In the depths of a moonlit night...
Art done by our member North! -> WiltedMoth on ToyHouse! ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ⊹ ⊹ ┊ ┊ ┊ ★ ┊ ⊹ ┊ ☆ ┊ ★ ⊹ ☆
You wanted to know more. That's all you had felt for moons upon moons. You'd spent time lurking near the edges of the forest, pressing your paws to the frozen over river, brushing against the heather of the moors, and carrying the crisp scent of pine and sap from the marshes on your fur. The clans were a concept you couldn't quite shake from your mind—what was it really like for them? After all, you'd always been a bit of an... outsider; you'd wandered all the territories and explored them to their fullest but today was different. Today you find yourself standing in a meadow surrounded by more cats than you've ever seen before in your life. They're all laughing and socializing, and you watch young cats chase each other around the outskirts while the elder ones lazily boast about how 'In their day...' Is this what clan life is like? It's so lively.
You're awestruck for a heartbeat, and it seems at least one cat—a silver cat with swirls of black and brown fur—has noticed and waves you over. In no time at all, you're sitting in a pile of crackling leaves with a half circle of cats beside you—all of whom are listening intently to the cat who had called you over; you can't help but turn your attention to xem as well. "Half of my lifetime ago, the stars fell. The night leading up to it had been one just like this—each clan leader was away at a Gathering while some cats remained at home, tucked away within their camps; it was entirely normal... until it wasn't. Stars streaked down from the sky and vanished from our view, and none of us knew what to do. The Gathering dispersed and cats rushed home, but even home wasn't safe. The cats who had stayed within camp had seen the same sight, and no one knew how to interpret it at first. Cats fell sick not long after that. We thought it was whitecough, at first. It had all the symptoms of it, and we were sure it was just a typical outbreak that happens every few seasons. We were wrong."
The cat pauses, and you notice that xe look actually shaken by their own tale. Isn't this just an exaggerated story...? "Some cats couldn't be treated as they were meant to, and the illness progressed faster than it should have. Even cats who seemed to be healed just became even sicker not long after, and soon we had separate camps for the ill to try and stop the spread of the disease, which we named redcough. Healers stopped attending moonstone meetings—they weren't able to when so much of their clan was ill—but StarClan still visited them within their dreams. That was when a plan was formed by the councils of each clan. They came up with the idea to send out patrols of cats beyond the borders in search of a cure, and it was to be a collaborative effort with at least one cat from each clan on every patrol. One patrol was sent past the marsh, one past the river, one past the moors, and one past the forest. It was a difficult journey, and dangerous too. Each patrol encountered a new threat—twolegs, a vicious pike, a raging forest fire, and a group of rogues with ulterior motives; we all won our fights and succeeded in our trials, of course, but some days felt hopeless. We were traveling for moons, and we had all left behind cats important to us...
But when we returned, it was all worth it. Many of us bore new scars, new worries, and new fears, but we also had the cure—tansy and comfrey—and a friend one patrol had met along the way who happily joined the clans. Everything began looking up after that. We had lost many clanmates, but we knew that with these new herbs we could begin recovering and rebuilding. That's why we're able to sit here today under a full moon once more and share tongues beneath the stars." The cat catches your eye as you slowly get up, eager to search out another cat to listen to—you wonder if all clan cats had stories like this?—and xe give you a gentle nod before continuing on with a new story. As you pad away, you hear a younger cat ask something of the elder cat, and you catch the name of the narrator of the tale: Moorblossom. Even as you glance around the meadow hoping to find another cat spinning a story so compelling, the thought of redcough sticks with you. Maybe you'll ask around later to see if any of that really happened... ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── Interested in unearthing the truth about redcough and meeting the narrator of today's tale? We have an upcoming opening in just over 12 days! Come hang out with us in our server and read through our website until then!
