IceClan's Stories

IceClan's history is nothing more than a melange of stories, tall tales and fables, which makes the truth nearly impossible to worm out from the mythology. StarClan knows how many cats have made up stories about Ice, Fire and their kits, Sparrowfoot and Mistysoul, alongside the cats who lived alongside the four. Well... not even our ancestors know, unless you directly ask the cats the stories are about. I've tried to hear as many stories about Ice, Fire and their kits and decipher their contradictory details, but here is a little summary of what I've been able to gather. Learn from their mistakes, young ones, and if you find a Dark Forest cat prowling on your tail, don't make the mistake of Mistysoul...

You already know the story of Ice, but do you know the story of her mate and her kits?
Of course you don't, since I've never bothered to sit here and tell you their legend. You can see their constellations in the sky if you imagine hard enough, even, their legacy larger than Silverpelt, although on a cloudy night like tonight, I can understand if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Ice had grouped her followers into a family of sorts, or IceClan. She, a cat resembling me in many ways (really, I'm not joking), had settled down in this camp, explored many of Ice's Veins (not her own veins, of course, that would be gross) and been meeting Fire up at the lake for several moons now at moonhigh. She was wise beyond her years, but in a dream one night she saw a glimpse of the omen that would be fully revealed and interpreted many seasons later - the nose still stuck to the Star Pyre, and ominous, blood-soaked words floating above the nose, saying: "Beware the crooked one, embodiment of ice, for great disaster shall follow."
She, of course, had no idea what the words meant until later, when it was too late.
Ice lived on, and eventually announced her relationship with the rest of IceClan. She didn't fear being rejected, as they already saw her as their savior and wouldn't mind her being mates with Fire, being the fiery warrior he was. They both were popular among IceClan, after all.
Her announcement was met with general warmth, as if she and Fire had kits, then that would be the first part of the generation to uphold their legacy. The only warrior who didn't like the new arrangement, though, was a deranged old cat named Crookedfoot, whose paw had been injured to the point where he had to become the first elder of IceClan, which he never was happy about. Crookedfoot hadn't tried to conspire against Ice, but he had been the one who had been angry when she insisted she and Fire would keep their loner names in honor of the clan's name.
Although Ice had suspicions that Crookedfoot was plotting against IceClan (as Tigerclaw would many moons later over a shining sea), she couldn't banish Crookedfoot on a mere hunch, for that would be very, very unwise of her. After all, although Crookedfoot was unpopular among the clan cats, he was another pair of claws who could fight for their cause in times of disaster.
Her mistake would show later.
Fire and Ice had two kits: Sparrowkit and Mistykit. When they were six moons old, Fire mentored Sparrowkit and Ice mentored Mistykit. They grew to become mighty warriors, whose tales would be sung for countless moons after their deaths. When Sparrowfoot became a warrior, however, Mistykit was chosen by their retiring med cat, Featherflow, as the new med cat, as Featherflow hadn't mentored any cats before she had twisted her leg while hunting with her mate Silvershell. Mistysoul was trained further in herbs by the now-elder Featherflow, while Sparrowfoot came to a friendship with Silvershell.
All the while, Crookedfoot was wary of Fire, Ice and their kits, prowling around the borders often and refusing to go on any patrols with them.
Sparrowfoot eventually was charmed by the beauty of the calico she-cat Rowanheart, and they became mates in great harmony. Mistysoul became the full-fledged medicine cat, and picked her brother's kit, Wolfkit, as her apprentice. She couldn't have kits, though, according to the medicine code, and began meeting Talonclaw, a brave warrior younger than her, in secret in the shade of the lake. Sparrowfoot and Rowanheart had one more kit, Flamekit, who they let Fire mentor. Ice remained the leader, but she began to become suspicious about where her daughter, Mistysoul, was going every full moon instead of staying in camp, and if the vanishings of Talonclaw around the same time had anything to do with it. Of course, Crookedfoot knew about all of this all the time, but he kept it a secret from Ice because he meant to deal with it himself - and look like a hero, not a stalker.
Eventually, Mistysoul became pregnant from an encounter with Talonclaw, and when she realized this, she, in desperation, told him that they couldn't meet again and that they'd have to hide her pregnancy for as long as possible from Ice, or she'd be severely punished. To make it look more innocent, she decided to fib that it was "virgin birth" and that "she had no idea how it happened". Talonclaw understood, but from that point on, they saw each other as friends, not mates, and never grew very friendly again.
She'd trained Wolfkit to the best of her ability, and Wolfkit had gotten his medicine name that he would fully use once Mistysoul stepped down: Wolftail. Fire trained Flamekit, and Flamekit, as the deputy's apprentice, got his deputy name: Flameear.
Ice noticed that Mistysoul was pregnant, and with some convincing, bought her fib, but Crookedfoot, several days after Mistysoul had been pardoned, told her the truth. Ice then asked Mistysoul if it were true, and even asked Featherflow and Silvershell if they knew anything. Mistysoul, enraged at Crookedfoot, told Ice that Sparrowfoot had raped her and she didn't want to dishonor her brother, and even told Fire that to enforce her lie.
Ice, too-trusting of her daughter, exiled Sparrowfoot in rage, and told him he would never have a place in her clan, ever again. Rowanheart tried to stop Ice, but was killed when she fell off of the cliff face as she and Ice fought, with Ice's eyes blazing with anger and her rage uncontrollable. Widowed, stripped of his honor and exiled, Sparrowfoot was told off the truth by Crookedfoot, and in bitterness, left through the tunnels to find a better life and to consult StarClan without Ice's approval, never to be seen again. However, before he left, Sparrowfoot poisoned a sparrow that Talonclaw had in his den, taking down Mistysoul's mate in spite. Mistysoul, unable to detect Sparrowfoot's deathberry juice poison in time, grieved over Talonclaw and stepped down for Wolftail (who was now grieving over the loss of his parents and was also trying to help his brother, Flameear, get over it) to take over. Mistysoul, trying to keep her new mission a secret from her parents (as she was now a warrior because she had enough training to convert to one), went on a solo mission to find and destroy the cause of all of IceClan's drama.
After only about a moon of searching, though, she gave birth to three kits: Goldkit, a yellow-pelted tom, Orekit, a grey-pelted tom, and Seakit, a blue and white she-cat. She entrusted her kits to her parents to take care of most of the time, and continued her search, saying that the new warriors Rainpool and Darkeye (both golden-black in color) were their parents instead of her and Sparrowfoot (even though, underneath all those lies, Talonclaw was their father), and interviewed her "adopted parents" Silvershell and Featherflow, searched the tunnels for Sparrowfoot in vain, and journeyed around the territory for clues of the truth.
She stumbled upon the truth when Rowanheart visited her in a dream from StarClan, and told her the real truth. Mistysoul saddened when she realized how she'd divided IceClan because of her breaking the medicine code, and decided that she had to ask somebody she'd never trust for guidance.
So, she dreamed of the Dark Forest willingly.
In her dream, it was a very empty place of darkness, whispering trees and a river cutting through it that no cat could drink from without ceasing to exist. Prey was very scarce, and the prey you could find was ragged to the bone or just an animated skeleton running around.
However, an Ancient, the ancestor of Ice, was the only Dark Forest cat in her dream at that time. His name was Frost's Bite, a blinded white cat whose paws were soot-black. She was wary of him, but still accepted his guidance.
His words were:
"Your mother was warned of a nefarious cat named Crookedfoot's loyalties many moons ago, Mistysoul. However, she ignored the omen, and he is but the cause of your despair, with his tricks, lies and truths. He followed your ventures with Talonclaw, and told the truth to your mother even though he knew it would stir up trouble without guidance on what to do. Actually, Crookedfoot wanted it to stir up trouble, since he didn't trust Ice and her spawn, for a reason even I cannot see."
Mistysoul awoke when his lips stopped moving, and ran the words through her mind until the next night, when she consulted Talonclaw and the other dead cats about Frost's Bite's words. They said that although he had commited many sins in his life, he was telling the truth this time.
Mistysoul, determining that she couldn't trust her parents to make a decision, decided to do what Sparrowfoot had done: murder Crookedfoot, then run.
She collected some deathberry juice, put it into an owl she'd caught herself, and gave it to the now-elderly Crookedfoot. Crookedfoot was immensely suspicious, but took it.
He died mere hours later, with Wolftail being tipped off by Mistyfoot to ignore Crookedfoot's ailment and Mistysoul making sure he was in his den and alone when the effects began to show.
Mistysoul was then visited by Frost's Bite more and more frequently each night, taught ways long forgotten by Ice and her ancestors, and giving him more and more form. She should've been suspicious of her sinful ancestor, but she had inherited Ice's flaw - being far too trusting of cats she couldn't trust.
She tried to keep Crookedfoot's death a secret, by casting his body into the lake and pooling her scent to hide his, and saying that in the night, a coyote had taken him, but soon enough, Fire found out.
He trusted Crookedfoot, despite his links to some of the worst disasters of IceClan, and formally exiled Mistysoul from IceClan, just as her brother had been. By then, her kits were now apprenticed to their "parents", with Seakit apprenticed to Wolftail. Her job done, Mistysoul ran off into the tunnels, but this time, she found the exit - after consulting Frost's Bite again at the Star Pyre.
Mistysoul emerged near the lake, near where she and Talonclaw had been meeting mere seasons ago. Suddenly, Frost's Bite took near-solid form behind her, his shape an opaque shell of his former self. He didn't say anything, but followed Mistysoul as she prowled to find a new home outside of IceClan's territory.
Just as she was about to cross the border, though, Frost's Bite came up to her ear and whispered : "Do you really want Ice to remain corrupt with power? Do you want to let her ruin the IceClan she envisioned but later derived from? Let us right IceClan; and reform it to perfection."
Secretly in love with Frost's Bite, Mistysoul foolishly regarded his suggestion with warmness, and lay down to rest with him on the lake's banks, wishing for everything to be simpler.
And it did get simpler - but not in her ideal way.
When Mistysoul awoke, she was another cat in the Dark Forest - led astray by Frost's Bite. However, lulled by the promises of Frost's Bite, she led other StarClan cats who had been taken to the Dark Forest instead to invade IceClan. (It happens just like in the Last Hope does for the other clans - the Dark Forest is defeated, but only after much death and despair.) She fought with Crookedfoot and other crooked cats against Goldfur, Seafang and Oreheart and other IceClan cats, but ultimately lost and faded away with her comrades. Now also consumed with despair, Ice committed suicide by falling off of the cliff willingly, as Rowanheart had so many moons ago.
The fate of Fire is as mysterious as Sparrowfoot's, but he is agreed upon to have vanished into the tunnels mere hours after his lifelong mate had died, her last life taken.

The stories and ends of the original IceClan cats is harrowing, sad and tangled... yet we can learn from this. IceClan is now a much safer and tighter clan, but we can still learn from the old stories.
I know that the stories are kind of boring, but this is all I can gather, and nobody knows the full story. For all we know, Frost's Bite still lurks in the woods...

Another story of IceClan is the story of Leafshine and the omen she recieved, which happened not so many seasons ago near the lakeside den Brown lives in today...

Leafshine was a beautiful she-cat of IceClan who was a loyal warrior and avoided war whenever she could. She had beautiful calico fur, sleek yet powerful muscles, and yellow eyes. Many warriors tried to woo her, leaving large catches near her nest or fighting each other for her approval, but Leafshine stayed a maiden for much longer, even if many of her suitors wanted that to turn around. Her brother Twigwing was of her litter, yet he was much stronger than her, and when you saw his snake-fang extended claws pointed at you, you knew that you were doomed. His fur was a beautiful brown, yet he didn't gain any suitors for all of his life, no matter how hard he tried.
So, he did the next best thing: protect Leafshine from overenthusiastic suitors.
One cold moonhigh, though, Leafshine made a pilgrimage with the current leader, Beestar's, permission, and traveled deep into the tunnels with the guidance of Twigwing in case she got lost. They arrived at the Star Pyre with ease, and after drinking from the sacred, clean spring around the Star Pyre, Leafshine pressed her nose to the Star Pyre and Twigwing slept nearby. Leafshine wanted to be med cat, but the current med cat, Thorneye, showed very little sign of retiring in Leafshine's lifetime and she had no medicinal experience. She wanted to consult StarClan what she should do to ward off suitors and take a vow of chastity if she couldn't become a medicinal cat, and did see Ice in the fields of StarClan - but Twigwing slept too deeply, and didn't see the approaching threat.
While Ice was telling her that very soon, she wouldn't need to make her decision, and plunging her into a blurry vision of a black and white cat facing down a muscular wolf, lightning struck the ground above the Star Pyre, shaking the entire chamber. Coming through the exit, two foxes ran in and tore Leafshine from the Star Pyre violently, leaving only her nose behind.
Twigwing woke up to only a nose pressed to the Star Pyre, and tears poured from his eyes. The tears, when they touched the Star Pyre, washed off the nose, and knowing that he would be severely punished by Leafshine's suitors if they found out the truth, he said that she'd run into the deeper tunnels of the Veins of Ice, and that he'd found a (nonexistent) rogue named Jagged who'd also been on his way to the Star Pyre, and when he'd woken up in the morning after Jagged had pressed his nose to the Star Pyre, only a nose was left and the scent of fox was fading where Jagged had been.
Several moons after he told the lie and tried to resume normal Clan life as soon as possible, Twigwing decided to flee from IceClan through the woods and tell the true story to cats far away from IceClan, who could never have any connections with IceClan and tell them the truth.
He succeeded in keeping the truth covert to his very end and beyond, and it took much coaxing to get the truth out of Brown....

A more recent story from IceClan that I've finally made clearer is about three cats and the fatal mistake they made in a famine where no mistakes were forgiven by fate.

There lived three cats many moons ago. Their names were Hawkstep, Lichentail and Dappledheart. Hawkstep was a calico tom, Lichentail a greenish she-cat, and Dappledheart a spotted grey she-cat. They all had green eyes, for they were of the same litter. Lichentail could see the past alongside being a medicine cat, Dappledheart the future, and Hawkstep vigilantly could see everything going on in the present. They were the best of kin and friends, working together to solve any problems that came their way.
The leader at the time, Highstar, was a noble cat who led IceClan through rain, snow, storm and fire. He was brave and strong, but also had a weakness: He envied the three that seemed to do everything better than him. They hunted better than him. They socialized better than him. Their powers were more potent than his, even though every IceClan cat had a power, for good or evil. They even had better posture than him, and their parents had died shortly after they were born, and hadn't lived long enough to train them well.
Just when IceClan had been going through a Twoleg explosion (literally) in the woods that had destroyed most of the woods in their territory, and Turtlestripe hadn't returned from her pilgrimage to the Star Pyre, a brutal leaf-bare hit them much earlier than normal, a blizzard in the middle of leaf-fall that blanketed them with snow when they were still stocking up prey and herbs and had a low supply. Most of the prey died in the storm, buried under layers and layers of snow that followed.
For two moons Highstar tried to ration the food while still abiding by the Warrior Code, giving out small portions of food and never, ever wasting a morsel. Lichentail tried her best to keep the stores fresh and supplied, but most of the herbs she could find in leaf-bare either were shriveled or unreachable. The dirt slopes of the Apprentice's den froze over, unfortunately causing some overexcited apprentices such as Wingpaw to slip and fall from the frozen slope, breaking quite a few bones.
Then, the last mouse was devoured, and famine started to spread through the camp.
Suddenly, unrest spread like a plague throughout camp. Kits and elders fought over measly bones scavenged from other animal's meals and the Twoleg camps that were set up two seasons ago. Warrior versus warrior scrambled to hunt, yet only found scrawny prey. And yet, Dappledheart foretold that worse was to come because of Highstar, Lichentail said that Highstar's faults had caused the famine, and Hawkstep said that the famine was felt everyone in IceClan's territory except for a distant Twolegplace where Twolegs and kittypets dined on food without limit, and monsters that skidded off the Thunderpath oftentimes bore the scent of tasty meat in their rear end, and that Highstar worsened the problem by not letting IceClan raid the monsters for food.
Highstar, enraged by the three cat's words, sent his deputy, Tulipbeak, to consult StarClan for advice. Now, this was a few generations before Twigwing and Leafshine, and Beestar was but the newborn Beekit, so they weren't really cautious about Star Pyre security. Tulipbeak went through the Veins of Ice, going to the near-lake cavern of the Star Pyre, all the while knowing with guilt that Highstar was acting on jealousy and rage, yet she couldn't defy him without angering half the clan.
So, while she was receiving backup from Rowanheart herself, the speaker of truths, on her opinion, a blizzard raged overhead, blowing cold air into the cavern.
No one knows what happened between that and when she came out... but when Tulipbeak was found two sunrises later, she was rambling about terrible cats far beyond and how Highstar was destined to almost destroy IceClan. Highstar, his fury fed even more by her craziness, murdered Tulipbeak in secret by sneaking into the medicine den when Lichentail was treating a kit for whitecough, and ripping her throat out bloodily. When StarClan realized what had happened, they began to send dreams to Hawkstep, Lichentail and Dappledheart about what was happening and how to stop it.
Then, a break happened.
Twolegs captured most of IceClan, sparing only Highstar, the three cats, the apprentices and kits, and two warriors. They swooped in at night, shot quills into most of IceClan, and took them away in monsters.
Quillheart, a warrior who had barely survived the attack, was appointed deputy. Highstar blamed the three cats even more, and ordered their exile for "treason, laziness on patrol and killing of Tulipbeak".
While the three cats accepted their exile for the good of the Clan and Highstar was having Quillheart and Mousetooth steer them beyond the borders, Quillheart suddenly slashed at Highstar in fury for his unfairness.
With the first slash of Quillheart, a bloody battle began, and the six cats began to fight, moving up the river as cat fought cat and blood spilled on blood. While five cats fought against Highstar, Highstar had unworldly strength that was fully unlocked in a fury, and he managed to drown Quillheart and put Mousetooth into unconsciousness from severe blood loss when another break happened.
Hawkstep, with his clear gaze, managed to deliver a killing blow, throwing Highstar's body into the river and letting his body drift downstream to eventually be picked up by eagles and eaten.
While Hawkstep was horrified at what he'd done, he realized that it was for the better, and began to walk downstream back to the camp when an old, dead tree collapsed at that moment, worn down by pests too far, and fell on Hawkstep, spilling blood into the stream to meet Highstar's after it trickled over the waterfall.
Now both horrified, Dappledheart and Lichentail managed to bury Highstar, Quillheart and the by-then-dead Mousetooth near the lake in an outcropping that was very beautiful and had a good view of the entire territory, they weren't able to get Hawkstep's body out from under the tree, and upon the next day, his body was gone.
Gone.
Just gone.
Still grieving for their clanmates, Dappledheart and Lichentail, anticipating that only Highstar had gone to the Dark Forest and that the rest of the cats were resting in peace with their combined insights and foresights, they began to rebuild IceClan.

Rumors.
Rumors of another Clan, founded by Fire and Sparrowfoot, a clan connected to IceClan through the Veins of Ice, residing in a chasm called The Heart of Fire and Ice.
A clan with the same general camp layout, a clan with the same sort of powers granted to their cats, but another clan nevertheless - a clan of fierce, supposedly pure cats who fight only for self-defense and who seek out the truth before making any decision.
A clan called FireClan.