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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He was no fool to think it truly was an invite rather than an instruction, but Goldenshadow would not yield so easily, even to the tabbied leader in front of him. His emerald eyes observed Ratstar, who now stood before him; where he was tall and cunning, the leader was broader and stealthy. To the golden warrior he was nothing more than some weird bleeding-heart twolegplace hick, and Goldenshadow was sure that if the clan wasn't so wholeheartedly enamored with his antics, he could probably take him on easy. He would have to bide his time for that, however. A disarming smile flitted across his features, easing some warmth onto a handsome face, sure that he could read Ratstar's simple intentions, though he was a far cry away from right.
Ratstar never prided himself on being the particularly observant sort. When he just so happened to discover one of his warriors having a midnight rendezvous with her rouge lover, he didn't think too much about it afterwards. He had let the couple state their case, heard their story, sent them on their way with a kind warning to respect the newly-implemented border laws, and that was that. For days afterward, he would cast a casual glance at Orchiddrop, and notice the young she-cat near glowing with joy.
But then something changed. Out of nowhere Orchiddrop had announced that Goldenshadow was her new mate, and soon after the pair were expecting kits. The Summerclan leader couldn't wrap his head around it. It was clear to see that the two weren't in love, so why keep up the charade, especially when the she-cat in question knew Ratstar knew the truth? Unfortunately, with Orchiddrop avoiding him like he was an angry badger and her 'mate' keeping her on a short leash, there wasn't any way to get some answers out 'a her.
The only other cat he could possibly approach was the golden boy himself. "Of course," Ratstar replied with a friendly smile. "I try t' make some one-on-one time fer my warriors when I can. T' catch up an' learn 'bout their lives, ya know?"
"The mark of a good leader." Of course, Goldenshadow didn't believe that at all, his interpretation of a solid leadership involving an iron-clad rule and more fear tactics than what this hillbilly could muster up, but the way into someone's good graces was flattery and he had no qualms with some grade-a, definitely-not-rehearsed-to-his-reflection, good old fashioned lies. Ratstar didn't appear to see through his masquerade anyway so he figured he was well on his way to a promotion sometime in the near future.
As they strolled together through the territory, starting along the seashore and gradually moving toward the border where Ratstar had happened upon Orchiddrop and her true love, they made the simple small talk that the golden warrior was used to, never really delving into deeper conversations beyond how they prey was running or compliments that fell flat. He was a very surface level being where his clanmates were concerned; if he allowed himself to get roped into talking too much, he ran the risk of his image unraveling. One might catch a glimpse of the nefarious cat nestled beneath the smokescreen, see past his woeful tales to the tom that really didn't care for much other than his reputation.
But, Goldenshadow being Goldenshadow, he had underestimated the intelligence of his leader and let himself slip a bit more than usual. He was more receptive to Ratstar's questions and talked a little too much for a little too long, particularly whenever he mentioned Orchiddrop. It was good practice to speak highly upon one's mate, but no matter how much he spoke of the white warrior, one thing he couldn't mask was the way his voice was hollow and devoid of any significant emotion. "We are very excited for the upcoming litter. Pikekit is thrilled to be having some little siblings so soon, and I can only hope as a father he doesn't feel like I am replacing him. It was very hard on him, coming to SummerClan, after his mother died...but he likes Orchiddrop well enough, and she does a fine enough job of stepping in as a mother figure to him. He will make a fine older brother and she a wonderful mother." Coming from anyone else, that may have been genuine and may have touched his leader's romantic heart, but where the tall golden tom was concerned, there was always something lacking in his tone that made it a little less genuine and a lot less sweet.
The more he and Goldenshadow talked, the more...unease settled into the pit of Ratstar's stomach. He tried to shake it off, preferring to assume the best of his clanmates, but there was a strange feeling about the warrior that lingered in the leader's mind. Sure, there were quite a few reserved cats in Summerclan, plenty of superficial ones, and a couple that seemed to be both, such as Goldenshadow. Ratstar was never one to judge them, but usually when interacting with them from day-to-day, he would eventually find some topic that made them interested and happy; one where he could see who that cat truly was. But the golden-pelted tom seemed to be quite a tough nut to crack; so far their conversation had gone absolutely nowhere. It was all mindless chitchat and cheap flattery, and not even the good kind of cheap flattery. His companion here could probably take some lessons from Poppymask.
When none of that seemed to work, Ratstar brought up the subject of Orchiddrop and the expecting kits. "I'm sure Pikekit will be a wonderful big brother," he agreed, taking only the briefest of moments to recognize the spot that the pair were standing in as the clearing where he had come across Orchiddrop and Crow just a few weeks prior. "Poppymask and I have been discussin' havin' a second litter ourselves, though we've decided t' hold off 'til our little ones become apprentices. I love my darlin', but I don' think she could handle two litters in the nursery at once, ya know?" The Summerclan leader let out a chuckle, and there it was. The one thing that Goldenshadow wasn't able to replicate. He could say the words and perform the actions, but he lacked the adoring glimmer in Ratstar's eye when he talked about his mate, or the small, fond smile that graced his muzzle when he spoke about his kits...Goldenshadow lacked a genuine, honest love for one's family.
"In any case," Ratstar continued, "I've noticed Pikekit an' my son Weevilkit have been gettin' along like peas in a pod lately. I was thinkin' 'bout maybe the two o' us takin' them out on an expedition in the Deep Lands, if you're up for it? I see ya always out workin' hard, but it's important t' spend some quality time with ya kits too. They don' stay 'lil forever....plus it'll give Orchiddrop a bit o' a reprieve from ya."
He really couldn't care less about Ratstar's mate nor his kits, whether they had a litter before the first was apprenticed or if they spat out three in quick succession. Goldenshadow didn't concern himself with matters of family unless it was to drive home his carefully crafted image of a perfect family, which.... Ratstar seemed to buy, for now. "I'm sure you and Poppymask would be able to make it work, regardless of the..energy of two young litters," he mused in a complimentary but hollow tone. It was the mother's duty to keep an eye on the brood anyway, which was something that Goldenshadow didn't understand about these clan dynamics and the fathers' desires to oversee everything that went on. His children would receive his attention when they'd earned it.
His ear flicked mildly, noting Ratstar's comment and trying to decipher if there was something veiled in it. "Perhaps we could do that. Pikekit has not shown...much interest in leaving camp, however; and I like to stay close to Orchiddrop, should she ever need something." In reality it made his fur prickle to think of what might happen should he not keep his mate under close scrutiny. Currently, he could keep careful tabs on her association with others and her whereabouts, but an extended detour out of camp would leave her ample opportunity to soil his plans. There was a visible apprehension in Goldenshadow, a crack in his mask.
Goldenshadow's growing trepidation didn't go unnoticed by the Summerclan leader, who decided to push the subject a bit further. "Now why would ya say that 'bout 'lil Pikekit?" He meowed curiously, the look on Ratstar's face the perfect picture of surprise and innocence. Thanks once again to Poppymask for teaching him about how to play dramatics. "Haven't ya noticed your boy chatterin' 'bout apprenticeship for a while now? I even saw Grasspaw teachin' 'im an' Jollykit crouches the other day!" It was only now that he was mentioning it that Ratstar realized how much it had previously bugged him that Goldenshadow seemed to care so little about his own son. Perhaps the leader himself was an outlier, being raised by a single father, but the warrior didn't seem to recognize Pikekit when the kit was right under his nose. The lie was almost too easy to unravel.
"Besides," he continued, a subtle, mischievous gleam sparkling in the tom's single eye as the façade slowly began to drop. "Ya don' have t' hover over Orchiddrop all the time, there are plenty of apprentices t' help take care o' her, and she has the other Queens fer company. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were suffocating the poor gal!" As Ratstar let out a bark of laughter at his 'joke', the air surrounding the pair began to feel tense and uncomfortable. Goldenshadow had yet to realize it, but the leader was the one in control here. Always had been. "Speaking of which, I've found myself t' be a bit lost lately, so perhaps ya can enlighten me."
He suddenly stuck a paw out in front of the other tom, side-stepping to cut him off mid-stride. Something shifted in his gaze, Ratstar's expression becoming unreadable. "In all honesty, I was surprised when you an' Orchiddrop became an item," he commented, so casually it was as if he were talking about the weather. "It never crossed my mind that y'all had much in common at all. Frankly, ya don't even seem t' like each other, let alone love. So why go through all the effort t' keep up appearances? Do the opinions of the rest of the clan mean that much to you?"
First, they'd been talking about Pikekit, about how his son was eager to become an apprentice while Goldenshadow vehemently denied it. Was that where it went wrong? He was trying to trace it back even now. No, no it was after that, he was sure. His control slipped after-- around the time Ratstar began to laugh, but laugh about what? There was nothing humorous here. Nothing even remotely funny. Why was he laughing? Perhaps ya can enlighten me. There. That was the moment he lost it: the control-- or was it himself he lost?
Like grains of sand, his armor crumbled, the calm and composed Goldenshadow shivering in the face of Ratstar's single, unreadable eye boring into him. His heart rate was quickening to the point he was sure the leader could hear it. His blood pressure sky rocketed. Briefly, he wondered if Orchiddrop had run to Ratstar after all, and he considered all the various methods of murder while the other half of his brain continued to scour for some way out of this. Some way to redeem himself. Some way to rectify whatever went wrong in this exchange, or some way to regain the control he'd never had. "I-I'm not sure what you mean by that, Ratstar. Orchiddrop and I may not seem like a conventional couple," he breathed a shaky laugh here, "we do love each other deeply. She came to me, Ratstar. She decided we would be mates. We're very happy together." Why had he laughed? He still couldn't figure it out, find the humor. There wasn't anything funny here to laugh at. He was not a laughing stock. He was Goldenshadow. He was perfect: He had the tragic backstory, and three perfect children, and a mate that surpassed warriors several moons her elder, and he did as much work as one would expect of a leader let alone a warrior. They should have bee laughing together, he and Ratstar, not this. When had he lost the control?
"Oh I believe it was a mutual decision," Ratstar agreed, since when did his voice sound so deep and serious? "One build on mutual benefit, sure. But not love. Ya see, there's a lie behind your smile, Goldenshadow. Your eyes betray you." He began to circle the warrior, sizing him up as if he were a predator sizing up his prey. The cracks in Goldenshadow's mask were beginning to show, he was starting to get nervous. Good; that meant they were finally getting somewhere. While he was still mostly ignorant to the extent of the other tom's abuse of Orchiddrop, Rosethorn's concerns had not been lost on him. Rosethorn had been hoping he'd break up the couple, but without any concrete proof of wrongdoing, or Orchiddrop speaking up herself, Ratstar's paws were tied in that regard.
That didn't mean that Ratstar wasn't going to do anything, though. "I know ya type, Goldenshadow," he continued. "Ya try an' build a perfect image of yourself, of your life an' your family. Ya want cats t' look up t' ya, admire ya. Those who ain't worthy of ya attention are like ants t' ya, jus' more adorin' faces without faces or names. Even Pikekit's jus' a pawn in your game. The entire world an' narrative you've built of yourself...it's all fake." And if there was one thing Ratstar hated, it was a liar.
But then, the Summerclan leader stopped, turning to stare Goldenshadow down with no anger, or malice, or even disappointment. The emotion in his gaze was far, far worse: pity. "Honestly, it's a real shame. I feel sorry for ya; 't base ya entire self-worth on somethin' so fickle an' worthless. Ya an' Orchiddrop are jus' makin' each other miserable fer nothin'. It really ain't worth it. You deserve someone who actually loves ya, an' who you really, truly love."
Ratstar was mocking him. Why had he laughed? "I-I'm sure you're mistaken, s-sir." He wasn't sure, though. Ratstar spoke with certainty, with conviction, as if Goldenshadow's lies were a book sprawled out between them. He read the story and the footnotes and the blank spaces between the words, and he laughed. He laughed at him. At Goldenshadow. Perfect, handsome Goldenshadow. Wounded, begrieved Goldenshadow. Father of three, widowed Goldenshadow. He laughed, and then he apologized-- no, that's not what he did. Ratstar laughed, but the 'sorry' that hung between them wasn't for his laughter or his pity. It was for Goldenshadow.
Imperfect, unloved Goldenshadow. Shallow, manipulative Goldenshadow. Absentee father, revolting murderer Goldenshadow. Did Ratstar know what he'd done? No, that was long ago. Why was he sorry? Why had he laughed? He didn't understand. "You deserve someone who actually loves ya, an' who you really, truly love." Was that it? That was funny.
Slowly, Goldenshadow himself began to laugh. It started deep in his chest then bubbled over, short and callous giggles becoming deep-bellied laughs. He laughed for a long time, that unfelt mirth screeching to impossible decibels. So loud that they both should have had ear protection of some kind. Something OSHA-approved for sure. He continued to laugh until long past the time where it stopped being funny, but when was it ever really funny? Ratstar had laughed though. Why? He wasn't sure. Finally, he stopped, almost suddenly. The atmosphere felt empty around them with the absence of laughter. Too quiet, too cold. Two cats looking at each other in the wake of it. One with pity, the other with...something indescribable. It wasn't quite fear but it wasn't quite right either. "Ratstar." When Goldenshadow spoke this time, in the aftermath of his humorless laughter, and with Ratstar's eye apologizing for nothing, his voice was smooth like sandpaper. He was a shadow of his former composure, his pride splintered into a million shards he was frantically trying to piece back together. "Orchiddrop and I are in love. She is having my kits and caring for my son and loving me. This life is all either of us could ask for. All we could want. I am sorry," he wasn't, "that you cannot see that. Perhaps you and Poppymask could learn something from us. At least my mate only has eyes for me." His eyes glinted, and he chuckled again, because that was funny.
Ratstar watched silently as Goldenshadow laughed, looking vaguely concerned by the other tom's reaction. The laughter was hollow, almost chilling; it sounded like a creature that had never laughed before in their life, but had been told about what laughter was like, and was trying to imitate it. If anything, it made the Leader pity the warrior even more. What had happened in this cat's life, before coming to Summerclan, that had left him like this? Ratstar had witnessed many a cat break under the brutality and unforgiving nature of the twolegplace; cats throwing away their sanity, because what use was sanity or hope or love when it came to survival? It had only been him and his father Roachpelt's devotion for each other that saved them from the same fate. But even they had gotten close to giving up before Starclan intervened in their lives.
Then, as quick as a leaf switched direction in the wind, Goldenshadow changed back to the calm, composed demeanor that he had started with. But not quite. If the tom's backhanded insult towards him and Poppymask was anything to go by, Ratstar had managed to get decently enough under Goldenshadow's skin; ruffled his feathers, if you will. His eye widened in brief surprise at the scathing remark, before a quiet smirk crossed his muzzle, along with the most breathy wisp of a chuckle. "Stickin' to ya story, eh?" He replied, back to his cheerful and friendly self. "Alrighty then, keep your secrets; I like a challenge anyway." He blinked at Goldenshadow, which was the cloest the one-eyed cat could get to a wink, and strided confidently by him, only pausing when their faces were beside each other. "An' for the record, Poppymask does only have eyes fer me. She can run an' have fun with whichever handsome toms she likes, but at the end o' the day, I'm the one she always comes back t', and I'm the one who'll be a father t' 'er kits. Definitely ain't the vision o' a perfect couple ya might have in mind, but I truly love 'er. I really do."
Ratstar continued to walk past Goldenshadow before suddenly stopping again, glancing over his shoulder with a grin. "Oh! Nearly forgot, but I have'ta insist that you an' Pikekit will join Weevilkit an' I on that outing. We'll head out in three days. See ya then...Goldie."
He didn't laugh again. Neither of them did. He supposed he had struck a nerve, but again the one-eyed twolegplace hillbilly scrap a' southern bull threw him for a loop. Ratstar shrugged off his slight. It was better than laughing but it still unnerved the golden warrior, whose fur was a little ruffled and whose eyes could not continue to meet the pitiful gaze of the leader. Who would have ever thought that he, perfect Goldenshadow, would be pitied? It was loathsome. It was beneath him. He was not a cat that was laughed at. He was not a cat that was pitied. He was longed for, sought after. He was a model warrior. He was tall, mysterious, heart-stoppingly handsome. He was motivated. He was everything his father wanted him to be and everything his brother never was. There was nothing to laugh at, nothing to pity. There was...nothing.
Shakily, he managed to stare straight ahead. Ratstar would be able to see the concentration in his tight jaw, see how he tried to release the tension in his shoulders only for his stance to become rigid again. He was trying to emulate his confidence, his composure, but if he relaxed too much the emptiness would shine through the cracks. He made no sound or movement as Ratstar passed him. He did not flinch as Ratstar spoke. He nearly breathed a sigh, but then the leader was looking at him again. See ya then....Goldie. A million tiny, furious blades sank into his body, his nerves igniting. Goldie. No, Goldenshadow. Goldie. Goldenshadow! Goldie. GOLDENSHADOW. Gold--
"What's the matter, Goldie?"
"C'mon, Goldie, play sumfin' with me!"
"Goldie! Goldie! Look what I caught, all by myself!"
"Why aren't you fighting back, Goldie? I don't...I don't want to do this. I don't want to kill you."
