A/N: Once again, another challenge written for the Warriors Challenge Forum. This time? It's the What's In A Name challenge, created by Waterstar03. And look, Water! I finally got your pen name right! *cheers* I had to write a story describing Hareclan, which I was told nothing about save the name, and this is what came about. It's...Interesting, to say the least. ^-^'
He dies in fire and he does not scream.
That's what the storyteller says. Her voice, cracked from age and filled with the stress that comes from living in a war-torn forest, is low. She doesn't want anyone but the kits listening to her tale to hear. She's not dumb after all, she knows that she would be dead before she could even raise a paw in defence if they did hear here.
Once, he was a hero. A tom known through all of the Clans for his golden pelt and his burning gaze; for the love that he gave his sister and all those he came across, even when he had no love for himself. He was an idol for those too weal to defend themselves. A savior. A warrior like no other.
But when the others fell around him, he found himself unable to stand on his own.
Oh, for a while he fought, the storyteller explains. Fueled by rage and hatred and the utter need to get revenge on those who killed all close to him. But he couldn't go on like that forever.
As, one by one, the cats who had always stood around him fell -the strict Windclan deputy, the fiesty Shadowclan she-cat and her quiet sister, the kind brother of the daughter of Legend, even the strong-willed Riverclan leader- his nerve started to shatter. It wasn't until his sister was taken from him, stolen by the one with fur dark as night and a gaze that screams death, that his spirit finally shattered.
Then the storyteller leans a little closer to her listeners, never leaving the shadows of brush, voice dropping a bit lower. And she goes on to explain how each fallen comrade of the tom with the golden pelt was killed in front of him, always in front of him, and then strung up on display in the streers of whatever territory they belonged to. But his sisters body, the one that the young tom had worked so hard to always keep safe during the war, was never found.
His once shining pelt crisped and curled, darkened as the flames licked at him and climbed ever higher, and his murderer does not smile. Not like she did when the others were killed.
Her name is Legacy and she is second-in-command of the forced now controlling the forest.
Why, one kit questions, confusion clear on her scarred and dirty face, why was Legacy the one who killed him? For it is no secret that the others fell to Pure's below Legacy's rank; even the brave leader, torn to shreds and fed to the wild coyotes that lived out in this strange moore, didn't get a death like that.
And an odd look enters the storyteller's eyes as she leans ever closer, never leaving the shadows. Because the next words are almost taboo, never to be spoken about because the moments there were fleeting and brief. And she tells them all that, once, the tom and the black pelted she-cat were more than friends.
The tom was even searching for a wat to restore his killer's home-land without more violance, to repair her pride and make her whole once more.
They respected each other.
They lied for each other.
They were in love.
And so, says the teller of the tale, the second-in-command gave the once-strong hero a proper death. An execution by someone that he respected, and who in return respected him.
He died in fire, the story goes, and not once did he scream.
But the storyteller does not talk of the silent yowls that he let out as he died, heart and soul breaking as the flames flickered against skin and fur alike. She does not talk about the way his eyes had lost their golden hue, nothing more than burnt out brown looking out at his killer. She does not tell about the look on his face as she brought her claws to his throat, blood running as the skin was cut, ever so slowly, and he was left to be consumed by the fire that he once stood proud beside.
After the once-willing hero fell, the Pure grew strong, she says. What was once nothing more than a group of rouges who claimed to be supreme became the rulers of the forest. They gathered the surviving cats of all four clans, and there were so few, too few, and herded them all together in one place. A moore just on the outskirts of WindClan's territory, where only wild beasts that they call coyotes and lanky hares live.
They named the remaining cats HareClan, she whispers, because the cats of the forest ran just like the prey that would now be their only source of food.
And she leans back onto her haunches after the words leave her mouth because someone has just padded into their make-shift camp and they have pure black fur and vibrant green eyes. The kits scatter, and the teller goes back to the thin rabbit as her paws; only there to try and soothe the ache that's formed in the she once called a heart, one that will never truly go away.
The black-pelted tom pads over to the brush that the storyteller hides beneath and sits down, but their eyes never meet. They don't need to meet. The both already know the truth, and they both know that being here in HareClan's camp will only numb them for so long; they've both lost someone dear to them in their rise to power and they can never get them back.
So the storyteller looses her mask of shadows and pushes her way out of the prickly bush and into the light of day and in it's place is a she-cat, lithe and slender, with a pure black pelt and shaded green eyes.
He died in fire and he did not scream.