What happens when a Starclan prophecy turns out wrong?
The five Warrior Clans are going extinct. Gatherings and Moonpool visits are inacessable, with leaders falling left and right. The lake territories are being wiped out to the brink of extinctio...
Crescentpaw (design not final) __________________________ Continue reading below
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It was Tinypaw and Crescentpaw's first time inside of a Twoleg nest and they did not like it. For one they were kept inside of the tiny trap-box on top of a little square table for the first night.
For two it smelled like other cats. Not toms, but she-cats-and yet Crescentpaw couldn't see any of them through the wire mesh box. It was dark in the room, and had been since the Twoleg had flicked a small switch on the wall, then exited through an archway.
"It stinks of Twoleg and stale air and it's so dark in here..." Tinypaw murmured, curling her skinny tail around herself where she crouched.
"Yes, but maybe those other cats will come to help us. Can't you smell them?" Crescentpaw flexed her whiskers, drawing in the scent of an elderly she-cat and a much, much younger one. Maybe even a kit.
"Yeah but that means they can smell us. And if they're in here they must not want to talk now. They're probably kittypets."
"I know," Crescentpaw eventually sighed. She could barely see her own swirly stripes, and even her white patches were dull in the gloom. Most of the light in their room emitted from around a doorway's edge, where the apprentices could hear twoleg voices droning on.
It was a television, of course- but they had no way of knowing. After a bit longer in the darkness Crescentpaw spoke up again.
"It sucks we can't open the flap up from in here. And also that we've ended up here like so many warriors before us. Despite not wanting to, like they did." She tried to half-heartedly joke to lighten the mood, and draw out the boringness of quiet.
Tinypaw lifted her head and blinked her large violet-blue eyes thoughtfully. "You mean how cats like Foxhop and Onemoon left the Clan to become kittypets? Yeah, I remember. Even though we were still kits." She was silent for a moment, but Crescentpaw could tell there was more that she wanted to say.
"And our mother Vixeneye." Her voice turned sour, and raw, and real. It quivered as Tinypaw let her emotions emerge around her one trusted littermate. "I think it would be great if I never saw her again. Not that she cares," the black she-cat growled admittedly.
"Mhmm." Crescentpaw nodded and crouched beside her. She felt her belly and haunches forced against the sides of the cage mesh. Their space was too small, and she was nearly twice as large as Tinypaw was. Her sister had been born a runt, unusually small even for a Windclan-sized cat. And most Riverclan apprentices were as large as average Windclan warriors, after generations of adapting to swimming with large webbed paws and broad legs and shoulders.
"But don't worry. Unlike them we didn't choose this. We'll get out of here and back to the Clan."
Tinypaw's eyes shone with worry in the near-darkness, but then she partway flattened her ears in disgust.
"Rowanpaw must have told them what happened by now. Maybe they're looking for us... but oh, if only she hadn't of ran off on us!" The sleek black she-cat spat.
Crescentpaw's own point of view on that topic was still confusing to her. On one paw she had seen it as her sister simply panicking. But on the other- her littermate had done this many times before. She was always the first cat to climb a tree to get away from the wolves- whether that meant clawing another cat's back on her way up, or not. But it can't be intentionally.
"Rowanpaw didn't mean to abandon us like that. She just got scared," She told her sister. Crescentpaw licked her littermate's ear gently, before studying her grass-stained paws.
"She probably told the camp as much and they'll be on lookout for us. Don't worry, as soon as we get out of this Twoleg trap we can find a way to get out." She tried to stay calm for herself and Tinypaw as well.
"For now why don't we eat the fish?" The tabby-and-white she-cat nudged her sister with her muzzle. "It'll soon start rotting anyways." The wire beneath their pads pricked into their paws as they stood up.
Tinypaw nodded briskly, doing a 180 toward the fish, which had been right behind them in their teeny space. She took a bite as Crescentpaw turned that way as well.
"Alrighf," Tinypaw proclaimed through her mouth-full of carp.
🐈⬛
Early the next morning Crescentpaw's eyes flicked open at the sound of an approaching Twoleg. The apprentice's hearts were pounding by the time she had rounded the corner.
The lady was a little old thing with frayed white hair and a croaking singsong voice. With slippers sliding across the fuzzy carpet, the dark room was soon illuminated; as the trembling Twoleg flicked on the lightswitch. She spoke calmly to the two cats, before opening the door to the trap by releasing a latch that they had not even noticed before.
At first neither realized what was happening. But then the two apprentices looked at each other quellingly. Crescentpaw was the first to nod and bolt forward, attempting escape.
But unfortunately this old Twoleg was experienced with things like that. And so she was ready when Crescentpaw head-butted into her hands- which were blocking the way out.
Tinypaw backed against the cage wall again, but Crescentpaw kept trying. When the hand moved in front of her face to block her again, she lifted a paw to scratch it.
"Wait! I'm just giving you some food and water," the elderly woman said frantically- but Crescentpaw couldn't understand. She extended her claws and swiped downward, drawing blood on the wrinkled fingers. Tinypaw stayed behind her, cowering with her fur fluffed. Both she-cat's eyes were huge with fright.
"Ouch!" The elderly woman spat and withdrew her hairless paw to begin closing the cage flap. She managed to stick the bowl of water in there with them before retreating.
"Hurry, Tinypaw!" Crescentpaw leaped forward, past the water bowl and open metal flap portion. She turned to wait for Tinypaw at the entrance. Up on the wooden table where their cage-trap sat, the old woman shoved Crescentpaw back in and stuck a kittypet food bowl in the exit path.
Tinypaw had hardly moved, and Crescentpaw was disheartened to hear the flap lock closed behind her. She turned to look at her kin, eyes flat.
"I'm sorry," Tinypaw exclaimed in a fierce whisper, her moon-round eyes reflecting the ceiling light as they were picked up and moved. "I got scared. I-I hate Twolegs." She turned her fluffy face away with a pout.
"Well then, off to the vet." The elderly woman said in her own language before bending down to pick up the live trap by its handle.
The cats didn't understand her, and so they were even more confused as they were loaded into a car and driven down the street to a local community vet clinic.
Tinypaw and Crescentpaw were freaked out the entire way there- feeling the vibrations and ticks of the car gliding along the road at their unfathomable speeds once again. But upon arrival they found the scents even more jarring.
So many other animals; some prey, some predator. Luckily they were contained inside of their carrier, because Tinypaw had nearly hyperventilated at being brought into yet another Twoleg nest. Crescentpaw did her best to shield her sister, flanking the smaller she-cat as they were air-lifted through the clinic and into an examination room.
Some time later, the apprentices were examined through the cage by a veterinatian technician. Being looked at by another Twoleg was not taken particularly well by either cat, as Crescentpaw hissed and Tinypaw cringed- with her eyes nearly bulging out of her skull.
"I'd like them to be declawed today," the woman said forwardly in tones that the cats could not understand.
