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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Crow couldn't be found very far from SummerClan's borders these days, no matter how cold it got or how numb his paws felt in the snow. Occasionally, his gang members would find him and urge him away from his sentry point or to bring him prey or they would sit with him and offer conversation to ease a troubled mind. Some days a wan smile would grace his maw and he might offer a few meek jokes; but most days he stalked at the line that separated him from the answers he sought, a dark denom wielding that sweet, ancient anger nestled close to his heart.
He would not cross the line. He had promised Ratstar he would stay on this side-- in rogue territory, where he belonged for now-- and a promise was something Crow took seriously, as honor was the only thing he had. It was his promise to Orchiddrop that stationed him in the snow every evening, regardless of whether she showed or not, because to Crow a promise meant you held up your end of the deal.
Today was one of the worse days where he found himself plagued by his inner turmoil. No one visited him today; they could see from a distance he was not to be trifled with, amber eyes glaring into the depths of SummerClan territory, distinctly unaware that there was only soul brave enough to approach him and she was already there in the flesh.
It was entirely coincidence that she ended up on SummerClan's border. It wasn't anything against the territory at all, rather just the cats within. They had such an easy life compared to their neighbors, especially the ones to the northwest. The winter never cut through their pelts in SummerClan, and for that she saw them as weaker. Sure, not all of them would be weak, but more would be. She herself had just finished a meeting with Agonywail on WinterClan's mountain border, which was already covered in feet of snow. They did their normal routine of sharing a meal and stories before finding a place to spend the night together, so she was covered in his scent as she approached Crow.
Her blue eyes could recognize his form from a mile away. Of all the cats from his litter, she was the closest to him. And she felt some degree of understanding for his struggles. She could feel his angry aura. No cat without such a powerful emotion could remain so focused on a single thing. To her, that meant one of two things: he found Ray alive, in which case she thought borders would be meaningless, or someone from his gang was capture by SummerClan, which was also a terrible guess. She huffed as she neared him, hopefully loud enough to break his focus. "It's just an imaginary line. It won't bite."
Her scent was one he would recognize anywhere, as well as the other one that clung to her, but for once Crow did not spare a look at his mother. He knew that if he did-- that if she could see into his eyes-- she would see everything he was feeling, every emotion that was churning under the surface. "I can't go in there," he answered her vacantly, feeling very meek in doing so as he was sure Igziq would not understand. "I promised Ratstar I wouldn't until new-leaf. I won't betray him." He had no real reason beyond that stopping him; considering he had no allegiance to any leader, it shouldn't have mattered what he said to the SummerClan leader or what he did in spite of him. "You've been to see Agonywail? How is he?" He'd not seen his kin in some time, not since their nightly training concluded.
She shrugged and sat down next to him. He was right. She lacked that sense of honor that he had and held dear. Igziq did not make promises to break them, but if someone or something was troubling him enough for him to just stare across the border like a mindless ghoul, it was worth breaking. But, she wouldn't answer him right now. "He's doing well. He told me about meeting you for the first time, and what he did to you." She put a paw over the scars crisscrossing his body from those nights. "Truthfully, when I left both of you in your clans to become strong, this was not what I imagined." She took her paw off him and stepped a little closer to him. She knew WinterClan was harsh, but thought it was above beating its own. "What's bothering you enough to sit out here?" She could smell a bunch of other cats on him. Perhaps he found a group of his own to learn in. "Won't your group be worried about you?"
Crow shivered under her touch, the scars still healing though the pressure didn't hurt as badly as the acquisition of them had. He smirked despite himself. "Well, we could have abandoned our clans to become kittypets. I doubt you would like that very much." He could imagine his mother's disappointment should her children turn away from a true wildcat life, the life she'd anticipated for them. At her following questions his brow furrowed, thinking of his group and their concern for his pathetic, longing heart. He knew they hovered not too far away from him-- just out of sight, but he could sense them as if they were right next to him. "I know they're concerned, but I... My mate is in there and I'm out here. I met her not long after the fire in SunClan and we've met mostly every day since, until Ratstar closed the borders." There were other events that transpired in that time period, things that solidified Crow and Orchiddrop's love and strengthened their bond, but he opted to keep it short, keep a hold on his emotions that were threatening to boil over. "He gave us his blessing to meet, and I will be allowed to become a SummerClan warrior when new-leaf comes. But... I haven't seen her since."
She snorted. "You're right. I would drag you back into the desert if you became one of those." But it would take her a while to find them if they became kittypets. Above almost anything else she hated the city and everything inside it, and rarely ventured in. Finding one of her children in there would be by pure luck. She could see him think hard about her questions, and she understood that there was something deep inside that held him here. He had grown from his younger self into a cat she could be proud of, one with philosophical differences that she knew not to debate. But she did understand fighting for family, more than anything else. From she saw, he was not fighting for her. "I don't have a mate, but I would never leave them. I wouldn't let some old stuck-up good-for-nothing leader tell me that I can't live with them until some season comes." He had always been supported by his mother, but this was harsh love. "In the end, this Ratstar couldn't care less about your relationship with her. Only you can fight for it."
She paused. "Let me tell you something about childhood. I grew up in the League under Vera E'tani. She was a ruthless leader, and wanted to make the League like her homeland: strong, imperial, and independent. And she did that, but the League became far more hostile than anything you've ever experienced. Newcomers had to kill to prove themselves, cats regularly fought in a gladiator ring to the death, and kits were raised from birth to be killers." She looked him in the eyes. "Not warriors. Killers. My mother raised me like Vera E'tani wanted her to. I was training since I could walk, and I was decent for kit, but, of course, my mother saw glimpses of perfection. She pushed me harder and harder, and, unbeknownst to me, against my father's wishes. My mother and I were training the day of my ceremony, and my father confronted her. He wanted me to leave and find a different life. My mother didn't want me to leave, and they fought. My dad won, and my mother died. He forced me to leave, and I have no doubt he was executed, or forced to fight in the gladiator ring." She paused. "You don't know what your mate's circumstances are. Don't leave them to chance, or you'll end up with nothing. If I knew earlier, then maybe I could have helped my parents. They could still be alive."
Crow flinched. He often could not anticipate what his mother would say, her thoughts unreadable to her son, but he had expected some tough love in regards to the mess that was his life. That didn't make the intensity of her words deal any lesser impact, no matter how prepared he thought he was. "I thought he was being honest. Another leader would have forbade us from being together at all," he insisted weakly, but he was starting to think that he gratitude he'd expressed to Ratstar was undeserved. As far as leaders were concerned, his only experience had been Bloodystar's tyranny, so being confronted by the SunClan leader's polar opposite in Ratstar's good nature and generosity, it had been easy to believe the SummerClan leader really did care about he and Orchiddrop, about their love being permissible so long as they did not cross the borders again. Maybe he'd just wanted to believe it too much, and in doing so, he'd forgotten that he, nor his silly heart, were no more important than the next cat in the grand scheme of things. His mother was the only one Crow ever truly relied on, her voice a reasoning when he was blinded by emotion, and still to this day he would lean into Igziq's ideals. She was different from him, but she was his mother and she had never strayed him far from right.
He let himself relax as she regaled him the stories of her upbringing, a newfound respect unfolding in Crow's eyes. Despite the trauma of his own childhood, his family was, for the most part, in tact. Igziq and Ghostcrown did not love each other in the conventional way that he loved Orchiddrop, and they did not raise his litter the way Crow intended to raise his own children, but they were steady parents that supported their children. In the heat of a war, his father had displayed an insurmountable pride for Desertpaw's ingenuity that not even Crow's anger could diminish; and no matter what road her ebony-clad son took, Igziq was always a guiding light down dark paths. He knew nothing of watching parents fight or seeing one die. "I'm being weak... I know I am. I plan to join SummerClan as soon as I possibly can, and I'll never leave her again. I just...can't yet. I'm not ready." Even now he hated his hesitation.
"He does care on the surface, like any good person in politics. But, once your relationship would tarnish his image, he would back away. And he did. If he truly cared for your relationship with her, he would have let you in." Having been a leader herself once, she had some understanding of why Ratstar made his decision. Allowing Crow in would be bad optics and certainly sow distrust, but that was precisely the point. If Ratstar cared for their relationship, that would be an acceptable cost. "Anyone who is a leader knows the value of spending time with those who they love, and for him to deny your right to that is a disgrace."
"But there is something we can work on." She walked over the border and sat on the other side of it. "You fear making this jump, don't you? If not the jump, you fear something else about it. I already gave you something to help your fears. Use the berries, and then your mind will never be clearer." She saw fear as a necessary thing in cats. It alone prevented them from doing the dumbest thing imaginable, but it often bled into place where it didn't belong. The berries were the best way she knew of weeding it out. "I'll watch over you while you sleep, and you can face whatever fears you have."
A gentle wind ruffled the fur on his chest, and the pendant he had received from his mother all that time ago shivered where it hung near his heart. He never forgot the presence of the berries inside the wrapping, but he never ingested them as they mostly lent him the courage he needed just by existing there. Rarely, if ever, did Crow find himself without them. He was hesitant even now to let their power flush through him. Something about the idea of his neck being bare and his chest not feeling the thump of the locket felt wrong.
But Igziq was right-- he was a coward, and he wasn't fighting for his love, and he was scared to make the plunge that was the necessary next step in his future. Crow never fancied himself someone who let fear paralyze him; he was an activist, someone who found purpose in the things that ignited his fury and wracked his body with nerves. He was the guy that stuck to his guns.
Numbly, he nodded. "Okay. I'll take them. They'll make me stronger. Braver." He spoke these things as if to encourage himself, fortifying his resolve even though the prospect itself was terrifying. Glancing back at Igziq, he asked, "When I'm out... when I'm seeing my fears, how do I get out? What if I can't face them?"
She shook her head to his question. "Once you take the berries, you can't get out. You'll have to let the berries run their course." She paused. Perhaps she should tell him the potential side effect. "Even if you don't want to, you'll have to face it. I know of some cats who went insane because they tried to run. They tried to deny their fears. To become strong you must embrace them." She lifted the locket from his chest. "My first time taking these changed me. I was afraid of betrayal and loss, and I am still afraid of losing my kits." She undid the careful binding and the berries fell into her paws. "But I faced it and turned it into something productive."
She placed the berries at his paws and nudged them toward him. "This won't be easy. It will be one the worst and best things you have ever done. Just... face your fears. They will appear worse than you could have ever imagined them." She paused. Igziq did not want to give too much away. She did not want to scare him, and she didn't want him to come to fear the berries themselves. "But that is the point. Once you face them in your head, facing them out here will be easy."
Crow swallowed thickly, reciting the instruction over and over in his head. The pair found a more secluded spot-- a rocky den with only one entrance-- right on time, lethargy beginning to take hold of his movements by the time he flopped down in the den. The darkness was already creeping in.
The plunge was sudden. For a long time there was nothing, some tangible emptiness he could feel surrounding him. Crow let himself believe this was all there would be. That's when it changed. The void shrank back until it separated into figures that were becoming molded into shapes of varying sizes , and then those shapes became cats, faceless entities he could only discern by their pelts. His father, his siblings, Orchiddrop. They were all present, all speaking to him, but he couldn't understand the words at first. The clearer their words became, the clearer their faces became, all twisted into sneers and hateful expressions. Disgrace. Ghostcrown, Desertpaw, and Spiritpaw all turned their backs on him, disappearing into the abyss. Failure. Raypaw's fur became smoke, her skin dissolving as flames consumed her, turning her into soot. She crumbled at his paws. Coward. Orchiddrop was the last one, staring vacantly back at him. She didn't speak anymore. Simply stared, but Crow was forced to watch another being, faceless and formless, arrive at her side, twining around her. Then there were others. They smelled like sandy shores and pine, the scent of SummerClan thick on their fur. They surrounded her and all at once, Crow was alone.
He clambered through the darkness, seeking, searching, flailing his paws wildly out in front of him. He tried to call out Dad! Orchid! but no sound came out. He was alone.
Crow clambered through the void until it felt like his heart would explode. His vision was starting to blur and suddenly...a light in the dark?
Igziq was at his side, and for a moment, he believed it was over. But the crushing weight never left his chest, his reverberating heartbeat never wavered, and when she turned her eyes upon him, all he could divine in his mother's gaze was a scorching reminder. Face your fears. Crow gulped, steeling himself, and then nodded as her light faded. The darkness swallowed him again.
He walked for what felt like an eternity. There never was another shine, no interruption of solid infinity, for a long time. He marched through his nightmare until forms began to coalesce again.
Ghostcrown, Desertpaw, and Spiritpaw walked ahead of him. He'd been given the choice to follow them to SwiftClan, but instead chose to branch away and strike out as a loner. The decision to turn his back on his family still haunted him. He expected their hatred. But he could remember that day... the day he met them again, how elated they'd been to see him. The memory filled his heart with warmth, and suddenly the SwiftClan trio had warmth in their own pelts, purring as they wound around him then disappeared.
As Crow continued, he felt a breeze stir. Particles of ash swirled around him, carrying on it the scent of smoke, but underneath that was the scent of his sister. His throat grew tight. The sinking feeling of grief threatened to overwhelm him, but right as his gait became slower, the ash accumulated into the shape of a familiar bengal pelt, Raypaw's smirk taunting. Jeez, gonna cry some more, Crow-food? Cut that out or I'll kill you myself. He laughed, tears streaking his cheeks. Why'd she have to have such a smart mouth all the time? Get out of her, dummy. When she pressed her muzzle to his cheek, he inhaled as much of her scent as he could before his sister whisked away again, leaving Crow on his own again.
He pressed on. He knew there was one fear left to face, but he knew it wouldn't be here. As he ambled along, the seconds feeling like entire lifetimes, he began to feel weight push him down, his movements becoming more sluggish, his eyes becoming drowsy. Would it be so bad to lay down and sleep?
When Crow opened his eyes again, he could hear distant thunder and smell the frost rimming the grass. He could feel the warmth of his mother next to him, watching over him as promised. He grinned groggily. "I did it, mom."
