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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:07:19 GMT -5
"A mysterious curse, a long history of lies and pain, and one she-cat who is ready to end it all. But at what cost?"
{ ✰✰✰✰✰ } - Five stars. "The opening of Curse instantly gives me a sense of foreboding and intrigue. It is so interesting; I am just on the edge of my seat for more! Shadowhunter has made a sacrifice for her daughter; and now Jadefox has to figure out how to break the curse that destroyed everything. This story has great potential! I can't wait for more! Spottie praises you, Shadow. Amazing job." - ~*Spottedpath*~
{ ✰✰✰✰✰ } - Five stars. Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I struggled to find flaws. Which is also why this review is short. In the prologue, the character that's being focused on, Jadefox, has very good movements- they match her remarks and dialogue well. Another part of this story I particularly liked was the vocabulary, it sets the mood very well, and the descriptions make you feel like you are in the story. However, sometimes the amount of description throws the story off track and makes the reader confused. The chapters start out very well and match the tone, and they are sized well. - kittenslobber
{ ✰✰✰✰⋆ } - Four and a half stars. "Wow, that was an amazing read. This review is basically going to be how much praise I can say without repeating myself. The story flowed perfectly, and from the very beginning I was completely hooked. Shadowface's use of vocabulary was absolutely incredible, resulting in a spellbinding read. The character development was amazing, and I love the way she finished each chapter, especially the second one. Speaking of chapters, I love how the author is able to drill tons of details and length into each one, without the story ever wavering or getting boring. I did notice a few very minor errors, but it was just stuff like forgetting a quotation mark or using a wrong homophone." - ♥ - - - Kιηg σƒ Hєαятѕ
{ ✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰ } - Ten stars out of five!? "I hate 'Curse'. Why? Because Shadowface's extraordinary writing makes me feel the life of Shadowface. Every scar she gets, every time she is tired, every emotion, I feel it. And that does give the reader a hard time, because Shadowface's curse adds to the intensity. So, actually, I love 'Curse'!" - Huntpaw
{ ✰✰✰✰⋆ } - Four and a half stars. "I'll start with the title. It's short and to the point, and isn't overrun with fancy symbols which, in this case, is very good. It fits the story, and at the same time makes you curious what story lies beneath. The plot is unique and interesting, and you managed to avoid every cliche that could have easily fit into the story. The story goes along at the perfect pace, not so fast that it's confusing, but not so slow that it's boring. The characters are real and believable, with a likeable heroine and dislikable antagonists. Even minor characters manage to have a character arch and their own personality. My one tiny problem is that I had to do a ton of scrolling to get to the actual story, but that's just me." - Swiftfalcon
{ ✰✰✰✰✰ } - Five stars. "Curse is truly amazing. I would rate it 5 out of 5 stars. There is never a boring part in this fanfiction. I can't stop reading. The plot is truly amazing. And the feels...oh my, sometimes I wonder if I AM Shadowface because I can feel almost every and any feeling she feels. The only thing I hate about this fic is that one day it will have to end..." - Swanwhisper
Hello there, and welcome to » C u r s e - - ||
This is an epic about an old character of mine who I have been exploring for many years now. Thanks to my love for this character and her world I have been thrown into the making of a fantasy series currently titled the "Fate of Fire" series (seen as the Clans of the Valley series on here). Curse has grown beyond the boundaries of what I had imagined for it, and now it is serving as my first draft of an original novel.
I understand that right now, as you scroll way WAY down the page, that you might become very intimidated by the length of this story. I encourage you not to let that stop you from reading the prologue (and first chapter if you can manage). The more people I can share this with, the more feedback I can get. Every reader matters, and I do my best to listen in and communicate with my readers.
As a warning, this story does have dark elements of loss, death and suicide. Take the reading slow if it becomes too much, but I promise that there are light elements too of happiness, humor and love. But that is life, right?
I hope you enjoy my story!
- Shadowface (The Fallen Warrior)
All chapter titles start with "and" because there is no ending in sight.
Prologue Part 1: And she pleads to the stars Prologue Part 2: And her fate is sealed Chapter 1: And there was sight Chapter 2: And another rule of survival is added Chapter 3: And the green eyed soul awakens Chapter 4: And there are consequences Chapter 5: And there is a change in authority Chapter 6: And there is a hidden skill Chapter 7: And there is a beginning in the end Chapter 8: And he arrives Chapter 9: And they wait till sunrise Chapter 10: And there is a deal in death Chapter 11: And there is a duel of truths Chapter 12: And there is rebellion Chapter 13: And meanwhile in the Realm of the Dead... Chapter 14: And the cursed are hunted Chapter 15: And she rebels Chapter 16: And another voice speaks Chapter 17: And there is a new victim Chapter 18: And there are dreams and nightmares Chapter 19: And the elder speaks Chapter 20: And they bury the dead Chapter 21: And lies eclipse the truth Chapter 22: And she becomes the fox-slayer Chapter 23: And they are born Chapter 24: And snow falls early Chapter 25: And snow melts Chapter 26: And ice forms Chapter 27: And ice breaks Chapter 28: And they arrive at a crossroads Chapter 29: And the seven are taken Chapter 30: And there is a bond of pain Chapter 31: And there is a revelation in the bloodshed Chapter 32: And bargains are made Chapter 33: And the silver-tongued devil speaks Chapter 34: And mother gives her final lesson Chapter 35: And revenge darkens the soul Chapter 36: And she accepts the monster Chapter 37: And the truth is pain Chapter 38: And bonds are strengthened Chapter 39: And they are freed Chapter 40: And she fights her fate Epilogue: And...
The Cast
Minor Characters inside MountainClan
Maskstar Father of Shadowkit and her siblings. Mate to Cloudspots. Leader of MountainClan. Cloudspots Mother to Shadowkit and her siblings. Sister to Darkestday. Daughter to Nighthawk. Mate to Maskstar. Nighthawk Grandmother to Shadowkit and her siblings. Mother to Cloudspots. Former mentor to Darkmoon. Nighthawk is a tall, majestic, lithe she-cat with medium-long fur as black as night. She has white fur on her face that extends over her whole muzzle to her chest and down over her belly. Her front right paw is white and her rear left paw is white as well. She has a very long feathery tail that has a mostly white tip. She has very unique markings on her slender face; two black lines come and circle under her eyes in a straight diagonal line that look like the markings on a hawk. The fur around her head neck and shoulders flares out a bit more. Evergreen eyes. MountainClan elder. Stormkit Son of Cloudspots and Maskstar. Brother to Shadowkit. Black and white patched tom-kit with watery blue eyes. Ospreykit Daughter of Cloudspots and Maskstar. Sister to Shadowkit. Small, spiky furred, colorful she-cat with large tangerine eyes. Her pelt is splattered in bright orange, black and white, and she has very long claws. Mintkit Daughter of Cloudspots and Maskstar. Sister to Shadowkit. Small, streamlined white she-cat with black ships sprinkled on her fur. She has mint green eyes.Blackkit Daughter of Cloudspots and Maskstar. Sister to Shadowkit. Tortoiseshell she-cat of burnt orange and black with a slash of white on her chest. She has honey amber eyes. Hiddenheart Deputy of MountainClan. Mentor to Jasminepaw. Multi-hued blue tabby she-cat with sky blue eyes and white chest, tail tip, and paws.Greytail Ospreykit's Mentor. Pale white tom with a smokey grey tail with stone blue eyes that are more grey than blue. Darkestday Son of Nighthawk. Brother to Cloudspots. Uncle to Shadowkit and Shadowkit's first mentor. Tall, muscular, pitch black tom with silver eyes. Riverstep Oldest cat in MountainClan. Father of Hawkshade. Grandfather of Eaglekit. Old dark brown tabby tom with blind blue eyes.Sunblaze Mother to Eaglekt. Mate to Hawkshadow. Mentor to Rushpaw. Bright orange tabby she-cat with icy blue eyes. Hawkshade Father of Eaglekit. Mate to Sunblaze. Mentor to Sweetpaw. Dark brown, large tabby tom with amber eyes. Snowpelt Senior Warrior. Mentor to Fallenpaw. Mother of Sweetpaw. Pure white she-cat with yellow eyes. Fallenpaw Brown marbled tabby tom with a white chest and tail tip and amber eyes. Sweetpaw Daughter of Snowpelt. Small, petite she-cat with dark grey ears, tail tip and paws with faint tabby stripes on her legs.Jasminepaw Daughter of Darkestday. Cousin to Shadowkit. Sturdy silver tabby she-cat with pale blue eyes.Cinderpaw Son of Greytail. Stone grey tom cat with white chest paws, and tail tip. Blue eyes.Swiftpaw Daughter of Greytail. Mostly white she-cat with small, spaced out patches of stone grey fur. Yellow eyes.Ebonyrain Mother of Rushpaw and Redpaw. Mentor to Cinderpaw. Dark ebony, almost black she-cat with a blueish tint to her fur, long legs and large blue eyes. Galechaser Father of Rushpaw and Redpaw. Mentor to Swiftpaw. Muscular grey tabby tom with messy silver tabby stripes and thicker fur and large paws. Redpaw Daughter of Ebonyrain and Galechaser. Sister to Rushpaw. Dark, rusty red tabby she-cat with misty blue eyes.
Characters Outside of MountainClan & Characters in Jadefox's Flashbacks
Hadiya Darkmoon's ancestor. Black and white she-cat with a swirling animated pelt and blood red eyes. Guardian of the Between World and Crossroads. Spottedmoon Deputy of GlacierClan. Mother to Frozenkit and Snowkit. Sister to Icecloud of GlacierClan. Deputy during Maskstar's leadership. Falconwing Shadowkit's Ancestor. Mother of Shadowhunter and Blizzardsoul. Briefly described as a powerfully built, regal looking she-cat who has layers of white, grey, and black fur with piercing yellow eyes. Wolfheart Mother to Nighthawk. Great grandmother to Shadowkit. A very tall, pitch black she-cat with thick fur and piercing evergreen eyes. Her stature is very wolf-like with a well-muscled body and extra thick fur around her neck. NightfangDeputy of GlacierClan. Tall, lean black she-cat with electric blue eyes.AshpawApprentice of PineClan. Dark, ash grey tabby she-cat with bright fiery orange eyes.Hailstar Leader of Glacierclan. Thick silver-furred tom with watery blue eyes. Leader during Jadestar's leadership. Kind, gentle, and compassionate. Falconstar Leader of TundraClan. Lean, dark brown tabby with a long tail and pale yellow eyes. Leader during Jadestar's leadership. Young, hot-headed, and bold. Whitestar Leader of PineClan. Old, thick-furred tom-cat with snowy white fur and dark amber eyes. Leader during Jadestar's leadership. Wise, strong, and noble. Talia / Rainstar Leader of the Rouges & BlizzardClan. Long-legged, lean she-cat with very large tall ears, a thin mackerel spotted golden coat and a short stumpy tail. She has intelligent watery blue eyes. Leader during Jadestar's leadership. Hostile, ambitious, and stubborn. Darkwing Deputy of the Rouges & BlizzardClan. A tom-cat with a coat as black as a raven's wing and blue eyes. Covered with scars from his time fighting alongside the rouges. Deputy during Jadestar's leadership. Buzzardclaw Warrior of GlacierClan. Thick-furred pale brown tom-cat, with amber eyes. Warrior during Maskstar's leadership. Owlstar Leader of TundraClan. A tall, long-legged pale brown tom with bright hazel eyes. Very laid back and welcoming, and wise beyond his years. Leader during Maskstar's leadership.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:16:48 GMT -5
Prologue And she pleads to the stars
The hunter waits. She is patient, silent, controlled; a perfectly tuned instrument of death.
She uses the shadows to hide from the eyes of her enemies, her pelt melting into oblivion.
It is a perfect night for a kill; for the moon is hidden away in its own veil of darkness and the stars are too cold and distant to shed their light onto the mountain side below.
Yet, she does not flex her claws against the earth in anticipation, nor feel the rush of blood roaring in her ears.
She is calm, silent, focused.
The only sound that can be heard is the aching creak of the ancient pines as they bend to the will of the wind.
Then, out of the darkness, comes the dim glow of a celestial being wrapped in a swath of stars. A thin halo of pure, pale light outlines her figure as she steps out into the pine needle littered clearing, the soft crunch of her padding across the ground breaking the tense silence emitting from the huntress.
The starry feline stops once she reaches the center of the circular clearing, her pelt wavering and shifting like a wispy fog caught on a hook, her eyes large and unblinking like an owls, glowing a bright evergreen.
“I know why you’re here, my dear,” the ghost-like being rasps, her voice scratchy and hoarse as if she had spent a lifetime screaming out to the heavens.
The hunter hesitates briefly, disturbed to have been found out so quickly and effortlessly. Reluctantly, she thrusts herself out of the brush, revealing herself as a young ginger, white, and black she-cat with the same exact evergreen eyes as the ghostly she-cat. “Don’t call me dear. You have no right to call me that,” she growls, her eyes as cold and desolate as the icy tundra.
Sadness and regret pools into the brightly lit she-cats eyes and she bows her head in submission. “You are right. I will only call you by your name, Jadefox,” she murmurs.
Jadefox does not let her glare waver as the she-cat speaks, instead she locks in her legs, as if bracing for impact. “You know why I’m here, so let’s get it over with. Tell me why; why did you do this to us?”
The she-cat shakes her head slowly, turning her flank away from Jadefox so she can gaze off into the forest without looking into her eyes. “He would have killed you if I hadn’t,” she says bleakly.
Jadefox takes a few steps forward so that she is upon the otherworldly feline. “That’s a lie! You did it to save your own skin!” She spat.
The celestial apparition turns so that she can respond with a fierce retort. “I did not! I did it to save you, my daughter, and to save the many other daughters who will come after you! You will understand once you have kits of your own,” her voice booms, echoing off the trunks of the pines.
Jadefox doesn’t flinch, but now her claws are set deep into the ground, tethering herself in. “That won’t matter now! Don’t you see? This sacrifice that you have made will all be for nothing. You have cursed us all, Shadowhunter! You have doomed us to a life of darkness and death! Like you, we will all die alone!”
Silence meets her words.
Shadowhunter’s evergreen eyes now glint with deep, raw, sorrow. She steps closer to her daughter, her right paw shaking as she brings it up to place it along Jadefox’s cheek bone just below her own evergreen eye. She smiles painfully, swallowing thickly as she speaks. “I remember when your eyes were blue…so clear and beautiful…like the sky. They reminded me of your father…so brave and kind he was…”
“Mother…I-”
Shadowhunter shakes her head, moving her paw over Jadefox’s muzzle to silence her. “But now this curse has taken him away from me, all because I made a foolish mistake. I thought I was in love with another…but he was nothing more than a shade, a trickster. He is the one who brought this curse upon us, Jadefox. He is the one who has taken our souls and marked us with the eyes of the cursed. Know this; I sacrificed my happiness so that you may live on. One day, you will have to do the same for your daughter.” As she speaks, her form begins to fade, the trees becoming visible behind her fur.
Jadefox’s whole body now quivers as her tether is broken. Her eyes are no longer cold, but they are sad and filled with longing as she reaches out with her paw to touch her once living mother’s shoulder, only to have her paw pass through completely. “Wait, please! There must be more…there has to be a way to break it, right?”
Shadowhunter’s body is now nothing more than a thin fog, her cursed evergreen eyes shining out into the dark. “The only way to break the curse is to speak its name; know its name, and you will have power over it.” Shadowhunter meows urgently, her gaze becoming fearful as her body slowly evaporates. “Never forget the name! Name her - !” In a flash of blinding light, Shadowhunter is eradicated from the clearing, leaving Jadefox sprawled out on the ground, the blast carrying her off her paws and flinging her against the base of a pine.
Once she comes to, Jadefox is no longer in the dark pine forest, but is instead lying on the smooth surface of a rock jutting over a deep green valley below. She grunts as she sits up, her body weak and trembling as if she had been running for miles, but her evergreen eyes are now flaming with determination. She rests until the darkness clears and the sun begins to rise to the east over the valley, its light warming her cold, soulless body.
She looks up to watch as the last of the stars blinks out, the glow of the sun overwhelming them, its brightness swallowing theirs. I promise mother, she thinks to herself, imagining Shadowhunter watching her with bright, loving, yellow eyes. My cursed daughters will always defy him, and we will fight for what we have lost.
Prologue Second Act And her fate is sealed
Blood flows like water over the hungry stones of a rushing river, swirling in cadence with the pregnant waters. It fills the shore, expanding like a bed of roses in a garden of kings.
The valley, in the dead of winter, sits in solemn despair as the tormented screeches of its daughter rings out, like the fevered pitch of a blazing fire before a field of wheat, destroying every blade and every small creature in its path.
It is the sound of agony.
Not pain, not sorrow, not despair; just pure agony.
And the forest sits; silent, still, and powerless against the darkness that now infects the screeching victim like a poison.
"Do you see it now, my precious one? Can you see the darkness calling to you?"
Another screech answers the torturers questions, cut off by the sound of gurgling as the victim is dipped into the river, more blood fleeing into the now tainted pureness of the water.
Once the victim is freed, she is thrown back onto the pebbled shore, landing with a wet, lifeless flop. Blood flows from her closed eyes like bloody tears, her soaked pelt hugging her rounded belly that protects three tiny precious lives; lives that will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as she.
"P-please...understand that I never meant to hurt you...," she feebly pleads, clear liquid running out the side of her jaw and trickling down onto her chest fur.
Her attacker approaches slowly, like a hunter would to its prey, a wicked smile warping his features in an unnatural way. "Of course you meant to hurt me! Why would you have done it otherwise if not to punish me?" He growls, raising one of his paws and striking down on the right side of her face, slicing deep into the fur and sinew there.
She cries out, her eye lids opening wide with shock and pain; deep, black, blood stained holes occupying where her eyes had once been.
Her attacker laughs with sickening glee as he pushes her to her paws, thrusting her back so that she is backed into the side of a large grey boulder, the right side of her face now unrecognizable.
"Look at how pathetic you are...too weak to fight back...too defeated to stop begging for mercy...in one single day I have managed to make the most feared and respected warrior queen of the Valley beg for her life like a helpless kit! Where is your courage now, leader of MountainClan?!" He taunts the queen with vicious malice, his pupils wide and crazed.
The queen hisses, hunched over her unborn kits, her fur sticking up in matted clumps. "You may have taken my sight, you may have wounded my body, but you will never taint my soul!" She snarls roughly, her throat sore from screaming.
A terrible glint chills the tom’s gaze, dark humor dancing across his lips, his ears standing to attention at the new prospect of a challenge. "Well...we will see about that, now won't we?" He purrs sardonically. He then slinks away, his paws moving silently over the stony beach that now resembles a colorful painting of mud, snow, and blood. He stops at the edge of the river where two large rocks forms a tight crevice between them. He looks back over his shoulder, his bright green eyes glittering with a sick glee. "I know your weakness. I know exactly how to break your spirit...," the crazed, green-eyed torturer then reaches inside the crack to take out the battered body of a broad shouldered tom with unmistakable lynx-like ear tufts.
The queen remains silent as her attacker manages to haul the large muscular tom up from out of the dark crevice by the scruff of his neck and into the snowy glow of the daylight, a deep groan eliciting from him as he is dragged across the pebbled shore to be laid down only a few tail-lengths away from the she-cat.
At first the queen is confused as the scent of the nearly unconscious tom becomes tangible on her tongue, but then that confusion is wiped clean from her face as recognition suddenly breaks like a sunrise within the planes of her scarred face. Horror, guilt, astonishment, and pain flicker across her features in a violent torrent of emotion.
“No…no, this-this isn’t real! He is dead! I saw him die!”
The cat that lay in front of the blinded queen was not just any tom, he was the tom.
He was the tom that would break her curse.
Yet, knowing the torturers ways, the she-cat knew her one hope for revival was about to be lost forever.
Death knocked upon the doors to her soul, and she could feel it slowly rot away as her attacker slinked forward like a tiger, her one and only chance of life lying helplessly beneath his fangs…
Her fate was sealed.
Chapter 1 And there was sight
300 years later...
They say that the eyes are windows to the soul, that through them, all of your deepest secrets can be revealed.
It is the eyes that can betray you in a moment of need; a spark of defiance, a glimmer of sorrow, a sparkle of happiness, a glint of murderous intent.
Your face may be as chilled as a glacier, and your body may be as immovable as a mountain, but your eyes will always reflect what is inside you.
But what about the eyes that are empty, that are soulless? Is it as easy to see what is inside them as it is to see inside another’s?
What if those eyes, the eyes you thought you knew so well, were not even real?
What if they belonged to someone else…something else?
It was hard to have these questions buzzing around my head like stinging wasps when I was so new to this world; someone who was just starting her journey through life.
Even as a young, innocent kit, I knew that my life was to be ruled by fate.
And fate can be cruel to the innocent, for they don’t see the brutality of the world.
I can still remember the day my fate began…looking back it seems so long ago, as if it was from another life...
. . .
My earliest memories are the memories of waking up.
It was the first time I had seen colors.
After being accustomed to darkness for so long, I had to shut my newly opened eyes, and re-open them, to make sure what I was seeing was real.
I was encompassed by a soft, spongy material that tickled my sensitive muzzle. It was a bright, vibrant color that glowed in the dim light. Looking closer, I could see tiny individual segments that looked like the edges of a feather, but they were tougher, and much more cushioned. Experimentally, I slowly brought my right paw forward to dab at this mysterious substance, which I later found to be called moss, but what truly excited me were the colors of my own small paw.
Most of the top of my paw was a pale color…almost like a blank, like a more vibrant color was missing. Just beyond this void of color, which turned out to be white, was an opposite color, a color so dark that not even darkness could hope to copy it. It was called black, and it was accompanied by splotches of a color that, when staring at it, reminded me of warmth. It was a burnt orange with white stripes.
I was instantly happy to be so colorful; to be so alive.
I took a moment then to tilt my chin up, my eyes widening at the strange ceiling above my head, my mouth opening in a small “o”.
It looked like a tightly packed, tangled mass of mouse tails, except each mouse tail had tiny spikes along their length. It looked deadly, but at the same time very safe as I concluded that those thorny tendrils were there to protect me from whatever was outside.
Outside…what a strange word…yet it inflicted tangible excitement and wonder within me.
Only moments after my visual exploration of my home, a chorus of purrs and exultations of joy echoed in this small mossy space.
“Oh, Cloudspots…they are simply beautiful!”
“Five healthy kits, it’s a blessing from StarClan!”
“Maskstar must be so proud.”
Their voices were quite loud…they echoed in my ears like loud bird calls, causing me to flinch and let out a loud whine of protest.
Another chorus of meows followed, only louder and at a higher pitch this time.
“So cute! She’s a strong one that one.”
I could then feel a tight pressure in my chest, building slowly, a feeling so unfamiliar that it took me a few moments to name it; annoyance.
A loud rustling then paused the exclamations as another voice made itself known.
“What is this? All of you, out! You’re scaring the kits-no, all the way out Darkestday! Sitting with your head poked in the entrance is not out!”
As the rustling of the bramble walls finally stilled, a warm breath blew across my face, smelling of milk and moss.
“Thank you, Nighthawk. I was afraid I would have to get out of the nest and push them out! I always forget how excited the clan gets over a birth,” a warm, soft voice meows. Unlike the pitchy meows of the spectators, this cat’s voice was quiet, gentle, and even a bit humorous. It sounded familiar, as if I had listened to it many times before.
The answer to this mystery came in the form of a face.
The cat lowered her head so that her large luminous green eyes were trained on me, their depths glowing with so much love that my whole body tingled from ear-tip to tail-tip with fuzzy warmth. Her face was soft looking, colored black with spots of white. Her fur was wispy, like the vapor of a cloud, and her muzzle was gently narrowed like the corner of a triangle, topped off with a shiny black nose.
I knew without a doubt that this was my mother.
Beyond her sat a very lithe, black she-cat with sharp white markings on her face and chest, her eyes the same exact shade of green as my mothers. This was Nighthawk, the cat that had come earlier to relieve me of the raucous noise of the other cats.
“I heard that you still haven’t given that one a name yet?” Questioned Nighthawk, leaning down closer so that her whiskers brushed against my flank, tickling my side and causing me to squirm and bat at her muzzle.
My mother purred, brushing her cloudy tail across my forehead. “Her siblings names just came to me so easily; Ospreykit, Mintkit, Stormkit, and Blackkit…but this one…every time I think I have one it slips away. None of them feel right, mother,” she sighs, clear distress and worry clouding the tone of her meow.
Nighthawk narrows her eyes as she observes me under her piercing evergreen gaze. “She has quite the unique marking…it’s almost as if it’s a birthmark of some kind, like her father’s.”
“Maskstar noticed that too when she was born, but he thought it would send the wrong message of favoritism if we gave her the name Maskkit. Besides, the black fur only covers the right side of her face…”
Nighthawk sat back then, a tiny hint of shock flittering across her eyes before it was wiped away. “You know, that marking almost reminds me of my grandmother’s scar. It covered the right side of her face…the most peculiar scar…instead of turning a pale pink over time it scarred black, like she had been clawed by claws of fire.”
Cloudspots purred. “You and your stories…I still don’t understand why you talk of the past so much,” she teased her mother.
Nighthawk smiled knowingly, the expression not quite reaching her eyes as they stared into space. “The past is the key to the future, my daughter. Without the past we will never learn from our mistakes.”
My mother was silent, the sound of a lapping tongue brushing against fur breaking the silence.
“What was your grandmother’s name?”
“Her name was Shadowstar; one of the few great leaders of MountainClan.”
I could feel my mother’s gaze then, looking down at my tiny body curled up against her soft belly fur, surrounded by the bodies of my brother and three sisters.
I wonder, while looking at her innocent, young, daughter, if she ever thought about what might become of her.
“Then her name shall be Shadowkit, my little Shadowkit,” my mother murmured, nuzzling me with her nose.
Unbeknownst to them, they had just sealed my fate by the choosing of my name.
I was no longer innocent, for I could see.
Chapter 2 And another rule is added
4 moons later...
In this chapter of my life, time seemed to pass seamlessly. No bumps, tears, or road blocks deterred my young spirit, so I was free to explore my new home without having a heavy weight in my chest.
In the four moons that followed my birth, I learned a few basic rules for surviving as a kit in MountainClan:
1. Never, EVER eat alongside the warriors. You will soon be trampled and squashed like a tick on an elder’s pelt. It’s not that their rude or anything…it’s just that…well, they don’t tend to notice the small things.
2. Always obey your mother. You will find that life will be a lot easier if you do.
3. Don’t even think about going into the medicine den. In fact, don’t even look at it.
4. If you want the elders to tell you a good story, don’t bring your moony-eyed sister along who thinks every story needs romance. The elders will never let you come back.
5. Be an adult. Follow the code.
6. Family is more important than anything else.
As long as I followed these rules, I knew I would be safe and happy. It was that simple.
If only life could be that simplistic…
“Shadowkit! C’mon you’re staring off into space again!”
My ears swiveled to the left in response to the familiar teasing, high pitched squeaking meow of my most annoying sibling; Ospreykit.
Ospreykit was the runt of our liter, but for some odd reason our ancestors decided to bestow upon her the gift of most critical, loud-mouthed, picky, and hyperactive, tattle-tail sister ever.
“Why are you glaring at me like that again? Momma said it wasn’t nice to glare!” She squeaked, her voice scratching away at my already aching ear drums from her earlier bout of complaints about there not being enough moss in our shared nest.
I growled loudly, swinging my body around to face Ospreykit who was sitting nonchalantly in front of the entrance to the nursery. Crouching low to the ground, I wriggled my hind-quarters in preparation for taking down my prey. Yet, my hunt was interrupted by a fluffy black and white splotched coat and a pair of deep blue eyes blocking my view of my target.
“Cut it out sis; she’s just trying to provoke you into a fight,” came the slightly lower pitched meow of my only level-headed sibling and brother; Stormkit.
Stormkit, unlike Ospreykit, was rather large, but much more quiet and kind. He was the mediator of most of our sibling show-downs.
I sighed and stood, feigning disappointment. “Oh, fine. She wasn’t worth it anyways.”
“Hey!” Ospreykit piped up indignantly, her colorful orange, white, and black spiky fur fluffing up to make her appear like a painted moss ball.
Another black and white spotted figure came into view, this one much more streamlined and fragile looking. This was my sister Mintkit who had lovely minty green eyes; most likely the reason for her bizarre name.
“Momma said that we could be outside in the camp today as long as we don’t cause trouble. Can we please be nice to each other? It’s a lot more fun when were sweet and considerate,” she meowed quietly, shuffling her paws in the dark pine needle soil of the camp ground.
I inwardly groaned, but felt grudging respect for my sister. Mintkit was a bit of a romantic, but as annoying as it was, it was still nice to have at least one cat that had such a positive outlook on life. Especially with what was coming next.
“Hey look, a patrol is coming in!” Ospreykit cried.
All four of us shuffled forward into a huddled group, making sure we gave the protective thorny bramble entrance a wide berth as a storm of fur, claws, and sinew exploded into the cool camp clearing, their strong jaws filled with snow hare, crow, and fish.
My eyes widened in awe as I looked upon the four warriors now depositing their catches into the prey-pile in the center of camp. Each one of them had strong, compact legs and tough wiry shoulders with multiple scars lacing across their bodies. I remember many long nights where the elders would tell us stories of the great mountain cats who dared to live on the peak of the world where the rocks were as sharp as lion’s teeth and the wind was as harsh as a freezing dip in the Siberian River. They told us all warriors of MountainClan wore their scars with pride, for scars were a sign of strength, bravery, and experience.
“Whoa…they look so awesome!” Stormkit meowed appreciatively, his blue eyes glittering with excitement.
Ospreykit for once was silent as she nodded in agreement, her tiny needle-like claws kneading into the dirt.
Mintkit on the other hand wrinkled her nose and shied away from the scarred warriors as they walked past. “They look scary to me…why would they want to keep their scars? Did the medicine cat not know how to treat their wounds?” She inquired, looking wide-eyed and deeply concerned for the hunters as they settled down outside the warriors den which was made out of more brambles and thick moss.
One of the warriors I recognized as Darkestday, a large black tom-cat with stark silver eyes. He was our mother’s brother; our uncle.
“Well, think about it this way Mintkit. If invaders ever try to cross into our lands they will be scared out of their pelts just at the mere sight of us! They wouldn’t want to tussle with us,” I explained matter-of-factly, puffing my chest out with pride for my clan.
We are the most fearsome clan in the world! Nothing could tear us down!
The bramble entrance trembled again as another figure stepped in, holding a large, shiny silver trout by its midsection, blood dripping down the toms muzzle and onto his white, orange, and black splotched chest, creating a gruesome and terrifying aura around him.
His flaming amber eyes were identical to my own, and his face was encompassed by a black-furred mask, hence his name; Maskstar.
He was our leader and our father; a powerful and intimidating combination.
We were all silent, watching him expectantly as he came prowling up to the fresh-kill pile, opening his jaws to let the fish plop down onto the growing pile with a wet splotch.
At that moment I felt a warm pelt press up against me from behind; it’s fur smelling of milk and moss. “You should go ask him to teach us how to fish!” A voice whispered encouragingly, sounding young and bright.
I turned my head to look over my shoulder at my nearly identical twin; Blackkit.
Like me, Blackkit was a tortoiseshell, except she hardly had any white fur on her body besides a small dash on her chest, and her orange fur was just orange, not orange tabby. Her eyes were also amber, but they were lighter, more golden, and they had darker chips of amber surrounding her pupil. I liked to think that we were born at exactly the same time sense me and her were so close, and could always tell what the other was thinking, but momma told us that was physically impossible.
At the time I didn’t understand why.
I shivered, turning back to look at our father as he leisurely cleaned the blood from his fur, his large shoulder muscles rippling with the movement.
I swallowed thickly, trying to appear confident when really nervousness ate at my insides. “I-I don’t know…”
Of course, Ospreykit took this moment of indiscretion to ruffle me up. “What? Are you scared of our own father? Don’t be such a chicken. If you won’t do it, I will,” she meowed, her voice laced with sarcasm and a tempting challenge.
It wasn’t that I was scared of my father, it was just that he seemed so…intimidating, so different and out of this world. He rarely came by the nursery, less so than before, and when he did his attention was mostly focused on our mother, Cloudspots.
None of us had ever held a conversation with him.
I growled, standing up and lifting my chin. I refused to let my little sister get the better of me.
“No, I’ll do it. I just wasn’t sure because he probably has better things to do then to talk hunting strategies with some little kit,” I sniffed, ignoring the stabbing pain in my chest that the words brought me.
Could he really not want to talk to his own kits?
I could feel Blackkit’s gaze burning into the back of my skull, her concern tangible even without looking directly at her, but I turned away from her and marched over to my father, our leader, determined to impress him and earn his affections.
Upon approaching, one of the warriors from an earlier patrol came up to my father and started conversing with him. My father’s gaze became as still as stone, and his brow creased on his forehead in a clear message of concern and serious thought.
My paws faltered as I came into his shadow, but it was already too late to turn back.
“The patrol picked up more disturbances on the mountain side. It appears as if the snow is weighing down the rocks and the trees dramatically. We found more fallen pines and large broken up boulders from when we checked last,” the she-cat reported, her blue tabby fur sprinkled with snow-flakes from her border run.
Maskstar nodded; his golden amber eyes attentive. “It’s clear then. We should start taking measures to preserve the mountainside from collapsing. Inform all patrols that they are to stay away from that part of the forest. Also, put up a bramble wall on the main trail. We don’t want anyone or anything going up there and causing an avalanche.”
The blue-tabby warrior dipped her head. “Yes, Maskstar,” she conceded, backing away and padding off toward the other warriors to inform them of their orders.
Maskstar’s gaze then found me; my little form crouched in the pine needle mulch, my amber eyes wide and my fur fluffed up nervously.
He tilted his head, an impatient look coming into his flaming orbs. “Yes? What is it that you want kit?”
I visibly flinched, and anger welled up inside me. I ignored the loud, warning hisses from my siblings on the other side of the clearing. They already knew it was no use trying to stop my response.
“I’m not ‘kit’. My name is Shadowkit, your daughter, for your information,” I replied haughtily.
An amused look quickly flashed over my father’s gaze before it disappeared just as quickly as the morning dew on a blade of grass. “Oh, really?” He rumbled, his mew reverberating in his wide statured chest. “Then what is it that you want, Shadowkit, my daughter?”
I was silent, suddenly forgetting what I was going to ask, and what my purpose was.
He called me by my name! He called me his daughter!
His tail-tip began to twitch and he sighed heavily. “Well?”
I snapped out of my astonished trance and beamed up at him, sitting up straighter and holding my chin up. “Me and my siblings saw the big fish you caught. We were wondering if you could teach us how to catch trout too!” I purred, casting a furtive glance back at my siblings over my shoulder to see them all giving me encouraging looks. Even Ospreykit was on her toes, stretching out to catch what we were saying.
Maskstar looked over my head to stare at the rest of his brood, his gaze suddenly becoming dark and slightly apprehensive. What I didn’t know was that Cloudspots had come out to watch our confrontation, and as I waited for his response the leader and his mate faced off with silent conflicts between them. When he returned his attention to me, he appeared resolved about something, but no emotion could be placed in the cold planes of his face.
“Sorry, but I have more important duties to take care of. Why don’t you go run along and…play with the elders or something,” he growled, standing and stalking off to go join the warriors.
I stared at the space he had just occupied, rooted to the spot as his shadow fell away from me, exposing me to the cold wintry sunlight filtering through the canopy. I could feel the sympathetic glances from the on-lookers, and I could almost taste the shock and disappointment that soaked through my body like a thick mist from my kin.
Soft footsteps crunching over the pine needles sounded beside me, and a soft, cloudy tail flicked my nose lightly, causing me to look up into the solemn evergreen gaze of my mother. Her voice was grave as she spoke.
“Your father is a very busy tom. He has a whole clan full of kits to watch over, to teach, and to lead. Just because he did not reciprocate this time does not mean he won’t the next. When it starts getting dark, try again. He will be alone in his den away from clan politics, so he should be more willing to spend time with you then.”
I sniffed, an overwhelming feeling of rejection making it hard to breathe. “You really think so?” I choked out.
She nodded, her soft triangular muzzle caressing the top of my head. “Of course, my love; despite what you may see, deep down, he loves you very much. He wants to get to know you; all of you.”
I breathed in deeply, feeling the cool crisp air cleanse the tight feeling in my chest, making it dissipate. “Ok, momma. I’ll try again.”
. . .
Night fell upon the mountainous valley, the gloomy mist filling every dip and depression it could find. The white vapor quickly dampened all the light, making the air chilling even to the happiest of its victims.
My fur felt damp and heavy as I padded away from the nursery, the fog so thick that I couldn’t even tell where the other side of the camp was. I used the edge of the bramble wall as my guide, following it by sight alone as the nursery was swallowed by the mist behind me.
In the gloom I could make out a hollowed trunk of a fallen pine that was used as the elders den. Lichen and mushrooms bloomed in the crevices and grew in the pine mulch, and the smell of rotting wood was prominent over the aroma of freshly applied mouse-bile.
I softened my footsteps as I crept past, not wanting to waken any of the elders, for they would be on me quicker than vultures. But, apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was awake so late on this shrouded night.
“…such a tragic end…she would have…death should never be that way.”
Something foreign tugged at my gut, making it squirm and knot up as I overheard the mysterious words floating from the elders den. Something in me wanted to know more, something in me wanted to get closer…
I didn’t realize I was at the entrance of the den until I could see a glowing pair of evergreen eyes shining out in the darkness. I halted and crouched low to the ground, pressing my belly into the cold damp earth.
I held my breath as I realized that those eyes belonged to Nighthawk, my grandmother, but she wasn’t the one who had spoken. Another pair of eyes glowed in the dim light of the den; a milky blue. I recognized them instantly as belonging to Riverstep, the oldest cat in MountainClan. He was a thick-haired dark brown tabby tom with distinctive lynx tufts on the tops of his ears. He had gone blind long ago when he first became an elder, his eyes becoming clouded with some rare infection that had evaded our medicine cat. Riverstep was one of the kindest elders I had ever met, and he was a talented story teller. He was very popular among the young kits in the clan. Even the apprentices would come to listen to his grand stories of adventures long past.
He was speaking now in a low raspy meow.
“…yes, she was quite beautiful...very brave, strong, and stubborn, as most of your family is, Nighthawk.”
Who are they talking about? Some long lost kin of mine?
Nighthawk chuckled, shifting in her warm mossy nest. “Yes, she was, wasn’t she? I always looked up to her…I wanted to be just like her.”
Riverstep purred, but the tone of his voice was grave. “Thank the realm of the living that you did not turn out to be like her. Such foolishness would have cost you your life.”
Nighthawk growled protectively, her voice as hard as flint. “Wolfheart was not foolish; she was just lost and depressed. You remember her past, don’t you? Her father, my grandfather, died the day she was born. Her brother was crushed by a rock slide a year after during a hunting assessment. Her sister passed away during child-birth. Her mate, my father, was slaughtered by a pack of wolves before he could see his kits be born into this world. Her own mother died of green cough soon after, and out of her three kits, only one survived,” she meowed, stating the horrifying string of events effortlessly as if they had been repeated many times before.
Riverstep rasped his tongue over his chest before responding. “I know of her tragedies, Nighthawk. I’m talking about after. Instead of moving past those dark memories and raising you normally as a mother should have done, she went haywire, raving on and on about some curse. She claimed that the curse was the reason why she was doomed to die alone, why she said she didn’t think you would live much longer than a couple of months,” he rasped, his voice calm, but sympathetic.
My heart beat rose, the word ‘curse’ pulsing in my mind like a sore pad.
Nighthawk dipped her head curtly to the older tom, her evergreen eyes flashing brightly, almost unnaturally so. “I see what you mean. Yet, one can call that foolishness, while others can call it a desperate cling onto a reality she could no longer take. She paid a high, unfair price for her loss of differing between what was real and what wasn’t…”
“She took her own life, in the end.”
She took her own life…
She took her own life…
She took her own life…
I quickly scrambled away, my head pounding in tune with my heart-beat, my senses becoming scattered by their harmonic beating within my body. I found myself stumbling backwards into the thick fog, the elders den melting into its clutches. I then slammed face first into a cold rock face glittering with dew, thick strands of moss hanging from a small overhang over my head. The impact managed to help clear my head of the alarming pounding, but that relief was quickly over-shadowed by heart-stopping fear as I realized I was in front of my father’s den.
I can’t do this now! Not after what I just heard! I need to find my way back to the nursery. I need to tell Cloudspots everything, maybe it was just a big misunderstanding, or maybe they were just rehearsing some messed up horror story. Whatever it was, it was more important than-
No.
I promised.
Don’t bow out on me now Shadowkit. You can do this. Remember what Cloudspots said. He loves you, and he wants to talk to you. Remember rule number six; family is more important than anything else.
Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath, letting my thoughts, emotions, and my body calm before slipping into the moss covered den.
He was lying on a bed of moss with his back turned to me. You could tell he was still awake by the way his shoulders were tensed up, and the way his tail flicked back and forth over the ground with obvious frustration.
In that moment I felt a little sympathetic towards my father. I could never imagine what it would be like to have the weight of responsibility that he carried on his shoulders. It was hard enough for me to watch over my siblings, I couldn’t even imagine doing the same for an entire clan.
I took a tentative step forward, swallowing thickly before speaking up. “Fath-uh, Maskstar? Are you alright?” I stammered.
The leader of MountainClan turned to glare at me with detached golden amber eyes, his tail-flicking increasing in tempo.
“What are you doing here Shadowkit? You should be in the nursery with your mother,” he scolded, his eyes beginning to flame up.
I swallowed again, trying to grasp my bearings.
"Actually momma told me to come here. She said that you were too busy to talk earlier, but when it got dark you would be free to speak with me,” I replied. I was proud that my voice did not waver or shake.
Maskstar narrowed his eyes. “Well, she was wrong I’m afraid,” he snapped. “I don’t want to be bothered with kits at the moment. My job is to take care of a clan, and yours is to stay by your mother’s side and let the warriors do their work. Now, please leave, and don’t come back.”
A feeling I didn’t recognize welled up inside my small, little body. My legs trembled, and my ears felt like they were burning.
Confused and afraid of this new emotion, I turned away from my fath-no, from my leader, and ran.
I ran until my vision blurred and my breath was coming out in gasps, and I didn’t stop until I reached the nursery. I squeezed inside, the thorns scraping at my sensitive flesh, but I welcomed their stinging pain. I flung myself into the nearest empty nest and curled up against the edge where I could bury my face into the soft bedding, hoping that my whimpers couldn’t be heard in the small dank space.
Something soft and light tickled my nose then, causing me to sneeze and whip my head up to meet the startled blue gaze of a young dark brown tabby tom kit.
Our eyes locked, fiery amber and frosty blue meeting for the first time, fire and ice battling out to see who would break first.
It was him who broke the connection, looking down between us and then looking up again, his gaze as clear as the sky, compassion and outward concern written plainly on his face as he pushed the soft, ticklish object toward me again with his white stained paw.
I looked down then, my chest still aching, my stomach still churning, to see a large, delicate feather resting on the moss nest between us.
It was rather long and sleek, colored a rich dark brown with an ever so light golden tint near its base.
It was beautiful.
I looked back up at this small young kit who simply smiled and nudged the feather toward me again.
“Wh-what is that?” I murmured; my voice raspy and thick with sadness.
He was still smiling as he answered. “It’s an eagle’s feather. I thought you might want it.”
“Why?”
“Because, when you have an eagle’s feather, you can soar higher than the world, away from all its troubles that could ever bring you down; I thought you might need it.”
I smiled then, the feelings of hatred, rejection, and pain melting away as I stared down at that one eagle’s feather, then back up into a frosty sky.
“I’m Eaglekit by the way,” he meowed, a tiny hint of a grin coming through as I smiled back at him. “What’s yours?”
“Shadowkit,” I replied, returning his bright grin. “My name is Shadowkit.”
From that moment on, I knew that no matter what dark things life threw at me, I would always have a friend to show me the light. Rule number seven; when life gets hard, find an eagle’s feather.
Chapter 3 And the green eyed soul awakens
1 moon later...
Every time I look back onto this particular day in my life, a feeling of sickness crawls into my gut. Could it have been avoided? Could I have stopped what was to come? These questions I have always pondered; have always struggled to understand the answer…
The answer that is so frustratingly simple that to this day I still refuse to take it as it is.
It was fate. Nothing I could have said or done would have altered my final destination. I could have gone a different way, but as someone I used to know said; all paths head in one direction.
My fate was to be cursed. Cursed like the many she-cats in my family before me. A dark, twisted, and cruel fate it was.
If only I had known…if only someone had told me…
Could I have broken the line of cursed daughters on that day?
If only I hadn’t let myself be so blind…if only I had listened…
If only I had avoided that place high up on a mountain cliff, where the sun would rise in the east and shed a golden light on the valley below…
Many of my kin would still be alive.
. . .
A moon had passed sense that fateful meeting the night after my father’s rejection. Eaglekit and I became inseparable, so much so that we even formed our own secret group called the Shadowed Wings, though Eaglekit’s mother Sunblaze got pretty enraged when we came into the nursery one day with sloppy black wings painted on our backs with mud.
Yet, despite this new relationship and all its positive attributes, it was not enough to stop me from going over the edge.
Bitter anger and disappointment from Maskstar’s treatment of me and my siblings became like a festering wound. It grew; infecting more and more of my being until it was so overwhelming that I began to go against my father in every possible way…
Which included breaking the code.
“Shadowkit, you need to stop this now.”
I paused, my tongue still hanging out of my mouth mid-way through grooming my fur that was growing quite thick as it got deeper into Leaf-Bare.
I gave an exasperated sigh as I retracted my tongue and licked my cracked lips. “Stop what?”
My sister Blackkit was sitting across from me in the empty nursery. All the residence had gone out to get some fresh air, but my sister had pulled me back, claiming she had something important to talk to me about.
Her honey-like amber gaze was deadly serious as she responded. “Stop acting like this! Stop acting like the rules don’t apply to you! You think you’re the only one who has been hurt by fathers-“
“You weren’t there!” I snapped, my fur lifting on my spine. “You didn’t see how he rejected me-rejected us!” My small chest rose and fell at a furious pace, my limbs feeling like they had been torched by liquid flame. “And don’t call him father, Blackkit. He’s anything but,” I spat. With that I stood and stomped out, ignoring her pleas for me to come back.
That was the first time she confronted me.
The second time was outside the medicine den after me and Eaglekit had stolen poppy seeds to help Riverstep get some sleep after complaining of aching joints. The only ones besides my siblings that were angry at me were my father and mother, though I felt that Cloudspots was rooting us on behind Maskstar’s back.
The third crime was hunting a mouse outside the perimeter of the bramble wall of the camp. The mouse was given to a young apprentice who had been suffering from White-cough. This time Eaglekit and I were grounded by Maskstar’s orders, but the clan praised us for such courage.
And the battle raged on.
Countless times we broke the rules to help those in need, and every time Maskstar became more furious and was constantly on watch for our next rebellion, and the clan began to favor us over his punishments.
That was, until it all went to my head.
“We should venture out of the camp!”
Eaglekit choked, coughing up a bit of a crow’s feather that he had been eating. It was a scrawny little thing; the meat tough and dry. Leaf-bare was in full swing. Snow fell every day, prey kept to their underground nests, and the Siberian River was frozen over, forcing us to travel to the most southern edge of our territory to catch fish in the Lonely Lake.
“But, we’ve already been out of the camp!” He gasped, still trying to catch his breath from his bout of coughing.
I turned my head away from him to peer out into the little looking hole that I had made in the side of the nursery wall. Through it I could see the forest, the trees still thick and green despite the heavy snow weighing the branches down. In the distance the Great Mountain soared high into the sky, the top looking so small that it looked like the top of an ant hill.
“No,” I murmured, still looking up at the mountain peak, “I mean go venture out of camp,” I emphasized, turning to look back into his skeptical icy blue gaze for a response.
He shifted in the moss nest, his face a neutral mask. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
I tilted my head in confusion. Why is he backing down now? After all that we have done together? Is he scared?
”Are you scared?” I taunted him, nudging his small, underdeveloped shoulder.
His expression instantly turned to outrage. “Of course not! It’s just…” he paused, looking over his shoulder to look at his mother Sunblaze lying in the nest across from us, her ginger tabby fur gently rising and falling with each of her breaths. He then turned back to look at me, his blue eyes solemn. “It’s just that it could be dangerous. We’ve never been out of sight of the bramble wall, and Maskstar was furious after-“
“I don’t care what Maskstar thinks!” I hissed, glaring at Eaglekit. ”He’s the reason why we’ve been doing these things. I’m trying to show him that I’m not some little kit he can just toss aside! I’m his daughter, so he should at least notice me,” I growled, setting my jaw in stubbornness.
Eaglekit grinned. “Well, you obviously care about what he thinks if you want him to notice you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and gave a playful swat to his lynx-tufted ear with my right paw, just barely missing as he managed to duck out of the way and counter with a tackle that rolled me onto my back.
I laughed, my own smile plastering my face. ”So, will you come with me?” I panted; a hopeful hint to my voice.
Eaglekit shrugged, but he still kept a grin on his features. ”Of course I will come with you, Shadowkit. Shadowed Wings forever, remember?”
I pushed him off, rolling to my paws and letting out a soft purr. ”Yes, Shadowed Wings forever.” . . .
We didn’t begin our adventure until the next morning. We waited until the dawn patrol left the camp, and then silently followed through the bramble entrance and out into the forest for the first time.
”I don’t remember the trees being so big!” Eaglekit exclaimed, his breath coming out in frosty white vapor clouds.
I nodded silently, knowing my fiery amber eyes were wide with awe at the sheer majesty of the evergreen trees surrounding us like tall, watchful guardians.
We followed a trail worn down by many generations of MountainClan cats that headed toward the base of the Great Mountain. We kept our senses on high alert, hoping that no one else was following the same trail.
The dirt trail wound through the trees like a viper, snaking its way between enormous fallen boulders and trees. At one point we had to climb over the trunk of a large rotting trunk that had crashed into the middle of the path. Eaglekit’s long legs made it easier for him to get over, but my smaller, more compact body did not have his jumping ability, so he had to drag me up by my scruff, much to my annoyance.
Once over the trunk, we stopped to stare wide eyed at what lay ahead of us.
The dirt path seemed to run straight into the mountain side, the sheer grey rock soaring high above our heads until it disappeared into the tree line. On closer inspection you could see that the path actually made a sharp turn around the edge of the rock face and vanished behind it.
I could feel Eaglekit’s sudden aversion to my plan even before he opened his mouth.
“Shadowkit…I think we should turn back.”
I turned to face him, determination making my voice hard as steel. “Why?”
Eaglekit straightened his shoulders as he faced me down, his face lit up by the cold winter sun high above us. “Think about it. We’ve never been out this far before. It’s one thing to step outside and smell the roses, Shadowkit, but it’s another to pull them out by their roots.”
“Can you drop the cryptic tone and just be straight with me?” I growled, my tail flicking with annoyance.
Eaglekit sighed. “It’s dangerous out here. Yes, sure, I get that you don’t care about breaking the code that prevents us from venturing out of the camp, but it’s there for a good reason. It’s the dead of winter, and we’re only five moons old. Even the best warriors can catch a cold out here, what do you think will happen to us if we keep going?” He urged me, his expression almost pleading.
I laughed.
I wasn’t mouse-brained; I knew that he was right.
I just didn’t care.
“Well, you don’t have to come with me, Eaglekit. You can run back home to your mother and her milk while I’m out here reaping the benefits and getting all the glory. I’m going to gain all the respect I can get from my clan mates so that one day Maskstar’s opinion of me won’t matter anymore. I’ll be untouchable.” I spat bitterly, turning and leaping off the log and unto the shockingly cold ground that had now given way to stone. I ignored the way my fleshy pads burned against the freezing rock and kept walking, making my way up the path that lead higher up onto the mountain.
I heard the sound of scrambling paws as Eaglekit rushed up to my side. He was silent, but as I turned to look at him I could see in his eyes that he was sorry, and that no matter what he wasn’t leaving my side.
I felt guilty then. Here was my friend, the one that had brought me up when I fell down, the one that gave me courage when all I could see was darkness, and he was facing this ridiculous quest that could get him hurt or worse, and it was all for me.
But I didn’t smile back or show gratitude, I simply nodded and walked in silence.
The path became rather treacherous, and the temperature dropped as we climbed higher. Yet, Eaglekit and I had made it into a kind of game; our minds moving past our disagreements about the adventure.
For every boulder we climbed, we would tell each other a secret.
“You remember that one day when Stormkit bullied me into a duel and I lost?”
I chuckled at the memory, the air cold but my heart warm as Eaglekit pressed up against my side, pushing me up onto the next grey rock. “Oh, yes! I remember that! Who could forget the epic beating of Eaglekit?” I joked, digging my tiny claws in and hauling my body onto the smooth surface, turning to help Eaglekit up.
Eaglekit gave a playful growl as I hauled him up by his scruff, his long legs easily reaching the distance without much muscle strength from me. “Haha, very funny. Well, do you remember the next morning when Stormkit woke with five ticks attached to his rump? That was…me,” he admitted, his icy eyes sparkling with mischief.
I rolled onto the ground with laughter, my whole body shaking with mirth. “No way? Really? Haha! That’s hilarious! You better not try that on me,” I purred, rolling back to my paws and nudging his shoulder as he shrugged.
“No promises,” he meowed, padding up to the next ledge and jumping onto it. He then faced me and gestured with his chin. “Your turn.”
I sighed; sifting through all my memories as I scrambled up beside him, hoping that I could find a secret that was better than his.
It then struck me flat in the face.
“You know that night when we first met?” I murmured, pausing to catch my breath as I squatted on the cold stone boulder.
He nodded, squatting beside me with his dark brown tabby fur pressed against my tortoiseshell. “Of course, how can I forget?” He purred.
I smiled fondly at him, and then continued. ”Well, when I was going to see Maskstar in his den I passed by the elders den, and I overheard a conversation between Riverstep and Nighthawk. Apparently they were talking about Nighthawk’s mother, my great grandmother. I think her name was Wolf…Wolfheart? Yes, Wolfheart.”
Eaglekit playfully began snoring, his eyes closed and his mouth gaping.
I laughed and whacked his ear with my paw, protesting with a “Hey! before he quit and returned his full attention to me.
”Anyways, they were talking about her life…and it was awful. Her whole family died one after another, and all her kits died besides Nighthawk, not to mention her mate also perished…but what was really awful was that she-she killed herself…”
Eaglekit was wide-eyed, his mouth parted in an “o”. ”That-that’s awful Shadowkit…I’m sorry that you had to hear that.”
I shrugged, but my insides were tingling at what I was about to say next. ”It’s alright. The thing that really got to me though, was that according to Riverstep, Wolfheart went crazy in the last part of her life. She kept babbling about some curse that had plagued her, and that it was the reason for all her tragedies,” I meowed quietly, feeling that faint pounding in my head again.
”Whoa,” Eaglekit murmured, ”That’s creepy.”
”Tell me about it.” I muttered, slightly shivering.
He pressed closer to me in a comforting way, a small, brave smile lighting his features. ”That won’t ever happen to you, Shadowkit, I promise.”
I nodded, burying my muzzle into his shoulder briefly before leaping to my paws and shaking the cold from my bones. ”Well, c’mon, we’re almost to the ledge!”
After a few more boulders and secrets we finally made it up onto a large rocky overhang that stretched outward facing towards the eastern horizon. The rock was overgrown by moss, withered vines, and leaves, the wind occasionally picking a few of them up and flinging them over the cliff. There was a lot of snow too, but it was broken up by the plant life.
”This is so cool!” I exclaimed, bounding toward the edge of the cliff.
”Be careful, Shadowkit!” Eaglekit called, though I could tell from the tone of his voice that he too was in awe of the view. Stretched out like an unreal dream was the entire valley; right below us was the Forest which extended for miles to the left and right of us. Ahead in the distance was the glittering shape of the Lonely Lake settled at the base of the sister mountain across from us; more like a lonely pond at this viewpoint. The land was covered by snow, the sun causing it to give off a lovely glittering sheen, as if the valley was glowing with pure light.
I sighed contentedly, slowing my pace as I approached the edge.
Then, about four fox-lengths away from the edge, my paw became frozen to the ground.
I tugged hard, but my left paw refused to come off the stony ground. I growled in annoyance and tried bracing my back legs and forcing my paw to come loose, but then my hind paws also became stuck to the stone.
”Eaglekit! I need some help, I think I’m-“
And then death started crawling up my legs.
There was no other way to describe the bitter, deadly cold that began racing up my legs, into my gut, and up to my skull. It felt like every bone in my body was turning to ice, making me feel fragile and vulnerable.
It was too late to scream.
Total darkness fell over my gaze as the world I knew melted away into the black abyss, the only sound being Eaglekit’s shout of alarm, but even that was fading.
I couldn’t see anything, nor smell anything. I couldn’t even tell what was up and what was down, for I felt like I was floating in a thick black lake, yet I could breathe, and the air way dry.
Then, a faint glow began to shed some light into this nightmarish dream, but the light still couldn’t penetrate the darkness surrounding me.
It got brighter, and the light was yellow. It was a bright yellow, a happy yellow. It reminded me of the warm sunlight that would penetrate through the trees back home.
Home…where is home?
The yellow light then became a large pair of eyes, glowing so brightly that I could now make out who the eyes belonged to.
The face of this feline took up my entire vision. It was a she-cat, her fur a ghostly pale white, the right side of her face ugly and scarred with three long slashes running from her forehead, across her eye, and down to her chin. Yet, you could tell that she had once been quite beautiful.
A smile came upon the enormous she-cat; it was soft and caring. I couldn’t help but smile back, her warmth being the only thing keeping me from the dark abyss around me.
Then, her gaze became pained, and her jaws strained open in an ear piercing scream, her beautiful yellow eyes rolling into the back of her skull. As I watched the yellow began to melt off her irises, slowly being replaced by a glowing evergreen, the same exact shade of my mother’s and my grandmother’s eyes.
I tried to get away, but my flailing limbs were no use in this dark, frightening world. I yelled out for help, cringing as the screams of the she-cat reached a fever pitch.
And then it went silent.
I gazed back into her unblinking green orbs, my heart racing and head bounding.
Deep as the winter’s glade, clear as the spring’s spades. Out of darkness comes light, only to be purged by blood’s might…
Her voice was deep and ancient, the sound echoing all around me as if we were in a large cave.
Beware the sharp-clawed foe who wears the mask of love, for on the day that life gives, life shall be taken away…
The sound of large crumbling boulders thundered in the distance, and suddenly I could feel ground beneath my paws, but it was shaking violently.
Only to leave behind a green-eyed soul in it’s wake…
The ground then fell out from under me, plunging me into the chasm. I cried out to the green-eyed being as her evergreen eyes slowly faded away, leaving behind nothing but darkness and cold.
I woke gasping, my body quivering uncontrollably as I collapsed onto my stomach, the ground now feeling almost hot to the touch. The sun above me seemed bigger and brighter from when I last remembered, and I squinted my amber eyes against the glare.
Eaglekit was beside me, his fear scent overwhelming. ”Shadowkit, Shadowkit what happened? Are you ok?!”
That was when my eyes started burning in my skull.
I screeched in agony, getting back to my paws in an attempt to shake the fire out of my head. I was staggering dangerously toward the edge of the cliff, and I felt teeth tug desperately at my neck fur, trying to haul me back to safety, but my momentum was too great, and I fell off the overhang, screaming in pain as I plummeted.
Eaglekit crying out my name above me was the last thing I heard as I hit the ground.
Chapter Four And there are consequences
Deep as the winter’s glade, clear as the spring’s spades.
Out of darkness comes light, only to be purged by bloods might.
Beware the sharp-clawed foe who wears the mask of love, for on the day that life gives, life shall be taken away…
Only to leave behind a green-eyed soul in its wake. . . .
I didn’t feel the pain. In fact I didn’t feel anything as my free-falling body collided with the ground.
It was just darkness, and fire.
Fire was eating away my eyes, my skull, and my chest.
That was all there was.
Once in a while I felt like I would be coming to; I caught a glimpse of snow weighing down the evergreen tree’s branches, the sun shining coldly in the sky, and the occasional white-tipped tail that would flash into my peripheral view.
Then at one point I felt thorns scraping my side, and I swore I heard my mother’s panicked voice over the roar of the fire that was now concentrated in my eye sockets. I heard more commotion and more panicked and stricken meows and wails as I was picked up by my scruff.
Why is there so much alarm?
That was when I realized I was screaming.
I could feel my throat, sore, and dry; contract over and over again. My ears were still ringing from my fall, and my senses still mixed up and confused. I still wasn’t fully aware of my body either, yet for some reason I could scream.
I tried to clamp my mouth shut, but I had no control over the loud piercing screeches that came out of my mouth.
Then I felt a weird sensation start at the base of my spine and crawl up, leaving a tingling trail of nerves along my whole spine which spread down into my legs.
I could feel again.
I gasped as I was bombarded by sight, feel, smell, and taste all at one time.
The pungent smell of herbs struck me first, making my head spin and my nose twitch. This was followed by a smell that was almost…metallic?
My screams were cut short as a couple of seeds were shoved into my gaping jaws. It tasted bitter and had a smooth texture. In that moment I could feel a warm pelt pressed up behind me, sheltering my body with theirs. The smell of my mother washed away the revolting iron-like smell, and I felt calmer, more at peace.
“Shhh, my love, you have to stop screaming and thrashing. It’s ok. Moonfern is going to do everything she can to help you.”
I could then feel myself becoming drowsy, my limbs becoming heavy and numb.
But it was long enough for me to see the pool of blood surrounding my front legs.
The blood was oozing out of my right front leg, soaking into the green moss nest that I had been placed on top of. I could see a pair of pale, silver tabby paws furiously working to stop the bleeding with cobwebs, but that seemed to be the least of my problems.
Sticking out of the side of my front leg was a long, gleaming white stick that was broken badly on the end. That seemed to be where most of the blood was coming from.
Before I could ask my mother what the stick was doing in my leg, I blacked out, my consciousness floating away into the darkness once more.
. . .
“Please tell me what I saw in there was just a trick of the light!”
“You knew this day would come, Cloudspots. The curse-”
“No! No, don’t you start with me about that crazy curse talk, Nighthawk! You told me that the medicine cat dubbed my eyes turning green as some genetic anomaly in our family!”
“You are a blind, foolish she-cat, Cloudspots! Did you really think your eyes’ turning green was a ‘genetic anomaly’? Do you not remember how the fire burned in your skull, in your chest, in your soul?”
“That was jus-just-…ugh! I’m not the one we should be focusing on, Nighthawk! This is Shadowkit. My daughter, your granddaughter! Besides, if this-this…thing really is a curse, then why did Shadowkit’s eyes change color so early? Why now? Why didn’t it happen to any of my other kits?”
“The curse is like a virus, Cloudspots. It’s always changing, evolving, adapting. For each generation the curse will inflict different ‘symptoms’, and for each generation it will pick a new target, a new approach to inflict pain on our family.”
“…If what you say is true, mother…if this ‘curse’ really exists…what happens now?”
“Death.” . . .
I awoke screaming at the top of my lungs, my head throbbing, my injured leg burning, and my throat ragged and sore.
Instantly I was rushed by our medicine cat, Moonfern, who pushed her paw to my small chest, lowering me back down into my nest as I slowly gasped for breath, my heart beating wildly out of control.
“There, there now. You’re safe. Your family is here with you,” she murmured gently, picking up a damp ball of moss and carefully dabbing my head with it.
I stretched my muzzle up and around to look over toward the medicine den entrance where I was greeted by six silhouettes.
My brother, Stormkit, was standing with his black and white head anxiously stretched forward in my direction, his face haggard and sad, his nose twitching as he sniffed over and over again.
My youngest sister, Ospreykit, was sitting next to him with her jaws gaping in a small, high-pitched wail. Her colorful pelt was messed, and I thought I could see a spot of blood on her muzzle.
Next to Ospreykit with her long black spotted tail wrapped around Ospreykit’s shoulders was my other sister, Mintkit, her soft mint green eyes gazing at me with relief, her legs trembling slightly as she tried her hardest to stay strong.
Standing a little ways from them was my oldest sister, Blackkit, her tortoiseshell fur covered with little splotches of blood. She looked exhausted, her shoulders sagging and her honey amber eyes glazed over. Her black nose was dry and cracked, but she looked at me with a huge grin plastered to her face, mouthing; ‘you’re in so much trouble’.
Then, standing behind my siblings like tall foreboding pine trees, were my parents.
Cloudspots looked like she hadn’t slept in days, her evergreen eyes unnaturally bright, her usually beautiful coat caked with moss and pine needles. She looked at me with pure love in her eyes, no hint of anger or betrayal in them.
Then I looked at my father.
He was standing, his thick tail resting on my mother’s flank, his fiery amber eyes wide and frightened as he gazed at me. His fur was bristled up, his claws outstretched like he was bracing for a fight, but once my eyes landed on him he visibly relaxed, his eyes glistening over with so much relief and love that it made my chest ache.
I love you too, father.
“H-hey guys…” I meowed quietly, wincing as I heard my voice for the first time.
It sounded like my vocal chords were taken out, ripped up, and then put back in.
Instantly all four of my siblings scrambled forward and burrowed themselves into my nest, laughing and purring. They were gentle and gave my right front leg a wide berth, but I honestly couldn’t care at the moment.
Our little reunion was interrupted by three more shapes that pushed themselves into the already crowded place. It was Eaglekit, with his parents, Sunblaze and his father Hawkshade, who was a dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes.
Hawkshade nudged Eaglekit forward with one of his massive paws, a small smile on his face.
Eaglekit glared back at his father, sticking his chin out stubbornly. Then my best friend walked forward and faced my parents.
“I-I just wanted to apologize! Um, apologize for…letting Shadowkit venture out of the camp…and not forcing her to come back to camp when it got dangerous…and for not-not trying harder to keep her from falling…off-off a huge, scary cliff…”
My siblings giggled, my sister Blackkit nudging me as I purred loudly.
My father grunted; his amber eyes amused by Eaglekit’s rather awkward apology, but my mother on the other hand leaned down and scooped Eaglekit to her side with her paw, nuzzling the little dark brown tabby kit affectionately.
“There is no need to apologize, Eaglekit. If it wasn’t for you, my daughter would have died. You saved her,” she assured him, releasing him with a lick to his forehead.
Eaglekit’s ear tips were bright red as he smiled, his icy blue gaze looking over at me with happiness.
I look back on this moment fondly…it’s one of my most precious memories.
Voices suddenly began screeching outside the den, a sound like thunder making the ground quake beneath our paws. Maskstar’s deputy, Hiddenheart, came crashing into the den, panting heavily.
“Maskstar! Something has disrupted the mountain! It’s an avalanche, and it’s heading straight toward us!”
The rest was a blur of chaos.
I remember my father giving my mother a furtive glance, one that was full of understanding between them, before he quickly slipped out of the den, yowling orders to the warriors to get everyone out of camp.
My mother ran over to me, scooping me up by my scruff. Stormkit came up beside her, refusing to leave my side as he helped keep my injured leg from getting jostled.
Sunblaze managed to pick up Eaglekit and Blackkit in one swoop, her long legs carrying them out of the den, their forms disappearing outside.
Hawkshade picked up Mintkit, quickly following his mate out, while Moonfern abandoned her herbs and went for my sister Ospreykit instead who was wailing loudly.
My mother waited for everyone to go before she followed, making sure all her kits were in safe paws.
I remember getting a quick glance of the sky, for it was curiously dark and dim, the camp empty of nearly everyone besides Maskstar who was waiting for us at the entrance.
I remember my mother’s heavy panting and my brother Stormkit’s determined meow of encouragement telling me to stay calm and to not look back.
My father rushed forward to take me from my mother, leaving her jaws free to pick up Stormkit. I remember the speed at which my father ran, as if a clan of badgers were chasing his tail, and the sound of tree’s groaning and cracking behind us. The ground shook and rocks went tumbling ahead of us along with icy chunks of clumped snow. Maskstar twisted and turned to avoid the debris as it chased him. My broken leg was waving wildly, the cobwebs, marigold, and dock leaves peeling off in the wind. My blood was pounding too loudly for me to feel any of the pain.
He didn’t stop till we reached a clearing where the rest of MountainClan had taken refuge, far enough away from the hillside where the avalanche could come to a full stop..
Once there, we were instantly surrounded by our clan-mates, their wails and cries drowning out almost every one of my five senses. They called out to each other, looking for their kin and friends, their mates and companions.
I was put down, and once my father sat next to me everyone became silent, their eyes trained on us expectantly.
My siblings squirmed forward in the crowd, their eyes wide and frightened.
“Sh-Shadowkit? Where are momma and Stormkit?” Squeaked Ospreykit, her fiery scarlet orange gaze dampened by fear.
I was confused, hadn’t they been following us?
But when my father and I turned around, no one was there.
Only a big pile of snow, rock, and ice was left.
“Cl-Cloudspot’s…Stormkit?” Maskstar murmured, leaping to his paws and rushing over to the pile of melting ice, his paws digging furiously at the snow. Pieces of rock and ice clattered downwards onto him, but he paid them no mind.
“Cloudspots? Stormkit! Can you hear me?” He cried, using his shoulders to push over a large boulder, accidentally cutting himself on the sharp surface, blood trickling down his shoulder.
Nighthawk stepped forward hesitantly and went to him; her black pelt being buffeted by the harsh, cold wind now coming in from the west, following the new cleared path through the tree’s made by the avalanche.
“Maskstar…Maskstar. Stop. Their gone,” she murmured gently, nudging him back from the pile of rubble.
Horror washed through me, my ears roaring with blood and despair.
“Momma? S-stormkit?”
A tail attempted to comfort me, but I shoved it away, standing and stumbling over into the snow, my broken leg crumbling underneath me, unable to control my cries and my screams as I dragged myself toward the pile of ice.
The pile of ice that was now my brother’s and mother’s tomb.
“Shadowkit, stop, you’re going to re-injure yourself-”
“No! Get away from me! They’re not dead. They can’t be dead!” I wailed, my voice echoing in the silence, my throat so raw it felt like it was bleeding on the inside.
They’re not dead, they’re not dead, they’re not dead…
“No! Mother! Stormkit!”
My screams reached out to the sky, to an entry to a realm on a mountain cliff…
To a long line of green-eyed she-cats, their heads bowed solemnly, my cries echoing around them as another member joined their cursed ranks.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:25:46 GMT -5
Chapter 5 And there is a change in authority
Story here.
Chapter 6 And there is a hidden skill
Story Here.
Chapter 7 And there is a beginning in the end
Story here.
Chapter 8 And he arrives
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:26:00 GMT -5
Chapter 9 And they wait till sunrise
Story here.
Chapter 10 And there is a deal in death
Story Here.
Chapter 11 And there is a duel of truths
Story here.
Chapter 12 And there is a spark of rebellion
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:59:00 GMT -5
Chapter 13 And meanwhile in the Realm of the Dead...
Story here.
Chapter 14 And the cursed are hunted
Story Here.
Chapter 15 And she rebels
Story here.
Chapter 16 And another voice speaks
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 8, 2018 23:59:12 GMT -5
Chapter 17 And there is a new victim
Story here.
Chapter 18 And there are dreams and nightmares
Story Here.
Chapter 19 And the elder speaks
Story here.
Chapter 20 And they bury their dead
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:21:38 GMT -5
Chapter 21 And lies eclipse the truth
Story here.
Chapter 22 And he becomes her witness
Story here.
Chapter 23 And the innocent are born
Story here.
Chapter 24 And Snow falls early
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:28:18 GMT -5
Chapter 25 And Snow melts
Story here.
Chapter 26 And ice forms
Story here.
Chapter 27 And ice breaks
Story here.
Chapter 28 And they arrive at a crossroads
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:38:58 GMT -5
Chapter 29 And the innocent are taken
Story here.
Chapter 30 And there is a bond of pain
Story here.
Chapter 31 And there is a revelation in the bloodshed
Story here.
Chapter 32 And bargains are made
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:46:03 GMT -5
Chapter 33 And the silver-eyed devil speaks
Story here.
Chapter 34 And a mother gives her final lesson
Story here.
Chapter 35 And revenge darkens the soul
Story here.
Chapter 36 And she accepts the monster
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:49:16 GMT -5
Chapter 37 And the truth is pain
Shadowface
Immediately, I am overcome by stringing, hot sand grains. They whip around me at a furious, angry pace, the individual particles embedding into every orifice they can find. I lift up my paw and cover my nose, my eye narrowing to a fine slit, trying to distinguish any landmarks ahead of me.
So this is the true Realm of the Dead, I think to myself, my heart thrumming inside my chest. This is where all cursed go after they die.
I wince, realizing that the bottom of my pads are painfully tender from standing on the sand. It’s so hot that I can already feel where blisters will form.
The realm that my ancestors are in now is much better than this, I observe. It must have been created out of mercy…but who did it, and how were they able to make a whole separate realm?
The sandstorm around me is not letting up, so I continue to slowly walk forwards, keeping my head low and my nose at an angle so that I can breathe through it without choking on sand. The wind is so strong that my body sways back and forth, my paws sliding on the sand. I have to dig my claws in and use every mouse-length of muscle in my legs to keep myself upright.
I begin to feel the ground slope upwards, announcing the presence of a hill. Hope fills me and I move my legs faster, nearly losing my grip and falling over as I crest the top of the hill.
But then, as if that hope is nothing more than a delicate wing of a dove, a sharp, dull pain arcs across my jaw and into my ear, causing me to wince and drop my head in between my paws. I know where the pain comes from, for it is not my own. My friend, my guardian as he is titled, is risking his life as I wander aimlessly in this retched sandstorm.
Come on. Focus, focus, focus! I need to find Lionshadow. I need to find his spirit.
As if in answer, the sandstorm lessens if only for a few heartbeats, revealing the landscape before me.
I take a steady breath in and raise my aching head, my mind reeling as certain landmarks become familiar. The hill slopes down into a giant stretch of bleached, white ground. Smaller hills dot the distance where they grow taller and taller until they hit the familiar silhouette of the Great Mountain. Except, this Great Mountain is much smaller and in a late stage of erosion. There are no pines or boulders or ferns. There is only rocky, dry layers and sand and dust.
The giant white plain appears to be evaporites where water used to be.
Or maybe where the start of the tundra used to be.
Just before the sandstorm closes around me again, I spot one lone feline figure trekking across the evaporites, its pale fur reflecting the bright sun above our heads.
“Wait!” I cry out, cursing myself as the sand obscures my vision once more. I pick up the pace, pretty much throwing myself down the other side of the hill, sliding down the slope until I reach the base and take my first step onto the evaporites.
They are white and globular with fat crystals growing all around. They cut painfully into my pads, causing the fresh wounds to sting.
This is all salt, I realize, pulling back my paw to inspect it. Any wounds I get are going to hurt even worse.
Ignoring the new pain and the dull aching pain in my jaw, I run across the flat terrain toward where the lone figure had been, leaving a small blood trail behind me.
“Wait! Please, I need help!” I call out again, peering through the turbulent sand, trying to distinguish cat from storm.
“Shadowpaw?”
I whip around, trying to peer through the sand. But it is not until the cat who had spoken places their paw on my shoulder that the storm clears up a little around us, like a curtain being pulled back.
And behind the curtain of sand, is Spottedmoon.
. . . Eaglefrost
Lionshadow’s first blow rattles every bone in my body.
Immediately, my body wants to curl in on itself. It wants to hide, to make itself smaller.
But I can’t let it.
My claws rake against the stone beneath me as I slide from the impact, trying my best to keep on my paws. Already I can taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.
Just as I raise my head Lionshadow strikes again, reaching around with his left paw and landing a similar blow on my shoulder.
I grit my teeth, rolling to absorb the blow while barely managing to stay on the rock, my hind leg wheeling in empty air.
I get my balance, only to once again look up to see Lionshadow upon me. He doesn’t grin or smile or even look satisfied as blood drips down my chin; the physical evidence of his overwhelming strength. Instead his eyes are cold and serious, his mouth set into a grim line.
I manage to get my hind legs beneath me, lifting my front legs to meet his next attack, but he sees right through it all. He ducks, his head and shoulders ramming into my exposed stomach.
My body flies off the boulder like a dead mouse, my limbs waving wildly around me as I tumble hard into the forest floor. A cloud of pine needles disperses up around me, stinging my eyes and getting into my mouth as I groan from the sharp pain now radiating out from my ribs.
Lionshadow rolls his neck and shoulders from atop the boulder, the right corner of his lip lifting over his teeth. “Useless, just as you were in your past lives,” he growls, his voice dangerously low and brutal.
I spit blood and needles onto the ground, pushing away the agony of each breath I pull into my lungs, and slowly stand.
Lionshadow’s lip lowers, and his jaw goes a bit slack as he watches me get back onto my paws. “Stay down, Eaglefrost. Just let it happen. Shadowface has been craving her death just as much as I.”
I ignore him, feeling a strange prickling sensation-like tiny grains-brushing against my pelt. “Stormkit, Ospreypaw, Mintfeather, Sweetlilly, Rushstorm, Cloudspots, Nighthawk, Maskstar, Hawkshade, Sunblaze, Fallenwing, Darkestday, Greytail,” I mutter under my breath, starting my walk back to the boulder and to Shadowface’s still form. . . . Shadowface
Her expression is one of shock and speculation, her silvery moonstone eyes just the same as I remembered them, and exactly the same shade as Snows’.
“Spottedmoon?” I hiss, my own disbelief at the coincidence of seeing her here shouting through my voice. Spottedmoon lets go of my shoulder and steps back, confusion and then recognition rolling over her.
“Huh, I see. Time has passed quite a bit since I was killed,” she says, observing my taller stature, muscles and scars. “What is the warrior name you bear?”
Despite the old, itching feeling to dig my claws into her pretty pelt, I cannot find it in me to be aggressive. “Shadowface,” I reply, having to keep the volume of my voice high because of the roar of the storm around us.
To my surprise, she smiles slightly, a little curve in the corner of her mouth. “Very fitting. I’m glad it wasn’t switched to Shadoweye now that you’ve lost one…I had heard that you ran into some trouble.”
I frown. “From who?”
“Hadiya, the Guardian of Crossroads…or the Keeper of the Between World, or whatever other titles she goes by,” she replies, sounding slightly annoyed, her fur flapping to one side as the wind changes direction. “I remember she visited you not too long ago.”
Shock fills me. It sounds like she personally knows her; spent time with her. “Did she visit you too?” I ask.
Spottedmoon shakes her head, amusement glinting roughly in her irises. “Not quite…but that is a story for another time,” she says, taking a step closer and letting her expression fall to a more mask like state. “I need ask you something, Shadowface.”
“Sure?” I say hesitantly, conscious of the time that was passing as we were standing here.
Spottedmoon breathes in, and then says, “Is Snow…is my daughter…?”
Time stops.
So she’s been told. Probably by Hadiya, I realize.
Spottedmoon swallows, unable to finish her question, though it is not needed. She does not show grief or fear or even anger at what she thinks her daughter has been up to.
Do I tell her the truth?
“I…,” I pause, finding that, strangely, despite all my hate and all my rage toward what Spottedmoon has done in the past, I feel guilty. Guilty for how this will affect Spottedmoon.
Though, admittedly, I do not feel guilty for the action itself.
“Please,” she says, her voice becoming a rasp, though her expression of emotionless glass does not change. “From one mother to another.”
Has she been asking about me? To know of the birth of my kits, and the events that have left these scars…she must have asked. But why? Does she feel guilty as I do now?
I don’t shy away or shut my eye. Instead I stare into her moonstone eyes and say, “I killed her.”
A stillness seems to sway over Spottedmoon, her expression still remaining passive and calm, but it is her eyes…the eyes of a cursed mother learning about her kit’s death that has my heart ripping itself apart all over again.
I have to say something. “I’m-”
“Thank you,” she whispers.
My eye widens, watching as that expression on her face becomes one of relief.
“I couldn’t stand it,” she says, her eyes not wavering as she speaks. “I couldn’t stand knowing that I had created such a monster.” She turns to look around us then, at the sand and at the air and at the barely seeable sky. “This is a fitting punishment.”
Before I can reply, a searing pain flares up in my ribs, steeling my breath. I clamp down hard on my tongue, holding back a cry of pain. This moment is too important, too vital, for me to interrupt it with what is happening in the Realm of the Living. It is nearly impossible to school my features from one of pure panic and terror, to a one of contemplation and thoughtfulness.
Eaglefrost, I try to shout through our bizarre bond. Hold on!
“It’s not your fault,” I say, hating that my voice wavers and my breath catches awkwardly. “You can raise them, protect them. But, in the end, they choose their own path.”
I see the tears then wanting to spring forth in her eyes, but Spottedmoon doesn’t let them. “You sound like a marvelous mother,” she comments and then pauses again, looking a bit uncertain now. “I’m sorry, about Ospreypaw. I never got to properly apologize when I was alive.”
The pain in my ribs flares up again, and I can taste blood in my mouth, even though I know that there is none there for me to see. “A life for a life,” I say stiffly, burying my claws into the sand.
Spottedmoon eyes my claws, and then my face, and then says, “A life for a life.”
. . . Eaglefrost
Every move I try, every evasion I think I can pull off…every practiced step is thwarted underneath Lionshadow’s piercing evergreen eyes.
Counter, hit, move. Counter, hit, move. His pattern is sure and predictable, but he is too fast, and I can’t land a single blow against his relentless attack.
“Do you ever get tired of failure?” Lionshadow hisses, walking toward me as I struggle to stand once more, my back to the giant boulder.
I spit out a wad of blood, grimacing as my lungs protest. “I can do this all day,” I growl back, readying myself for the next blow.
. . . Shadowface
“You needed help?” Spottedmoon asks after a few moments of tense silence.
I dust some sand from my nose and ears and reply. “Yes, but I couldn’t possibly ask it of you.”
She waves me off, her posture a mirror to what Snow’s was. “Nonsense. I’m dead now, so none of that matters anymore. Just tell me what you need.”
I can’t believe this is happening. Is Spottedmoon actually going to help me?
“Alright,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “I’m looking for a certain tom.”
. . . Eaglefrost
It hurts so much. Every movement aches. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.
Lionshadow now stands opposite of me on the boulder where I brace myself shakily over Shadowface’s still body. The heat that she emits is more than a normal feline, and it feels good against my battered bones. Like rays of sunshine after a cold night. The only thing that breaks the spell is the slow pat pat of my blood dripping onto her back.
“What is she to you, Eaglefrost?” Lionshadow asks, carefully walking around the rim of the boulder. “Why do you go so far out of your way to protect her?”
“I could…ask you…the same thing,” I grunt out, gritting my teeth as my muscles bark in protest. “Why…do you…go so far?”
“Because,” Lionshadow says, his evergreen irises sliding over Shadowface’s pelt. “She was taken from me.”
“She?” I croak, shifting in place, trying to keep myself on my paws.
“Her name, and that pelt, do not belong to her alone,” he hisses, his claws scraping against the stone. “They taunt me with the things I have lost.”
“There’s…got to be more than that,” I say, my mind racing in order to find the right words to distract him. Keeping him talking gives me a chance to recuperate.
Lionshadow stops pacing, now only a small leap’s distance from me and from Shadowface. “Only a fool in love would go this far,” he says, ignoring my question.
I don’t move my eyes away from his. I refuse to look down. “I am…a fool. But, I think the ‘love’ part is…up for…debate,” I reply, tasting blood as I speak. “She can be…a bit…of a pain.”
“Then it makes sense, does it not?” Lionshadow asks, a dark shadow falling over his expression. “About why you have always failed to save her, over and over and over again.”
Fear rips through my gut, but it does not spur me to move; not fast enough as he darts not for me this time, but for Shadowface.
I cannot move fast enough to save her. That had always been true, even in my past lives. I do not remember them as well as I had before Shadowface saved me from the fall at the northern border, but I remember enough.
She had always been running ahead, and I had always followed. Always. Through so many lives.
I had kept her in my sights as one would a troublesome kit, always worrying about her next move. Always worrying about who would come after her next…when he would come back for her.
I knew I had to watch her die. Every. Single. Time.
But not this time. Things are different now. I am different.
We are different. . . . Shadowface
After giving Spottedmoon the short version of my predicament, she leads me confidently over the evaporites, heading toward the former shell of the Great Mountain. According to her, Lionshadow’s spirit has been taking shelter inside of a nearby cave.
Along the way, she explains to me how she got here, and why she was placed here when, technically, she was just a ‘replacement’ curse and not a true one. I too, am shook by her story, just as she seems to be of mine. Her knowledge of the seven realms is intriguing also, especially when I finally learn the name of the seventh realm.
“The Realm of Flames,” she says, having to shout over the wind. “It is a volatile and dangerous place for normal cats, but from what I managed to learn from Hadiya, it is supposed to be the ‘Realm of the Stars’ for cursed.”
“‘Supposed’ to be? Why isn’t it?”
“The Tribe placed a terrible hex on it during the Blood Wars,” she explains. “It’s very strong, and it prevents souls from entering. I myself opened the doors to it once…it nearly shredded me.”
Awe and curiosity propels me closer to her, practically shouting in her ear. “Was the hex made by a cursed?”
“You mean like how you are? I don’t know. Possibly. But it is so strong…I can’t imagine a single cursed cat doing it,” she replies, her eyes roaming over my scars.
A group of them maybe? But why?
I scramble over a few boulders, bounding easily over the smaller ones as I move past her, her gaze becoming a bit too observant for my tastes.
“The cave is just up ahead,” she shouts, pointing with her tail to the ridge above us. “It’s up against the sheer wall of the mountain side. He should be in there.”
I climb up the ridge, the pace terribly slow given the sand and the wind and the heat. My paw pads feel raw and I notice that my blood trail is still going.
“Don’t worry about that,” Spottedmoon says, noting the blood. “No one will follow you here.”
She then leaps up beside me, landing gracefully. She nods to the wall that now stretches over our heads, the sand clearing a bit more around us. Thankfully the mountain provides good shelter from the stinging grains.
“I will wait out here,” Spottedmoon says as I approach the sandy cave that punches an oval hole into the rock. “Someone needs to make sure you find your way back again.”
I turn to her, my one good eye stinging from the sand. “Why are you doing this, Spottedmoon?” I ask. “Why help the cat who killed your daughter?”
She sniffs, her spotted tail waving wildly next to her. “I could ask you the same thing, but you already know the answer.”
Her silver eyes seem to challenge me, so I don’t back down. “I don’t, actually. Ospreypaw was my sister who died in battle, but Snow-”
“I don’t want to be responsible for creating another monster,” Spottedmoon growls, her glare sharper and more painful than the sand grains grinding against my flesh. “The Valley doesn’t need another Snow.”
“And you think I will become one?” I ask accusingly.
Spottedmoon’s glare softens, but it is only to calculated thoughtfulness rather than gentleness. “Maybe. It’s a new belief of mine…or maybe an old one, but I think that whenever you take someone’s life, a piece of their soul becomes yours. Their thoughts, feelings, dreams and aspirations; their very will molds secretively with yours,” she says, her voice a bit quieter now. “I wonder what piece of my daughter has become yours?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
She smirks, gesturing towards the cave. “Get going now. I have all the time in the world, being dead and all, but I believe you are on a time limit.”
I almost crack a smile, but instead I nod and turn to walk into the shady darkness of the cave. . . .
Lionshadow It was just yesterday, it had seemed, when those tiny grains of sand shifted beneath someone else’s paw steps.
Back then, the steps had been light and hesitant.
But these…these were heavy, and angry.
The cat’s claws scratched a bit on the stone floor, the whisper of its tail sliding against the sand grains producing a faint hiss. But it wasn’t until I saw the green glow on the walls surrounding me that I finally turned to meet my visitor.
. . . He isn’t what I had been expecting.
He isn’t even sitting, or brooding for that matter. He is standing, facing the entryway to the shallow cave. The shadows still play along his dark coat like old friends, highlighting sharp features and darkening broad ones. Still, even here in this sand blasted cave, he manages to look ridiculously handsome.
Lionshadow, or his spirit, looks at me from the other end, his eyes widening slightly. Unlike the fiery evergreen of his soul’s eyes, his here are a dark blue.
There is no anger in them. There is no sadness or regret or even a spark of madness. His eyes are clear and wholesome; wide and taking in every small scar and bump on my coat.
And he manages, then, to give a slight ghost of a smile, not revealing any fangs or letting out one of his low growls. And he says, “It seems you have quite a story to tell.”
I say nothing. Too much is passing through my mind, too many emotions racing through my heart, to produce the words that will bring me to the goal I had set for this trip into the Realm of the Dead.
There is a small tug, a flutter of pain in a tether to the Realm of the Living, which briefly has me looking over my shoulder.
I have to make this quick. I need to get back to him. . . . Lionshadow
She turns away from my gaze, looking over her shoulder. I can sense that something else tugs her away from this place, an uneasiness that urges her to return to the world above. I cannot keep her here.
“I do adore a good story,” I say carefully, watching as one of her ears perks up at my voice. “But I’m sure it is not your story, but mine that you wish to hear.”
She returns that fiery evergreen eye to mine, her lips curling in an ever so slight distaste. Angry is an understatement for this she-cat. And it is an expression that pains me.
“Actually, I didn’t come here to hear a story,” she says, her voice surprisingly gruff and deep. “I came here to reunite you with your soul.”
“You must be related to Jadefox then,” I say, connecting the dots. “Are you her daughter?”
Her tail tip twitches, but she responds surprisingly quickly. “If you mean Jadestar’s daughter, no. She died hundreds of seasons ago. I am a living descendant.”
Hundreds…it has been that long already?
“Ah,” I say, my voice sounding too weak to my ears.
The she-cat frowns. “Do you even know who I am?”
I hesitate, my eyes roaming once again over that familiar coat, that same patch of black fur over the right side of her face, even the one gleaming green eye. I wish to know who she is, even though my heart is screaming out that she be someone else.
“No, I do not know you.” Shadowface
“That’s weird,” I hiss, barely containing the frustration and anger bleeding into my speech. “We have been acquainted quite well over these past few seasons. I dare say we’re even old friends.”
Lionshadow’s spirit looks at my missing eye, his expression still surprisingly calm. “You would call someone you want to kill an old friend?”
I frown, realizing just how much this conversation is being dragged out. I definitely want to question him more, but I don’t have time for that. “Come with me, and I will take you to your soul.”
I turn, expecting him to follow, but instead I hear the echo of his fur scraping against stone as he sits. I can feel the pressure of his blue eyes shifting over the dip in my spine.
“I have hurt you,” he says, his voice hollow with realization.
I stop, keeping my eyes on the exit, my claws scraping against the ground. “I said, come with me. Or else I will drag you out,” I growl.
“She would never say such things,” he continues, his voice cracking. “She was free-spirited and outspoken at times…but never rude. Never mean.”
It is then that I turn, my green eye meeting his blue eyes, which are now glistening with…grief.
“Forgive me,” he says, shaking his head as that ghost smile returns. “You look so much like my daughter…it pains me to see such rage on your face…and to see the marks I have put upon you.”
“I don’t care,” I growl. “I am beyond caring about who I look like to you.”
Lionshadow winced. Winced. “Fair enough,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I will come with you then.” . . .
Spottedmoon keeps a healthy distance away from Lionshadow as we trek back down the boulders and sandy slopes.
Lionshadow, on the other hand, keeps looking at her, especially at her face.
“If you keep staring at me like that, I will claw your eyes out,” she hisses, finally acknowledging his heavy gaze.
Lionshadow’s spirit drops his eyes to the sand at his paws. “Apologies. I just…what curse are you?” He asks, raising his head again to look almost eagerly into Spottedmoon’s eyes.
She slides her gaze to mine as we walk over the crest of a hill, giving me a look that says this is the cat you got to kill?
“I’ve been calling it the curse of will sense I can force others to do things that I want them to do, so long as I hit them with my flames,” she responds, returning her moonstone eyes to his, her ears lying flat against her skull against the wind. “But I am just a replacement for the curse of bravery that was lost hundreds of seasons ago.”
His eyes widen, taking a few sideways steps closer which only makes Spottedmoon’s ears tilt tighter against her head. “That is extraordinary! Do you have any living descendants that your gift can pass too?”
He calls curses gifts?
Spottedmoon’s silvery eyes widen and then move downwards quickly. “I-”
“Darkestday managed to take another mate before he died,” I say, not looking at her as I tell her of her father. “Hiddenheart is expecting any day now. You will have half-siblings soon.”
A few moments of silence, and then, “I am happy for him. And-and my gift would be amazing to see in one of them.”
I smile, keeping my eyes on the sandstorm around us.
Finally, we come across the door for the Realm of the Living, its stone surface carved by the same depiction of the two deities, earth and sky, battling each other for dominance. They circle around the center of the door, their beast forms showing rippling muscles and wicked claws.
I turn to Lionshadow, his blue eyes assessing the door like a tired elder.
“I guess it is time for us to part,” Spottedmoon says lightly, coming to stand at my shoulder, her eyes sweeping over the door wistfully. “I wish you luck on the task ahead.”
My gut wrenches, and I turn to look at her, all malice removing itself from my mind. “I can talk to Darkmoon. Maybe she can-”
“No,” Spottedmoon says softly, her eyes closing as a tear slips down her left cheek. “I cannot ask a mother to forgive, and I cannot turn away from this punishment that I have brought upon myself.”
“But, you-”
“Worry about yourself, Shadowface,” she says, her eyes opening to reveal crystal clear silver and ice and stone. She smiles bitterly, nodding to the door. “Worry about the life you still have. I did not worry enough.”
I sigh, but dip my head in consent. I then turn to look behind me at Lionshadow who has politely turned away while we were talking.
“Once we get to the other side, you will return to your soul,” I shout over the wind to him. “I know that you won’t be…you anymore, so I don’t expect you to help me once you are gone.”
Lionshadow turns and lowers himself to the ground, lowering his head till his nose brushes the sand drifting around his legs. “I swore to Jadefox that I would remain in that cave for future generations if she did not succeed. I swore that I would share every secret that was asked of me, and that I would do everything in my power to end this cycle of pain.”
Spottedmoon and I keep our eyes glued to him as he slowly rises, determination and resolve set into the profile of his face and with the way his shoulders stiffen beneath his pelt.
“Shadowface…I give you my permission to kill me.” . . .
Eaglefrost! I’m here…please be OK.
But as I open my eye, it is not a pine forest I see before me, nor my triumphant friend waiting for me.
It is the soft, black pads of Lionshadow’s paw, along with his long claws stretching out over them, which are ready to rip into the flesh of my face and throat.
I do two things at once.
Firstly, I force myself to move to my left side, my eyes tracking the path of his claws as they begin to dig into the right side of my face, the side of my face that has already been injured and can be injured again without great cost.
And then, secondly, without my consent, my soul rips itself from my flesh, firing at full strength into a giant cloud of heat around me, like a shield of green flame.
A loud whoosh echoes in my ears as I am thrown onto hard stone, wincing as fresh blood rolls down the right side of my face. I open my left eye to watch as my soul-my curse power-turns the first line of pines around me into fodder for the flames.
The clearing, now burning with green light, highlights everything into intimidating detail as I quickly stand and turn to face Lionshadow.
And Eaglefrost.
“What…what have you done?” I scream.
Eaglefrost stands trembling where I had just been, bright red blood dripping down the front of his dusty brown spotted chest. His breaths heave through him, but rattle as they come out of his mouth. A mouth with blood steadily flowing out of it.
Red bubbles foam around his lips as he speaks. “I moved fast enough,” he rasps.
And then, with a gentle smile shot in my direction, he collapses.
“Eaglefrost!” I scream again, rushing for his fallen form.
I barely register a screaming Lionshadow, his form twisting and writhing upon the stone as I slide my forelegs under Eaglefrost’s head and back, propping him up so that I can try and find the source of the bleeding.
“Hey, hey it’s me,” I say softly to him, moving his head this way and that. I part his fur where any blood is, along his chest and legs and back and shoulders and head and-
And his neck. Which has been torn into with Lionshadow’s last attack.
“You-you dare push me out of the way?” I yell, pushing my paws into the wound, but it is too long. It stretches from the bottom of his cheekbone and then wraps around the side of his neck, a mirror to the angle of the one I wear now on the right side of my face. A perfect continuation.
He barely registers me. His eyes flutter, but they do not open fully.
“Hold on, I’m going to go find ragweed or pine root or whatever it is that Mintfeather told me to use on wounds. Just-just-!”
A paw, a heavy one, falls onto the lower part of my neck where it meets my shoulders. It then slides upwards, pulling my face down.
It is him. It is Eaglefrost.
He opens his eyes, beautiful icy blue. Not like the sky or like secret waterfalls. But like a glacier. Strong, stubborn, but moving. Always moving.
“No,” he says, his smile gone. Only those eyes melting into my own. “Hold…hold me, my friend.”
I shake and shake and shake. My limbs don’t feel like my own anymore. All I can see is the blood, his and mine, mingling together on the stone.
My breath hitches, but I lean the rest of the way down, and prop his head up with my left foreleg. I move his head under my own, resting my chin over his ears. I move my right foreleg over his neck, and hold him.
“Darkmoon will bring you back,” I say to him, my throat tightening with every word. “Wait for me, Eaglefrost. I will drag your soul back to this realm with my teeth if I have to.”
I hear a breathy chuckle. “I’m counting…on you…Shadowface.”
And then he went limp.
I feel my whole body be thrown over a cliff and down, down, down into cold bitter waters. I feel every nerve in my body light itself on fire, drench itself in ice, and then do it again. I feel my heart race faster than it should, sputtering ahead like some hasty kit wanting to learn how to hunt for the first time.
My breath comes faster and faster, until it echoes in my ears. I want to scream, or rip all my fur out, or better; I want everything to stop.
Lionshadow still screams and struggles on the boulder a few tail-lengths across from me, most likely from whatever pain he is experiencing as his soul and spirit merge. So I stand, as I suspect one should, and walk over to him.
It takes me a few tries, but I finally pin Lionshadow in place beneath me, holding him still as he continues to cry and scream in agony.
“How does it feel?” I hiss, sinking my claws deep into the places that I hold him, now channeling my own power of pain through him. “How does it feel to experience all that pain, all at once?”
He screams louder, his neck stretching away from my voice.
I sink my claws in deeper.
“I see why you would enjoy this,” I tell him, carving my own scars upon his helpless flesh. “It feels liberating to make you suffer for taking his life, among many others.”
Tears streak down his face, and I drink them in like a starving newborn kit would milk from its mother.
“I will kill you now, Lionshadow,” I growl, closing the claws of my right paw around his throat. “But I think I will let it happen slowly. I’ll start here, with the veins at your throat. I want to watch you bleed out. I might even string you up on one of these pines and tear open your gut so that I can see your insides. I always wondered what a monster would look like without its skin.”
But when I try to slit his throat, his body turns to ash.
I fall backwards in shock, watching as the screaming, crying Lionshadow falls apart into nothingness.
I look around, as the trees, the grass, the rocks and the wind itself become ash and drift away.
Until there is only blackness.
“Shadowkit! Wait up!”
I spin around, barely dodging as a kit version of me runs past. The kit’s eyes though are a deep blue instead of amber, and they sparkle with excitement as she runs toward a small pin point of light and vanishes.
“Daddy!” The kit cries as it reaches whatever is on the other side.
And then a slightly larger figure, a young Eaglefrost, rushes by, his eyes taking on the fiery amber that I had once worn before I had been cursed.
“I have always followed you,” a deep voice then says behind me.
I turn, only to have my breathing stop.
It is Eaglefrost, standing solidly with the glow of the white light turning his spotted pelt silver. He smiles not at me, but at the pin point of light, his blue eyes gentle and full of grief.
“Eaglefrost? Are-are you-”
“I don’t remember this,” he says to himself, slowly walking towards the light. “I wonder what it might be?”
He can’t see me. What is this?
Carefully, I follow him too, and let the light swallow me. . . .
“Daddy!”
Lionshadow smiles brightly as Shadowkit runs up to him. He lets her pounce on him, and he rolls back in mock terror, rolling away and letting her chase him around the populated field of red roses.
“She is full of energy today,” Eaglepaw tells Lionshadow, sitting on the edge of the field watching them.
“I can see that!” Lionshadow calls back, laughing at the determined expression on his daughters face as she leaps upwards and grabs onto the back of his head. “I’m sorry you had to bring her here. Shadowhunter has been too busy with deputy duties to spend time with her.”
Eaglepaw shrugs, that smile never leaving his face. “It’s easier now that I am her Guardian. I can feel when she is getting restless or lonely or angry or…it’s a lot coming between us.”
Lionshadow pauses in his play, carefully placing Shadowkit on her paws before he closes the distance between him and Eaglepaw.
“It was a very kind thing for you to do, especially so early. It gave Shadowhunter and I much relief to know that you will be watching over her as well,” he says to him.
Eaglepaw dips his head, his expression only one of gratitude. “I wanted to do it. Ever since I found out that I was a Guardian, I knew that I wanted to be bonded with one of Shadowhunter’s future kits. She is my mentor, but she also took me in when the rogues killed my parents. She raised me. As did you in your own way.”
Lionshadow grins, tapping the young apprentices shoulder with his tail. “More like I got you into trouble with Shadowhunter,” he teases. “I always felt bad for how hard she pushed you in training, so I thought taking you out to relax and get some fresh prey in you would be beneficial.”
Eaglepaw grins back. “It’s been fun. Especially the hunts. We will still be able to hang out right?”
Shadowkit rolls into Eaglepaw, her legs wrapping themselves around his foreleg. “I want to come hunting too!” She declares, lifting her green and yellow eyes up to them.
Lionshadow laughs. “Not yet, you little fire ball. When you are older, I promise.” . . .
“Lionshadow, you’re back from hunting so soon. I thought you would be gone till moon rise.”
Lionshadow freezes in place, his right paw slightly risen off the ground of the nursery as he takes in what is before him.
“I decided to take action, my precious one. You and I both know that hybrids are too dangerous to live.”
Lionshadow raises his eyes to the eyes of warm yellow sunshine.
“Will…will you say something, Lionshadow? This wasn’t an easy choice, but it had to be done.”
Shadowhunter stands over Shadowkit, his daughter’s body lying awkwardly upon the ground, as if she had just been dropped. Around her sprang up a crown of blood, spilling from a claw wound which ran down the right side of her face and onto her neck.
She wasn’t moving.
“You…you have…”
“I had to, Lionshadow,” Shadowhunter says again, her beautiful snowy coat now not seeming so white anymore.
“You killed our daughter,” he whispers.
“Yes,” she says, looking down at the body of Shadowkit without blinking an eye. . . .
Lionshadow ran with Eclipsekit dangling from his mouth. She had not yet awoken a curse, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. Not when the kit’s mother was a murderer.
He had no idea what to do. Where to go. Where to take her.
He just knew he had to save her. Save her from Shadowhunter. . . .
“I am expecting Foxstar’s kits any day now.”
Lionshadow sat, his heart and ears numb to those words. He put a kind smile on his face, a show for the rest of the cats gathered around them.
“Oh that’s terrific! Lionshadow must be so happy for you both!”
“Yes, he is. It was such a traumatizing experience to lose our first litter to invading rogues, and it was understandable that he didn’t want to try again. He’s been very supportive, and he and Foxstar are great friends!”
Lionshadow’s friend, and leader, who he could not tell was having kits with a kit murderer. For she was the deputy, the future leader of MountainClan. Who would believe Lionshadow over Shadowhunter? Who would believe that she had taken Shadowkit’s life?
How would he prove it?
How would he take vengeance for her death? . . .
She is gone. His daughter’s throat slit open by her mother’s merciless claws.
Shadowhunter had to die.
Whether she killed Shadowkit because of some twisted belief, or because Shadowhunter was punishing him for giving her a hybrid kit…she would die. She, and all her precious kits, would suffer for that choice. Blood flows like water over the hungry stones of a rushing river, swirling in cadence with the pregnant waters. It fills the shore, expanding like a bed of roses in a garden of kings.
The valley, in the dead of winter, sits in solemn despair as the tormented screeches of Shadowhunter ring out, like the fevered pitch of a blazing fire before a field of wheat, destroying every blade and every small creature in its path.
It is the sound of agony.
"Do you see it now, my precious one? Can you see the darkness calling to you?"
Another screech answers Lionshadow’s questions, cut off by the sound of gurgling as Shadowhunter is dipped into the river, more blood fleeing into the now tainted pureness of the water.
Once Shadowhunter is freed, she is thrown back onto the pebbled shore, landing with a wet, lifeless flop. Blood flows from her closed eyes like bloody tears, her soaking pelt hugging her round belly that protects three tiny precious lives; lives that will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as she.
"P-please...understand that I never meant to hurt you...," Shadowhunter feebly pleads, clear liquid running out the side of her jaw and trickling down onto her chest fur.
Lionshadow approaches slowly, like a triumphant avenger and brutal executioner. "Of course you meant to hurt me! Why would you have done it otherwise if not to punish me?" He growls, raising one of his paws and striking down on the right side of her face, slicing deep into the fur and sinew there.
Shadowhunter cries out, her eye lids opening wide with shock and pain; deep, black, blood stained holes occupying where her eyes had once been.
Lionshadow laughs with joy as he pushes Shadowhunter to her paws, thrusting so that her back is against a large grey boulder, the right side of her face now unrecognizable.
"Look at how pathetic you are...too weak to fight back...too defeated to stop begging for mercy...in one single day I have managed to make the most feared and respected warrior queen of the Valley beg for her life like a helpless kit! Where is your courage now, leader of MountainClan?" He taunts the queen with vicious malice, his pupils wide and expectant.
Shadowhunter hisses, hunching over her unborn kits, her fur sticking up in matted clumps. "You may have taken my sight, you may have wounded my body, but you will never taint my soul!" She snarls roughly, her throat sore from screaming.
A victorious glint warms the tom’s gaze, relief dancing across his lips, his ears standing to attention at the prospect of meeting his goal. "Well...we will see about that, now won't we?" He purrs mockingly.
He then slinks away, his paws moving silently over the stony beach that now resembles a colorful painting of mud, snow, and blood. He stops at the edge of the river where two large rocks forms a tight crevice between them. He looks back over his shoulder, his bright green eyes glittering with hate. "I know your weakness. I know exactly how to break your spirit," he growls.
The desperate, green-eyed tom then reaches inside the crack to take out the battered body of a broad shouldered tom with unmistakable lynx-like ear tufts.
Shadowhunter remains silent as Lionshadow manages to haul the large muscular tom up from out of the dark crevice by the scruff of his neck and into the snowy glow of the daylight, a deep groan eliciting from him as he is dragged across the pebbled shore to be laid down only a few tail-lengths away from Shadowhunter’s still form.
At first Shadowhunter is confused as the scent of the nearly unconscious tom becomes tangible on her tongue, but then that confusion is wiped clean from her face as recognition suddenly breaks like a sunrise within the planes of her scarred face. Horror, guilt, astonishment, and pain flicker across her features in a violent torrent of emotion.
“No…no, this-this isn’t real! He is dead! I saw him die!” She cries.
The cat that lay in front of the blinded queen was not just any tom, he was Eaglepaw.
He was the tom that would break Shadowhunter’s curse. The curse her mother had given a warning about before Shadowhunter had become pregnant with her first litter. A curse that involved her daughter with the half-masked face.
That was why she had Eaglepaw become a guardian to Shadowkit. But now that kit is dead.
And she had thought that Eaglepaw had been one of Lionshadow’s victims. She had seen it happen only a few hours earlier when she had left to find Foxstar, only to see him with his throat slit in the apprentice training grounds. There, Lionshadow had demonstrated his resolve by slicing through Eaglepaw’s throat as well.
Clearly it had all been a trick to lure her here.
Yet, knowing Lionshadow’s stubborn ways, she knew her one hope for survival is about to be lost forever. For good this time.
Death knocks upon the doors to her soul, and she can feel it slowly rot away as Lionshadow slinks forward like a tiger, her one and only chance of life lying helplessly beneath his fangs…
She cannot let this happen.
“My ancestors, I call upon you in my time of need.”
A shockwave of yellow fire bellows out of her skin, knocking Lionshadow away and causing him to splash down into the shallow part of the river.
Shadowhunter forces herself to her paws, wobbling forward past Eaglepaw where he lay unconscious on the beach. She needed to finish this before he woke up.
She straddles Lionshadow in the river, her yellow flames surrounding them. Her heart breaks to see Lionshadow so completely lost in his grief and rage. She had hopes that he might understand one day why she did it.
“With the power granted to me by the old Guardians of the Realm of Flames, and one of the keepers of the curse of pain, I now speak the words to strip this tom of his power.”
Lionshadow struggles weakly beneath her, tears streaming down his face. He had felt love for her. But now, it is only dismay, disgust and disappointment.
“I will protect my kits, Lionshadow, my precious one,” she coos to him. “But I will still obey the Covenant laid down by the Cursed of the past. Shadowkit was an abomination. But these kits will only have my curse, and enough of yours to protect them from you ever harming them.”
“S-stop!” He snarls, his claws tearing at her shoulders. “You hypocrite! You murderer!”
She closes her eyes, searching for the words.
And then, after many tense moments of silence, she lays her right paw over Lionshadow’s eyes, and speaks.
“Deep as the winter’s glade, clear as the spring’s spades.
Out of darkness comes light, only to be purged by blood’s might.
Beware the sharp-clawed foe who wears the mask of love, for on the day that life gives, life shall be taken away…
Only to leave a green-eyed soul in its wake.”
Lionshadow screams as ribbons of green fire come pouring out of his eyes. The flames swirl and dance around him before careening into Shadowhunter’s head and eyes, causing her to scream as well. The pain is worse than giving birth. Worse than killing her kit. Worse than death itself.
And she realizes, that as his power keeps coming and coming and coming…that she had made a mistake.
Shadowhunter finally sways and falls to her side, the water of the river splashing against her steaming body. Beside her, Lionshadow gasps like a fish on land, his eyes no longer green, but blue.
He is no longer cursed.
Those eyes close, and his chest falls. He dies alone as she watches out of reach, lying on her side in the cold water.
And as the last wisp of steam fades into the air from both his body and hers, she goes into labor.
The labor is quick and fast, fast enough that even Eaglepaw does not wake to see it or Lionshadow’s cooling body.
She gives birth to two toms, and a colorful she-cat alongside the bloody river.
And the she-cat, whose blue eyes are wide open, shimmer with an evergreen hue.
Chapter 38 And bonds are strengthened
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 0:55:43 GMT -5
[ picture here ] Chapter 39 And they are given a choice
I’m shaking from shock. That much I can sense. That much I will let myself sense.
This is the way to push through tremendous pain: don’t focus on the details. Take in facts. Take in information. Do not pinpoint locations or assess when extreme trauma finds you. Let it wash over you. Wait for a break in your mental space. That is what I was taught.
But damn it all to the stars. I want to scream. I want to snarl. I want to strip away my own fur, tear away my own flesh; break my own bones if I can have some semblance of control over the waves of agony crashing against my body.
To think, after these many moons wandering this world with one eye on the flames within my soul, and the other on my heart to make sure my loneliness didn’t rot it away…I would still be idiotic enough to wish this pain upon myself, rather than watch the ones who showed me love suffer.
“You understand why I must do this. You are a formidable warrior, and your power over death will disrupt my plans.”
I grit my teeth, raising my eyes to the dark blurry shape looming over me. As my gaze shifts I can feel thousands of tiny claws ripple across my skull and through the muscles of my neck and shoulders. I moan loudly, my vision now swimming with fresh tears to further darken the fur below my eyes.
“I am sorry for the pain you are experiencing. I know what it feels like.”
How? How can you know this feeling and not be broken by it?
It feels like…
“Death, is far kinder of a curse, than pain.” I feel a feather light touch skim across my spine, sending up millions of burning flares where it passes over my fur. “You are not dying, Darkmoon. But your former apprentice will be very soon.”
More tears fall. I force my eyes to close and focus on that place deep inside, a place of strength and resolve. A grim place of acceptance.
Each breath I pull in feels like swallowing thorns, but I do it anyways, and speak.
“You…will…burn…”
A weight seems to lift from my veins, and my vision becomes clearer for a few moments. A few moments where the wrathful expression on Lionshadow’s severe face comes into focus.
He digs the claws of his right paw into the top of my head, sending evergreen fire skittering over my face.
I scream loudly, the sound echoing around us. Blood drips over my nose, feeling more like a river of ice on my skin than a stream of tepid liquid.
“That was the first time you screamed, battle mistress. I think I’ve finally found how to make you burn.”
. . .
Shadowface
Present Day
“Wolfheart! Cloudspots? Is anyone here?”
The makeshift realm where the souls of my ancestors reside…its dreary appearance makes it feel like I am shouting into a lifeless void. The true Realm of the Dead, with its vast hills and hissing sands, at least felt dynamic and not static.
“Hello?” My shouting voice echoes through the grey pines, bouncing off of dark grey boulders and weaving between bright grey grasses.
“Shadowface?” A voice shouts back through the ashen forest.
“Yes, it’s me! I’m here!”
The sounds of rocks clinking against each other and the vibrations of rapid paw-steps on the ground alerts me to someone running at me from my left side. I turn, letting loose a breath of relief as Wolfheart comes into view, her wolf-like appearance highlighted by the full silver moon over our heads.
She pauses on the edge of a boulder sticking out over the hill above me, her expression one of intense concern. “Is something wrong?” She calls down, her tail tip flicking anxiously.
I let out a weary sigh, shaking my head. “Not exactly. Where is Shadowhunter?”
Wolfheart narrows her evergreen eyes, the thick fur around her neck ruffling in an invisible breeze. “Your mother and I just brought her back…she told us more about the curse.”
“I will bet you a hundred pine cones that she didn’t tell you everything,” I say, jerking my chin at her. “Take me to her. And bring the others. They will want to see this.”
. . .
My ancestors all gather around the black, white and grey version of the Luminous Falls, their bodies and unearthly glowing eyes the only splashes of color among the scenery.
They part like the river I had once held back with my flames as I approach with Wolfheart in the lead, their gazes burning marks into my flesh. It is an odd feeling to feel such unease among your own blood, their very ghostly bodies providing an eerie intimidation that has followed me most of my life. But this time, knowing what I am about to tell them, their expectant expressions feel especially weighted.
Wolfheart stops at the edge of the pool that the falls spill into and motions with her tail for me to stand before them all. I do as she shows me, and I begin to scan the crowd of cursed she-cats, looking for Shadowhunter’s pale coat and cold eyes.
“Wait here. I’ll go fetch her,” Wolfheart murmurs in my ear, leaving my side and pushing her way through the gathered cats.
“Shadowface?” A familiar voice speaks up from the crowd. “What is this about?”
“Mother?” I breathe, finally spotting the familiar cat’s black and white spotted coat in the sea of pelts. Cloudspots pushes her way through the other she-cats, a few of them letting out hisses of annoyance.
Cloudspots squeezes through the front row, her face scrunching up as she gets whacked in the face by a fellow cat’s tail. “Yep, it’s me!”
I chuckle, taking the last few steps forward between us and burying my muzzle into her neck fur. “It’s good to see you.”
She purrs, her whiskers brushing against me as she smiles. “I’m glad it’s on better terms this time.”
I huff, pulling back to look into her gentle features. “Same here.”
A new voice interrupts my reunion. “What is this about wanting to see me?”
The she-cats all go still, their expressions visibly calming as Shadowhunter walks through them. A few bow their heads, while others brush their tails or muzzles against her sides in greeting. But surprisingly my mother’s gaze hardens with resolve at Shadowhunter’s appearance, and she takes a step closer to my side.
Trailing just behind Shadowhunter, Wolfheart watches me warily, her grey tail lashing back and forth as a spot is cleared for her and Shadowhunter in the front.
Well, no time to feel afraid anymore. No matter what they think, I will be content knowing that I have given them the truth.
“I wanted to speak with you,” I tell Shadowhunter, keeping my position on the sand. “In front of them.”
Shadowhunter’s ears twitch. “Well, I am here, and so is your family.” She sits, wrapping her pale tail neatly around her body. “I hope this time spent here is beneficial to you. I am afraid we have nothing left to offer you in terms of information. As you already know, our curse cannot be broken or cured.”
“I’m here to refute that fact,” I say, staying standing. “And many other facts that you have told us.”
Wolfheart’s pelt visibly lifts along her shoulders, her eyes digging into Shadowhunter’s back. Behind her, the others murmur, their gazes curious.
“Have you come across something important, Shadowface?” Shadowhunter asks, her tone calm and placating. “If it has to do with new knowledge about the curse then please reveal it to-”
“I’ve come to reveal you, Shadowhunter.”
Louder mutterings and even some hisses roll through the small gathering, and Shadowhunter’s only reaction to my statement is to look bored. “Reveal me? I assure you everything that I have on this curse has been shared, especially during these last few moons.”
I growl in frustration and turn my attention away from her, meeting the fiery gazes of generations of my family.
If she won’t be forthcoming then I’m not going to bother to interrogate her. This is about them having the opportunity to hear the truth.
“Shadowhunter, as I have come to learn and expect, will not admit to anything she doesn’t want to admit to,” I tell them, raising my voice so those in the shadows of the trees can hear me. “I understand that this is down to my word against hers, but I insist that you listen. If not for yourselves, than for my daughter, Maskkit, your descendant, who is next to shoulder this burden if you do not heed my words!”
At this the noise dies down, and expressions of sympathy, anger, and sorrow shine through them.
Good. Shadowhunter has not wrapped them up so tightly that I cannot reach them through our shared suffering.
I breathe in deeply through my nose. Then exhale. “I have brought Lionshadow’s spirit back from the Realm of the Dead. He can now be killed using the curses I bear.”
Gasps and cries of shock rumble up from the group, though a few look outright skeptical, and others appear empty of emotion as if they can’t register the hope I have given them.
“This is the Realm of the Dead,” an orange tabby she-cat shouts above the noise. “We would have seen him here if what you are saying is true!”
“That is a lie told to you by Shadowhunter.” I take a moment to glance at my mother, whose eyes do not look upon me, but rather stare daggers at Shadowhunter who watches silently from the head of the crowd. “The real Realm of the Dead is a desert wasteland, inhabited by other Cursed who have died before.”
“Wait…other Cursed? And a desert?” A scarred brown tabby she-cat says, her eyes widening. “We had a hole open up in this realm which seemed to lead to another filled with sand and…others like us.”
At this, doubt begins to surface on the expressions of the she-cats, their eyes moving between me and Shadowhunter.
Thank the realms for that encounter.
“I will admit to fabricating that lie,” Shadowhunter says, turning and facing her descendants. “I created this place in order to give you all a familiar home to reside in, secluded from the suffering the true Realm of the Dead gives. I thought it a mercy, but I understand if you all feel betrayed. I should have been truthful.”
Cloudspots growls at Shadowhunter, her pelt bristling. “Tell them the rest, Shadowhunter,” she says. “I know my daughter wouldn’t come here just to get you to admit that alone. There is more.”
Shadowhunter turns to face me, her eyes patiently questioning.
I growl, glaring into Shadowhunter’s eyes. “My mothers’ right. I didn’t come here just to reveal something so trivial.”
Shadowhunter’s calm demeanor begins to crack. A slight twitch of her lip. A noticeable ire sparking in her green eyes. A quick lash of her tail. “What else are you revealing?”
“The fact that you, Shadowhunter, not Lionshadow, are the one who placed this curse upon our family.”
Shocked yelling, petrified growls, and outraged cries erupt from my ancestors. Their reactions taste like blood on my tongue. I take a slight step back, feeling almost overwhelmed by their outpouring of emotion.
Now my mother turns to me, her eyes as round as the unwavering full moon above. “Shadowhunter did this?”
Wolfheart shakes her head, her claws ripping apart the grey pine needles beneath her. “Unbelievable.”
“Where is your proof for this, Shadowface?” The tabby from earlier speaks, taking a few steps in front of the crowd, anger flashing in her fiery eyes. “This is my grandmother you are talking about. The mother of Jadestar, my mother, who sacrificed her life so that I could have a chance. That my daughters and their daughters might have chances. Are you saying that all of that, all that we have fought for…is all a lie?”
Wolfheart stands and pads up to my right side, her stoic figure casting a long shadow before her. It is a show of support, but it is also to relay information. “That is Bramblecloud,” she murmurs in my ear. “Her father was Eaglecurse, if that means anything to you.”
My jaw goes slack, shock rolling through my gut.
Looking at Bramblecloud more closely, my whole body shudders at the similarities I see between her and Eaglecurse and Eaglefrost. She carries their overly large paws, broad shoulders, and lynx tufts. Yet her green eyes tie her fully to me. My family. My blood.
“Your father, Eaglecurse, helped me discover this information at great cost to his position in Starclan,” I tell her, noticing how now my voice wavers of all times. “He’s the one who lead me to the first seven of our kind where they told me the truth of our curse, of how we not only carry Lionshadow’s soul and power, but Shadowhunter’s as well.”
“Her power?” A petite white and cream she-cat spits, eyeing Shadowhunter with revulsion. “That’s what the yellow eyes mean, don’t they? The ones we have all heard about and seen in our nightmares. That comes from you?”
Shadowhunter growls, turning back to her descendants. “Shadowface is speaking nonsense now. All we have to do is look into each other’s eyes and see him there, our enemy! The enemy who put his soul and thus his curse into our bloodline without consent!”
“He didn’t give up his soul. You stole it from him,” I growl at her, not bothering to smooth my bristling pelt. “You stole it in order to protect yourself!”
Cloudspots hisses, realization dawning upon her face. “Cursed cats with the same power cannot harm each other. That’s what you told us,” she says to Shadowhunter. “You told us you killed him; that it was a mistake.”
“It was no mistake,” I continue, now beginning to pace along the sandy shore, the pond rippling with the shadows I cast upon it. “Shadowhunter had a plan to steal Lionshadow’s power by using the words we all know to be the words of our curse: On the day life gives, life shall be taken away, only to leave behind a green eyed soul in its wake.”
Hisses bounce in between the green eyed cats, their fangs and eyes flashing with ire and disbelief.
Bramblecloud still holds her stance at the front of the emotional crowd, her eyes resting firmly on Shadowhunter’s expression which is quickly losing its calm collected polish. A weariness is gathering in the matriarch’s eyes.
“What, do you claim, was her reasoning for doing this to Lionshadow?” Bramblecloud asks as those behind her quiet down.
I stop pacing, my heart hammering in my chest. This was the moment of truth. The moment when they would decide if I was truly crazy or was giving them a way out.
“As you all know by now, Lionshadow and Shadowhunter were mates, and as most mates do, they had kits. Two she-cats named Eclipsekit…and Shadowkit.”
At this, Shadowhunter’s eyes widen, then narrow to dangerous slits. “You dare-!”
“Shadowkit was born a natural cursed hybrid, having a yellow eye from Shadowhunter, and our green eye from Lionshadow. For whatever reason, this was trouble for Shadowhunter. Some kind of taboo of a kit being born with too much power.”
“Shadowkit was-!”
“Quiet, grandmother!” Bramblecloud snaps, silencing Shadowhunter’s snarl. “Let. Her. Finish.”
I nod curtly, taking a steadying breath. “Shadowhunter, despite being Shadowkit’s mother, saw Shadowkit as something to be…purged. Lionshadow, regrettably, retaliated with blood and trickery, but it was to take revenge on Shadowhunter for taking his daughter’s life. He now continues to hunt us as punishment for crimes committed by the she-cat standing before you.”
Silence settles over everyone, and I feel every single one of their breaths stop. And then, as if they were one animal, one predator, their eyes all hone in on Shadowhunter, who now visibly quakes in her sparkly white pelt.
“You…killed your own daughter?” Bramblecloud asks, her voice shaking.
Shadowhunter’s tail flicks back and forth. “If what Shadowface is saying is true, then I should have a yellow eye and a green eye to match my powers. Clearly, I do not.”
I grin to myself, keeping my expression serious and unflinching to my witnesses. “I can fix that.” I then make my way towards her, letting my green flame push out through the skin of my right paw.
Shadowhunter hisses, taking a few rapid steps back, her ears flattening to her skull. “You will not touch me!”
But then, on either side of the white warrior, Bramblecloud and a previously silent and watchful Shadowstar appear, shoving Shadowhunter down onto her belly as I approach, their claws unsheathed and glinting in the full moonlight.
“Forgive me, Grandmother,” Bramblecloud murmurs.
“We must know the truth.” Shadowstar looks up and nods to me, her green eyes unreadable even though there is a grim smile on her face.
I raise my paw and look over Shadowhunter’s pinned body to my family standing beyond. “Witness, my sisters, the lies unravel.”
Then, without hesitation, I press my paw against the right side of Shadowhunter’s face, letting my flames eat away at her ghostly-like body.
Shadowhunter screams and struggles, thrashing beneath our grip, but we do not let go until that misty net around her begins to melt away, and her true appearance reveals itself beneath my flame.
I pull my paw away, extinguishing the fire around my paw and shaking it, stepping back to let the others see what I saw in my shared vision with Lionshadow.
Shadowhunter, panting, tears streaming down long scars across her eyes, with two very bright, very vivid bi-colored eyes of green and yellow glaring up at me.
I raise my eyes to my ancestors, murder in all of their fiery, evergreen irises.
“I leave her to you,” I tell them. Then, with nothing more than a brief goodbye, I turn my back on Shadowhunter and walk away.
It takes but a few breaths, a few breaths of hesitation maybe, or an acceptance of fate before it begins. I let myself smile through the rising sounds of vengeful, screeching she-cats and the noise of one very vulgar death scream from the mouth of a liar, a thief, and a murderer.
I don’t look back.
. . .
Eaglefrost
First, I breathe in. Then I exhale.
I feel cold air circulate through my body, sending a tingling sensation down my throat. I cough, the first noise I make.
A small paw instantly presses into my shoulder, and tiny whiskers tickle my sensitive muzzle. “Eaglefrost? Eaglefrost, are you awake?”
Was I sleeping?
Secondly, I open my eyes.
And instantly I shut them tightly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything…everything is bright.”
A shadow falls over my eyes, and I open them once more to see Maskkit’s mostly black face taking up my entire field of view. She purposefully blocks out the light from outside so that it is easier for me to adjust.
I breathe in again, and my third action is to take in the scents of my surroundings.
Pine. A lot of it. The feeling of soft dirt and the cool sensation of some sand pushes against my body. It tells me I must be close to water, and under a pine tree. There is also a strong aroma of herbs. Someone must have been injured.
Then beneath that is Maskkit’s scent, which is just as fresh and pungent as the pine. But there…yes, Shadowface’s scent. It’s become very distinct; pine infused smoke, tangled with the heavy moisture of mist and waterfalls.
But unlike the other smells, Shadowface’s is faint. And getting fainter.
“Where is Shadowface?”
Maskkit’s green eyes glitter, her mouth set in a strict crooked line. “Jeez, do you ever take any time to think about yourself?”
My lips twitch into the beginnings of a smile, but I shut it down as I wipe my paw over my neck where I am sure a giant scar will be.
But there is none.
My eyes narrow, and I sit up, not feeling a single thread of pain or stretching, painful skin. I run my paw over my neck again, my heart beat racing as I try to find some raised bump, some scab, some missing fur; anything to tell me that everything I had experienced what seemed like moments ago was real.
Maskkit’s whiskers twitch, amusement glowing in her gaze. “You don’t remember do you? You died.”
I freeze, my heart stopping with me. Slowly, I turn to look at Maskkit with what I’m sure must be a comical expression from her perspective.
Maskkit chuckles. “My dad came and helped. He told me to tell you: ‘if you mess this up I’m going to vacate your body when you’re making dirt and you will forever be known as the tom who died in his own sh-’”
I lean over and move my tail over her mouth before she can continue that sentence.
“What did he do?”
Maskkit bats my tail away, her expression surprisingly calm and accepting. “He gave up his afterlife to bring you back. I don’t exactly know what that means, or where he went. A little bit before you woke up he told me it was time and then he just…well, he poofed.”
“Poofed?”
“Yeah. He poofed. Like, a cloud, or a rabbit when it sees you when you forget to check the direction of the wind.”
“OK,” I say wearily, my eyes sweeping the makeshift den, the roots of the pine tree pushing through the surrounding earth. “So where did Shadowface go?”
“She went to tell our family that she’s going to fight, and to try to convince them to join her,” Maskkit said matter-of-factly. “She told me to stay far away from the overlook. I think she’s going to fight him there.”
You got to be kidding me. There of all places?
I smile down at Maskkit, rubbing my paw over the top of her head. “Thank you, Maskkit, for watching over me. I…I’m sorry about Rush-”
“No!” Maskkit exclaims suddenly, her evergreen eyes wide. “No, don’t be sorry! My father was exactly as you told me, the bravest cat to ever exist. He brought you back because he believed it was the right thing to do. Darkmoon told me that if someone does something for someone else and that if they choose to do it despite the consequences, that you should never be sorry. Or else it ruins their memory.” Maskkit pushes forward, burying her muzzle into my chest, her voice full of emotion. “I was so afraid I was never going to see you again. I didn’t even get to say goodbye!”
My heart warms and becomes molten. I rest my chin on her head, putting one foreleg around her flank. “Darkmoon is a wise she-cat. I’m glad you are learning from her as your mother and I did.”
I pull away then, lowering my gaze to be level with Maskkit’s. “And if I have my way, you will not be saying goodbye to me or anyone else for a long time. But right now, I need you to go somewhere for me, so that I know that you will be safe.”
Maskkit’s jaw locks, but she nods, tears billowing up in her eyes. “OK.”
“There is a large, ancient pine not far from the old MountainClan camp. I’m sure you’ve been told where the old camp is, yes? It’s very tall, but very sturdy, and it’s far enough away from the overlook that you will be safe from the fight, but you won’t be so far away that you won’t be able to see. I need you to be my eyes. If you see Shadowface, for whatever reason, moving from the overlook, I need you to shoot up some of your fire, as big as you can into the sky in the direction that she is going. If she starts moving towards you, I want you to move as well. Keep your distance. It’s important that you do that.”
Maskkit sighs with relief, gratitude in her small smile. “Yes. Yes, thank you! I promise I will keep my distance and signal you until…until what exactly?”
I give her my most confident smile, anything that I can muster to put her at ease. “Until your mother and I come for you.”
Maskkit grins. “OK! I won’t let you down, Eaglefrost!” She quickly bumps noses with me and turns, about to go out through the entrance. But then she pauses, and looks over her shoulder, her white pelt faintly glowing. “Is the old tree significant somehow? I remember mom wanting to tell me a story about you and her when you were kits and you found an old tree. Is it that tree?”
I shake my head, not in denial, but in disbelief. Shadowface still remembers that too? That’s kind of embarrassing.
“Yes, that’s the tree,” I tell her, unsheathing my claws and walking up to one of the exposed roots. “It’s where she challenged me to climb for the first time.” Slowly, I run my claws over the bark, strips of pine falling away from them. I look up at Maskkit, knowing how distant my eyes must seem, looking so far into a past that seems more dream than reality. “And it’s also where she showed me how to find the ground again.”
. . .
Darkmoon
My screams echo around me. It sounds so loud that it feels like my ears are bleeding. I try to bite down, but every sensation is so overwhelming that the only way to relieve any of it is to scream and scream and scream.
But still, I use whatever information I can gather in this state of perpetual suffering. Thankfully, I am screaming, meaning I’m not losing enough blood to push me into unconsciousness. And thanks to the loud screams, I can hear it echo off of surrounding structures.
I’m somewhere enclosed. In a cave? Somewhere underground? In a thick growth of pines? On the shore of the lonely lake? I wish I could feel the ground, or taste the air, but the pain is engulfing most of my senses.
I have to be somewhere isolated, or else someone would have come to investigate by now…right?
“You could spare yourself, if you would just talk. Tell me your apprentice’s weaknesses, and I will make your end swift.”
I hiss, the pain loosening just enough that I can crack open my eyes and peer into the world.
Not enclosed. All I see is open air and grey sky.
“You are the one with the most intimate knowledge of Shadowface’s fighting prowess. Like every warrior who ever lived, she will have a weakness.”
I spit onto the ground. It makes a loud splattering sound, like rain on stone. Then the sound continues. Very light and soft, but there.
Rain. There’s rain. I’m exposed outside.
“Her only weakness…is you,” I hiss. “And she will be rid of you soon enough.”
I am suddenly dragged backwards by sharp, piercing claws. I scream, feeling fresh blood pool in the puncture wounds on my haunches.
Lionshadow leans over me, his evergreen eyes a torrent of flame and cinders. Tiny water droplets gather around the edges of the fur on his face. “She has no chance, battle mistress. You know the odds are in my favor.”
I pant through the pain, my eyes fluttering. “Then why…do you ask…about her weakness?” I gasp.
Lionshadow snarls, shoving me away roughly. I grunt, curling around my stomach where his weight had been most heavy.
“Maybe because I want to end it quickly,” he growls, his tail a lashing blur of pitch black shadow.
“Then go for…the kill,” I hiss, my eyesight slowly becoming clearer and clearer as our conversation continues on. “Fight her like prey…and she will die… like prey.”
Lionshadow laughs, his fangs flashing in front of my nose as he leans closer to my place on the ground. “That has to be the most obvious lie I have ever heard, Darkmoon.” He then stands up straight, his nose lifting to the wind, breathing in sharply.
I eye his legs from where I lie on my side, his limbs rooted there like a forest of grass waiting to be ripped away.
“She’s coming,” Lionshadow says, his voice eerily quiet as he scans what’s beyond my line of sight. “It seems getting rid of the portal on this overlook only slowed her down. She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that much.”
“You…have no idea,” I growl. Then, with a quick inhale, I lurch my hind legs back and then forward, sweeping them underneath his paws.
He does nothing more than grunt as he hits the rock, the rock that I now know is the overlook. The place where this all began for Shadowface.
I know there is no point in running. I am already too far gone given my injuries. My power is probably already mostly spent trying to heal them. But I still have my wits, and I still have my claws.
I scramble to his side on my belly, ripping out whatever is left of my red flame and wrapping it around my paws, digging my claws into his flesh like tree bark and pulling myself over him. He screams and thrashes, crimson blood welling up where I coax it to. I find his face, clamping my paw over his muzzle, and I extend my claws as far as they will go, using my weight to keep him pinned. Then I sink them in, pulling and tugging on the sensitive flesh of his eye lid and nose.
There is no grace or technique in what I am doing. This is simply payback.
And I’m relishing every moment of it.
“That was the first time you screamed, fallen warrior. I think I’ve finally found how to make you burn,” I snarl, showing no mercy as I go in to finish him off.
But then there is a screeching, like thousands of birds dropping dead from the air, the echoes of their death cries bouncing off of the surrounding rock. I cringe, pulling back, only to be hit fully by a tidal wave of green flame.
I only get a single breath to throw up a shield of my own fire, and hope that it is enough.
. . .
“Let her go, Lionshadow.”
“Those are some very poor choice of words, Shadowface. We are on an overhanging sliver of rock, after all.”
My eyes slowly open, though it takes much more effort than it did before.
“She’s not a part of this. This is just between you and me. No one else.”
“That I can agree with. But you have broken such promises in the past.”
“What will it take for you to release her?”
“Make her promise something to us, since she is clearly the only true and noble warrior here.”
My eyes widen a fraction more, and there, covered in light, sprinkling jewels of mist and raindrops, is Shadowface.
She takes on a battle stance, her legs spread shoulder width apart in a slight crouch, her tail held close to her side, her ears standing tall and alert. Even her eyes do not settle, they roam and assess everything around her as she speaks, just as I had taught her to do so many moons ago.
Shadowface…
“And what promise would a true and noble warrior make to a cat like you, Lionshadow?” She asks him, her voice scathing.
I feel the tom’s paw on my throat then, putting down considerable pressure, but not enough to choke me. The rest of my body feels numb, with tiny, kitten claws stabbing into my legs and belly.
“A promise of honor, of a death well deserved…and permanent.”
I hiss, the taste of bloody air bubbles foaming at my mouth. “No…Shadow-”
“She will not be bringing you back, if that’s what you are worried about.”
Lionshadow laughs, his rough voice echoing off of the rocks. “Ah, it is a shame that you were born into this family, Shadowface! I would have liked to witness you facing off against many more foes with that smart mouth.”
Shadowface gives a mock dip of her head, her glaring evergreen eyes zeroing in on me.
Hang on, her eyes seem to say. Just hang on a bit longer!
“Then let her go, and I’d be happy to continue amusing you in our own fight.”
Claws sink in dangerously close to the barrier of my skin, my lifeblood pumping away mere mouse-hairs away.
“She will not bring anyone back.”
A beat of silence, and then: “She will not bring anyone back,” Shadowface echoes.
“She will not interfere.”
“She will not interfere.”
Lionshadow grins. “Do you hear that, battle mistress? Keep this oath, and I will let you live.”
All I can do is moan, my energy far too spent to muster a response.
The weight of his claws vanish, and suddenly, Shadowface is grabbing at my scruff, grunting through her teeth as she pulls me away from him and to the opposite side of the overlook. It doesn’t take her long, given how small I already am on top of not eating for the past two days. Once she leans me up against the cliff wall, she finally speaks.
“Tell Eaglefrost that my kits are his. He will be a proper father. A good father. And you, you must promise me to train them all. Teach them everything you taught me, including the stuff about the realms and the cursed. Tell them everything, Darkmoon. Make them strong.”
“Sh-shut up, Shadow-”
Her face fills my view, a face that I have seen make expressions that every mentor secretly relishes in: from annoyance, to defeat, to excitement, to triumph…and even to grief. It is an understanding of the dynamic and ever changing world in that face. The face of an apprentice who came to know her obstacles, and who could overcome them.
“Thank you, Darkmoon, for always being there for me,” Shadowface continues, her eyes narrow and focused, her voice steady and unwavering. “After my mother died, you weren’t there to be my mother. You weren’t gentle like she was. But you were so much more. You taught me how to survive. How to keep fighting even when everything and everyone around me was my enemy. You taught me what it means to persevere. And you also taught me the importance of the relationships we make in this life, of how precious those lives are. Of how precious our own lives are. I am happy to say, that if I die today, I won’t feel regret. I could never regret dying for you, or for Eaglefrost, or for my kits.”
“I am growing impatient, Shadowface,” Lionshadow calls, his voice an answer and a challenge. “I will not wait much longer.”
“Keep your fur on!” Shadowface snaps, only looking halfway over her shoulder. “You’re already dead, you have all the time in the world.” She then meets my eyes, and she gives me one last small smile. “I guess it’s time to go see my family. Wish me luck.” And then, without another word, she stands, turns, and walks through the softly falling rain to where Lionshadow waits.
My paw reaches out to her, my vision blurring. You don’t need luck. You never did.
. . .
Shadowface
“Do you know what happens to a cursed, Shadowface, when their soul leaves their body?”
I don’t care! I want to scream, but I listen anyways, calmly walking towards Lionshadow where he stands at the edge of the overlook. Steam is steadily wafting from fresh claws marks on his face, eyes and nose where Darkmoon must have attacked him. His nose is cleanly split in two, and one of his eyes sags in the corner just a little bit more than the other. He would have been blinded by clotting blood if not for his curse.
“It’s a remarkable thing,” Lionshadow continues, raising one paw to wipe at his chest which is covered in tiny water droplets and streaks of his own blood. “Our souls are the curse that we bear, and so the curse needs a body to exist in. When that power, that essence, is fully ripped away from our bodies, the emptiness becomes too much for our vessels to bear.”
“And we explode,” I say, remembering when my grandmother died.
Lionshadow grins, the steam coming from his face lessening as his nose starts to pull itself back together. “Yes. One last fiery display as the last of our souls loosen their ties on our bodies. But then there is the spirit, the part of us that holds soul and vessel together. So, what happens, Shadowface, when you only have a cursed soul and a spirit?”
I pause in my steps, my right paw slightly lifting off of the ground. Beneath me, the circular portal that was used to visit my ancestors is split into several segments by seven, long and jagged claw marks. They stretch across the circle, breaking the circle’s edge, and tearing the tadpole symbol in the middle to shreds.
“I don’t know,” I murmur wearily, lifting my gaze to Lionshadow’s. I step over the portal, and continue walking at him.
“Think of the spirit like tree sap. Sap sticks to a lot of things, and it can become covered in sticks and leaves and dirt. Thus, like sap, our spirits will hold onto remnants of our living body and our cursed souls. So technically, Shadowface, my curse has some semblance of a vessel, and this is the closest to living that I will ever get. I must thank you.”
I pause again, eyeing him with scrutiny. Rain sticks to his pelt, and his breathing is clearly visible through the rise and fall of his flanks. His ears rotate, his tail sways lazily back and forth, and his green eyes glow like hot embers in his handsome and mostly healed face. Yes, it seems very much so that he is alive. He’s never seemed more like it than now.
Lionshadow laughs, his fangs flashing. “And let me be generous here, Shadowface, as I am feeling merciful today. Let it be known that a Cursed with a vessel is far more powerful than a wandering cursed soul.”
Yeah. I kinda expected that.
“But unlike before, you can be killed,” I say.
He dips his head in acknowledgement. “Oh yes, that is true. But can you do it? Can you really kill me, Shadowface?”
I unsheathe my claws, a small screeching sound echoing from my flesh as my soul pushes its way through the skin of my paws and engulfs them. “Let’s find out,” I hiss.
. . .
Eaglefrost
I’m running as fast as my newborn legs will carry me. Over rocks, under and over hills, leaping over fallen logs and forcing my way through thick brush. My eyes focusing in on the tiny, jutting rock that protrudes out of the side of the Great Mountain.
There, a bright flare of green arcs out from the overlook, turning the rain it touches to steam.
Faster, dammit. Faster!
Another fiery green flame shoots out over the valley as I finally arrive at the start of the rocky path that will take me to the overlook.
“Eaglefrost.”
I whip around at the sound of my name, my claws unsheathed, only to have my heart stop at who I see standing before me.
She blinks, her honey amber eyes switching to a feverish evergreen.
“Run.”
. . .
Shadowface
He ducks, turns, jumps, side steps and spins in such easily practiced maneuvers that I feel like I am an apprentice again, trying helplessly to pinpoint where Darkmoon’s tail will end up next.
I lash out flame after flame after flame, aiming them in creative ways: downward arcs, upward arcs, sideways arcs, diagonal arcs. Anything to put him off guard, but he persists, not even bothering to fire back.
I need to be more creative. More unpredictable.
I lash out with another sideways arc, forcing him to jump upwards.
Now!
With my left paw, I force my fire into the rock beneath me, sending it out into the stone in a direct path towards him.
He lands on his paws, just as a loud crack snaps into the air.
The end of the overlook buckles and begins to crumble.
His eyes widen, but there is a fierce smile on his face as he looks up at me. “Clever she-cat,” he spits. Then he leaps for me, green fire enveloping his paws and legs for the first time.
I sidestep as he comes down, making it just before large junks of rock go skittering down the side of the mountain, their contact with the surrounding rock and trees generating rumbling vibrations up the cliff.
Half of the old portal goes down with it.
I growl, ducking down to snap at his hind leg.
He retaliates, pulling back his leg and snapping it back into my face.
I grunt, falling into a roll. I then skid to a halt, only to have my hind legs spin off into thin air, and most of my torso goes with them.
Panicking, I plunge my fire covered claws into the rock, managing to stop myself from completely going over the edge. I hang there, my body wiggling in the chilly, moist air, my flames a bright green glow before my eyes.
A cruel laugh echoes off the rocks, and Lionshadow is there, looking down at me with an easy smirk. “I think you’re afraid, Shadowface. You have more power than you think. Generations of your family have been nursing not just one but two curses. Surely you can stand up to me?”
I pull up just enough to see Darkmoon lying unconscious against the far wall, safe from everything happening around her, and far from the cliff’s edge. I then raise my eyes to Lionshadow’s, giving him a pretentious smile of my own. “I don’t think it’s as much about standing, but about knowing the right place to fall.”
Lionshadow frowns, and in that split second of doubt I reach out and up, hooking the claws of my right paw into the side of his neck, and then I let go of the ledge, pulling him down with me to the valley floor below.
Chapter 40 And she fights her fate
Story here.
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 9, 2018 1:27:34 GMT -5
Epilogue And...
Story here.
Dedications
This tale is dedicated to the readers: story lovers, book nerds, and fan-fiction fanatics. Without you, I would have not made it here. So thank you, all of you. From the original Erin Hunter Message Boards, to our new home at the Warrior Cats Role Play Forums and beyond. You will always have a place in my cursed heart.
The Final Author's Note
[ coming soon ]
Want more of the CLANS OF THE VALLEY world?
If you enjoyed CURSE, then great news! It's part of a series! No, no. No sequels or prequels in the traditional sense. The Valley is just one VERY SMALL part of this universe. There are loads of other places to explore with just as many interesting ( and fiery ) characters to meet!
Here are my recommendations based on how you might be feeling after finishing CURSE:
Had enough of the valley, but not the characters? Then check out DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, a companion novel to CURSE that features Spottedmoon and her journey through the realms of the afterlife! Notable characters include Hadiya, Nathaniel, Snow, Darkmoon, Eaglefrost and Shadowface!
Still feeling nostalgic, but ready to meet some new characters? Then keep an eye out for THE WANDERER, a prequel to CURSE with a whole new peek into the CLANS OF THE VALLEY world. You will be starting off in unknown territory with Shadowface's father, Pan, as your lady killing guide. But do not fear! After you get past the new cursed, the Skull Desert, a couple of Earathskins and a friendly...bear? You will be on your way into the Valley to see characters like Cloudspots, Darkestday, Maskstar, and even a young Darkmoon!
Ready to toss aside the cold, mountainous Valley and the characters who prowl within? Well aren't you a trailblazer! Coming soon to a forum near you, expect to see some eye catching visuals in the short story THE SLEEPING GOD. This takes place outside of the Valley and in a pool of strange and quite superstitious characters...
And finally, if you are just not ready to say goodbye yet, then all I have to say to you is...
See you in 2019!
...Did you make it?
If you finished CURSE, you are a part of a very elite group of readers. You finished a [ # of pages here ] novel with a whopping [ # of words ] ! You are a part of the ridiculous fat books club now. WELCOME MY MINIONS! To show the world how utterly insane you are, your name will be added to the list below! Your screen names (with your permission of course) will be added one day in EVERGREEN's author's note when it gets published. Consider this your official award as one of CURSE's ( and EVERGREEN's! ) alpha readers!
» ѕнαdσω ⚔️
Achievements / Awards
- Oldest fan-fiction on the WCRPF ( Fall 2013 - Fall 2018 )
- Most viewed fan-fiction on the WCRPF
- Most replied to fan-fiction on the WCRPF
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- Most intimidating fan-fiction to start reading on the WCRPF
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Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Jan 21, 2019 2:38:32 GMT -5
"The Tidecaller" Every few generations, the Water Bearer will ascend from the sea caves and choose who the next Tidecaller will be. The Tidecaller is an ancient entity who is believed to be reincarnated in the body of a she-cat in the Tribe of Roaring Waves every few decades. Once the Tidecaller is found, she is taken away by the Water Bearer and trained to hone her powers. It is the Tidecaller's duty to bring change and ultimately prosperity to the tribe. With her powers she can tame and control the sea itself, giving the tribe many years of peaceful and prosperous living for as long as the Tidecaller lives. Once the Tidecaller dies, the tribe must wait until the Water Bearer emerges from the caves again to train the next Tidecaller. The Characters Wylie: (means well-watered meadow) Brenna’s older brother. 24 moons old. Lanky blue-grey tom with lighter silvery grey tabby stripes. Has a long tail with tabby rings and bright, shimmering blue eyes. Brenna: (means little drop of water) Wylie’s kid sister. 5 moons old. Small, blue-grey she-cat with a rounded face and large watery blue eyes. Ceto: (means goddess of the sea) The Tidecaller. 30 moons old. A tall, long-legged she-cat with greyish white sea-foam fur. She has dark grey almost black ears and tail with a lighter shade of grey splotches in the corners of her sea-green eyes. She has a brighter, whiter patch of fur on the bridge of her nose and cheek bones. Courtesy of Sapphire. <33 Gonna be changing the colors!
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