call of the storm [open]

Subject: call of the storm [open] Fri Jun 08, 2018 8:23 pm

The storm raged fiercely.

A golden she-cat stepped across the hardened black of the thunderpath -- wind slicing her fur and roaring in her ears -- as the cold seeped like ice into her paws. She was not a powerfully built cat, nor was she an invincible one -- and yet still Honeyfang walked, one paw over the next, in the midst of rain and fury.

It was a raging storm -- one that would have swept any cat away -- but not Honeyfang.

Not with the stars shining over her, lighting her path. Guiding her.

The she-cat walked with determination in every muscle of her being, the rightness of it humming in her bones; her blood. The forest lay before her -- a scattering of rich, ancient trees in the distance; just within sight -- and it became closer and closer with every pawstep.

"Thunderclan will become one once again, in midst of rain and fury."

And thunder rumbled like a dark, glorious growl from the stars...

...just as Honeyfang woke with a gasp.

-----

two-leg place

"You know I respect your judgement, Honeyfang," the tom mewed, eyes keen and golden. "I would not have survived this leaf-bare had I not done so. But your youth... I mean, these dreams..."

"They aren't just dreams," the amber-eyed she-cat snapped, just keeping her tail from lashing. The elderly tom was hunched over, matted gray fur sticking out at odd angles. "I've been having it for moons now, and it's the same. Always."

Leaving this acrid, two-leg infested place... following the dark path until they saw a forest on the horizon. And the thunder roared around her that couldn't be mistaken; a voice whispering in her ears, calling her forward...

Calling them back.

"Hmm..." Mottlefur mewed, yellow eyes misting; as if pulling into himself. But Honeyfang was the most serious she-cat he had ever known, and would not lie. His sigh was long. "It just doesn't seem possible..."

Possible? What didn't seem possible was them -- Thunderclan -- eking out their existence like this; running on the hard, foul-smelling stone and scavenging from two-leg crowfood.

Oh, Honeyfang knew it was about survival -- felt it in the stretch of deep scars across her shoulders, her flank -- and the memory of unforgiving moons would never leave her. But in her heart, the young she-cat knew -- she knew -- that they were not meant for this life.

They were meant to be wild; to hunt in forests so lush and deep and with the grass beneath their paws.

Thunderclan had been driven out many, many years ago -- long before Honeyfang, or her mother -- but the stories... the legends... Honeyfang could feel the truth of them ring in her blood.

Scavenging from two-legs, fighting filthy rogues for scraps... it was the life her mother led them away from. What was left of Thunderclan was small, and looked like rogues -- but Honeyfang's mother never let them live like them. Never let Honeyfang.

"Mother said Starclan had plans for us," she said, and she remembered it like it was yesterday; remembered her mother like she had not succumbed to illness so long ago, and had only recently stood before her. "That Starclan would bring Thunderclan to greatness again."

And her mother was right. Honeyfang could feel it.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Mottlefur mewed suddenly, almost startled at the determination blazing in Honeyfang's eyes. "To this forest you think we're 'meant' to live in?"

The she-cat's small smile was fanged.

"Not just me, Mottlefur," she mewed, with the authority a young warrior's moons couldn't grant her. But Honeyfang had always been the most tenacious of them; the fiercest. And where she led, Thunderclan would only follow. "We're all leaving."

Mottlefur's ears only flicked back as Honeyfang spun, leaping onto the a tall, jagged rock. The clearing the band of cats occupied was small, and scattered with signs of two-leg even as it bordered the empty forest; but for once, Honeyfang didn't feel the angry twinge in her chest as she gazed upon it.

Mottlefur might not believe it... but in Honeyfang's heart, she knew, just as she knew so many moons ago.

Thunderclan would be great again.

And so when Honeyfang stepped to address her clan -- her kin -- just as her mother had done before her, she felt a stirring in her chest.

"Everyone!" she called sharply, commanding the cats of Thunderclan to attention. "Get yourself ready! We're leaving!"

Subject: Re: call of the storm [open] Sun Jun 10, 2018 12:37 am

[Assuming there is a time skip happening here, once Honeyfang and the others reach the territory...]

Everything had gone dark. Before they even reached the forest, almost her entire kin had fallen to the terrors of the earth. Once relative by sickness, several due to infected wounds, and lastly, her mother to that fox. Shadowkit had escaped with little more than a scar on her back. Instead of fearing the nighttime now, she came to despise it. Anger fueled the half-grown, ball of fluff. Her claws itched to tear the ears off of every fox in the forest. Despite her father's seeming ignorance to her existence, for what little time she had known him, she had admired Stoneclaw's strength. And he would have killed a fox. So, that became her mission. It was just pure coincidence that she had ended up in the very territory she belonged. She was too young to care much for the faith her parent had abandoned long ago, but any other cat would have been plainly able to see Starclan had guided her steps.

All alone and with next to no training on how to defend herself, Shadowkit was driven by her intense spirit. Will and Starclan. Regardless of what the truth was, the she-cat had come to believe in these few short days that this territory was now hers. No other cats had trod here yet. And, unlike the stinking stone holes her group had slept in on several occasions, this place was beautiful. It was everything that her parents had said their home used to be like. Well, Stoneclaw remembered it more than mother, but the idea was the same. Therefore, the land was claimed by this little kit. So, when she happened to smell the scents of strange cats, her fur fluffed up nearly twice its size. Someone was invading! Shadowkit flew from the bush she had been crouched in, sloppily trying to hunt a bird. And within moments, she stood nearly nose to nose with a large, ginger cat.

With a low hiss, a challenge went out to the stranger and the cats that followed behind her, "What are you doing here? This isn't your place! Get out!" It was almost comical, both because of her not yet full size and that fact that she only stood as one against them. But, there was no way she was going to let any cat pass through here. Stoneclaw wouldn't have! Her eyes flickered with a fire almost too intense for a cat so young. Her gaze, which should have been filled with the excitement of warrior training around that age was glistening with fight and disdain. As little claws slid into the earth below, it was obvious: Shadowkit was about to fight this cat.

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