RiverClan Floodstone

[Fawn]

↭ Frozenberry 🃏

Frozenberry had been passing through, taking the welcome distraction of a Clan meeting to slip from their holed-up state in the warriors' den, but their pawsteps slowed upon catching a few well-timed words from Kestrelstar and the aura of his clanmates.

Pausing, their head cocked, and they listened. (a mistake. but it seems they, as a clan, were apparently making a lot of those lately.) Self-reflection, self-serving. Frozenberry bit the inside of their cheek, hard. A knot settled in their throat. Sick again. Seemed like a private rumination the flock should be experiencing rather than crucifying for, and their responses to Kestrelstar were worthier of criticism than the guy's stilted celebrity-style apology.

The wild part was that it sounded genuine. Frozenberry didn't doubt him. Just had doubts about the rest, and the quick turnaround. (Fickle. They were too, so.) It spurred their distrust of authority and leadership to see the same displays of Lionstar but inverted, instead of glory bringing them shame. And the Clan was utterly compliant in the ordeal, either "forgiving" him or adding vitriol into the mix despite they themselves having a hand in the perpetrating.

made them.. less of a freak, weirdly. to be wrong and warped was commonplace here, they wouldn't see the ill-effects if it stared them in the face. Bright and blurry memories caused them to flinch, wincing back from the sensation that couldn't be escaped, was internal. and it was gone again. shapes without names disappeared from behind their eyes, the intense grainy static gone as fast as it'd consumed them.

Frozenberry hadn't noticed they were shaking in place.

Just as distant from their goal as when they'd hesitated to examine their situation, but still hoped they'd managed to maintain the cover of being in the background. guilt theater, like a staged performer-audience interaction. it was too clean to be real; they imagined a moment like this as raw and vulnerable, yet what they were treated to could only be described as watery, sanitized. Pitifest sorrowtime, shouldn't have done thisandthat and surface revelations that had to have been brewing before they decided to comply with the somehow-egregious act of raiding. Everyone had changed their minds in the span of a blink.

kestrel the martyr, arranged sadness. nobody else had to be retrospective if they could just point a paw. misery's blackhole. couldn't just, do that. go raid a clan, and then be oops or ready to whip out the bad kestrel paddle. The body count was pretty much how these things went, the only enigmatic bit was why they weren't among them. Who might have known they were going to lose cats? (bring in a death-accountant prior to the fight.) How could such violence have been foreseen? (ask the airhead sky cats eager to provide insight and judgment.) Frozenberry inwardly scolded themselves—not as if they'd lifted a toebean to stop it (or even made violent contact with a ThunderClanner), but they weren't running their tongue in a smear campaign to impress clanmates or prove their own morality either.

[plum]

Why she couldn't just have found Saltpaw and sat with him, the molly couldn't answer. She'd wanted to avoid Ottersplash, keep him out of her sight. Yet she stood before Snakeheart, staring at him coldly as he answered her. Words, words, words.

Plumstorm didn't care about it. She didn't care for anything he said, anything Kestrelstar would say, nor anyone else.

Or so she thought.

Kestrelstar speaks, and a quiet befalls the Clan who pauses to listen. The silver cat herself turns to stare up at their oh so benevolent and proud leader. Shameless, glorious Kestrelstar. He apologizes, standing before them all a broken tom. He pitied himself- She pitied herself at the worst of times, too. But now was a sorry time for "sorry," wasn't it. Apologizing after acting poorly, without showing signs of change especially, was a hollow, fruitless lie. A vacuous promise only fools could bet their faith in.

Plumstorm was not short on faith, but as mews of support and stupid kindness rise up in a headache-inducing drone, irritation sparks denial, and she throws back her head and laughs. This was rich.

But it didn't stop there, oh no. Beside her, Snakeheart decides to add his own self-pitying, sad dialogue. They blamed themselves, could only hope to do better. It was deserved, but wrong. They would be better- had to be better! For the Clan!

"You make me sick," she growls in a sidelong sneer directed towards the mourning medicine cat.

Lifting her head, Plumstorm fixes their virtuous leader under another frosty look. "You lose a battle you think you'll win and suddenly, you're going to change for the better?" the she-cat questions. "Oh, come on, Kestrelstar."

Stepping closer, the warrior looks around at the cats who'd spoken up, cheering him. "How about you change first, and then try to apologize! You're a sad, sorry excuse of a cat, and unfit to stand there claiming to know the best for RiverClan. How about you tell the truth for once- What you did, what your wisest decisions earned you! ThunderClan did those things and more- sure! How about you stop pretending we were always the victims though- Tell them about how you took Stormtalon and I onto ThunderClan territory to kill whoever we saw, the day it was storming! You were so deep in grief then, I'm sure of it."

As she bites the words out, images flash through her mind of the day- The sound of the rain beating the muddy forest floor, how it'd seeped into her fur. The scent of blood, the wails. Her claws unsheathe and curl into the ground. Tail lashing, Plumstorm shakes her head solemnly, then laughs again.

"I bet I can ask a few cats here today to speak up for you and how regretful you are!" Whipping about, the warrior's eyes fly across the clearing- The first one she spots is- "Sparrowskip," the cat spits. She pinpoints her partner in crime next. "Stormtalon." But how could she forget Wormbite? She spots that one as well. "Wormbite." She had seen the others among the gathered cats as well, momentarily glancing over them without dragging them out by the scruffs of their necks.

With a crooked grin, she returns her fired look to Kestrelstar. "And if those cats say you're a fine, sad, deserving leader- What about when you were returning home after the raid? Yeah- I saw that. I was there." She'd begun speaking before, and couldn't bring herself to stop. Anger, resentment, shame, sorrow- All of these things and more stacked up and spilled out. This cat didn't deserve his Clan's forgiveness until they knew.

"StarClan took your life for what you did to us, what you did to those two lying with that snake of a cat." Her voice had fallen to a monotonous, tired bark by now.

"Ask the Clan how much forgiveness a murderer who killed his own innocent Clanmates deserves instead of asking if they could forgive a simple mistake. Ask me if I can get back that cat I was before you had me do these things for you- Just for you to stand here and listen to these idiots forgive you for dung you never even had the heart to tell them- What about me?! What about the cats sitting here right this very heartbeat who don't have a band of dumb, brainwashed minnows telling us we'll be okay?!"

Plumstorm was growing weary, as surely so many of them were. Her head droops. "I didn't strive to become what you made of me." And if this was what Kestrelstar wanted, StarClan would show her a different path. Her tone was sorrowful, softer than all of her former shouting. A storm, reduced to mist.

Her paws had been soiled- bloodied, poisoned. For her Clan. A Clan she'd never found a true anchor in. Lionstorm bequeathed to her a home. But now, what did this warrior have to show for it?

[ disclaimer: plumstorm has not verbally mentioned anything of the poisoned claws. no cat should know of that! ]
[ @:Grimmlin:, @Rani, @Ziera, @x ghostie ]

[Socks]

// @implimm // Rootgaze

The leader who had so confidently led her into battle today and the medicine cat who gave her the chance to choose which ThunderClan warrior deserved their death in this battle were apologizing. Which parts were mistakes? Was it simply thought to be such because they had lost two warriors in the raid, or were Rootgaze's poisoned claws a mistake? Was watching the poisoned she-cat bleed out beneath her a mistake?

RiverClan wasn't to blame for this, Kestrelstar led them to the squirrel's camp peacefully for repayment. The she-cat leapt on her first, that she-cat had intended to kill her, she wouldn't have died like that if she hadn't been so brash!

Her life up until now she hadn't questioned the words of leaders or medicine cats, StarClan chose them because they knew they were right for the job. She wanted to believe in Kestrelstar, but she didn't want him telling her he'd made a mistake.

"This wasn't Kestrelstar's fault! ThunderClan was acting outside the warrior code!" But was poisoning that she-cat part of the code? "We can't have doubts right now, what's done is done! Like it or not Kestrelstar is our leader and Snakeheart is our medicine cat!" Her words were intended to be a response to Plumstorm's statements, but she felt more like she was reassuring herself.

Only a handful knew what she'd done today, but when would ThunderClan figure out they'd used poison? How mad would they be to find something like that out? Would they show up to kill her as revenge? "Maybe you regret some things but just forget about that! I doubt ThunderClan is gonna say 'oh well' if we tell them we made a mistake. StarClan didn't take Kestrelstar's life, ThunderClan did! As far as I'm concerned StarClan is still fine with Kestrelstar and Snakeheart in the places they are. We couldn't have been in the wrong!" Her last sentence was directed towards the high ranks since they couldn't just be turning around on their word, Rootgaze did what she did because they told her it was the right thing to do. If they go back now then she is nothing but a filthy murder, just like those squirrels.

[Shade.]

Lizardfrost was observing the meeting quietly. She regret what she'd done out there, in all honesty. No, not tge battle, that was part if warrior life. An inconvenience, a tradition. But tge fact that she'd killed someone. This went against tge acceptable. It wasn't forbidden, but it was dishonorable.
"I agree, this conflict has gone in for too long, we have to focus on ourselves now. If anything, Ottersplash and Olivenose were the price for Geckosprout and Whitewolf." she said. It was weird, Lizardfrost rarely expressed an opinion openly.

[furrensic]

@poppy. @Shade. //

➸ daisybird

it seemed to the queen that kestrelstar was only saying he'd change for the better because he lost a battle he thought he'd win - a battle that made the clan lose two loved, honorable warriors - she wondered if he'd say the same thing if he'd won the battle. her ears flattened against her head, her eyes narrowed slightly up at kestrelstar. the deaths of olivenose and ottersplash were on his paws - along with the possibly deaths of any thunderclanners that died, or the trauma that both clans suffered.

most cats seemed to be forgiving him, and among that voice, daisybird heard flintkit and hurried over to her son. "shush, flintkit..please." she whispered, placing a paw in front of him. her children...they didn't need to be around corpses. "honey, why don't you go back to the nursery?" she suggested, glancing down at the kit.

her ear gave a small twitch when snakeheart spoke up, turning her narrowed gaze towards the young tom before it softened slightly when falling on plumstorm. someone who wasn't accepting kestrelstars apology - a cat who was angry at his actions - she was glad to hear it, though not quite listening as her attention quickly landed on lizardfrost.

"those were four warriors who didn't need to die!" she snapped, tail lashing as she glared at the warrior. "you all raided the camp, didn't you? what about the kits that could've seen those deaths? their trauma is on your paws - all of you who fought!" as she said that, she let her eyes land on the injured cats in the group before looking back to lizardfrost with an accusatory look. "and if any of you hurt one, that's also on your paws and you'd be a disgrace to the clans." at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if an idiotic apprentice ended up hurting a kit if they were big for their age.

[kingly]

Cloudynight silently watched from the shadows, slightly embarrassed he was a touch too far late. Oops. Not to mention he had went against orders and attacked stupid Thistleass.

[Jay.]

Looncry || Open

Looncry struggled to get to his feet
from his nest in the medicine den.
But he managed to get as far as the
enterance before he collapsed from
exhaustion. Was he going to be like this forever?

He managed to poke his head out
of the den and pick up on most that
was happenening. "No." He
looked at the area around the
meeting and saw two motionless
heaps. And he couldn't mistaken
who it was lying there. "Ottersplash-"

[dino.]

// Open

>Tumblepaw<

He hadn't gone to fight. Hadn't even stayed behind in Firefly Cove, he'd stayed in camp because he hadn't had a lick of training and as a result wasn't fit to fight in the slightest. At first he'd regretted it - regretted not being able to support his Clan, his mentor, his leader.

But now, as he crouched at the back of the crowd, watching Kestrelstar with wide eyes, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd gotten lucky. ThunderClan hadn't pulled their punches, evidence clear in the bodies that lay in the clearing. But neither had RiverClan, if Kestrelstar's speech was any proof of that. He was certain ThunderClan cats had died in the battle, and now, only when RiverClan's own warriors were killed, was Kestrelstar regretting all of this.

Kestrelstar had killed them, hadn't he? RiverClan and ThunderClan alike - every death was on his paws.

Tumblepaw's ears flattened and his gaze narrowed. Tyrant, definition: a cruel and oppressive ruler. Perhaps not to RiverClan, but most certainly to ThunderClan.

His leader was a tyrant.

[starry]

For @Papaya

Mistypaw sighed. It was good that Kestrelstar had apologized, but what did that bring? Nonetheless, she did support him. He was the leader!

She moved to the back of the crowd, just as she noticed Tumblepaw. He seemed... worried, or something like that. Mistypaw could not completely determine it.

"Are you okay?"

[dino.]

// @Stardust~

>Tumblepaw<

He jumped, shaken from his inner thoughts by an unexpected voice, and turned to peer at the speaker. Mistypaw - an apprentice he recognized but had never spoken to, as far as he could remember. He searched her gaze a moment longer before sighing softly and shaking his head. "Not really," he admitted. "But neither is... neither is any of this."