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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11.06.2022 The site has been transformed into an archive. Thank you for all the memories here!
Here on Classic we understand that sometimes life can get difficult and we struggle. We may need to receive advice, vent, know that we are not alone in our difficult times, or even just have someone listen to what's going on in our lives. In light of these times, we have created the support threads below that are open to all of our members at any time.
Peonypaw was on top of the world. She’d moved out of the nursery with all the ’yeah, bye’ carelessness of a new teenager, barely looking back at Shadedsun or Doefreckle before she was putting her nest as close to Sunrisepaw’s as she could without being accused of breathing her disgusting, humid breath down Middie and my’s necks, this is an EXCLUSIVE corner and YOU’RE still just a stupid BABY. She’d made sure, too, that Petuniapaw had a nest right next to hers, because even if her sister was hurt by her drifting attention, Peonypaw still considered her her best friend in the world — but even she could admit most of her attention had been on Sunrisepaw, on sitting in her own nest with her back turned to her sister late into the night and trying to join in the conversation between the other pair of sisters, trying to match insult for insult and maybe also manage to slip in a tentative compliment here and there, like she was testing the waters.
Of course, there was the small matter of her not having lasted the full night in her new den. Once everyone else had fallen asleep and she was left in that awful, echoing silence, he’d slipped out and slunk back to the nursery, curling up with her dads and letting herself pretend for just one more night that she was still a kit; the homesickness had hit her so suddenly and completely, even though her old den and her old life were just a few steps away. The knowledge that she was growing up, that she wouldn’t need her dads as much anymore, that she wouldn’t get to just babble to them in the late evenings while they groomed her fur for night-time and lapped any errant prickles from between her pads — that that warm, safe, small world was… over. It had been too much, and she’d tucked herself in between them and cried. She’d wanted Petuniapaw there, too. They’d tried to comfort her, to hush and soothe her, and Doe had murmured all sorts of gentle things with his paw smoothing over her fur, but it hadn’t helped. It had just made it worse, because this was what she was giving up. For what? To become an apprentice trailing after someone who didn’t even like her. In that late-night vulnerability, she could admit it. I think she’s mad at me, she’d sobbed, face hidden in Shadedsun’s chest in shame. Petuniapaw. Doe had tried to force surprise onto his face, exchanging a guilty look with Shaded despite the other tom’s blindness. I’m sure she’s not MAD, he’d tried to reassure her, but it had sounded like a parental lie even to Peonypaw. She might just feel a bit… Again he’d looked at Shaded, and there was some other guilty, apologetic look that she didn’t understand, like there was something in their own history that echoed Peonypaw’s selfish, lovelorn self-absorption. Left out.
But aside from that, she was on top of the world! She was an apprentice! Her mother wasn’t here to see it, she was a teenage girl who still wanted to cuddle her girlhood toys and sleep in her girlhood bed despite being too old for it, her sister was giving her the cold shoulder for reasons she couldn’t or wouldn’t understand and that wounded her, and the girl she liked hated her. She was beginning to follow in Doefreckle’s too-much-heart footsteps, too, because she’d also noticed that Nectarinepaw’s constant glare and foul, snarky temper was kinda crush-worthy and now her chest got all fluttery around him, too. Not the same as with Sunrisepaw, but she really was starting to feel like a real mess, like she was out of her depth with overwhelming culture shock and too many new things as an apprentice — and to someone so fastidious and obsessed with neatness, this was not good. But, all good things! She’d force a smile on her face — she’d force today to be an excellent day.
… Just as soon as she worked up the courage to move from outside the apprentice’s den. The smile on her face was growing more strained and more angry, starting to look like she had a lemon wedged in her mouth, her nose all wrinkled against the wanna-be sweetness of her expression. Any second now she would move. Move and seize the day.
Nectarinepaw would never admit it, but sometimes he got homesick, sometimes he missed the sight, the sickly smell, the feel of the city. But there was nothing for him there, he decided that the moment he left with Clementinepaw, and he decided that the moment he didn't look back. But Summerclan, despite the moons he had been there, was still unfamiliar. The space was wide, expansive, and open, nothing like the towering houses and apartments and shopping districts, nothing like dark alleys and rats and muck. It was so painfully quiet, so terribly peaceful, and he still found himself on edge. Community wasn't a foreign concept; the Wraith had been a community once, a small one, but one nonetheless, and they had also had their own roles — unofficial, more like a calling than something assigned. Everybody fell into it, everybody made it work until one day it didn't, until everybody got sick in their own way and went off, dwindling until it Nectarinepaw finally decided to screw it and leave with Clementinepaw in tow. Perhaps his unease was rooted in this same apprehension, that something would erupt and everything would crumble just as it had before, and those weren't exactly fears he was willing to chase away just yet. He liked to be alert, he liked to be ready, and if that meant staying on edge, being cold and distant, being mean so he didn't get attached, then he would do it — he did. Clementinepaw was the only cat he truly needed anyway, but even that was looking bleak. Foxstar refused to change the teams, and Nectarinepaw had no choice but to concede, leaving the ceremony fuming and stomping, hating everything that Summerclan was in that small, heated moment. He was still bitter, and he probably would be for some time, but he couldn't stand staying still and silent in his moss nest.
He didn't roll out of bed immediately — roll, literally, because that was what he did, his back softly hitting the ground where he had been elevated by the edge of his nest — not until past dawn, when half the den had left early and the other half were just waking up. It was quite dramatic, but Nectarinepaw had always fancied those. It made everything that was boring and dull exciting. But even that didn't help elevate him from his angry, depressive stupor. He looked to Clementinepaw beside him, close that the edges of their nests were touching on the other side of him, and he went to wake her (even though he probably didn't have to, because when he was up, she usually followed suite) before resisting. Maybe it was pettiness, because all Nectarinepaw wanted to do was go off all on his own and not talk to anybody, just to prove the point he could be alone. He wouldn't say a word all day, and Foxstar would eat his words. He rolled again, onto his belly, and lifted himself into a sit, blinking around in the den that glittered with morning sunshine from where it broke through partings in the roof. He didn't bother to look at who was left, and he made a pointed display of ignoring absolutely everybody even though they probably didn't notice he was doing so. When he padded up to the exit and stopped, he pretended Peonypaw didn't exist.
Nectarinepaw would have the worst day on purpose, he decided. It was childish, stupidly immature, terribly petty, but he would allow himself the chance to experience that. Despite how mature he tried to act, how old he felt in comparison to everyone around him, he was just a boy, still. A boy in boots that were too big, a boy who acted like a man, a boy who had seen and done a little too much but felt none of it. It was horribly draining, so couldn't he be granted the luxury of having a little tantrum because things didn't go his way?
Leaving without Clementinepaw left a small feeling of dread in his gut. What if he came back and she was hurt, or dead, or sick? What if she got lost? What if she got into a fight? She would win, of course, he knew she would, but he didn't even want to risk it. But, despite it all, he pushed past Peonypaw, having completely forgotten about her in his need to ignore everybody, and everything was thrown out the window when he gave a low, frustrated growl, "watch out." His jaw clamped shut, tight with agitation, and then the anger evaporated from his expression and he was left with something vaguely embarrassed. Not a step outside and he already failed what he was planning to do. He wanted to slap a paw to his face, but he simply stood there, stock-still aside from the twitching in his tail, and then he tried to brush it off with a huff, padding forward and towards the exit, unsure of what he would do or where he would go and how he would skip training (because he didn't want to see Foxstar right now, he would rather throw himself into the sea).
When Nectarinepaw had approached Foxstar at the ceremony with his complaints, Peonypaw had been bristling from beside Petuniapaw and in front of her dads, safe from harm in her little cluster of family. “OH, BOOHOO,” she’d shouted from her barleys, furiously indignant and panicked because if Foxstar reshuffled the teams, then that might mean she wasn’t with Sunrisepaw anymore. Worse, that she might end up with Nectarinepaw’s freaky sister. “WELL I’M NOT SWAPPIN’ TEAMS SO YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO SUCK IT UP.” Doe never admonished her bad behaviour — for someone so obsessed with his family’s image, he, as a catty mean girl, was never apologetic about his daughter’s bad behaviour; really, it went with the image he wanted for them. Not the royal family, but the intransigent noble one above reproof and rebuke through sheer lofty ego.
But since that day, she’d had a change of heart. She had a thousand of them a day — her changeability was the most constant thing about her. Nectarinepaw was such a bad boy, no care for anyone but his sister, no respect for authority, just constant sarcasm and boldness and scoffs — it was so attractive. Everything was attractive to her right now. All these new sights and sounds and experiences. She was a mess away from home for the first time, seeing so many hot people and the Flustering Temptations Of The Big World — stumbling around, fighting for her life and constantly bumping into girlbosses and gaslighters. She loved it. Aside from the obvious homesickness she would deny till the day she died, because it wasn’t cool and she was cool, she loved it — the newness, the freshness, the opportunities for everything. Maybe knowing that her mother had missed out on feeling this joy made her all the more desperate to take every chance that came her way, but she really did love it. And now that she’d been startled out of her reverie, she had the boldness to get up and walk. She could have kissed him the same as she could’ve kissed Foxstar — she could’ve kissed anyone. She loved the whole of SummerClan that morning.
“You’re not still sulking, are you?” she asked as she rushed to catch up with him and fell along at his side, the judgement dripping from her voice. All the air smelled like dense summer honeysuckle. “So you can’t be with your weird sister — so what, you can still spend the other twenty-three hours with her. I don’t get to be with my sister but do you see me whinging like a little baby? No. Anyway, don’t you have training this morning? Like — right now? I wish I had training, but Ravenmask is giving us time to settle in before we start, so we don’t have our first lesson for, like, another few days.” Which was torture, because there were only so many ways she could insert herself into Sunrisepaw’s life before she ran out of excuses and she really did start to look like a crazy stalker. “You’re stupid not to go. I like Foxstar. My dad doesn’t like him but he kinda doesn’t like anyone. I think he’s jealous, secretly. But I think Foxstar’s cute, and so nice. He’ll be a good mentor, even if he has to take, like, ten rest breaks a minute so he doesn’t get an asthma attack.” She laughed, her smile growing and growing through the whole sentence until she was grinning at her own joke. “And, by the way, I’m stuck with the two worst divas in the Clan — Monsterpaw’s number one, obviously.” She laughed again, more than happy to hold this conversation by herself as she trotted along beside Nectarinepaw. “So my life is, like, way harder than yours — yours doesn’t even place. Your life is easy. You’re being a gigantic baby about this.”
idk if you use barleys outside of australia but it’s like, a safe zone during a game where no one can get you xx where they cant SLAY you while youre slaying
On the day of the ceremony, when he'd spoken up ever so politely, so open to compromise, he had ignored Peonypaw's bellowing from the crowd — by the time that Foxstar had gotten the first few words of his denial out, Nectarinepaw only heard a slight, angry ringing in his ears, all else lost except for an overwhelming, unreasonable hatred towards Foxstar. He had been furious, rage hot and boiling and strange to anyone that wasn't him or his sister, because nobody else seemed to understand the bond they had, why they needed each other. Then, Peonypaw had been nothing but annoying chatter in the background, a buzz in his ear, and he couldn't say his opinion of her shifted now that they shared a den — she was someone he overlooked, not because he particularly chose to, but because she simply wasn't someone that would have been worth paying attention to. She was small, young, and painfully loud, too confident, a young diva. She pranced around like a mini Sunrisepaw, and she was irritating enough.
You’re not still sulking, are you? There it was, the buzz in his ears, and only when he looked around, this way and that, until his eyes landed on the small bundle of pale fur did he realize who was talking to him. With an exasperated sigh, he turned his head forward again and rolled his eyes. "You're not still being a nuisance, are you?" He would have squared his shoulders, stalked off with a leering grin or a flick of his tail, but he only found himself slumping, glowering. Sulking had been an accurate description, one he hadn't even bothered to deny. His mood was too sour for dramatics. I don’t get to be with my sister but do you see me whinging like a little baby?
His lip curled, his paws landed too heavy. "Well," he tilted his head, glaring, "you and your sister have had perfect, prissy little lives, haven't you?" At the burst of energy, he found himself able to walk forward, shrugging her off as though she really were just a bothersome insect. Then, at her words, so annoying, so naive, he stopped dead in his tracks, inhaling deeply, shakily. So my life is, like, way harder than yours — yours doesn’t even place. Your life is easy. You’re being a gigantic baby about this. Perhaps she hadn't meant for the insult to cut so deep, but Nectarinepaw was shallow, and it hit too close, scraped along one his metaphorical defensive walls, sent his already peaked temper over the edge once more. Out of him and Clementinepaw, he always seemed more vocally angry as compared to her cheeky, floaty nature. He would argue that wasn't true, because Nectarinepaw was simply more impatient, more prone to annoyance, more honest. He said what was on his mind, and Clementinepaw usually spoke through him to get hers across. But there were certain things that got a true, real rise out of him, made him flex his claws not for a job, not for the exhileration of a brawl, but out of anger — usually, he reserved them for business; they were his fancy suit, his briefcase, his work attire, and he always hung them up when he went home, using words more often than fists during his own time.
"Just as I said. Perfect. Little. Life," he jabbed a paw at her, "you and your stupid sister didn't need to be with each other all the time because your lives didn't depend on it. You had your daddies do everything for you. I didn't. How about you keep your mouth shut for once in your life, considering you've got some big talk for someone who just got out of the nursery yesterday." He stepped back, turned around once more, brain too steamed to think of a clear direction to go. "And, by the way — not because it's any of your business — but my training was moved to tomorrow. Don't you have something better to do? Surely you've got a girl to impress, maybe she'll spare a glance at you today."
You're not still being a nuisance, are you? Peonypaw flashed a little grin, head tilted and lashes faintly batted; it would have been called coquettish by some, dazzlingly sweet by others. She’d learned from the best. “Always.”
She sped up to keep up with him. “Perfect, prissy little lives?” she echoed, her voice high and proper with disbelief. “Have we? Where? I must’ve been watching a different program — which one do you mean?” She let out an indignant babble of laughter. When Nectarinepaw’s own annoyance bubbled over into anger, she just frowned at him again like he was overreacting, trotting along on her short legs at his side with her head turned to look up at him and her forehead permanently pinched between her eyes.
As he jabbed his paw at her, all sneers and barely sheathed claws, Peonypaw looked between him and her chest indignantly, jaw set in soft, stubborn silence like she couldn’t believe what was happening — like she was just a lady out for a picnic morning tea in her prettiest Sunday whites and now she was being accosted by a chimney sweep. “Oh, so it’s my fault I had parents who loved me? You’re gonna be mad at the whole world forever because of it? I have plenty to be awful about.” She swept his paw away with her own. You had your daddies do everything for you. “My daddies have plenty to be awful about, too. They had to grieve their daughter at the same time they had to do everything for me.” She padded after him angrily, only to immediately stumble backwards — trying her best to regain some semblance of lady-ness — as he whirled back around to face her. She felt a faint, inexplicable rush; it was quite thrilling, this impassioned back-and-forth, this rough uncouthness with someone who really had seen the world, who really was wild. She was just a porcelain doll in a window shop comparison, all lemon curtains and lace and fruitless, aching dreams of adventure.
Considering you've got some big talk for someone who just got out of the nursery yesterday. Peonypaw sniffed, head drawn back to get away from Nectarinepaw’s glare as he thrust his head closer; her muzzle wrinkled slightly, the kind of childish hurt that looked like anger. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” she replied quietly — ladylike, cold. “You might not think you fit in, but you’ve picked up SummerClan’s meanness just fine.”
Surely you've got a girl to impress, maybe she'll spare a glance at you today. Peonypaw’s frown deepened, coming close to a glare but not quite — that was the thing about her; she was always too close to hurt to really arrive at anger. Her chest stung and squeezed like a bee had gotten in between her ribs. She thought suddenly of Shadedsun, as she so often did the second she was faced with something hurtful or frightening, and wanted — treacherously, like a kit — to curl up against his stomach (she’d always fit there, no matter how much more she grew) and block the world out amid his familiar-smelling fur. Doefreckle never offered the same comfort; he was too small, too restless, too immediately confrontational towards anyone who upset her — too much ’alright, are you feeling better now?’ and not enough ’you can cuddle up to me all night.’ He stroked her head with a hasty sort of awkwardness, like he loved her but he was just that little bit too reserved to not feel uncomfortable and out of his depth; Shadedsun just lay there for hours and let her forget herself in his purrs. As much as she modelled herself after Doefreckle, Shadedsun was always the one she went to for comfort. And it made her feel so strangely guilty now, so sad, so inadequate — because Shadedsun was hoping she’d have a nice day, was hoping that she was excited about her apprenticeship, and instead she couldn’t make a single apprentice like her. And that night she’d have to go home and lie to him about how her day was, tell him it was great with a big smile and avoid the way Doefreckle eyed her from beside Shadedsun with an unsettling astuteness. Most of all, she didn’t want him and Shadedsun arguing because of her — because she couldn’t make friends. She was a fake. All pretend confidence and nothing to show for it.
It hurt, too, that clearly the whole Clan knew about Sunrisepaw. It meant the whole Clan would know when she got rejected — over and over and over. They always knew everything anyway. She suddenly felt so insurmountably tired. And with it, the anger sapped away. Her muzzle smoothed back over her teeth and she hung her head. “Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “Maybe.”
He supposed he could hand it to her for being mildly self-aware, similar to the way he was — aware of what he was doing, for what reason, but not bothering to change it, delving so deep you took it in pride. He knew he was rude and leering, he knew he wasn't very likeable, but he played the act up, he kept it going. Perhaps it was a lack of care, or perhaps it was normalcy.
"Where? Here!" He looked around in a gesture meant to highlight all of camp, "with as much food as you could ever eat and warm nests to sleep in and hardly a need to worry about your safety because you've got fifty other cats to protect you! That's your perfect life." He ended his tirade with an indignant snort, eyes boring into her only for a moment longer before he forcibly tore them away. They had to grieve their daughter at the same time they had to do everything for me. There was nothing Nectarinepaw could combat that with, he knew, though he still tried to think of something witty, something harsh — he knew of things, he spent as much time as he could gathering dirt on anyone and everyone, listening in on gossip or private conversations just for that little kick of glee for having known something he wasn't there for, that many didn't even know of at all, but he didn't know everything. It was surface level things, things discussed in the context of others having been there for it to be able to draw more details. He wasn't an idiot, he could put two and two together, he could string things along until it made sense, he could match puzzle pieces. He knew Peonypaw and her siblings were adopted by their grandfathers — current fathers? — and that they didn't know their parents, but he didn't know the details. He could try to conjure them, but he wasn't so aware of the social climate of the clans to get far. It sounded difficult, for them, at least, but then he was filled with an indignant rage again — who was she to complain? To be ungrateful? After her fathers gave her so much, even in the face of their grief? Nectarinepaw and Clementinepaw hadn't been given the same grace. They'd been alone.
"And that's a you problem, how?" He bit, "how is that hard on you?" When he turned around again, he headed for the gorse tunnel, yellow flowers showing the earliest signs of wilting with the change of seasons. Maybe. He huffed, tail lashing before he stopped it to slip through the thorns. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a whole lot of nothing to do." He padded quicker, breaking through on the other side and hardly stopping to decide where he was going. Turning towards the denser parts of the forest — the Deep Lands, they called it, though was it really that deep and dark? — he padded off, expecting Peonypaw to at least have given up her pestering now that he put her in her place.
Peonypaw bristled — which really just made her look like a hairbrush. "It was hard on me because that was my mother," she snapped back, bulldozing over Nectarinepaw's clear attempt to get rid of her and following after him angrily. "You might not understand family, but here's a clue: they tend to be connected. She left me and I don't know why, and they won't tell me. What—" She had yet to catch up to him; his legs were longer, and hers were short and dumpy, and despite the fact she was trotting at angry speed and he was just strolling, she was still lagging behind. Now, she put some true energy into her muscles and managed to fall in beside him, panting a little too much for the lack of any real exercise; if her mother had turned her size to WinterClan muscle, her daughter was still mostly baby fat. She looked at all the lean, pretty she-cats around SummerClan, the she-cats with defined cheekbones, with bones at all, and she told herself that she'd look like that one day, that her legs would grow longer and her waist would nip in and she'd be just like that, tall and elegant and sculpted— she'd taken to rubbing her paws backwards along her cheekbones and jaw each night before bed for that reason, because she'd heard tell around the fresh-kill pile from older, vain warriors that it helped to sculpt your face and redistribute chub. Then every morning she found a puddle and turned her head this way and that, looking for results. She thought there were some. Just a little. Really, she knew it was just her imagination, her mournful hope, but she refused to accept it — there were results, and there would be more the longer she did it. It was the problem with growing up around Doefreckle — he paid so much attention to his appearance, complained to Shadedsun if that treacherous weight came back around his hips, never seemed to like eating, put so much stock by vanity, that it had rubbed off on Peonypaw from the time she'd been able to hear anything at all. She'd never had a chance. She had to be pretty. She wondered how Petuniapaw didn't seem to be struggling.
"What could possibly have been so dramatic about your and Clementinepaw's lives before you came here?" There was true derision, true, scoffing disbelief, in her voice as she struggled to keep pace with him, exerting monumental effort while he simply stalked along, her paws moving a mile a minute in her frantic trot. She was sheltered — in her world, the worst thing that had ever happened was the girl she liked not liking her back. That was Earth-shattering. She couldn't comprehend a world in which true suffering was anything outside nursery tales, and so she doubted Nectarinepaw as a drama queen, as someone who blew everything out of proportion, amping up his supposed suffering just so he'd get out of tasks and have an excuse to laze and eat their free food. She didn't believe any of it. "You always go on about it, but you never say what it was. Almost like it never even happened." She shook her head as she followed him out through the gorse tunnel, dispelling the flowers that snagged in her pale fur, but didn't let up her desperate, irritated pace — now she was just nosy. She wanted to be the one in the Clan who found out — or, better, who called Nectarinepaw out for the liar he was. It was a matter of principle. It was her family's role from their place at the top — the curators of substance and worthiness, of who deserved to be in SummerClan and where they fell in the hierarchy. They were responsible for who was let into SummerClan — or, she and Doefreckle felt they were. "What happened?" she pressed, head still turned to look at him — looking for a liar's reaction. "Huh? You missed your catch one time and didn't get dinner? Did a twoleg pet you? What could possibly have been so bad?"
