A/N: Yes, it is possible you have seen this before. And no, I'm not desperately trying to draw attention to this fic. I know it looks like I am, but, in reality, I have revamped my account. I sort of feel like I have progressed since I've posted last, but I didn't want to start deleting stories left and right.
Anyway, it has been awhile since I've written anything for warriors, or even read what happened to Hollyleaf. Any mistakes in the canon details are because I failed to remember them.
This was written for the prompt "scary stories", but instead of taking that in a normal direction, I got this. Try and enjoy it. xD
LIES ARE ALL THAT ARE LEFT
scary stories
1. Her name has been reduced to a scare tactic. She has become something queens whisper to their offspring. A story to get their young to cooperate. Her name is used along side a cat he once thought of as grandfather.
(Get back inside, or Tigerstar will come and gobble you up! Don't go in there, or Hollyleaf will claw off your tail!)
He has lived to see the day where his sister has become nothing more than a terrifying tale. And it isn't even the right one.
-x-
2. When she died, the brothers covered it up easily. She was hunting near the tunnels that was all. Such an unfortunate accident that she got caught in the landslide. Oh what poor timing she had! It the left the clan heartbroken. A shared tragedy, but something they could forget.
(Hunting is believable. Almost easy to accept.)
It is so much harder to say she had lost her wits. No one wants to believe she had sacrificed herself to the darkness of an ancient time. That is one story the clan cannot adopt. It isn't a legend for the kits.
-x-
3. She died to Jayfeather that day. Hollyleaf died. Yet his brother still holds out hope. Jayfeather can feel it pulse off of him whenever they pass what once was. And while Lionblaze has pleasant memories of those caves, Jayfeather knows that he isn't thinking of Heathertail.
He doesn't understand it. Does Lionblaze not feel guilt for what happened? It was their fault (and it wasn't). Would he not rather Hollyleaf to be at peace? There was no tranquility in the way she had lived her life. Could Lionblaze not have seen that?
(He knows that his brother chose not to see the chaos in their sister while she lived, but that doesn't stop his questions.)
When he's brave he prods at the emotions surrounding the ginger tom. He likes answers, and his entire life he has had the ability to get them. But he never moves much farther with Lionblaze. He no longer walks in his brother's dreams for fear that he'll see that dark face. There are somethings even the blind can't see again.
-x-
4. Jayfeather never put his sister to rest. She still lurks in the corners of his mind. She is his own scary story, the consequences of power. She is the tale of what happens when you push too far.
He knows her image from glimpse he's seen in dreams. But she is never perfect in his minds eye. Hollyleaf is but a shade of herself in her brother's mind. He can never quite get the right black. He makes her too dusty, dirtied by their lives.
It isn't right. She's not that cat anymore.
Or at least, that his dream for her. The other option is to hard for him to bear.
-x-
5. When the truth about Ashfur's death comes out, the tiniest amount of guilt flickers off his shoulders.
Hollyleaf hadn't lived to be a murderer. He takes comfort in that.
(It doesn't matter that she had become a jealous, spiteful shell of herself. The blood of his classmate was on his mother's claws.)
(Both of them.)
-x-
6. "Lies are all that are left." He spits that into Leafpool's face one morning. "Stupid, useless lies."
Leafpool doesn't respond with words, and he never expected her to. She has been around a while, she has learned how to speak. She can weave her words beautifully, but has also learned about silence. When it's need, and what it takes. Jayfeather doesn't like to think about that part. It almost makes him feel sorry for her. Almost.
(Too much time has past to be forgiven. Too much silence.)
Leafpool presses her nose to the side of his face, and Jayfeather feels nothing but love and reassurance from her. It makes him physically sick, and he has to pull away. But he is suddenly cold, and the silence is strangling him.
"I want it to be your fault, but it is so much bigger than that." His words are small. He doesn't know how to form them. He has never been good with his own feelings. He doesn't know how to sort them anymore. Not since Hollyleaf died.
"And for that I am sorry." His real mother, their real mother, whispers back
Jayfeather is suddenly done with this conversation. He has pushed away, braving the cold on his own.
-x-
7. Hollyleaf is gone. Hollyleaf is gone. Hollyleaf-
It's become a mantra. His constant reply to her name.
His constant reminder to move on.
-x-
8. "What did Hollyleaf do?" Dovepaw is asking about power, but there are more consequences to this question then she even knows. Dovepaw thinks her question is harmless, Jayfeather knows this. But that doesn't change the fear radiating off of his brother's pelt.
"Nothing." Jayfeather snarls, and it is sharp, nasty. It is aimed to cut deep with nothing but tone. It works, and the shock and embarrassment that comes off of the young she-cat is overwhelming. He is surprised that Lionblaze can't feel. Surprised that Lionblaze let him answer at all.
Dovepaw splutters out an apology that is left hanging stale in the air.
Jayfeather wont dignify that with answer.
(Hollyleaf wouldn't have either)
-x-
9. Jayfeather can't move on.
So his clan does without him.
-x-
10. He's told his life didn't stop when Hollyleaf died. Except that not true at all. The lives aroundhim didn't stop when Hollyleaf died. Jayfeather's life came to a screeching halt, and progression was impossible.
Her death shook him. He became so deeply distributed that was little help hope anymore. The death of his sister was the death of his faith. If she wasn't special, how could he be?
Special defined him. It was the only word he had ever adopted as his own. He was special. Was. But they had been a trio.
(A trio's no good with just two)
-x-
11. He has become old under her weight. She pushes down on his shoulders, down on his heart. No matter what he tries he can't shake her off. (And if he is totally truthful, he doesn't want her to go)
So she's become everything to him. A reminder, a punishment, a motivation, a significance, a consequence, a memory.
Yet she is nothing to her clan but a story to be told.
And it isn't even the right one.