QUARREL, QUARREL, WE quarrel.
There is no end to the quarreling, not even when peace hangs over our heads like a veil, hiding the discord beneath the surface. A lie, it's all a lie, and no one will do anything about it.
We were told to put on a mask when we were born, covered in the blood of our agonized mothers, wailing for food. We are demanding creatures, they'd say, and only demand one thing in return for comfort.
Wear a mask.
Wear a mask.
Wear a damned mask.
We are warriors, they tell us, they drive it into our minds. Loyal and honorable and true. They ask us to lay down our young lives for the sake of a united front, but by the time we are declared fit to do this on our own, we are barely walking the line into adulthood.
Peace is an illusion, one we hold strong to so that we may fool the others into believing that nothing is wrong, when in truth, nothing is right. We walk the line between the edge of falling apart and holding ourselves together, and they still deny that the tendrils holding us together and coming unraveled, one at a time.
Why can't they see it? There's suspicion at every turn, cats no longer trust even their own siblings, and the corruption is spreading. The stars have forgotten us, the Clan of the River, and the other Clans have ignored our plight, they leave our warriors to suffer, while they silently take over the rest of the lake.
How to end a corruption that started before my mother came into the world? How do I turn the stars back to my side when they gave up so long ago? Apathy, everywhere I turn. There is no peace — there has never been peace here.
Like a caiman lurking in the depths of murky water, drifting closer to an oblivious stork, fear is an ambush predator, and sooner or later, the stork will fall prey to the deadly jaws of the caiman, just as this Clan will crumble under the pressure of being fake.
Fake . . .
That is all I can say about my beloved home. Corrupted, fake, masked up. I'm told to wear the mask and follow, but my choice is to be brave, take a step outside of these ridiculous clouds that protect us, and I may have to pay a hefty price for that.
A price I'm willing to pay.
RiverClan is rotten to the core, but the corruption has not yet finished its spread. By the end of the season-cycle, there will be nothing left of the Clan I love. The stories of my ancestors are no longer told by the elders or queens — because we have strayed so far from what we once stood for.
We are RiverClan, we are strong and graceful. We do not sneak around like the cruel ShadowClan cats, or contaminate our ranks with half-breeds like ThunderClan. We do not cower from danger and flee like WindClan, and we are nothing like the newborn SkyClan.
But we are corrupted, rotting.
The rot is inherited from generation to generation, passed down like genes such as eye color and coat pattern, and from there, it grows. Under the mask, we are monsters.
I'm a monster.
Almost before a kit of my Clan learns the Code, she learns to hate. She learns of war. She learns of the groups of cats who claim to be the other Clans. She learns that they are untrustworthy, that they are liars and are loyal to no one. She learns to fear the claws of their warriors even though she will probably never see them.
What she never learns is how the hatred began. No, that has been forgotten. Instead, she learns that they have murdered her ancestors and her loved ones. She learns that these enemies are evil, that their ways are not hers, and that they would kill her if they could.
That is all she learns. This is all I have learned. Sunrises and moons and seasons, and all I know is the bloodshed. I hum the songs my mother once sang to me and wish for the peace they promise. It is a peace my mother has never known, nor her mother before her.
We are corrupted. Not just us, not just them. All of us. But the rot is most prominent here, among my friends.
It's inside of me.
How many generations? How many of our warriors have fallen? And why? Meaningless hatred: the hatred of an enemy without a face. No one knows why we fight; they only know that we will continue until we win a war it is too late to win, until we have avenged too many dead to avenge . . . until no one can remember peace anymore, even in songs.