Another challenge for Night Stalkers- this one is a song challenge. It was fun to write but, boy, do I write pretty strangely when I'm listening to a single song on repeat the whole time. I did the song challenge while listening to "Destiny Bond" by Trickywi on Youtube. To be clear, I don't own the lyric on the top of the song nor the lyric on the bottom.

"An eye for an eye…"

Breath rent the frosty air, clouds of stalking ice that crusted onto her whiskers as she ran. Her frosty breath was ragged, wrought with fear and despair and doubt. Her eyes were glazed and wild, tinged with hope, racked with fear. Paws pounded against the cold stone ground as she pelted through the tunnels that she called home, her ears brushing against the dusty darkness. Her nose twitched as scents filled it- scents of the cold underground, of chilling rocks, creeping roots, shifting dirt. Of others like her- their scents calm and cold, like the obsidian that soon slipped beneath her paws, smooth and icy and unwelcoming. They were sleeping- she could hear their soft sighs and gurgles as they slipped farther into dream's hold, the world that held everything yet nothing.

She breathed a sigh of relief in the dank air as she caught scent of her pursuer. "Hedera!" the one who was fleeing called, her voice rough and ragged from the long run. "Hedera! It's only you! I thought…" the ragged voice trailed off as she turned to face her friend, beady black eyes picking up her features. Yes, they were ones she knew, ones that were very familiar. The cold scars that wrecked her long, brown ears- a story she refused to tell. Her twitching nose and ragged fur, thick and scarred and wiry. The scent was familiar, a scent of friendly ice, her gaze was comforting, black eyes staring fixedly at her.

Hedera lunged.

She shrieked with pain as her friend tackled her, long back legs pummeling her side, sharp claws tearing it without cease. She gasped, then turned tail and ran, her cotton tail shining in the prickly light that seeped through rock and stone to get her. Screeching to a halt, the tunnel ended in a small hollow, a heart of the earth torn by one long, scathing claw that dipped into the stone. Hedera stood at the entrance, and her small opposer stared back at the friend turned enemy, shock and realization flooding her gaze.

How had I not noticed before? Hedera's scent was not friendly- it was cold and scathing, nightmarish, demonic, the scent of death and blood, of wilted plants and withered trees, of carrion and crow-food, of ice and coldness and revenge. Her eyes held no friendly glow- they shivered with malice and disgust, with hate and greed and lust, with death and despair and demonic intent. And yet inside they held misery, deep and wide and scathing as a river long tumbling, wearing its stone holder. Her scarred ear was ragged and torn, her withered body rippling with power that could end it all with one slash, long, twisted fangs frowning with disgust.

She had thought that Hedera was a friend- someone who could relate to her, someone she could relate to.

Now?

Now she was a nightmare. A foe. A demon.

Her cold black eyes filled with heart-tearing surprise as the traitor stepped forward, their gaze sad, despairing, questioning. Then she blinked, and emotion was gone. She had lived too long to die at the hands of a siren.

She felt power fill her muscles. She felt as if she could run forever, destroy boulders with one slash, tear trees from their roots with her shining fangs. She felt as if the world held no limit, that with a flick of her paw she could rip the earth, shake it to its roots. She had felt such power before. Now its meaning became clear.

With one touch, I can crush you, Hedera. But I'll be polite and wait here. You'll soon know the power I hold.

Hedera lunged, sinking jagged teeth into her throat with a screech of age-old intensity, of rage and power and hate. "I'll kill you!"

She choked, but her muscles rippled in her small frame. She twisted her head, then sank her own shining fangs into Hedera's scarred neck, her rough and ragged voice but a whisper of death, "Then you will die with me."

"Is it your destiny to cause your own misery?"

Well... that was interesting, to say the least.

Note: Hedera is another name for ivy. Just thought you should know the name origin.