Root of Fear
From Children of StarClan
As an apprentice, Cloverleaf earned her fear of battling making a foolish decision she later regretted. This story is documentation of that. (Please note that the WindClan cats are Blackwater, Hawkflight, Lilypaw and a fourth warrior, who is a NPC created for this text).
- Out of character, this story was created by Gorse. It occurred during the Moon of Long Nights (2005)
Root of Fear
Cloverpaw dashed through the undergrowth happily. Surely her mentor would be pleased. An early hunting mission would bring back prey, prey that the Clan would need now, now that leaf-bare was upon them. Bloodpelt and Twilightstar would not be so thrilled that she had gone out by herself, but if she brought back enough prey, they couldn't be too mad at her, could they? Well, maybe Bloodpelt would, but she didn't really much care.
Suddenly, she scented a vole. Dropping down into a hunter's crouch, she crept forward, pawstep by pawstep, until she pounced. One swift bite later, and the vole lay dead in her jaws. She buried her fresh-kill dutifully, she turned and continued on a path that lead her toward Fourtrees.
The scent of mouse washed over her. What luck! she thought, creeping thought, creeping forward. This would be sure to please Twilightstar! Prey was so hard to catch in leaf-bare.
Just as she was about to spring, a twig crunched ahead. Foxdung! she thought furiously as the mouse scampered away. Whoever lost me that is going to-
"Mousebrain!" a voice hissed, "We'll be discovered if you keep it up!" Cloverpaw scented the air and realized that, while she had been occupied with the mouse, an new scent had drifted toward her: WindClan.
Invaders, she thought with a jab of fear, and a jab of fury as well. WindClan on ThunderClan territory! How dare they!? Cloverpaw was lucky. The wind was blowing the scent of the WindClan cats towards her. She was downwind of them. Now, a decision lay before her. She could either run back to camp and warn Bloodpelt, or stay and fight, and take the WindClan cats by surprise.
It took her a heartbeat to make up her mind.
"WindClan warriors on ThunderClan territory," she said loudly, "Hope you weren't planning to go far." And she leaped over a small rise between here and the WindClan cats.
They were obviously surprised by her sudden appearance. Their pelts bristled and their eyes were focused as they found Cloverpaw's ginger-and-black pelt. There were three warriors, and one cat who looked young enough to be an apprentice.
Her advantage of surprise lasted only a moment.
"Well lookie here," one of the warriors said with a menacing glee, "We came to raid ThunderClan territory and what do we find? A tiny apprentice."
Cloverpaw bared her teeth as her pelt bristled under the insult. "Back off. You're on ThunderClan territory. You don't belong here. You came here against the warrior code. And if you don't leave now, I'll have to make you."
The end of her speech was barely heard over the laughter of the WindClan cats. Cloverpaw hissed furiously.
"Brave words for such a puny apprentice," the youngest cat, the one who looked young enough to be an apprentice herself, sneered.
"Ha," Cloverpaw jeered, "You don't look that much bigger than me, dogbreath!"
The WindClan cat's eyes narrowed, "You wanna back that up?" she snarled.
Cloverpaw smirked, "It would be my pleasure."
A cat shouted, "Lilypaw wait!" But the cat had already leaped for Cloverpaw. And she had already neatly sidestepped her and before they could blink, she took off. She literally began to run in circles, using her speed to make the cats spin around, trying to keep her in view. A few lunged at her, but she moved too quickly to be caught so easily.
"Come on!" someone shouted, "We can't let her get back to camp to warn her Clan!"
She laughed fiercely. Let them try and catch her. Let them try and stop her. They were nothing put pathetic WindClan cats, invaders. She was faster than any-
And suddenly, a heavy weight crashed into her side, driving her to the ground and knocking the breath out of her. Cloverpaw gasped for air as she heard a voice call, "Great job, Blackwater!"
The cat called Blackwater was pinning her down, and try as she might, she could do little more than wriggle beneath him fiercely.
"Get off me you piece of foxdung!" she snarled, scrabbling at the ground, trying to escape. Fear and anger pounded through her veins.
Another voice, the voice of the first cat who had jeered her said nastily, "Come on. Let's teach this apprentice a lesson about respect!"
She heard Blackwater speak, "Hawkflight, hold on a-"
But suddenly, a claw flashed, and Cloverpaw squealed as pain lanced through the side of her head. Blackwater leaped off her, but before she could even move, claws began to batter her from all sides. Laughter filled the air as the cats bore down on her, attacking her to quickly and giving her no opportunity to try to escape. Hawkflight yowled, "Not so tough now, are we!?" as Cloverpaw whimpered beneath his blows and that of the other cats. She wailed in pain as Lilypaw leaped on her and delivered a vicious bite to her shoulder. Gripping her thus, the WindClan apprentice began to rake her hind claws down her ThunderClan opponent's flank.
Eventually, Cloverpaw was reduced to nothing but a curled-up ball of fur, her eyes shut tight, too beaten to even shiver.
"Stop!" the cat named Blackwater called, and miraculously, the blows stopped falling. With surprising gentleness, Blackwater nudged Cloverpaw's flank with his nose. "I think she's dead." There was shock and grief in his voice, "And if she's not, she will be soon."
"So?" Hawkflight snapped, but there was an uneasy edge to his growl.
"So?!" Blackwater yowled back "SO?! We weren't supposed to kill anyone!"
"This is a war," Lilypaw grumbled in a low voice.
"But an apprentice?!" Blackwater hissed, "She couldn't even defend herself!"
There was some grumbling from Hawkflight and Lilypaw, but in general it was filled with unease.
"Let's get out of here," said the fourth cat, the only one whose name had not been said, "We did what we came here to do, and some. Let's go."
Hawkflight made an argumentative sound, but the cat snapped, "No arguments. We're going."
Unaware of all this, Cloverpaw finally opened her eyes a slit to see the cats that attacked her leaping away, headed for Fourtrees and WindClan territory. What little strength she had left began to ebb, and she soon found herself gasping for breath. She tried weakly to get up, but her strength failed her and she thumped heavily back to the ground, making her wail as her dozens of wounds seared with pain.
If I ever get out of this alive, she vowed, I'll never fight again. I didn't have to fight just now, but I did. And now I'm almost dead. She shuddered. Admitting how close she was to dying, and how powerless she was to stop it, was a traumatizing experience that would affect her for moons to come, although she didn't know it. I'm only nine moons old! she wailed, I can't die!
But she could. And as the pain lengthened each moment to an eternity, as she lay gasping for breath, she knew that if she did, it would be because she had fought.
Nightfall moved quickly, fear pounding through him like a drum. According to the cats at camp, his best friend Cloverpaw had gone out at dawn to hunt, and now, near sunset, though it was hard to tell due to the cloud cover, she had still not returned. Bloodpelt had decreed that he would lead a search party to find her, and Nightfall had begged the deputy to let him come as well. Coming with them was Shardclaw, and a fourth cat whose name he didn't really much care about right now. All that mattered now was that they find Cloverpaw as soon as possible.
Suddenly Bloodpelt stopped in his tracks.
"What?" Nightfall asked quickly.
The ThunderClan deputy began scrabbling at the ground. A few moments later, he came up with a recently-killed vole. He deposited it at the rest of the patrol's feet.
"It's got Cloverpaw's scent on it," he said, but Nightfall had already recognized his best friend's scent on the fresh-kill. So it looked like she really had been out on a hunting patrol. But why hadn't she come back by now? Had something gone wrong? Nightfall half-hissed with worry. What had Cloverpaw been thinking? Going out by herself...
"Let's keep looking," Bloodpelt meowed.
Nightfall fell in behind the deputy, and carefully picked up Cloverpaw's scent trail and began to follow it. Ahead of him, Bloodpelt froze and broke off suddenly with a hiss of his own.
"What is it?" this time it was Shardclaw who asked the question.
"WindClan," Bloodpelt hissed, "Looks like we've had trespassers on our territory today. The scent's fresh enough." He paused, his fury at this breech of ThunderClan's borders evident, "Spread out and search the area. I don't want any WindClan cats on our territory."
And what about Cloverpaw? Nightfall thought irritably, but guessed grimly that the deputy suspected the same thing he did.
Scenting the air, he padded over a low rise and looked around.
"Cloverpaw?" he called. At first, he didn't see anything, although her scent here was strongest yet, along with the tang of blood...
A flash of orange caught his eye. Then he gasped. The she was, lying there, her pelt dark with what was unmistakably her own blood. His worst fears were confirmed. There had been a WindClan raiding party, and Cloverpaw had been the first to find them.
"CLOVERPAW!" he yowled, loud enough to be sure that the rest of the patrol heard him. Meanwhile, he rushed down and began licking her ears, trying to clean them off. Deep wounds crossed her back like spiderwebs, and many still bled sluggishly. She was completely still, except for the faintest rise and fall of her chest. "Oh Cloverpaw..." he mewed.
"It looks like she found that WindClan raiding party," Bloodpelt said needlessly from behind him, "Shardclaw, run back to camp and tell Twilightstar what happened."
"Yes, Bloodpelt," Shardclaw dipped his head respectfully before turning and bounding back towards camp.
"Meanwhile, we'll need to move the body..." he continued.
"Bloodpelt," Nightfall interrupted, still attempting to clean his best friend as best he could, "Cloverpaw's alive..." He trailed off. He turned and carefully mewed in her ear, "Cloverpaw?"
A familiar voice reached her through a haze of pain, calling out her name. She did not know how much she had slept over the past hours, all she knew, awake or asleep, was the pain, the fear that she was about to die. And now this voice...
She opened her eyes the tiniest of fractions. A familiar but hazy shape was right in front of her, black with white paws...
"Night..." her own voice, terrifyingly weak, seemed to reach her from a long distance away. She couldn't finish the word she had started, so she tried again, "Night... fall...?"
"It's okay Cloverpaw," his voice sounded, loud and clear and solid in her ear. She clung to it with all of her strength as darkness engulfed her, "Hang in there..."
"She's alive!" Nightfall said urgently, turning back to the other two cats, "We have to get her back to camp, we have to get her back to Tangleheart!"
Bloodpelt raised his tail for silence. He seemed preoccupied, doubtlessly with the invading WindClanners, due to his expression. The deputy looked like he had just swallowed mouse bile. Then, seeming to come back to the present, he nodded.
Carefully, the three cats moved to pick up Cloverpaw as gently as they could.
"Amazing this little scrap survived this long," the fourth cat mewed, "If those cats had scratched her up any more, she'd be nothing but kit bedding, and she can't have been out hunting for long before she met that patrol."
Nightfall shivered. He hated to think how long Cloverpaw might have been out there, in as much pain as she was, waiting for help, for someone to find her.
She'll be okay, he told himself, She has to.