Dolor

The heavy scent of rain filled Sootstar's nostrils, causing his bright blue eyes to partially close in relaxation; he always loved the rain to look at and to smell, but never to feel soaking his pelt. He sat beneath an oak tree whose branches were sturdy and leafy enough to shield her from the flood of water pouring from the sky. His gaze would stay glued to a dull gray sky, void of its sunshine and fluffy clouds that would typically adorn it.

All was well in his world.

An obnoxious snort snapped Sootstar from his reverie, causing his light gray head to snap to his side, reminding him that he wasn't alone in his watching of the rain. A she-cat sat by his side, a clanmate who also happened to be his life-long best friend.

"Only you could stare at something like that and be pleased." The she-cat muttered, a mocking cruelty dancing in her cold amber eyes as she glowered at his dark speckled gray pelt.

Sootstar could only purr at her words, as this was who she was. "Perhaps everyone enjoys it, Redsky, perhaps everyone enjoys it but doesn't have the heart to admit it."

Redsky scowled at Sootstar, her deep russet pelt bristling at his reasoning. Her thorn-sharp claws snapped in and out of their sheathes dangerously and her dark-tipped ears were flat against her skull; it was hard not to be intimidated by her. "How did you do it? How did you rise to your rank with that line of thought after all you've done, Sootstar? How was it not me? Enlighten me. Tell me what you did right and what I did wrong." She demanded, her ringed tail thrashing irately behind her.

The gray tom sighed in exasperation, "Can this not wait? This conversation will ruin the rain."

"It shall rain another day, fool," she spat, "This conversation may only happen once!"

"You are not stupid by any means, Redsky. Why are you pestering me for something you already know?" Sootstar asked, his voice neither rising nor falling with tension.

Redsky snarled at her friend, "No, I was the good one! I always was! So why am I not where you are?"

Sootstar purred gently, "You are trapped in your dolor, Redsky. You always have been."

"Only because you put me here." Redsky said lowly.

"You were weak-minded."

"And you're not?"

"I learned from the best, I suppose."

"Stop pitting this on me, this is your fault, you know." Redsky growled through yellow clenched teeth.

Sootstar casually his tongue through the fur covering his shoulder blades, "It's no more my fault than it is yours."

"How is this my fault?" Redsky snarled, "I didn't ask for anything you did to me."

A smirk crossed Sootstar's features, "Oh, but you fell for it, so you are at as much fault as I am, Redsky."

A terse silence fell between the two of them. No sounds other than thunder growling, lightning snapping, rain slamming into the earth, and thoughts racing through heads existed anymore. Redsky stared at her deep-colored paws as she silently fumed to herself whilst Sootstar merely watched lightning rip through the darkened sky.

"Why'd you do it?" Redsky asked, her voice hoarse and low despite her fury.

Sootstar simply shrugged, "You let me. My parents taught me to take what others would yield, and you were an easy target."

"I was your best friend." She murmured.

"Am your best friend, we never stopped caring for each other, Redsky." Sootstar said gently, as though he was trying to explain something trivial to a kit.

"Best friends don't hurt each other."

"Who says I hurt you?"

"Me."

"I freed you like you always talked about."

"I never meant it like this."

Sootstar paused for a short moment, "Then I suppose you should have clarified before I saved you."

"What did you save me from, exactly?"

"Yourself," Sootstar said thoughtfully, "Our lives."

Redsky scoffed bitterly over another bout of thunder, "What life?"

"Exactly."

"Before you did that, I had one."

"You never appreciated it until it was gone, I helped you." Sootstar insisted.

"Helped me what? Because you definitely didn't help me escape my dolor, my own hatred. You did nothing for that, for me, swallow your pride and just admit that you ruined everything." Redsky snapped, her irises narrowing.

Sootstar shook his head, "No, I taught you a lesson, one you won't be forgetting soon, my dearest friend. I taught you to cherish the feeling of running, the taste of prey, the thrill of winning, the privilege of breathing, the shock of losing your mind. Without me, you would still be nudging your mice around and trudging through the woods with a dull look on your face after you beat your clanmates in a mock combat. Be grateful."

A cold smirk came onto Redsky's face, a look that finally caught Sootstar's attention. "Ah, but I will never be done savoring the taste of victory, for when you did that to me, you lost."

Sootstar finally tore his attention from the storm and focused solely on Redsky. "What do you mean?"

The cruel glint in her amber eyes returned, "I've still got my sanity intact, something you don't have."

"And this is an accomplishment how?" Sootstar asked, some bemusement in his tone.

"I know my place, Sootstar. I know my place isn't where there is dirt beneath my paws and sun warming my pelt; I'm sick, evil even. Don't pull the fox-dung about liberating me; I've known from the moment I took my first breath that I was a monster that would rot in the frigid blackness of the Dark Forest. I've accepted this fact and stayed sane throughout my life."

"And?"

Redsky's smirk broadened, "Well, you don't seem to know that you're going down there with me."

Sootstar moved his attention back to the storm, uninterested in Redsky once more. "Why would that be considered winning, Redsky?"

"Because I'm not in denial like you."

His ears twitched in mild acknowledgement, still fixated on the bolts of lightning flicking across the black night sky.

"That and I've still got my sanity, even after all you've done to me. I suppose StarClan isn't brutal to even monsters like me; funny, isn't it?"

"Perhaps so."

"Maybe because I didn't stoop as low as you did?"

Sootstar reluctantly looked away from the mess in the sky, "Why are you still talking?"

"Because you want me to."

Irritation crept into Sootstar's expression, "Look, I'm leader, I win, okay?"

Another light silence spilled over again, though the tables had turned. Redsky was relaxed, confident even, and Sootstar was tense, ready to burst.

A purr rumbled deep in Redsky's throat, breaking the thin wall of silence Sootstar had created. "Well at least I'm not talking to a dead cat like you are, Sootstar. Guilt's finally getting to you?"

Sootstar gritted his teeth, "Go away, Redsky."

"Can't. Would say I'm sorry, but I'm not; you tortured me, and I want my turn."

"Leave."

"Remember when you sliced my throat by the stream? How all the warm, sticky, black crimson poured out of me? How it merged with the water? I do. I remember the way the sun felt on my fur, how the pebbles dug into my pelt, leaving indents that never quite went away? I do."

"Redsky, get out!" Sootstar snapped, getting to his paws abruptly. His typically bright, carefree blue eyes were swirled with unreadable emotions that spurred Redsky on.

With a wicked flicker in her gaze, she went on. "Don't you remember when we were just kits? How your mother took me in when mine was killed by a twoleg monster? How you promised you'd always be there for me? I do."

"Great StarClan, Redsky, I said out!" Sootstar roared, swiping at Redsky's head only to pass right through her. Panic was evident in his features that he couldn't hit a ghost; her ghost.

Redsky looked pleased at his reaction, "Remember when we were apprentices and I ran away because I hated my life? How you brought me back and talked me out of it? I do. Funny how one day someone can be saving your life and another day they'll be taking it."

Sootstar began panting with anxiety as he would lunge and bite and swipe at Redsky only to soar right through her. "Stop it!"

"Do you recall the day the deputy died? When I was still me and you were Sootstone? How everyone whispered about us, how the leader was going to pick between the two of us? How he picked me and not you? How you murdered me by the stream that night?" Redsky whispered, watching with light amusement as her old friend tried to kill her a second time.

"You know, I knew this was going to happen; you never handled things like this well. Your life was cushioned, easy. You didn't know what it was like to not get what you wanted, and when I had your toy in my grasp, you couldn't let me play, could you? I nearly escaped my dolor, Sootstar," she said, putting her muzzle so it was just before Sootstar's, "Now I think it's time you get your own dolor, start your life sentences of constant agony."

Sootstar gasped and stepped back, shaking his head, "No, this isn't real! You aren't real!"

Redsky purred, "See you later, have fun with my job, my dear friend."

Bleh. That ending wasn't great, but I liked the rest of it! What about you all? Good? Okay? Awful? I want to know! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

~Spotty