Post by ᴛᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ on Mar 25, 2017 13:55:11 GMT -5
945 Words
She has never been a creature of grace. Elegance does not settle well along her broad shoulders, and care is not etched so finely into the pads of her paws as is strength. Grey, full of pride and fury, she has earned a name that speaks of howling winds and torrential rain.
She is no flower. Rather, she is the perfect storm.
But no Clan has need of a tempest all the time. Fire gnaws at her bones, and the air around her vibrates with a taut, humming energy. The confines of the mundane send electricity singing through her veins, where it will eventually fizzle out, nowhere left to go. To cross her path as a hurricane tears through her chest is folly for young and old alike. She carries too much, too much.
This charged burden is relieved, though, when the neighboring Clan declares war. It is a fool's war, fought in the powdery snow over the skeletons of voles, but it is a war nonetheless, and her Clan does not decline a challenge, not with icy wrath incarnate among their ranks. She stands out not only from the snow, grey speckled pelt ruffled in the wind, but from her Clan; the spearhead of her patrol, she embodies confidence and meticulous control.
"After me," she says evenly. Always the leader. Always the first. It is an unspoken rule, upheld even by her leader, a cat whom the Clans also know for a brand of relentlessness so rare and strong. And so when she charges down the slope, clouds of white kicked up her in wake, her Clanmates follow her into battle.
They also follow her out. Two fresh wounds grace her cheek, exposed to the bitter cold, but her chin is lifted high in triumph. On this day, she has proved herself a blizzard, raging through the snow, hot on the heels of victory. This she takes with her in the same fashion an apprentice might carry a massive rabbit home in expectancy of praise. The only difference is that an apprentice would never receive the praises she does, and that an apprentice would never turn to restless pacing as she does.
Her energy must be funneled into new pursuits, or her pawsteps will wear a track into the center of camp. In a little over a year, she speeds not one, but two apprentices through the most brutal training of their lives; one dies young, too full of valor for this world, and the other grows hardened to the turn of the seasons, a warrior who has earned his keep. Following that, StarClan takes her into their fold, if only to grant her nine lives to blaze through the forest with.
She cannot stop. She will not stop. The hot-blooded young are always this way, always tearing along at a breakneck pace, burning like the brightest of stars. Age is never the cause of their decline; age is merely an obstacle. Rather, fiery blood turns cold at the intercession of tragedy, and those hearts do not defrost.
She wishes to unlearn this lesson, a wish unexpressed even to the most attentive ears. To turn back the moons, she would offer anything, but StarClan has no time for the pleas of once-lovers. And so she must bear it. Elegance attempted long ago to straddle her shoulders, but was bucked by their power. Responsibility, though, nestles perfectly into place with Regret tucked close.
Unlearning love proves impossible with this heavy weight on her back. She cannot forget the electric heart she found with him, nor the way his brightness paralleled that of the sun. He once kept pace with her vibrancy and strength, an unbridled spirit on par with her own. But rain changed that.
A single grey drop of rain sent her beautiful star spiraling down. He revealed himself as a star fueled not by adventure and excitement, but by avarice and envy. In one stroke, he took fire and breath from her body by stealing that of another. She gave the last of her storm to driving him out, belly still round from kitting, claws still sharp from dedication, sharper still from betrayal.
Now, she wants to see him again, one last time. He deserves to know that the thunder rumbling in her chest is gone, that the lightning in her spine has vanished. And after that, she wants his burnt-out heart to collapse on itself, imploding in a scarlet haze.
For this last task, she will summon the last of her legendary pride and fury, the last of the strength in her paws. And somewhere, sitting just beneath her heart, there is a pale ember, biding its time, waiting to be breathed upon, to be restored to life.
She will rekindle that, if only to set the supernova of her old star in motion. And when he is through, she will let it go out, because she knows full well that there will always be another tempest. Her reign of fire will be over, and another will take her place. This she is at peace with.
The next storm is cold on the horizon, and its preceding winds send a chill twisting through her fur. In it, she sees echoes of herself, snarling wrath and righteousness. Past it, she sees the coldness of the stars, winking in and out of darkness, dancing on the edge of the world.
The next storm will be a mighty one, perhaps more furious that hers ever was. It carries promise of great change and fear, as the most powerful storms do. And in its wake, she will appear as little more than a creature of grace.
