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The Apostles is a warrior cats roleplay based in northern Wisconsin. On Lake Superior, the wild cats have made the Apostle Islands their home. It is on these islands - Rocky Island and South Twin Island - that the clan and tribe cats have lived in a peace and harmony that ebbs and flows with the tide.
But as the tides turn, so does the truce that binds them to one another; and as the water raises, a darkness follows, an evil that will end in bloodshed and violence.
A thick fog troubled their forest that day. Deep, impenetrable, a vaporous being content on writhing about with no end in sight. It bore up ghoulish likenesses, and made even their camp an obscure landscape of pale, writhing mist. Few would brave such weather—Firfoot being one of them.
Their trek had been slow-going. They stopped to weigh the fog and peer out through it. At times, Firfoot would point things out in it. He outlined the shapes of tale pines with dark, rugged trunks. He motioned to the branches, how some were low and some were high—how if you wanted to hunt in them, you ought to know what boughs to use and how to find them. He pointed out rotted wood from good timber. He motioned to winding trails in the forest, how the reliable ones had the most wear, but the best ones for hunting were erratic and hard to follow. Deer trails. Game trails. He gave them many names, and he uttered a great deal more—never thinking Fennelpaw might grasp it, never expecting him to, only wishing to pad the silence.
The tom already knew their hunting grounds. He’d been already, when the fog did not cloy so thick. Still, Firfoot insisted. He pointed things out for him again in the patient way he had. When Fennelpaw asked questions, he answered them, and as they neared them, he instructed him on crouches and quiet steps.
“Remember how I taught you? Ease the weight into the backs of your paws. Hinge forward, and you’ll fall. Keep steady. Remember to keep your tail still. That’s it. That’s it…”
Side by side, they crept forward, their nostrils flaring in all the moisture, but even that was good. Firfoot taught him to find scents in the damp as they neared the border. He set him to thinking about the smells and how to pluck out the forest from the living things. Then, when they came to the rogue border, their stink spread over everything—a dense, choking cloud. Freshly marked, freshly passed over. Not long ago had a rogue made passes at their border. I’ll have to talk to the dawn patrol about that… It was not uncommon for such things to be missed- that borders were negligently walked, and markers were not placed. He’d smelled such things and knew them, and knowing it made his jaws clench with frustration and weariness.
Yet another thing to fix. Another thing to smooth over. Another mistake to mend. All for him.
He breathed softly. His eyes lowered to the fog-swarmed earth where Fennelpaw stooped, wobbling on limbs still unused to the grueling marches and long treks into the forest. That would mend with time. “You did well in keeping pace with me, but you’ll need more than a silent crouch to walk our borders. Remember how I told you to smell the air? Try it now, and tell me what you can pick up. On days like these, the fog will dull your other senses. You can’t always rely on your eyes or your ears—sometimes, your nose will be all you have. Master it, and you will never lose your way.” His eyes shone a ghostly light in the writhing fog as he motioned for the apprentice to test the air. “Go on.”
...that was your blood on those sheets and it was extraordinary...
Fennelpaw’s tail swiped, gross moisture clinging to it amid the fog. But his opinion of the conditions did not linger long. He wanted this, in fact he would have annoyed Firfoot to take him out if he hadn't displayed plans already. The apprentice didn’t know what to look for yet on his own. In this thicker air, the territory wasn’t as recognizable. Fennelpaw was almost entirely reliant on his mentor, stopping every so often to present valuable waypoints regarding their surroundings.
Eventually, Firfoot instructed they move only while crotched from now on and that he save his questions. I bet my brother isn’t getting to do stuff this cool with his mentor. And the urge to exclaim the thought aloud bubbled feverishly. Often he had been instructed on distinguishing individual tastes from the air. The deputy had put a large emphasis on it from the beginning of his training. But as Fennelpaw’s nose came upon the scent of their border with the rogues, his tongue flicked once into the air anxiously.
The area was unmistakably drenched in a layer of fresh scent. His muscles wobbled and screamed exhaustion from holding the crouch. The apprentice loosened his form while his eyes fixed on what seemed to him walls of fog that stretched on forever. Fennelpaw’s beamed to his mentor's compliment, but it was short-lived. He’s right. My vision feels dull in this fog. I am better off trusting my nose.
‘Go on.’
He blinked, but shouldn’t have expected otherwise from the warrior. After all, he was out here to learn how to be the best ThistleClan warrior he could be. “Uhh..o-okay Firfoot.” Scared to fail, but Fennelpaw sniffed the surroundings once more. His heart sank as he returned to nothing he already didn’t know. Only discerning the obvious vile rogue marking act that was in front of them. “All I smell is these rogues trying to act like us! Who do they think they are marking a border?” The apprentice shouted his frustration into the mist. But the heat of humiliation in his flattened ears faded. “It’s fresh, I know that much. What am I missing? Can you smell their direction? Lead the way! Let's go fight them.” His whining quickly turned into an electrified look pushed only by the eagerness in his eyes.
Firfoot did not miss the quaver in his apprentice’s tone and so gave him but the gentlest of urgings, the softest of brushes with his tail, sending him stumbling forward, nose flaring. And his eyes remained rapt, his own nose working the cloying mist and finding beneath the weight of it the stench of a rogue—still fresh.
“…marking a border?”
And Firfoot rose to his paws, his cumbersome limbs swaying with his weight as he came to stand alongside the tabby tom and give sniff to the air with a furrowed brow. But it was no marking he smelt; instead, the smell roused fresh to the flaring of his nostrils, and there was no mistaking its closeness. He stilled yet said nothing, head turning vaguely to either side.
“…missing?”
Firfoot looked from the corners of his eyes down at his apprentice. “That is no marker. There is a rogue in our midst…” Skulking about like a lowly rat. He did not doubt they had already caught wind of them—and if not, then surely they did not miss Fennelpaw’s own words of frustration, too-loudly voiced.
Again came the eager rejoinder, unperturbed by good sense. “…go fight them.”
And at that, Firfoot’s expression grew severe. His tail wove out and moved to block the tom’s path firmly. “No. There will be no fighting.” He glanced ahead again, silent. “…you are not ready.” Still, he pressed on into the fog, and together the two picked through it, nestling down among the grass where it splayed and sprawled up from the earth, still in the wind’s absence. There, a vague shape reared up. Paws set cautiously upon the ground, scuffed gently, so their ears strained to grow privy of it.
“There’s your rogue,” Firfoot murmured softly, his voice a whisper. “See the way it skulks? See how cautious it is?” He drew in a quiet breath. “There is no creature warier than a rogue. They will catch wind of you long before you them and be gone long before you can make sense of their being there at all. But you mustn’t mistake their caution for cowardice. They are not bound by our laws; they-“
But he got no further, for when his eyes lowered, they rested upon an empty space, still trembling where Fennelpaw had once stooped, he caught wind only of the young tom’s bushed tail and the tramp of his feet as he burst out from hiding, out into the mist, toward the rogue with a squealed battle-cry rumbling out from his lips.
Firfoot’s jaws parted. Warning urged there, yet he clamped it down at once. And so, lowering only further to the earth, he shoved his ears forward, and his eyes grew cool and still as his apprentice drove ever closer. And he did not budge to save him nor to stop him—he only watched in the stillness.
A small paw stepped on a twig as Fennelpaw felt the compulsion to instigate. Something, he wanted to do something to the rogue. Not that he had any of the training required to actually hold his own against a rogue. But his mentor’s tail firmly swept in to barricade the young blue cat. With Firfoot’s guidance, they steered away from walking directly into the enemy’s path. He took a spot in the grass, his pelt still bristling in frustration.
Another half felt thrilling, having never suspected they would actually meet a rogue on the outing. The skin near his tail twitched with overstimulation with the nuanced mannerisms of the other cat's movements, while Firfoot pointed them out. The apprentice pawed at the grass as he spoke to him. But the more the deputy elucidated, the more Fennelpaw seemed lost. Dilated eyes fixating on a cat who Fennelpaw believed could know where Cedarkit was.
His patience snapped before his mentor finished his thoughts. And for the first time in his life, he darted forward with the intent to cut with his claws. In his wake, the apprentice scampered with his own blood pounding in his ears. Cutting through the mist and disturbing the serenity of the forest with his uncontrollable temper. “What do you think you’re doing?” Fennelpaw growled through a set of furious tiny teeth. Lip curling and despite his size, the apprentice fully intended to make this cat bleed as he bound forward without any further introductions.
Foolishly, Fennelpaw pounced forward and smacked the brown and white tabby right in the face. He smirked wildly as he came down from the rush of impact coursing through his body. The apprentice ripped flesh for the first time in his life and loved it more than he could have ever imagined. Whatever the case regarding his training thus far and lack of experience, Fennelpaw struck violently and confidently.
The fog was thick enough for Adderheart to feel comfortable braving the outside world if only this once. He spent most of his time below ground and was content that way, never feeling the urge the others did to return to the surface. No, he preferred the dank darkness to the open air. Perhaps, this was simply complacency - but if it was, Adderheart did not mind.
And out of the tunnels, he could make his business wherever he chose. After all, he need not worry about who else might need to trod through a cavern, or what prey he might ward against. It was pleasant, a nice dream amidst the wars about him - to make dirt wherever he chose.
He did eagerly before he began in his wanderings, following the gentle curve of the ThistleClan border, finding such a distinct trail curious in its existence. Did it always extend this far? Many moons ago, he thought it did not - that the rogues had more of this useless land at the periphery of the territory. They must be growing in numbers... my homeland and those within must be prospering.
The scents of the border were so strong that Adderheart hardly noticed the shift of long-laid smell and those of flesh cats in the present. That was until he thought he heard the rustling of the nearby forest, and his ears shot tall, turning to locate the source. He stood still, lengthy tangles of pelt unmoving in the lack of breeze. He waited and watched for something to alert themselves, whether prey or feline or otherwise. He smelled no foxes, and yet the thought of one finding left him horribly unnerved.
He breathed a short breath of relief when it was simply an apprentice bursting from the brush on the ThistleClan side of the border. "StarClan, I thought you were a fox, don't-" The other cat called out, and Adderheart's eyes blinked in the unnerving way that they did, yellow and glaring. "Wha-" He had no time to answer in earnest, as, before he had a heartbeat to continue, he was attacked with the reckless abandon of an untempered overgrown kit.
He felt claws dig into the flesh of his muzzle and bit a hiss that stirred from his throat. He stepped back and shook his head, feeling frazzled and unwell already. Finally, his eyes opened, angry and sunken beneath a firm brow. His old warrior training was a woozy memory in his mind, so he had no manner of speed nor grace to his assault in turn. But with a sharply raised paw, he smacked the apprentice's face in retaliation, claws searing past the brow and down the cheek and cutting the soft leather of the nose. And then he stepped back, a strange pride gilding his voice.
"There! That'll teach you to hit any random cat you come across!" His exclamation turned into a low and fast mutter. All the while, a warrior rounded on him beyond his normally sensitive awareness. "I've still got it, Froststar, ol' Adderheart's still got it!"
Attack move: smack back Attack Roll: Kju_8b531d20+3 Damage Roll: 1d12+3 Character HP: 49/60
...that was your blood on those sheets and it was extraordinary...
Little thoughts poked in the background of Fennelpaw’s mind in the moments after he had struck Adderheart. But the shortcomings of his mind became obvious when he did not anticipate the outsider to retaliate. With a spark of fear, his young ears perked up to a simmered hiss. Fennelpaw practically screamed within the same moment his cheek was cut into. And his surprise at this pain was further conveyed when he lost the confidence he initially brought. Replaced by panic as the blue tabby twisted and kicked dirt at Adderheart in scrambling to get up.
With blood trailing down his cheek, Fennelpaw squashed tears from forming by rubbing his eyes hastily. Blinking away moisture until his vision cleared. I can’t allow Firfoot to see me cry! Fennelpaw promised himself silently that no matter what trouble he had just gotten himself into he would not be made to cry from a couple wounds.
His opening strike was a cheap one only brought on by a stroke of luck. The apprentice was still vulnerable so close to the amber stranger. Fennelpaw entered a pathetic battle stance, ignoring the numbness pulsing from the side of his face. A trembling source of agony surfaced in his neck, but he still held his paws apart and ears pinned back. “Is that all you got?” Fennelpaw sneered.
