pafp HOUSE OF THE UNDYING || fox attack

[BLAZESTAR]

cw for blood and death​

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

It's cooler today that it has been, and Blazestar's mind is occupied on the coming leafbare rather than monitoring Butterflypaw, who is hunting some distance from him. It will be his first leafbare without his housefolk, without the warmth of the fireplace or the soft fleece-lined nest he'd lain in on chilly nights. It will also be his kits' first leafbare, and he worries about that, about Little Wolf -- has ThunderClan rebuilt their camp yet? Will his family be warm enough?

Already, prey is slowly beginning to dwindle. They are feasting on the last of the nuts and seeds before they hole themselves away until snowmelt season. The birds will fly away, to warmer skies. He's never experienced hunger, not true hunger where there is simply no food available, and neither have his kits, or many of the cats in his Clan.

He's startled out of his thoughts when he realizes he does not know where Butterflypaw is. Great mentoring, Blazestar, he thinks irritably, giving his thick pelt a shake and sighing. He tastes the air, scents her close by, but his expression creases as he realizes they aren't alone.

Something else is here. Lurking. Something that leaves a terrible musk on the wind, something he has not encountered before, but that he knows is terrible. He scrambles to find his apprentice, heart pounding. He ducks behind a pine, peers around the trunk, and is weak with relief to see her crouched and preparing to attack a mouse.

But the scent is stronger, and he freezes, letting his vision trail from the little tortoiseshell to something that is stalking her. He knows now -- the reddish-brown pelt, the long ugly muzzle with broken yellow teeth peering through, the lush tail draped over the pine needle-littered forest floor. He can see the accordion slab of its ribs pushing through patchy fur. It's eyes are beady and cold, but Blazestar can see hunger in them.

"Butterflypaw!" He yowls. He barrels forward, closing the gap between them with fear lighting brilliant fire in his eyes. "Run! Up the tree!" He faces the fox now, his fur fluffed up and doubling his already enormous size, but he's no threat to this dog fox alone, and the beast knows it.

Blazestar unsheathes his claws, and for the first time in his life, he uses them against another creature. He feels the fur and flesh part on the fox's cheek, smells the stink of its blood tainting the air, and he's immediately sick at the sensation of wetness on his paw.

It makes a funny sound, a snickering growl, and lunges toward him in retaliation. Blazestar ducks, but his movements are too slow, and he feels flesh tear at the front of his throat. A deep wound. It stings, and blood pours thick and hot from the gaping red hole. He stumbles forward, shocked at the pain, the way the wind blows freezing breath into his body through his torn throat, the blood splashing onto his forepaws.

He turns to speak to Butterflypaw, to make sure she's okay, to scream, but he can't say anything. He falls over instead, twitching as his life floods the forest floor.

- ,,​

please wait for @butterflypaw

 

[butterflytuft]

Anxiety gnaws at the apprentice's belly as she stares at the mouse, nonchalantly nibbling at a nut its found on the forest floor. Most cats her age might have a look of determination on their face, or perhaps excitement, but the only thing readable on her expression is worry. She is a horrible hunter, and everybody knows it. She has yet to successfully dig her claws into something and kill it - it's simply something she hasn't been able to bring herself to do. How can she take a life, feel blood trickle between her toes? She was born a kittypet, and she still acts like one, too. How pathetic!

Her muscles bunch as she prepares to pounce on the mouse, despite knowing she likely won't actually catch it. However, before she can leap, a yowl breaks her concentration and she looks over her shoulder with wide, surprised. eyes. Blazestar is barreling towards her, shouts at her to go up a tree, and she finally looks to where he's running. There, gnashing and snarling, stands a horrible, awful creature. Fox! Butterflypaw yelps and skitters backwards, paws sending pine needles everywhere as she rushes to escape. With Blazestar ferociously standing between her and the fox, she tries her best to weasel her way up the nearest tree trunk. She doesn't get very high (she's still awfully afraid of heights), but she's off the ground, perhaps a good fox-length up. From there, she watches in horror as her mentor engages with the beast. He lands a blow to the cheek and a glimmer of hope finds its way into her eyes. He can win! He can win!

That hope is swiftly snuffed out as the creature's teeth find Blazestar's throat. She winces, huddling closer to the tree as terror grips her. "Blazestar!" She shrieks, tears gathering in her eyes as he turns to look at her, and promptly crumples to the ground. She wants to run to him, to protect his body like he had protected her, but she...she can't. She remains where she is, frozen in fear upon the tree trunk like the coward she always has been, and stares, horrified and crying, as the fox stalks closer to her mentor's lifeless body. "Blazestar, get up," She sobs helplessly, hating herself for not moving a muscle.​

 

[HUCKLEBERRY]

( ☼ ) the lofty, black smoke had been out with a small hunting group when a terrified shriek rang out through the ever-expanding forest, the ear-piercing noise was enough to send nearby birds flying out from their perches about and the rodents below to scurry in frightened panic back into the safety of their dens. huckleberry shot up quickly, tufted audits raised high in sudden alert as the muscles beneath lengthy fur began to tense. something was wrong. giving a quick call-out to those in the vicinity to follow, the warrior wasted no time turning on hefty paws and bounding swiftly in the direction of where the shriek came from.

closing in on what he believed was the area, huckleberry was quick to be assaulted with a multitude of scents, he could pick out ones belonging to blazestar and butterflypaw but what he wasn't expecting was the pungent smells of both blood and fox that caused immediate panic to flare in his chest. just a few more strides until the pines in the near distance opened up around them to display a gruesome scene, their leader collapsed against the ground in a sanguine pool and a fox looming dangerously close with no apprentice in sight.

ivory claws were quick to slip from their sheathes and with little thought and a furious snarl ripping from a smokey-shaded throat, huckleberry launched himself directly at the fox in attempts to slam right into it to veer it away from his leader, a heavy paw immediately coming down to tear into the flesh of its other cheek. there ain't no way in hell he was gonna let this mangy mutt take even an inch closer to blazestar. "drive it back!" he yowled out to those who came with him, he had hope someone would get more help while the rest deal with the fox.
​

( i hear the wandering streams and the song of the birds )

 

[Daisyflight]

"SUREFIRE, YEAH, THE SETTING SUN WANTS COMPANY"​

/sorry this is so long hdkd

The chill air had her nose meeting the thick of her chest, a poignant sneeze fraying the quiet every now and then. Daisyflight knew that accepting the cold and getting moving was the wisest course of action but well, she didn't want to. She had a feeling this leafbare would be very different from those previous, without the unnatural warm spots much of the twolegplace could provide.

A muffled cry interrupted her swaddled wandering, its meaning thin and flimsy on the wind. Concern washed hot down her spine, unravelling her stilt form. The instant the taste of blood bloomed across her palette immediately she began to run, hastily matching pace with Huckleberry as they crossed paths. Each flurry of trunks they passed drew out her worry, their bristle-bark sides preventing a more direct route.

The scene unfolded, foliage peeled back with every stride. The realisation that her daughter was there slammed into her like a monster, tuned senses flagging Butterflypaw's scent in her first inhale. A fleet gaze bore through the clearing, falling stunned as it met the rust predator in the centre. Orders swam from her maw, the severity of the situation preying on her wits. "Support Huckleberry! Butterfly wherever you are, keep back! Don't-"

The furl of fabric that lay draped across the earth was familiar, sun-smoke warmth, cotton-soft size- Blazestar. Any breath in Daisyflight's lungs was cracked aflame like a spark through vapour. Her friend slumped in blood, guarded by a sour, hulk of a creature. Keening tore from her chest, ears splayed to her skull.

Her teeth met flesh before she knew it, the sharpest of them seeking to rend the fox's side in its stumble away from Huckleberry. Was he dead? The deputy understood corpses, had seen them, caused them even- A low swipe caught its forepaw, her talons snagging in the knots of its pelt. Though she couldn't afford to think, she was. The location of her daughter, Blaze's condition, damned starclan, it all frothed within her like oil.

A blow, not her own, knocked the fox back further. Clanmates now rallied to beat it back, Daisyflight withdrew. Paws laden with distractions she would only hamper their effort. A nick on her shoulder stung with every step, the fox successful in a blunt strike before her retreat.

"Blaze, Blaze.. Blaze! Get up… " Unknowingly mimicking his apprentice, she muttered over him forlornly. Numb paws warded the blood from his pelt, trembling in their attempts to wake the dead. She didn't trust them, those stars they couldn't- what if they didn't bring him back? Her denial choked her, curdling with the flagrant desperation that the stories might be true. "…Dawnglare?" Anguish pulled the medicine cat's name from her, willing even to see him raise their leader before the heavens did. The calico wasn't ready to be left- to take his place-
​

✿ ✿ ✿​

 

[REDSTORM !]

Redstorm followed the rest of the patrol into the throes of battle, launching himself at the fox with nearly no thoughts in mind other than the safety of his clan. He bites and swipes and backs it further and further away "Persistent ass" he mutters under his breath, this foul-smelling creature didn't know when to give up. He is vaguely aware of other things happening around him, Huckleberry fighting next to him, Daisyflight dropping back to find her daughter and guide her to safety.

He hears Daisyflight calling Blaze's name, over and over again, a pleading in her voice and he recognizes the desperation. He had pleaded in a similar way not too long ago. His concentration breaks and he turns his head to look. He wishes he hadn't. He nearly chokes on the bile threatening to rise up in his throat. He lays there, throat torn open and bleeding freely onto the ground, except it's not Blaze's body he sees, it's his father's. Gray tabby fur stained by the blood that spills from his throat, the scene is so familiar to him, he sees it nearly every night in his nightmares and now here it was, happening all over again, but it's not his father that lays unmoving in the grass, it's Blazestar

He had not been there when Blazestar had lost his first life, had only heard about it. A miracle they had said, but Redstorm knew that miracles wore out. He is gripped by an icy fear that it had been a fluke, that Blazestar would not rise again and Redstorm would lose yet another cat that he was growing to care about.

Snapping jaws bring him back to the present, he cannot leave Huckleberry to fight the fox alone and he turns his attention back to driving the creature back, lips pulled back in a snarl and tears threatening to escape his eyes and obscure his vision.
​

​

 

[~Deersong~]

𝐵𝓊𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌, 𝐼 𝒿𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓈 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒​

---

Deersong is not far behind the others with Snowpaw at her side, fur bristled and teeth bared as the molly transformed into a creature so unlike her usual self. She would skid to a stop beside Daisyflight and the body of Blazestar, she wanted to grieve, to feel the loss of this life but the warrior would meow quickly to her deputy, "Daisyflight, take Snowpaw and Butterflypaw and get Blazestar's body somewhere safe for when he comes back." Because he would come back, he had to. "Leave the fox to the rest of us, Go!"

Turning to the battle, she would feel herself tense as she saw the fox's teeth snap near Redstorms face and she would screech in rage at the act. The memories of her attackers would flash through her mind as she bolted towards the predator, tail lashing as she zoomed past the toms to bite and claw at the fox's legs, hoping to trip the beast up in a way that would distract its attention away from Huckleberry and Redstorm so one of them could get a decent blow in.

//
@Snowpaw

​

 

[Snowpath]

He was a swift white blur, moving along just behind Deersong and keeping pace despite her much longer strides; he was anything if not persistent. His reward was a lovely display of the macabre arrangement that was Blazestar's battered and bloodied form accented with the sharp scent of fox and the sound of cacophonous snarling. Snowpaw's eyes widened briefly, but he could not tear his gaze off the bright red stained so vividly on the grass and over pale sunset fur; even splashed against the tree in its violent release from the motionless leader's body.
He had heard Blazestar died in two-leg place. Not when it happened, he'd been a kit then, but after the fact in hushed whispers and he had scoffed at them as nothing more than nonsense. StarClan might be real, but a cat coming back from the dead was ridiculous. But Deersong is demanding they save this body, he hesitates, not out of fear; but because he feels it again. That tingling sensation that drifts down his spine, the exhilirating pounding of his own heart. The brief high of knowing you're seconds from death, its the same as leaping from a branch to another branch up in the air. He wants to chase it, but he's heard the orders and his tango with the fox would have to come another time. Snowpaw lunges forward past his mother and mentor, sinks his teeth into the matted scruff of the fallen kittypet king and sets to dragging him back and away from the scene. If he rises from the grave, he'd demand a payment for his good deed. This was wasting his valuable vulpine fighting moment and a grudge was going to be held.
"Grghhh-man, you're heavy..." Guy needed to lay off the squirrels. Where the hell was Butterflypaw? He'd heard her name but hadn't seen wherever she'd gotten herself stuck in since he assumes that's why she wasn't already here.


​

 

[COSMOSBLOOM]

His lessons are a bit more independent, these days, as each day nears closer and closer to his impending warrior ceremony.

Blazestar is further ahead than Cosmospaw is, Butterflypaw with him. The ginger-eared tom is on the trail of a squirrel, creeping closer and closer to it. He's about to pounce, about to trap the critter in his paws.

But. But his world shakes around him.

Blood. The sharp smell of blood. Shouts from up ahead. It stops him in his tracks, causes him to stand, to look in that direction. His paws feel stuck, frozen beneath him, despite his mind urging him to move forward. Go, he urges himself, Go. Go!

It's when the blur of others races past him, that he's finally able to move his paws. Able to follow them into whatever danger is before him.

Part of him... Part of him wishes he hadn't followed. Hadn't seen his mentor motionless on the ground, fiery fur redder than ever, tinged with his own blood. A scene so familiar, so horrific.

"B-Blazestar...?"

No. No. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to stay. He couldn't... Cosmospaw needed him! Butterflypaw needed him!

Butterflypaw.

The apprentice looks around with wide eyes. Where was Butterflypaw? He spots the younger apprentice against a tree's trunk, hurries over to her.

"Are you... Are you okay?" he asks, voice trembling as he tries his best to stay strong. To be brave. He couldn't have a dead mentor and a dead training partner. Blazestar's supposed to come back - though Cosmospaw isn't sure how that's possible - but, if Butterflypaw died...

Butterflypaw needed to get out of here. Cosmospaw needed to get out of here. Red ears twitch at the lead warrior's order, and can only hope his training partner follows her words.

Cosmospaw gives her a look of encouragement before he races away from her, towards the throes of battle. A distraction. A means of escape.

As he races towards the fox, he sees one of the deputy's kids trying to drag Blazestar away on his own, heart lurching at the sight of his lifeless mentor.

Please. Please, come back.
​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮​

When he opens his eyes again, he's in a different forest, one draped in shadows and starfire, and he's entirely alone. It's not an unfamiliar place -- he's been here twice before. Once to receive nine lives, and once to meet Haku after he'd lost his first.

He waits, tentative, for the cat who had gifted him their lifeforce to greet him. There's a rustle somewhere in the black forestline beyond, and a cat with silver dusted fur walks on sparkling paws. Hare Whiskers, a cat he'd never known -- a cat who'd come down to form StarClan itself with Rain.

Hare Whiskers looks at him with sad eyes, and Blazestar only gazes back at him. The pain has ebbed away while he's here, but he knows upon returning that his body will be battered, his throat stinging even as it's expertly closed up.

After sometime, the grizzled tom gives him a slow nod, and Blazestar's eyes fly open. There's chaos around him, shouts of dismay, his name. Teeth in his scruff as someone tries to move his body. Hisses, fox's blood, snarls. The Ragdoll attempts to turn his head, but the pain is sharp and he loses his breath. He can't scent anything above his own blood, but he only hopes his is the only cat's blood that's been spilled.

"Daisy...flight," he rasps. The word hurts, claws the healing wound in his throat, but he has to let her know he's alright, has to know -- "Butter...fly..." Oh, he should save his voice, save it, but his eyes begin to dart frantically around the clearing. His lead warriors, Huckleberry, they are fighting alongside his deputy, and Cosmospaw and Butterflypaw are okay. Stars. He'd sent them to train separately, wanted to see if Butterflypaw's hunting skills were improving, and now he's kicking himself. The forest is not safe for a kittypet. Not him, and not his apprentice.

He's dizzy, and he assumes it's from the blood he's lost. He gives Cosmospaw, Butterflypaw, and Snowpaw a lost, distant look from hazed eyes. He's alive, but he's weaker than a newborn kit.

- ,,​

 

[butterflytuft]

Oh thank StarClan, help has arrived! Still clinging to the tree trunk, the crying apprentice watches on as warriors surround the fox, beating it away from her mentor. Her mother's here, her voice reaching tufted ears and Butterflypaw cries out instinctively, "Mama!" She's sniffling and trembling, watching as her brother attempts to drag Blazestar's body to safety. How had this gone so wrong? Just moments before, she was stalking a piece of prey, knowing full well the leader was somewhere keeping an eye on her. And now, because of her obliviousness, he lay dead on the forest floor, losing yet another life before her eyes.

There's someone just below her next to the tree and she peeks down as the voice speaks to her. "Cosmospaw," She manages to murmur shakily. "I'm...I'm...no." She's not okay. She's terrified and frozen to a tree trunk. Before she can say much else he rushes off to help the warriors drive off the fox and a croaking voice says her name. Blinking away tears, she turns her head to see Blazestar rising unsteadily, his empty, tired eyes finding her. Relief washes over her and she's finally able to release herself from the tree, scurrying to the ground and over to him. "Blazestar! I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," She sobs, burying her face into his chest. She's relaxing far too soon, she knows. The fox is still here, but with several warriors and an apprentice battling it, she can spare an embrace.​

 

[Daisyflight]

"SUREFIRE, YEAH, THE SETTING SUN WANTS COMPANY"​

Flesh knit together sickeningly, breath plunged back into the leader's lungs before her. Had she not been there to see the quiver of his whiskers and ears flicker back into being, Daisyflight might have still clutched to her doubts. But there was no misunderstanding nor farce. Blazestar had been brought back to life. Whomsoever ruled in the stars above had cradled his very essence and punched it into a freshly healed frame. Unnatural, and terribly efficient.

Swallowing the acid in her throat, the molly rose to look over him. The fox had claimed the ragdoll's life and yet its victory went unrewarded. It was cosmically unfair. And she was glad of it. Shiver-sweet, Daisyflight greeted him with a blink. "Your second time… welcome back."

Steeling her spine, she looked back at the roiling back and forth between the murderer and her clanmates. "Stay down Blaze." It was an order, sharpened by conflicted thoughts. A nod, firm and trusting, was offered to Snowpaw as the deputy rose and left the pair.

However, before she could rejoin the fray there was a turning point. In the militant assault, a cat struck true, drawing a pained whine from the fox. It turned tail, the stale-blood russet of its pelt disappearing between narrow pines.

The relief burnt, a roar that swept up her energy and drive. "You did it- thank you all…" Tired pride was scratched into Daisyflight's gaze, though she could not drop her guard so quickly. "Those who are able, with me. We will follow it, ensure it's left our territory. The rest, help Blaze back to camp."

Despite the urgency, she still bundled her present family up briefly. Muttered assurance punctuated the exchange, alongside a long, worried look cast over Butterflypaw. 'Mama'. The calico had heard it, almost dropped her responsibilities and run to her. She desperately wanted to return to camp and safely fret over, groom- bother her children- however, duty called.

/the fox is outt
​

✿ ✿ ✿​