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Dec 31, 2018 22:20:12 GMT -5
Katanaheart, ᴛᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ, and 2 more like this
Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Dec 31, 2018 22:20:12 GMT -5
A Clans of the Valley Short Story
A great ocean awaits those at the end. An ocean of darkness and deadly cold that will sink into your skin, and the scope of the unknown depths of the after world will greet you in a smooth, well-practiced embrace.
It is not some great, warm light at the end of a tunnel as many describe it, but many calm, silver tinted rays of moonlight that will wash over you in a wave of otherworldly reverence. You will not feel alone, for this place has seen many like you, and it has carried out this most hallowed duty since the first living mortal drew its last breath. There will never be a mistake here. If you are travelling this well-worn path, then you were meant to be in this place.
To approach this abyss was to approach death, but that knowledge never frightened me. That new insight only stirred the ravenous curiosity within. A new challenge, a new world to explore…a new mountain to topple.
Like the others before me, I walked the path, I drank in the moonlight, and I embraced the icy chill in my veins. It was easy for me, for I was no stranger to the cold. I was born in it. Altered by it. I had made it a part of my very essence; a part of my soul.
But this place had never known anything like me. And if it had, it would know that it could not lull me into its bitter sweet embrace for much longer.
. . .
In the Between World
“Where is she?”
Hadiya gives the guardian of the realm of the stars nothing more than a small, clueless smile. “You ask as if you expect me to know where every poor soul is.”
Nathaniel growls, his silver fur glittering with thousands of fallen stars. Behind him, a raging waterfall throws up mist into the chilly, empty air, tossing rainbows haphazardly over the dark barren rock he sits upon. “I expect you to keep track of the cursed, Hadiya. She was one of them.”
Hadiya looks up almost innocently from her spot beneath him on a patch of dried, grey grass, the fog-filled wind waving them like tiny whiskers around her paws. “Oops, I’m supposed to be doing that?” She says, her gaze widening. “If I had known it was my responsibility, I might have actually cared.”
“Enough games, Kynthelig!” Nathaniel shouts, his claws gripping the dark rock beneath him so strongly that he manages to gouge deep claws marks into it. “A cursed soul is missing, and that means someone has interfered with the balance of the realms. I swear if it was that cursed of yours that you have been visiting I will-”
A red wind of death whips past Nathaniel’s neck, and a voice of an endless night hisses into his ear. “You will what, Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel spins around, losing his balance on the rock and falling onto his back on the grass below. His breath comes quickly, panic and fear gripping every muscle in his body as he stares up at eyes the color of blood.
Red fire flares around Hadiya’s shoulders and head like an extra layer of fur, making her irises pop against her black and white pelt.
“You forget yourself,” Hadiya growls at Nathaniel, her voice lethal. “I abandoned the name Kynthelig once you removed me of the task of guiding the souls of the dead to their proper places in the realms. You cannot blame me for loosing this soul when it has become your job and the job of those seven judges you so carefully constructed to replace me.”
Nathaniel frowns, still on his back in the grass. “It was too much power for any one cat to have.”
Hadiya sniffs, glaring at him with disgust and disappointment. “You were always scared of power, Nathaniel. Even now you cower beneath it.” She looks away, her eyes following the path of the waterfall as it tumbles down into a dark void. “So, how are you going to find her?”
Nathaniel sits up, smoothing down his ruffled fur, his pale green eyes narrowing. “I need you to locate her using your…power. I have already exhausted all other options on my side.”
Hadiya sighs, looking bored. “You mean you want me to bring her soul here.”
“Yes.”
A few heartbeats of silence, and then, “I expect proper compensation for the time I’m spending here.”
Nathaniel snorts. “Fine.”
“And I want to visit StarClan whenever I want.”
Nathaniel gives a short, harsh laugh. “No.”
“How about a visit once every quarter moon?”
“No.”
“Once every half-moon?”
“No, Hadiya.”
“How about once every moon? Surely-”
“Once every seven moons,” Nathaniel snaps, his left eye twitching. “And you must be escorted by the border guard.”
“Ooh,” Hadiya croons, grinning at Nathaniel. “How symbolic. But really, Nathaniel, the border guards?” She sweeps her tail in an arch over the rock, clearing away pebbles and heavy water droplets. She then ignites the tips of her claws and begins carving into the rock, the red fire reflecting in her eyes. “I promise I won’t make too much of a mess when I visit. Isn’t that enough?”
“Nothing is ever enough for you, Hadiya,” Nathaniel says quietly, watching her work from his place below her.
Hadiya pulls back, smirking coldly at the symbols in the rock. “One gets bored with nothing for too long.”
Then she bows over the hot glowing marks in the rock, shutting her eyes and chanting under her breath. Her red fire flares up around her, swirling around and around in smooth, controlled arcs.
Nathaniel looks up, around and behind him, starting to shudder.
Heartbeats pass. Then breaths. Then pauses in noise. And soon, the hot glow emitting from the rock fades.
Nathaniel clears his throat. “What’s taking so long?”
Hadiya stops her chanting, leaning back to frown at the crimson flames surrounding her paws. “I can’t find her.”
“You’re joking, right?”
Hadiya snarls, her fangs flashing. “I don’t joke around with my curse. If she was roaming the realms of the afterlife then I would have found her.”
Nathaniel goes deathly still, his pale green eyes widening. “She’s been resurrected.”
Hadiya nods, confirming his worst fears.
“Did your cat bring her back?” Nathaniel asks her accusingly.
“If you mean Darkmoon, no, she did not,” Hadiya replies, her voice stern. “She is not mine to command or control. Besides, I would have known if she had used her curse. As both a guardian of the between world and as someone who is tied to her by both soul and blood, she is explicitly tied to my awareness.”
Nathaniel growls, standing on all fours. “Then who did it? Darkmoon is the only one in the Realm of the Living who is capable, so that leaves the guardians of the realms. A traitor among us?”
“Maybe not,” Hadiya says, leaping down from the rocky perch. “Maybe it was she who escaped death.”
Nathaniel scoffs. “A replacement curse having the ability to bring the dead back to life? Impossible.”
“Not impossible,” Hadiya persists, her crimson eyes locking with his pale green. “I’ve seen this curse of…will up close. It’s on the same level as the original seven with the potential to be even more potent than a few of them with the proper training, control and bloodline.”
“A curse of will?” Nathaniel asks, his pelt bristling.
“The ability to impose ones will on another…or on oneself.”
“So, what are you saying? She willed herself back to life?”
Hadiya doesn’t show signs of agreement or dismissal. She simply stares at Nathaniel with a calculating gaze.
“Do you even hear yourself right now, Hadiya?” Nathaniel shouts, turning away from her and pacing to the edge of the cliff where the water disappears into the endless black chasm. “You’re saying we possibly have another curse that’s able to cheat death? Another entity that can disrupt the balance of the realms of the afterlife?”
“We do not cheat death,” Hadiya says with chilling calm, watching Nathaniel’s back sway with his pacing.
“No, maybe not, but your kind does manipulate it. I’ve seen what that power can do, and it’s not right, Hadiya.”
“What do you want to do about her then?” Hadiya asks with a slight growl. “Kill her again simply because she saved herself?”
Nathaniel halts his pacing, his tail tip twitching. “It’s not that simple, Hadiya.”
“It is that simple.”
“Think of all the cats she’s killed. All the lives she’s torn up and changed forever. Should a cat like that be allowed to live, especially with the power she has?”
Hadiya glares down at the abysmal chasm, her red eyes glowing brightly. “Would it have made a difference if she wasn’t cursed?”
Nathaniel is silent, his eyes roaming over Hadiya’s lone figure standing out against the fog, the black cliffs and the dull grey sky above them.
“Would you hate me if I said yes?”
Hadiya sighs, her breath billowing out of her as steam. “No. But I wouldn’t be surprised.” She then looks over her shoulder, the glow in her eyes gone, leaving a cold, dead and empty shell behind. “Leave her be. I need her to help Spottedmoon.”
Nathaniel nods, grimacing as he does. “I’m sorry about that-”
“Don’t be,” Hadiya says, standing and walking up to him until they are only a whisker length apart. “I knew you were a cold-hearted soldier the moment I laid my eyes on you on that blood soaked battlefield. That’s why I fell in love with you, because that was the one thing I never had in common with anyone else: the capacity to destroy others and feel nothing for it.”
Nathaniel doesn’t move as Hadiya sweeps past him, taking her crackling flames and deathly shadows with her, leaving the monochrome cliffs feeling colder and emptier than ever before.
. . .
In the Realm of the Living
Hadiya
It didn’t take long to find her. I didn’t need to tug on the threads of her soul to find her location. The nature of my power over death allows me to sense out anomalies twisted by similar abilities. And an anomaly like this one is like a splatter of blood on a field of snow.
The smell hit me first. Like something dead had been laying out in the cold for far too long.
Then a trail of grey ash and dried dark red blood streaking across the rocks and pine needles had my nose flaring wide. Memories of my first attempts at using my curse hundreds of moons ago began playing through my mind. The cats that I had brought back then returned to bodies riddled with disease and rotting flesh. Wounds were not properly closed up, and the bonds between soul and vessel were tangled and incomplete.
Something went wrong. Does she even know what she did?
“If you kill me, I’ll just come back.”
I still at the sound of the rasping voice. It’s a voice in pain, but something about the tone speaks of volumes of bitterness.
I look up to my right to a pile of boulders at the bottom of a steep, washed out river bed. The trail of grey and red zig zags across the surfaces of the rocks until, near the top, a pale white she-cat lies where it ends.
She lies on her side, her fine legs crumbled beneath her. Deep claw marks gouge out portions of the dirt wall above her, hinting at her failed attempts at crawling out of the ravine. Her familiar moonstone eyes glare out at me coolly, though the lift of her chin suggests that she will claw me if I mention her attempts. Beneath her eyes are deep grey shadows and slightly sagging skin, the usually pink waterline of her eyes now dark and near black. And there around her neck is the evidence of her unnatural resurrection: a collar of dark blood. Her throat had been slit, but now it barely bleeds.
Her white pelt is messy and unkempt, but not thick enough to suggest it has adjusted to the winter moons yet. She probably died just as it was beginning.
Moons. She’s been dead for moons.
“Has this happened before?” I ask.
The she-cat’s lips twitch. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Frustratingly difficult, just like her mother.
“Then how do you know you will come back again if I were to finish what your murderer started?”
Her silver eyes flash, her breath coming out in thick white clouds as she speaks. “Because I will it so.”
Slowly, I ascend the rocks, watching her carefully as I get closer. Her eyes narrow apprehensively, but she does not try to escape.
Once I reach her, I sit and hold out my paw in the air between us, letting my red flame dance in the cold wind.
“You are cursed with terrible power, Snow,” I tell her, watching as her eyes widen and begin to glow beneath my flame. “You have made powerful enemies in the realms beyond your mortal understanding, and I am all too familiar with how unforgiving they can be. But, I have come here to help you.”
A shiver runs down Snow’s spine, but her eyes hunger for my words. “Tell me.”
I release my flame and let it rest on the rock, sending out waves of warmth. I then let my power begin to explore Snow’s frail body, hoping that I can repair the damage that has been done.
“First, you must share with me everything that happened,” I tell her.
“Where would you like me to start?”
“When you woke up.”
. . .
The Abandoned MountainClan Camp
Several Days Ago
Snow
I woke up on a bed of bones.Several Days Ago
Snow
It was a fitting grave. They dug into my fur and flesh, leaving imprints. Truly, it was all I had ever wanted, to see the bones of those who preached falsehoods laid bare before me.
Unfortunately I could not stand up to further examine my surroundings. The ice from the afterworld had still not left me, and my body had felt weak and sluggish, as if it was still trying to unthaw. Trying to move at that point would have been impossible, so I let my bed of bones whisper their words of hatred into my ear.
Oh yes, I knew what kind of enemies I had made during the last several moons while I was alive. Experts at diversion. Masters of deception and deceit. But here they were, nothing more than bones collecting dust beneath my resurrected body. They had pleaded, they had compromised, and they had fought to rid me and my rogues of the change we were bringing. They believed us in the wrong, called us unwise to be taking on the entire valley with nothing more than worn down scavengers and vagabonds. Who were the wise ones now?
But as they were, they no longer concerned me. Now it was the power they had harbored, the weapons they had sought to hide from the eyes of the world that had become my enemy: the cursed.
It was a shame really, considering they had been the victims in this backwards tale of lies. We were on the same side in that regard. I was also one of them, an anomaly with nowhere to truly belong, so while my friends became their enemy, their enemy also became mine.
My story would have been like theirs had my upbringing not been so circumstantial. I was a child of a treacherous love. A kit born of a broken system of laws and codes and covenants. A kit who was chased out of her own home because her parentage was less than desirable.
The Valley Compact is a joke. The moral bindings placed are treated as guidelines even by the ones who pledge to follow them. The system of clans was broken and abused. It needed reform. It needed change.
And I was going to change it. I was going to change everything.
I wasn’t going to let anyone be abandoned in the cold for something they couldn’t control ever again.
And no one would ever have to be left to die for being unwanted.
. . .
The ice thawed, and I stood for the first time since I had died.
I felt like a newborn. My legs wobbled, and the earth felt like it was swinging back and forth, trying to toss me into a sea of dirt and pine needles. I spilled a few times, choking down leaves and dust that flew into my loose jaws. Everything felt loose. Even my tail dragged along the mountain of bones and moss I had been laid upon.
Moss?
I blinked rapidly, shuffling until I could lean against a fallen log a few steps away. And there, yes, everywhere around me circles of moss had been carefully arranged with my body displayed in the center.
My followers wouldn’t have done this. The bones I could see yes, but the moss is bizarre. Could it be…from her?
I smirked, recognizing the shape for what it was. A giant green eye.
My, my, Shadowface. If I had known you were such a romantic, I might have been a bit easier on you.
I chuckled, though the sound came out like a dying, hoarse croak.
Right, she clawed my throat open. What a piece of work.
My heart raced at that far away memory, her ravaged face snarling down into mine, her green fire enveloping the pine tree behind me, and her claws descending onto my exposed throat.
I had to admit, the images excited me.
I leaned away from the log, my paws slipping on the ash choked ground. A light rain fell from the sky, turning the dusty graveyard into a muddy body dump.
It took much longer than I would have liked to travel from my place in the center of the ruined MountainClan camp to the exit. I had to stop repeatedly, my breaths shallow and hoarse after only a few steps. I didn’t know if this was a normal thing for my kind, but I imagined that I was the first to pull this off. I would need to learn on my own.
The question now was what to do next.
I had escaped death and wiped the slate clean to start again. I wouldn’t go back to my army. That had been the plan from the beginning; make myself the catalyst of a reinvigorated host of rebels. My death would spur them into a kind of devoted action that I could never truly bring with my leadership, despite my longing to rule over them all.
Now, I suppose, I could sit back and watch as my hard work paid off, as the clans lulled themselves into a false sense of peace as my army reassembled. Once my host rallied themselves and a new leader took my place, I had no doubt in my mind that they would continue my legacy.
But what was that legacy? Did they truly understand the reasons why I did it? I knew my inner circle understood, for each of them carried a story within that echoed mine, but the masses? The followers who only saw me from a distance, heard my pretty speeches, and watched me fight in the arena? Would they follow someone else who they had never seen in such a powerful light?
Firebird can do it. She can make the others follow her out of a need to avenge me.
And that was good enough.
. . .
Present Day
Hadiya
“You are far more powerful than I had anticipated.”Hadiya
“You say that as if I should be afraid.”
“Are you?”
“No. I was never afraid of power. I was drawn to it…I longed for it.”
I pull away, setting aside the damp moss covered in dead skin and matted blood. After listening to Snow’s tale, I went ahead and finished repairing her body, essentially polishing her work. It wasn’t a true resurrection, not like the Curse of Death can do. Snow had willed herself back to life, but she had no control over the finer parts of that process. Repairing torn vessels, replacing lost blood, and knitting the skin back together was something the vessel is responsible for, but Snow had sent all of her cursed power into bringing her soul back from the brink.
“You must rest. If not for your cursed blood, the shock you put your body through would have killed you.”
Snow leans back, resting her head on the rock beneath her and shutting her silver eyes. “You are Devona, are you not?” She asks. “The divine one, the guardian of crossroads. Have you come to help me choose my path?”
I can’t help but chuckle, secretly delighted that she knows one of my names. “From the sounds of it, you have already made your choice.”
One of her eyes opens, and she stares at me curiously. “Then why are you here? I still don’t believe you came here just to help me.”
“You are right. I am here for other reasons.”
Snow raises her head, her lip twitching. “I have something you need. You would have let me die if you didn’t need me alive.”
I look up from the red flame still burning on the boulder, casting shadows over the rocks and the dry stream bed. It turns Snow’s white pelt into a pale, glowing red color that bleeds into the ground. I lean forward, matching my gaze with hers. She doesn’t flinch at my stare, and she doesn’t look afraid. It sends a pain through my gut to see the similarities between her and her mother.
“Intelligent. Powerful. Unwavering,” I purr, watching the fire dance in her eyes. “A soul like yours is rare. You caused quite a stir when you came back. I had to lie to a very important cat who thinks you should be killed. Permanently.”
Snow frowns. “And?”
I smile. “And this isn’t the first time I have…disagreed with him. Long ago I made a deal with him. I guide souls to their resting places, and he warms the hearts and minds of the cats who hate cursed. Recently it came down to one more lost soul, a soul much like yours, to prove myself to him and to the rest of his kind that I am not the monster they think I am. But, it was a lie.”
Snow’s head tilts. “He tricked you?”
“The details aren’t important. What is important is that in order for me to…change things, I need you and your power.”
Snow is silent for a moment, her eyes roaming to the red flame. Then, she asks, “What do I get in return?”
“Anything you desire that is within my limits.”
Snow breathes in deeply, her sunken eyes already seeming brighter and fuller. She turns to look at me, a small, satisfied smile gracing her muzzle.
“Then I desire the demise of the clans. I want their time to end, and for a new era to rise.”
I turn away from her, hovering my paw over the flame for a few moments before smothering it against the stone, leaving nothing but a thin trailing wisp of smoke. “We have a deal then. It shall be done.”
. . .
Snow has risen from the dead, and she plans on finishing what she started, even if she must do it from the shadows. The clans have reached their end. Now the Silver Moon Rises.
Snow has risen from the dead, and she plans on finishing what she started, even if she must do it from the shadows. The clans have reached their end. Now the Silver Moon Rises.