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Post by Rolo on Jan 13, 2015 12:12:08 GMT -10
Claws. Flowers. Blood. Meadows. Grooming. Teeth. Dappled light. Fog.
Fog. Lots and lots of Fog.
By the time it was over, her veins were flooded with the sound of malicious jeering. Faith stuck to her fur, sticky and wet. Her heart was filled with pebbles.
Overwhelmed. Silent. She felt it all so keenly, and yet barely comprehended when she felt a kind nudge at her side. An insistent act of care, pushing her along, pushing her out of the clearing.
She knew who it was. Was he saying anything? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t speak or move.
By the time her vision cleared and the shouts faded, she was sat in a cool patch of grass behind the warrior den. And Otterclaw was there. Right beside her, his short fur pressed into hers. He'd collapsed beside her.
“You look awful.” She mumbled. And he did. She’d not been wrong when she had sensed that this time the beating would be different. It had been. They’d never used teeth before. It had never seemed like a whirlwind of different paws and faces before. She’d never hurt this much before.
As her mind crept out of its protective shell, the pain came to her in waves. Her body throbbed. She could feel the blood pulsing out of every scratch. It was running into her eyes. It was disrupting her senses.
She let out a mrrow of pain and collapsed onto the damp grass. She heaved a breath and her stomach churned. She shivered.
She could cope. She could cope.
She willed herself to battle against it. She forced herself to stop trembling. To force away the utter misery. Were there any broken bones? Were there? That was important.
Silently, she sat and gradually worked round her limbs. She tried to move each one of them and checked for every toe. It focused her brain and distracted her.She was thankful to find that she could feel and move every one.
Then she remembered. Otterclaw. Otterclaw was here. She looked at him, but didn’t see him.
“Otterclaw. Are you ok?” She asked, her nose making her mew sound funny. She pawed her nose gently. It had been clawed viciously and she could no longer breathe through it. “I... I hope you’re ok. I think I’m ok. I don’t know.”
She coughed. Her mouth tasted like blood. It tasted like sin, pure sin. Whose was it?
The little voice of reason in her head told her to stay awake. Soon, she must get up, even if her muscles ached. She’d dealt with this before. She had to get to the stream to clean her wounds or they’d get infected. And if any of these wounds got infected in her already weakened state, she would die. For certain.
But... sleep was so soothing.
And then, as she lay there, her eyes closed, she felt a shadow fall across her form.
She opened her puffy eyes to find a form so malevolent, dreadful and evil she found herself shivering despite herself. Oh, she hated him. More than anything else in existence. But now, she found no anger or spite. She could only feel fear. If he wanted to, he could strike her down and she would not be able to resist him. And she would be gone. And he would continue to rule the clan and hurt others, because she had gone and died, even though Finchpaw told her she couldn’t.
She stared up at him. Why couldn’t he have left her alone? He’d dealt the punishment, that’s all he needed to do. He didn’t need to be here. He didn’t need to make her life even more full of pain. Why couldn’t she run?
But he was smiling.
“Frostpaw.” He said, “Otterclaw. I know you resent me. No cat could not. You are in so much pain, I know it. I went through this sting myself. But I have come to tell you that this beating was not without reason.”
He sat before them, his eyes closed. Frostpaw saw him surrounded by red and grey mist, with curtains of darkness closing in around him.
“Starclan has told me that I have not been fair to you. Although I have tried, I have never really helped you. I’ve held back. This is why the demons have never been ripped from you, and the Dark Forest continued to use your paws as puppets. But now...’
He smiled widely, giddily. The grin of an intoxicated feline.
“Now I have purged you truly.”
He stood back up and moved towards her. Frostpaw flinched and squirmed. Terror. Pure terror.
He bent down to her, slowly, ominously. He went for her neck.
She stopped breathing.
And then he nuzzled her. With all the affection of a mate, he shared tongues with her.
“And now you are forgiven. Your sins have been wiped away and you, Frostpaw and Otterclaw, are born anew. You are once again our clanmate and comrade and we welcome you as full members of Fogclan.”
Frostpaw was filled with such revulsion, she felt bile rising in her throat. He... he had touched her. He had run his tongue along her neck... up to the tip of her ear. He turned to do the same to Otterclaw, but she couldn't see if he managed to or not.
“Of course, it remains to be seen how you use this new life.” Volepelt’s voice became stern, formal, “Only Starclan knows whether you will return to your old life, dirtying your pelts with the ashes of your old sins, or whether you will rise and embrace the glory of Starclan.
“Whichever you choose, just remember that Starclan’s patience does not flow endlessly. If you turn away from them now, you may never see their light again.”He smiled at them both and dipped his head. Without another word, he turned around and began to make his way into the centre of clan camp.
Frostpaw couldn’t stop trembling. Her skin crackled where he had been. Her stomach twisted. She wanted to cry out with fury and pain. Struggling to her paws, she took a few painful steps away from Otterclaw, her eyes streaming.
She retched. She retched so hard her stomach hurt. And then she stumbled back to her spot, collapsed and vowed she wouldn’t move again. |
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