sensitive topics but there are witches in these woods | lost

[Patchpaw [in.]]

THERE'S A WORLD THAT WAS MEANT FOR OUR EYES TO SEE​

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Her first border patrol, she couldn't believe it! After her first few sessions with Rabbitnose, Patchpaw had grown a better understanding of the forest, and though she was somewhat overwhelmed at first, her attention to this new world was quickly enraptured. Her tail held high in the air as she followed the warriors up ahead, before her gaze landed on something particularly fascinating. A huge fallen log stuck through the trees as though it had been ripped from the earth by its roots, and its dull, sagging leafless branches hung over a large crevice of which it crossed. As she trotted closer, she could see creatures big and tiny scurry through the rotting green and dull brown bark. A trail of ants trailed across the top, each carrying its own piece of food to bring back to their nest. Much like us cats, Patchpaw couldn't help but think to herself as she watched, before her eyes trailed further down. Round white creatures scuttled in and out of the bark that curled up when she came close, but what caught her attention was a centipede that had just crawled out from underneath the bark.
Its stick-like antennae waved around in the air as if searching around for something, and its many legs moved in sync with each other. Freaky. Patchpaw couldn't imagine having so many legs--how would a cat walk with that many?! Even then, this little centipede, with its long, black body and stubby pale orange legs, seems to have figured it out perfectly.

A salamander climbed out from inside a hole in the bark, looking around with its funny beetle black eyes before bolting for the end of the trunk with its tail flailing about behind it. Patchpaw straightened up, watching it disappear into the overturned roots.
"Well, there goes that," She remarks with an air of disappointment, before she returns her gaze to the centipede--it had gone missing! She leaned closer with frustration, trying to peek into the bark to try and see this 'centipede' again.

To anyone else, she was just a skinny and oblivious calico cat, silhouetted against the black, rotting wood. She was so focused on the centipede and this world it lived in that she hadn't noticed the border patrol was long gone, leaving her with nobody but the company of little insects and invertebrates that occupied the fallen tree.​

 

[kuiper]

Kuiper loathes the clans and their fallacious principles. In his eyes, there is no deed as morally reprehensible as claiming land for oneself, expelling the region's original inhabitants, and barring others from entering it. To impede on one's free will, and then acquit themselves as though their claim to the land is legitimate - it is indefensibly irrational. Such is why he had no qualms in mauling Centipedepaw. Such is the reason Peachpaw's drowning burdened him so little. With the history of these clans being based on gratuitous bloodshed, reciprocating it is simply justice, and nothing less.

Cats who inhabit the clans fail to see how threatening their very presence is to those uninvolved in their game. They are too far entrenched in their false notion of authority. There is nothing stopping them from overstepping, nothing preventing a clan cat from killing a "loner" like him.

Reminding the clans of what vulnerability feels like; that is his goal. Apprentices who wander a little too far from camp, confident in their safety so long as they remained inside their borders; they are his quarry.

In the time since he decided on this path of righteousness, Kuiper has familiarised himself with the territories and identities of each group. Both SkyClan and RiverClan presented a challenge when it came to concealing himself. But ThunderClan's rich shrubbery and underlying vegetation allow him to conceal himself along the border without any issue.

His mark presents herself to him with open paws, it seems. Detached from the group she left her little home with, now isolated and unguarded. It is disgusting to him how a girl her age is able to wander alone in a forest rife with foxes, snakes, and him. Lamentably for her, eradicating another abhorrent settler fell higher on his priority list than her own safety.

The silver feline absconds from the thicket, and he bounds towards the girl with great haste. Death is in his eyes as he descends on his next victim.

But his teeth do not sink into her tender tissue. Kuiper draws to a standstill before he can come within two fox-lengths away from her.

There is a peculiar dimension to how this child comported herself. Gawking at bugs as if they're still a foreign concept to her. And her smell. Traces of hay and manure were omnipresent in the air around her.

He refrains from killing her just yet, and instead takes on a more amicable persona until he grasps her deal. "Heyo!" he musters, very selective with his ensuing actions. Should danger present itself, though, their stupid little border lay just a short sprint away. "I'm lost! Do you know where I am? I'm supposed to be in ShadowClan, but these woods are a lot more confusing than my old home!"​

 

[Patchpaw [in.]]

THERE'S A WORLD THAT WAS MEANT FOR OUR EYES TO SEE​

---

At the snap of twigs and ripping shrubbery branches behind her, Patchpaw’s whole body reacted before she could even register how close she had gotten to facing death, leaping high and twisting midair to face him. Her fur puffed up remarkably well for a small cat, and her paws scrambling on the leaves below her scared most of the bugs and insects off.
The centipede was long gone.

She stared at the burly silver tom that now towered over her even from a ways away, wide eyes ready for whatever he was trying to pull. After a moment, it seemed to click what he was asking for, and Patchpaw’s shaky legs relaxed as she gave a small, relieving laugh.
”Oh, haha, I thought you were some kind of fox! You really shouldn’t sneak up on cats so easily like that!” She giggled and continued on, ”I totally get that, getting lost in new places. I’m still familiarizing myself with my own clan’s territory, and I still get lost sometimes, too! Here, I can even lead you back! You said you’re ShadowClan, right? It should be!…”

Patchpaw squinted and turned in a circle, looking around. Actually, she didn’t quite recognize all of her surroundings, but she had to try!
”It should be that way, I heard there’s a big ugly Thunderpath that cuts between our territory and ShadowClan’s, maybe we can find that and lead you home! Oh, this is exciting!”

She bounces on her toes as she returns to face the strange rogue, but when she does, something in his gaze when he stares at her makes Patchpaw hesitate, only for a second. There was an odd, unrecognizable stench that clung to his pelt, and his eyes were almost… creepy, like an unblinking animal. Maybe he’s hurt? Patchpaw wonders to herself, but she couldn’t be sure until she asked.
”You don’t look so good… are you alright?”​

 

[kuiper]

Smouldering like a fire in his belly is an appetite to butcher the colonizers' spawn. Here she stands within thrashing distance, wholly ignorant to her looming imperilment. And having learned from the incident in RiverClan (wounds were still dispersed along his torso), his escape route is planned and within his own immediacy. Claws embedded into the soil, the rogue takes a second to lay a mental groundwork for how these ensuing moments will proceed.

"I'm okay," he returns, tentatively glancing into the beyond. Obviously, he knows where ShadowClan lies - it's in his intentions to pay them a brief visit in the near future. "I know I'm not supposed to be here, so I'm a little scared," mentions Kuiper, maintaining the charade. "And I really need to get going, so thank you! I miss my barn - I never got myself lost there!"

The lofty tom then gives the apprentice some more ground, withdrawing in the border's direction. Already did the child appear to be at ease, a long shot from what he'd envisioned her reaction to be. Backing away is an attempt to further build trust with her, as well as giving him a head start in case a tactical retreat becomes necessary.

There is but one aspect of the girl's character which impedes on his deadly ambitions. Hay. Such a scent belonged to those who lived off towards WindClan. For someone to carry this odour with them so far away, it implies they are far from home. It is why he composed the lie about the barn. Her own life depended on how she responds to that.

"Before I go," he notes through a thankful smile, "do you want to hear a brain-teaser? A riddle? I have a few good ones!" His eyes momentarily descend upon a mound of dirt, recently disturbed, which lay beside the bush he had hidden within. "What has four paws at sunrise, but only three paws at moonhigh?"​

 

[Patchpaw [in.]]

THERE'S A WORLD THAT WAS MEANT FOR OUR EYES TO SEE​

---

Patchpaw takes a step back. Something irked her about this tom. Why was he acting so odd, almost as though he was flighty and ready to flee at a moment's notice? And why were there wounds along his stomach, as though somebody had attempted to gut him open? Maybe it was a fox. She's heard of foxes attacking cats before, and being a Clan warrior, he's probably fought a lot of foxes. Or bears.
”That makes sense... Actually, I'm sort of new, too. I lived in a barn, too--well, for a bit anyway, before it... you know, burned, a-and now I'm here, so... But it's nice here, at least! I've got so many friends now, and now I get to learn this whole forest, too!" She had no idea why she was so unnerved. He was quite nice to her, and in fact, he seemed to understand where she was coming from; moving from a barn to a forest was weird, and there was a noticeable lack of straw and hay on the ground. Instead, it was replaced by the cold forest floor and the thick undergrowth that surrounded them from prying eyes.

She listened carefully to his riddle, ears perked in curiosity. ”I dunno... A salamander? I saw one of those scurry off just a few minutes ago, it had three paws." Just like that, she was distracted by the riddle as she screwed up her face in concentration, eyebrows furrowing. When Patchpaw raises her head again with a puzzled look to the tom, he's already turning away from her. ”I don't know, what?"​

 

[kuiper]

[CW; DEATH]



A lone huff parts from his maw as his reservations are confirmed. This apprentice-aged brat was merely indoctrinated into the clans' belief system. She isn't a cog in the apparatus, but an interloper acting as though she belonged. Possibly she'll become visually indistinguishable from her fellow miscreants when many seasons come to pass, yet at her core, she is synonymous with him - an undesirable in the eyes of these savages. An outsider.

Individuals like her were equally worthy of contempt as the wildcats that she emulated. All the same, she is not deserving of the sanguine fate which befell his previous victims. There is still hope within her. A shot at change. Once she sees what he has to show her, perhaps she will turn over a new leaf.

Kuiper's icy blues narrow when his puzzle is unsuccessfully solved. A salamander was quite the faultless guess, he supposes, but it's a far cry from the correct response. "Watch," the towering tom commands. No longer does he attempt the friendly facade. His fixed look returns to the mound of turf he'd glimpsed before, and he doesn't even give the interloper a passing glance while he proceeds towards it.

He begins digging immediately. Scrounging up the earth with his front paws, and kicking clumps of dirt behind him with his back ones, the rogue depletes the mound of its shape in a hurried effort. Wiry strands of dark fur and patches of flesh become visible amidst the disturbed soil. Just as the ThunderClan girl creeps up on his flank to see, Centipedepaw's putrid form is unearthed.

With a moon's worth of deterioration, and a glaring lack of one of his limbs, the kid's remains made for an unsavoury sight.

"This is what happens to kitties, like you, who think a border is enough to protect them," Kuiper snarls. He addresses her through a foreboding grimace. "Clan cats kill each other every day. I killed this one, and he was younger than you. You should go back home to your barn, before I kill you next." With every sentence, he looms closer towards the youth. Every step bridging the gap between him and her purity.

He'd initially wanted to leave Centipedepaw for a wayward patrol to find later tonight. For this girl to happen upon his position before he could leave, it presented him with a different opening. An opportunity to leave a lasting impression.

Alright. It's about time for her to run off.

Claws reveal themselves, and in the same instant, they are brought down across the little girl's face. ​

 

[Patchpaw [in.]]

THERE'S A WORLD THAT WAS MEANT FOR OUR EYES TO SEE​

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CW: description of death & trauma



A horror beyond the worst of nightmares was unearthed before the young molly, staring back at her with such a fixated gaze that her bones froze themselves to the ground and her fur stood on end as though it was, too, crawling with disgusting white insects. The missing leg matched that of the salamander's, the scene cementing itself inside her skull. He was hardly an apprentice—like she was—as he slumped lifelessly inside his hollow grave by the warrior.
Is that my fate?

Before Patchpaw could react, powerful claws tore through her fur, across her eyes and over her nose and mouth. A scream ripped from her, immediately alerting anyone in the vicinity. From the force of the blow alone, she was cast to the forest floor, however, it seemed to snap her muscles out of it. Kicking up dirt and leaves below her, she staggers to her feet. The trees swoon back and forth, blood dripped into her left eye and she could see him in her peripheral vision watching her like a hawk upon its prey. With that, she gave a surprising burst of speed for someone so tiny, putting all of her strength into sprinting as far away as she could. She hardly remembered where she was going, desperately dodging thorny bushes and towering trees until something could come into sight. The border patrol she was with was long forgotten. please, something familiar! Something I can recognize!
As though her silent, frightened prayer was answered, the camp's entrance loomed in the distance, and although she would have slowed down by now, the thought of the warrior catching her a second time drove her fleeing the rest of the way home.​