Τhε Hυητεr & τhε Prεγ - part two 11/24
Nov 15, 2019 16:46:47 GMT -5
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Mᴏᴏɴ - -, ~Sapphire~, and 1 more like this
Post by » ѕнαdσω ⚔️ on Nov 15, 2019 16:46:47 GMT -5
"No more playing nice, its over
I have lost all self composure
I'm just seeking out some closure
With my hands around your throat"
- The Hunter and The Prey by Halocene
P A R T O N E: T H E P R E Y
Nathaniel had never seen a rainstorm over the pristine fields of the Realm of the Stars.
It was a dark, cold and terrible storm as far as storms went. One that shredded the leaves right off of their branches, and made every sparkling river roar and rage against its banks. It made Nathaniel wary, but not afraid. He had other, greater things to fear than strange weather in a realm of the afterlife.
"There better be a good reason to call us all here, Nathaniel," an annoyed she-cat's voice said, breaking the calm and terrible silence.
Right. Their presence alone could be changing the weather here.
"Not all of us are here yet," Nathaniel replied, flicking the rain off of his ears.
"Not all of us can be here," Nathaniel's fellow guardian replied, her voice strained with the tension in the air. "At best you will get six of us."
"I know."
"Then the least you can do is explain yourself. Why ask us here?"
"Because the Clans of the Valley are in danger of being destroyed," he replied, eyeing the dark grey sky just as a bolt of lightning split the clouds.
A heavy sigh pierced through the silence between the rain drops. "That is what you claim, but you have yet to tell us what is putting them in the path of danger."
"Not to mention that this meeting is unprecedented." Another voice chimed in. Her tone was rough and cracked and full of annoyance. "Never have the Guardians of the seven realms met in one place. There could be consequences."
"There's only three of us here now, Mydaiel." The other she-cat corrected her companion. "The others haven't answered Nathaniel's call."
Nathaniel looked over his shoulder, feeling their stares like one would feel claws digging into their back. "Anakim should have been here already. He would be the most concerned party, given that he watches over the living realm."
Mydaiel's sharp expression softened around her slanted eyes. "He would be the one to arrive first. He always cared the most for his post."
"At least tell those of us who are here what you think the clans are 'in danger of being destroyed' by?"
Nathaniel prepared himself to drop his findings, but was instead interrupted as the ground rumbled beneath them, and the stone cracked to reveal a familiar door rising from the dark depths of the realms.
"The question isn't 'what', Inashya darling, but rather 'who'?"
Nathaniel's skin crawled as Obris, the Guardian of the Abyss, stepped out of the door marked by a curling tadpole-like symbol. Slowly, the door zipped closed behind the charcoal stained tom, and vanished into black smoke which dissipated in the rain.
"Who?" Inashya repeated, her yellow eyes narrowing at Obris' amused face. "If you think a single cat could threaten the entire clan system, then you need to visit my realm. Most evil souls don't have the clarity of mind to undertake such an operation."
Obris laughed, his dark eyes glittering. "It's not one of them, it's one of us...isn't that right, Nathaniel?"
He can't know...
"How are you coming by this information, Obris?" Nathaniel demanded, his tail twitching around his paws.
Mydaiel growled. "He's right then? One of the Guardians is threatening the safety of the clans?"
"Oh, it's so much more than that," Obris purred.
"How did you find out?" Nathaniel snapped, tired of Obris' antics.
Obris smirked, his ashen grey pelt bristling in the erratic wind. "It's quite obvious, isn't it? Especially with that pathetic expression on your face. There has only ever been one she-cat who could make you want to crawl into a ditch and hide."
"Hadiya?" Mydaiel hissed, her tail curling into her stomach as she realized whom Obris was hinting at. "What reason could she have for wanting the clans gone?"
"She couldn't eradicate them even if she wanted to," Inashya said calmly, though her rain soaked whiskers trembled. "We are dead. There are limitations to how much we can influence the realm of the living."
Mydaiel nodded, looking a little more relaxed at her companion's words. "Not to mention we all agreed to keep our presence there to a minimum when we first adopted our roles."
Obris clicked his tongue, his smirk vanishing. "You both are forgetting that it was Hadiya who put us all here. It's unlikely that those limitations apply to her."
"They do," Nathaniel growled. "I made sure of it."
Obris laughed as a loud bolt of lighting rumbled through the sky. "Ah, your stupidity never ceases to amaze me. She's been stringing you along, lulling you into a haze of ignorance. Everyone here has the proper, healthy amount of respect and fear for her, but you? You tried to control a god." His eyes darkened, becoming black pits of merciless shadows. "And now that you have realized your incompetency, you dare send out a cry for help."
Inashya frowned. "Obris..."
"Hadiya murdered all of us at the Battle of Enchanted Rock," Obris continued, anger, disgust and frustration thick in his speech. "Then she decided to reanimate so many souls at once that she created an explosion in the afterlife, and those shattered pieces created everything you see here. Yet, she spared you. You didn't suffer from being brought back, and you didn't experience her vengeance first hand. She loved your cowardly hide; loved you enough to give you the stars. So, no, no one here is going to help you, let alone help the descendants of the cats who started the Blood Wars in the first place!"
Nathaniel felt the eyes of both Inashya and Mydaiel focused on him, and he knew, without having to meet their grim gazes, that they too felt the same.
"I've brought this upon myself, then?" Nathaniel murmured, his eyes unfocused and lost.
"While I do share many feelings that Obris has expressed," Mydaiel said, her slanted eyes wary and permeating with anger. "I will not abandon my duty to the Clans of the Valley. They are my descendants...and my souls to guard in the Realm of the Dead."
Inashya nodded, her gaze travelling over Obris' heavy glare. "Like Obris, I do not share blood ties with the clans, nor with any of the cursed who still live, but unlike him, I have some pride in my duties. Thus, I will not let Hadiya get away with her schemes. But don't think I am doing this for you, Nathaniel."
Nathaniel dipped his head, not sure whether to feel relieved or offended.
Obris shrugged. "I've said my peace. I've never had any love for my role in the Abyss, but I like existing. And as an immortal, existence is the only thing I have left. If Hadiya is a threat to that, then she needs to be dealt with."
Mydaiel smiled grimly. "I can't argue with that logic."
Nathaniel sighed, bowing his head lower to his chest. "The clans thank you all."
Obris sniffed and rolled his eyes. "Alright then death squad, what do we do now?"
"Well, without Anakim with us, we shouldn't try to confront Hadiya in the Realm of the Living," Inashya said. "And trying to lure her to any of the realms of the afterlife is out of the question."
Nathaniel grunted. "She's too smart for that."
Mydaiel's pale amber eyes swept overhead, her nostrils flaring. "Then we go to her. We go to the Between World."
Inashya flinched. "That retched place? Is that really our only option?"
"We will corner her, trap her in her own realm," Obris said, his claws flexing on the stone. "Make her the prey. If she won't come out, we will go in."
Nathaniel's spine contracts, the fur on his back rising. "She's not some helpless rabbit."
"We know, Nathaniel," Mydaiel assured him. "But you called us here, and now we have answered. Either join us, or stay out of our way."
Nathaniel looked at the ground, his reflection wavering in a tiny pool forming at his paws in a dip in the stone. He could still see the same thing he always saw in his eyes whenever he thought of Hadiya: grief.
"We will confront her first. If she is guilty, then judgement will be carried out," Inashya said quietly, as if she did in fact feel pity for him.
But grief had torn him up inside for too long. So Nathaniel knew what he had to do.
Grief needed to be hunted.
Grief needed to be killed.
"We go then," Nathaniel said, his gaze hardening into ice.
P A R T T W O: T H E H U N T E R
“The details aren’t important. What is important is that in order for me to…change things, I need you and your power.”“What do I get in return?”
“Anything you desire that is within my limits.”
“Then I desire the demise of the clans. I want their time to end, and for a new era to rise.”
“We have a deal then. It shall be done.”
Hadiya was done with cowards.
She was done coddling them, done giving them false smiles and assurances. For too long she had kept her disgust and frustration locked deep inside her soul, for too long she had sat and watched as the world around her turned a blind eye to her kind. She was done lying to herself.
She was angry. She had been angry for a long time.
"Hadiya...Hadiya please, listen to me."
Hadiya's blood red eyes shifted to the disheveled tom who called out to her. He was inside of a ring of red flames, the smooth, shiny black rock around them serving as a perfect mirror to Hadiya's crimes.
"I'm sorry it had to be you, Anakim," Hadiya said, truly meaning her words. "I know you have no ill will toward me or the cursed. But it is not enough. Things need to change."
"And are you willing to pay the price for that change?" Anakim asked, his watery blue eyes calm despite the death flickering about him.
Hadiya raised her eyes to a pale purple and red tinted sky filled with rolling black clouds. "Any price I pay now is nothing to what I've already paid," she said, her voice dark and monotone.
A tingling sensation ran down the back of her skull and into the core of her spine then, alerting her to intruders in her realm. Her eyes lowered slowly to her paws, her black and white fur shifting and rippling at a faster pace across her skin as she reacted to the presence of other guardians.
"I was right," Hadiya murmured. "They are coming for him."
"They would have come at your call too, Hadiya," Anakim said, picking up on her words. "They would have helped you."
"I did ask them," Hadiya snapped, her voice breaking as her claws sunk into the black rock beneath her like mud. "I begged him to save her."
Anakim flinched, sorrow billowing in his eyes.
Hadiya panted, reeling back her emotions. She needed to be in control of herself, or else this all would have been for nothing.
"I will kill him last," she growled, giving the promise to the air. "But not before I make him watch his precious clans crumble to dust."
P A R T T H R E E: T H E D E A T H
Coming soon...