and even if he had been a warrior first, the entire clan, even Plumsong, deferred to him as the senior one, too. He had to hold himself together for the clan.
Amberkit, though, sickly as he had been born, had become the light of the clan. A little scrap of fur too, Ashtalon had spent every waking moment in the nursery, tending to his little son and helping nurse him back to health. Jackdawnudge personally felt that it had been more of Ashtalon's doing than his own that had saved that kit.
And then, just three moons after Copsespots and the kits, Ashtalon had joined them in Starclan. Crushed beneath a falling branch while chasing off a rogue, Skypelt and Quietback had laid his mangled body out in the camp, and Amberkit hadn't understood.
The kit would be well-cared for, however. The entire clan, even the kits only a little older than he was, bound to spoil him and see to his every need.
Skypelt was sharing his nest in the nursery, determinedly saying it was her responsibility, because Copsespots had been her apprentice, the closest thing she had to a kit, and she had failed her before, but she wouldn't fail her now.
Quietback hadn't even been able to look at Amberkit and had been curled in his nest since the vigil had ended, speaking to no one, hardly seeming to hear.
Jackdawnudge swallowed, the grief thick on his tongue, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up in the sand and close his eyes and let his ancestors take him. But it wasn't his time yet, that was clear, even if his heart weighed in his chest like a stone.
He had come to the beach for clarity, for a reason, an explanation, from Starclan. Hyacinthclan had risen for ashes, their little group of mismatched survivors banding together, and they had been thriving for twenty-eight moons until now.
What had they done to deserve this? What had they done to have such loses so quickly? Within three moons...
And yet, Starclan would not answer him. He had slept and no dreams had come. No ancestor to explain anything, no ancestor to even offer comfort.
Jackdawnudge slid his claws into the black sand and wanted to yowl at them, opening his jaws to do just then, when something caught his attention out in the waves.
Leaping fish and creatures weren't unusual, and the near-full moon allowed plenty of light. But... It wasn't any of those things.
At once, Jackdawnudge's fur stood on end and an easy sense washed over him, sending him to his paws, his old back arching, fur fluffing.
The waves crept toward him, and they were odd. Black, black like the sand, but not the same, a different shade that drank the silvery light of the moon and stars and reflected it, but in an... Oily way. It seemed to move toward him, thicker, odd, wrong, and yet nothing spelled wrong. It crept through the waves like a spill of blood, branching out like roots or webs, and his eyes traced back to the thing in the waves.
He couldn't see it clearly. Not really. But a figure was stumbling into the shadows, or a shape, because it didn't look like anything Jackdawnudge had seen.
He thought, for a moment, it was a cat, but this cat... This was no cat. Extra limbs burst from it, as supple and mobile as tails, shooting into the water, helping the thing haul itself, and the stink of blood and decay filled Jackdawnudge's nose as the thing found its footing.
As he watched, more things burst off it, maybe not tails, more like long strands of spider silk that moved like tails, and sparks as if from a fire sizzled as they formed, the thing slithering through the shallows towards him.
Starclan, help me! Jackdawnudge thought.
He arched his back and hissed, ever a warrior even if he followed a different path now, and the thing staggered to a stop. The tendrils reached toward him, and he saw that it was covered in the glistening blackness, dripping off it as it had been dunked in it, and it was cat-shaped, but...
A paw, clawed wrong (what had claws so big, so sharp?!), reached toward him as the thing tried to move, but even as it did, it stopped, and Jackdawnudge realized it had stopped at the line of the water.
Could it not move beyond it?
The strange blackness could, however, and it touched Jackdawnudge's paw, causing a cold sensation before it began to burn.
Yowling, he sprang back, and then... A cloud covered the moon.
For one, terrifying second, everything was plunged into blackness, and Jackdawnudge prepared for a blow, a whisper of movement, straining to hear over the waves, and then...
Then the cloud moved, and he was alone, the thing was gone, the black was gone, and his fur was flattening itself.
Glancing to be sure, Jackdawnudge saw nothing wrong, smelled nothing wrong, and he blinked.
Had it been a dream? An omen? Or merely in his head? It wouldn't be the first time Jackdawnudge had seen something that was nothing, after all. It had only been a dream, or something in his head.
Taking a deep breath, Jackdawnudge looked up at the stars, wondering if it was a sign, if it was, somehow, the explanation he had come looking for. He thought not.
He had been a medicine cat for a long time now, and that was no sign or omen or dream sent by Starclan.
Still unsettled, even if it hadn't been real, Jackdawnudge turned and padded quickly from the beach, thinking his kits had been right.
Lost in his grief, lost in his head, he was seeing things again. It was nothing the clan needed to know. It had just been in his head.
