grim hollow | 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜

chapter 27

"I need you to think. Can you tell how many cats you think you saw? Names you think you heard? Anything, Luca."

"I," Luca paused, his face growing concentrated as he tried to think, "I saw a lot of cats, I know that. I also heard the name Ivory, like, a lot."

Dawnstar was quiet for a moment, her own mind replaying the name over and over. Ivory? That doesn't sound familiar at all.

"Ivory? I don't think they have someone named that." Dawnstar murmured until her eyes brightened as she looked at him. "Could it have been Ivy?"

"Yeah, it could've been." Luca shrugged until his face instantly lit up, "Oh! Silentfeather was a name I heard! I only remembered it because it was pretty. You clan cats have funny names." He rambled a bit, chuckling lightly however he paused abruptly as a horrified look crossed her face.

"No." She breathed out as she began pacing, eyes glued to her paws. "I was hoping it wasn't true."

"Hoping what wasn't true?"

"Those cruel fox-hearts." She hissed as she continued pacing. "They allied with SummerClan."

"How do you know?" Luca queried, the confusion on his face still clearly evident as the FallClan leader met his gaze.

"Because Silentfeather is their medicine cat." She hissed, the words feeling like venom on her tongue.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound too good." Luca muttered, trying to break the tension with an awkward laugh however it didn't work.

"Fallowstar is a fool, involving himself in a war that doesn't concern him." She continued to ramble, falling back into a pace as Luca just stared at her blankly. "I hate Ivystar, but StarClan she's smart. How did she even manage that?"

"Are you oka-"

"I mean, there is no way we can beat them together. SpringClan alone has beat us several times. This is so bad, I mean really bad." She continued to rant, not even hearing Luca until she faced him once more.

"I grew up thinking life would be easy because it was what I was told. I really thought I was invincible." She laughed, though it was more out of frustration.

"What do you mean?" Luca queried again, his head tilting.

"You see Luca, when I was made into an apprentice, my dad didn't think I was good enough to be a warrior. He set all of his attention on my brother. But I was still apart of his image. His reputation. So he made sure I was something else, something better." She explained, faltering some words as they fell from her mouth like rapid fire. "He was the deputy at the time, so he was close with our leader. He convinced Sunstar to let me train as a medicine cat apprentice. I sucked at it, like, really sucked."

"You were a medicine cat apprentice?" Luca queried, his confusion getting replaced with curiosity.

"Yeah but it's unimportant. Anyways, I got abducted by our enemy clan blah blah and I ended up fighting my way home and this caught his attention. When I got home, I switched ranks because I was so good. I mean, I'm not trying to brag or whatever, and I'm not trying to be arrogant." She shrugged as she fidgeted with a leaf. "It's just the truth. I was good, better than all the other apprentices and I hadn't trained a single day in my life as a warrior. They even called me a prodigy, you know?"

Luca stared at her blankly as he tried to process everything she told him, however she spoke again before he could.

"So I was good, and I thought I would live life on easy mode. Long story short, I was wrong," she paused as she looked at the now destroyed leaf, "I was so incredibly wrong."