The Golden Oldies {open}

Silentpaw just looked up at her mentor. "I'm NOT arguing, I'm stating the obvious truth." She said, with a face that was just begging for permission to tear the warrior apart. When she was a warrior, the next cat to insult SunClan would never see daylight again!

"More like I don't go around killing obnoxious old elders," said Lilac. The Thunderclan elders' remarks made her sting even though she felt deep down they were at least partly right. She intended to ask into it though...she continued along the way then stopped and turned back around. She stepped towards them and asked, in a fresh tone, "Why DID Sunclan steal Tallpines from your clan? Do you know what brought that on?"

"Greed, and nothing more," said Timberline, "combined with a pansy of a leader of Thunderclan at the time with way too much tolerance and way too little stick-to-it-iveness. But those days are over."

Silentpaw nodded at her mentor, but almost giggled when Lilac turned to talk to the elders. Twitching her tail, she wanted to hiss something back to them, but held her tongue. Her first day out with her new temporary mentor, and she had made a fool of herself.

Lilac watched the three elders go. Then she continued walking back. "They're leaving anyway--good riddance," she said. "Next time, when I tell you to do something, you do it, okay?" She kept up her pace back to camp, which was brisk.

The big tawny figure appeared through the uniform trees, his great golden head close to the ground as he followed a scent. He bounded up to Lilac and Silentpaw with a pleased expression he was able to track them both. The expression that soon froze as he looked from one to the other. "Why do I get the feeling I missed something?"

"You're lucky you missed it,' said Lilac, sighing. "Some old fogeys from Tunderclan. But....they were bold, very bold. It...I felt bad driving them away. They're gone now but...this whole battle has caused so much trouble. I have a fear the worst is yet to come.'

Clueless as Cougar was to the clans at large and what was going on between them, he knew from listening to Lilac the situation wasn't at all good.
"Maybe it's not that bad. What happened here anyway? I don't smell any blood."

"No, there was no fight. But ever since the attack on Thunderclan, they've clearly been angry at Sunclan and now...I wonder if they're preparing an offensive,' said Lilac. "That battle, it was very ugly. There were cats attacking the nursery and kits."

Silentpaw listened in silence, afraid that if she said anything else she would be kicked out. Nodding every once in a while and looking around the other times, she thought about the encounter and the fool she had made of herself.

Lilac, for her part, didn't even know whether reporting this to Ellefang would do anything useful. It had been her choice to drag them into this senseless battle in the first place. The young savannah padded sullely on.

Cougar, who was gentle by nature, flattened his ears, disgruntled. "Even in a battle, no-one should attack kits or queens." He stated, then realized who he was talking about and winced. "I mean... I'm sorry, I don't mean to insult your clanmates. I know you would never do anything like that."

Silentpaw didn't mind, knowing what Cougar meant. Still, she wasn't going to say another word around Lilac until she was sure she could do so without making a fool of herself. Although every word she had said that day had been truthful, it had been the wrong thing, and that was that.

"I wsa in that fight, attacking Thunderclanners! I had no idea! I was told these cats were ganging up to prepare an assault on us and other clans. Yet I did the same thing that everyone else did in that battle--I placed my blind faith in our leader to do the right thing. I've always done that, and this was a rude awakening." Lilac no longer cared whether even Silentpaw heard. Let her hear the truth, too. Since she'd already told this to Cougar, she was mostly speaking to her now anyway. "Elliefang didn't even seem to consider sending out someone or a patrol to even do as little as investigate whether there was any truth to it. Had she done so, they would've found out what we found out at the battle. That Windclan wasn't even there."

Silentpaw nodded, only a little surprised but a bit horrified as well. A pointless battle was easy to start, but hard to end, especially when it started disputes. But pointless or not, it was a battle with dead cats and lots of lost blood probably, and no one liked that... Or did they?

Cougar shook his head in sorrow. "And because Elliefang didn't check first, it's innocent kits that had to suffer. They didn't ask to be thrown in the middle of a battle with adult cats, I'm sure. Just like I didn't ask to be born in Twolegplace when I hated it."

"But...you were free to leave. Like we all are." Lilac didn't want to say too much or poison Silentpaw's mind against the clan. She had to let her decide for herself and reach her own conclusions.

No matter what they said, Silentpaw couldn't care less. Born a rogue with a loner and kittypet sister, she didn't mind where she went. However, she had chosen the life of a clan cat, and would stick to it until she was exiled, or died.

"You know," said Lilac after a while more of walking in silence, "it doesn't have to be this way. If we all come together and say we won't tolerate this sort of thing, then I'm sure Elliefang and Ellen will come around. They do act in the interest of our clan, even if I don't always agree with them on how they do it, and what IS in the best interest of the clan. But we could do better than we are." Yeah...she didn't want to have to give up on her home, her clan, the only one she'd ever known. She knew that if she moved to her father's lands to live with him and his side of the family, she would be missing Sunclan before very long. She would miss it a lot.