Everlasting Love (Stormwind)

Amber had been nowhere to be found that morning. Her scent indicated that she had headed away from the territories of both the rogues and the clans. Sun hadn’t cared much, What was one cat to his entire combined force after all?

Sterlingflight turned around, looking over the clan cats and detecting the anxiety some of the younger warriors faces as the noticed how terribly they were outnumbered. “We are warriors,” The tom growled in a low growl. “Every one of us is worth five of them, if not more. Remember your training. Cover the backs of your clanmates as we discussed last night. All that we have to do is cover one another, and become a whirlwind of claws and teeth, striking down any of them that come close!”

Back in camp, Echowhisper suddenly startled awake, taking a deep, gasping breath as if waking up from a nightmare about drowning.

The younger Clan cats winced, but Rainstar and Mossflower stayed stoic, having already known about the numbers.

Eagle stood beside Sun and Cloud, while Mouse, Whiskers, Rabbit, and Lightning we’re farther back.

Finally, from behind the rise, Sun appeared, stepping up and glaring across the border at the Loveclan cats. With a flick of his tail, he ordered his cats to join him.

The rogues quickly lined up behind Sun, appearing to be equally matched to the clan cats in terms of numbers. Some of them, like Peach, weren’t even experienced fighters, and for an instant Oakfoot was prepared to snort. Why were these cats such a threat?

Then, Sun flicked his tail again, and a second row of warriors appeared behind the first. This confirmed Sterlingflight’s suspicion that they were heavily outnumbered. Duststorm’s face darkened and Oakfoot let out a surprised noise. There’s no way...

Rainstar stopped and glanced back briefly at all her warriors before looking back over the border.

All of my rogues were there but Storm, because she was only seven moons old, and all but Lightning were eagerly awaiting the fight.

Even Oakfoot, who rarely let his cool persona slip around clan cats, had a tail that was visibly twitching with nervousness as he padded alongside his friends and his kin, all of the same age. Wolfheart was rationalizing with himself.

Sterlingflight pricked his ears up when the border finally came into view. He looked over to Rainstar, bringing himself to a halt right at the line.

Across the border, Sun peeked out from behind a small ridge, finally seeing the clan cats arrive. Ducking back down and smirking confidently at Cloud, Eagle, and his other confidants, He mewed “It’s almost time.”

Mossflower walked beside Duststorm, with Streamfire and Brookwing just behind, while Emberleaf and Blossomsnow huddled together with the other cats their age. Brackenspots was walking by himself, bristling with anger for the kidnapped Honeypelt.

Sterlingflight padded just beside Rainstar, and behind them, their warriors streamed out of the exit to camp before fanning out into a more compact group. Duststorm looked grimly straight ahead, whereas most of the young warriors were simultaneously itching to use their claws and trying to swallow their hearts back down out of their throats at the same time.

(Yeah, it’s randomly capitalizing random words for me too)

Early the next morning, Rainstar led the bulk of her cats out of the camp, leaving behind only those too young, too old, or not trained to fight.

(Sure! Mine is tripping out too btw, it automatically capitalizes ‘replied’ every time I type it for no reason)

(To the battle now? (My autocorrect has been so weird lately, how the fuck did ‘battle’ become ‘best style’?))

Silverwish chortled at the way Willowheart reacted to her praise. “You’ll do an excellent job.” The she-cat mewed simply, curling up in her nest after taking a quick count of their herbs, not elaborating any more on what she said.

Willowheart blushed and looked away, ruffling her fur uncomfortably.

Silverwish purred loudly, unable to contain herself. “That’s excellent news!” She mewed, barely able to keep the volume of her voice at a respectable level. “It’s much better than I was expecting given the severity of her injury.” The female turned to her former apprentice. “And I think she owes that to you, Willowheart.”

Willowheart blinked at her. “She woke up briefly.”

“Thank you both,” Silverwish mewed gratefully to both warriors, “It was a great comfort and a great help to have you around.” Turning to Willowheart, the medicine cat mewed “How was Echowhisper While I was gone?”

Mossflower started gathering the cobwebs off her pelt, bundling then up, and once she was done, she helped her daughter.

When Silverwish arrived, she made a beeline for the medicine den, stepping inside and setting her poppy seeds down in the correct pile.

The two she-cats followed her.

Rainstar huffed at him but dropped it.

“Well, no, but...” Sterlingflight tried to think of a protest.  “...I don’t know.  I’ll wait until after the battle.”

Silverwish wrapped her tail in the stuff as Mossflower had, then picked up the bundle of poppy seeds she had gathered previously.  She flicked her head in the direction of the camp and began walking that way.

Rainstar pulled back to scowl at her mate and deputy. “And you don’t think I haven’t made mistakes? One mistake does not mean you should step down, Sterlingflight.”

Blossomsnow was unable to collect any more cobwebs, being covered in them, while Mossflower wrapped cobwebs around her tail and legs.

Silverwish stepped back, surveying her work with the poppy seeds all neatly piled inside a large leaf. I hope that’s enough... she glanced over to the two warriors before padding over to help gather cobwebs. It was unlikely that any amount of these would ever be enough come tomorrow. The She-cat was surprised by what great spirits the three of them were in despite the looming threat of death hanging over them all.

“Well, I mean, wouldn’t Duststorm do a better job?” Mewled Sterlingflight to his mate, pinning his ears back. “He’s much more level headed. And I screwed up on the one day where it was so important that I not. I’ve failed the clan, Rainstar, including Honeypelt.”

Blossomsnow smiles sheepishly and Mossflower shook her head before going back to her own collecting.

Rainstar jerked in surprise. “What?”

“That’s one way of doing it,” purred Silverwish, unable to help chuckling to herself at the appearance of Blossomsnow.

Sterlingflight nodded to show he knew what she meant. After a moment, the tom mewed “Rainstar, do you think somebody else would do a better job as deputy if I were to step down?”

When Blossomsnow crawled out of the Hollow log, covered from nose to tail in cobwebs, Mossflower just stared flatly at her.

Rainstar took in a deep, shuddering breath. “I know. It’s just so hard.”

“Hey,” mewed Sterlingflight softly, noticing his mate was on the verge of crying. “Tomorrow is going to be hard. I know, too, I’m part of the reason we are in this mess.” The tom pinned his ears back. “But the clan needs us strong. We are the ones they are going to look for in the battle, to ensure that they’re still fighting for a reason. We are their hope and their light and their guides. We have to be strong.”

Silverwish froze, realizing she had nearly swallowed a seed on accident. The She-cat quickly spit it back out, realizing that that could have gone quite poorly for her.