THE CLOUDCHASERS
A malicious colony of cats worshiping celestial objects — the sun, moon, and stars are believed to be ancestors watching from above, guiding the group's destiny. They ruled the forest for nearly 20 seasons through fear, kidnapping outsiders to prevent more mutations inside the colony. Their first leader was Skyflight, and their last was Cloudmist.
• Mixed scent (intersex cats) — in 99% of cases means infertility. Learned over generations, this determines a kit's fate: soils vs loams.
• Time measured in seasons. 1 moon = 1/3 season, 6 moons = half, 12 moons = one full season.
• Birth "day" is actually birth month (first/middle/last third of season).
• Leadership naming: suffixes become prefixes. Skyflight → Flight- ... -cloud → Cloudmist.
• Celestial worship: Preachers hold rituals under the night sky, interpreting stars as messages. The moon is seen as the "eye" of their ancestors.
• Prisoners are slowly indoctrinated into the faith — belief equals survival.
The Cloudchasers believe they are "chosen" by the sky, destined to rule over "ground-dwellers" (outsiders). This justifies kidnapping — they are "collecting" those who would otherwise live in ignorance. The group operates on a strict hierarchy where faith and fertility determine worth. Those born "soils" are considered flawed, errors of the sky, and are disposed of. "Loams" are blessed, meant to carry on the bloodline — even if by force.
The Cloudchasers' territory is a dense, shadowy forest split by a fast-flowing river. The group maintains two separate camps — one for the "chosen" (warriors, guards, high ranks) and one for prisoners. Crossing the river without permission is punishable by death.
Located on higher ground, surrounded by thorn thickets. Clearing for rituals under the moon. Guards, warriors, preachers, and leader's den here. Nearby: Twolegplace (source of new prisoners).
Across the river, lower and damper. Surrounded by brambles, guarded day and night. A deep pit serves as isolation for "soils" awaiting disposal. Past a clearing from here lies an old barn — sometimes used as a waystation for new captives.
- The Divide — river separating the camps; crossing = death.
- Starhill — highest point, where preachers hold ceremonies.
- Whispering Pines — hunting grounds, but also where "unwanted" soils are taken.
- The Barn — old structure near prisoner camp, used for temporary holding.
The cat who would become known as Skyflight was born under a meteor shower. A lone white tom with strange, distant eyes, he claimed the stars spoke to him — not in words, but in patterns, in the way they moved across the dark each night. He gathered others who felt unseen by the forest's scattered groups: the crippled, the strange-scented, those born in litters no one wanted. He told them they were not broken, but chosen. The sky had set them apart for a reason.
In those early seasons, they were harmless — a handful of misfits who slept under open sky and murmured prayers to the moon. They called themselves Cloudchasers, chasing meaning in the sky objects. They took no territory, bothered no one. Skyflight wanted to give other cats the same kid of happiness — like he was happy here.
By the time Flightfeather inherited leadership, the signs were undeniable. Litters grew smaller. Kits were born weak, or strange, or silent. Some emerged with a weird, mixed scent — a thing they'd seen before but never understood. Flightfeather watched his group dwindle and made a choice that would echo through generations: he opened their borders. Loners were invited in, offered shelter, safety, faith. For a time, it worked. The group stabilized. But loners, he learned, had their own loyalties, their own ways. They didn't always stay.
Flightfeather died knowing he'd only delayed the problem, not solved it.
Feathermist was different. Where Flightfeather asked, Feathermist took. When a loner refused his invitation, Feathermist didn't accept the refusal — he posted guards. When the loner tried to leave, they blocked the path. When they fought, they pinned them down. By morning, they were still there, not by choice, but by force. Feathermist looked at them, terrified and furious in the prisoner's hollow, and saw not a problem but a solution. Outsiders didn't need to agree. They just needed to stay.
The first prisoner camp was a shallow pit covered in brambles. Within seasons, it was a sprawling compound across the river, guarded day and night. Feathermist formalized what would become the rank system — not all at once, but piece by piece, as problems arose. Mixed-scented kits became soils, destined for disposal or work for their own bright future. Fertile captives became loams, too valuable to waste. And the cats who did the taking became bringers, a rank unto themselves. The faith, once genuine, became justification: the sky had given them dominion over those who walked below.
Mistcloud inherited a functioning code and chose to perfect it. Under his leadership, kidnapping became efficient — almost mundane. Bringers studied Twolegplace like hunters studying prey, learning when kits wandered, when loners slept, when cats could be taken without witnesses. The prisoner camp expanded again, now with separate sections for queens, workers, and those awaiting judgment. Preachers visited regularly, their sermons designed to break captives slowly: you are here because the sky wills it. Accept, and you may survive. Fight, and you will join the soils in the pit.
Some believed. Most pretended to. A few never stopped watching for the gap in the crack between guard's shoulders, the moment their attention slipped.
Cloudmist became leader not for strength but for appearance — a pale, almost-white tom with one missing leg, chosen because he looked the part. For twelve seasons, he maintained what his predecessors built, though he never truly understood it. He gave sermons written by preachers, signed off on judgments brought by guards, and slept in the leader's den while across the river, prisoners raised kits who would one day remember.
One of those kits was born albino, small even by prisoner standards, named Lambkit by a queen who wouldn't survive the season. He grew up watching guards drag soils to the pit, listening to preachers speak of the sky's will, learning the layout of the camp, the patrol schedules, the moments when no one was watching. By the time they were old enough to be a loam, they'd already decided: the code that raised them would be the machine they broke.
The Cloudchasers lasted nearly twenty-seven seasons. They fell in one, not to outsiders, but to the prisoners they'd spent generations collecting.