Ten days later as Redsplash lay on the dirty floor, she heard the door rattling. She opened one eye and watched as the door opened, expecting the slave that showed up with her food and water every day, or, perhaps, the wildcat she hadn't seen since the first day she woke. However, it wasn't the slave or the wildcat she was expecting. It was a wildcat, yes, but a shorter, skinnier one than he first once she'd see. The resemblance between them screamed sibling, but while Redsplash felt extremely grudging respect and anger towards the first wildcat, Darkclaw, this one just disgusted her.
He moved as if he always got what he wanted and looked down at Redsplash with the amount of disgust Redsplash would use if she were looking at something particularly revolting she'd just stepped in. His tunic was entirely too clean, and his claws were dyed black. Symbols meaning death, destruction, and pain were scrawled neatly across his face in red war paint and a sword hung from his belt that Redsplash could tell was entirely for decoration.
He stared down at her for a moment more then reached down, grabbed her elbow, and tried to yank her to her feet. Redsplash let all her muscles relax and when the wildcat pulled her elbow up she went with it, but her legs still dragged uselessly at the ground. He scowled, picked her up by her neck, and set her on her feet. Redsplash immediately collapsed, fighting to keep her muscles from responding to anything and to keep the smirk off her face.
His paw connected violently with her jaw the third time he set her on her feet and Redsplash ended the game she'd been playing by baring her fangs and growling. He ignored her anger and circled her. Redsplash twisted her head to watch him, but didn't turn. She wasn't threatened enough by him to worry about having him at her back, but she wouldn't take her eyes off him. He wasn't threatening her, but it was never wise to ignore anything that was two times your size and willing to shed your blood.
The wildcat stopped when he was directly in front of her and nodded slightly. "I suppose you'll do…" he said, frowning slightly, "Not much meat, but otter muscle is always good, and you're young enough…"
Redsplash took a step back and bared her fangs again, "You try to eat me, cat, and I'll kill you."
The wildcat blinked at her, as if wondering if she was done, then said, "If threats by your kind were ever true, I would have died a thousand deaths by now. be."
Redsplash straightened and scowled at the wildcat, while moving slowly towards the door he'd foolishly left open, "I assure you, cat, I mean what I say."
"And so did the rest of them." The wildcat replied, "Now you're going to start sprouting some nonsense about how your friends will avenge you."
"I am not." Redsplash said, offended, "I have no friends."
"Well, that's irritating." The wildcat said, shaking his head, "It was always so much fun killing the friends as well."
"I believe you." Redsplash said, and rolled her eyes. One more step and the wildcat wouldn't be blocking her from the door and she could get out.
"You should. I never lie."
Redsplash decided that it was time she tried her little escape plot. She got around two steps away from the door when a paw grabbed the back of her neck. Redsplash found herself shoved against the wall, the paw that had just recently been at the back of the neck putting pressure on the front, strangling her.
As he killed her he explained, "Strangulation is one of the more easy ways to kill prey and keep from damaging any good meat." Redsplash managed to sink her teeth into his paw but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he laughed.
Redsplash struggled wildly, panicking when she felt numbness beginning to seep over her mind. She was about to stop struggling, almost dead, when something roared. Redsplash would have reacted, if she had been able to, because that roar was very near and very alarming.
Suddenly the wildcat let go and Redsplash slumped to the ground, breathing heavily as the watched Darkclaw picked up the other wildcat and throw him across the room.
"I told you to leave this slave alone, Bluefang!" Darkclaw roared and slammed the wildcat's head up against the wall.
The other, smaller, wildcat bared his blue fangs in a daze, "Don't order me around, younger brother."
Darkclaw paused and then nodded, as if deciding, "Yes, I'm going to kill you." He said and tightened his paws around the wildcat's neck.
The wildcat responded, voice rough and panicked, "You kill me and you die!"
"Always wanted to try that." Darkclaw growled.
"Silverdawn will die!" The wildcat said weakly.
Darkclaw roared again and tossed his brother against the wall, effectively ending the wildcat's consciousness. "Damn this!" He shouted and turned, eyes bright and blazing at Redsplash who was crouched in the shadows, paws clenched into fists. His eyes narrowed for a minute and then he shook his head, "This is your fault, by the way." He said, his voice returning to the calm, half amused tone Redsplash had heard before.
"What's my fault?" Redsplash asked cautiously, eyes flickering to the door.
"Mostly your fault. Some of the blame is mine." He corrected.
"Blame from what?" Redsplash snapped.
"I informed the Nameless One that you were currently a…guest at this castle. In response he sent a fox, a ferret, and a stoat to drug and kidnap my younger sister. He informed me yesterday that she is currently a 'guest' at his castle, the same way I informed him you were here."
"I am so sorry." Redsplash said darkly, "I'll just march right on back there."
Darkclaw scowled at her, "Otters always did annoy me, and you're no acceptation. Stop acting as if I wouldn't kill you."
"You wouldn't." Redsplash replied, "I'm too important. You can't get your sister back without me, and the Nameless One needs me alive."
"And why is that? What did you do?"
"Helped plot a rebellion that would bring his son to power and stole something from him." Redsplash responded sharply, disliking his tone of voice that suggested he doubted she'd done anything but escape.
"You're a thief?" Darkclaw asked, looking amused.
"Yes." Redsplash said and straightened. For the moment the wildcat thought her amusing, which probably meant he wouldn't trade her for his sister, because, of course, he had to know he would never get his sister back alive. The wildcat would be lucky if he even got the corpse back in one piece.
"What did you steal?" Darkclaw asked, smirking lightly.
"That's not your problem, is it?" Redsplash replied. Of all the things she didn't want this wildcat to know, the fact that she couldn't even remember the thing the Nameless One was pursuing her for was right up in the top five.
He paused, considering, then shrugged, "I suppose not."
Bluefang moaned softly and began picking himself off the floor and Darkclaw kicked him in the forehead, slamming his brother's head back against the wall and rendering him, once again, unconscious. While the wildcat's attention was centered on seeing if Bluefang would stay down this time, Redsplash turned and sprinted out of the door. She heard Darkclaw yell a curse that she hadn't even heard before and mentally filed it away for future use.
She wasn't the best runner after being shackled so she could barely walk let alone run, but she doubted the wildcat was all that much of a sprinter either. From what she could tell he was good at lunging around in small spaces, as he'd managed to keep her from jumping off a balcony with his speed, but he didn't look like the type of creature built for chases down long hallways. She reached an intersection in the hallways and took about a second's time to choose the left fork, the one from which voices were could not be heard.
She continued running, right past a statue of an amazingly large, golden, male wildcat with a thoughtful expression on his face while he stepped on the heads of a fox and a badger, another wildcat, female, crouched on the ground by the male's feet, baring silver fangs, with a spear in one paw and a sword in the other. Two seconds later Redsplash came running, backwards this time, back to look at the statue. A grin bloomed on her face and she dived into the gap between the statue and the wall, looking at the hall, waiting for the wildcat to come running by. She only had to wait a few seconds. She watched him carefully as he jogged by, an amazingly large broadsword in his left paw, teeth bared in agitation. Redsplash smiled her relief and waited several more seconds, to make sure he didn't double back before slipping out from behind the statue and walking, calmly, back to the fork in the hallways and taking the right fork this time.
She passed a rather aged looking female wildcat and kept her head bent, eyes on the ground, before crouching on the ground as if bowing. Actually, she was making sure that if this old grandmother wildcat decided to sound the alarm Redsplash could leap upwards and knock the wind out of her. But the wildcat did not respond, as she continued her dignified march down the hallways. As soon as the wildcat was past her, Redsplash jumped soundlessly to her feet and started running again. She came to a heavy door and pulled it opening, looking around uneasily when it creaked open. She peered with interest into the garden, and then hurried into it.
It wasn't what she'd call beautiful, as the only thing Redsplash would currently consider beautiful would be a nice score or two of wolves or badgers to keep Darkclaw and his little family busy while she escaped, but it was far from what she'd call ugly. She knew almost instantly that it was an indoor garden, because it she wasn't cold, but also because instead of a sky, there was a ceiling. Flowers of all colors bloomed among plants of all sizes. Redsplash hurried forward, to a fork she had seen in the dirt path that was bordered by dense plant growth on both sides, and took a left. She heard water nearby, and water was always a good thing.
She came to the large fountain about a minute later. It was made of a pure white stone that seemed odd when placed among the dark reds, greens, and browns from the nearby flowers, ferns, and paths, but gave off a tranquil feeling that Redsplash could feel emanating through out the entire garden. Whoever took care of this place was most defiantly not as violent and angry as Darkclaw and the rest of his kin.
The pool of water that made up most of the fountain was large enough and deep enough for Redsplash to sit comfortably on the bottom without having to worry about an ear touching the surface. The statue that rose from the water was a pure white as the rock around it, and life-size. It showed a young female wildcat, dressed in a simple dress, looking peacefully down at a flower that she held in her right hand, the flawless flower still attached to the stem. Flowing from the wildcat's eyes were twin streams of water; the peaceful looking wildcat was crying. The water ran down her face, and dripped to the pond below. However, standing next to this peaceful, crying but smiling, wildcat was a mirror image of her. Except this wildcat held a sword, pointed downwards, and a ferocious expression that seemed somehow weary. She looked like she was ready to fight, to kill, but also as if she saw through it all, saw through the anger, and the pain, and the willingness to shed blood and saw the uselessness of it all. This wildcat, Redsplash supposed, was the darker side of the first one. The sword she held clenched in one paw had a stream of water running down the blade and Redsplash stared at it with slight confusion on her face.
Suddenly Darkclaw appeared on the other side of the fountain, huge broadsword in hand, and Redsplash looked up at him warily. "I gave this to my sister two seasons ago, when she first got the idea for a garden." He said, gesturing at the fountain with his huge sword. He looked around and shook his head, "It's dying." He said, his gaze falling upon flowers that had just begun to show signs of wilting, bushes with some dead leaves. As he looked around, a slightly regretful expression formed on his normally emotionless or mocking face, "No one cares for it because no one cares about it."
"Is the sword drooling?" Redsplash asked, looking at the stream of water that splashed off the tip of the sword into the pond.
"No." he said and shook his head, "When I first gave it to my sister, the sword bled blood I took from the slaves. She wouldn't put it in her garden until I took out all the blood and replaced it with water." He shook his head, "She said this garden was to be the one place she could get away from all the bloodshed, all the pain."
"Sounds like a peaceful creature to me." Redsplash said, her voice expressionless though anyone who knew her well would have noticed the contempt in her face.
The wildcat, though, was staring at his own reflection without seeing it, "She said if you looked into the pond you could see your opposite."
"Your what?" Redsplash said, glancing uneasily down at the cool water.
"She saw a warrior." He said, "That's what the statue means, and that's what the inscription says."
"What inscription?"
"It's over here, at their feet." He said, gesturing with a paw at twin stone wildcats. "It's says: 'Look into the water, and see your forsaken self.' She used to say it only worked if you did something, but I never really listened to her."
"Is that the sister the Nameless One took?" Redsplash asked, frowning slightly. She wasn't sure what to think about this nonsense with a reflection and a forsaken self.
"Yes. I only have the one. Silverdawn." He said and bared his teeth in anger as his eyes rose to look at the statues.
Redsplash felt a pang of something she couldn't place deep in her stomach. It might have been compassion but she was placing her bet on hunger. Redsplash rarely, if ever, felt empathy. Still, it was slightly irritating that an innocent creature had been taken captive to be used to get Redsplash to be brought back. Redsplash knew that the Nameless One had probably done this to prove yet another annoyingly distressing point to Redsplash: She would allow innocents to die so that she could remain free.
"I have yet to see anything but myself in my reflection though." Darkclaw said, standing back and shaking his head, "So I doubt what my sister said was true to anybody but herself."
Redsplash frowned and stepped forward, glancing down at the water, "There's something down there." She informed him, ignoring her reflection, and staring at the shimmer of metal underneath the water.
"Really?" Darkclaw said, sounding only slightly interested, "What?"
Redsplash paused, and then dunked her head under the water, sliding forward on her stomach until she was completely submersed in the cool, but not cold, water. She stared at the silver plaque a moment before her she allowed her hear to rise to the surface, "There's a plaque with words on it." She said and noticed Darkclaw had come halfway around the fountain while she'd been underwater.
"What's it say?" he demanded, his face frowning.
Redsplash scowled, "I dunno." She said, "I can't read."
He looked at her as if slightly surprised, then blinked the expression off his face, "Don't tell me you don't know everything." He said, his voice slightly mocking, "I thought you were perfect."
Redsplash rolled her eyes, "I was learning to read when…my learning got interrupted. I know the letters I just don't know the words."
"Well spell the letters out and I'll tell you the words." Darkclaw said; left paw still clenched around the hilt of his broadsword.
"Only if you promise not to kill me." Redsplash responded. "Ever." She said after a minute.
Darkclaw shook his head, "Finding out what my sister wrote is not so important to me that I'll promise not to kill you. But I will swear not to kill you unless you give me a very good reason."
"Very, very good reason." Redsplash countered.
"Fine." Darkclaw said, rolling his eyes.
"Good." Redsplash said with a nod, smirked, and dove under the surface.
It took them twenty dives and surfaces before they figured out what the plaque said, and Redsplash didn't recognize one of the letters so she had to draw it out in the sand. She wasn't the best of all artists, but she wasn't the worst, and she and Darkclaw got in an argument when the wildcat compared her drawing skills to that of a drunken toad with no hands. Finally, though, they worked it out and Darkclaw, who'd been writing the letters in the dirt of the path with read them aloud. "Warrior discard your sword, thief put down your blade, look into the water now, and see your true self fade."
"What is that, a riddle or a poor attempt at poetry?" Redsplash demanded, frowning.
"My sister was never good at either riddle or poetry." Darkclaw said and scowled, "I think perhaps she did this to finally get someone to read one of her attempts."
Redsplash snickered, "Or maybe she was telling you how to see you 'other self'." She said and snickered again.
Darkclaw blinked, "Perhaps." He said and dropped his broadsword right in front of Redsplash, and started walking towards the fountain.
"Aren't you worried I'll stab you in the back?" Redsplash demanded, annoyed that he'd dropped his sword and walked away without once looking back.
"Don't flatter yourself, otter, you couldn't lift that blade if you tried." Darkclaw said without looking back and Redsplash could sense the smirk in his voice and scowled. She reached down and tried to lift the blade, and nearly broke her back in the attempt. She dropped the hilt quickly; she'd only managed to lift half of the huge sword, and even then not very far off the ground, and kicked the huge sword's hilt in annoyance before stalking over to where the wildcat was.
He seemed to be staring down at his reflection in surprise and slight disgust and didn't notice when she came up a few paw lengths away. Redsplash glanced down at the water, and immediately froze. Staring back at her was a smiling otter with flowers in one hand and a flute in the other. She looked exactly like Redsplash except she had no scars, no hate, and, though she still had the same fearless gaze as Redsplash, she looked as if she'd never seen anything that was even vaguely connected to bloodshed and torture.
Redsplash scowled and spat at her reflection, watching with delight as the image was shattered by ripples, before turning to see Darkclaw back where he'd left his sword, picking up the blade and shaking his head. "Apparently I could have been a scholar." Darkclaw said dryly, as he sheathed the huge blade.
"I could have been a happy little weakling." Redsplash snapped.
Darkclaw looked down at her and raised an eyebrow, "I see, and what a tragedy it would have been for you to be a happy little weakling instead of an annoyingly cynical little weakling." He said.
Redsplash looked at him in surprise. It had been a very long time sense someone had called her a weakling. She considered being angry and then just shook her head, "One of these days, cat, I'm going to have a weapon when you insult me."
"Terror strikes." Darkclaw said dryly, "You didn't do so well when I gave you that dagger."
"My legs were still in splints then." Redsplash reminded him, and shook her head, "But it doesn't matter. Back to the jail cell I go, I suppose."
"I don't know." Darkclaw said, "There's no real reason to keep you around, you know. We have stopped our flesh eating habits for the next month, in respect of Silverdawn's capture, and when we pick them up again there will be plenty of slaves, enough so that we don't need you. And you aren't exactly cleaning slave material, clumsy as you are."
"I am not clumsy!" Redsplash objected, but Darkclaw wasn't really listening.
"And we do not need a slave we don't use. Perhaps we should send you back to the Nameless One, as much as we dislike him. We could use an alliance with him." He paused, brow furrowing as he thought.
"I'm not going back there." Redsplash said, frowning slightly.
"Incase you haven't noticed, otter, you don't really have a choice." Darkclaw responded, still not really looking at her as he thought.
"I have a name, you know, and it's not 'otter'." Redsplash snapped, and scowled, "And I always have a choice, cat. Always."
"I disagree, and I know you have a name, the Unnamed One told me what it was."
"He probably told you the wrong one, and I don't care if you disagree, it's the truth."
Darkclaw shook his head, "I won't argue with you, otter, and I really don't care what your name is."
"If you send me back there, and I escape, which I will do because I've done it before, I will kill you." Redsplash said and she meant what she said, not that she truly believed she could escape the Nameless One again, but if she managed it, she would kill this wildcat, if he didn't kill her, that is.
"As I told my brother, otter," Darkclaw said, smirking down at her, "I've always wanted to try dying."
Before Redsplash could respond a ferret came running up, panting. Seeing Darkclaw he bowed hurriedly and said, still panting, "An ambassador from the Nameless One arrived a few moments ago. He's come to take the otter."
Redsplash's eyes connected with Darkclaw's and she saw his mouth twist into a cold smirk, "Looks like you are going back, otter." The wildcat said, voice completely devoid of the mockery that was evident on his face.
"We'll see." Redsplash replied and bared her fangs in defiance.
…
((Hey, two chapters edited in one day. Whoa. I'd better slow down. Wouldn't want to strain myself.))