"Back when I was a spry warrior who still had all her fur, there had been a gathering where ShadowClan was being difficult to a wonder. They had externalized their discontent for the way boundaries had been set, claiming that they were barely existing off a meager living from their territories, and with great hostility and belligerence they said so. They were acting so out of line, it scared Lynxpaw and Milkpaw to no end. They were expressing candid thoughts, but their ambience and tone spoke nothing less than a threat."
I craned forward, straining my ears to not let a single word dribble past my hearing. The vines, suspended from the ingress-banned entryway, stirred at my movement. Swallowing my breath, I tried to keep still. From inside the den, Friskkit cocked his head towards my direction, before quickly fixing his gaze on the storyteller once more. He looked, if possible, even more anxious than I was. I could even smell it from afar. Friskkit had always been a bad actor, no matter how many times he pulled cover for me.
"The attack was as expected, but alas, we had been hopeful. When we heard of the news that ShadowClan was charging towards our camp, there was no choice but to get ready for war, as we did with reluctance. We all thought that bloodshed would occur, and very much knew that some quantity of it could belong to our close ones."
Anxiety gone (or more likely, suppressed), Friskkit was leaning close towards Petalfur, whiskers quivering and tail swishing and eyes chock-full with expectation, barely able to suppress his impatience for the climax as the elder took a moment to collect her breath.
"ShadowClan came as a great river of doom, steaming slowly, yet irrevocably, towards us. Flamestar took one look at the raging fleet and made a order, in his calm yet firm voice, that all ThunderClan cats were to evacuate to their dens. We watched from the safety of our dens as Flamestar, his leaden and measured steps smacking of him even from so afar, strode towards the fleet. We watched as he encountered them, watched as he conjured up a miracle. ShadowClan left, and with them, the impending sense of doom. Mind you, we still haven't the faintest idea of what he said to have ShadowClan bolt off like that."
"Ooh, I bet Flamestar scared them off! You know, with something like-" Friskkit cleared his throat, and made to impersonate someone with a voice two volumes lower than his own. "Bog off, stinkheads, or I teach you what happens when trespassers set their paws in the private grounds of ThunderClan!" He was glancing towards me again. What did he want? A grin of approval? I flashed him one, and wondered if I'd imagined the way his fur fizzled along his spine as though in shock.
"Perhaps, but it seems more likely that Flamestar settled terms by peace. He wasn't one to threaten cats, not even ShadowClan, who, in my opinion, shouldn't have gotten off so lightly. They should have been made to grovel at our feet, to beg for forgiveness. They should have been made our dogs of compliance. Because, nothing, absolutely nothing, makes up for attempting to spill the blood of the innocents."
"Yeah…" Friskkit mumbled, thoughtful. "If it weren't for Flamestar, ThunderClan may not even be standing on the surface of this world right now." He suddenly swooped to the ground, belly low, teeth bared menacingly. As though he were ready to pounce. "Those mangy furballs deserve a lesson of my own! I'll make sure they know what's right!"
Not even Petalfur could not forebear smiling at Friskkit's innocence. She had been displaying a tender smile, very much in contrast with her anger-laden distortions of a face that had always been veered towards me, when she suddenly frowned and sniffed her nose. "Queer, I could have sworn that…." She turned around, looked at me straight in the eye. Her lips twitched.
Time to leave. I quickly swerved away and found myself staring into Hollowheart's eyes.
They were filled with hatred.
How long had he been standing behind me?
What did it matter? If I got caught by Petalfur, I'd be in trouble big-time. She just might do to me what she did last time, when I accidentally sent a moss-ball flying towards her direction, causing her quite a fright. Luckily, the punishment hadn't been so severe. Just the usual; a pounding on the buttocks. What had caused the event to loiter around in my memories for a longstanding (perhaps ever-lasting, for they had yet to fail living) time was not the punishment itself, the physical agony, but how my clanmates had reacted to it. I had a high pain threshold, one that had been manufactured by experience, but physical pain and spiritual pain were different. The latter could step over my sill, which somewhat seemed pitifully low whenever the occasion would inevitably happen, and tramp its filthy paws over my heart with ease. And then my dirtied, stained, littered squalor-of-a-heart was not the way it was because of what had happened to me, but rather, because of who I was. Because of my temperament, because of the roguish blood I'd inherited from my rogue of a father.
How had my clanmates reacted?
They had stood watching the event from outside the elder's den, some of them voicing almost inaudible whispers of worry – why wouldn't you just speak up, you cowards, - some of them looking on as though it were a fragment of a comical act put together solely to amuse them, make them laugh, but all of them too afraid to step inside and interfere.
Or maybe they hadn't been afraid.
Maybe they'd just been indifferent.
Whatever of those two it had been, I did not want to risk the humiliation twice. I pushed past Hollowheart and ran for the nursery. Just before I went in, I looked behind.
Petalfur wasn't running after me, good relief. I could hear Friskkit screaming at her, but his voice sounded muffled. I couldn't tell if whether the effect was because of the distance, or because he was pulling at Petalfur's fur again. Just like my time of utter shame and humiliation, when he'd tugged and gnawed and seeped tears at the elder's pelt, begging her to stop, or let me go, or if she didn't want to do both, do it to him – "Me, let me in his place, please, what has Storm done so wrong to you that we – I - haven't?"
He hadn't managed to pacify her then, and here he was now, having managed it. No one was after me (yet), but..
Hollowheart was still where he'd been, although he wasn't standing as he was before.
He was kneeling, convulsions shaking his body.
It took me a while to restrain myself from making a run for Hollowheart and to realize he was not going through a seizure, nor was he dying.
'Go, Stormkit. Go and talk to him. Go and comfort your father."
I glanced at Hollowheart's weeping form, before a feeling of discomfort took over. I couldn't stand crying cats, never mind comfort them.
Sentiment never sat well with me.
I walked into the nursery.
…
If Friskfields' interest for Flamestar was motivated by admiration, mine was motivated by envy.
Flamestar was the perfect cat. He'd had a legacy, the kind of legacy that no forbidden romance or bastardry could taint, not with all the great achievements he'd made. He'd had the life of my dreams, having possessed the highest status that a cat could reach, having claimed all the love and respect that a cat could wish for, having all the freedom to do what he wanted to do, no restriction, no discrimination, no eye-glaring whatsoever.
Was this the kind of thing that a "StarClan-blessed life" refered to? If it was, I'd do anything to have a taste of their blessings.
Blessings was what my life was devoid of.
I was the kind of cat to be damned if I do one thing, damned when I do the other. I'd never had a legacy to taint. Restriction bound my paws. Discrimination was a constant shadow. Eyes glared at me everywhere I went.
What had Flamestar done so grand that he had become everyone's idol, and what have I done so malicious to have become everyone's little patch of dirt to trod on?
Envy, when degenerated, becomes jealousy.
As crazy as this may sound, there has been a time when I felt jealousy over ThunderClan's prior leader, a bloke that I've never met within my whole chuffing life.
Yeah, I know. I suck.