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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The family was all curled up, but the mother couldn't sleep. Ber's room was flooded with silver moonlight, pooling across the floorboards and leaving dark shadows in the corners; their kits were cuddled up in the space between their two bodies, a safe little barrier between them and the rest of the world, between them and anything that might want to harm them; and she was haunted by a strange, aching melancholy. Maybe it was just the beauty of the night, the peacefulness of the room; something told her the other shoe was going to drop soon, that nothing could stay this perfect for this long. The trauma of a childhood in the League never left her, even though she loved her home with all her heart. And it was that childhood she yearned so much to protect her kits from.
And so, tonight, she'd take a little step towards that. Ber wanted to contain their children to the League, wanted to keep them here until they were old enough to decide for themselves - and, even though he said that, she knew it was likely he was hoping they'd have no interest in being anywhere else, that they'd fall into the same brainwashing she and he both had drilled into them. But as much as she loved her home, she wanted her kits to have other options - to have the world open to them, so that even if it broke her heart to see them leave, they would never feel like they couldn't. They would always know it was there. And she knew Ber would be furious - knew he'd think she'd betrayed him - but at that moment, lying there in the cold silver light with all their breathing melding around her, her kits' wellbeing, her kits' dreams, mattered more than her best friend's fury.
So, gently shaking Laertes awake with one paw where he was tucked against her stomach, because he was the most able to be quiet and because she had a particularly protective love for her tender-hearted son, Eshek leaned down close to him before he could voice any confusion and murmured softly, her voice little more than a warm breath across his face, "come on, baby." Swiping her tongue between his ears, she carefully stood, easing her paws and long legs out from beneath her daughters and her tail out from under Ber's, and turned towards the door. Looking back down at Laertes, she offered him a little smile and jerked her head to the door. "Quiet, yeah?"
Laertes was the type who, as soon as his head hit the pillow, was out like a light, taking his usual position just under his mother's chin, curled up against the warmth of her neck and chest until he rolled over sometime later. He dreamed of simple things, of quiet days with his families with little weird twists at the end, of the mansion and their room, of gentle fields he had yet to see, and not once did a night-time adventure cross his mind until his mother was gently shaking him awake, and immediately he knew what was going on. Laertes was smart, he was analytical, he could piece together small puzzles that many kits his age couldn't, because he used his head. He would be the kid who stayed inside all day, showering himself in pages of literature and nonfiction and old, outdated studies. He would write essays for fun, and to appear smarter, of course.
Quiet, yeah? He lifted his head, scrambled to his paws quickly and silently, stood crouched and lumbering and awkward and a bit too big, even in their large room. He nodded.
He spoke in a low whisper, "Mother, where are we going?" Stopping just beside her, he tilted his head to meet her eyes because, while he was still a little bigger than his sisters, he still didn't match her height, even more so with the way he seemed to curl in on himself. The darkness was daunting — who knew what was out in the night, he certainly didn't give it much thought, and the unknown was always what seemed to drive his fear the most; he trusted his mother fully, was attached at her hip, but he knew how she could be, knew because it had carried all down to his sisters and he and his father were left to be the only reasonable ones.
"On an adventure, baby," she replied quietly, teasingly, like it should have been obvious and he was a bit slow for not catching up. But the tone of voice was quickly followed by a loving grin; her son was the cleverest one in the family, would probably end up being cleverer than Ber, and just as she was incredibly proud of him for it, she also wasn't going to stop teasing him for being a little bookworm nerd - especially when his mom was the least bookish killer to ever walk these unholy halls. She was the popular party queen who'd never understand his head for numbers and big books, and she loved him with all her heart for it. He could sit her down and give her a lecture on quantum physics in the empty library and she'd just nod and grin from ear to ear and raise her paw to ask stupid, encouraging questions when he asked the non-existent audience for any queries.
Looking down at her kit, she wondered if her mother was watching her now, if she was proud. Her heart clenched with painful hopelessness as she reminded the childish, wishful part of herself that she wasn't; there was nothing after death but cold, empty blackness. And that only made protecting her babies and spending all the time she could with them all the more important. Forcing the kind, reassuring smile back onto her face, Eshek nudged Laertes forward with one gentle paw and followed after him, easing the door open just wide enough for them to slip through and then closing it behind her with a little wince when it creaked slightly. "C'mon, c'mon," she whispered to him hurriedly, ushering him forward like there was a monster chasing after them and doing a funny, overly-careful, hunched-up walk down the stairs, picking each paw up too high just to be the dumb clown mom.
She wasn't as afraid for him this time round; now, when she reached the bottom of the stairs she just waited there calmly, looking back up to watch him descend. "I think you'll love DayClan - they have these beautiful wheat fields and-and apple orchards," her eyes widened, not as excited by the familiar part of the territory as she was about sharing it with her son, and about him hopefully being at least a little excited too, "and everything is just generally a lot less scary than it is here. But we gotta go quick, 'cuz if your dad finds out he'll skin me." She let out a laugh under her breath, collecting Laertes at the bottom and ushering him across the entry hall to the open front door.
"Oh." He didn't sound quite as excited as Eshek probably hoped, instead he hesitated, looked at her like he was begging to stay behind, though he didn't say a thing on it, simply winced as she creaked open the door and followed after her. He attempted to stay close by her side for fear that he might somehow, inexplicably, get lost, but she went down the stairs much faster than he did (they were still scary, so he took them one at a time). The last step was always the clumsiest, but he got down smoother than he did last time, meeting her at the bottom and stopping, briefly, to catch his breath.
I think you'll love DayClan. He remembered the clan being mentioned once or twice, always felt intrigued by the prospect of it, by all the other groups and clans. Laertes wanted to know everything about them, every tradition, every rule, every inch of their land, their history, the way they lived life. He heard the clans had silly names, nothing as cool as his own, but still interesting to hear about. So, at the mention that they were going there, he lit up, almost forgot his nervousness altogether, steps becoming more eager and excited. It was the most high energy that he would display. He bounced on his toes.
But we gotta go quick, 'cuz if your dad finds out he'll skin me. He laughed quietly, still keeping his voice down. "I won't let Father do such a thing!" He declared, "you have no need to worry." he was convinced she was being genuinely serious, rubbed the top of his head on her leg in reassurance like he had taken a pact to protect her. Excitement aside, the outside still concerned him, and even though the prospect of Dayclan was so, so enticing, he still paused, fell back so he was almost under Eshek because he knew she would protect him.
Eshek looked down at her son with a tilted head and a lopsided, close-lipped smile, eyes both amused and indescribably tender. "Thanks, baby," she replied, lifting her leg slightly as he rubbed his head against it. The smile was still on her face as they set off and Laertes slipped half-beneath her; she was tall enough that the tops of his ears still didn't brush her underbelly, but it still made walking a little awkward and she took each step with him in mind, careful not to hurt him. Either way, she didn't acknowledge it aloud - she was still learning whether he wanted to be babied or treated like a very responsible, competent grown-up, so for now she'd just let him think she hadn't noticed.
"What've you been up to lately?" she asked him as they walked, soon disappearing into the clinging darkness of the trees and undergrowth that bordered the Mansion's clearing. Usually she loped through here late at night without any, as hooded-eyed and fearless as if the only things that lurked in dark woods were pitiful little mice and she was a wolf; and though she was still mostly fearless now, knowing she could take down anything that confronted her, she was a little more attentive with her kit here, ears swivelling slightly at every new sound and nose twitching occasionally to scent the cold breeze. "You've been out and about more. Find anythin' cool?" She took a brief break from where her head was turning slowly this way and that to gaze into the undergrowth like a soldier scanning the horizon to look down at her son with a genuinely interested smile. She wanted to say she missed him when he was out, but she didn't want him to feel obligated to stay by her side - because she knew he would if she asked, if she even hinted that she was lonely without him. She wanted him to go out and explore and have fun and be the kid neither she or Ber ever got to be.
Usually, he tried to keep his steps proper, carry himself with grace and and a slight, intentional arrogance even if it made him look much more like a nerd than he already was, but as he cowered under his mother, he kept himself low to the ground, his natural pace a light, timid walk. He peeked out, stared up at the dizzying tall, imposing trees of the League's forest, took a few deep breaths as they continued, fully expecting some monster to attack them.
"I like the way the mansion looks," he was a big fan of the old architecture — he wondered what others cool buildings were out there, "I've been exploring it." He had made his way out onto one of the balconies once, peered through the rails at the ground below and forward, towards the forest, until he was sick and unsteady enough that he felt he may fall. The other floors were, for the most part, not somewhere he went often. Those cursed stairs. He continued to explain, voice still hushed and nervous, "and I found a human clothing, it was long and almost trapped me. Oh, and a ginormous bug." Despite the over the top, proper speech he usually put on, sometimes he would slip into a higher, childish, innocent voice. While it wasn't as expressive — he wasn't one to be so outwardly emotional, even at a young age — it was much more genuine. Clipped sentences, messed up words and phrases and exaggerated descriptions of ordinary things.
He was more comfortable now, talking about his findings, but every twitch of the undergrowth or the leaves sent him flinching away, cowering even more under his mother until he was sure he would accidentally trip her, and then how would she defend him? He attempted to take his mind off it.
"Mother, how many other groups are there?" He questioned, curious and wanting, needing to know more about them. "And why are we going to Dayclan? Is it the best one?"
Eshek smiled along as he spoke, careful of him creeping along beneath her; it made the going considerably slower, but she didn’t rush him. They’d go at his pace. When he mentioned exploring the Mansion, she was grateful he was too small to see her expression; though the smile was still on her face, it became a tragic thing, tearful and so afraid. Every day of her life — every day of her pregnancy, and now until the day she died — she’d be afraid of her kits living their lives, of them suffering the same fate she did, the same fate the first litter she never got to know did; of them falling, of their necks breaking, of that same blackness swallowing them as it had her. But she wouldn’t say a thing. She couldn’t. It was her private terror. She was older than many she-cats were when they had their first litter, already carried the pain of a miscarriage she didn’t remember, and even though she could stifle them to keep them near her, to keep them safe, she couldn’t do that — they had to be free, even if she would tear up from fear every time they wandered close to an edge.
Oh, and a ginormous bug. And then his innocence broke through to her and she let out a slightly wet-sounding laugh, stopping for a brief second to wipe her cheek. “That sounds great, baby,” she laughed, continuing on and taking a big step to avoid squishing her son. “Maybe it was one’a those bugs with pincers that you can use to give your fur a cut an’ style. Maybe then we wouldn’t have this.” She stopped and teasingly brushed a paw over the soft fur behind his ears that always stuck up, grinning down at him lovingly. Then she ushered him along again, sniffing once but still smiling, her voice the kind of tearful that came of being so happy and so sad at the same time. “Or maybe it’s one’a those bugs you can eat. Next time you find one we can have a creepy crawly dinner.” She looked down between her forelegs to grin at him, eyes sparkling, knowing how much he’d probably hate that suggestion.
“Mmm.” She looked ahead as she thought. “A ton. Ten, twelve? If you want, when you get a bit older I can take you to see them all — there’s a Clan that lives on a snowy mountain, ruled by an ice queen. And there’s one that only comes out at night, and another that lives in a desert and worships a Sun God. There’s even one that lives underground.” And why are we going to DayClan? Eshek smiled. “Because I live there, baby. I live with you and your sisters and your dad in the League, but I also live in DayClan. One of my best friends in the world lives there. I have a different name when I live there, though — like a secret spy.” She let out a purr.
He didn't see her expression, hardly noticed the tearfulness in her voice, wouldn't understand it if he did, simply continued to talk about his findings like they were the most interesting thing in the world.
"Bugs with pincers?" He grimaced. Truly a disturbing thought. "I think the one I found had wings," though he never got a good look at it, because even the glimpse of such a thing had scared him out of the room enough that he still avoided it. Or maybe it’s one’a those bugs you can eat. He opened his mouth in shock for a moment, not at all exaggerated.
Then he wrinkled his little nose, "who would ever think of eating a bug? I do not think they look very appetizing." It sounded more like he was scolding someone for thinking the very thought, sounding snobbish and stuck-up, like he was a wealthy nobleman who had just stumbled across a poor peasant.
If you want, when you get a bit older I can take you to see them all — he had forgotten completely about the insects by now, listening intently and interested as she explained the Clans, their varied ways of life, taking all of it in like the valuable information it was. A mountain? Underground? Deserts? Gods and queens, concepts out of fairytales and stories that made his feet buzz with excitement. The feeling had driven him out from under his mother, walking just ahead, slowly, and while she probably wouldn't be able to go any faster, at least he was out from under her feet.
I have a different name when I live there, though — like a secret spy.
"Oooo," he smiled, genuine, thin-lipped and awkward on his face, "what is it? Do I get one? I want a cool name. Who's your friend? I thought Father was your best friend?" He had so many questions — and maybe the trip wasn't such a bad idea after all, and the forest didn't seem that scary now, much less so that he was able to move more ahead in a brief spark of confidence, giving Eshek room to finally move properly.
I do not think they look very appetizing. She couldn't stop the way she beamed at that, at his fussiness he only could have inherited from Ber; she couldn't believe a little tom like this could ever be her son - and she couldn't be happier for it. She didn't think anyone would ever make her laugh the way Laertes did without even meaning to, while being completely serious. Her heart flooded with love for him, and it only grew when he finally slipped out from beneath her to make his own way in the dark woods. Eshek's eyes flicked to him, swimming with pride.
She grinned down at him, purring out an almost self-conscious, self-deprecating laugh. "Carriondare," she replied. "Your dad always says it's too long but I like it." As more questions tumbled out of him, she just loped along slowly at his side, smiling down at him with that sharp brand of love that looked so out of place amid all Eshek's violence and scars and cruelty. "You can have one if you want, baby - your dad didn't want you to be given one until you were old enough to ask for it yourself, but I, super secretly, have always wanted to give you one." A soft, crooked little smile pushed the corner of her mouth up and she reached out to stroke her paw over her kit's head. "It's up to you though, my angel." His next question made her snort, rolling her eyes fondly back to the path ahead. She was going to crack a joke about how loser, weird kid Ber who hung out at the back of the classroom would be lucky to call popular girl her his best friend, but she knew the fond teasing would be lost on their son. "'Course he is," she purred, and she meant it with all her heart, "that'll never change. He and I share you," she nudged her kit's cheek with the tip of her paw, grinning down at him, "we're stuck together. My DayClan friend, though - I knew him long before I ever met your dad. He used to live in the League - he was born there, same as all of us - but his mom is the leader of DayClan, and so one day he decided to move there instead." It wasn't the full story, but talking about the Eeries, about Funk's place with them that had now become hers, made her heart ache in such a way that she could never talk about them for long.
Plastering on a bigger smile to dispel the grey haze of jealousy and pain that always descended over her at the thought, she hurried her pace a little, breaking into a bounding trot that would have her son running at almost full-pelt, even as she loped along almost in slow motion at his side. "C'mon, nerd," she teased him - and headed straight across the DayClan border. Immediately the air was sweeter, softer warmer, smelling of wheat and the distant wisteria flowers in the camp. She turned in a leaping half-circle, landing a little way ahead of her son and grinning at him, eager to show off her adopted home that she hoped might some day be his, and in the process becoming a little more like her old self and a little less like his usual calm mother. "Y'like it? Where do you wanna go first? I'm a VIP here," she absolutely wasn't - she was one step above prisoner class, but, semantics, "so we've got nothin' to worry about."
He gasped like it was the best thing in the world, "that's a wonderful name — Father simply doesn't know what he's talking about." He wanted a cool name like that, a name that made people linger. He practiced it on his tongue a few times, repeating the name under his breath until he could say it with confidence, practicing. Then he looked up at her, with large, pleading eyes, "I want one." It almost came out as a whine, but with less sadness and more desperation, because it felt like the most important thing in the world at the time. "It has to be very pretty and powerful," he had to lay down some rules, of course, but he was still beaming, "something like yours."
He and I share you. He gently pushed her paw away, unbothered by her affection. He listened intently as she spoke of her Dayclan friend, and with every word more, he wanted to meet him. Laertes imagined him as some fairytale prince, a folklore hero, someone he already wanted to be like because he just sounded so cool. Perhaps he got attached to easily.
"Why'd he leave? Will I get to talk to him?" He asked, though half-way distracted by the way the air seemed to change, how it was a little less stuffy than the forest was, how the ground itself seemed to shift. He hurried along as she sped up, still nervous he might trip but not feeling as scared as he was before, because this Dayclan sounded wonderful and he just had to see it. He was never the quick type, his little body was uneven and clumsy, like he had just learned to walk a few days ago instead, but he still ran after her.
At her teasing, he made an unpleasent face, mocking her back, "I'm not a nerd!" He defended, stumbling to a stop to take in the scenery, so different than what he was used to in the League. No rickety floors, no trees that terrified him due to their sheer height. It was gentle and flowery. It wasn't gloomy, nor crowded with undergrowth, and he seemed to fall in love at the very sight of it.
He let out a small breath, "woah," then he turned to look up at his mother again, "anywhere? Where is the best place?"
Eshek grinned down at her son, soft and awed, genuinely joyful that he liked her name as much as she did. Something like yours. To cover up the burst of sheepish happiness at his words, she replied in a teasing, deep voice, “of coourse.” Voice back to normal, she nudged his side gently and purred down at him, giving him a little challenge to keep him occupied — she knew his clever mind always needed it, needed the stimulation, and she liked giving him tasks that he’d feel very smug about completing, “keep an eye out for anything pretty and powerful you see on our travels. Maybe we can find your name tonight.” She made it sound like they’d just stumble across a name hidden under a rock; maybe he’d like that, the order of it. A smile grew on her face at the thought.
When he pushed her paw away, she gave him about a moment’s peace before suddenly crouching down, letting out a playful growl that rumbled in her throat, her narrowed eyes glittering, and leapt at him, delicately tumbling him over and over until her son was held atop her, her forelegs held upwards at full length to balance Laertes in the air. “Whoops, ya let ya guard down and a mountain lion got ya,” she teased him lovingly, grinning up at him. “That’s the danger of DayClan.” Lowering him back down to her, she gave him a quick kiss on his forehead, which he no doubt hated, and let him go gently on the soft grass. As he asked more about Lucistic, she stayed where she was, lying on her side sprawled out in the night-time grass, her cheek on the ground as she smiled up at her son like a domesticated lioness, tamed by a kit. “He has a daughter here,” she explained, offering a half-true answer to hide the fact she didn’t know. She’d been dead when he made that decision. She had no idea why he had left, had sometimes wondered, perhaps hopefully, if it had had anything to do with the fact she wasn’t there anymore. “Much older than you — older than me, I think.” She laughed, a genuine, happy sound, like she’d given up trying to understand the anti-aging properties of DayClan. “Time moves weirdly in DayClan.” Will I get to talk to him? “One day, baby,” she promised. “I’d love you to. He does have a terrible phobia of kits, though.” She grinned up at him. “So you might terrify him.”
Hauling herself heavily to her paws, she loped along ahead, throwing a crooked, sidelong smile at her son’s denial of his nerdiness. “Well,” she mused at his question, then suddenly perked up. “Ooh! Wanna watch the sun rise at the beach? There’s this goooorgeous place called Cherry Cove with crystal caves and redwood trees and sometimes you can see little twoleg boats on the horizon. I saw a dolphin once.” She poked him in the ribs with one paw, snatching it back before he could brush her off again. “Just don’t fall in the water,” she teased with a loving grin. “Or the sharks’ll get ya. Nah,” she added, looking ahead again. “I wouldn’t let that happen to you. Any shark ever tries to eat you, you just tell him to talk to me and I’ll fix ‘im. What else is a mother for?” She tilted her head to look at him, predatory eyes full of soft, protective love.
By now, they were making their way out from the tall, dense, vine-drooping forests of DayClan and into the rows of apple trees. Night-time insects flitted between them, and in the long, soft grass frogs and crickets croaked and chirped and hopped. From one lowhanging branch, a fruit bat hung upside down, peering at Laertes with wide eyes as it hugged itself with its wings. Eshek copied the huge-eyed stare, entering into a staring contest with it as they approached. The night was peaceful and beautiful.
He would have saluted if he could, instead giving a few enthusiastic nods, paying extra attention to the ground like something beautiful and worthy would just pop up. He came up with a dirt smudge on the bridge of his nose, but took the time to rub it off, because if they were in such important territory he had to look presentable.
He eyed her as she crouched down, tilting his head and asked, "what?" before he suddenly realized what might happen. He went to back up, not out of any real fear, simply to run off,. When she flipped him up and over, he didn't try to hold in his laughter, but he looked down at her, wide-eyed and curious. "Mountain lion?" When he thought of a lion, he thought of a monstrous cat, imposing and terrifying, and he wondered if these ones were the size of actual mountains. He tried to block his face as she kissed him, sputtered until he was standing upright again. Time moves weirdly in DayClan. He looked around. Time didn't feel like it passed any differently, though he wondered if he'd even notice it. Then he laughed at the mention of her friend's fear, because wouldn't that be funny? Laertes of all cats scaring this grown tom. He'd always wondered what it was like to actually frighten someone — sometimes Nour would pop out from behind corners when he passed and it always gave him a startle, but he'd never been able to scare her back.
He followed her, a little slower now as he wanted to examine anything in hopes of it being name inspiration. He spoke without looking up, "crystal caves?" It was a distracted sort of awe. "I want to go there."
He wasn't a very ticklish cat, usually meeting it with a straight face and not much else, but he laughed at her jab anyway, because being around Eshek made him want to come down from the arrogant perch he had made himself. He didn't feel the need to be the boss, or the reasonable one, or the best. "I don't want to be eaten!" He fretted, though her words calmed him.
As they continued to walk he pressed himself a little closer, taking in sight of the apples and vines and the new-looking trees. Their forests weren't as dark as the Leagues, and the one they had just approached had fruit hanging from their trees. At the sight of the bat, he froze for a moment, unsure of what it even was, before he moved slowly to peer at it from behind Eshek. "What is that?" He whispered, trying not to startle it.
Her son's laughter was the most beautiful sound in the world; he so rarely did it when he was around Ber and his sisters and she felt a great, warm glow of love in the pit of her stomach at the thought of him feeling safe enough around her to let his little guard down. She padded up to the bat and stopped behind Laertes, his back legs bumping against her front ones. "A bat," she whispered back, blinking and breaking their staring contest to smile lopsidedly down at her son. "They come out at night and eat fruit and live upside down in trees. I always think they look like a fox, with all that fluff around their necks. I totally wanna pet it right now but I'm using all my willpower to stop myself." She laughed. Growing uninterested in their scrutiny, the bat suddenly opened its mouth in a wide yawn. Eshek nudged Laertes' flank with her paw, nodding to it, and her whisper grew breathy with excitement. "Look at its teeth - they're a million times bigger than yours. I hope it doesn't confuse you with a tasty tangerine." She grinned down at her son, ushering him on with a bump of her nose against his rump, overbalancing him slightly so he tottered on his forepaws for a moment. "C'mon - I bet we'll find a bunch more in the caves down by the sea."
She led the way slowly through the tall, soft grass of the orchard; the night was alive with the gentle hoots of an owl. As they neared the edge of the apple trees, flapping overhead made Eshek look up. "Look," she whispered to Laertes, nodding her head up to the star-filled night sky. The bat soared over them, heading to the ocean as well. "Wanna ask him for a lift?" she asked, eyes still on the sky. After a few moments longer, she looked back down at her son with a sparkly-eyed smile and continued on.
When they neared the towering cliffs, the grass strewn with cherry blossom petals and the black ocean glittering with stars, she led the way down a winding path towards the sand, keeping clear of the perilous drop. "Your sister would throw herself off it," she commented with a purring laugh, and she knew he'd know she was talking about Nour. Once they reached the cool, soft sand of the little cove, the waves lapping gently at the shore and the redwood-studded cliffs rising around them, Eshek stopped to let Laertes explore the new sensations. To their left, a long strip of cliffs stretched away out to sea in an arch, a few redwoods growing upon the land at the end and down the sides of the rock towards the ocean. Then, with a smile, she padded across the sand towards the entrance to the crystal cave. Rather than being dark, the entrance glowed a soft white, lit by the moonlight reflecting off the sea.
Inside, shards of pale quartz crystals clung to every inch of the walls, sparkling so bright they almost seemed to hum. "Sharp," she warned her son softly, holding out her paw and touching the pad to the point of one of the crystals. Then she smiled; of course he knew that. "And watch your nose - these things can come out'a nowhere and suddenly you're like," she went cross-eyed and gasped to demonstrate; when her eyes went back to normal, she grinned.
