"I sure hope I get to meet this Bloodystar one day. He certainly seems like a better leader that Littlestar," Yarepawn replied with a half-hearted yawn, although her pale green eyes were hyper-focused on the boneyard. After so many moons of living as a rogue, she'd become a little extra aware of her surroundings, "Still, scavengers or no scavengers, I suppose it is worth a check. Wasn't a cat killed her not all the long ago? Or did I get my information wrong?"

Dragonfly was honored to be selected for this patrol... or at least, he had been until Butterscotchdrip started complaining about it. He was starting to feel a little self-conscious about his excitement now, and trailed at the end of the patrol, too despondent to bother arguing with her about that tyrant. But as the others chipped in, he sighed and reluctantly raised his voice.

"Bloodycrow was a murderer and a coward. He imprisoned Littlestar and punished the clans for moons before she finally chased him out. If he was in charge, we wouldn't be on a patrol here, we'd just be more bones in the yard." His voice had an edge to it. He didn't want to have this argument here, especially not in such a spooky place. "Honestpaw died here," he admitted, a shiver racing down his spine at the thought of the tom. Honestpaw was only a little bit younger than Carnagepanic himself. He hadn't seen the body, he had been too scared to go to the funeral, but he had heard nightmarish stories.

All these supposedly loyal SunClan cats, and no one truly hoping for their true leader's return. It made Butterscotchdrip sick to her stomach. One of these days, she would leave SunClan and look for their High Priest herself. "No! It's Bloodystar!" She growled and looked back to the rest of the patrol as she walked. "He deserves all of your respect! He did everything for his Clan!" Tears began to well in her eyes. "I don't understand how all of you can be so mean to him! He gave everything he had to make our lives better, and then you all just want to replace with a heretic Moon worshipper! Ugh!" She turned away from them and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Those murders never happened when Bloodystar led us, so I wonder what changed. I know, we let MoonClan's High Priest in and let her lead us."

(Some minor gore if that's not your thing)

"Well, you should know our real history, not what all of them want you to think. Littlestar is a lying fiend and she---" Her voice broke off into a shriek. As she stepped, the ground seemingly shattered and sent her into a small pit. The screech became a wail as she landed on the bottom, which was riddled with pointed and sharpened bones sticking straight up that were also coated in sand, dirt, and who knows what else. Her front legs stood no chance. One bone pierced her left upper leg up unto the joint, and she landed on a bone square in the center of her paw. The bone went straight through. She had slowed enough at that point so that her hind legs and paws where certainly punctured, but not impaled. "HELLLLLLLLLP!" She tried pulling her paw up, only to find that it was caught. Only then did she notice that the bones were chewed so that they had a few downward facing points meant to cause more damage on when the cat tried to get out.

Talking up Bloodycrow was getting on Tenebrousrequiem's last nerve the big tabby tom having to pointedly keep focused off to the side and not look ahead towards Butterscotchdrip.

He curled his lip when Butterscotchdrip started screeching. 'Serves her right.' His expression smoothed into indifference when he turned to look at the others.

"Watch your step Dragonfly, Midnightcurrent, Assertivewill" There was a beat. "You too Yarepawn." After all the tom had wisened up and started calling Bloodystar, Bloodycrow. "And yes it is Bloodycrow the one who nearly brought about SunClan's destruction will be called no other name... aside from perhaps corpse when the day comes."

The tom considered the trap Butterscotchdrip had fallen into. His eyes narrowing when he saw how meticulous it was done. It made his ears twitch as he cast his gaze around.

"The immediate area around the trap should be stable." He said. "Be wary anywhere else. Perhaps we should go fetch some rocks to try and shove them onto places to test them to try to find and destroy any other traps."

He'd leave the others to figure out rescuing Butterscotchdrip. His mate, his beloved was still struggling with the scars left behind from Bloodycrow. Anyone who spoke kindly of him could rot for all he cared.

The priority was ensuring no one else undeserving suffered such a fate.

Tenebrousrequiem scoffed and shook his head. "Apparently your listening skills are as half baked as your planning skills." He said. "I said throw rocks over the area beyond her hole, there's more space in the bone yard after all. Unless you'd rather the rest of us just wander around to find and disable any others. I already said it's likely the area immediately around her trap is stable. Throwing rocks on top of her wouldn't prevent anyone else from falling into a trap, just end her suffering."

'And silence her idiotic blind faith in Bloodycrow.' Tenebrousrequiem thought privately.

But the more he looked at the trap, the more uneasy he felt. Honestpaw's body had been in horrible shape, and this trap wasn't meant to kill it was meant to trap.

'And if we go about a haphazard rescue it'll likely take more victims.'

And anyone who didn't fall prey to it would still leave a smaller fighting force.

Tenebrousrequiem sighed. He had little sway with this group, he wasn't close with any of these cats so even if he argued to leave Butterscotchdrip to lure out what might've attacked Honestpaw, or argued to disable any other traps, they might get swept up in helping their clanmates since Yarepawn wanted to leap before she looked.

"Before you rush down there, you need to think." Tenebrousrequiem meowed.

"This trap isn't far into the boneyard, and while it's very possible there might be more like it, it doesn't look big enough to catch more than maybe a cat or two off guard. Which after one was sprung, and claimed a victim, anyone else who came after would be on high alert. If they knew what was coming."

"This isn't a trap to kill, it's a trap to maim and hold, to make escape difficult and painful." Tenebrousrequiem noted. "Think Yarepawn, if Honestpaw was brutally killed, then why would his killer settle for just maiming a cat? They know how we think, they know we'd jump to help a clanmate. Which means we can't just jump in, we need to think."

"they likely expect the trap to claim victims in not just the initial surprise and mistakes, but also in rescuers making a rushed attempt to rescue the victims, and thus becoming victims themselves." Tenebrousrequiem went on drawing back the way they had come snagging a dead branch and dragging it over. "So, you need to be smarter."

"Going down there with just Midnightcurrent holding onto you, you risk yourself and him. But, if you put a branch or two down there.You have something else to stand on and keep yourself safe." He set it to the side within reach for Yarepawn to take, he wasn't actually interested in helping Butterscotchdrip after all, just offering Yarepawn a smarter way to rescue.

"In the meanwhile, Dragonfly I want you to keep watch for anything that might be coming towards us." Tenebrousrequiem went on turning to the cat. He didn't know what Assertivewill would do but he wanted at least one other cat to sit out any rescue attempt just in case.

If it went belly up Tenebrousrequiem would rather have a cat at his back who could still fight without problem.

Tenebrousrequiem snorted shaking his head at her. Butterscotchdrip's front legs were as good as doomed in his eyes. She'd be lucky if she only lost the one where the branch had skewered through the whole thing, rather than both it and her paw.

He looked at Midnightcurrent, "Surely you can see reason," He said to the tom. "With nothing but the dirt and your own neck supporting Yarepawn she'll just wind up impaling herself as well as she tries to get Butterscotchdrip out. Putting something down to act as a bridge over those bones will be a lot easier. Not to mention easier for you to hold."

"But if not do as you'd like, though we will likely have to leave you three to fetch help if you all wind up compromised." Tenebrousrequiem said simply tail flicking. In truth he'd likely just send Assertivewill back to camp if they did fail their rescue attempt. It was likely that whatever had attacked Honestpaw might be lured out by the possibility of fresh prey and come to try and take advantage of any victims of its trap.

"Tenebrousrequim, do you plan to sit there and keep telling me that I'm not doing this right, or are you actually going to do something such as implement your own idea? I told you I wouldn't stop you, just that I wouldn't wait for you," Yarepawn sighed, allowing her attention to be divided for just one moment longer as she gave the tom an exasperated look. She and Midnightcurrent had lived as rogues for years. They didn't have the luxury of time or the option to go get help during those times, they were constantly flying by the seat of their pants, which was risky, yes, but it had gotten them this far.

Yarepawn had been born and raised in SunClan and after her moons away she realized just how dangerous the crutch of security could be to the development of Clan cats. She could see that Tenerbousreqium had that rare spark needed to be a spectacular leader, but Clan life left him soft, giving him time to overthink things and focus on those who disagreed with him more than the cat stuck in the hole with spikes through her paws.

And here Yarepawn was, feeding into it, which she supposed made her just as bad.

OK, that's it, time to save Butterscotchdrip.

The dilute calico she-cat nodded to Midnightcurrent, taking his advise to heart although she wasn't sure how feasible it would be. Could he handle pulling two cats out of a hole by himself? No, probably not. She figured she'd humor him but had a plan B in the back of her mind just in case.

"I'm coming down now, Butterscotchdrip. Hang in there!" stardance

---

SUMMARY FOR STARDANCE SO HE DOESN'T HAVE TO READ ALL OF THE ABOVE:

Yarepawn and Tenebrousrequim are in disagreement for how to handle this situation. Yarepawn wants to be lowered down into the pit and help while Tenebrousrequim wants to verify the pit is safe and then drop down a branch for Butterscotchdrip to climb out on. Yare told Ten that she wasn't going to wait for him and the two bicker for a bit, which results in Yare just doing what she wants anyway. She's just been lowered down to Butterscotchdrip by Midnightcurrent who is holding onto her by her tail.

Tenebrousrequiem huffed, and opted to pick up his branch. He came up beside Midnightcurrent, carefuly not to bump him or Yarepawn and set the branch down.

The branch brushed against Butterscotchdrip's side as he pushed it into the ground of the hole on the other side, making a support Yarepawn could grab onto in a pinch.

Butterscotchdrip's screeching would only ensure trouble might be coming sooner rather than later. And he decided it was best Midnightcurrent and Yarepawn, not be hurt for trying to get her out and shutting her up.

"There, you can grab it if you run the risk of losing your footing. Don't fall into the spikes." He said sharply. Before turning to go fetch more. If Yarepawn did fall in they'd need to cover more of the bottom of the pit to create platforms for any rescuers to stand on and extricate them safely, so he set off to go find another good piece of wood to stand on.