Post by Cuppa Tea on Sept 23, 2016 17:20:17 GMT -5
NOTES: transferred from the wcf. This is an AU (that I think is crappily written but still did a bit of rewriting before uploading it here)
It is a wonderful feeling that sets his mind at ease and sends pleasant tingles down his spine.
He'd...he'd done it! He'd finally done it! He was no longer playing God over and over again in his head, but rather he was God, powerful beyond the understanding of mortal, lesser toms.
There was no one left to wake his insecurities. No one left to uproot the failures he had buried at the back of his mind. No more poisonous glares, or disappointed sighs, or biting remarks that tore through his psyche like twigs in a hurricane.
Now Breezepelt, liberated, could unfurl his wings and soar towards a brighter tomorrow that he could practically taste. He was Wind! He was River! He was Thunder! The gallant hero of kits' tales that banished a great evil from the world. He saved himself-no, he saved them all, from this monster, this swine, this inscrutable, hateful foxheart--
This...
This...
Breezepelt looks down.
And feels his insides twist in so tightly that he could no longer breathe.
Red. All he saw was red. Red that spurted from Crowfeather's freshly slit throat. The throat, because Breezepelt had recognized the chilly dismissal in his father's voice, the lack of anger - the lack of - as he told his son to run away and never return. He would never be afraid of his son, not even as a fighter of the greatest force of evil known to felinekind, not even when Breezepelt got angry and bloodthirsty and unsheathed his claws and lunged, not even when Breezepelt clamped down on his throat until he could feel the last drops of life seep out of him.
He had murdered Crowfeather. Murdered him. A warrior. A comrade. A father. Someone's lover. Someone's son.
There is a terrible, constricting pressure against Breezepelt's chest and his head feels like a feather at the wind's mercy. As his vision grows dark around the edges, Breezepelt wonders if it is really possible for a tom of his age to die of fright.
Oh StarClan, I've killed my own blood.
Breezepelt shrieks once, and his world is reanimated.
Figures surge towards him from here and there, many he recognizes but cannot name. Names come slowly to him, and their voices even slower, as if horribly warped.
"Breezepelt!" "Oh StarClan, Crowfeather!" "What happened?!"
Weaselfur, Ashfoot, Heathertail, and so many more; WindClan cats who could see their Clanmate in all of his vileness. She-cats with their cries of horror and fainting hearts and toms heading for him with hideous, palpable anger. Breezepelt could only recoil, like a demon shirking the light brought on by those with consciences so much purer than his own.
There is a she-cat by his side, one with brown fur and ocean blue eyes. "Breezepelt!" She shouts. "What happened? Tell me you didn't do this. Tell me!"
He does not answer.
Breezepelt does not fear Heathertail's probing anger. He fears the cacophony of cries in the air that called for his blood. The shock in Onestar's gaze, the disgust in Whitetail's. The disappointment in his dear grandmother Ashfoot's eyes that sent a message that shakes him to his very core: child, what have you done?
There's an overwhelming pain burning into his skull, and in the next moment, Breezepelt is out like a light.
He was alive.
Why?
He was alive, but in no way freed. Above him wasn't an open sky. IT was a finite, earthy ceiling, crafted from stones, leaves, and branches. This was the den where WindClan held their captives. He was a prisoner in his own home and he was entirely deserving of imprisonment. The very thought of it makes him ill.
"I killed my father," he murmurs to himself. Killed.
The sound of rustling leaves breaks the silence. Breezepelt turns in his nest of feathers and feels the tension within his bones release at once. Thank StarClan, a friendly face! It was merely Harespring, his denmate and friend since birth, who he felt an even stronger sense of brotherhood towards since they had started training in the Dark Forest together.
But Breezepelt feels the tension slowly return as he notes the rigidness in the tom's posture and expression. Harespring's face was supposed to mirror his joy, not demur it.
"I've told Onestar you've awakened. You've been out for two days," Harespring tells him with the formality of a medic addressing his patient. Breezepelt doesn't know how to respond.
"I can't believe you actually did it," Harespring chokes out. "You always talked about cutting him out of your life, but not like...like this. Your own father..."
Breezepelt's blood freezes within him. "No, Harespring, I didn't-"
"That was your own father, Breezepelt!"
Quickly, the mood changes. Breezepelt is no longer cold with trepidation but hot with anger and frustration. "Can you blame me?!" He shoots back. "You all saw how horrible he treated me! How he insulted me, how he ignored me. He never cared for me, never!"
"And you decided to kill him for it?" The bicolored tom shouts. "It was not up to you to decide whether he lived or died! Not just your father, but your own Clanmate. Our own." Harespring turns his head, as if he couldn't even bear to look at his friend. "Breezepelt, do you have any idea how much the rest of this Clan cares for you? Do you even know how much it hurts to have to vote on what to do with you? You broke the code and now-"
Breezepelt interjects with a harsh bark of laughter. "You're the last cat that should be lecturing me on the code after joining the Dark Forest."
"That was a mistake, and I realize that. Now I'm paying the price for it. My Clanmates may never trust me ever again, thanks to my foolishness." Harespring's voice is fraught with shame. "I admit it, Breezepelt. I'm not Dark Forest material. You might enjoy it, but I just can't. I can't betray my Clan just to become stronger. I...I can't lay a claw on my own kin."
So this was how it was going to end, with his own friend denouncing and abandoning him even when they were guilty of the same crimes? Breezepelt feels the furs along his spine begin to bristle, and his claws sinking into the earth are perhaps the only things keeping him rooted to the spot. "You little coward. I should-"
"Should what?" Harespring faces the menacing Breezepelt with no fear, voice and gaze filled with righteous indignation. "Are you going to kill me, too?"
That stops Breezepelt dead. What? No! His Clanmates weren't supposed to be scared of him. All he did was...he didn't mean...he...
"WindClan!" Onestar's voice draws both of the toms' attention towards the Highrock, where the leader now stands. Cats of different sizes, colors, and ranks shuffle out of the surrounding dens. "I have just received word that Breezepelt is awake. Emberfoot and Sedgewhisker will fetch him from the prisoner's den shortly. For now, I would like our medicine cat and all of our warriors, elders, and queens only to gather at the Tallrock. I would like Furzepaw to fetch the voting pebbles he was sent to collect yesterday."
The older cats assemble in front of the Highrock with matching solemn expressions, while the apprentices and kits look on with a curious apprehension of the coming trial.
Onestar voice rings clear across the camp. "It is with great sorrow that I remind you why we gather here today: to unearth an old custom that we have been privileged enough to have not needed for seasons. Our own Clanmate, Breezepelt, has slain his father, Crowfeather. I and several of our warriors found the two of them in the midst of the Great Battle only two days ago; one a corpse, one standing over that corpse with his blood on his claws and muzzle."
Onestar stops. Breezepelt notices how his leader begins to waver from his position on the Highrock. When he speaks again, his voice evinced his grief. "As Silverpelt was unavailable at the time due to the realm of the dead colliding with the realm of the living, it is...unclear whether or not Crowfeather has made it to StarClan. We had no choice but to bury his body before it could decay. Kestrelflight has received no signs from StarClan of Crowfeather's presence amongst their ranks. Therefore, Crowfeather's status is unknown."
Some Clanmates bow their heads. Some murmur among themselves. Others whimper softly into the comfort of another. How horrible, they thought, to not even be offered the courtesy of rest with your ancestors. Crowfeather was in a limbo that was possibly, nauseatingly, permanent.
"This makes Breezepelt's crime twice as treasonous," Onestar continues. "For this, he will receive the highest form of Judgement: he will either be voted to permanent exile where he will be killed on sight if he ever appears on Clan territory again, or he will be publicly executed. Those who choose the former will cast white pebbles, while those who choose the latter will cast black ones. Choose wisely. I invite you to discuss among yourselves. The vote will begin shortly."
"No!" somecat cries.
It is Nightcloud, marching her way through the crowd as best as she could as Swallowtail tries to restrain her. "My son would never do such a thing! You're all liars!" She howls, struggling against her captor. "Let me go, let me go now!" Wide eyes, raised fur, claws slicing at air--Nightcloud appears to be going mad, a mother transformed by her warped desire to protect her child.
She turns in the direction of the prisoner den. "Breezepelt!" She wails. "T-tell them you would never kill your father. I know you wouldn't, baby, just tell the truth, okay?"
No answer came. Breezepelt, horrified, cannot hear her plea.
"...Breezepelt?" Nightcloud squeaks, a thick dreadfulness rising in her throat. She crumples to the floor, perhaps out of grief for the lover who did not love her back, or out of the coming doom that await her son, or out of the inundating feeling of failure she felt as a mother and a mate for allowing her family to crash and burn--who could say?
"They're going to kill me, Harespring?" Breezepelt asks in a whisper.
Harespring couldn't answer. The tom wouldn't even look at him.
If it really came to that...he'd be fed nightshade. And if he resisted, his throat would be slit. His body would decay, and his soul would not be salvageable. StarClan wouldn't have him, that was certain. What use was there in murmuring final prayers?
Harespring begins to walk away.
"No, stay here, please. You're the only cat I have..." Heathertail didn't even visit him. His mother was nearly mad. Crowfeather was probably somewhere in this universe, laughing at him and his pitiful attempts to truly be free.
"Harespring!" But his friend was already turning his back on him, just like so many others did and would do, and his white tail flicks in a sorrowful farewell.
And then Harespring does the most terrible thing and leaves Breezepelt alone with himself.
