ehem... yes, so I completely abandoned this story. I admit, it was horrible. I looked back at the prologue, and was thinking 'what the heck kind of story is this?' I decided to rewrite it, mainly because I was bored and was too lazy to work on any of my Warriors fics. I don't expect that anyone remembers the old Darkness and a Blood Red Sky, but please be assured that this will be much much better. If I ever work on it. I am notorious for starting stories and never finishing them, or getting past the first two chapters for that matter. I'm sorry. So here is the new story, renamed Bloodwing. Enjoy, and review.
-pinefur
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The wind howled angrily, beating against the trees with a power of a thousands fists, snapping branches and ripping newly budding leaves from their homes. Dust, plants, even small creatures were torn from the ground, thrown in the wake of the storm's massive fury. Mice and snakes burrowed together into the ground, voles and eagles sheltered in hollows, both prey and predator made the victim of this unstoppable force. Limbs whipped through the air like deadly claws, sharp and fatal in the whirl of the storm's grip.
Sunrise had taken a grip on the sky, staining it scarlet. The few creatures who dared to look out into the storm thought that it fit the sickeningly hot wind blowing from the east, as though the morning had really been swathed in blood. A colder zephyr flowed from the west, meeting the hot air head-on and twisting it into a spiral current. None dared to risk flying along the fighting winds, which where visible only by the debris that streamed along them, writhing almost like living beasts. Some would have said they were living.
The sun had started to peek over the horizon, offering a glimpse of golden light to the world. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light wavered, as though something was struggling to block it out. The warm wind howled angrily and pushed forward harder, forcing the cold breeze to curl back. A cyclone of earth rose from the forest floor, slashing trees to pieces as effectively as any talon as the two forces battled. All living creatures left burrowed deeper, desperately trying to escape the gale.
But the bats remained.
Both prey and predator, both beast and bird, they alone understood the true meaning of the fight. It would tell them of the ancient promise made to them by Nocturna herself. She and her brother Cama Zotz were destined to fight, to oppose each other. Light and dark, cold and hot. Bats crowded by the thousands on the remaining branches of the trees, barely out of the range of the deadly currents. Their eyes were wide; for the first time in many years the owls were doing nothing to prevent them from seeing the sun. But light was not the reason they were here. They were here to witness the battle between Nocturna and Cama Zotz.
Peace, balance, Nocturna. She fought for the freedom of night and day, for all animals, but especially bats. A worthy cause – but worthiness held no gravity in the eyes of Cama Zotz. He battled for power and blood, night, war, the vampires modeled in his likeness. He battled for his claim on bat's spirits after their death, which Nocturna contradicted. And, as much as peace would like to win, war had much more experience.
They all felt the moment when the cold wind faltered – and that was all it took for the sticky blood-wind to take control, swallowing the west zephyr whole. All creatures – not just bats – gasped, for a moment robbed of breath. A veil slid over the sun, preserving the scarlet of the sunrise before any more light could turn it to the normal blue of day. The bats rustled anxiously in the trees, lifting their wings as though to fly, and instantly being buffeted away by the hot wind that swept over them. They cried out, their thin voices rising in a wail of protest, but not even that could be heard over the roar of the gale.
Nocturna was dead.