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redux-iterum · 19 days ago

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Charred Legacy: Chapter Thirty-Eight

(AO3 counterpart here.)

Cloudpaw and Fireheart returned home just before evening turned to night. Quickly, they curled up in their respective nests and pretended to sleep, conveniently “waking up” as their Clanmates started to. With so many cats making their way around camp, the tell-tale pawprints were covered up almost immediately, and no one seemed to notice that Cloudpaw was a little more tired again.

Fireheart kept to his decision; he and Cloudpaw went out with Snowpaw, Ravenwing, and Greystripe to hunt. The decree for all warriors to travel in groups of four had been relaxed, at least in the southern part of the territory. Despite the lack of dog-scent and Snowpaw teaching Cloudpaw how to crawl silently, and the eased energy of his friends, Fireheart couldn’t bring himself to completely chill out. Evidently, his anger had left a few droplets of itself in his gut, and now he had to almost physically stop himself from thinking of his argument with Rosy, or those droplets would start to steam.

He hated that. He didn’t want to have any negative emotions tied to his sister. But even a single thought calling back to her insulting Bluestar, and he would unconsciously turn his head away from whichever way he was facing and grimace as he forced new thoughts into his head and dug them in as deep as he could, hoping that would silence the words Rosy had said.

“Are you okay?” Greystripe murmured to him as Snowpaw signed something that made Cloudpaw chuff.

Fireheart defaulted to a lie. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” Greystripe gave him a light touch with a massive paw. “You’ve been completely silent all night and keep staring like you’re about to kill someone.”

Fireheart was tempted to stay silent in the hopes that his friend would let the matter drop, but he knew better. He sighed out, “Just thinking about the dogs. And hoping my sister’s okay.”

It didn’t look like Greystripe was satisfied with that answer, but he did nod and say, “Alright. If, uh, if you want to talk, you can tell me anything.”

Dared he tell him? If anyone was to understand a rule-breaker, it would be him. At the same time, if Fireheart started talking, his odds of ranting and upsetting Cloudpaw were a little too high for his liking.

“I’ll let you know,” was all he said, and they left it at that.

He managed to cool down and relax over the next few nights, though by the stars, was it a slow process. Speckletail seemed to notice his lingering tension and started putting him on more patrols, often without Cloudpaw. It helped to have his attention elsewhere, at least, and it was good to be out of camp where Darkstripe couldn’t scowl at him with one eye squinted. Fireheart didn’t trust that his temper would stay under control if he remained inside.

One night, Speckletail invited him to join herself, Willowpelt, and Sandstorm on a hunting patrol, which he took gladly. Cloudpaw looked at him with some disappointment and anxiety as he spoke to the deputy. Before he left, he approached his nephew with an order.

“I’d like you to stay close to camp tonight,” he said. “If any nests need refreshing, or the elders need grooming, take care of that. And visit Brightpaw, too. She seems to be doing better with you around.”

��She’s not as, um…” Cloudpaw tilted his head in thought. “Not as shut-down as before. But yesterday, I offered to take her out to make dirt and she started shaking really hard.”

Fireheart nodded sympathetically. “Then just bring her some prey or help clean her fur. You’re doing very well taking care of her and the elders.”

“I like doing it,” Cloudpaw said. “It’s fun.”

Something in Fireheart settled and he regarded his nephew fondly. “That’s the right attitude. I wish the other apprentices were more like you.”

Cloudpaw’s fur fluffed out and he puffed his chest proudly, his disappointment forgotten. Fireheart touched his nose to his forehead before turning around and following after his patrol out of camp.

It was a night of dense air, brought about by the fog that was thick enough to hide anything past the immediately surrounding trees wherever Fireheart stood. Despite this, and the snow on the ground that had turned hard and crunchy, Fireheart couldn’t help but enjoy himself. Even with his Clanmates around him, it felt private, quiet, and oddly comfortable—easy to step away from his thoughts and walk mindlessly in a void.

“Well, good luck to us finding anything tonight,” Sandstorm remarked, shaking out her smooth, pale fur. “I can’t even smell you right next to me, Willowpelt.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” Willowpelt tapped Sandstorm with her tail. “Just pay attention.”

“‘Just pay attention,’” Sandstorm snipped with no venom. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Speckletail turned her head back to squint jokingly at them. “That’ll be a great piece of advice if the two of you pipe down and start listening for prey.”

Sandstorm looked at Fireheart and gestured at the older mollies with playful exasperation. Fireheart twitched his whiskers, but said nothing. After waiting a moment, presumably for a response, Sandstorm faced forward again, her tail still.

It was difficult to tell exactly how far from camp they’d gone, but at some point Fireheart realized they were going past burnt trees. He looked to Speckletail, asking, “Have we been having luck hunting out here?”

“Oh, no.” Speckletail gestured vaguely with a sweep of her tail. “I was planning to take us out to the neutral grounds. Dustpelt’s patrol yesterday found a lot there.”

“Shame it’s come to that point,” Willowpelt said. “Nothing out there is quite as tasty as forest-born prey.”

“We’ll be back to it in spring, don’t worry.”

“I hope so.”

The conversation turned to mild chatter that Fireheart didn’t pay much attention to. He absorbed the false privacy of the fog. He hardly even heard his own pawsteps.

Imagine what it’d be like to be the only cat in the world, he thought, as the fog thickened, almost hiding his Clanmates. Not a care beyond finding shelter and food. No arguments or other cats to worry about.

…Maybe that’d be a little too lonely for me.

“Hey, that’s interesting.”

Fireheart blinked back to reality. He’d lagged behind a fair few steps and only now saw Sandstorm at one end of a fallen, black tree, squinting at the roots, some of which were still clinging to a mound of disturbed, dark soil.

“This wasn’t here before,” she said. “Did the fire do this?”

Fireheart trotted up to join her. The inner wood that the roots surrounded had been completely burned away, leaving a surprisingly large hole big enough to house a fox and her cubs.

“Weird,” was all he said.

Again, a pause and a look from Sandstorm, but she said nothing to him. Willowpelt and Speckletail joined them, examining the charred interior.

“Well, we won’t be finding any prey in there,” Willowpelt said. She nodded to the side. “But at least we’re close to the neutral grounds. Let’s get going.”

Speckletail flicked her tail. “You two go ahead. Fireheart and I will check around here, just in case.”

Fireheart blinked in surprise. Willowpelt and Sandstorm glanced at each other, then Speckletail, who flicked her tail more firmly, and they trotted off into the fog. Fireheart waited for them to disappear fully before turning to the deputy. He stopped before he could say anything; she was looking at him rather gravely.

“Um,” he said: half a question, half a prompt.

Speckletail approached him, looking down at him with a somewhat-unreadable face. He thought he caught concern and weariness in her eyes. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you privately. What’s troubling you?”

He restrained a flinch. “Troubling…? I, uh, I’m fine.”

“Fireheart, you can be honest with me,” Speckletail said with a calming blink. “I’ve been putting you on so many patrols recently because I’m concerned about you. You’re radiating this intense energy, and you always look like you’re about to get into a screaming match with whoever you’re talking to.”

Fireheart said nothing. His mind scrambled for an excuse.

“I don’t know what’s happened,” Speckletail went on, “but you’re affecting your apprentice. He’s nervous to be around you. Have you noticed that?”

He hadn’t. Fireheart stared at her, his mind now frantically scraping around for any memory of how he’d been acting since Cloudpaw came home. He couldn’t find any, just memories of stewing in his emotions and not paying attention to anything around him.

“Um,” he said again.

Speckletail sighed—though, Fireheart noticed, more in a melancholic way than frustrated. “You’re not in any trouble, you know. I just worry because I appreciate your help and energy in taking care of the Clan, and it’s hard to find that when you’re upset like this. Whatever’s going on, you can tell me.”

Should he? He clenched his jaw unconsciously.

“The thing is, if I’m going to be honest…” Speckletail glanced backwards, ears perked at the way the other mollies had gone, before turning to Fireheart and dropping her volume. “I’ve been giving you a lot of tasks because I’ve been testing you. I think you could be…”

She trailed off, straightening up and swiveling her ears.

Fireheart tilted his head. “What?”

“…I thought I heard something.” Speckletail squinted to her left, peering into the wall of fog. She slowly took a few steps in that direction, craning her neck forward, her ears working overtime. “Is someone here?”

Fireheart strained to catch any noise, almost squinting a little himself. Now that she mentioned it, there was something like paws shuffling through snow, growing a bit louder by the moment.

“I hear pawsteps,” he said, voice low out of instinct. “Sandstorm and Willowpelt didn’t leave that way, though…”

Speckletail’s eyes narrowed. “There isn’t supposed to be a patrol out here—”

Then she stopped, stiffening. Fireheart looked at her questioningly, going a little stiff himself when she said, “We need to find the others. Come on.” Before he could respond, she whipped around and started off at a run in the direction their Clanmates had gone, the haze swallowing her quickly.

Fireheart hastened after her, but with the fog and her footsteps fading almost immediately, he had to rely on her prints to catch up to her. Pawsteps did grow louder, but they were coming from a different direction—somewhere to Fireheart’s left. They were clunky and heavy, and there only seemed to be one… whatever animal it was, making that noise.

And it was rapidly getting closer.

Fireheart’s run turned into a sprint, just before a shape shot out of the fog and sent him skidding to a halt. He scrambled backwards, back-fur bristling.

It was impossible to tell what it was—tall, far too tall for any animal he’d seen before, and night-black, shaggy tendrils drifting off of its body. A pair of round lights dimly sat in the highest point of whatever this form was, focused directly on Fireheart. It was perfectly silent, and aside from the tendrils shivering a little from its breathing, perfectly still.

For a long moment, Fireheart couldn’t move. He couldn’t even think. He stared at this creature, and the creature stared back, its eyes brightening with interest and hunger. The memory of Swifttail’s story back in the Barn gripped his chest.

A long, pink tongue rolled out of what Fireheart could now guess was its muzzle and licked both sides of its mouth. Barely visible were long, jagged, white teeth, going so far up its head that for a moment Fireheart thought it could split in half just by opening its mouth.

Still staring at him, it started forward.

Terror, he thought. Terror with a mouth like a dog– is this a test?

Another memory of the Barn, this time a phrase he had learned from Barley. Inhaling as much as he could, he barked at the top of his voice, “NO!”

The thing stopped in its tracks, eyes losing some of their pale light. It tilted its head, licking its invisible lips again.

Just as it lifted a paw to take another step, a yowl sounded off and Terror turned its head to be greeted by a lunging Speckletail, her claws out and slashing at its face. It yelped, high and loud, and Fireheart stumbled backwards as Speckletail landed in front of him.

“Run!” she shouted. “Run and hide! Come on!”

Fireheart didn’t need to be told again; he whipped around and sprinted the way he had come, eyes darting left and right, looking for safety. Speckletail panted close behind him, followed by heavy footfalls and an equally heavy, much more monstrous panting from the creature.

“Split up!” Speckletail said, and suddenly her footsteps and breath veered away to the side.

Fireheart kept running, almost in a panic worse than the fire could have done to him, until his eyes caught the black log. Without a second thought, he dove into its innards, pressing himself hard against the deepest corner of the tree.

Wild-eyed, he watched the outside, waiting for the thing to poke its head in and discover him. But all he heard was scrabbling, a shout of alarm, and then snarls, accompanied by a shriek of fear and anger. His heart beating almost too hard for him to stay standing, Fireheart shook violently, fighting to get his body to move and failing.

Come on, he wanted to shout to himself. You weren’t like this during the fire! Speckletail could be hurt right now! Get moving!

But he couldn’t do anything. He tried to force his paws to move and only succeeded in crumpling to the ground.

Shortly, the snarls stopped, and heavy pawsteps galloped out of hearing range. Still, it took a long, long moment for Fireheart to be able to stand, shaking all the while, and poke his head out of the log to see what had happened.

One of the charred trees stood marred by claw-marks, coal-bark splintered off and spread on the ground around its trunk. Below it lay Speckletail, bleeding into the snow, her red life surrounding her and leading off into the dark fog. The beast was gone.

Fireheart’s panic flared again, this time pushing him to race for his deputy and circle around her, nudging and nosing.

“Speckletail!” he whispered, loud as a whisper could be while staying one. “Are you alive?”

Nothing but a ragged wheeze. Speckletail’s front legs were both bent backwards, her neck loose and stretched. Blood oozed out of multiple half-rings all over her body. She smelled oily and like saliva.

Fireheart looked around wildly. He couldn’t shout for help, or it would come back. But he couldn’t run to find someone and leave Speckletail alone.

Desperate and with no better ideas, Fireheart grabbed Speckletail by the scruff and started dragging her backwards in the vague direction of what he dearly hoped were the neutral grounds. Speckletail offered no resistance, nor support. Her breathing went quieter.

“Stay with me,” Fireheart pleaded through his teeth. “We’re getting you help. Just hold on.”

Speckletail wheezed again. Her neck where Fireheart gripped her was oddly soft.

“Just hold on,” Fireheart repeated, dragging as fast as he could. “Keep breathing.”

The search backwards was painfully slow. Fireheart stumbled multiple times, but he never loosened his bite and he refused to pause even for a moment. The snow crunched underneath his paws and a bloody trail dug through the white ground.

All the while, Fireheart tried to encourage Speckletail, even as he struggled to breathe and his limbs started shaking with the effort.

“Stay with me,” he said, over and over. “Keep breathing. Please.”

Speckletail said nothing the entire time. Fireheart kept talking, losing awareness of what he was saying.

An eternity passed before any noise came from behind him. He gingerly lowered Speckletail’s head and neck back to the ground and turned around, praying to every spirit and god he could think of for it to not be Terror again.

He could have cried with relief as Sandstorm and Willowpelt appeared out of the fog, out of breath and with wide, frightened eyes.

“We heard dogs,” Willowpelt said quickly. “What happened?”

Oh, Fireheart thought dimly. It was a dog.

“It attacked us,” he said weakly. “Speckletail got caught while I hid. We need to get her home—maybe to a vet or something, I don’t know, she’s pretty badly beaten up—”

“Fireheart…” Sandstorm went around him, crouched and nosed Speckletail. She looked up at him, morose. “She’s dead.”

Fireheart stared at her. “No, that—”

He used a paw to nudge Speckletail’s head, which loosely rolled back into place. He sniffed her muzzle. Not even the slightest breath.

“No,” he barely managed to get out in a whimper. “She can’t… no, she…”

Something rested on his side. Fireheart jolted as Willowpelt came to stand beside him, her eyes deeply sad and sympathetic. Her tail lifted away from him and she gave him a grieving, but resigned look.

Fireheart couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe.

Sandstorm hung her head, but stood up and sighed. “What now?”

Willowpelt looked at Fireheart, as did Sandstorm. He belatedly realized he had been asked a question, and could barely get an answer out.

“We need to bring her home,” he managed.

The mollies nodded in unison, and Willowpelt joined Sandstorm on the other side of Speckletail’s body. Working together, they hauled her onto Sandstorm’s long back. Fireheart did not pay attention to how he took the lead and began the slow journey back to camp.

They didn’t say a word the entire walk.

#warrior cats #redux iterum #iterum #chapter #chapter thirty eight #book three #arc one #charred legacy #hope it lives up to the hype!

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bonefall · 1 year ago

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Now I'm curious, I need to know how many bloodlines are dead, like Bluestar's is just tragic

WELL, it's a question without a straight answer. Bluestar's bloodline isn't "dead" but it's not "alive" either. It's a secret third thing. I'm calling it Schrodinger's Bloodline in my head.

In RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan, there's a "missing generation" gap in-between TPB and TNP where a ton of "Orphan Warriors" suddenly appear. For a series that's hypothetically supposed to have legacy as a major theme, in practice, only ThunderClan is allowed to remember their grandparents lmao. So that means that Reedwhisker COULD have had children... but we don't know.

The only direct lines that cross that Missing Generation Gap we have tracked outside of Thunder and Sky are;

The Palebird Line (Tallstar, Onestar, Heathertail)

The Hickorynose Line (Deadfoot, Sorrelshine, Whitetail. Completely absorbed by the Palebird line)

The Scorchwind Line (Rowanstar)

So, any other non-ThunderClan family tree that you can think of is "gone", or more accurately, in the Schrodinger's Bloodline box. Yellowfang's entire family is gone. Blackstar's family is gone. Crookedstar's family is gone.

The TRULY DEAD lines in Warrior Cats are within SkyClan and ThunderClan. And by the way it's INSANE how inbred SkyClan, The Kittypet Guys, became in less than 3 generations. It's AWFUL.

This is because the writers have a really bad habit of "quantity over quality" in terms of which cats they choose to "breed." They'll pick "super parents" in a generation, essentially, have them produce 4 - 7 kittens, and then choose 3 of them to become the parents of the next generation. Clovertail, Snowbird, Robinwing, Swiftbreeze... and basically they irrevocably fuck up the genetic diversity completely.

(and then they forget they did it and ignore their own shitty tree, because if they didn't, they would completely prevent shipping within several generations. Dustpelt being Ferncloud's uncle, Spottedleaf being Tigerclaw's aunt, Brightheart and Swiftpaw being 1st cousins, Thrushpelt being Thistleclaw's brother, all things the writers completely forget... if you treat canon like scripture, you'll eat yourself alive.)

But anyway, tangents aside, lines that are entirely dead within ThunderClan;

Thrushpelt, Dappletail. This little branch is dead.

Sunstar's line is dead

One-Eye's kits, Runningwind and Mousefur, had none of their own

Doestar's line is dead

Not to mention the orphan warriors. Hollypelt, Rockfall, Weedwhisker...

So, in a nutshell, the list of "living" lines is shorter than the list of 'dead' lines. This is because the lines in most side clans aren't tracked, and in Thunder and Sky, bloodlines bunch up through genetic bottlenecks like Adderswift/Robinfuzzy/Clovertail.

#bone babble #warrior cats family tree #I see folks talking about how they don't really care if there's orphan warriors but like... I do #Because what I LIKE about warriors is its unique premise #Following characters that grow up quickly and following several generations #It doesn't use this concept very well (and I've done the homework to prove it) but in theory?#there is nothing else like it.#There's no other series like WC #And I think they've dropped the ball in not defining some Families/Nests/Crests what have you and talking about their unique problems #Something you can see me trying to fix with Whitedragon and the Houndstar Line #The Firekin shouldn't be the only family out here who's allowed to talk about legacy!!#And hell even the Tigerkin have gotten over it aside from offhanded laughter at Leafstar for a social faux pas

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