Starter Post NarrationI'll code this properly once I have coding. For now this is just here, so just. bare with me.
Oripendularnose went alone on her borderpatrols so oft she had forgotten what it was like to go alongside others, truth be told. “Patrols are for fighters” she was always told, “Let Windthorn and Skyshadow and Jaguarshade lead patrol.” She was only a little slip of a molly, black with short fur and bright eyes. She was the smallest in her litter, and even her twin brother, Turkeyfeather, was small compared to the large toms they’d always bring up in protest. Ori had only barely passed her fighting so well as her mentor was willing to have as a minimum for her apprentices.
But she more than made up for her lack of fighting prowess in other skills. When she wanted, she had a quick, fast wit, such as scared many of the warriors when they heard Howlers. She was nimble and agile, leaping through holes the others said that only mice could manage. She didn’t like the water, and wasn’t much of a swimmer, but no cat had seen a spidermonkey hit the water before, and she was, indeed, that good in the trees. She could match an eagle’s speed stroke-for-stroke as she found prey, and her strike was deadly as a snake’s. Her mother had called her cactus-claw as a kit, and the comparison was not unfounded. Her nose was strong, as strong as the native humans’ dogs, and she lost a scent so often, as well.
But, most of all… she was smart, and she had a blinding memory.
While the rest of the cats slept, she honoured her memory.
She remembered the words of the code, the words of their oath.
They did not.
They swore, as fresh warriors, that they would go on patrol every single day. They swore, and yet they did not. And they did not deserve to be warriors.
They did not deserve to be clan members.
The same would never be said for Oripendularnose. Her running had not always been so fast or agile, but alone, she was often the target of predators and opportunitists. It was not a cat who could not learn fast who patrolled alone in Marshclan’s territory. And she had been patrolling alone for years.
She saw the newcomer far before he saw her.
She was on him with as little warning as a vampire bat to a cow, a waterfall of muscle and claws plummeting into foliage caves.
“Get out of our territory!” She slashed him round the face, leaving four deep claw-marks across the ginger tom’s nose. “You’re not we-“
But already she had been pinned beneath his huge paws. She really was not a good fighter. She hadn’t even seen him move, and it was so fast it felt almost unreal. But she had worked herself so hard recently, making sure there was enough food, and that the borders were still freshly patrolled.
“Perhaps not by them. I’ve been here half a moon, and despite the clan scent being strong, you’re the only clan cat I’ve seen in this time.” He leaned in a little closer. She could see now, the wild look in his eyes, the mess of his fur, the scratches all over – a seasoned warrior, no doubt. Loners didn’t reach this age. “You deserve better.”
Ori could feel her hiss dying away at what she assumed was a back-pawed compliment. Just to check… “What do you mean?”
“No cat as hard-working as you deserves to live among only cats that do nothing for the clan. They don’t know their own code. They swore it. They swore an oath and didn’t follow it. They don’t deserve to live in a clan.”
How could this loner know so much? How could he know exactly how she felt? He really must have been watching for half a moon… But how could she not have noticed him before? And he was, of course, exactly right. They didn’t deserve to live in a clan.
“They’re what I have. They’re family.”
“Some family, forcing one cat to do all the work. They don’t deserve you.”
“First you say they don’t deserve to live in a clan, and now they don’t deserve me? How can the best way of dealing with them be both kicking them out and leaving myself?”
“I never said either of those was best. You are doing all the hunting aren’t you?”
Ori narrowed her eyes, tail twitching slightly.
“You can’t mean…”
“’An honourable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles unless they are outside the code’.”
“You mean…?”
“The other way? An honourable warrior needs to kill other cats who are outside the code, but does not need to to win their battles.”
“And they defied the code.”
“All of them?”
“The kits?”
“There are no kits.”
“There’s a queen.”
“With kits?”
“A perma-queen.”
The tom’s mouth twitched, something between a smirk and a snarl.
“A waste of valuable resources. Perma-queens are only useful when the birthing queens have no milk or have died. Perma-queens take and take and burden the whole clan and give nothing back at all. All clan cats are valuable. And she is not valuable.”
“So she doesn’t deserve to be a clan cat.”
“That’s harsh.”
“That’s truth.”
“More accurately, she already isn’t a clan cat.”
“…Yes.”
“Cats who break the code deserve to die.”
“The code says so.”
“They all broke the code.”
“They deserve to die.”
“Yes.”
“And then you’ll no longer be burdened with those ingrate buffoons who can’t do anything useful, ever.”
“Maybe you should spare the medicine cat.”
“No, the medicine cat broke the rules already, the medicine cat rules, and if he were alive he might stop Starclan’s code being followed through for the others.”
“It’s Starclan’s will, they set the code.”
“Starclan would want this.”
“It’s what they commanded.”
“Yes.”
“You would deserve to die if you didn’t follow their commands; their commands even say so! See, they command death for those who break the code within the code, so to not give death to them you would break the code and deserve death yourself. It’s just the right thing to do. At least you’ll be justified in their eyes.”
“It’s only justice. It’s just to save me and redeem myself in Starclan’s eyes.”
“Yes.”
“Starclan command this.”
“Starclan want them dead.”
“The food…”
Oripendularnose smiled, bright eyes glinting.
“The food.”
Already, the tom was gone. He’d vanished into the plants.
And so had her certainty. But still, she took a detour, to the place where the medicine cats had once showed her, where the plants grew thick and short, and the ground sloped down in a hollow, to where the water was green and covered in tiny budded plants. And there, on the other side (which only took her a few seconds to reach) was the plant with the mass of red berries. The same red as blood. She snapped off the branch with her teeth, and went the rest of the way around patrol.
Ori made only one detour – to stash her branch in another cave, not so far from the one that housed their camp.
She went on patrol again the next morning. She met the tom again. They talked again. This time, she burst some of the berries to confirm; they really did look like fresh blood inside. Her mother asked her if she had got a new mate, she looked so pleased. Ori said yes, she’d met just the cat she was looking for.
And again, the next morning, she met the tom. They talked. Ori wiped the berry juice around the wounds of a bird she’d just killed and practiced blending the juice in naturally. It took some work, but she could manage it.
The fourth morning, Tumblepaw fell ill. The medicine cat asked for her to bring back herbs after her patrol – and why not, her new medicine cat would need them in time. The tom agreed. Ori practiced on another bird. Tumblepaw was dead by the time she got back. Ori felt nothing as the clan mourned. There was a small pile of birds in her new cave.
The fifth morning, Ori’s patrol was far shorter. She did just enough to be sure she had followed the code, and then turned to hunting. The clan was so happy to see the huge pile of food she had brought. She was happy to see them happy.
She delivered the fat turkey very deliberately to Boastar.
“You always were hard-working, Oripendularnose. I don’t need all of this, and you don’t have anything. Don’t you want to share?”
Ori looked at the nine bite marks the bird had.
“No. It was quite a struggle to take down, you can see. I have scratches from it. I’d rather not have a meal soured by pain.”
Boastar considered this. “If you’re sure.”
“Completely.”
“You really are a paragon of a warrior.”
“It’s all I aim for.”
On the sixth morning, it was just Oripendularnose left in camp. The tom was at the camp entrance.
“I never asked.” Ori said, looking up from the pile of bodies she’d started dragging outside to rot, like all oath-breakers deserved. “Who are you?”
The tom smiled his jagged smile, eyes glinting, looking almost red in the dark of the cave. Light flicked off his coat like stars where the sunlight still reached it. “I think you know who I am.”
Ori nodded.
“I think I do.”
The tom looked satisfied, flicked his tail, and vanished into the undergrowth, leaving her alone in the long limestone caves. Below her, further into the cave network, ancient rivers churned, carrying the souls of the oath-breakers deep into the caverns beneath the earth where trees grew without light. Above the rock face, a ruin of a long-gone civilisation, betrayed with gifts and history with just their ruins and with bones left in triangular heaps, thick vegetation growing a hundred feet tall, with countless plants and animals, and above that, a cloudy sky waiting to pour down the afternoon’s carefully allotted hour-long rain. A single bird could be heard, with a long, careening, mournful cry, no doubt swinging beneath its branch.
-1697-> Paragonclan has been founded! - Kazin