She heard it before she saw it, the undoing of a warrior she'd once had genuine respect for. Redhawk's call made her stick her head through the mouth of her den, ears forward and alert as she locked onto the trio. Confusion first, as she saw an unconscious Mapleface, and then concern when she saw the way Violetfreckle was sitting. Something was clearly wrong,
again, and she furrowed her brow and slipped out of the den completely.
It took a moment to register what had happened - not because she didn't understand, but because it didn't want to click right away. Mapleface, a murderer. Several cats, not ThunderClan, but one ThunderClan: Violetfreckle, obvious to anyone looking. Bumblestar opened her mouth to speak as she weaved around the cats already gathered, but Mapleface uncoiled like the snake she was before Bumblestar could even get close.
A spear of ice impaled her heart, pinned her in place. Her paws faltered with the
laugh that left Mapleface's jaws, only briefly, before she shouldered Redhawk away in a haze, claws digging deep into the warrior's shoulders and stomach, ripping painful gouges of their own accord.
"Join that rot-hearted maggot of yours in Hell!" were the venomous words that seethed through bared fangs before they ripped clean through Mapleface's throat.
Hot scarlet spattered the snow, her chest, her mouth. Bumblestar barely gave it a second glance as she spat the chunk of flesh onto the ground before whipping away from the fresh corpse as if it didn't even exist.
"DRIZZLECLOUD!" The shout bordered on a roar, cracked halfway through.
"Springpaw! Get out here NOW! I need-"
The sentence lodged in her throat and Bumblestar gave up on finishing it. She reached down to press shaking paws against Violetfreckle's wound, standing over the body far too defensively, trying to stop the flow of blood. She felt cold all the way down to her bones, numb as the rest of the clearing faded out of focus.
"Redhawk, help me, I need to- I can't-"