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yewclangen · 6 months

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Moon 0- Prologue

The slick coats their paws. The light of the city not too far in the distance. Goldleaf and the rest of her patrol slink in the shadows, far too tired to take another step, but they must move on. They haven’t looked back since the moon rose and they won’t stop until dawn.

“You’re certain this is the safest way” Goldleaf hissed to Jaggedshreik, who flicked his ear in her direction.

“We will move where the shadows are deepest, where the light of the stars do not touch.” The sky here was pale, they had left Silverpelt far behind.

Goldleaf grumbled under her breath. Jaggedshriek was a gifted prophet, yet she found his vague omens more annoying than mysterious or wise. But he was their only connection to the Place of No Stars. Without him, they would all be dead. How things are going now, we might as well be. She thought bitterly.

They continued to walk, closer to the city than most of them ever had been before. The stinging smell of oil and fumes coated Goldleaf’s nose and she had to refrain from gagging. Beside her, Robinfeather seemed to share her sentiment.

“What a wonderful place you’ve brought us to, Jaggedshriek. If Moonclan doesn’t find and kill us first, we’ll all be poisoned to death.” Robinfeather wrinkled her nose in disgust. Goldleaf couldn’t help but agree.

Jaggedhshriek snorted, “If you can’t smell them, they cannot smell you. We will go where the stars cannot follow us.”

Robinfeather lashed her tail but said nothing else.

A voice from the back of the patrol spoke up. “Goldleaf. We have to stop. Hollypaw can’t take much more.” That was Nightsting. Goldleaf could only see his copper eyes glow in the city light, his black pelt melting into the shadows. Besides him, young Hollypaw looked pathetic with his matted fur covered in blood. It was hard to say how much was his.

As much as Goldleaf wanted to keep her authority over the group, she had to concede that she wasn’t in charge at the moment. She looked to Jaggedshriek to see what the healer thought.

He nodded at her. “We can stop for now. I’ll tend to Hollypaw.”

The clearing they stopped in seemed to be a monster graveyard. Their bodies were old and decayed with their black paws in large piles. Despite the dead trees, new growth was starting to overtake them. Where did monsters go when they died? Did they have an afterlife like Starclan? Or were they forced to sink into the earth, forever decaying. For a brief moment, Goldleaf felt an odd kinship with them.

All the cats of the group split up into their own groups. Nightsting and Jaggedshriek looked over Hollypaw. Jaggedshriek left to go and find any kind of usable herb to treat him for infection, though what plants would grow in a wasteland like this, Goldleaf doesn’t know. Robinfeather and Swampcreek try to find anything to eat. Goldleaf is left in the clearing with Silverfern.

The old warrior twitched his whiskers at her. “Congratulations on making it out alive.”

“I could say the same thing to you. I saw you fighting with Foxstar. Her body was cold by the time we left.”

Silverfern licked his paw and dragged it over his scarred muzzle. “She had it coming. Ever since we were apprentices, she held her rank over me. Finally time I got one over her.”

“That wasn’t her last life, was it?”

“I wish, but no. I could hear her screams for revenge for miles.” Silverfern’s face fell sullen and his eyes were dark. “We made it out tonight, Goldleaf, but she will be back and she won’t be happy.”

Goldleaf had to look away from his intense gaze. Even as his pelt dulled and white fur sprouted around his muzzle, no cat could look at Silerfern and feel superior. Even Goldleaf had to bend to him. “We would be dead if we stayed. At least on our own, we have the freedom to choose”

Robinfeather and Swampcreek returned with only two small mice between them. Jaggedshriek could only find two sorry looking poppy flowers. Hollypaw developed a fever and was barely clinging onto consciousness. They were sitting pigeons here. Even with the smell of the monsters everywhere, Moonclan would find them by morning.

A flash of something danced in the corner of Goldleaf’s eye. A shadow flickered out of her sight, the wind blowing against her back. “Did you see that, Robin?”

Robinfeather looked up from her mouse and licked her lips, scanning the open horizon past the scarce trees. “See what?”

“There was a cat. Hiding out in the brush.”

Robinfeather lashed her tail and flexed her claws into the earth. “Moonclan? Back already, eh?”

Something twisted inside of Goldleaf’s gut. Did they manage to catch up to them already? Maybe they sent someone ahead to scout, but…

“That’s not Moonclan. It’s something else, I can feel it.”

“Want me to put them in their place? Even if they’re not clan cats, strangers poking into our business is the last thing we need right now.”

Goldleaf shook her head. This wasn’t natural, this was purposeful. “Stay here and keep watch after the others.” She got to her paws and climbed over a monster. “This is meant for me.”

“Hey.” Robinfeather brushed her muzzle against Goldleaf’s “Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

“We’ll see.” She leapt off the monster and walked out into the cleaning, closer and closer to the starless sky.

The shadow shape was always in front of her, always just out of reach. Bright red eyes peered out from behind the brush, a silhouette up on the hill, a single pawstep in the mud. Goldleaf started to feel annoyed at this game of chase, it would be dawn soon. She almost considered turning back, until…

The City.

And there it was. The shadow cat with its night-black fur and blood red eyes. It sat there, no longer running. Waiting by the mouth of a cave underneath a thunderpath. It smelled like rotting monster bodies.

Goldleaf approached the shape, keeping her feet light in case it was some kind of trick, claws unsheathed. It didn’t run. So neither would she.

“Why drag me all the way out here?” She hissed. “Kill me and feed me to the twolegs? Somewhere the others will never find me?”

The shadow said nothing. It’s fur wisped in the wind, like smoke off of a smoldering log. It retreated further into the tunnel, beckoning Goldleaf with its tail.

Inside was damp and reeked with the smell of the thunderpath. A trail of tainted water pathetically flowed on the hard ground. And, there was something else. Something that broke through the unnatural smells of the city. Goldleaf stiffened when she realized it was-

EAT.

Goldleaf’s fur bristled. The shadow spoke, but not from a mouth. Inside of her head. Everywhere and Nowhere.

The shadow pushed a pile of deathberries to Goldleaf’s paws.

EAT. It said again.

Goldleaf’s stomach flipped. Every instinct on fire, screaming at her to not do it. The lessons Hazelbird taught her since she was a kit. Do not eat the yew. The old cleric flashed in her mind, cold and scolding, lit by the burning moon and stars.

Fuck you, Hazelbird was Goldleaf’s last thought before she bent down and ate. The juice of the yew coated her tongue. Its flesh was hard. It’s poison seized her, choking her lungs. She collapsed on the floor, the life fading from her eyes. The shadow stood over her and watched,

With a gasping breath, Goldleaf clawed at the mud that surrounded her. Her lungs were burning. The mud threatened to pull her down again and refused to let go of her pelt. She swam to the bank. Her legs were shaky. She was heavy. Her mind a blur, unable to see through the shadows that surrounded her.

Before her, stood the shadow. No longer a shadow, however. His pelt was black and speckled. Mud coated his paws and chest and dripped down his fur like blood. His eyes were still that bright red.

“And so you came.” His voice was a low growl, like the hum of a roaring monster. His movements were slow and deliberate. A wolf circling a dying deer. “The light of the moon has left you, little star.”

Goldleaf flattened her ears to her head. “We abandoned the stars as they abandoned us. What else had we to lose?”

He did not stop his stride. “You have already lost so much, and made others lose as well. How many cats had to die on your behalf today?”

“They made their choices as much as I did.”

The tom rushed forward, a trail of rest mist following him. His muzzle was pressed up to Goldleaf’s. His breath smelled like rotting flesh and death.

“Were you expecting a boon? That I would welcome lost kits who had fallen from Silverpelt? You and your kin are foolish to want to wallow in these wastes for eternity.”

Goldleaf stands her ground against the tom, even as her legs threaten to buckle beneath her. “We will follow the dying light. We made our vows against Starclan. Here is where we will remain.”

The tom’s eyes twitch, ever so slightly. They look at each other for what feels like an eternity. The tom then backs away, red mist swirling around his paws. More and more fog comes out from the dark trees. And they take shape. Shapes of cats, young and old. They are only shadows at first. Recognition squeezes at Goldleaf’s heart as she sees cats who she had seen die not a sunrise ago. Dapplestone. Acornpelt. Mottleleaf. Cloudpaw. And…

“Tansyfang.” Goldleaf breathed. Her sister.

“Do you, Goldleaf of Moonclan, vow to honor the blood and mire?” All the cats spoke in unison, their voices a powerful echo in Goldleaf’s ears. She couldn’t make out a single voice. Not even Tansyfang’s.

“I am no longer from Moonclan.” She replied, waving her tail. “I honor the dark and the earth. And may Starclan damn me for the rest of my days.”

“Then with our lives, we give you yours.” Tansyleaf and the others approached her. They seemed to form into one, a shadow made of blood. They rushed into Goldleaf and she struggled against the force. Feeling the same sensation as when she ate the deathberries. Her lungs struggled for air and a paralyzing sensation ran down her spine.

All at once, their lives and deaths flashed before her. Crying cats, yowls, screams. Thunder from above. The wrath of the stars and the moon. There was no moon that night, a sign of eternal damnation. And there was rage. Rage against the light. Cats died everywhere, their lips curled forever into a bloody snarl. All their thoughts are red. And Goldleaf feels it as well.

She opens her eyes and they are gone. But, she can still feel them inside her. And the swamp is empty once again.

The tom still remains. The red mist swirling around his paws.

“We have given you the nine lives of a leader, but you are not a star. You, who have fallen from Silverpelt, burning and angry. The cats of the Place of No Stars name you Fallenstar.”

Fallenstar stands tall, new life swelling inside of her. She looks at her patron. “Tell me your name, so that we may honor you.”

A small smile brushed his muzzle. “I am the YewEater. And one day, so will you.”

The earth beneath Fallenstar’s paws swallowed her whole. The swamp is gone.

The dawn sky is red and bloody. Monsters growl on the thunderpath. And Fallenstar is alive. She wakes at the entrance to the thunderpath tunnel. Wrapped around her neck is a string of deathberries. She gets to her paws and walks back the way she came, but with a new name and a new home. The home of Yewclan, worshipers of the Place of No Stars.

#clangen #yewclan #warrior cat ocs #warrior cats #issue #fallenstar #jaggedshriek #robinfeather #hollypaw #nightsting #silverfern #swampcreek #the yeweater #tansyfang

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