Sol's Revenge & Whisper's Path
Chapter One: SOL
What if evil doesn't exist? What if evil is something dreamt up, and there is nothing to struggle against except our own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices? That was the thought that kept burning into the back of my mind like a persistent fly buzzing in my ear. No matter how hard I tried to shake away the thought, the words kept floating across my vision. Everything else turned black around the ridges. Just a rim of darkness.
I shook my head vigorously.
Why couldn't I focus? Concentration suddenly seemed to be something unattainable, like the frozen water in the form of clouds. A desirable thing, yet something so far away it would be ludicrous to think about drinking from the white masses.
Focus, I ordered myself silently. My amber eyes narrowed in determination.
"Focus." I repeated aloud. A voice over my shoulder disrupted what little concentration I had mustered. I growled angrily, my long tail lashed against the ground. Dust stirred up in a cloud.
"What?" I hissed impatiently. I stared at the badger behind me, she was appraising me with cold beady eyes. Her heavy paws glimmered with lethal claws. She looked like an ordinary badger, but if you looked long enough you would see wisdom behind her black eyes. You would see practiced care with herbs woven into her paws like a thread of fabric intertwined with other stands.
You would also be able to see how insufferable and annoying her criticism and constant presence is.
"Fight harder you do, the farther reach you must," Midnight declared in her ominous way, her fluency of cat tongue was respectable but still lacking.
"What are you even talking about?" I sighed with exasperation. Midnight looked up to the night sky, I copied her. She always did everything with a purpose I learned.
"Stressed you look. Why so?" Midnight asked although the answer was obvious.
"My mind was somewhere else, I kept thinking about…something," I snapped, disgruntled. The badger nodded her small head.
"The answer you seek up there lies not, but in your heart you must reach."
Realization swept over me.
"You mean the dust was showing me something?" I asked excitedly. I looked closer at the night sky, looking for the familiar patterns and swirls. But I couldn't ind any. My ability to read the dust was decreasing with practice, instead of getting better.
"Ignore the obvious you do, answer pushes at you, push back you do. Look in heart." She said again. I finally tore my gaze away from the sky, but her words never fully sunk in until it was too late.
...
My life has been an interesting one. I have been shunned all my life because I was different. That's really all you need to know. However you always ask for more details, you always want to know 'the whole story'. So I suppose I can tell you my story, however you must listen closely because I won't repeat myself.
There is not much I remember from kithood. It's mostly a blur, everyday was just a constant struggle for survival. Cold and Hungry, Hungry and Cold. Some days I remember my father showing up, those days were better. He made promises to take care of me and my siblings. He promised my mother Cinder's he'd stick around this time. But a few days later he'd be gone again, and we'd all wonder when he was going to show up again and raise our hopes before leaving and taking our hope with him.
The last time I saw my father he said goodbye. I should've known then he didn't plan on coming back. He'd always said 'take care of Cinders' or 'don't wait up for me'. But the last time I saw him, in the early morning hours of the first day of leafbare, he was staring at the long Thunderpath ahead. Cinders and my three siblings were asleep by the side of the Thunderpath, I'd woken up for some reason. Sleep still clouded my vision as I approached my father. An innate sense of foreboding filled my stomach.
There seemed to be a fog separating me from my father, that grew thicker and thicker the closer I tried to be to him. Long grasses tugged at my spotted coat. He looked back at me, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. If I didn't know better I'd say his expression resembled something of fondness.
"Goodbye Sol," he said, and without waiting for a response he drew to his paws and padded off down the Thunderpath. No destination or idea in mind, he left us. His family. When my mother awoke she figured he'd just gone away like he always did. But she thought naively he'd come back. And I never told her otherwise, I just let her keep on clinging to this ideal that her mate was loyal to her.
For the rest of her life I think she was waiting for him to come back. I'd realize that later in my own life I was waiting for the same thing.
My three siblings; two brothers and a sister. Harry, Whisper, and Echo. I wish I could say were close, as most kin tends to be. But that would be a far stretch from the truth. There was always resentment surrounding me - and it originated from my pelt. I was a calico tom - an abnormality. Tom's usually cannot be calicoes unless there is a genetic mutation. And with mutations there are often side affects.
I was born sickly and weak, with thick cataracts covering my eyes so I was nearly blind. My mother named me after my father, Sol. She said his title would give me the strength I'd need to survive. However we all knew she didn't really believe that. I was different, she said I was special. Harry called me strange. Whisper said I was fragile. Echo called me a freak.
With those four rotating perspectives on my abnormal markings I somehow managed to survive kithood. But my brother, Harry, did not. The coughing sickness got him. There were long nights were no one got a wink of sleep because he kept hacking and sputtering. Green mucus filled his lungs until he suffocated - we watched as helpless onlookers.
Following Harry's death our family seemed to implode. Whenever Cinder's couldn't catch enough prey, which was often, my siblings and I squabbled over who would get the most of the morsels. Echo blamed me for everything.
Our father left because he couldn't bare to look at such a disappointing son.
Harry died because I was cursed with my calico pelt.
We were all starving because I ate up all the prey.
One day Cinder's had had enough. Just another thing for Echo to blame me for I supposed. Our mother dropped us off at separate twoleg nests since she could no longer take care of us. She instructed us to be good kittypets if we wanted to survive, since she wasn't going to look out for us anymore. She dropped me off last and licked my cheek. She was still fussing over me even though she was about to abandon me.
"Sol," she croaked - her voice raspy and rough. I looked up at her with filmy amber eyes, dimly able to make out her gray pelt amid an even blurrier background.
"Yes mother?" I said stiffly. I wasn't going to be nice to her, I was hurt. She sighed and seemed to debate whether or not to leave right then and there or keep talking. She chose the latter.
"I'm going to tell you a story, okay?" she murmured. Curiosity won out over resentment. I listened eagerly to her story. She cleared her throat and stared up at the clouds, never making eye contact with me. In a low voice she began talking.
"A long time ago there used to be a group of cats who lived in the gorge just beyond twoleg place. They weren't a band of rogues, or even a couple of loners. These cats were a clan, they called themselves Skyclan. Skyclan had originally lived in a forest they shared with four other clans, but were forced to leave the forest when twolegs began building where their home was. Their current leader at that time, Cloudstar, appealed to the other Clan leaders at a Gathering and asked for them each to give up some of their territory for SkyClan.
Each Clan gave reasons to refuse to let SkyClan stay, and in the end, the Clan was driven out. Because of this, Cloudstar swore that SkyClan will never look to their warrior ancestors again. Cloudstar's mate, Birdflight, was offered a place in ThunderClan by Kestrelwing, the ThunderClanmedicine cat with her kits, since she had just given birth to them and that were too young to make the journey to SkyClan's new home. With much sorrow, Birdflight accepted and promised Cloudstar that they would someday meet again.
Skyclan journeyed for many moons before stumbling upon the gorge. They made their new home there, but they had already lost so many warriors. They were hungry and had lost their faith in their ancestors. The once noble clan began to fall apart. No longer did they leap into the sky and hunt birds, no longer did they respect and honor their elders. Skyclan slowly disappeared, and was never heard from again." Cinder's finished the story. Without another word she turned and stalked off, leaving me sitting at the doorstep of a twolegs house.
I wondered why she told me that story, a story which had no happy ending. Long after she was gone I shouted for the world to hear, "I'll become a Sky Warrior! Just watch me!"
And the sound of my cries the twolegs door opened, I startled at the pink creature staring down at me. She made cooing twoleg sounds and stroked my head softly. She picked me up in one hand and brought me inside, closing the door behind her. My dreams of being a Sky Warrior would just have to wait. My twoleg took good care of me, she was very quiet but she knew just where to scratch.
She fed me a sort of dry pellet, but I much preferred prey. At least I never went hungry. She brought me to a place that was shiny and bright and filled with caged animals. Another twoleg fixed my eyes so the cataracts were gone and I could see clearly. Eventually she started letting me outside, although I never ventured far. My vow to become a Sky Warrior seemed like a lifetime ago.
I was taking a regular morning walk around the neighborhood, my lengthy legs strolling leisurely through various yards. I'd pause occasionally and watch the birds feed, debating whether or not to leap after them. But I never did, they were too far from the ground. I saw two cats walking together and talking. One cat had long gray fur, the other had a black pelt.
Could it be? I wondered and began to follow the pair of cats. They rounded a corner and I hurried after them.
"Whisper, Echo!" I called out. The cats stopped walking and spun around.
"Sol!" Whisper exclaimed and ran forward to greet me. "It's been a few moons since...since Cinder's gave us away."
"Yeah, how have you been?" I asked excitedly. I was waiting for Whisper to notice my eyes, that I could see just as well as he could now. And how my pelt shone and wasn't matted. I'd outgrown my kit sickness, I was strong and healthy.
"Fine, I suppose." he answered vaguely. Echo remained oddly vacant.
"Don't lie to him, Whisper," she rolled her eyes. "We are not fine."
"Oh," I said, a little shocked. Whisper quickly explained.
"Kittypet life just isn't for us."
"But you seem to be thriving," Echo mocked, referring to my stronger appearance. Was she enunciating I needed twolegs to take care of me? I felt anger bubble in the pit of my stomach but I pushed it down.
"Are you going to leave your twolegs then?" I asked, referring to my brother's statement about not liking kittypet life.
"Perhaps, Echo and I were thinking of joining a band of rogues that frequents the area."
"That sounds like an adventure," I said and remembered the Sky Warriors Cinder's had told me about. They were no 'band of rogues', they were honorable forest dwellers.
"Yeah well you wouldn't be a good rogue, you should stick close to your twolegs," Echo muttered. She nodded at Whisper to follow her and they began walking away.
"I'll see you around!" I called out after them. Whisper had the decency to look over his shoulder at me and smile. But Echo just kept walking. The anger began boiling once more. Echo thought I couldn't be a rogue, she thought I was soft. Once more I felt the need to prove myself. I stormed back to the twoleg nest and mewed at the back door until I was let inside. My twoleg opened the door after a few seconds of mewing. Instantly I knew something was off, I could smell another cat's scent in the area.
When I entered the den there was another cat sitting inside a crate, looking absolutely terrified. Her fur was raised in spikes all over her pelt, her eyes wide as saucers.
"Who are you?" I questioned and approached the dappled she cat. She threw herself against the crate, trying to break out. Her paw madly shot through the bars but there was no way out unless my twoleg let her out of the crate.
"I need to get back, the twolegs took me from the gorge - I need to get back!" she said frantically and clawed once more at the metal bars trapping her. Sol then saw small shapes huddled next to the she cat. She had kits, no wonder she was so desperate to escape.
"What's your name?" I asked calmly, trying to get her to settle down. She looked at me with golden green eyes, the fur on her shoulders finally started to lie flat.
"I am Leafstar of Skyclan."
