Takes place at the time of Ferncloud's last litter - a few years after the Power of Three series. A tribute to a strong, amazing, character from the books.
I haven't much else to say, so... enjoy.
The world was glittering, glowing, and bright. From the darkness, Lilackit saw a white sun. The circle of light bore into her eyes, and she reveled in its beauty.
She turned her head, the darkness fleeing from her vision. She saw the bare branches rattling in the wind and she realized that the ground was frozen. The clouds raced across the wallpaper sky past the hollow cold sun. She saw the leaves that lined the nursery nests; they were shriveled and brown, and she knew death had overtaken the forest.
Her eyes were open for the first time in a whole cold half-moon. She knew a lot for a kit kept in darkness, but she still did not understand why her mother had whispered to her that leaf-bare was dislikable. To her, the white sun glittered and the dead leaves danced. Her colors consisted of dark and winter. How could anything less than darkness be ugly? She looked again towards the white circle and let it burn her large, green eyes, like the pain could warm her frail body.
Leaf-bare. What a time to first open her eyes.
And when she gazed around the nursery, she saw that she was alone. A pawful of brown leaves skittered in the wind, bringing the smell of cold death. Where was her mother, Ferncloud?
For almost a half-moon now since Lilackit had been born, her eyes had been closed. Before, she could only hear her mother's soft voice and her brother's anxious movements around the nest, feel her way to her mother's warmth and taste her milk. Her nostrils had been filled with the mossy scent of her mother's fur. But now there was a strange, empty smell drifting to her nostrils. Alone in the darkened nursery with the wind teasing her soft brown fur into curls, she almost could have felt lonely. But she didn't, for some reason. She only wanted to learn more.
When she peeked out the nursery and saw a cluster of cats sitting on the cold, plain ground in the center of camp, she realized that was where her family was. Stumbling over on weak legs, she understood that she would not recognize her mother or brother, because even though she had suckled from her mother for a half-moon now, her eyes had been closed. She had been dealt pawblows by her brother from the moment he had opened his eyes and discovered his little sister was beautiful, but she had never seen him.
Beautiful. That was what her mother had told her. When Lilackit had whimpered and cried because her brother had scratched her, Ferncloud had whispered, "My little kit, don't mind Edgekit's hostility. He is only jealous that you are my last kit, and my most beautiful." But Lilackit wasn't sure what that word meant. With her eyes closed, in darkness, she had contemplated "beautiful". But in darkness, how could she understand the complexity of sight, and what made a cat attractive? All she knew was her mother's milk on her tongue, her brother's coarse fur by her side, the soothing sound of breathing when the nursery was filled with sleeping cats.
She remembered when the medicine cat had come into the nursery. He had smelled sharp, like bitter herb leaves, and she also knew he was blind. She had wanted to ask him, "You are in darkness, like me, but can you tell what is beautiful?" but he would have been scared of a little kit, so young that her eyes were still closed but already speaking and dreaming, somehow, of light. The circle of light that hung above she had seen in her sleep, behind her eyes.
All the medicine cat had said was; "It's a rare case, but she will open her eyes eventually. You're lucky she didn't die during birth, with all the complications. Keep her warm."
There were cats here, in the center of camp, circling around a limp shape in the center. There were cats with muzzles whitened with age. Was this what another cat would normally call beautiful, or would they rather look upon, for example, the slender she-cat with a pelt like pale birch bark? Lilackit watched the striped cat pass and then focused on an old cream-colored she-cat who sat nearby. She recognized the cream cat's scent, a sweet scent from the nursery.
The she-cat in question was sitting on a rock, a lifeless droop in her tail. Lilackit wanted to comfort her, because even though she had only lived for a half-moon (and with her eyes closed, at that) she already understood that cheering up a sad cat was the Right Thing to Do.
"Are you Daisy?" she asked quietly, and the queen looked down at the small kit with eyes that had a color Lilackit had never seen before, and nothing in the forest matched. The kit searched for inspiration and found it in a gap in the clouds – a hint of blue that matched Daisy's eyes. Blue.
"Lilackit?" Daisy meowed, concern edging her rough voice. Then it was full of surprise. "Your eyes are finally open!"
Lilackit opened her mouth but did not have a good answer, for Daisy had just stated something very obvious to the kit, as to be seeing things and to have walked here safely her eyes must have open, and hence why was the older, smarter cat telling her this? So in lack of a good answer, she asked Daisy the only thing on her mind. "Are my eyes beautiful?"
The old queen was taken aback. "Well, yes."
"But what do they look like?"
"Your eyes?"
"Yes, what do my eyes look like?"
"They're green."
"What is green?" She only knew the colors of a winter death scene that she had woken up to – dark hues of browns and blacks and grays. Ferncloud had explained 'snow' to her final kit, but Lilackit knew that snow was cold and white, like the light above, and not like the ground at all, which was a shade of dusty brown.
"Well, green is the color of the leaves in Full-leaf," Daisy explained slowly, moving off the rock with the weary bones of a cat who strained under pressure. "And of the grass in the fields. But why don't we go look at your mother's eyes? They are green as well."
She picked up Lilackit in her jaws, and from the higher angle, the kit saw that shape in the center of the crowd of cats was white, like snow, but also with spots of orange-brown, like the dead leaves that lined her nest had once been.
"Who is that?" the kit asked, but the old queen was not able to answer. Lilackit bobbed in Daisy's jaws and saw the world turn into a blur of browns and blacks and grays.
The kit found herself being placed at a pair of speckled paws that smelled of her mother's milk and fur, and she heard Ferncloud exclaim, "Great StarClan! Lilackit, I thought you were sleeping! How did you get out of the nursery?"
The small brown kit looked up into her mother's face and was shocked. That color of her mother's eyes, like her own… that was green? It was true; she had never seen anything like it. Was her mother beautiful because she had green eyes?
She heard Ferncloud gasp. "Lilackit, you've finally opened your eyes!"
Why were these older cats constantly stating something she knew to be true? Were they trying to remind her that she was no longer in darkness? Were they surprised that she had not died, like Jayfeather had said?
"I realize, Mother."
"Oh, Lilackit, you mustn't bother Daisy."
"I wasn't bothering her, Mother."
"No, no, let's just go back to the nursery. I thought you would sleep through the time I was gone, but…"
"Mother, why must we not bother Daisy right now?"
"Little one, see how sad Daisy looks?"
Lilackit looked back at Daisy again and saw how her blue eyes were very cloudy, and her paws trembled. "Yes, I see."
"Daisy has just lost a very dear friend. That is why she is sad and why we mustn't bother her."
"Yes, Mother." After a moment she asked, "Where is Edgekit?"
"Edgekit is with your father in the elders' den."
"Why is he there?"
"I left him there while I was paying respect."
"What is paying respect?"
Ferncloud sighed. "Why must you ask so many questions?"
"Are questions something that are bothering?"
"When you ask too many of them."
Suddenly Lilackit was very worried and her worries poured out her mouth. "Mother, earlier, I asked Daisy many questions. I am afraid I bothered her. And you said it was important not to bother Daisy because Daisy is very sad, but I think we should comfort her. We should give her the snow…" she searched her mind. "…and the sky, because the snow and sky are beautiful."
There was an unreadable expression in Ferncloud's eyes, which were supposedly like the grass and Lilackit's own eyes. "My little kit, what have you been dreaming up?"
"Mother, I only have dreamed of darkness, save for the hollow light above. I apologize for it."
There was an eerie pause. "No, I apologize for being too harsh on you. You may ask as many questions as you like."
They pawed over the dusty, cold ground. Leaf-bare was not beautiful because it had no green, Lilackit concluded. Daisy thought green was beautiful, as did her mother.
"Mother, was Daisy's friend green?"
Ferncloud put down Lilackit so she could speak. "Daisy's friend was white and ginger."
"Was she beautiful?"
There was a long silence in which Ferncloud tilted her head back to the sky and Lilackit followed her gaze but didn't see anything up there of interest, except for the dark clouds and the white light. "Yes," Ferncloud finally meowed quietly, like she was judging the weight of each word. "She was one of the most beautiful cats in all the Clans."
And she picked up the kit again without another sound.
At the entrance of the elder's den Edgekit and Dustpelt were waiting, and Lilackit knew this was her brother and father because she and Edgekit were the only kits in the nursery (and this little gray cat was definitely a kit) and that her father was as old as stone, and he was the one watching over Edgekit. Her brother was gray and not fuzzy, but thin. Her father was a dark brown tabby. But neither had green eyes, she noticed, only eyes of a shade of orange-brown like the spots on Daisy's white friend, but a few shades lighter, a color called amber.
"What took you so long?" Edgekit hissed. "I was getting cold."
"I tried to keep him warm but he refused to sleep in an elder's nest…" Dustpelt started to explain, but then his voice trailed off as he saw Lilackit standing at her mother's side. "Lilackit! You've finally opened your eyes!"
"I know that," she answered solemnly. "Why do you all think I do not?"
"No, no," he meowed, confusion in his amber-colored eyes. "I was just surprised."
"Are you also bothered by questions?"
He exchanged a strange look with her mother, amber eyes looking into green, and suddenly Ferncloud scooped up her last, most beautiful kit by the scruff and started off towards the nursery with Edgekit trailing. The other kit was still complaining.
On the way, they padded past the cluster of cats circling the white-and-leaf-colored shape, and Lilackit caught snippets of conversation.
"Cloudtail, please, don't be like this!"
"I can't stop missing her," a tom with a pelt like snow whispered in a heavy voice, like he was trying to squeeze the words out of his throat but there was something lodged there, and when he finally got the words past the bump they just fell to the ground like cold rain.
"You'll get over it," another cat murmured. "You'll survive. It'll be okay, you'll see."
"It won't be okay, it can't be okay," the snow-cat cried softly. "She was so beautiful. I want her back, I need her…"
And then Lilackit could not hear anything more because she was inside the nursery and her mother was licking her ears. She rested comfortably between her mother's paws, snug and warm, like she had sat for the last few days in darkness. Edgekit sat at the edge of the nest watching his mother and sister with angry amber eyes (said not to be beautiful). The freezing wind raced through the nursery and clawed his fur.
"Why don't you ever lick Edgekit?" Lilackit asked with mild interest as her mother's tongue scraped over her forehead. Ferncloud drew back and stared.
"I do."
"No, you don't. You only lick me."
"Edgekit gets just as much attention," Ferncloud murmured, and then licked the tom-kit's head as if that proved her point. He narrowed his eyes and ducked away.
"Then why is his fur always ragged, and mine is always fluffy?"
"Look," Edgekit burst out suddenly. "Lilackit, I don't want to be licked. You don't know anything."
Lilackit bowed her brown head like she knew was right to do when she was feeling ashamed. "I am sorry for misjudging you, brother. I thought I knew that you were envious of my beauty, like Mother said, but it seems I am wrong."
Her brother shook his head in surprise, a fury closing doors over his eyes. He hissed, "You're ugly," then he took a shuddering breath, like he had swallowed the cold wind, and padded out of the nursery to sit by Daisy outside.
Lilackit looked up at her mother, who had not touched her since she had asked about Edgekit. "Did he lie? Am I ugly? Why?"
Her mother flicked an ear, and Lilackit wondered if those questions had crossed the line of 'too many', and her mother had suddenly become bothered, and wouldn't answer. She would have to start counting her questions so she would know how to stop before she became bothering. Was bothering the same as ugly?
"Oh," sighed Ferncloud finally. "You are beautiful. You are beautiful because your eyes are the color of the canopy of birch leaves when the sun shines through them, and your pelt is curly and soft like moss, and your voice is so sweet that I want to listen to it forever."
"Even when I ask too many questions?"
"Yes, even when you ask too many questions."
"Would other cats like to hear my voice?"
"I think other cats find your voice and your pelt and your eyes just as beautiful as I do, maybe more. Maybe when you are older, you will be so beautiful and flawless that toms will rather die then be without you."
There was a longing in Ferncloud's voice that she failed to hide from her kit. As the small she-kit squirmed over to her mother's speckled side Ferncloud turned her head away, looking off into the branches of the nursery wall.
There was quiet, except for the cries of cats outside the nursery. Above them, the sky was gray and moving quickly, like water rushing down a river. The white hollow sun was hidden now, and Lilackit longed for its light. A chill ran down her spine.
"Do you think I am beautiful because I am the last kit you will ever have?"
It was a sudden question, and even though it was softly asked, Ferncloud's fur rose on her shoulders. Lilackit could not see her mother's face, but she was sure that her green eyes were angry. "I will stop asking questions," Lilackit decided out loud. "Even if my voice is beautiful."
She nestled down again, blinking her large eyes and wondering why her mother's ears were flat on her head, which she knew to indicate a cat was scared, because why would her mother be scared?
"Lilackit," her mother finally whispered, "I am going to go to the dirtplace. You must stay right here." She rose like the breeze and whisked out of the nursery. The empty place in the nursery seemed to grow stale the moment she exited.
The kit waited a few long moments, hearing the voices of her mother and father arguing. "Something's wrong with her," Ferncloud cried softly. Lilackit pricked her ears, straining to hear. "She understands things that she shouldn't at this age- But she doesn't have feelings- she isn't right-"
A pelt of brown flashed by the kit's side, interrupting her concentration.
"Hello, Edgekit," Lilackit meowed. "I apologize for making you angry. I am supposed to be sorry."
"Why do you talk so funny, ugly-cat?" her brother drawled. Then he raised the pitch of his voice in what seemed to be an imitation. "'I am supposed to be sorry.' Did Mother tell you to be sorry? You can have any feelings you want."
"But I need to be Right," she meowed. "I need to have the right feelings."
"No, you don't," he hissed. "Mother will still think you're the most beautiful cat in all the forest even if you try to poison her freshkill with deathberries four times a day. You'll always be beautiful to her, but I can see how disgusting you are."
"Mother said that someday I will be so beautiful that I will make toms want to die if they can not be with me."
Amber eyes flashed. "Mother is a liar. I bet she didn't tell you what happened when you were born, either. Mother's so old she almost died popping you out; and you were so small, and you had lumps in your skull. I heard Jayfeather and Mother talking."
"I heard Jayfeather say I was lucky to have survived."
"Ferncloud had whitecough while she was giving birth to us. I don't think we are lucky for you to have survived because you're so messed up. You should have died with your eyes closed, like Brightheart, in her sleep."
Lilackit caught her breath. The cat in the clearing, the beautiful one.
"When Brightheart died, all Mother did was whisper that you were beautiful, and lick you over and over, like she thought you were going to die next."
He took a deep breath, suddenly angry, and then scratched Lilackit so hard he drew blood. Little red pinpricks on her shoulder that she stared at in amazement because she had never seen something of that color, nothing so crystalline, nothing so vibrant. They glittered in the darkness of the nursery. Night had fallen, and she felt again like her eyes were closed, but here on her shoulder were little orbs of red color, telling her that she was finally, truly, awake.
"When I told her that I was hungry and I wanted milk… she said 'No, we have to save the milk for my little last kit in case she gets sick'," he hissed, digging his claws into her brown pelt that would someday make tomcats kill themselves. "I wish you'd never opened your eyes. I wish you were dead-"
"Stop it!" Lilackit meowed, suddenly moving her paws up so that their claws interlocked and he couldn't scratch her again. He reeled back in surprise. "Can I ask you a question?"
He looked down at her, looked at their paws that were locked together to keep him from scratching her anymore, looked away. When she saw him look away she knew that he didn't care. But she would ask anyway.
"Was Brightheart beautiful?"
He smirked. "No, she was the ugliest cat in all the Clans."
"Mother said she was beautiful."
"Mother's a liar! Brightheart only had one eye, because she had this giant scar, see," – he squinted one eye and distorted his face, so that it looked as if it was frozen in a perpetual snarl, gruesome in the darkness – "And that side of her face was all shiny and gross. One ear was torn-up and her pelt was always matted and worn out, and she was so old."
"Oh," was all Lilackit meowed. She looked into his amber eyes.
The other kit tried to take a step back but their claws were still locked. "I don't want to talk to you anymore," he whispered. His dirty ears were flat on his head.
"Why?"
"You're not normal," he meowed. "I just want a normal sister."
"I can try-" she offered. "What do I have to do?"
"Leave," he hissed softly. "If you want to be normal, you have to leave."
"Okay," she meowed, and because it was the Right Thing to Do, she padded out of the nursery, the back way, and quietly slipped past Daisy, who was padding into the nursery with concern in her eyes. "Edgekit?" she meowed. "Are you alright?"
Then Lilackit kept walking on, into the darkness of the center of the camp where only the strange glow from the gray clouds gave light. The hollow sun had set.
Massive walls of stone rose above her. They tilted and swayed in the darkness, and above the rock walls she could see the tops of trees rolling in the wind like dark animals. She tried to scratch her way up a rock face and succeeded in reaching a small ledge, covered in bitter ferns. She pushed between the ferns, but hit another black wall.
So she slid back down the slope and padded towards the center of camp, where it was very cold. The wind came pouring over the sides of the quarry walls and pooled in the center of camp: a fierce whirlwind of air circling around the white-and-ginger form. In the darkness, no one saw Lilackit or her eyes, the eyes that glittered like a canopy of birch leaves when the sun shines through them, as she slipped past the entrances of the dens on her way to the fern tunnel leading out of the camp. The black sky broiled.
They had said that Lilackit was beautiful, but her brother said otherwise. Maybe cats saw things differently – Daisy thought green was beautiful, but Edgekit believed it was brown. Or black. But all Lilackit knew that she, herself, could not tell. She did not see the difference between a gray cloudy sky and a sunset. She did not care if her body was cold or warm, but she knew that if she wanted to be normal, then she must like what the other cats like, do what the other cats do. The right thing.
She raised her small head and watched the dark sky branch above them like the wave was about to crash, and she realized that she would never be able to be normal. Then the darkness slammed down, down through her body, pooling in the cavity inside her. There was instilled an urge to see the dead cat. And so she padded onwards, to the center of camp, where Brightheart's body lay. Her snow-white mate lay peacefully by her side, unmoving in his grief. The soft fog from his lips rolled into the black air and sifted away, coming slowly if not at all.
Lilackit squirmed forwards and wedged herself under a rock, so close she was almost touching the dead she-cat, but still out of sight.
Cold seeped into her little bones, but she didn't mind. She listened to the voices and watched the world become dark, so much like the cold place where she had been hiding in her first days of life. If she had flourished for a half-moon in that hellish emptiness, she could continue to thrive now.
Voices were growing frantic near the nursery. "Her scent leads out the back of the nursery and up the cliff wall," Jayfeather mewed. "Then it's lost in these ferns."
"I have to look for her!" Ferncloud screeched. "Let me look!"
"You need to stay here," meowed Jayfeather gently. "Keep your other kit warm."
A fiery red pelt glowed in the darkness and spoke with a voice of authority. "Brambleclaw, organize a patrol. Everything'll be alright, Ferncloud."
And the voices went on, on, and Lilackit hung her head and watched them pass only a few fox-leaps in front of her hiding spot. Her smell was disguised by the bitter ferns and the cold smell of Brightheart's body.
She heard the pawsteps of her Clan pour out the quarry exit in the freezing cold, searching for the lost kit. After a long while, her tail began to feel numb and they still hadn't found her, even though she was hiding under a rock in the very center of camp. Of course, it was dark, and she was small.
Small snowdrops began to float down from the sky, each one pinching like a little claw into her pelt when they touched it. The white elders' coats were rays of hollow light in the darkness. Cloudtail had been left alone with his dead mate in the chaos of a missing kit. The snow fell on an empty, dark camp. Voices full of worry floated around the forest above, but not a single cat thought to check in the center of camp, where the old tom was mourning.
His body was still. A chill passed through Lilackit as she focused on his body. Padding forwards gently, Lilackit felt the snow dig her pelt, like a warning. Then she was staring into his face, and he looked back at her, just over her shoulder, with glossy eyes.
And at his paws, a bundle lay, a little leaf bundle. She pawed it. Red drops rolled out like little glossy spots of blood, vibrant, glowing. Slowly she began to understand.
A few moments later, with the icy wind tearing at her fur, she took the steps towards Brightheart she had not taken earlier. She was finally going to see the face of this cat, and this time – she was sure of it – Lilackit would be able to tell if the cat was beautiful or not.
She took another step, then another, and then there was Brightheart's face. Half of it was red-raw and rough, with a deep meaty, empty socket, the other half of the face was covered in white stubble, as if it had been burned once. Her ears were torn, one to such degree that it was almost gone, giving the shape of her skull a malformed look. The eye that wasn't missing was shut tightly in death. Along her old pelt were bald patches, and ticks burrowed here and there into scabs, and her remaining ear crawled with mites. The kit saw the old, crooked body, the face mutilated and scarred, the broken pelt. And she saw the dead tom lying near Brightheart, and there was something… Something…
Lilackit glanced around. She could no longer hear the voices of her clan through the howling wind, and the sleet penetrated right through her fluffy brown coat. They would not find her tonight, she decided. They would not find her.
As she lightly padded away from the two bodies caught in the whirlwind of snow, she saw Edgekit's amber eyes glittering from inside the nursery. He was nestled between his mother's paws, and he and Lilackit caught eyes for a fraction of a second. Without a word he watched his beautiful sister pad past through the snow.
Lilackit struggled farther and farther out of camp, simply ignoring how the pain of the cold had changed to numb warmth, and how she was unfazed by witnessing a cat's death from a whisker-length away. The ferns parted for her, glittering with snow and stars. The rocks were wet and cold like ice.
Their voices called for her from every corner of the darkness. Black shadows danced behind the snow curtain, wild with glittering eyes. Wrapping its long, scaly body around her, the cold began to squeeze. Leave, hissed her brother, and she tried, she tried. Her frozen paws kept her moving, into the forest, through the white bushes and black night. Snow drifted into her vision like static. It made her blind.
As she stepped over a frozen puddle, one paw cracked the ice and plunged through. Without letting a scream escape, she pulled out her twisted paw and gazed into the water. A small beautiful cat with green eyes peered back at her. She took a small step backwards, keeping her eyes on her dark reflection.
She imagined raising her paw and slicing one side of her face, imagined it vividly, but her legs seemed to be frozen in the ground. A tiredness overtook her, swallowed her mind until her breaths came short and empty. Unable to move, she folded slowly onto the cold ground and let the flakes bite her, let the ice burn her paws. A hollow white light was burning above her. It was brilliant, shining.
Voices echoed through the trees and she waited.
This story was originally from Cloudtail's POV, but I felt I needed an unbiased, impassioned persona as the protagonist in order to prove my point.
So, review please!