(Hazelshine's POV)

Hazelshine stilled at Golden's last sentence and gave a deep sigh as she looked up at the large patches of sky peeking through the foliage. She was so sick and tired of everyone defining her by her role. She wished, sometimes that Cherryspark would be the Crown Heir of OakClan. Not that it would bode well for OakClan at all, but perhaps it would make her more 'normal' in the eyes of her clanmates.

"We won't tell my parents if that's what you're concerned about," Hazelpaw mewed hopefully.

"Don't speak for me, sister. Mother and Father would be so, so proud of me!"  Cherryspark yowled, her voice deafening within her mind.

Hazelshine winced, her ears ringing from the intensity of the noise but refrained from mentally screaming back at her sister with a simple,

"Fine then. I'll eat all the honeycombs on OakClan's territory and make sure to inform the healers to never distribute any to you."

She shut off the mind link temporarily, cursing herself for forgetting, at least the third time, to reprimand her sister to not use the telepathy when other cats were around.

"Hey, uh, you alright, Heir Hazelshine?" the golden she-cat meowed anxiously. "If you really want to know, I can tell you-"

"No, no, it's alright. I just blanked out. I'm rather tired nowadays," Hazelshine gave a weak, airy laugh. "But, would you like some help carrying those herbs back to camp?"

A flare of anxiety and distress ignited from within the she-cat's blue eyes and Hazelshine opened her mouth to take back what she said, but was interrupted by a loud, clear meow from her mother,

"Hazelshine? Are you there?"

Hazelshine gave a sigh and turned back to the golden mackerel she-cat, only to see that she'd seemingly vanished into the moorlands.

"See you around I guess," Hazelshine meowed quietly, in case the blue-eyed golden mackerel was still there.

Hazelshine trotted over to her mother, who was visibly tired from, so she assumed, running across the entire territory in order to locate her.

"What were you doing?" Swanstar reprimanded. "Your sister's already in camp and said she lost sight of where you were. Come on, the TorrentClan Royals are here early. It's bad etiquette to leave your guests waiting."

Hazelshine nodded and cursed Cherryspark under her breath for making her venture out to collect the honeycombs owed to her.

As they reached camp, Hazelshine saw her father converse with the King and Queen of TorrentClan and Cherryspark yammering her head off with Rainkit.

However, a certain, regal grey she-cat with darker spots and green eyes was missing. Where was Crown Heir Mountainmist? Hazelshine felt a slight disappointment for she'd always looked up to the bold she-cat. Mountainmist was the very essence of what a Crown Heir should be. She wasn't sure how she'd lead her clan into a battle of vicious, non-Code abiding rogues and come out virtually unscathed.

"What happened to Mountainmist?" queried Hazelshine innocently, earning herself a dirty look from her father. She wilted underneath his scathing gaze, but quickly sat back up again to mask her mounting fear.

"She isn't relevant to us anymore," Featherstar merely said, her light, airy voice cascading gently down her fur. "She is good as dead to us."

Hazelshine blinked, surprised. Mountainmist. Dead, perhaps. She refused to consider the alternative of the royal she-cat being exiled from the clans. Both options were equally unappealing, but perhaps the former was more sound to her.

"I see," Hazelshine meowed, dread filling low in her stomach. With the ditzy Rainkit as Crown Heir, TorrentClan's future was a good as a fish out of water.