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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.
Hemlock’s words echoed in his mind. The bewildering look in his gaze had been nearly brandished to the back of Laurel’s eyelids, searing white-hot and haunting. After that night, after talking to Sumac and retiring to a bed of moss and feathers, sleep did not come to him and Laurel lay awake for some good time, unable to stop thinking on it. In the heat of the moment he had gripped Hemlock’s throat betwist a thrashing paw and hooked claw. Had he intended harm ? Even now, he could scarcely believe it had happened. Had he done that ? Or was it merely a trick of the light ? If Sumac had commanded him to slay the tom right then and there, would he have done it ? Laurel was afraid to ponder that, for he did not wish to know what the answer might be.
He could not stop the itching and nudging and thinking. The raven-furred tom rose up, on legs which moved of their own accord and had him untangling from where he had been stooped over Sumac’s slumbering form. Laurel stopped and peered down at the other.
And then he left, slinking out of the den and into the night and he ran, swiftly, until the treeline had whipped into a blur around him and he was at the shoreline, the water lapping at the stones and then his paws. The cold not settling over him as he did not think twice before he stepped in and began to swim towards the isle. Laurel hardly noticed how quickly he arrived at the Rock Where All Wounds Heal, eyes holding a hazy gloss as he emerged from the waters, fur plastered to his frame, doubly dark with wetness and a figure of only slate-gray eyes. There were others here now. Not long after Hemlock had been sent, others had joined him.
Laurel moved past the guards. Burrow and Marigold, without speaking. They let him past without a word and then he felt he was hunting down the cat he could not get out of his mind.
Hemlock. There, hunched over, with his head down and back to the prey-hunter. Laurel came upon him fiercely, though without fury, and when he did, he found he had no words ready. Nothing came to him. He looked upon Hemlock with an odd, kind of piercing look as though he wanted to peer right through that short, ebony pelt and dig around. In the few days during which he had debated this, he had imagined a great spiel or at the least something eloquent. Laurel had imagined that he would come here, upon the other, and the words would come at once. But here he was in, in the moment, and utterly unable to know where to begin. Still, he was not sure Hemlock knew he was there, which spurred him to speak.
“Pebble and Puddle.” Blankly, Laurel spoke. “Those are your sons’ names.” And he carried on, despite the way the other startled. “He has not harmed them, he will not.”
Despite the shadows of midnight, Hemlock could not sleep. Hunched upon the spongy moor grass of the Rock Where All Wounds Heals, Hemlock hovered in a stasis. Rest refused to come for him. Every time he tried, River's gasping breaths greeted him. A haunting, her final words entangled themselves in his ribcage, refusing to leave. His children's desperate, hungry cries drowned out his ears. And rage. He felt indescribable rage. Rage so deeply profound and debilitating gutted his very being. He had to dig his claws into the peaty earth, anything to remain grounded. At his mother's urging, he could not let his anger consume him. He had to persevere, if only for his kits.
They could not keep him from them forever.
At least he told himself this, if only to calm the torrents of fury. But in the absence of rage, came simply nothing at all. Hemlock was numb, an empty shell of his former self. Even after Fog's death, a spark of hope stubbornly smoldered. There would be an end to their suffering. But now? This was it. Sumac would continue reigning over the tribe until death took him. Before his passing, another Tribe-mate, one of similar liking, would be selected to train as his teller. Sunrise would be replaced. Their land would be ripped of sustenance, and everything that once made it his home.
They would all die.
The Tribe as they knew it was in its final season. Hemlock accepted this ugly truth, and perhaps it would be easier to simply perish, to give up. And Endless Tribe, he wanted to, if not for them. If not for River. If not for his mother forcing him to eat against his will, nudging him with her nose and wrapping her entire body around him, as she once did when he was but a tiny, helpless kit. Perhaps for them the spark was still there, barely clinging on for life.
Paw-steps thundered toward him. He did not move, or even flick an ear in recognition. What now? The scent was overbearingly Laurel's. He recognized it at once. That night, the dark-pelted tom forced him into the dirt of his home and pushed a claw against his throat as Sumac threatened him and the lives of his children. His scent infiltrated his nostrils, all-consuming and everywhere. Sharp, flowery, strong. Of course, he knew it was him.
He did not turn until he spoke. Large, orange eyes shifted to him, two empty harvest moons in the shadows. The head guard, though he was but a hunter to Hemlock, stood over him, breathless and searching. He told him of his sons, their names, of what Sumac wouldn't do to them. And perhaps Hemlock would have been overjoyed to learn such news. He had two sons! Two toms! Pebble and Puddle!
But it was Laurel, and Hemlock believed none of it.
"Have you come to finish me off?" He meowed coolly, ignoring what he said. "The others might not like it," he continued, gesturing to the other prisoners now held hostage on the island. For what? Infractions he hardly understood. "I won't put up a fight." He elongated his neck, perhaps being cruel. "Go ahead. You'll be doing me a favor."
The air grew tense and then still. Hardly stirring was the wind, if only so that the gentle susurrus sound might exist to punctuate the pauses and words and looks shared between the two ebony toms. Hemlock turned finally, eyes blazing embers and his nape bristling in the dim, dull lighting. The breeze, balmy and thick, swept over them and rustled the grasses. It drew up such a sound that it resembled laughter, a captive audience for his confrontation. Hemlock’s eyes were ragged and round and they steeped Laurel in a kind of misery that held him very still. Like that of a beast about to strike.
He did not look too far off from it. His pelt hung from his bones, like it had been loosely draped over the other prey-hunter’s form. It was shineless. Dulled to match weathered spirits. Hemlock had been the first sent here and so his visage reflected it. Where Maple and Icicle and Gloom bore faces lined with fresh weariness, the tom before him was burnt out from it all. Even as Laurel stood and soaked in the vitriol which spewed from each heaved breath of the other, he found himself replaying the night which had ended with Hemlock being escorted and left to rot here. Each pawstep, each word, every claw and tooth and blink. It came back in steady waves of regret and dismay and the great feeling as though he had lost some part of him. It shook Laurel to his core and swiftly his knees buckled and then he was bowed before Hemlock, head hung low and unable to meet the tom’s gaze.
“Hemlock, I know not what compelled me that night, find it in your soul to see that I am truthful in my words,” The raven-furred tom spoke in breathy tones, wracked with emotion. “He will not hurt your sons, I promise you that.” Could it uphold it though ? Nevermind that. “I could never bring claw to flesh, you are, despite it all, my tribemate.” His head spun, nausea crept over him. “I do not know what I was thinking that night, for my actions went against all that the tribe keeps. Your sons,” Laurel tried again. “They will grow without knowing your face if he does not let you return.”
He did not unsheathe a claw or bare his teeth into a snarl. Instead, Laurel collapsed to his haunches and groveled. Hemlock loosened his muscles, slightly turning to glance at him with disinterest and perhaps pity. A few moons ago, he would've laughed at the older hunter in amusement. Laurel? Bowing to him? Ridiculous. But now? Nothing. He only stared, waiting for the dark-pelted tom to push himself back to his paws and get on with it.
Whatever this was.
A jumble of pleas and promises fell breathlessly from his tongue. Was he trying to apologize? Hemlock furrowed his brows. How? After bearing his soul and reaping forgiveness, Laurel would only swim back to the shore and return to his nest, a free cat. While Hemlock was condemned to spend the rest of his days on the isles. They were no longer tribe-mates. Not when he imprisoned him. An apology would only clear Laurel's conscience. It meant nothing to Hemlock.
Couldn't he see that?
"And they will grow never knowing their mother's face either," he responded dryly. "Because he killed her, Laurel." His meow grew rough, shifting slightly into a growl. "Unless you're here to tell me you've enacted revenge on my behalf," he continued, anger suddenly rousing him as he spoke. Memories of River's lifeless body came over him. "It does not matter what you say or do." Hemlock glared down at him. "I and the others are to die here," he growled.
"We are traitors to the Tribe. Sumac has made that clear enough." A loud, trembling breath pushed through his nose. "So do not come here to me and try to make promises that you cannot keep." He jerked his head roughly to the shore. "Return to your paws," he growled. "And go."
Hemlock grew stiff and furious and his voice turned ragged. Laurel remained bent and kneeled, wishing he would melt into the darkness around them. Be anywhere but here, in the wrong. There was a moment of anger so palpable that it was felt in the wind, it sucked the air dry and crip, and then it passed. Turned to apathy and that too was tangible. How he wished Hemlock would snarl or slash at him with tooth or claw, just to make him feel as though things were even. How could he tell the other that he could sway the mystic ? That there was more of a real chance for him to keep his word ? Laurel did not stop to consider in all of his mania that Hemlock might chose to simply not believe him. How the mighty fall. Once-haughty, Laurel was now stooped before another.
“It is a tragedy that River died,” He continued, voice hoarse. “But what if I told you he would listen to me ?”
“Sumac can be convinced, Hemlock. I cannot keep every promise, but when I tell you that no harm will come to your children, I mean it. I can keep that one. He will not let any apart of his most trusted near them. Know your fate, I do not and I do not pretend to. But the fate of your sons is a different story.” Revenge. That was what the other prey-hunter desired most of all right now, but soon that would fade. But in time he’d want comfort in knowing his sons were well. This was the dilemma of any parent, was it not ?
Laurel continued groveling, refusing to return to the shore. Hemlock bristled over him, a quiet rage simmering at his breast. "It's not a tragedy. It's an injustice, a cruel use of power," he spat. "I begged him to save her," he hissed, returning to that night — the night he forbade himself from thinking about. "And he refused." River whimpered and gasped as the blood poured from her. Endless Tribe, there was so much blood.
The prey-hunter's words fell deftly on his ears, nearly lost in the rise of his fury and pain. Only the sound of Sumac's name roused his interest again. A snarl unfurled over his maws. "How am I supposed to believe that?" he challenged. "When you've done nothing but everything he's asked of you? For all I know, you'll go slinking back to his nest the moment we're through." For moons, he abated his time, hunting tirelessly for his tribe, as Sumac demanded more and more from them, and who was always by his side? Who was always his quiet, unwavering supporter?
Who greedily accepted Talon's title and rank after he was unfairly demoted?
He wanted to spit on Laurel's paws.
"You're forgetting who controls who, Laurel," he growled. "My children—" His resolve crumpled just at the mere mention of them. A deep, wrenching sob scratched at his throat. Hemlock painfully swallowed it. "I can only pray and trust in the Endless Tribe that they will one day—" He choked it back again. "That one day they'll know a better future." Hemlock looked toward the mainland, a shadow obscuring his face. The moon licked over the roving waves. "They'll get to live the life me and River imagined for them…"
"Even if we are not there to see it." It drifted quietly from him, his soft acceptance of death. Hemlock stood there for a long time, gazing out at the waves as they collapsed into each other, dissolving into foam. "Please leave," he whispered. "I do not need your pity."
