Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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It had been a few days since Ber had told her he'd be a part of their kits' lives. Now - because as much as she pointedly didn't want to be seen to be obeying his stipulations, the League was her home and she felt as safe among murderers and psychopaths as she did in the paradise of DayClan - Eshek was in the Warden's quarters. Why? Because she was still pissed off with Ber, much as she loved him and as much as she knew he was at least half right, and so she had to make his life hell. So, she turned to the thing that would distress and aggravate him the most: mild inconvenience. Things just out of place. The tiniest bit of loss of control. All morning, while he was away doing whatever he did, she'd moved everything just slightly to the left: all the ornaments on the mantlepiece, all the paintings (don't think about that too much, because yes she used a hammer and nails), every piece of furniture that she was able to shift, the rug. Now, she was taking the stuffing out of all the pillows just enough that he'd know something was off but he wouldn't be able to quite tell why he was so uncomfortable. She'd also let loose a spider that had scuttled away somewhere in the room and that would be bound to make itself known at a time, possibly late at night while he was trying to sleep, that would be very unpleasant for the father of her kits.
She was so engrossed in her work, smiling slightly to herself like she was finding this all to be a really good joke and her eyes narrowed in sadistic pleasure, that she didn't notice that someone else had entered the room.
The mansion, though familiar, had always just been a source of ghost stories and childhood double dog dares as the younglings all encouraged one another to brave that terrifying possibility of a real, soul-sucking demon lying in wait, and to walk around those halls and see it with the monotony of adult eyes and the way the lights illuminated all the dark corners and eradicated the chance of mystery from the inside out darkened her mood, like storm clouds rolling in from over the sea. She preferred the solitude of the stone stairway. She'd been born on these steps and could have been sculpted by them, with how sharp her features were and the smoky tincture of her fur, like dust settled over stainless steel. She remembered playing at the top and looking down at the League below, relishing in the feeling of being the tallest cat in the world as her group mates skittered around beneath her like ants waiting to be smashed.
Now, the top of the pyramid no longer touched the sky, worn away and crumbled in by the lingering effects time left on everyone. She, too, was worn and weathered - but unlike the stones, she showed no signs of it.
She still sashayed with a confidence only brightened by her years of living. Experience was one thing you couldn't get for nothing, and she'd given a lot of herself to the experiences lacing her stride with the resolution of one who'd definitely been through it. As much as she resented what the mansion represented now - safety and shelter, bah! Who needs that? - she wouldn't give her dear brother the satisfaction of not seeing her return to it every evening, in case he maybe got the impression she'd up and left again, so every day, she did go back and make a point to cross purposefully in front of his quarters.
Except, today, he wasn't there. Someone else was, and that very someone had a noticeably round stomach, full of ugly little Bermy's she was sure, and she couldn't deny herself the opportunity to finally meet the woman responsible for her brother going back on their childhood pact. "You should lick his bedding," she quipped from the doorway, "He'll think his nest is wet but not wet enough to be suspicious. It'll drive him crazy. Crazier."
Eshek startled when she heard the she-cat's voice behind her, having half expected it to be Ber instead. She turned around slightly, still loosely holding one of the pillows in her forepaws. “Thanks...” Esh replied uncertainly, her voice showing that she genuinely was thankful but also unsure of why she was being offered free advice. As much as she loved and revered the League, even she knew that no cat around here ever started a conversation without some sort of ulterior motive, even if it was just interest where there shouldn't have been any. But where she might have snapped at a tom to get out, she was always overly trusting of she-cats, always gave them the benefit of the doubt, could never bring herself to be rude to them. A pretty girl was her greatest weak spot.
"Do you... know him?" She went back to pulling stuffing out of the pillow, albeit a little more slowly and less enthusiastically before, her eyes never leaving the she-cat even with her head bowed toward her work. "I didn't think Bermondsey had any friends but me. Honestly if that's not true it'll kinda ruin my whole day." It wasn't clear, even to herself, whether she was joking or not because she didn't exactly laugh despite the polite, toothy sort of smile-grimace she flashed at her, but she wasn't; she'd grown accustomed to the idea that she was the most important figure in his life save for whatever scraps of his family remained, had grown to like it. For a lonely thing like her, with 1,000 acquaintances but only a handful of people who a) were her friend, and b) were her friend and could put up with her, it was a source of comfort and security that meant the world. She had never taken him for the sort that just... had female companions. Quite honestly, she'd half-accepted that their night on the rooftop might have been his first time. But he was the Warden, she supposed. That sort of power carried a certain appeal to it that even she wasn't immune to, as much as she mocked and belittled him to cover it up. She didn't know why she was feeling jealous. The feeling, as unwarranted and befuddling as it was, curled in her gut despite her best efforts to get rid of it and her silent horror at it.
Chelsea sat. She leaned against the frame of the archway, effectively blocking the one exit from Eshek's access, and made a casual display of grooming one of her paws and drawing it against her long, spindly whiskers. There was some intoxicating kind of power in indifference, in knowing you held the cards and knew every play and your opponent was clueless to what was to come. She would get drunk off that sensation if it were a drink, tasted off the tongue of someone who thought they could make her swoon but never even came close.
"Of course. No need to thank me, really. Consider it a gift, one gal to another, no?" There was discernible fear in how Eshek regarded her, some budding little monster staining her pretty blue eyes green, and it was a pity really that she was so easy to figure out. Sey-Sey didn't pick his ladies based on their sense of self-preservation, it seemed, if this one was anything to go by; though, she supposed he always did like a girl that would kill for him, thinking he would do the same for her. "Sey-Sey - sorry, Bermondsey and I know each other very well. I wouldn't quite call us friends, but trust me: We go way back. Thanks for keeping him company since I've been gone. He's never had very good luck with friends, so it's nice to see he has someone to..." her wine-red eyes flitted to Eshek's stomach then back to resume eye contact, "play with now. Congratulations, by the way. I'm sure you're eager to meet your bundles of joy soon, no? How far along?" There was nothing overtly sinister in her line of questioning, but there was a quality in the way she asked, the way she glossed around Eshek's questions without supplying an answer, that would be unsettling, and that just played into her pleasure in watching others squirm.
Eshek had been growing more and more uncomfortable, her gaze following the she-cat's down to her stomach and resisting the urge to draw in on herself at the crassness of it, strange, unwilling jealousy pooling like absinthe in her belly as she dragged the stuffing out of the pillows with paws that had long since grown tingly and numb and uncooperative, - until Chelsea said 'no?' Bermondsey was the only one she'd ever met who ended his sentences like that. "You're his sister," she said aloud, and there was almost a sigh of deep relief in her voice. She let out a breathless little laugh and gave the pillow a big, single shake, going back to emptying it with renewed casualness and a happy, toothy half-grin on her face. All the tension left her body and she was just dumb, thoughtless Eshek again, her chest lighter than before, going about her scheme like it was all that mattered and not the thousand other things a proxy probably should have been doing. "He mentioned she was around. Guess that makes us some kind of sisters." There was that loneliness of hers.
Now that she knew who Chelsea was, all her guards were completely down and she trusted her entirely. It should have been the opposite - she'd heard enough of Ber's paranoia to know his family were bad news - but she was most susceptible to two things in all the world: girls and family, or her lack thereof. So, she just chattered on obliviously, sounding more normal than anyone had probably ever heard her sound. Answering an earlier question that she'd been too distracted and stressed to properly register at the time, she told her, moving onto de-fluffing another pillow and discarding the other at her side, "oh! And, um, about three weeks. Thank you. Ber's been very... protective." Possessive, she meant. But aside from her initial outburst to put him back in line, she found it comforting more than she hated it. She'd never belonged to something as much as she now felt she belonged to his family, dark and twisted and old royalty as they were. "But really, he's been good. He was scared, at first, but now I think he's determined to do all he can for them. He'll probably have at least one big panic attack before they're born, but." She laughed, still looking down at the pillow. The way Eshek was talking was probably the most fond anyone had ever sounded when speaking of Bermondsey, like he was just some kitten playing at being menacing. "Maybe he has them every night, I dunno. He just doesn't want them to end up like you guys did with your own parents." She realised what she'd said a moment too late and looked up, slow and guilty and embarrassed. "No offence." She offered a toothy little grin.
Chelsea never motioned to agree or disagree, though the ensuing silence was telltale in its own right. Yes, she was his sister, in the same way a child was related to an estranged great-aunt and was forced to call her family behind a strained, tight-lipped smile. No, they weren't siblings, in that same manner of siblings who antagonize each other constantly and who'd been separated for years but still fell into place like no time at all had passed, yet would deny any blood ties to one another. They were family; the best and worst of one.
Her smile at Eshek's insipid rambling was mild, unremarkable and giving away nothing of the thoughts in her head. From where she was standing, an outsider looking into a family cobbled together by two broken cats, they deserved to be scared of these kits. The apple didn't fall far from the tree - and what a rotten, shriveled tree it was, its life force sustained by the blood of their kin and the only gratitude they got for extending it was a curse passed from roots to trunk to leaves. Anything that came off their tree was bound to feel its poison. Her ear flicked as Eshek grinned at her, reflecting one back at her, ever the chameleon. "None taken, sis. He was always a bit more concerned with the family hand-me-downs than the rest of us," she revealed. Untrue; Chelsea had ended her own kits' lives before they ever had a chance to claw their way into life, purely out of the fear of what they'd turn into were they given the chance. "Have you started picking out names?"
"Mm, no, but I know I want them to have Clan names as well as ours. I never would have been interested in anything like it when I was younger but now I know there’s a whole world for them beyond the League, and it’s sometimes safer. I want them to have the option to choose where their paws will take them, because it might not be here. I want that freedom for them." She sounded gentle, idealistic, full of hope and love and a soft, quiet happiness for the future. "Ber will probably freak because he's always hated my Clan name, says it's a mouth full, but he can't really say no to me." She smiled to herself.
Fluffing out the last of the pillows she was working on, she left the rest in a pile and swept a blanket over them, hoping Ber would happen to be out long enough that she could go and come back before he saw anything. Dusting her paws off, she padded over to Chelsea with a trusting smile. "Wanna go for a walk? You can tell me embarrassing stories about Ber that I can use when he pisses me off. Or just tell me about you. I wanna get to know you." Her voice was utterly childlike in its earnestness, her smile as open and sweet as it had ever been.
Truthfully, she did have one suffix picked out - hope - but it was so cheesy she wasn't going to say it until they were born and Bermondsey didn't have time to back out, hopefully because he was either overcome with emotion or, failing that, because his odd, outdated chivalry would force him to bow to a new mother's wishes. It was too embarrassing, too honest, and she didn't want to be made fun of for it; she was shy about it.
If the fury in her raged, cacophonied in her ribcage, and if her disgust curdled in her stomach, there was no indication of it in the sanguine smile she presented. "Clan names, hmm? I didn't take you for a clan cat," she remarked, tittering a slight laugh, "How cute are they? Do they still thank their little stars for their meals and teach their young to restrain, not kill? Or have they grown up since I've last been here?" Chelsea certainly shared her brother's disdain for the clans, but she likewise didn't understand the newfound leniency of Primal Instinct, allowing one of their own - a proxy no less - to live in both.
She gestured for Eshek to lead the way back through the mansion, a soft purr rumbling in her throat as the other she-cat got near that faded as they regained space between them, and kept her eyes locked ahead. When they were outside, she was different; Chelsea was more relaxed, eyes now wandering around them, paws lighter and her stride far more comfortable walking paths she'd traveled a thousand times. She hated how claustrophobic the mansion was, with its closed-in halls and no way to see outside unless you stood on the windows' ledges. "Bermondsey was a weird little kid. You think he's weird now, he was way worse when we were young. You know, he didn't learn to talk until we were trainees," she regaled, spinning all her favorite stories of her childhood for Eshek's amusement. What were sisters for if not to torment the one cat that bound them together? She wasn't Eshek's biggest fan - far from it - but she did love to aggravate her brother at any opportunity. "We made him believe the stars were eyeballs watching him while he slept, so he always wet the nest if he woke up during the night. Does he still do that? Otherwise, he's a shy peer. He has to hum to himself if it's too quiet." Chelsea chuckled then mimicked the sound, which was just the Afro Circus song from Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. "He dances to it too."
