I wrote this for the Fanfiction contest on Warrior's Wish a while back, and it came in first, so I decided to post it here~
He had it coming.
With his swaggering walk and those cold, cold blue eyes, so full of arrogance, and mockery, and power—
He had it coming, Ashfur did.
It's what Hollyleaf tells herself as she stalks through the undergrowth like a viper in the grass. It was only a matter of time before someone else snapped and took him out, really; it might as well be her, the smart one, the stealthy one. Knowing her dysfunctional family, they'd do it wrong, and she'd be stuck cleaning up after them, keeping them safe, just like she always had. Always having to protect them from their own mistakes. But she wants to do something for herself now, to make a decision based on her own desires, and maybe that is the reason that she draws closer to his grey form with every pawstep.
Or maybe it's just because he has power over her, power that she can't control. That was the reason she tore Lionblaze away from that sickly-sweet, frivolous WindClan she-cat, after all. She could tell herself it was for the Warrior Code and his own good, but in the end, it was because Heathertail had power over him, a power that up until then had always been Hollyleaf's. She has always needed power.
(Deep down, though, she wonders if the reason is that she thought they were the same; she imagined that beneath his eyes of stone was a fire just like hers, a fire that she could discover and set free if only he would let her in—
—and then he turned around and cut her open, betrayed her, shattered her world.
But she tells herself that this can't be the reason.)
Hollyleaf reaches the edge of the shivering, swaying bushes, and stillness spreads through her limbs like winter ice over water. She has one chance, she thinks, as her poison-green eyes fix on the shifting monotone hairs of his pelt in the wind. She can't mess this up. It's almost ironic, because there he is, creeping after a mouse, so blissfully ignorant that he's just as doomed as his prey. She wants to laugh out loud, but that would give her away, and she has to get this right. One minute passes, second by slow, agonizing second, and she has to take her revenge, by StarClan, she has to taste his traitorous blood, she can't wait any longer—
Now!
Like the rapid pour of lightning, from one moment to the next Hollyleaf goes from concealed behind the leaves to a mere tail-length away. She makes that last leap to close the distance between them, and surely he smells her by now, but it is far, far too late. She feels the muscles in his neck writhe and shift beneath her crushing bite as he struggles to turn his head.
"Hollyleaf no—don't!—ack—"
The shockingly sweet tang Ashfur's blood blooms on her tongue. Pleasure and satisfaction ripple down her spine, and she drives her fangs deeper into his skin. Hollyleaf feels her maw grow dark and wet with the pulsing scarlet flow. His twitching dies off and his body becomes limp beneath her, but she can't stop now—it wasn't enough for him to die in pain, it wasn't enough for him to know it was her in the moments before his demise. She can't let go because he is a traitor,and he never deserves to rest.
He had broken her and she will never forgive him.
Finally, as she feels her body beginning to stiffen and grow sore from holding her in place so long, she unlatches her teeth from his punctured neck and half-steps, half-falls from his lifeless form. She stands there on trembling, weak legs, her fur matting and drying where his red stains cling. The wind softly rolls past, oblivious to the scene of violence it stirs.
"And you thought you could win."
It was supposed to be harsh and biting—one final jab because she had gotten the last laugh, after all—but it slipped from her tongue as softly as a falling leaf, like a lament, like a goodbye. Hollyleaf looks at her victim, and a terrible crack goes through her chest.
She feels her limbs grow even feebler beneath her weight, as if that were possible, and she drops ungracefully into a crouch.
"You did, you really did," she says softly. "You had us in your paws; you were playing with us like prey before the kill. I could see it in your eyes every minute: that sparkle of anticipation. Great StarClan, it made me so mad. You must have thought 'At last, I'll get my revenge, it will be sweet, it will be glorious'…" Something between a sob and snarl breaks from Hollyleaf's chest. She pushes out, as if each word pains her, "And it's not, Ashfur; it feels like a heart breaking, it feels like dying."
She casts her glazed verdant eyes upwards, and Ashfur is just lying there, motionless and sullied, and she can't hear him breathing, and why won't he answer her?
"Ashfur?" she mews, creeping closer until she can smell the sharpness of his blood. "Ashfur, can you hear me?" The young warrior noses her way under his heavy, slack limbs until she is sheltered in the hollow of his numb body like a kit. She shivers there, wetness slowly dripping from her jaws, eyes round and unseeing. Hollyleaf looks as dead as the grey warrior stretched out beside her does.
It seems as if she stays there for an eternity, listening to the raw silence and feeling his flesh grow icier beside her own feverish body, staring until she doesn't know what she's looking at anymore, and—
"You're so cold, Ashfur…" she whispers, almost inaudibly. "Why are you so cold?"
—and oh StarClan, she's talking to a corpse; she's going mad, isn't she?
A hoarse, quiet cry—as wretched and torn and pathetic as the shattering heart between her ribs—winds briefly from her throat before dying and fading into the heavy air around her.
As the last echo recedes, she feels the final vestiges of her heart rot and fall away. Hollyleaf whimpers and curls closer into herself. She doesn't want to leave; she can't go back there, not after what she's done. And Ashfur needs her. He's so freezing cold and she can't just abandon him like a worthless carcass—
He is a worthless carcass!
"He's not, he's not," she murmurs, squeezing her eyes shut. "You're lying to me—"
Shut up, you idiotic fool! He's dead, and you killed him, and now you're nosing up to him like a weakling kit.
Hollyleaf clenches her teeth and her face crumples with sorrow and fear. "I'm not a kit, I'm not, I'm not…and he's just so cold—"
That's because he's dead, mouse-brain. You murdered him, or can't you even remember that?
"I remember, I do…" she cries, turning her head to press it into is limp side. "But, but I didn't mean it, I was just so angry…Ashfur knows that, and you forgive me, don't you Ashfur?"
Look at yourself. You're disgusting. You're talking to a dead body. You're useless and weak and pathetic—
"I'm not!" she howls, wrenching her head away from Ashfur's pelt, digging her claws into the damp, soft earth. "I'm not pathetic! Who are you?"
I'm you, Hollyleaf. You're insane, remember?
The slender black she-cat sighs and closes her eyes. She doesn't want it to be true, but there's no denying that something fractured at her core as she stared upon his blood-stained throat and flaccid limbs. She only hopes it won't become a problem, won't get in the way of her plans. She still has a Clan and family that needs protecting. With a brusqueness that screamed in contrast to her earlier ragged vulnerability, she slides from beneath the dead weights of Ashfur's legs and stands over him. She curls her lip and shoves him into the current of the river as a voice inside her head yowls with loss and guilt. Hollyleaf can feel a part of herself ripping away and following him into the stained water.
You're better off without it, anyway. It was weakness.
"Shut up," she snarls, padding along the pebbled bank until she reaches a place where the water coalesces into a pool, and here she stops to wash his bitter blood from her dark fur. The red blooms in the once-clear water, curling away in tendrils and strands. She sees his face there in the scarlet patterns—his accusing eyes, his pleading eyes—and she sees her own face, twisted with perverted glee, dripping with blood…
With a growl rumbling in her throat, Hollyleaf pulls her claws through the river, shattering the images. She will not feel guilty. She will not regret what had to be done.
Too late for that.
And for a moment she is back to that shivering, feeble kit that curled up beside Ashfur's body, and she crouches low to the ground while her unsheathed claws tear into the soil and a whine bursts from her throat.
"I'm sorry, Ashfur, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorrysorry—"
It's all she can say, and it will never be enough, because she killed him and that's something that you can't take back.
Pull yourself together.
And she does. She shakes off the mourning clinging to her heart—except she doesn't have one anymore, how forgetful of her—and slips past the tree line. As she pads through the territory and back to camp, Hollyleaf wonders why her ears ring with conflicting whispers and screams, Ashfur's empty face floats before her eyes, and she still feels the warmth and wetness of blood across her fur.
Oh, of course—
You're insane, remember?