YOU'LL BE THE END OF ME \ lost

[BLAZESTAR]

Cats have gone missing so much in SkyClan, one would think Blazestar had grown accustomed to it. But he never does. Every cat who does not return to him causes him anxiety, troubled dreams, fear for their futures and their safety—even the daylight warriors who simply choose not to return to the warrior’s way of life.

He’s beginning to view the Twolegplace as a deadly nest of predators worse than adders. A cold and unforgiving forest of concrete, trash, and rogues where forest cats go to disappear—or die.

Thistleback has not returned from a solo hunt. Blazestar knows he had gone, had seen him off, and when moonhigh comes he’s nearly paced a trough in the middle of their camp. He heads a small patrol now, his jaws unhinged to taste the air. His paws skid as soft forest floor becomes asphalt beneath their paws. His scent ends just where he’d been afraid it had—at the edge of the Twolegplace, where it vanishes quite suddenly.

Blazestar’s teeth clench. “How could this keep happening?” There are no tears this time—his grief begins to simmer like water set to boil. “How could I lose you, too?” Was he destined to lead SkyClan alone? Would he lose them all one by one, from Orangeblossom to Johnnyflame and Slate?

He hangs his head, grief pricking cold behind his blue eyes. Now the tears come—but they’re small, slipping from the corners of his eyes like silver beads.

“How could I lose you?” His most loyal supporter, the cat he’s come to rely on more than anyone—including his deputy—is gone. Perhaps for good.

// as noted in the discord, Stiner is taking a step back from cat site to focus on IRL. we will miss stiner and thistleback so so so much </3 your cat can scent him further into the Twolegplace but he won’t be found and there will be no clear indication of where he’s gone.
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[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[Drizzlepelt]

Thistleback was the first cat that Drizzlepaw met, when he decided to find his new family. The lead warrior meant a lot to him, even if he felt like they never had the time to speak with each other. He holds a lot of respect for him, and he knows that it's a shared sentiment. To think that there was a possibility where he wouldn't come back, that the clan would go on without him...

Drizzlepaw joins Blazestar's side, tears threatening to fall as the pervasive sense of loss begins to choke him from the inside and out. He knew that becoming attached would most likely end in heartbreak...but he didn't know it would hurt this much. Of course, he wasn't confirmed dead, and maybe he was just lost, but still...after Snowpath's death, his hopes were utterly shattered. He has to be realistic.

"I'm...I'm so sorry." His words are lame, and he doesn't think offering any false sentiments of there definitely being a light at the end of the tunnel will be helpful either. "I wish there was answer as to why this keeps happening...but I don't know. Why does this keep happening!" He's just as frustrated, more for the others than himself, but all the same, it's maddening to see.​

 

[Coyotecrest]

Angry at all the things I can't change

When his bristle backed father figure failed to return promptly from his hunt Coyotepaw knew something was off. It was out of character for Thistleback be late to any occasion, to check on him and share a meal once day gave way into evening. Once Blazestar gathers a small patrol to find the lead warrior his frustrations grow the longer they search with no results. Anxiety creeps along his pelt the closer they encroach upon twoleg place, ear flattening when Thistleback's scent suddenly vanishes entirely. A sense of dread enters the mix as his mentor releases haunting words that make him snap his attention in Blazestar's direction. "W-what? No, no he...he can't be lost." The cream colored apprentice voices with rising desperation. Snowpath, he'd just lost his friend, he couldn't bear to lose his father too.

But a lingering voice in his head made him wonder "what if". This wouldn't have been the first time cats have mysteriously vanished from skyclan due to the fault of twolegs. Chest heaving at the thought of Thistleback trapped alone in some shiny den or worse he continues on. "Blazestar please, we have to keep looking. He has to be out there." Coyotepaw knew he sounded like a wailing child longing for their parent. But the moment tears began to spring forth in the ragdoll's eyes a heavy, unsettling weight, plummeted within the pit of his stomach. A feeling that he might not ever come back. Clenching his teeth he gazes out over the expanse of the concrete jungle as tears begin to flood his own eyes. "Thistleback! ...Thistleback!" He shouts, yet his ears are met with deafening silence. "Dad..." It's a soft, mournful plea that falls from his lips one filled with dying hope. ​

When you're lost in the universe don't lose faith​

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[Johnnyflame]

HE SAID, "WELL MY NAME'S JOHNNY, AND IT MIGHT BE A SIN
BUT I'LL TAKE YOUR BET, AND YOU'RE GONNA REGRET, CUZ IM THE BEST THERE'S EVER BEEN."​

---

It's not like Johnnyflame to remain in camp after sunset. Normally he makes a point to return to his twolegs by the time darkness falls, but tonight- much like the night of the shelter raid- he's made an exception. While he's come to respect and care for almost every cat in camp, he hasn't exactly been shy about his favoritism toward Thistleback. The tom was the one who' brought him into Skyclan to begin with. If it wasn't for the piebald lead, Johnny wouldn't have ever come to the forest or realized just how incomplete his life had been before it all.

And now, Thistle is missing.

The steel-eyed warrior was the last he'd expect to just disappear into twoleg place without a word, and yet that's exactly where the trail leads them. None of it feels right, not coming from a tom like him, and yet Johnny isn't able to deny the fact. Thistleback had left camp willingly, and then he'd gone into twoleg place and just... disappeared.

Coyotepaws pleas claw at the bobtails chest, jaw clenching as he tried to keep his own emotions under control. He knows a part of him is panicking, struggling to cope with the idea that this might be it; he might never see Thistleback again. And it hurts more than he expected it too.

"I-I can go." he offers, the words tripping over themselves in his haste to get them out as amber eyes shift between son and friend, desperate to help them- to help himself. "I know twolegplace well enough now- maybe the trail picks back up. Let me go after him Blazestar."

---

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[Howlfire]

Thistleback is gone. Something about that fact just does not seem right nor fair. Thistleback was a cat who had been present in her life almost from the very beginning, as familiar a face in SkyClan as that of her father, or the departed Daisyflight. He had been part of the rescue at the Shelter, helping to guide her and those cats trapped within the cages back outside to safety.

Howlpaw is quick to flock to her father's side, brushing up against him comfortingly and offering what little support she could muster. Poor Blazestar...this loss would surely shake him even more than he already was. It was a miracle to Howlpaw that her father was still standing at this point what with everything that had happened as of late. "Is there anything we can do?" She asked, looking up at her father. Coyotepaw and Johnnyflame were asking to keep looking and Howlpaw was inclined to agree with them. "Can't we send out search patrols or something? I don't like the idea of him being lost out there all alone as I once was."​

 

[GREENEYES]

Another, another.

How could they have lost another? What has SkyClan done wrong to warrant the loss of so many? To warrant so much pain? So much grief?

As Greeneyes follows the patrol, he can't help the thinking that fills his mind. Is this... Is this because of him? Is this because of the shift in seasons, a catastrophic mix of the deadly color both him and greenleaf are named after?

Green is a lucky color, Fireflypaw tried to convince him once, as dark paws pushed a clover towards him - the one that still sits behind his ear. Greeneyes doesn't feel very lucky right now.

Daisyflight, Sheepcurl, Snowpath, Honeysplash. All cats he's been close to - cats he's known for most, if not all of his life. And now Thistleback. His brother's former mentor. Gone, just as Snowpath.

It's a curse looming over the pine forest, gnawing at the young warrior from the inside out. A constant sorrow, as the faces he's grown accustomed to continue to fade from his life.

His stomach twists at Coyotepaw's shouts for Thistleback - for his father. It churns at the thought that his fallen brother's friend will receive his warrior name with a parent missing, just as Greeneyes and most of his littermates had done. It's not fair. With all that's going on, with all that Coyotepaw's been through - it's unfair.

But, nothing these days ever seems to be.

The apprentice urges Blazestar to keep looking and Greeneyes opens his mouth to speak, to volunteer. But it's Johnnyflame that volunteers to go first - an offer that leaves the orange tom hesitant. Sorrow and grief over his mother's death still fills him - still leaves his thoughts towards the lead warrior soured. But, Thistleback is missing. Thistleback needs to come home. And only one cat searching won't do much, will it?

"I... I can go too," he says quietly, looking to Blazestar, "I don't know the twolegplace as well, but... but I've been there before. I know my way back." The red twoleg den sits in his mind, the sweet smell his mother had once described. If he gets lost, he just needs to find that.
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[SLATE]

❪ TAGS ❫ — If SkyClan assumed that they were in the clear after the giant shelter rescue, then this would only prove them dead wrong. The threat of the Twolegplace loomed over them constantly, seeming to pick off cats at random for one reason or another. Monsters, rogues, twolegs... Thistleback's faded scent left behind at the border does not clarify which fate he had succumbed to. Perhaps he was taking the death of his apprentice extraordinarily hard, and Slate honestly couldn't blame the guy if he wanted some space, but it didn't seem like him to run off without a word. Then again, Slate hadn't known the other lead warrior at all, really.

Blazestar is utterly devastated at the prospect of losing another member of his council, and offers to help spring up from the other patrol members. "Hm." Slate ponders for a moment, his amber gaze sweeping up and settling on the distant outline of giant twoleg dens in the distance. "Thistleback's from the city, yeah? I can check around my old stompin' grounds." He knew where the most populated clusters of strays roamed and claimed their territories; Slate wasn't super thrilled about the prospect of returning to the streets and potentially reuniting with some of his old rivals, but it wasn't his intention to get into any scraps. He could ask around to see if anybody's seen Thistleback; he had a unique enough appearance and it was hard to miss the guy. Maybe he had made a trip to the city to take care of some unfinished business... or maybe worse — the twolegs had struck again. Thistleback was a street cat like him and they knew how to steer clear of the two-leggeds, but even city slickers weren't immune to getting caught up in those cold-wired traps. Slate knows this from experience, obviously.​

 

[BLAZESTAR]

Blazestar’s grief is shared. He knows the Clan will mourn Thistleback collectively, but for a moment, he holds onto the privacy of his loss. He knows Coyotepaw had viewed the former lead warrior as a father, and Johnnyflame—perhaps there’d been something more there, more than the friendship Blazestar had forged with Thistleback. He blinks at both of them with clouded blue eyes, unsure. Slate, Greeneyes, Drizzlepaw, Howlpaw—the rest of them offer to help, too, but the Ragdoll shakes his head slowly.

“I can’t risk sending a bunch of cats into the Twolegplace when so many of you only just returned from there,” he says, his voice dull. “Slate and Johnnyflame, you may go, if you wish, since you’re familiar with Twolegplace… but I can’t risk losing more warriors.” He sighs. “Even you two… if you choose to go in any further, I don’t recommend staying there for long. With Honeysplash disappearing too, there are Twolegs still looking for cats, I fear.”

The SkyClan leader’s tail droops, feeling wrung-out and defeated. He’d felt as though StarClan had shone their mercy on SkyClan after the cats returned from the shelter, but now… he doesn’t know how much more tragedy his heart can bear.
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[ PENNED BY MARQUETTE ]​

 

[BRAMBLEHEART]

જ➶ It's a calm moment before the storm. His gaze shifting over the swaying canopy of trees. The wind continues to be strong but he doesn't seem to mind it. Yet he starts to pick up voices and he tilts his head as he makes his way toward what he believes to be just a regular patrol. Just to say hi. But the atmosphere when he reaches them tells him an entirely different story. He stops short and looks over the whole patrol and he also picks up something else. Thistleback's scent. Slowly those soft honey brown orbs blink and he just stares before he finally decides to ask. "What...what's going on? Did something happen?" His voice threatens to crack a bit and he looks towards Coyotepaw then before looking toward his leader. Something isn't right and he tilts his head up, short tail jittering. With a small step forward he sniffs the air and then turns to look back at them again. "Where is Thistleback? I can smell him but...his scent disappears so suddenly and..."

Maybe he should just leave, maybe just let the patrol do what they are doing. Perhaps he doesn't want to know because if he does he might just cave in on himself. For how will he deal with both parents gone?​