Upon Hazel Wings

Upon Hazel Wings is a one-shot completed by Hazelholly, for Mapledrift's fanfiction/fanart contest.

Characters include:

Hazelwing

Snowtuft

Gorseclaw

Redstar

Enjoy.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

With a sigh, a ginger tabby molly padded into a starlit clearing, her tail dragging along the ground. As she continued walking forwards, many familiar faces had turned away, not wanting to meet her gaze. It had been moons- no, seasons since she’d seen them. Some she couldn’t recognize, but clearly they remembered her- one of the ancient SkyClan warriors who was pushed out of the forest. The others she could remember in a heartbeat.

I still can’t believe it, She thought, still slightly tentative. These four Clans are still here going strong, while SkyClan was forced into exile for seasons until recently. The only reason the ginger tabby had come to the skies of StarClan -not her StarClan of course, but the other Clans’ StarClan- full of the cats who kicked SkyClan out of their home- was because she was curious to see how the other Clans were doing. Although she resented most of them, the ginger tabby couldn’t deny that whatever problem this StarClan was having, it could possibly happen to SkyClan’s ancient skies.

“Greetings, Hazelwing,” A voice rumbled. Looking up, the molly saw a dark ginger tabby tom with narrowed yellow eyes. The ginger tabby molly shrunk back. Redstar of ThunderClan, the one who’d helped drive Cloudstar’s SkyClan out. Redstar turned his gaze on the dark brown tabby tom next to her. “Gorseclaw.”

Gorseclaw meekly dipped his head in respect. “R-Redstar.”

Hazelwing understood why the young tom seemed so jumpy around the ThunderClan leader. After all, Gorseclaw had been one of the two kits of Birdflight and Cloudstar who stayed with ThunderClan with their mother, as they were too young for the journey. ''Those poor kits shouldn’t have been separated from their father. Every cat needs their parents, or guardians, at least.''

Redstar sat back on his haunches. “Whatever are the two of you doing here? Doesn’t SkyClan have their own skies still in these recent seasons?” Resisting the strong urge to snarl at him, Hazelwing nodded briskly.

“Yes, and we quite the expansion of territory, which is a really big change Redstar, wouldn’t you agree, Gorseclaw?” Hazelwing growled in a fake cloying tone of voice, sounding as if she was on the verge of snapping. Gorseclaw simply just looked away, as if the ground was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Redstar flinched, though he didn’t voice his opinion out loud.

The dark ginger tom narrowed his eyes. “I thought that was in the past.”

Hazelwing laughed bitterly. “Oh, ho ho ho…no. No. SkyClan is still suffering because of your mistakes, and maybe there will be a time when the rest of the Clans fall because of that, too, hmm?”

Redstar glowered her, his yellow eyes burning with rage and…fear? Hazelwing ignored it- the ancient ThunderClan never showed fear. Especially when sending a helpless Clan with kittens to feed into exile; definitely can’t show any fear there. Feeling Gorseclaw draw closer to her, she couldn’t help but feel bad for the tom. He had the choice of walking in SkyClan’s skies or this StarClan, which he chose the former along with his mother Birdflight and sister Spottedpelt. Meaning, he’d technically betrayed Redstar in a way, and Hazelwing couldn’t blame him for being uncomfortable. If only things had been different for that poor family… On one paw, Redstar was his leader. On the other paw, here was the cat who helped encourage the other cats to send SkyClan away from the forest.

“W-We’re just here to check in on how things are going here, since we kind of have the right to check on the other Clans, you know,” Gorseclaw mewed softly, flattening his ears against his dark brown tabby head. Redstar glared at him, but didn’t say anything more.

He snorted. “Carry on, although there probably won’t be anything left to check on soon, anyways.”

Hazelwing narrowed her eyes, her shoulder fur beginning to rise. “What does that mean?”

Redstar turned back to her momentarily and stated, “It means go figure it out for yourselves.”

After the ThunderClan leader left, Hazelwing was left both angry and bewildered. Something was happening within the world of living that could possibly destroy all the other Clans. Meaning, Hazelwing was possibly right about the Clans eventually falling, which she was kind of joking about in a dark way. She didn’t believe it was possible, in all honesty- she wouldn’t be surprised if there were other Clans besides the main five -or six, if you want to count StarClan- she grew up learning about. And then there was the other thing- the fact that Redstar refrained from telling them about what was truly happening with the living. Hazelwing could’ve settled for a hint, at least, but being left with zilch? Sometimes Redstar was completely unbearable.

Hazelwing snorted. “Come on, let’s just go. Stupid furrball.” Gorseclaw looked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t out of fear for getting chastised.

~o~o~

After some time in the lake’s StarClan, Hazelwing hated to admit that it was impressive. There was a nice source of water over by what looked like some replica of RiverClan’s territory. The nice breeze that ruffled Hazelwing’s ginger fur felt comforting, as well as the soft grass that held Hazelwing’s paws in place. Gorseclaw was still beside her, his face sick with worry.

She nudged his shoulder. “Oh, come on, Gorseclaw! This isn’t that bad, and besides, we don’t have that mouse-brained tom breathing down our necks.” The dark brown tabby only sighed and kept walking at the same pace. “Fine, fine. Be like that.”

Gorseclaw shook his head. “I just can’t stop thinking about what Redstar said. What did he mean by we might not have anything to check on anymore? Did he mean that StarClan is fading?”

“No!” Hazelwing snapped, her eyes narrowed. She quickly drew back, forcing her shoulder fur to lay flat. “Well, I wouldn’t trust Redstar as much as I would a weasel.”

He tilted his head. “You can trust a weasel to steal your prey…”

The ancient SkyClan queen groaned in frustration. “Exactly my point. Just don’t worry too much about it.” Turning her attention back in front of her, Hazelwing noticed a slightly dark and oppressive air weighing down on her shoulders. Trying to focus her vision, Hazelwing took a few paces forwards. Gorseclaw seemed a little hesitant to, as he meekly padded behind Hazelwing. If you don’t want to come, then don’t, Hazelwing thought. I’d much rather you stay behind, even though you probably wouldn’t listen to me in the first place.

As the two cats drew closer to most likely cause of the repressive aura, Hazelwing stopped dead in her tracks once some of the fog began to clear. What she saw wasn’t what she expected. But it made sense. Lying beyond StarClan’s boundaries was a murky forest, with a sinister mist wrapped around the broken branches of the rotting trees. Hazelwing shuddered. What was that? Was this a new addition to this StarClan’s territory? She didn’t know, nor did she want to.

“Do you think that’s what Redstar was talking about?” Gorseclaw whimpered, his eyes wide with anxiety.

Hazelwing sighed and shook her head. “What did I say about that rodent?”

Gorseclaw hummed thoughtfully. “You can’t trust him with your prey?”

“True, but that’s not what I meant-” Hazelwing’s mew was cut short when an ear splitting yowl grabbed the two SkyClan cats’ attention. Widening her green eyes, Hazelwing shivered in utter terror as she unsheathed her claws. ''Some cat must be in danger! Did…did it come from there…?'' Glancing back at Gorseclaw, the tom nodded slowly. “Should we-?”

“Yes. I might be scared out of my fur and about to cough up a hairball, but that cat sounds like they’re in trouble,” sighed Gorseclaw, earning a grimace from Hazelwing.

She blinked slowly at him. “Informational much?” Gorseclaw shrugged his shoulders and flicked his tail tip towards the forest. With a grunt, Hazelwing took the lead and while making sure that Gorseclaw was behind her. As she kept walking, her legs grew wobbly and got more butterflies rummaging around in her stomach, about enough butterflies to almost make her want to go back.

Hazelwing flinched once she saw a pure white flash of fur collapse onto the ground, emerging from the bushes. Her heart began to pitter-patter as her legs ran in sync with the furious pace her heart was beating at. Once she reached the white cat, she crouched over him, her breathing short. Gorseclaw came up to her, his amber eyes wide. The white tom was hardly able to open his eyes -he was badly beaten and scarred, especially near his eyes- Hazelwing could tell that they were once a brilliant gold.

Gorseclaw licked the tom’s cheek. “Are you okay?”

The tom let out a raspy growl. “Why are you asking? Aren’t you from StarClan?”

Hazelwing widened her gaze once she realized who it was. This white tom was rather small and skinny- to her, it looked as if he was mainly used as a scratching post for others to rake their claws against. The tom had also had a large gash running down his chest, snaking from his belly all the way to his ear tip. Hazelwing almost choked on her own breath in disbelief.

“Snowtuft?”

He responded to the name, sure enough- the tom looked up at her, sorrow clouding his vision. Does he recognize me? “H-Hazelwing…?”

Hazelwing licked his cheek fur. “I finally found you.”

Snowtuft had a faint smile on his face. “How…how have Emberkit, Mistlekit, Webkit, and Hatchkit been since I left?” Hazelwing shifted into a loafing position and rasped her tongue against the tom’s fur.

“They’ve missed their father,” Hazelwing murmured softly. “And I’ve missed you.”