{Bad Omens- rise event prompts}

[Knickknacks]

>event thread<

One of the cats in your clan has been experiencing a recurring bad dream. It has consumed their waking moments as well, with little things around their territory and camp reminding them of the terrors they see at night. Whether your clan receives messages from their ancestors or not, your cat knows one thing for certain: this is a bad omen.

prompt one: Describe your cat's recurring dream. What are they seeing in their waking hours, whether it's real or not? You may accompany your writing with one drawn scene.

prompt two: Describe how your cat is responding and what they are doing about it. You may accompany your writing with one drawn scene.

prompt three: Explain what the dream is signifying/what it means for your cat/the clan. No drawn extra.

prompt four: Who is the villain? What do they want? What do they look like? What's important to know about them? You may draw a reference for your villain or use free lineart.

prompt five: Wrap everything up neatly. How did your cat make the dreams stop? How did they overcome? What happened to the villain? What was the outcome? You may accompany your writing with one drawn scene.

{word limit for prompts: 1000 words}

[Knickknacks]

-----

The red she-cat was back tonight, flitting through the trees ahead of him, always just a few leaps ahead. Her muzzle was creased in a malicious grin, her eyes sparking with the thrill of the hunt.

Seeing her expression sent a shiver down Cloudgaze’s back, like there was icy water trickling through his fur (there wasn’t).
He was running after her, trying to catch up, hoping that tonight maybe he could prevent the murder he knew she planned to commit. But try as he might, his movements felt sluggish, like he was wading against an invisible current, and his pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Stop!" He cried, hoping to catch the attention of the cat dancing through the trees ahead of him. "Who are you? Why are you-"
The forest around him seemed to twist somehow, warping forward and changing shape. Cloudgaze found himself on a rocky path, somewhere up on the mountains overlooking the tundra. He didn’t know where this place was in relation to his home in NorthClan, but he had seen it in dreams before. He knew what he was about to see.

The red she-cat was there again, eyes sparkling with triumph now. At her feet was a cat, bigger than her but somehow lesser, pale fur dyed by a red slash- for the red cat had left her mark on them. The dying cat’s chest was heaving, final breaths coming in gasps, sounding to Cloudgaze like a rehearsed beat, one he’d seen played out night after night.

As with every night before, the red cat’s muzzle creased in a malicious grin. She bent down and whispered, almost sweetly, into her victim’s ear:

"It’s better this way. Nothing personal. Or- maybe it is personal, a little bit. Too late to talk it out now, though."

And then she left, slipping down the rocky trail as swiftly as she always moved, leaving the thick-furred cat to rattle out his final breaths alone.

Cloudgaze woke up with a gasp, his chest heaving. Morning sunlight was streaming into his den, seeming entirely too bright and cheerful in contrast to his tormented dreams.

-----

In his dreams, Cloudgaze watched the red cat. In his waking hours, she watched him.

A flash of red fur at the corner of his vision. A rustling that seemed to come from nowhere as he bent to gather herbs or lap water. He couldn’t see her all the time, but he knew she was there- he could feel the weight of her burning green gaze on him. Sometimes he swore he could feel her spectral claws in his back, or dragging at his tail. Reminding him that she’s there.

And sometimes he’d see her in full- standing before him, her red pelt dimmed to the shimmering transparency of an ancestral cat. But unlike the luminous cats of StarClan, her fur seemed to glimmer with darkness- almost like it was absorbing light rather than emitting it.

Her chest and paws were always stained with blood.

She would stare silently at him for a moment before smiling the smile he was so used to. And speak the same three words before vanishing again.

"It’s nothing personal."

{531 words.}

[Knickknacks]

-----
"Cloudgaze."

The voice cut softly through the near-silence of his den, making Cloudgaze jump violently. The herbs he’d been sorting were scattered by the jerky movement, and fluttered to the ground in mixed-up heaps.

"S-Swanglow!" He said, a little too loudly, willing himself not to bristle nervously. "I didn’t hear you come in."

"Obviously," the she-cat observed dryly. "That’s what I wanted to speak with you about, actually."

"You’ve been behaving… strangely, Cloudgaze. You’re jumpy, and distracted, and never seem to be able to explain what’s bothering you. I’m here to find out what’s bothering you."

"Oh," Cloudgaze said meekly. "Y-you really don’t have to- I’m fine, Swanglow. Honestly."

"Don’t lie," Swanglow gave a low hiss, stalking a few steps closer. "The whole Clan knows something’s up. You’re always so calm and levelheaded and optimistic- and that’s one of the things holding this Clan together. Seeing you like this has made everyone nervous. Whatever it is, you can’t go on this way for much longer. I want to help you get over it."

Cloudgaze flattened his ears, taken aback. An excuse was on the tip of his tongue- an insistence that he was fine, that he could deal with these visions on his own- but then he hesitated. An idea occurred to him, and he latched onto it, even though continuing this course would mean revealing the truth of his visions- at least part of the truth- to Swanglow.

"Okay." He took a deep, steadying breath. "There is something."

"Swanglow, can you teach me to fight?"

-----

"Again."

Cloudgaze picked himself back up, aching from head to tail. He glanced into Swanglow’s mismatched eyes for a moment and, seeing no hint of letting up in them, wondered if this had been a mistake.

He’d had to tell Swanglow about his visions, though he’d avoided some of the worse details. His clanmate had been skeptical at first, but had eventually agreed to help him improve his fighting techniques. Though she was still confused about the link between his visions and close combat, she pushed him relentlessly, arguing that the best way to strengthen himself was to push his limits.

Cloudgaze wasn’t sure if this would work. He didn’t know if it was possible for him to even touch the spectral cat, let alone fight her, or if that would make her disappear. But it felt good to be doing something to try and combat these visions, even if that something left him battered and sore.

He’d seen the red cat lurking around the training grounds. He liked to imagine that he could see a glimmer of apprehension growing in her eyes.

Swanglow charged him again, and he turned to meet her.

{452 words.}

[Knickknacks]

-----

In the beginning, before NorthClan was even a thought, generations before young Lynxstar’s parents’ parents were born, there was another Clan. A sprawling, prosperous clan, wherein cats no longer had to fear the cold savagery of the tundra, for though their lives were hard, the clan cats faced them together. And there was, for a time, peace in the cold mountainous lands.

The group was known as FrostClan, after its leader. The great white tomcat who took the name Froststar had an unprecedented connection to the stars above, and the visions he saw prompted him to found this great clan. He was said to stand a head taller than most cats, but to have gentle eyes and a voice as soft as snow falling. For a time, he ruled with great wisdom, and the clan prospered.

But it was not to last. Purely good things can never last for long, for evil will always see and become hungry and attempt to tear down whatever good it can grasp.

Evil came for FrostClan in the form of a sly red cat, trusted by Froststar first as a friend, and then as a second in command. Perhaps she was not always evil. Perhaps she had a good spirit, but became tainted by the lure of the power she held. The legends are not clear, but they agree on one thing- that this deputy’s soul became dark, and her paws stained with blood as she struck down the great white leader.

And after the deed was done, her attempt to seize power went awry. Some of FrostClan rallied to her, hailing her as the new leader, while others rebelled, horrified by her treachery, uniting under the young nephew of Froststar. And FrostClan was split, cleaved in two by a dreadful civil war.

Many lives were lost in the fighting, which culminated in a great battle atop the mountain peaks, wherein the red traitor’s allies sought to bring her to the clan’s sacred place, so that she could receive her nine lives, and none would dispute her right to rule. But they were met with an impassioned resistance, and both the red traitor and Froststar’s nephew were killed in battle.
The war was left without a conclusion- and both sides scattered. FrostClan was no more.

But generations later, the guilt-wracked Froststar spied a successor, and appointed Lynxstar to be the leader of a new Clan. Not FrostClan, for the ghostly leader felt undeserving of such a tribute. The new clan was to be called NorthClan, and he hoped the young tom would be strong where he had not been, with sight enough to see traitors before their claws were at his neck.

And when portents foretold the coming of a threat to the newly born Clan, Froststar chose to send visions to the new healer, a bright-spirited cat named Cloudgaze, to teach him of the treacheries in the tundra’s past, and warn him of the treacheries to come.

{494 words.}

[Knickknacks]

-----
The Red Traitor.

That is the name she has become known by in the starry hunting grounds of the afterlife. She is the figure stalking Cloudgaze’s dreams and waking hours, though he doesn’t yet know her name. In life, she was known as Brindlefox.

She was a beautiful cat outwardly, a slim red-brown cat with shining coppery eyes. In later legends, it would for a short time be told that her eyes turned red as blood after her murder of Froststar. In reality, they remained as luminous as ever, continually sparkling not with light or good humor, but with a malice that one could see plainly if they looked close enough. Many remained blind to it, whether by choice or Brindlefox’s own manipulations.

She had always been a skilled speaker, with a voice that could be sweet as sunshine or forceful as the winter gales depending on her need. Froststar had appointed her to be his second in command because of her cleverness and her wiry determination. He failed to see that malice, the hunger for power that slowly consumed her, the murder in her eyes as she looked at him.

She outsmarted him, in the end.

He has regretted his blindness ever since.

{204 words.}

[Knickknacks]

-----
"Get... out of my head!" Cloudgaze growled as ferociously as he could muster, pressing down on the shoulders of the surprisingly solid cat beneath him.

The red she-cat laughed and, before he knew what was happening, darted out from beneath him. Her claws lashed out, leaving a shallow but no less real cut across Cloudgaze’s cheek. He froze for a moment, reaching out to touch the stinging cut. Until this point, he and the been certain that this was all real. But this confirmed the nagging fear in his belly- that this murderous cat was very much real, and all too willing to hurt him too.

He had surprised her, at first- turning and pouncing as she shadowed him from behind. The shock in her eyes had been satisfying to him after all the nights he’d spent chasing her, all the days he’d spent running away from her.

The thud of his own body as the red cat sent him sprawling was less so. Despite his lessons with Swanglow, despite her being an ancient spirit, he seemed unable to compete with her.

"What do you want with me?" He choked out as the she-cat strolled up, standing over him and pressing a paw to his throat.

"Nothing personal," she responded glibly, pressing a little harder. No claws, yet. The starry flecks in her fur seemed to wink darkly at him, as though teasing him before his death.

Cloudgaze shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable blow. It didn’t come. Instead, the pressure on his throat vanished, lifted away. He risked opening his eyes.

Above him stood a massive white cat, holding the red she-cat pinned like a leaf, or a bug. He had plucked her off of Cloudgaze and now stood, glowering down at her, every inch an avenging warrior.

"No longer will you torment this cat," he growled. "No longer will you haunt the world of the living. Be gone from here." A sort of power radiated from his words, so strong that if Cloudgaze had been able he was fairly sure he would have dissolved on the spot, as the starry red cat did a moment later. All that was left of her was a glistening outline of those dark winking stars.

The white cat huffed a sigh before turning back to examine Cloudgaze.

"Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice gentle now, blue eyes examining Cloudgaze for injuries.

"J-just a scratch," Cloudgaze stammered. The starry cat sighed again.

"I am sorry, young one," he said, striding closer until they were eye to eye. "I never intended for this to happen."

"What- what do you mean?" Cloudgaze said, tilting his head.

"I am Froststar," the white tom said, bowing his head briefly. "I have been watching over your clan for some time now- particularly you and your friend Lynxstar. I sense danger approaching for the clan, and began to send you those visions in an attempt to teach you of the clan’s past, so that it would not happen again. But the spirit of the cat- that red one you saw- was drawn to these dreams, and was able to inhabit them, as well as step into your waking sight. She was never physically real, but her presence made the visions much worse than I intended. I failed to take the risk to your safety into account, and for that I am gravely sorry."

Cloudgaze gaped.
"So that- that whole thing- wasn’t real?" He said. "The dreams, our fight, everything? What about-" he reached up to touch the cut on his cheek- and found nothing but a thin line of a scar. The wound was already fading.

"Not physically real," Froststar admitted. "But the dangers reflected in your visions are most certainly real. There is a danger coming to your Clan- a foe who will at first wear the face of a friend, but will turn on your leader and break the new clan if you are not kept alert.

"Follow me," he said, beginning to stride away. "There are more things I must show you if you are all to come through this danger alive. No longer will you be troubled by omens, young Cloudgaze, but we still have a great deal to talk about."

{712 words.}