This is kit challenge#2 for DarkClan (an awesome forum), and it's based on "Loving Hate".
It was dusk, the last of the sun's embers dying with his cold body.
"F-foxface... Don't leave me." Through the laughing of the red she-cat beside him, Hollowfrost could barely distinguish his own voice.
"Excuse me?" Foxface whipped around, lowering her head down to face him. Her eyes blazed with a fierce green fire."I thought you hated me?"
"I-I d-did." Hollowfrost's voice was pleading now, and it sounded weak to his own ears. He was helplessly sprawled onto his back, a long gash, made by none other than his daughter, cutting across his belly fur. The brown-and-white tom could feel his own life bleeding out into the soil underpaw, his own words doing nothing but tempting the she-cat in front of him to just finish him off. "B-but I... I've changed. I l-loved you once, remember?" Desperate, he wondered if remorse was the key to his survival.
Foxface's face contorted into a shadowed fury, and Hollowfrost flinched back—or as far as he could flinch, he thought regretfully. His back was paralyzed.
Foxface was about to shoot back a sharp retort, but it didn't make its way out of her mouth. Because suddenly she was falling, dropping, spiraling, into a realm only she knew of. Yet she was still out of control, unable to stop the flashback from coming.
It was sunhigh, the brim of the sun's embers resting on her warm back.
In her point of view, this didn't matter one bit. For she had much more unpleasant things crowding her mind.
"Father, do you still love me?" She made sure her voice was mocking, venomous.
"Of course, dear. Nothing could ever stop me from doing that." Hollowfrost's reply was calm and reassuring. Absolutely infuriating.
Foxkit was not convinced. Not even a mouse-length. "Well, I hate you, I'm never loving you again. You broke my moss-doll, the one I've been working on for half a moon, so you get my hate."
"Sweetie, I've told you before, it was an accident. You shouldn't have left your toy right outside the warriors' den, anyway," said Hollowfrost.
"Oh, so now it's my fault that it got squashed?" Foxkit could feel her voice rapidly rising. She glared at her father. "It's my fault that I only wanted to show it to you, it's my fault that now you don't have your so-called pride?"
"What? Foxkit, what did you mean by that? About me not having my pride?"
"Ha." She felt a momentary triumph. "When you squashed the moss, I went to tell Pikestar. Now the RiverClan leader is angry at you. She'll have you cleaning the elders' droppings for a moon!"
When Hollowfrost still looked confused, Foxkit felt fury building up inside her. "Don't you get it? You'll be punished for ruining my project! It makes sense."
Then she realized he wasn't looking at her—not exactly, anyway. His gaze seemed to be fixed on a point just above her head. She whipped around angrily, and found herself faced with the stern stare of Pikestar.
"See?" Foxkit turned back to Hollowfrost. "Now Pikestar'll give you what you deserve!"
"Now, now, Foxkit." Pikestar padded forward so that she was facing both Foxkit and Hollowfrost. "There's no need to get all angry like that. What Hollowfrost said is true. It was only an accident, Foxkit, you should forgive him."
"I—you—how could you... I told you, you were there! I thought you were on my side!" Foxkit was furious. Did no one care that her small moss-doll was ruined, never to be repaired—nor replaced—again?
"Yes, that's true, but—" Pikestar started to continue.
"—it was an accident! You already told me that!" Foxkit finished for her. She could feel hot tears building up inside her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wouldn't let the traitors think they'd already gotten the best of her. "That's what he said! It's what mother said! It's what everyone's gonna say!"
Unable to take it anymore, she stormed off into the nursery, tossing only a few shouted words over her shoulder. "I hate you! I hate you both! I'm never talking to you again!"
And that, Foxface reflected from afar, was only a small part of why she hated her father, compared to the other situations. She could feel her body spinning again, whisking her off into a different part of her life, and knew that this flashback had ended. She had learned long before that it was no use resisting them, so she just let an endless blackness overwhelm all her senses.
It was morning, the first of the sun's embers shining on her wet face.
"But, please, father, I've told you a million times before, it was an accident, I didn't mean to push her into the river!" she wailed.
Hollowfrost remained hard and unforgiving. "What's done is done, Foxpaw. There's no going back from the fate you've given yourself." He sighed. "And I thought there was a better path laid down for you than this."
"Please!" Foxpaw sobbed. "Please, don't e-exile me! I wasn't looking where I stepped, I promise!"
With despair, she saw that they had already reached the clearing. The clan sat there in a circle, gathered around the place where Foxpaw was to stand.
Pikestar stood on a large, smooth rock, positioned inside the circle's side. She was overlooking the whole thing with a tight stature, and there was a hardness to her lips that made Foxpaw want to crawl back into the prisoner's den.
"No! Noooo! I didn't do it, I didn't—" Foxpaw's shouts were muffled as Hollowfrost stuffed his tail into her gaping mouth. She wanted to bite it or scream in despair, but she knew she couldn't. It would have caused havoc among the clan, and dug her into deeper trouble than she already was.
"Foxpaw, come now and stand before me." Like a blade of leaf, Pikestar's voice cut through the silence that had settled among them all. Reluctantly, Foxpaw padded over to where the snowy white leader was. Her clan cleared her a path as she walked through their line. Some of them hissed insults at her. Some spat at her. Others just glared, while very a few amount looked sympathetic.
Reaching the middle of the circle, Foxpaw gulped. She attempted to stifle her tears and look her angry leader straight into the eyes.
"Foxpaw, do you know why you are here, in this position?" Pikestar leaned forward, giving Foxpaw a stare so imploring, it took all of Foxpaw's willpower to not flinch.
"Y-y-yes." The reddish-brown apprentice paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "Because you think I murdered Herontail." At this, some of the clan snarled, glaring at her with even more dislike than there already was. Then all that lay trapped inside of Foxpaw spilled out. "B-but I didn't-t! N-not on purpose! It was j-just—we were w-walking d-d-down the riverbank, I s-slipped a-and crashed into her, t-th-then she f-f-fell in the th-thawing r-river and-and d-drowned!" Her voice came out an anguished howl.
She saw several of the clan stir uncomfortably, and a few rose up, yelling out in protest. "That's not what Hollowfrost said!" Thistlefang, a senior warrior, shouted. He looked as if he were about to jump on her.
Foxpaw's eyes widened. "Why! W-why d'you not b-believe m-me? I'm t-telling th-the t-truth!" But she felt she already knew why. As a young apprentice, she had exceeded many others—even a few young warriors, including Thistlefang. Soon her skill hung above them so much, they had become bitter with jealousy. They complained, lied, about her, to their parents, even going as far as to insist that she was the liar.
So this accident was just a bigger excuse to punish her, and just for being better than them all, it seemed.
The crowd was in uproar. Pikestar stood up straighter and wildly waved her tail. "Silence!" It took a while, but soon all was quiet and oblivious to Foxpaw's quiet sniffles.
Pikestar continued with the speech. "So, Foxpaw... You state that it was an accident, and you are innocent. Hollowfrost, what is your say in all of this?"
"F-father!" Foxpaw turned to Hollowfrost, all her former anguish hardening into anger. "You said you l-loved me, you said you w-would n-never stop l-loving me! Well, I love you, too! Why can't you see that? You're forgiven!"
"Foxpaw." Her father's voice was cold, calm, sturdy, matching ice exactly. "Once, I trampled your so-called 'moss-doll' by accident. Once, I said that I loved you. And you said that you hated me. But 'once' is not 'now'. Now, you have murdered the RiverClan deputy." He held up his tail to stop Foxpaw's attempted protest. "Now, you finally admit that you love me. Now, I hate you— for what you've done to Herontail, the cat I loved." There were several gasps of shock from the clan at this, and Foxpaw tried to break in again. However, Hollowfrost continued on. "I saw you when it happened I saw that mad glint in your eyes—"
"That's not true!" Foxpaw screamed at last. "You know it isn't, you're just making it up against me! Why you, too?"
"Foxpaw, let Hollowfrost continue." Pikestar was staring intently at the brown tom. Foxpaw grinded her jaws together, keeping a scream of frustration locked inside. Her question remained unanswered. Why, father, why, why?
"As I was saying," Hollowfrost continued. "I saw that mad glint in her eyes, that terrible thirst for blood. Then-then she charged at Herontail, held her down for a few moments, saying horrible things I couldn't hear..." Hollowfrost sank down onto his knees and closed his eyes. He lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "And I was just on the other side of the river, unable to—"
Foxpaw's eyes widened in shock, and she slowly unsheathed her claws. How could her own father do this to her? The question bored into her soul, penetrating into every fiber of her body.
It made her loose control.
"Why? Why, why, why, Hollowfrost? What have I ever done to you?!" A screeching whirl of ginger, she pounded onto her father's back, blindly clawing anything within her reach.
She savored the look of surprise on Hollowfrost's face as she landed onto his exposed back, before he yowled, "Foxpaw, stop! See, this is what she was like when she attacked Herontail!"
"NO! NO!"
It was obvious who the clan believed.
And then, Foxface thought with bitter anger. I got exiled, renamed myself Foxface, and I've been seeking revenge ever since. She felt herself falling endlessly again, and this time she knew it was back to the present.
It was dusk, the last of the sun's embers dying with his cold body.
"F-f-foxface?" Hollowfrost's feeble mew sounded over the loud ringing in her ears.
"I'm here," she snapped. "Now, d'you have any last words?"
"I-I didn't th-think y-you c-c-could do it." Her father broke into a coughing fit. Blood was pouring out of his belly wound at an even faster pace than before. "K-kill m-me, I mean."
"And why would you think that?" Foxface raised her paw above his neck. "I've been killing cats ever since you exiled me. Herontail. Rosedawn. Beechpaw. Pikestar. Pondwish. You. After all, you were right. Our relationship has just been a mix of loving hate. I hate you, and you love me. I love you, and you hate me. We don't fit. And now I've found a different way of loving hate—I love the hate that lets me hurt you. You could have stopped your death. You could have stopped the death of many others. But for now, I hate you."
Closing her eyes, she brought her paw down.
So, how was that? Three ways of loving hate. Who do you think is more evil, Hollowfrost or Foxface? Do you think the whole thing even makes sense? Review what you thought, or I'll stalk you for the rest of your life.
-edited as of June 29, 2014