Dark Forest Territory

[Ever]

The whistle alerted her of another cat's presence. Being in the world of spirits, it was strange that she had been unable to hear his approach. A foreign and cruel reminder of the world she now resided in. Quickly she ran a paw over her face, prepared to be on the defense. She came in here expecting herself to be the Darkforest's biggest failure, a pawn that went rogue. She expected some malevolent spirit was coming to harass her with teasing, tell her how she'd done this or that correctly she might have lived to see another day. She was too fragile to let herself be beaten down yet, she needed to work through it herself first, build up some walls before she could take the mental beatings.

So as she turned to the to face her suspected opponent, Ash's charcoal maw was wrinkled in a snarl and she bared her teeth. Her glare was a weak one, twisted with her fresh pain. "What do you want." She hissed, her voice was so much different than it had been on earth. Here she had no confidence, no standards, she felt low and like the rat they had told her she was. So her threat was more a whine, bubbly with her sorrow. Though she still managed to get her tail to be obedient and twist angrily behind her rather than gluing itself to the ground in submission. Her whole pelt was on end with surprise, fear and frustration. Her ears were flat to her striped skull as she eyed up the unfamiliar tom.

[Derpple and Ashie]

"I know who you are," he meowed slowly, careful of his words, he had heard many a tale of her in the year he had spent wandering the Dark Forest. Many of the spirits loved to whisper their hateful things about the failure of ShadowClan's leader, how she'd been seduced by a tom, her heart weakened by love. The very same thing had happened to him, love heart opened his heart back up to the good in the world. In a way it had weakened them, but in another it had made them strong. Unfortunately, in the world they both resided in now, that was not how it was seen. "Blazingnight, leader of ShadowClan...." He tilted his head, "or I suppose former, if you're now here."

Sitting down, the tom's large brown chest puffed up and dark chocolate eyes that seemed to glow narrowed at her. "What happened Blazingnight? Did someone poison you like they did Deceptionstar? Battle, betrayal, sacrifice?" He settled down into a laying position, his blue grey fur standing out in the dark of the forest like a beacon. "Why are you here?" Then he stiffened, and laughed. "Well, I suppose one half of that question is obvious. What sent you here, is a more accurate and appropriate question I suppose." He was relaxed, far from looking like he was ready to fight, and simply looked at her with an ease that was unlike most cats of the Dark Forest.

[Ever]

Ash still had her ears pinned tight as she listened to him. She wasn't surprised that her threats weren't threatening here. In life her words and snarls might have been something to fear, because there she was powerful and had a clan behind her. Here, she was at the bottom of the totem pole. A laughing act. Her golden eyes glared at him with that same attempt at an angry stare, but it was broken. She cursed herself and gave up a little, it's not like he was attacking her anyways. Or none at all... She realized this slowly, and curiosity finally found its way into the molly. She looked away from him though, she didn't really want to explain it. Thinking of it brought her so much pain, but what else was there to think about? She sighed in defeat and wiped at her face again. If he wanted to hear her story she might as well tell it, it wasn't like she was going to lose out on anything except the chance to make a friend. Ash desperately needed a friend here, though she hadn't pictured it happening so soon. She figured her arrival here would result in the slow passage of time as she grew numb to her solitude and accepted it.
"Just call me Ash." She told the tom, her voice was small. It felt so strange to her to be feeling this way, small and pathetic. It was such a foreign sensation. She hoped her misery made Scorchflake happy, the least her death could do was make some cat happy rather than broken. She shook off the thoughts as they came crashing in, she couldn't think of who would be missing her right now. "I was killed in battle. They stripped me of my remaining lives for treason. I was accepted by the dark, there was never any light for me. I never believed in the good of Starclan. Still don't." She explained her situation quick. Her throat felt thick with tears and her eyes burned from trying to suppress the tears. "You?" It seemed the right thing to ask why he had gotten himself in this hell hole. And that would give her more insight to what kind of cat she was. Maybe she wasn't alone in her dilemma here.

[Derpple and Ashie]

Listening with a neutral expression, judging her just like any other feline would in the place they were. When she finished, he flicked his tail. "Ash? Alright, I suppose death is the best time for a new name." It wasn't really a joke, but he laughed nonetheless. The tom dipped his head in a greeting, brown eyes staying level on her form. "Rainsplash, though if you decide to keep to your treasonous ways I'm sure we'll get along just fine. I was one of Eternalstar's lieutenants, all the way back in the first Era." He sniffed, and glanced around warily. "The cats here don't like to call them 'evil', prefer the term great or something of that sort but we both know the truth. The love of my life fled RiverClan when he took over and I so stupidly did not follow. Eventually came to realize the error of my ways, I won't lie it was because of a different she-cat." With a laugh he shrugged. "Toms, right?"

Dipping his head however, a seriousness returned to him. "Anyways, when I finally wised up I fled, lost the second she-cat, somehow to forgiven by the first, made it all the way to being an elder. Survived more war and floods, even the fires... Just didn't survive the foxheart who took over. Neither did she. Execution is a fun way to go, made sure to give him a good fight first. StarClan didn't like the things I did, decided they still liked her though. Now I'm here, and she's over there, and it'll be the same when your mate dies... It sucks."

[Ever]

She didn't laugh at any of his jokes. Rather she continued to stare into the forest with the lost expression of a newborn kit. Though it seemed they were in the same predicament, as much as she didn't want to look at the long term effects of it. They had both chosen power over the right thing to do, gone with the darkness and done horrible and unforgivable things. She'd thought fearlessly, with the power of the Darkforest in her heart and never imagined her death would come so soon. She'd thought that she would have had the time to grow with her family, she had been so sure of it. Her eyes stung again. She couldn't help but let out an angry little hiss as he said that she'd be forever separated from her mate too. That was a fact that she couldn't even begin to wrap her head around, just the fact of being separated through the living and the dead was hard enough to bear. She felt her chest constrict around her, as if she couldn't breathe. Her body slowly lowered to the ground as she though about it more, what the tom said, separated for eternity. She couldn't suck in the air, it felt like she was being killed all over again. She'd rather live in the state of blinding pain when her lives had been taken from her than this wretched life full of misery.

Ash shook for a moment, trying to recollect herself before continuing. It didn't look like the tom was going anywhere, and she wasn't either. She swallowed the lump in her throat and sucked in a shaking breath of air. Not that she really needed to, it was just habit. She could stop breathing and survive perfectly fine. She was dead after all. Her eyes glanced over at the tom- Rainsplash. "It isn't a new name. It's my original name." She explained. It was fitting to go back to it. She was no longer the same cat here. The title Blazingnight did not fit, she wasn't a leader nor a warrior of any sort. She was weak and alone and ready to rebuild, her original name fit. Ash would have to build herself anew here in the Darkforest. Whether she wanted to move on or not. You couldn't wallow in sorrow forever.

[Derpple and Ashie]

He watched her keenly, and then lowered his maw onto his paws. "Okay," he meowed, allowing her to process everything she was thinking, well aware that it was a lot to take in after what had happened to her. He certainly had spent half a moon just sitting in one place, staring at the vast canopy that obscured whatever sky there might be in this place. Shuddering at the memory of when he'd climbed a tree to see nothing but black, a suffocating, inescapable darkness. "They say there's a border with StarClan, but I haven't found it yet."

[Ever]

Blazingnight looked over at him with curiosity but also suspicion. She wondered if all he was saying was true, it was still hard to believe. All she'd seen from the Darkforest were tricksters, cats who wanted to twist and bend others to the breaking point. How was she supposed to know he didn't create the story. He was very nonchalent in explaining it, though it could be because he's been here a long time. She didn't want to let herself open up anymore though. Saying that there was a border between the two dimensions of afterlife seemed like such a sick joke to play. It seemed like exactly the thing a Darkforest cat would love to create. Just to watch her search for moons, search endlessly and blindly. There couldn't be such a thing could there? She looked out into the forest, every direction seemed like endless forest, though she would walk forever if it were true. She would do anything to visit Burdockpool, to reach him again. She knew that she would be able to visit his dreams, but it was such an uneasy feeling that washed over her when she thought about it. She probably wouldn't visit him for a few nights, she needed to get collected. It would be more a punishment than a gift to visit him before she was ready. Her gaze returned to the tom beside her. "That sounds like a trick." She mumbled. It sounded childish to say, but she wasn't going to let him lead her on either if that's what Rainsplash was planning on doing. He had admitted to being one of the King's immediate followers, how would someone that evil go good. Oh wait- she started as a follower of him too. Though she was blind to what Bucknight actually was and thirsty for power in her youth. She simply sat and stared at him with suspicion clear in her eyes.

[Derpple and Ashie]

Brown eyes widened as he listened to her, and then he started to laugh. "Right, you've only ever encountered the foxhearts of this forest. Believe it or not, StarClan sends anyone who doesn't fit their perfect little idea of how a cat should act here. I met a she-cat once who had never even been in the clans, but Eternalstar or some other powerful soul ensnared her and brought her here. It's easy to get tossed into the Dark Forest, most cats just embrace it at that point. I have not. If I ever see my mate again, I cannot be what she thinks of me now." Then he sighed, and flicked his tail. "I know it does sound too good to be true, a border between the two realms, but that fact stands it has to exist doesn't it? We can't just be contained in a pocket world can we? I've never seen it but, one day I will. I don't know if we can cross into StarClan either but if I can see it that will be enough." He would wait for the rest of eternity for his mate to find her way there to see him.

[Ever]

Ash still held her suspicions. Though she knew he was probably being honest, though she always wanted her lies to look perfect too. There was love written on his face as he told her story, but she was too new here and she'd never been a trusting cat to begin with. It was probably part of the reason that she was here. "Sure." She replied flatly, staring into the vast pace. She wondered where all some cat could look. It seemed to her that the world continued endlessly like this, an unsolvable puzzle that repeated itself for eternity. Her eyes raised to the thick canopy of gnarled tree branches, bear of leaves and scraggly evergreens. She wondered what was past there, though it wouldn't do her any good to try looking tonight. She didn't have the energy, that would be for another day. Though what even defined days here? There wasn't a sun here from what she'd ever seen. You didn't age through death...

[Derpple and Ashie]

Giving a loud, amused laugh, Rainsplash smiled at her. "You're a skeptic, don't trust easily... good, it will help you here. Surely you've spent enough time here when you trained and they visited you for you to know what it's like, what the spirits are like..." He trailed off as he thought of some of the first souls he had encountered, the tom having never been visited by the Dark Forest before his death and making the entire thing so foreign and terrifying for him upon his arrival. "Skepticism and paranoia are good things to have here, unfortunately."