Deep Blue Eyes-- a warriors fanfic (completed story!)

Chapter 34

Poppyleaf was frozen in terror.

She had heard of the old forest in nursery stories, the first home of the clans. It was the building block of StarClan, the clans, the code, and everything she had ever known.

Now ahead of her was an endless patch of torn-up grass and broken crumbled rock, faint twoleg markings still visible across the landscape. Monsters lay there, but they were dented and broken, the light faded from their eyes.

When Poppyleaf heard she was going to go to the forest, she had thought she would go to a place with lush trees and rivers, twolegs frolicking across the hills of WindClan territory and splashing in the river of RiverClan territory. She expected maybe a few cats, descendants of the elders that had stayed behind, warming themselves on Sunningrocks. She never would have expected this.

As many generations pass, stories begin to have missing pieces and begin to fade, replaced with details that were sprung out of mind’s eye. The story that Poppyleaf had heard was that twolegs invaded and that the cats had to move. Elders did not believe in telling kits the truth. Poppyleaf had thought that no cat had died, and that the forest wasn’t torn apart by ferocious monsters. When Elders don’t tell kits stories, the kits become elders and don’t know the truth. Preserving the innocence of kits sometimes is not helpful, for when they learn it will be devastating.

“We- we must have gone the wrong way,” Flowerblaze stammered. Poppyleaf looked into her eyes and saw doubt flickering.

Nightclaw was gazing the landscape with a cold, hard stare. “This is the right place. I can feel it.”

“You don’t know that,” Flameheart protested.

“I know everything!” Nightclaw hissed, shoving her aside and standing on the edge of the rock. “Poppyleaf, tell us everything you know about the old forest from nursery tales.”

“Well,” Poppyleaf began, grateful she had something to do, “the old forest was the building block of everything we know now. This was the place where rogues, loners and kittypets joined together-”

“Not history!” Nightclaw growled, exasperated. “Just the landscape of the territory.”

“What does that mean?” Poppyleaf asked, thoroughly confused.

“Like where the territories were and where we’d be now,” Nightclaw rolled her eyes.

Poppyleaf was getting used to Nightclaw’s mean-ness. “The moor was WindClan territory, separated with a gorge from RiverClan. RiverClan is separated from ThunderClan by a river, and a Thunderpath separated ThunderClan and ShadowClan.”

Nightclaw nodded, surveying the landscape. “Ahead of us is moor, which is likely to be WindClan territory. Beyond that there should be a gorge. But since twolegs raided the territory, they must have filled in the gorge. But judging by the landscape…” she trailed off.

“What?” Poppyleaf pressed.

Nightclaw spun around, nearly slipping off of the edge. “Quiet! I’m thinking!” She turned back to the territories.

Poppyleaf bristled. Nightclaw still scared her, even though they were traveling together for a few moons.

Flowerblaze silently drew her tail across Poppyleaf’s back, smoothing the ruffled calico fur. Poppyleaf was grateful that some cats were nice in the group.

Nightclaw backed away and turned towards the anxiously awaiting cats. “Okay. So I’ve calculated…”

The process was very complicated. Poppyleaf’s mind couldn’t keep up with Nightclaw’s explanation, although Nightclaw breezed through it like it was child’s play.