It had been a long day's travel back to the clan territories, but after spending some time in the outskirts, Flintspirit had felt a tug, an instinctual pull inside him to go back and... check up on things in a way. Plus he hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Doepaw after the whole.... warrior fiasco, and he missed her. He missed his daughter, and he wanted to do a little check up. So here he was, back at the border to Thunderclan territory. He'd felt it necessary to check up on them first, they were his clan after all. The clan that had sheltered him and his mother, the clan he'd lead, the clan he'd failed... Well.... it had all changed in such a small amount of time. The clan was under new management, and that management didn't seem to be taking it anywhere good.
Heaving a sigh, Flintspirit looked out across the trees in front of him, trying, and failing of course, to see if he could spot any of his former clanmates within the dappled forest. But something... was unsettling to him. It was too quiet.... too... haunted it seemed. The forest had burst back into life after last leaf-fall's fire, and it was always bustling with noises of cats hunting, prey scuffling about, and many other noises. But it seemed oddly quiet.
So, taking a deep breath, the large black-and-white tom took a step over the border, then continued on, deeper into the forest.
The tomcat found himself drawn towards Thunderclan's camp, his paws leading him in the direction naturally, like he'd never forgotten. But he was coming from behind this time, so instead of going straight to the camp, he made his way up the cliffs, where he knew he could look over and see the camp down below.
Flintspirit made his way up to the top in no time, though as he turned his face to look down at the forest, he stopped short. There was a large, black scorch mark right where the greenery of the camp should've been. Fallen trees seemed to form a rim around the edge, other burnt trees standing tall like a signal to say "stay away". It looked haunted, disturbing, and Flintspirit felt his heart wrench at just the sight of it. Another fire? Thunderclan had just suffered a fire last season, they didn't need another one! Was his former clan really that cursed?
The tom could feel sadness and anger and fear, all whirl up into one giant roaring pit in his stomach. This was not good. So many cats... so many cats probably died and got lost or something else like that. He'd barely made it out alive with his clan when the leaf-fall fire happened. He doubted Duskstar would've had much better luck, being as air-headed and incompetent as she had been lately. Unless she'd stepped up her game big time, Flintspirit could only imagine the worst that had happened to the clan. And he was worried. Was Buckbranch okay? Cherrybubble? Duskpaw? Ploverspot and Shadedpath? How was Softbriar holding up? All these thoughts flooded Flintspirit's mind as he made his way back down the cliff pass, and around to where the camp walls would've been. It was completely blocked off, burnt, charred... and Flintspirit was pretty positive he'd spotted a charred... no... don't think about that. The large tomcat came to a stop and stared up at the burnt wreckage, his heart pounding. Where were they? Where did they go? There didn't even seem to be a scent of them in the area... except wait... what was that smell... faint Shadowclan? Had Shadowclan come to help or something? But no... There were others. Flintspirit could scent other cats in the area.... And the tom wasn't sure if he wanted to run into them or not.... It probably would be the best idea to not to. Who knew what they'd say to him.....
So, promising himself he would go and figure out where they were soon enough, Flintspirit turned tail and ran back towards the outskirts, this time heading for the Shadowclan border. Hopefully Doepaw was okay. Maybe she knew something about what had happened.