HOLYSHIT-!!!
Lark nearly choked on his bell, falling over onto his back in alarm.
"WHAT THE FUCK, SASHA! WE WANT TO WAKE THEM UP, NOT GIVE THEM HEART FAILURE!" The tabby rubbed his paws over his ears.
(10/10, gonna keep posting tho cause this is fun.)
LOOK AT MY NEW ART OF CHIM THAT AZURA DIDDDD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The question made his expression twist into a discernible emotion. It was hard to tell exactly what it had made him feel as Cavalier was not a cat known for being very expressive.
After a moment of silence he closed his eyes and turned away again, once again facing out across the territory without seeing it. It seemed, for a second, that he was not going to answer he inquiry but a faint sigh said otherwise.
With eyes half-lidded, blue and green just barely visible, he began to speak:
"They tell you BloodClan was the most violent of the clans and that might be so now, but before it was the Dominion that held the title. We showed no mercy to anyone, there was no restrain in our claws for those that did us wrong.
The simplest of mistakes would cost you greatly.
We held a court of kangaroos, which is a way to say we pretended to care about justice and fairness but in the end we only sought perfection and blood."
His claws unsheathed, gripped the stone beneath him with heavy scratching noises.
"Too young, too old, not experienced, too experienced, not right, not wrong. Judgmental fools we were. While striving for perfection we lost sight of everything else."
He had condemned his own aunt. Cast her aside at the lightest mistake.
'Oh Cerulean. I'm sorry.'
Duchess, her blood was still on his paws to this day. The blood of a healer who made her mistakes and paid for them with her very soul. It was too much, he'd taken far too much.
"But were we a force to be reckoned with? Indeed. There were none who could stand to our might."
But in the end what did might do when you only collapsed under it yourself?
"I had a vision from a deity and as the case with most Gods and leaders, I sought to destroy it and followed it across the land. I was claimed to have died but as you can see that is incorrect. I didn't die or maybe I did...maybe some part did."
He had learned a great deal in his absence. Perhaps the vision had done its duty after all.
Cavalier had found no God to destroy, but he had found answers.
"I killed a God once. She was beautiful." The blue bengal said suddenly, "...she had a voice like knives and the songs of birds. Deadly and enrapturing. I cut her throat before she could finish the chorus." His voice was tight, strained, lost in a misty haze of thought.
"You don't know monsters, fool."
The cold tone rang out with alarming clarity and among the behemoths and beasts of lore the simple bengal tom stood with his blue and green eyes dropping from Lucy's form to the child at her paws.
A brief intake of air through his nose, a barely noticeable widening of each ink dot of a pupil.
Cavalier took in the bloodied form and the white maw stained so lividly and he lifted his forest and ocean hues back up to the BloodClan leader with an eerie stare.
"Have you ever ate a God? Then eat me."
His voice was calm. His core was not.
A paw was lifted, slammed down and the earth around it shattered and spider webbed across the ground. The heart of the earth broke, cracked, split in two and rose up to meet the sky in great jutting spikes and rigged edges.
With luck he would strike one of them.
His mortal coil was like a noose yet he resisted, felt the weight of the world slide under his claws and pulsate around him with all the power of a storm building at the highest point of the heavens.
He would strike it down then, heat and wind like a great funnel forced down from above in a spiraling inferno towards the pale female's back.
"Burn."
"Met you? I've known you my whole life." His voice was a faint list of wind and glass. Seemingly fragile in tone but he was made of much firmer stuff than that. The bengal's spotted form stepped forward on light paws, his gait one of confidence and tranquility while his eyes spoke the latter with their mismatched sky and earthen tones that made the blue tint of his fur shine all the more prominent.
Cavalier regarded the wolf, head tilted up and black lips drawn taut across his maw as he considered his next words. It had been ages, eons, since he last saw the other. Not since he was lead astray by the very Gods once so heinously assaulted in his past.
He had slaughtered them before, but now he felt the ache of the burden at his shoulders and along his limbs like Atlas shrugging off the Earth itself.
" You were once my own. Beautiful, unmarred. Perfection is fleeting and hideous to the mortal eye. We can't look upon it but we strive for it. I wonder why. Do we crave destruction? Or is it greed? Knowing that what we want most is unobtainable by normal means?"
The statue had seen better days. He was surprised, although did not show such, that it even still stood.
A human, of course, because most Goddesses held that vile shape for some reason; yet her beauty was still impressive. Her face was neatly curved into the shape of a heart, both of them for she bore two-with one on each cheek; eyes closed in bliss and lips plump and turned outward in a sensuous smile.
The two-faced Goddess was unclothed, her shape womanly but undefined and the vines that had grown over her stone visage had long since covered the curve of breasts and hips. It was if she wore nature itself, a festive gown of tiny buds and moss that had ingrained itself deeply into the rocks.
"Why do we strive to be Gods?"
Cavalier sat before the crumbling statue, admiring the queen he himself had slain so long ago.
"Why? For there is only pain in Godliness. To feel the earth around you die, shift, an eternity to wait and watch all you strove for fall apart.
Had I children I would outlive them centuries from now. Had I a mate her bones would be fine dust.
I don't want eternity."
What a waste it would be to live forever. Unchanged by time and at the same time abused by it. Passed by and neglected, watching it claim those around him. He would see a seed planted one day and return to find a tree, broken and old as it collapsed upon the weight of its own overburdened branches.
One day a child speaks to him, the next an old man who shortly dies after.
His bones become the dirt.
If that is the case then the world itself was one great graveyard and he would trod upon it for all eternity.
Eternity.
That blessed word, it rang in his ears and sang through his blood. If he cut himself open would he spill it out and be rid of it? Or would it sink down into the marrow of his bones and taunt him to break them all to pieces.
The bengal's eyes closed briefly before opening wide, narrowing, "Why did you bring me back here? I'm a king with no castle, a soldier with no guidance nor goal."
He had told Ferdinand he came back to help restore the Dominion to its former glory.
But that aside what purpose had he?
"You won't answer me." He told the stone with her permanent smile carved out to bless the world before her, "I killed you didn't I?"
Ripped her soul still singing with purity from her chest and devoured it to claim its power.
That power resonated at his core, he felt it now throbbing with longing as he faced the statue and then turned to look away from it.
"It won't go to waste. If I am to remain here then I'll use it to bring a new order. A new world. Perhaps you'll be reborn in it."
Perhaps he'd be forgiven.
Valery.
Was that not the name of the healer who had cheerfully greeted him on his return? Cavalier's memory was an impressive array of organization and collectivism. He knew the name and the name's owner formed in his mind as he brought it forth. The deer. The bubbly little fawn who spoke with such eagerness and investment in every word.
Gone was she?
'One less healer.' Was his first grim thought and he turned it away. Thinking of healers made him recall his cousin and her memory was a blemish that tore him asunder at the faintest hint of her name.
But what did this mean for the clan?
Problems.
Cavalier heaved a sigh at the note. He'd only happened upon it by accident really, looking around the rooms to try and find some trace of his old life hobbled in a corner and weeping for him.
He understood the words written with sage understanding and left it at that.
But it was still a bit bothersome. He knew no one to tell.
What an underhanded trick. 'That I helped invent. BOTHER.'
A spiral of water burst forth from the air, the molecules condensing in the cool chill of the afternoon and the multitude of droplets winding around him until they had thickened into watery snakes which he immediately flung one by one a the hounds that tore through the supply room with their foul breath and heated eyes.
His own blue-green gaze homed in on the Alpha and regardless of whether or not Valery's kick would miss or send it skittering back he tightened up a ball of water to slam down as hard as he could into the back of the beast.
"I've seen insects with better organization." The bengal said coolly, a faint mist rising from the corners of his mouth as he heated the water into a thick fog.
He was pragmatic enough to allow an idea to settle on his mind before reaching a conclusion. He rolled it around, tested it for holes and unwound it like a length of twine.
The excess of thought bred mistakes, he was trained to catch them. Reared by a leader, mentored by a leader, trained by a leader. Cavalier had not been given the option of making mistakes in his youth, he had been made deputy at but four moons and leader shortly after.
Mistakes were not optional, they were forbidden. His mind rejected them as such, scoffed and shoved them fiercely away.
It was for this reason he had spent some nights staring off into the void, wondering with questioning eyes why he was back. Why he was here?
He had given himself the reason to assist the Dominion, to restore it to its former glory.
One of the most feared of groups.
Its members keen and sharpened like the blades, its leader wielding them with the finesse of a trained commander.
He had heard another speak of him as if he once reigned over a chessboard and the analogy was most inept.
The pawns were just as important as the king, yet they served no other purpose than to fall for him. Cavalier was no guarded king in his time. He would not stand behind the pawns and watch them fight. He would instead unsheathe his sword alongside them, fall as they fell. Bleed as they bled.
It was this thought that had spurned forth the idea and he introduced it without pause, hoping that one who would hear was in the vicinity.
"What is a mob to a king? A king to a god? A god to a nonbeliever? Without the pieces one can not play a game of chess. I propose a reward system as the basis for this. Similar to how DarkClan and BloodClan function but with more...class. Imagine placing the title of pawn on the youth, showing they have promise? A rook is but a threshold for the bishop who holds power of healing arts. A knight with valor. The king and queen most promising.
Titles display loyalty and encourage advancement."
[hr]
ooc;
Ignoring Cav's fancy talk here is the basics for the idea xD:
A title reward system based on chess pieces!
A Pawn - A young member who shows promise.
Rook - A loyal Dominion member who has offered forth their ideas to help the group.
Bishop - Those skilled in healing arts.
Knight - Hardened warriors who have shown their prowess in battle.
King/Queen - The elite of the Dominion, they are loyal and hardened soldiers who have served their clan well.
There could be sub categories to add more such as a having two of each piece with a color and the white being the positive outlook while the black is the negative.
ex; White Bishop could be healing. Black Bishop could be skilled killing and assasinations.
White Rook is loyal, Black Rook is reward to the wild card members who do anything to get ahead.
White knight - hardened warriors, black knight - excel at torture and interrogation.
Black King/queen - Merciless elite. White king/queen - skilled raider and rescuer.
Edit: Badges cause I already had these made from an old group I was gonna use this idea in, but I needed to make the colors more Dominion-y.
"He would be considering he is the emperor." The blue bengal eyed the demon with a quirked brow and an expressionless face. Was it necessary to make such a fuss and ruin the perfectly serene quiet of the afternoon? The tom nodded his head once before turning to walk calmly away, "I'll fetch him for you."
http://warriorcatsrpg.com/index.php?topic=2112363.new#new
Ferdinand is needed there.
As Cavalier would put it "You're brother is loud and wants to see you. Kindly ask him to stop disturbing those who are resting."
As far as he was concerned the Dominion had always been open to raiding without care and the bengal didn't even pause to look around and ask permission. That never got the job done.
He rose up slowly from his perch surveying the border and approached Ringtone with a calm expression and narrowed eyes.
"Sounds to me like a good enough excuse to practice lighting miscreants on fire." A plume of smoke escaped his maw and he set off across the border toward RiverClan.
"Why wait? We can lead raids all we want on the Exiles anyways so why not just join RiverClan? I'm going ahead!"
Larkflight darted forward through the crowd of cats to join the RiverClanners in the raid. This was a good enough excuse to mess up those Exile fuckers who kept annoying him.
-track with the bea
Larkflight sat back, admiring his work and smiled.
He'd gathered herbs earlier to stuff into Spottedleaf's den, as well as replant some in his own personal garden. He'd had excess of quite a few and so he decided to make gift baskets of them with flowers, winding reeds together to make decorative woven bowls to place them all in.
It looked nice and was useful and he was pleased with the results.
"Anyone want to help me give these to our allies and neutrals?" The tabby asked, gesturing to all the baskets with a paw.
"If you got anything cool to put in them as a bonus you can! Also state what clan you're going to so we don't all go to the same one..."
(ooc; i haven't made it yet but I'll give cute, fancy badges to peeps who deliver a basket and post the link here to show it was received. :3)
"And where are you off to alone?" His voice gave the impression of splintering ice, cold and brittle; as if any second the sharp flecks of his words could cut and stab. Yet Cavalier's question was not meant to be harsh, his eyes were such a contrast to his jagged tone as they peered at the female with calm blue and green pools of color.
The male was lounging nonchalantly over the edge of a fallen stone pillar, his paws laced before him and legs tucked up under his body. Like a stalwart sphinx he oversaw the area around him, guarded and alert like a sentry poised to strike.
The bengal gave Charlotte a cursory glance before flicking his ears patiently as he awaited a response.
"That's all I need to know." With that the tabby rose to his paws preparing to leave unless Flames wanted something else.
Lark looked up to the kitten and flashed his teeth in a grin, "Aye, we're allies with ShadowClan but I WOULD prefer RiverClan just cause you can never trust those fellows. ShadowClan may be our allies for now, but we're on opposing ends of the spectrum." And since the child was young it wouldn't do well to send them off to a questionable group.
Lark himself might handle ShadowClan.
"Hello." ShadowClan scent? Larkflight strolled forward and greeted the other male with narrowed eyes and a brief nod. "Welcome, what can I help you with?"He was the bestest welcoming comittee member EVER since he hadn't yelled at anyone!
