|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 20:21:18 GMT -5
The fluffy warrior sighed slowly and the emotions in his eyes changed. They didn't lose their driving passion but some of it's cruelness seeped away... "I feel that it is my right to ask for you and Mistedstar to step down from your current position, I feel that it will make the clan prosper. I would be fine with de-promoting you two to the positions of a regular warrior. That way your love for each other wont disrupt the clan life so severely." He tensed his muscles, preparing for the chance of being attacked by the powerful tom.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 20:28:39 GMT -5
Charcoalstar had seen it coming, but still he stared. So brazen. He opened his mouth slightly, but there was nothing right to say. This wasn't a situation anyone could be prepared for. And so he exhaled heavily, blinked at Dragontooth and shook his head. "Darnit, Dragontooth," he mumbled, turning back towards the leader's den and speaking through clenched teeth. "We're not..." His voice trailed off.
The charcoal tom flashed his tail twice, feeling his pelt rise.
Great StarClan, these things just didn't happen.
Great StarClan.
What were they going to do?
The tom stalked a fox-length towards the den. It was fully night now, and the sky was dark, as if heavy clouds blanketed the stars. The leader froze suddenly as a splitting pain wrenched through his head. /Great StarClan!/
He twisted back over his shoulder to look back at Dragontooth, as if he would have some answer, but he looked as if he was experiencing the same pain. He sucked a breath in through his grinding teeth and flashed a quick look back to his den, just in time to see Mistedstar stepping out of it, illuminated by a fiery, red light.
The sky was on fire. He stared at it. He didn't understand. But it seemed to indicate one thing, one thing that turned his stomach even more. /Great StarClan, its all my fault./ He stared at the burning asteroids. /They hate me. I've ruined it all./
The tom stood, glassy-eyed as the meteors fell.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 20:42:39 GMT -5
Yowls rippled across the camp.
pain
searing, burning, buzzing, stinging, white hot pain exploded in the minds of the cats.
Redness.
Blood redness.
The sky was bleeding, falling, erupting, breaking, dying.....
Foxwit had been listening secretly to the conversation, and now as the pain escalated to bone-splitting, he yowled at the top of his lungs, "STARCLAN WANTS YOU TO LEAVE! GO NOW BEFORE THEY KILL US ALL!!!!!!"
--------------------
The smaller asteroids fell first, pelting the ground with a sizzling heat. Then, in almost slow-motion, a huge cratered and shimmering boulder smacked into the face of the ground....
/What did we do?/ wailed Foxwit as darkness closed in on him.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 20:51:10 GMT -5
Charcoalstar's mind spun. He couldn't stand. Where was the ground? He was on his side, wasn't he? Where was the sky? He struggled to his paws, clawing across the searing earth. His pelt was on fire. Was it on fire? Oh, how it /burned/! A yowl gasped from his throat and he managed to dart the last fox-length into the shelter of the leader's den. They had to go, they had to go. Foxwit was right.
"Come on...Mistedstar...this is...our fault. Come on..." She looked like she was in shock. Breathing heavily, the black tom nosed her out of the den and away from camp, out into the trees and then across the grass. Startree. They had to get to Startree. But would StarClan speak to them?
They had to try. This just wasn't right. Their world was falling apart. Over what? Love? Would StarClan hold that against to them, face to face?
As they left behind DayClan camp, the asteroids were fewer, but every so often a large one would fall and knock the both of them off their feet, daze them for heartbeats, leaving them gasping foul air and staring at nightmarish shadows that danced about the flames before they sputtered and died. This wasn't normal. Of course it wasn't normal. Great StarClan. What a day.
Mistedstar hadn't been speaking the whole time, and Charcoalstar was concerned for her. She was growing weaker, feebler with every falling rock. Shelter. They had to find shelter...
In the haze of a nightmare they struggled to the base of a hill where a bush grew. Smoke clogged the air, their eyes, their throats, their minds. But it was a bush. It was the only thing they had. It had to suffice. Their bodies, fatigued to the point of breaking, and minds equally scattered, immediately surrendered, and they collapsed together in the meager alcove.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 21:05:40 GMT -5
The earth rumbled and shook as the after-shock from the giant asteroid expanded and covered the ground. Willowrain screamed out towards the cats in agony before her. "Shelter in the cave! Shelter in the cave!!!" -------- Marbleclaw pressed up against Thunderpaw, willing to anyone (since Starclan clearly wasn't the answer), for their lives. ------- Newflight gasped and rocketed instantly to Ether. The shaking ground made his bones sear. He always felt like he was falling, even though he could see the ground beneath his paws. The warrior's pure white pelt seethed the color of blood. He finally reached Ether and snatched up her scruff. With muscles popping, he managed to close the gap separating them from safety...
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 21:11:03 GMT -5
Ethre cried out as she was pulled away from Mudd. It was a gasping, choking sound, for she wasn't able to create anything else with her silence throat. As soon as Newflight released her she was on her paws, dodging through the storm of fire with surprising nimbleness, knocked onto her side only once by the trembling earth.
"ETHRE!" Mudd yowled. Her cloudy blue eyes stared out at the clearing, unable to comprehend. She could see the light, the strange brightness in the night. It made no sense. The earth shook, and the blasts rippled her pelt with hot air. "ETHR--" She cried out once more, but everything fell silent and she felt nothing but hard stone grating against her back as she was thrown into it. She gasped, she spoke, but there was no sound.
Ethre froze, dazed, as the sound stopped, but it was only a moment and then she was blown forward into the rock and her sister. /Mudd,/ she weakly thought, struggling to find a grip on her sisters pelt. Safety, they had to find, had to find it...
Something spurred her and she managed to grab onto Mudd, dragging her away from the stone, but she could only make it about a fox-length before energy failed her. Now they were worse off than before, in the center of the hailstorm.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 21:22:38 GMT -5
Newflight cried out in horror as Ether broke away. He wobbled after her, asteroids the size of raindrops pelted him endlessly. He never allowed he to stop progressing towards the thing that mattered most to him../Ether, my love.../ Mudd was impacted by a larger rock, Ethre was knocked to the ground. She was struggling, then she was finished. His love urged him on. As slow as he was, he made it. With puny puncture/burn wounds dappling his now bloodied pelt, he dragged both Ether and Mudd into the shelter of the cave. It burned to move. It burned to breathe. It burned to think. It burned to live...
Newflight collapsed onto the ground, darkness ebbing, welcomingly. He gazed at Ether, pleading that he would be alright. He couldn't leave her behind. Somehow he found the drive to resist the tantalizing embrace of death. Somehow, he hung on....
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 22, 2011 21:28:11 GMT -5
Ethre was beyond thought. It was a surreal world, a nightmare that had taken the imagination and consumed it, destroyed it. This was beyond comprehension, completely unfathomable. The senses were put to shame. Sound flickered in and out of existence, and vision was all but dead, nothing but incomprehensible flashes of black and white and orange and red. Scent, scent was all that remain. The stench of blood and death, smog that choked and made everything unbearable. Her pelt burned as if she had been dipped in acid.
But despite it all she was alive. And Newflight had saved them. Ethre stared at him. Beneath the not-understanding, blankness of shock was appreciation. It was the least she could do. Weakly, she crawled up against him, ignoring the seeping blood and the fact that his pelt really wasn't white anymore. Breath slipped shallowly through her mouth, accompanied by blood. The pain had reached a certain level though, were it just subsided into unfeeling. Her body had given up. Sparking, prickling numbness for a few moments before she slid into welcome unconsciousness.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:24:32 GMT -5
Mistedstar woke in alarm, suffocating, crushed beneath a carelessly collapsed Charcoalstar. With a gasp she clawed herself out from under him and onto the grass beside the bush. Her lungs ached for clean air. The sky was clear, oddly blue. But a dusty ash-like coating covered the grass around them, and with her every step it was stirred up, inspiring a burst of gasping coughs from her lungs. Helplessly, she eyed the hill from which they had fled. The clan had be /theirs/. How could things have changed so quickly? She didn't understand, but knew better than to go back after the sign the previous night. Whether it regarded them or not, Foxwit's response guaranteed that they wouldn't be welcome.
A groggy sound came from Charcoalstar behind her as he stretched and padded up beside Mistedstar. She glanced over at him with a blank expression for a few moments, inspection his innocent, curious eyes, and then finally, softened, laying her head on his shoulder.
After a few heartbeats they turned and left.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:30:10 GMT -5
Marbleclaw opened her eyes expecting everything that had happened to be nothing but a bad dream. After seeing no improvement, she closed and reopened her deep green eyes again and again. Her frustration only grew higher each time since the misery was still there. But, on the other paw, things had gotten slightly better... The sky was no longer bleeding; it was now a sharp blue. The ground was no longer shivering, it lay dead as it should. The rocks were no longer falling; simply laying on their sides. But the medicine cat cave was still filled with pain...
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:33:53 GMT -5
Wolfecho was half-protected at the edge of the cave, his fur singed from the last of the asteroid shower. He had tried to stay up to guard the entrance of the den, but as he sleepily blinked awake, he realized that plan hadn't entirely work. Fatigue dripped from his eyes, but his mind wouldn't let him rest.
/Where's Dragontooth?/
The blue-grey tom wasn't entirely sure what had transpired last night, but he had an idea, and he thought he knew who would have the rest of the explanation. He drew in the scents of the camp, shaking his head wearily. The air was clogged with the scent of ash, and he couldn't smell a thing.
Finally the tom gave up. He slumped, staring at his paws, too weary to groom his mangled pelt. He waited.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:48:13 GMT -5
Willowrain curved her back against the side of Asterfire. In her opinion, Asterfire and herself were in the best of conditions since they were protected by the cave's stone roof the entire time the asteroids had fallen. She got to her paws, and braced herself as the flood of memories almost knocked her off her feet. Newflight: serious burns and puncture wounds, along with extreme fatigue. Ethre: serious burns and moderate abrasion from the larger rock. Mudd: slight burns, torn claws, and serious abrasion from the larger rock.
Those three had suffered the most damage from the rocks, everyone else in the clan would simply have to make do with their ailments while her attention and supplies were focused on those three. Numbly, she dug out her thyme, colts foot, feverfew and marigold from the cleft in the rock wall.
She began the process of concocting the large poultice and divided the marigold and thyme. She carefully rubbed the soft, wet, squishy poultice onto the bodies of the three cats. There was some left over and looked over the sleeping cats, wondering who had the next most needy burns.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:52:16 GMT -5
Ethre opened her mouth, silently blinked up at Willowrain. A soft sigh escaped her mouth as she felt the relief of the poultice at work. Her tail twitched weakly and she managed a smile before slipping back into a heavy sleep.
Asterfire had awoken shortly after Willowrain finished the poultice. She sniffed the left over mixture, nodding in approval at what herbs had been used, then set about applying some of it to some of the less injured cats. She ran out quickly, and with a grim look dug around in their supplies for poppy seeds.
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:56:13 GMT -5
Dragontooth numbly carried the remaining prey from the fresh-kill pile back into the cave. The large shelter would have to suffice as their home while they recovered. Beyond its pprotective embrace, only choking ash and scorched land remained. He glumly gazed over all their wasted work spent on the no demolished camp. /As soon as the rest of the clan is strong enough, we will have to start repairing.../
|
|
|
Post by Frisby on Apr 23, 2011 7:58:47 GMT -5
Wolfecho padded up to his brother. The ground rocked unsteadily under his paws as dizziness gripped his head. He clenched his jaw and sifted earth through his claws, trying to act strong. "Dragontooth," he meowed quietly. His voice was weak and croaking. "If there is ever a time, Dragontooth...The clan needs a voice now. They need an explanation. And they need a leader." He didn't understand what had become of Mistedstar and Charcoalstar, but doubted they would return any time soon.
"So what do you say?" He quietly whispered, tilting his head, inviting him towards the battered hightree.
|
|