warriors 🏮 feather-soft

prologue

The dimly-lit forest tucked away behind its massive shadows a thousand secrets, no light to give way to what was hidden away behind their sinister hiding places. The sky above shone no light down, for not a single star could be seen from the swathing mass of pure night sky. The forest below was filled with deciduous life- trees with trunks desaturated and almost gray in how little life they held. Shadows, melt against the prickly forest floor, traversed across the territory, their eyes glinting in different shades of blues, greens and ambers.

The shadows of felines gathered around in a forest clearing, where at the far end stood a tall silvery boulder. The surface of the large stone was scarred and slashed with generations' worth of bitter claws, and atop the object sat three creatures. The cats- all with eyes filled with malice, watched as the gathering felines below got together, hardly mingling as they sat down and murmured. Most of the gathered cats had pelts that were faded, almost as if they were ghosts just mere breaths away from disappearing into nothingness. Others were more real, more physical, with scarred shoulders and powerful muscles rippling underneath sleek pelts. The eyes of the many warriors looked up to the cats upon the boulders, all of their gazes expectant.

The cat seated in the middle- a dark ginger feline by the name of Wavespark- rose to his paws, the unusual cobalt-blue of his eyes venomous as he opened his jaws. "It is quite a rarity, for all of us to be gathered here this evening," the tomcat meowed, his voice calloused and authoritative. Not a single soul but him spoke, and he continued, "Welcome, our comrades from the Dark Forest, and our comrades still living amongst the soft-hearted geese we know to be the Clans." A ripple of amused purrs rippled through the audience, though no words were uttered. Just as quickly as the purrs began, they were gone, leaving enough silence for Wavespark to keep going.

"Tonight, Petalfur, Ferretstar and I have decided that it is time for our plans to be revealed," the ginger speaker meowed, his tail flicking from side to side and his claws lightly scraping against the boulder underfoot. "You're all gathered here because you are our allies. The Clans have wronged us all in one way or another. We've been shunned for our ambition, mocked for our creativity, and casted away for our need to break conventions." Wavespark's eyes glowed with bitter rage, eyes slitted in the darkness. "The Clans are old. The warrior code is old. There is no bloodshed, and no need for the ridiculous rules in place! How can we live as the brave warriors of our ancestors' time if we can't fight for our land? If we can't fight with tooth and claw for our right to live, how can we consider ourselves to be warriors?"

At that, the gathered cats below began to caterwaul their collective agreement. Claws dug into the earth, and feline gazes burned with the need to fight.

The second cat upon the boulder- a beautiful bluish gray she-cat by the name of Petalfur- stood. "We have been ripped apart by our own blood," she meowed, her voice greatly contrasting that of Wavespark's. While the ginger tom's voice raged like a terrifying forest fire, Petalfur's tone was ice cold. The claws that were her voice gripped those around her akin to the fearsome power of a blizzard. Her voice was the disease that froze those to death; the frostbite created from howling winds. "Where only those who are popular are able to rise up the ranks, cats who have been hurt by their brethren are left to be picked away at the bottom. That is who the Dark Forest rises up." Petalfur's eyes turned into slits, her moss-green optics chilling. "There are cats who come here to be even stronger, and there are cats who come here seeking out a second chance. We are all equals- a given right StarClan refused us."

"Our plans to take over the five Clans will succeed," finished the final boulder feline: a lanky black tom with eyes chips of amber ice. He flexed his claws as he continued, "The Dark Forest cats before us were too reckless. They so desperately sought out vengeance that they allowed themselves to be destroyed by the Clans. They let spies into their very own ranks- let StarClan be aware of their plans." Ferretstar hissed softly. "StarClan is not omnipotent; they were as much fools as the rest of us. We will tear their pedestal to shreds."

"Tonight, we will be discussing plans of how to take out the clans!" Wavespark announced, voice booming. "Together, we will rebuild the very foundations of the Clans. We do not need useless borders, nor do we need to solve our issues with the mouse-hearted treaties of peace instilled in the warrior code by our ancestors. The Dark Forest will not fail again!" The ginger tom's gaze swept the gathered followers below, who all seemed to now be trembling with anticipation. With a final yowl, Wavespark exclaimed, "The Dark Forest will reign forever! Chaos will follow, and rebels will fall where they stand!" 

The gathered cats all yowled and cheered, their eyes alight with excitement and tails lashing. From the darkness of the clearing's border, a tomcat sat still and rigid, watching as the meeting went down.

He smiled, claws digging into the soft flesh of the prickly earth below.