Roses have Thorns
Wolf of the Dark Lolita
-Prologue-
"That'll never be you," I remember my mother saying as we walked away from the cave in which I had been born. Her words and tone were harsh, as though she was not talking to her own kits but instead something hoarser, like scraping her tongue across the bark of a dead tree. The cave held within it my father, staring helplessly with empty eyes, as though the sentence had managed to travel back to him through the wind. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had heard though, he was a great listener. That's what he stood there doing now. Always listening. It wasn't like he could protest or say a word to sway my mother, no, it was a physical impossibility for him as he'd never spoken a thing in his life. Now was no different, he could not, even to keep the ones he loved close to him. So he had no choice but to listen and watch as we scrabbled away, raking our feeble claws through his heart as we did so.
Oh, it weren't as though my mother despised him for his disability. Quite the opposite, in fact. The main reason she'd fallen in love with him in the first place was because he was the 'mysterious, silent type' that she had always longed for. She'd tell me the reason she left him was that, after a while, she saw him not as the listener that he was, but as though she was merely talking to a leaf that would only ever react with a quick twitch caused by the breath of her words. More forced then anything. So she grew bored with him and tossed him to the wind as she abandoned him and his feelings. I know the truth, though. It was not my father she grew bored with, it was what they had. At one time, it had been a life full of danger and romance. He would sneak out at moon high to meet her, running so fast the breeze could not even catch up to his paws. Although, in the end, he abandoned his old life for what he thought was freedom, but what was actually entrapment - to my mother. There was nothing more forbidden then to love a cat from a clan and when he was that no longer, she had lost interest.
My father was everything you would want in a clan cat; a warrior is what they called them. His silence is what brought the leader peace. There was no worry of him betraying their secrets, not a complaint out of his mouth and never said a word against him. He was ensured loyalty, no questions asked. So, instead of hunting and fighting as any other tom his age would, he spent his time in the murky depths of the leader's den, having the troubles of the leader fed into him like rising fire. Oh, it was a great way for their leader to let off what was on his mind, but each word was forced into my father's head like a rock against his skull. There was so much heaped up inside him, that is was bound to erupt like a spewing volcano. Though, in my father's case, it was not in a bout of irrational violence, but instead through loving my mother. To do something this disloyal and rebellious was all he could do. So that's why he ran away and that's why he had to go crawling back.
My mother must have been insane to drag us out of that cave. Our eyes had barely opened and we stumbled along, mewling as our first taste of the mighty wind lashed at us. Perhaps, if she'd left us to grow up with our father, we'd have grown use to the power of Windclan, but for us to be hit with such a force so suddenly, it would have been no surprise if we'd been swept right off the moors. Though, she would risk it, she would dismiss our troubles, because each of us held a little part of our father within us. Whether it was my sisters' eyes, my brother's build or my very own pelt, she could only see a reflection of that which she no longer loved. Do not think poorly of her though, she was a confused young rogue with four new-born kits trailing at her ankles. Though, that number soon dwindled to three.
I'd give anything to go back and swipe my mother over the ears for being so mouse-brained. Of course something was bound to happen to us. Not a thought of hers was to where we were going, as long as it was away from all clan cats. My mother held nothing against my father except simply what he was. At first, she had thought he was a rogue like her; she was never one for thinking, but then she was led to a discovery and his rank dawned upon her like a secret unfolded. The scent of so many she-cats on his pelt; she'd been suspicious at first. Then she followed him back just as the cracks of dawn filtered through the skeletons of the trees and found his home. She was quickly chased off though, to think of a rogue to come wandering through their territory! It disgusted them. So even though the wounds of their attack healed, her thoughts festered.
I don't think she'd even given us names when she marched us off on that bizarre journey. My father had done so mentally, but there was of course no way of sharing them with her. He still thought they were in love, being dragged on like a fool. It wasn't far into the journey that my sister was swooped at by a hawk. I don't know how I remember, but I can still hear her squeals, the glint of the creature's talons as they scratched across her kit-soft pelt and the beating of heavy wings as she was spirited away by the dreadful thing. I think that's when my mother knew we needed to be protected. I think it was the first feeling of compassion she had for us. She grew to love us for what we were was because after all, we were as much of her as our father was of us.
We didn't travel much further after that. As long as we were off clan cat territory, she found no need to. So we grew, never far from home, but never close enough to each other. We lived together, but each in our own little worlds.
That'll never be you. Oh my young kit, those words echo now in my heart as they did through the moors on that very day, because I'm sure as you are quite aware, that is already what I've become. So please, make yourself comfortable in that moss bed of yours because you are in for quite a long story.