Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2016 15:43:26 GMT -5
The river was on fire.
She remembered it before--muddy waters choked with tangled reeds and sticks and debris, thick enough to walk on if you were light and moved quickly. It was a sort of ritual among the apprentices. The newest apprentices, fur still kit-soft and eyes still hopeful, were challenged to cross the river without swimming. On the other side, their new denmates promised to gleefully welcome them as one of their own. And so the tiny, quick, hopping of their paws would get them to the other side safely.
Usually.
Her kind didn't like water. Water was the natural enemy to the fire burning inside them, the smoke curling like phantom serpents from their jaws. Water could put that inner fire out. She had been told many times, so many times, that she could not survive if the fire within her was snuffed.
She did not always believe them.
The river was on fire. She had made it so.
She didn't believe them because they have lied to her before. Her mentors with their cold, cutting eyes, who snarled when she did not burn like the rest. Those cats wanted rows and rows of perfect pupils. A revered camp of fire-wielders, renowned for their skill across all the Clans. Apprentices from every territory. A secluded land where their students would become greater than all the rest.
All small. All obedient. All in control.
Her fire did not come with that kind of control, the suppression of emotion. Her fire licked higher the more she felt. She felt everything--in a wild exultation of pain and joy and the ghostly laps of flame--she felt everything, and she let it pour through her. Wild. Untamed. Angry.
Anger in her paws, in each muscle of her legs. Anger that drove her in quick leaps across the river-debris, water sloshing her pads, making them sizzle. She was no longer so kit-innocent and bold--but she was small and trained and the water would not hold her.
Her mentors preached the value of strict control. Of quiet, unassuming, deadly fire-wielders. Of the inferno that comes only when the body is bowed in perfect obedience to the mind.
Her body and mind were one. Partners. Not master and servant.
Never master and servant.
She thought her denmates’ fire too could be stronger if they would only release the teachings of the past. Set it to ashes. Let new life grow from what was lost.
This is why she crossed the river, then set it on fire.
It was her own ritual now, performed alone. There were no denmates waiting for her, no encouragement, no awed gasps each time the debris-mats dipped and swayed beneath her weight. No one to save her from the most hated fate of drowning, should she slip. No teachers to watch the control she had learned on her own. Control born of emotion that licked at each fiber of her body, that stirred the fire in her belly. Her fire roared; it bled.
She crossed the river alone. And in doing so, she apprenticed herself to another.
The moon, the stars, the sky were her mentors now. The fire within and without, her companions.
The river that now burned behind her--a reminder, to others and to herself, that she was not going back.
-|-|-
This may or may not end up becoming a full-fledged fic... Eh, it depends on the response.
She remembered it before--muddy waters choked with tangled reeds and sticks and debris, thick enough to walk on if you were light and moved quickly. It was a sort of ritual among the apprentices. The newest apprentices, fur still kit-soft and eyes still hopeful, were challenged to cross the river without swimming. On the other side, their new denmates promised to gleefully welcome them as one of their own. And so the tiny, quick, hopping of their paws would get them to the other side safely.
Usually.
Her kind didn't like water. Water was the natural enemy to the fire burning inside them, the smoke curling like phantom serpents from their jaws. Water could put that inner fire out. She had been told many times, so many times, that she could not survive if the fire within her was snuffed.
She did not always believe them.
The river was on fire. She had made it so.
She didn't believe them because they have lied to her before. Her mentors with their cold, cutting eyes, who snarled when she did not burn like the rest. Those cats wanted rows and rows of perfect pupils. A revered camp of fire-wielders, renowned for their skill across all the Clans. Apprentices from every territory. A secluded land where their students would become greater than all the rest.
All small. All obedient. All in control.
Her fire did not come with that kind of control, the suppression of emotion. Her fire licked higher the more she felt. She felt everything--in a wild exultation of pain and joy and the ghostly laps of flame--she felt everything, and she let it pour through her. Wild. Untamed. Angry.
Anger in her paws, in each muscle of her legs. Anger that drove her in quick leaps across the river-debris, water sloshing her pads, making them sizzle. She was no longer so kit-innocent and bold--but she was small and trained and the water would not hold her.
Her mentors preached the value of strict control. Of quiet, unassuming, deadly fire-wielders. Of the inferno that comes only when the body is bowed in perfect obedience to the mind.
Her body and mind were one. Partners. Not master and servant.
Never master and servant.
She thought her denmates’ fire too could be stronger if they would only release the teachings of the past. Set it to ashes. Let new life grow from what was lost.
This is why she crossed the river, then set it on fire.
It was her own ritual now, performed alone. There were no denmates waiting for her, no encouragement, no awed gasps each time the debris-mats dipped and swayed beneath her weight. No one to save her from the most hated fate of drowning, should she slip. No teachers to watch the control she had learned on her own. Control born of emotion that licked at each fiber of her body, that stirred the fire in her belly. Her fire roared; it bled.
She crossed the river alone. And in doing so, she apprenticed herself to another.
The moon, the stars, the sky were her mentors now. The fire within and without, her companions.
The river that now burned behind her--a reminder, to others and to herself, that she was not going back.
-|-|-
This may or may not end up becoming a full-fledged fic... Eh, it depends on the response.
