Thanks so much for the reviews! I can see that a couple people out there are thinking that Lionfire has green eyes. No he doesn't. He has yellow eyes. So...hmmm. What is it with those green eyes?
Read on. That answer shall be delivered soon, my lovelies.
Disclaimer: Warriors belongs to Erin Hunter. I am Born of True Destiny.
Greyson sat at the cave entrance, watching the snow, as it lightly fell from the sky, drifting off it's gentle course only when the breeze blew by. Frozenleaf licked her legs, seeing where her fur had fallen out. It shocked her at first, but she knew that her frostbite would heal and it would grow back.
"So," she called. Greyson flicked his ears to let her know he was listening. "Do you like it out here? All alone..."
"It's nice," he said. "And I kinda like to keep to myself. It's great with no company around so I can just be me...no offence or anything." He peered at her. "You're different than the rest of them."
"Different how?" asked Frozenleaf, curious.
"Well, I'd rather not tell my whole story," he meowed, giving her a sharp smolder. "And you don't either."
"Trust me, you don't want to know," Frozenleaf coughed.
"I can say the same about myself," Greyson purred, lifting his chin.
"Oh no," Frozenleaf said. "Don't try an get me to press. It's fine if you don't want to explain everything in detail, as long as you can accept that with me."
"Of course I can," Greyson mewed, looking back outside. In a softer and quieter tone he repeated, "Of course I can."
Frozenleaf stared at his back for a long while, puzzled at his words. What he is saying doesn't make any sense. It's like he wants to tell about himself but then he doesn't all of the sudden...or is it the other way around?
She blinked and looked at her paws. Well, whatever he wants, I'm not telling him about myself. He couldn't bare to hear something so brutal in my past. And I don't think I could bare to tell it.
Her claws slid out, clicking against the stone floor. Why am I so stupid? Did I not think I would regret my decision? Lionfire did nothing wrong! It was me that was too much of a weakling to take the path of my choice, and now StarClan has sent a mysterious cat to haunt my sleep and hurt me.
She would never forget the calamitous pain that ripped at her flesh and tore up her insides. She would always remember the claws of ice that sank into her mind and burned her heart to ashes, and it was all because of that strange green-eyed cat she knew nothing about...and yet was so fearful of. She had went a night without sleeping because of the agony that grasped her in that once-so-peaceful darkness.
I was meant to make that mistake all along. That's why that cat came to me on the first night of my apprenticeship. To let me know that they were watching me, and that I would be punished for my mistakes. Her thinking paused. But when the cat gave me strength; was it for my self-control so that I could hold myself back? Or was it a cruel trick by destiny?
Frozenleaf looked at her unsheathed claws and quickly sheathed them again. No. I will never use those again. They ruined me!
Greyson's mew startled her out of her thoughts. "How am I going to hunt?" It took a moment to realize that he was talking to himself, because his voice was loud enough to be a question to her. It was like he had forgotten she was there.
She looked past him. He was right. By now the snow was at least to their necks. They would be swimming in it as if it were water. The mice that Greyson said he had stocked up were nearly finished with.
"We'll have to go out eventually," she said. "We can't starve."
"I know," Greyson replied after hesitating. He met her gaze with his own. "What are we to do?"
Frozenleaf shrugged. "I wish I knew. Do any creatures ever find there way in here?"
"Not most of the time. Every once in a while I find perhaps a bird or a shrew, but I doubt that will happen. It's just as cold in here as it is out there. They'd be seeking warmth, I bet, we all would."
"So we are just stuck in here with no food?"
"Looks like it," he rasped solemnly.
"I don't know how I got in here," Frozenleaf said, "And I don't know what's out there, but you can't go leafbare after leafbare just stuck inside to starve whenever it snows. There has to be some way out other than this." She stood, and padded towards him. "Maybe a pathway...a tunnel, something."
"I never really thought about leafbare," admitted Greyson, "And that makes me feel like a complete creature of idiocy. I only moved here a few seasons ago. At that time I was grieving. And by the time I got to myself, it was the time of warmth. Leafbare had never crossed my mind."
"Haven't you searched around here? There has to be more than just this cavern," Frozenleaf meowed.
"What makes you so sure of yourself?" Greyson asked.
It was then Frozenleaf realized that she had been thinking about Highstones the whole time. There were several tunnels and caverns that snaked their ways under the paws of the cats that walked on the surface. The Moonstone was her last memory of the life she abandoned.
She blinked and threw her companion an annoyed glare. "I'm just trying to stay optimistic. I don't see your doubt and negativity helping us."
Greyson looked just as irritated as she did. She wondered why. He should have seen is melancholy attitude. It appeared as if he had an excuse to feel the way he did and Frozenleaf should have known it. She bristled.
"Don't you think we should at least try to look for another exit?" she growled. "What's above this cave?"
"A slope," Greyson replied, "of a hill. Pretty rocky. I never go up there. Could be dangerous." And just like that, his expression was blank again.
"Scared of a few stones?" asked Frozenleaf mockingly.
He narrowed his eyes. "You're a lot different than I let on," he meowed.
"Oh come on, anyone would ask," she said sourly. "I'm looking." She stuck her head outside. The snow from the sky drifted down onto her head, and she shivered. She craned her neck to look up, and saw that there was a small overhang of rock shading the ground outside the cave. She looked back at Greyson, who was staring intently at his paws like they were the most interesting things for tree lengths.
"Give me a moment," she said. To disgust of her self, she unsheathed her claws. Well, she thought, I shall not use them to...kill...
She took a step out of the cave and took a leap, grasping the cleft with her hooked claws. It was bare; no snow. She pulled herself up, noticing how far up it really was. Frozenleaf stood, and panted once she reached and looked over the edge.
"Well," she mewed. "It looks good. No snow up here really. A few patches of ice, but it's good." She looked ahead, up the hill. "We should search for a better shelter. Let's go."
She waited, but Greyson never moved from his spot at the mouth of the cave. "I-I don't want to," he murmured. "Lilac died in here, and I feel that if I go, I'll leave behind my entire past."
"Leave it behind?" echoed Frozenleaf quietly, voice struck with sorrow. That's all she wanted, but she couldn't be the weaker one. "Maybe if you actually shared a little more about yourself with me, I'd understand, but since you're stubborn with climbing a stupid rock, I'll force you if I have to."
"What is your deal?" snarled Greyson. "Can't you feel sympathy?"
"What's your deal?" hissed Frozenleaf. "A cave won't change your life forever."
"Why are you even in such a rush?" Greyson questioned. "You have nothing to run from."
"You have no idea. Stop confusing me! I thought you wanted to leave! Didn't you say so? So are can find hunting?"
"I...well-"
"Look, unless you want something in this world to change, don't complain! Fine you can stay in your cave, but I'm moving on. Feel free to stop acting like a kit and catch up!"
To her surprise, he leapt up with her. "I'm the one acting like a kit? Can't you just see that I am going through rough times? I guess you wouldn't know how I feel to be attached to something, and then have it stolen from you. I guess you never had one of your own siblings die right before your eyes."
Frozenleaf gasped at his words. He really had no clue did he? She swallowed a sob and opened her mouth to say something.
But she was stopped.
Icy claws sank into her mind, freezing her head and chilling every nerve in her body. Pain racked her entire body as she felt everything within and around her shattered and ripped to pieces. Greyson was a tabby blur to her eyes before she was blinded with the same bright flashes of white and black she felt back in her dream. Her breathing stopped as if something was crushing her lungs in a frigid blast inside her chest.
"I thought you didn't." The words came suddenly, and along with it, in just a wink of time, the pain was gone, and she was standing directly in front of a Greyson, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Greyson," she whispered, "You don't know...you just don't...I've lost more than you could ever imagine. My life was taken from me before I even knew what it was. My chances of love, happiness, destiny...my chances of anything real just ripped away, like they were nothing, like I was nothing."
The tom before her was silent.
"It hurts to lose your family, I know," Frozenleaf went on, "But do you know what it's like to lose everything else?"
Greyson sighed. "I never knew...I'm sorry." He took a deep breath. "I want to tell you about myself." He sat down and stared deeply into her eyes. "I Washburn to my parents, I believe they were Kayla and Tony, both cats of the Bareskins, but they both left their Bareskin homes to raise Lilac, Paula and I. By the time we were six moons of age, Tony went back to his owners. He missed his life, but we knew he loved us- he came back to visit us every moon or so. He and Kayla taught us to hunt and a few fighting techniques."
Frozenleaf nodded.
"But," he said, and then swallowed. "The peace would not last us long. Kayla went out hunting for us one leafbare and never returned. Our father went out to look for her and came back with her limp body in his jaws. She had been caught in a fox trap, and her neck had been snapped. That night after burying her, he went to his Bareskins and never came to see us again. The three of us believed he died, because we also never saw him in his garden after that."
She blinked sadly. That was so unfortunate.
"Paula began observing the Bareskins. She was going through a lot of grief, and one day she told Lilac and me that she was going to be a pet. So she went to the entrance of a Bareskin nest and meowed. I guess she was pretty gaunt because they exclaimed something in horror when they saw. She was taken in right away, and then it was just me and Lilac." He took a ragged breath. "And you know the rest, we found this cave, Lilac got sick and she died. Then it was just me."
"But you get to see Paula, right?" Frozenleaf asked.
"Not often," Greyson sighed. "But when I do, it never feels like enough. I've lost every part of my life that was important to me except me dignity. If I stay here, I'll still have it."
"I'm sorry for trying to force you," Frozenleaf mewed. "I'll just go..."
She trailed off and started going on the slope of the hill but before she could go over completely, a loud growling sound emitted from around her and she turned.
She was staring into the dark eyes of an enormous fox.
"Frozenleaf!" Greyson cried.
So...I know a lot of stuff happened in this chapter so forgive me for that, and that it was a cliffie. Please review!
~Destiny