this is for x-_Snowy_-x 's may writing contest!!

prompt: write a one-shot about something that plays a big part in the lore of one of your warrior cat OCs.

word count: 3120

context: in my book series eternal, ivorystar is your typical power-hungry leader! there's a lot of background information leading up to this moment which this one-shot (hopefully) is able to cover so that it's not too confusing.

but the main thing i want to mention is that ivorystar's a very ambitious, rash cat, and that the hatred she has for the cats in this one-shot runs very, very deep and has been going for a long time. so this chapter will definitely seem a little fastmoving and unrealistic, but hopefully with this bit of extra information it will read a little better!

~~~

IVORYPAW WAS LIVID, if she could even call it that. Truthfully, it was a deep rage that had been stirring in her stomach all night, that pulled her out of deep sleep whenever she drifted too close, that prevented her from climbing out of her nest in the morning.

She didn't even so much as twitch when the apprentices around her began climbing to their paws, beginning with their morning.

"What's wrong with her?" This was the voice of Wasppaw, one of Ivorypaw's friends.

"I don't know," came Blazepaw's snicker. At the sound of the reddish brown she-cat's voice, Ivorypaw had to resist the temptation to lash a paw over her face. She and Blazepaw have hated each other ever since birth, and had been arguing for as long as anyone in ShadowClan could remember.

If there was one cat who Ivorypaw hated with all her heart - and who hated her back just as much - it was Blazepaw.

"Maybe she's just sick or something," Blazepaw mewed with fake sympathy, which drove the white she-cat into a even further agitation. 

You know exactly what's going on, Ivorypaw thought angrily. Don't try and play innocent now.

"I'm going to go get Clearpaw," Wasppaw decided. "If anyone will know what's wrong with Ivorypaw, it's her sister."

As he ducked out of the den, Ivorypaw could practically imagine Blazepaw rolling her eyes before muttering lowly to her friends, "Or maybe, she's just getting what she deserves. I don't know why everyone's being so dramatic over this."

The white she-cat's head almost snapped up at this, but there was one other cat in this den that she was being cold to, one she could not let up on.

As soon as the den's entrance rustled, announcing that Blazepaw and her friends had left, Lilypaw - Ivorypaw's best friend - spoke instantly. "Ivorypaw? Are you still mad with me?"

Ivorypaw huffed, then turned her back a little firmer to the calico she-cat.

Lilypaw sighed, receiving the answer loud and clear. "Ivorypaw, please don't be upset. I'm sorry about what happened last night, but I don't-"

"You shouldn't have done that," Ivorypaw interrupted sharply, sick of hearing her excuses, lifting her head up to meet her friend's gaaze. "We're ShadowClan cats, and we're meant to stick with each other. We shouldn't be fraternizing with strange, RiverClan cats."

"But Icepaw's not a strange RiverClan cat!" Lilypaw defended with wide eyes. "You know him, you're friends, remember?"

"We're friends at Gatherings," Ivorypaw answered stiffly. "We're not friends any other time, and even if we were, we certainly wouldn't be close enough to meet at the border."

The calico's gaze softened. "Okay, okay, I get it, but we were just talking last night, that's all. It wasn't anything-"

"He shouldn't have been here," Ivorypaw cut in again. "He's supposed to stay on RiverClan's territory. He's not supposed to sneak through WindClan's and use the Thunderpath tunnel and play with you at the Burnt Sycamore."

Lilypaw sucked in a deep breath, shaking her head. "Well, what do you want me to say? I'm sorry? Because I've said it countless times and it doesn't seem to be working."

Ivorypaw fixed her friend with a cold glare. "There's nothing you can say. What's done is done."

As it turned out, last night, when she'd followed Lilypaw out and found her and Icepaw together, someone had seen her leaving camp and tattled on her to her mentor, Firepelt. Firepelt had appeared suddenly at the Burnt Sycamore, and whereas Lilypaw and Icepaw managed to duck under the Thunderpath tunnel and hide, Ivorypaw had been caught.

Now that situation wasn't ideal, and especially not when Firepelt already despised Ivorypaw. This sneaking out had been her third strike out of a three strike system that he'd set up to (unsuccessfully) keep her in line. And now that it's morning, Ivorypaw was angrily awaiting her punishment.

Lilypaw twitched her ears, then pressed them flat on her head. "Well, fine. But that's not fair."

The white she-cat wrinkled her nose. "Fair? What-"

"I never asked you to follow me out, you know," Lilypaw mewed. "You didn't have to do it. You didn't-"

"Well of course I did!" Ivorypaw was on her paws now, fueled by anger, lashing her tail. "You're my best friend! I was worried when I saw you leaving camp!"

"If you were worried, why didn't you call out to me right away?" the calico demanded. "Why follow me all the way to the Burnt Sycamore, until Icepaw arrived? You were just nosy-"

"I wasn't!" Ivorypaw hissed. "I-"

"Ivorypaw!" A sharp bark from outside the apprentices den ceased the argument. Its voice was easily recognizable as Firepelt, deputy of ShadowClan, mentor of Ivorypaw, and father of Blazepaw and her brother Redpaw. 

That last part was what irked Ivorypaw the most. Firepelt already had a great, negative bias towards her when he got her as an apprentice, always assuming the worst. Now that her apprenticeship was almost over, that still hadn't changed.

Shooting one last glare Lilypaw's way, Ivorypaw turned and ducked out of the apprentices den to be greeted by her mentor's flaming ginger pelt. She twitched her ears, offering no hellos, a routine that's been well adapted by her and Firepelt.

"Well, shall we get started, then?" Firepelt mewed briskly. 

"Do I have a choice?" Ivorypaw muttered beneath her breath.

The ginger tom's eyes narrowed. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

Firepelt twitched his tail-tip, already agitated. "As I was saying," he meowed, clearly fighting as to not snap, "last night was absolutely unacceptable. We have seven apprentices in ShadowClan, and you're the only one that has to cause trouble."

Ivorypaw resisted a roll of her eyes. If only you knew.

"Now, I've spoken with your mother-"

"You spoke with my mother?"

"-and she agrees that you may be having some behavioral issues," Firepelt continued, as though she hadn't spoken. "Now that you've used up all three strikes, your punishment will be fetching prey for me whenever I feel like that."

Ivorypaw felt her ears twitch, displeased, but she didn't argue. The punishment wasn't nearly as bad as she'd predicted it to be. Plus, she only had a little less than a moon as an apprentice, before she would become a warrior and never have to listen to Firepelt again. She could put up with fetching prey for him for a moon. 

"Okay."

Firepelt's face lifted with surprise; this may have been one of the first times he'd issued something and she hadn't argued back. "Okay?"

"Okay," Ivorypaw repeated.

Looking back at this moment, she really couldn't have told you where it'd all gone wrong.

Well, no, that was a lie. She knew where it went wrong.

It happened a week after this moment. One warm, greenleaf afternoon, tipping into nighttime, Firepelt had stormed up to her while Ivorypaw was sharing a squirrel with her sister, Clearpaw. 

"I really think you and Lilypaw ought to make up," Clearpaw was mewing, glancing over her shoulder at where Lilypaw and Wasppaw are sitting. She smelled faintly of herbs, having spent all day in the medicine den as the medicine cat's apprentice. "I understand you're upset with her, but it's not worth losing a friendship over."

That was when Firepelt had approached, his eyes blazing angrier than Ivorypaw had ever seen it. Quickly, the white she-cat racked her brain for what she possibly could've done, but came up blank. She'd been on her best behavior in the past week, as she'd hoped for her warrior ceremony to approach faster.

So, as Firepelt stood there with smoldering fury as though he expected her to explain herself, Ivorypaw could only stare back at him blankly. "Yes?" she meowed at last, prompting him to speak.

That certainly didn't soothe anything.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Firepelt demanded, lashing his tail. "You just can't help it, can you? You just can't follow the rules, not even for a few days."

Ivorypaw blinked at him, bewildered. "What-?"

"How do you think this reflects on me, hm?" the ginger tom continued. "To have my apprentice be the only one that can't follow simple rules? I'm the deputy of ShadowClan, for StarClan's sake."

Ivorypaw still has no idea where he's going with this. "Yes, I know. Congratulations."

This didn't calm him either.

"Sneaking out?" Firepelt all but snarled. "Again?"

At this, all of Ivorypaw's confusion vanished into quick defense, and she jumped to her paws. "Wait-"

"As punishment," Firepelt mewed firmly, "you will not be taking your Warrior Assessment until Clearpaw becomes a full fledged medicine cat."

Ivorypaw thought that those words quite literally stopped her heart. Her mouth opened then closed, unable to force out words. Medicine cat training took forever, and Clearpaw, who'd only recently healed from a broken leg, had just started. "What?"

"I will inform Snakestar about this change," Firepelt meowed, beginning to turn around. "When your friends become warriors in the next moon, you will not be joining them."

Panic seized Ivorypaw, and she sprinted after her mentor. "Hold on a moment," she mewed. "That's not fair! I'm better at hunting and fighting and climbing than any of them-"

"It's not about skill," the ginger tom replied in a voice full of wisdom, irritating Ivorypaw further. "If you can't follow simple rules, then you're not ready to become a warrior."

"But I didn't sneak out-"

Those words seemed to shift something in Firepelt, and he snapped his head to look at her. His pride had always been stupidly valuable to him, and being contradicted like this was probably his worst nightmare. "Oh, yes you did," he snapped. "Don't try lying to me right now."

"But I'm not lying." Ivorypaw spun around to Clearpaw, trying to get her sister to back her up, before remembering that Clearpaw spent her night in the medicine den. 

As of the cats that do sleep in the apprentices den, Blazepaw and her friends hate her, she was on bad terms with Lilypaw, and Wasppaw - who didn't understand the full extent of the story and only saw Ivorypaw lashing out at the calico apprentice for apparently no reason - was on Lilypaw's side of the argument.

Firepelt huffed, twitching his tail-tip. "Redpaw said he saw you sneaking out of camp, so one of you must not be telling the truth. And quite frankly, I don't think it's my son."

Ivorypaw had opened her mouth to make another argument, but it shut quickly when she heard Redpaw's name. A wave of confusion swept through her, and as Firepelt made his way over to his mate, finished with the conversation, the white she-cat was left standing in the middle of camp, dazed and shocked.

She was confused, to say the least. Redpaw was Blazepaw's sister, and although she would've expected Blazepaw to lie about her, she wouldn't have thought Redpaw to do that. It wasn't that she believed Blazepaw wouldn't use her brother to try and get Ivorypaw into trouble, it was simply that the two usually kept the sabotaging and arguing purely between each other.

Ivorypaw wasn't quite sure why. She supposed it was simply more satisfying to see Blazepaw being scolded knowing that she had a part to play in it.

Thus, it simply didn't make sense to her as to why Redpaw would create this lie. In fact, she hadn't even spoken to him since...

Suddenly, the memory of when she'd last talked with Redpaw flew to her from the muddied back of her mind, only a few weeks ago. 

She gasped. It all made sense.

"Ivorypaw, Ivorypaw!" Redpaw called, chasing the white she-cat as she padded away from the prey-pile with a mouse dangling from her jaws.

Ivorypaw paused, turning around to face the ginger apprentice suspiciously. Maybe Blazepaw had put him up to something. "What, Redpaw?"

He shifted nervously. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

There was a long draw of silence and Ivorypaw felt her pelt twitch impatiently. In all these moons of knowing Redpaw, she didn't think she'd ever spoken more than two words to him, and didn't see the need of delaying her meal to do so. "Yes?"

"Well, I-" Redpaw gulped. "I just wanted to say that I- I like you."

Ivorypaw felt her muscles freeze as those words ran through her brain, each drawling out slowly, as though her mind were analyzing each syllable. They worked themselves through her head slowly, and when she'd finally processed what Redpaw had just said, she burst out laughing.

Not the best response, but in her defense, this entire situation was utterly ridiculous.

Redpaw pressed his ears down to the top of his head, clearly displeased by her reaction. "What?"

"You like me?" Ivorypaw repeated through sputtered laughter. "You? Like me?"

"Yeah-"

"Your entire family hates me," Ivorypaw mewed. "Your sister hates me, your father hates me, and for StarClan's sake, even your mother hates me. You don't like me. This is a prank. Blazepaw put you up to this."

"It's not a prank." Redpaw looked so awkward for a moment that Ivorypaw wondered briefly if he was being genuine. But then quickly came the mental image of Blazepaw gloating about how Ivorypaw truly thought Blazepaw liked her, and any doubt of the prank vanished.

"Tell Blazepaw that this was a nice try," Ivorypaw mewed simply. Then she turned and padded away, eager to find a spot to sit down and eat.

Great StarClan. That had been it. That was why Redpaw had lied.

Spinning around, Ivorypaw's eyes scanned the camp to find where Redpaw and Blazepaw were sitting. The two were staring directly at her, watching her with a mocking look in their gaze. Blazepaw was wearing an annoying smirk on her face, but to Ivorypaw's surprise, the most infuriating part of it was Redpaw's eyes.

He had a look that said: I win. 

And the white she-cat hated losing.

A low growl bubbled in her throat, and before she knew what she was doing, she'd crossed the camp to Redpaw and Blazepaw, ignoring Clearpaw's calls behind her.

"Why, why, why, Ivorypaw, hello." Blazepaw was smiling her stupid, stupid smile. "How are we today?"

A stupid desperation seized her. Ivorypaw had spent the past six moons working her tail off under Firepelt's unsupportive, negative mentorship, and she'd persevered. But now, she wasn't going to become a warrior in the time that she should, all because of this stupid tom in front of her.

So, she didn't bother answering. Instead, she swung left sharply and leaped onto Redpaw, knocking him over with a furious shout.

Honestly, what happened afterwards was a blur.

Yowls came from all around the camp as cats caught on to what was happening. Blazepaw was shrieking somewhere in the background, but Ivorypaw ignored it all, keeping her grip on Redpaw tight. He was fighting back, but the white she-cat wasn't ShadowClan's most skilled apprentice for nothing.

It was never a fight. In a few moments she had him pinned down, claws digging into his shoulder so angrily she was certain she was drawing blood, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.

"Admit it," she hissed into his ear. "Admit that you lied because I didn't say I liked you back. Admit it."

Infuriatingly enough, even with her claws digging into him, that stupid I win glint never dimmed from Redpaw's eyes.

"Okay," he muttered lowly, quietly. "I admit it. I lied." 

But he wasn't watching her. He was watching someone behind her, someone who soon grabbed Ivorypaw and dragged her off as she shrieked, "He admitted it! Did you hear? He admitted he lied!" 

"Pull yourself together!" Firepelt roared. He was the one that'd pulled her off, and was now dragging the white she-cat out of camp by her scruff. 

He pulled her past the watching eyes of her Clanmates, but Ivorypaw hardly had the time to feel humiliated. As soon as the two were out in the forest, he dropped her, and the white she-cat scrambled to her paws immediately.

"Redpaw admitted it," she meowed. "He said he lied. He said-"

"I don't care what he said," Firepelt snarled, interrupting her. "You attacked a Clanmate - my son - over some stupid little thing!"

"It wasn't a stupid little thing!" Ivorypaw protested. "This thing was going to prevent me from becoming a warrior!"

"Oh, yeah?" Firepelt's eyes glinted. "Is that what you're so worried about? Well, guess what? I can keep you as an apprentice forever. I'll keep telling Snakestar that you're not ready. You'll never be ready. You'll spend your whole life fetching prey and cleaning nests for others."

Ivorypaw glared at him, a growl beginning to bubble lowly in her throat. She didn't think she'd ever hated a cat more than she hated her deputy right now. "That's not fair. My skills are good enough to be a warrior, and you know it."

"Well, what if I don't care?" Firepelt hissed. "I can keep you as an apprentice for as long as you live. And that's just the way it is."

He pivoted sharply and padded back into camp. And, as he did so, with each step he took, Ivorypaw saw him taking her glorious future away with him.

That was when she did it.

She was hardly aware she was doing it until she was out in the forest, in search for the poisonous water hemlock. When Clearpaw had first become an apprentice, the two sisters had been playing around, and she'd shown Ivorypaw water hemlock and warned her away from it. But now, the white she-cat was in search of the plant.

It wasn't of extreme difficulty to track down. Water hemlock grew near bodies of water, and had a distinct appearance of a pretty flower. Leaning down, Ivorypaw plucked a few stems, careful not to swallow any, and brought it back to camp.

And that night, when Firepelt summoned her to bring him prey, she made sure to stuff the poison down the vole's throat before carrying it over to him. Then she retreated to the sidelines and watched him carefully.

It had been very ugly. A few moments after he'd finished the vole, he'd shouted out, jerking wildly. Foam had started bubbling at his mouth, and his mate, Tawnyfoot, was shrieking for the medicine cat. Berryfern rushed out immediately, Clearpaw on her tail, but there was nothing they could do. 

Firepelt, the deputy of ShadowClan, was dead.

Tawnyfoot accused Ivorypaw right away, but who was to believe her? How could an apprentice murder her own mentor, a warrior with years of more experience than herself? No, they attributed this accusation simply to Tawnyfoot's shock from Firepelt's death.

Redpaw and Blazepaw were delirious, too, but they were much too preoccupied with sorting through their own emotions to pay attention to Ivorypaw.

All the while, as cats slowly processed what had just happened and moved to care for Tawnyfoot, Redpaw, and Blazepaw, Ivorypaw watched quietly. 

She knew she ought to feel some remorse for what she'd just done and what'd just happened, but how could she? She'd just saved her future. Firepelt was dead. She'd just been released from the grasp of her horrible mentor.

In the shadows, certain that nobody could see her, Ivorypaw felt a small smile spread on her face.

I win.