A/N: As those of you who know me/have read my profile/checked out my website/done any or all of the above are aware, my brain is currently in full Harry Potter mode. Given that my Redwall Sue-parody is quickly unfolding, with lots of help from Kelaiah and a huge character description from Laburnum Steelfang (who I neglected to reply to and thank; if she is reading this I fully apologize for being such a lazy git), I must put some effort into not losing interest in it all together. To get myself back into the mood, as it were, a little separate Sueish oneshot was in order. It's probably not one of my best things, but here you are.
-The Destiny of Icecloud Lunareye-
Nobeast really wanted to admit it, but it seemed as though, for once, the fortune-tellers were correct. This was an enlightened society, the warlords continually reminded their followers. Ratty old vixens, gone mad from the fumes of the heathen plants they burned, staggering about camp howling, "Doom! DOOM! DOOOOOOM!" distracted verminkind from their one true focus: to wipe the arrogant, prejudiced woodlanders from the face of the planet.
While the mice and hedgehogs became fat and stupid through soft living and perpetuated a mentality something like "lawlz we r so l33t," the creatures they reviled and slaughtered as "vermin" grew lean and strong, sustained not so much by the scraps of food they could scavenge as by the power of their hate.
Kessirha, one of the aforementioned ratty old vixens, had been ranting on for some time about a chosen creature, to be born in the ranks of feared warlord Sionn Rizk and bring about peace between woodlanders and vermin.
The vermin, who had been working themselves up for generations into a sort of "LYK OMG INJUSTICE!1 KILL THEM!" mentality, were disappointed in the extreme at such a good-hearted prophecy, and as such paid it no attention at all.
Rizk's first inclination had been to kill the "seer," but the ferret did not feel it proper to punish the mentally challenged for what they couldn't control. Besides, the other warlords were talking of a similar thing circulating among their respective soothsayers, but had perceived it (correctly, in his opinion) as just so much drivel.
Thus, when the prophesied birth came at last, when the creature who would throw off ages of predjudice, stop the senseless killing single-pawed, and lead all of animalkind into a glorious and peaceful future arrived into the world, it took quite a while for vermin society as a whole to grudgingly admit that this was, indeed, The One (for these sort of things were always capitalized).
The mother, lying on the dirt floor of the lean-to, would never be witness to her daughter's destiny. The labor had gone perilously wrong, and while the babe had survived, its parent had not.
She did not wail aloud, but tears began to bead, bright as diamond, in her striking silver eyes with their little flecks of gold, sapphire and other colors that normally didn't even exist in this dimension but were pleasingly shiny nonetheless. She cuddled close to the cold, unmoving body, as though she could bring it back by sheer longing, and fell into a shivering, starving sleep.
It was some time before anyone discovered her, when Sionn Rizk himself burst into the makeshift dwelling to see this Chosen One for himself.
The ferret's first thought was that this little weasel certainly looked the part. Her fur was a dazzling snowy white, as lustrous as a pearl and tinted silver-gold in the vague light of dusk. It undoubtedly reflected the purity of her soul, free from the bloody chains of hatred which so terribly bound the rest of her kind, or some such thing. Despite the fact that she had been nuzzling up to a corpse for the past three hours and lying in dirt, her pelt had not the slightest trace of mud.
Her hearing was obviously extraordinary as well, for Sionn's footpaws had made barely a sound on the earth, but at the second he entered the tiny creature sat up, surveying him unblinkingly through those stunning silver eyes, twin moons glowing in the shadows.
The warlord grunted. "By rights I oughter drown ya," he snarled. "Yer gonna interfere wid my plans, tryin' ter spread goodness an' friendship an' all dat sorta rot. "
The little weasel gazed wordlessly up at him, a single glittering tear sliding down her slender muzzle. Barely a few hours old, she already showed signs of great beauty. Rizk's heart melted. The rest of his body gave a silent shriek of horror and hastened to repair the damage, but the blow had been dealt. He could not bear to slaughter such innocence.
Sionn slapped a paw across his face, wrestling with the desire to pull out his sword and slit his own throat instead, rather than have his own brain betray him. "Fine, then," he said irritably. "Lissen up, y'crazy liddle wench." The babe continued to look at him, till he felt himself being pulled into those unnatural silver eyes, continuing this atrocity to the point of no return.
His brain said, "I'll call yer Whitefur." What came out of his mouth was, "To us, you are the Tagersirazarikhazirung, the Chosen One, but to the world you shall be known as Icecloud Lunareye, for your gaze shines and holds the mystery of the moon, your fur is the shade of the purest cloud in heaven, and-" Regrettably, the world would never know exactly why ice was such a fitting namesake, for at that precise moment Sionn Rizk regained control of himself.
Upon doing so, his first action was to howl in rage and start tearing out his headfur by the clawful. He'd really done it now.
Several seasons later, after which Icecloud's father is tragically slaughtered by woodlanders but she still can't bring herself to hate them, she discovers her amazing skill with her chosen weapon, a throwing star made from a kind of magical ice that's razor-sharp and never, ever melts, but only uses them as a warning to others, her body develops in a way quite pleasing to males of any species, she discovers her ability to talk with birds and has many fine adventures, and Sionn Rizk drinks himself into oblivion for not killing her and preventing all this nonsense while he had the chance:
"Icecloud, no," the young weasel said desperately. "The woodlanders will kill you. You can't do this." She gazed back into his striking eyes, red as blood splashed upon the inky darkness of his fur.
Many others, of any and all species, had fallen in love with her beauty and the kind soul sparkling through those silver eyes, but in the end she had chosen a mate among her own kind, with an equally unique appearance. His black fur and red eyes had caused the name Nightrage to be bestowed upon him, and while he had once been the most savage of vermin warriors the glory of battle was nothing to that of having his Icecloud by his side.
"Nightrage, I have to," she said sadly, crystalline tears glimmering in her eyes. "The Abbey of Redwall is famous for its peaceful creatures. Only there can I be listened to and not have weapons thrown in my face, where no one will hate me because I'm not like them, although they have done so all my life."
He gripped her paws even tighter, and just as suddenly let go. "Yes... I know. It's your destiny. Go then, my Icecloud, and bring peace, so that we can stay together forever."
His bright scarlet eyes burned into hers, red meeting silver in the forest clearing under star-kissed skies.
They kissed passionately until dawn fell. Then Icecloud Lunareye walked out of the protection of Mossflower Woods, to stand outside the Abbey and look out upon the battle raging in front of her. Nightrage, meanwhile, turned to the nearest sturdy tree and began bashing his head against it, muttering, "Angst! Angst! Angst! Angst!"
The vermin hordes had massed together, in one giant machine of destruction. They were led by a huge, bloodthirsty golden fox called Dragon, a descendant of Ruggan Bor himself, whose only vulnerability was that he had to stop every five seconds and shake off the swooning vixens clinging to his limbs like leeches.
But the Abbeydwellers were valiant, and while the bravest had charged out to meet their foes in paw-to-paw combat, others hurled slingstones and arrows from the relative safety of the ramparts.
Blood, gore, and corpses lay everywhere, trampled on and continually added to in the general mayhem.
Then Icecloud came, her eyes and fur shining like some divine beacon, and her wake the killing stopped as her audience looked on in wonder. The prophecy had come true; here in front of them was the Chosen One.
"Listen, good creatures," she called, spreading her snowy paws wide for silence. A hush obligingly fell, everybeast struck dumb by her beauty and bravery. "Yes, I call all of you 'good,' because though your minds have been clouded by hatred, deep in your hearts all of you yearn to love one another, to learn from each other, to live as brethren, unfettered by-"
The forces of reality, already straining under eight seasons of Icecloud's continued existence as well as the advent of Nightrage, and having the weight added to every second, were unable to take it any longer. A plot hole, larger than any in known history, opened directly beneath the slender footpaws of Icecloud Lunareye, and the beautiful, snow-furred bringer of peace dropped, with a last, piteous cry, into black oblivion.
The plot hole closed. Reality, quite satisfied at its success, proceeded to meddle in things so that eventually, the Abbeydwellers won, the villain was summarily vanquished, and things returned to normal. Goodbeasts were good, vermin were evil, and there was no way in hell curvaceous, pure-hearted weasel femmes with a soul and pelt as pure as freshly fallen snow would ever again disrupt this natural order of things.
-Epilogue-
The silence was absolute, broken only by the soft rustling of the snake's coils and its quiet hiss.
A slender finger, pale as death, gently stroked its head. "Silence, Nagini," the Dark Lord murmured, his voice something of a hiss as well. "Lucius, you have displeased me greatly. The Potter boy has once again escaped me."
A moan came from the second man in the room, bent as low as he could with his head touching the floor. "My Lord, I tried..."
"You tried and failed, my slippery friend, and you leave me no choice." Voldemort's eyes, red and slit-pupiled, seemed to glow in the darkness. He raised his wand. Nagini gave an eager hiss.
Further events were abruptly cut off as, with an audible pop!, a human-sized, anthropomorphic female weasel fell out of nowhere, its paws spread pleadingly wide. "-the chains of prejudice that have bound us for so long and turned our hearts to stone. So I, the Chosen One, Icecloud Lunareye, stand before you now, and if needs must I will sacrifice myself if only this senseless war will end."
The Dark Lord choked in surprise, swayed in his seat, and fainted dead away. Nagini hissed furiously.
Forgetting the danger he was technically supposed to be in, Lucius Malfoy sat bolt upright. "The hell?"
A/N/Disclaimer: See, I worked my current obsession in after all. :D Gotta love them plot holes.
Oh, and Lucius lives in my head. He tells me to do things sometimes, and some of them aren't very nice. But in this case he just wanted a part in the story.
...My medication? NO! NEVER!
Quite obviously, I hope, I don't own any of the canon Harry Potter characters. Unfortunately, I do own Icecloud and Nightrage, but you can have them if you like. Really. Please.
The "Angst! Angst! Angst!" in case you recognized it, belongs to the creators of Potter Puppet Pals. Go on YouTube. Look it up (this was from the episode "Wizard Angst," but my personal favorite is "The Mysterious Ticking Noise"). Your life will never be the same.
And I never want to write the phrase "star-kissed skies" ever again. Ugh.
My writing style in this was possibly influenced (very slightly) by Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld novels I was introduced to in a mention by Laburnum Steelfang. I then bought The Color of Magic at Barnes & Noble. His stuff is just plain awesome.
