Brindleface trusted too much when she was alive.
She will give lives to Thunderclan leaders until her pelt deteriorates into irrelevant mist in Starclan. But she will never give another life for protection.
Brindleface trusted that her love would be enough to protect those she valued above her own life.
She could not stop Frostfur's grief from waking her in the night, calling 'Lionheart!".
Those poor, poor kits with their tarnished destinies, Cinderpaw and Brightpaw.
Bluestar, her friend and confidant, changed before her eyes into a creature of destruction and despair.
Brindleface did not haunt Firestar when he abandoned her littermate in the doomed forest.
The two sisters, whom she could not save from her once sweet and trusting kit.
Tigerkit led her outside the nursery for the first time. She chanted 'Tigerpaw!' with her beloved clan. She followed him around and praised him for every successful battle move, every piece of freshkill. She trusted him, thought he would be a great warrior, and a great protector for Thunderclan.
TIgerstar used her as a weapon.
She had been alone in the forest that day. Sometimes she needed time to reflect. Bluestar's behavior was upsetting her, she knew Bluestar had not been the one to choose Fernpaw and Ashpaw's mentors. They used to be close and now she couldn't begin to guess what she was thinking.
There was rustling in the bushes and the strong scent of fresh rabbit. And blood. Too much blood to have come from one rabbit.
"They'll be here soon." Tigerclaw said darkly. Brindleface spun to face him, while she was distracted by the rabbit blood, he had been stalking her from behind.
"Who?" She said, fluffing up her fur and unable to look away from his eyes. He looked almost… guilty. "What have you done?" This was a cat who never showed fear, who had been stronger than the rest since she had first shared the nursery with him. She continued to study him, the pity reflected in his amber eyes. She had not expected to be afraid of him, of those broad shoulders and whipping tail. She knew she was going to die.
His features turn cold at the sound of distant howls. "It has to be this way." Tigerclaw began circling her, his eyes narrowed into slits. His claws scraped the forest floor and she could not move. "I wish it wasn't you." He whispered.
He had left her when he was done dipping his paws into her wounds and taking care to wipe her blood on the surrounding trees and bushes. Her vocal cords had been sliced so as to not alert the clan with her screams. "I wish I could kill you." He had murmured in her ear before disappearing from her sight.
They were getting closer, now. Too many to count. Brindleface had shut her eyes and began praying to Starclan. She did not know it was Tigerstar, not Tigerclaw, who had attacked her. Who had already been given their blessing.
She knew what her death would mean. She would never die a warrior's death or live out her days in the elder's den with her sister. She would never see her kits' warrior ceremonies. Worse, she may get them killed too.
As the dogs pounded into the clearing where she lay, she thought her heart might stop from fear. The scent of it only seemed to excite them and they began to fight over which limb to tear off first. Brindleface could only wheeze when she was thrown by her tail into the air.
She would not know mercy ever again.
-
"The battle's over!"
Brindleface had pressed her tail to Brakenfur's tail and dared these evil, vicious cats to come any closer. She leaped onto the haunches of an enemy warrior staining Cloudtail's fur red. She clawed and slaughtered her way through the masses to get to Birchfall, no longer hiding, but fighting for his clan.
She is going to finish this battle.
Brindleface creeps along the branches of a birch tree, watching the flame-colored leader try to steal her kill. Ferncloud lies beneath her, and she jumps. Raking her claws along the bark, she twists and stuns Tigerstar with a muzzle full of splinters. Her claws are sharper for it too, she's heard that's better for revenge. Brindleface lands as a bundle of teeth and rage, ready to prove how much of a weapon she can be.
Brindleface hisses at Firestar, not taking her eyes off her target. "Tigerstar's blood will drip from my fangs and no one else's."
"Brindleface!" Firestar shouts over the rumbling sky. "This is my destiny, not yours."
She snarls and shakes her head. "Don't talk to me about destiny."
Tigerstar leans and stretches, flashing his claws in the moonlight. "Run back to the nursery, queen. Or shall I get dogs to chase you?"
Brindleface kicks behind her, as if covering dirt. "I'm going to tear you limb from limb." She says. Scraping up a pawful of matted fur and leaves, she flings it and drops into a crouch. Tigerstar rears back, batting debris away, but she is already under him. "Then, I'm going to chew on your rotted bones." She springs up, butting her head into his jaw and locking her claws in his shoulders.
He is stunned for a moment and blood flies from his mouth. Brindleface nearly purrs as she drags her claws down, she wants to flay him alive. "I want to flay you alive." She nuzzles his chin.
Tigerstar escapes her embrace, growling as he lands a powerful blow to her windpipe. Brindleface is knocked back a tail-length and tries to find her breath again, but before she can blink, he lunges.
Suddenly, she can't breathe. There's blood soaking her face, flooding her nose and mouth. Brindleface tips over and madly swipes at her eyes just in time to see Tigerstar spit out her ear. "You don't taste very good." He taunts. "Maybe that's why the dogs moved on to better prey."
An agonized wail fills the forest. It must have come from her. "Brindleface, let Firestar help!" Dustpelt calls. She strains to see him through the red staining her vision, where he's crouched over Ferncloud's cooling body.
"This isn't you." Whitestorm lashes his tail anxiously. "You are not a cat Frostfur would recognize."
Brindleface squeezes her eyes shut and latches a paw onto a nearby root and pulls. When she's standing, Brindleface is horrified at how off-balance she is without an ear. Where the wind had whistled, a low pitched mumble remained. How predictable of Tigerstar to disfigure her again. She holds her head to face the moon, using her tail to balance and keep upright.
"Where is she then! Where is she on this battlefield? I have not seen my sister in Starclan, have you?" Brindleface rubs her face with her paws and they come away red. "Firestar? Do you know?" She turns her glare to him.
Tigerstar starts to cackle. "The great hero of the clans!" He chases his tail excitedly. "He made a queen sad and now his warriors will live to bleed!"
"You adder!" Brindleface tries to throw herself back into battle, but trips over her paws.
"Brindleface, I can tell you miss her. I'm sorry, but there was nothing I could do." Firestar blinks at her with sadness. "You suffered at the end of your life, and I had hoped you found peace in Starclan."
Brindleface stays very still and sizes the distance between her and Tigerstar. She's lost all ability to maneuver herself away from any attacks. She remembers how ravenous the dogs were, how they had a single-minded need to rip a cat to pieces, not caring how. No more flashy moves, she's not faster or stronger. But she needs this. "I'm not going back to Starclan."
Brindleface steadies herself and runs at Tigerstar, who flicks his ears in annoyance. As she gets closer, she kicks up some leaves and trips, sliding past him. "You missed!" He says gleefully. Brindleface starts to roll, throwing herself until she's behind him. "You're pathetic." He's still gloating when she strikes out at his hind legs, ripping through one hamstring, then the other.
Tigerstar falls hard onto his belly and lets out a pained growl. As he frantically tries to look at his limp back legs, Brindleface shakes the dirt off of herself and swishes her tail to balance, then slices his eye to shreds.
He's shaking, trying and failing to get up with just his front legs. The ground is crimson where his legs bleed out. Blood is pouring down Tigerstar's face and chest. One eye and two legs. It still isn't enough.
More cats from her clan have begun to gather, the rest of the Dark Forest's warriors having fled or fought to the death. She sees shock and horror at what she's done. "You've won, let him die!" Whitestorm pleads.
Let him die? What a funny thing to say.
Brightheart is in the crowd too, her lovely sister's kit. Her eye is cold and she's digging her claws into the dirt. Brindleface wants to gift her a token from their tormentor.
She sways a bit before crashing her paws down on Tigerstar's head, rubbing his mutilated eye in the dirt. "I'm going to destroy your life, Brindleface. You'll regret this." He gurgles.
She keeps eye contact with Brightheart as she kicks one of his paws out. "There's no one here to protect you." She says with contempt. She leans forward and gets a good grip on one of his claws with her teeth and yanks it as hard as she can. "You'll die alone, just like me."
Tigerstar howls and starts thrashing under her, succeeding in bucking her off. Tigerstar starts dragging his legs behind him as he shouts for help from his warriors. She stalks after him, batting the bloody claw to Brightheart.
"Never knew you to be the one to run away from a fight. Today's a bad time to start." Brindleface bites down on Tigerstar's tail and drags him backwards.
The crowd is getting comfortable with her violence, jeering and calling out suggestions of what she should do next. Thornclaw is trying to rouse Dustpelt from his grief, jabbing him and shouting. "For Ferncloud!"
For Ferncloud indeed. Brindleface's thoughts drift to those dear kits, Dewkit and Amberkit. Alive, but at the expense of another cat's life.
Brindleface finds a large stone and rolls it onto Tigerstar's tail to hold him still. She purrs, kit-proofing him more like! Brindleface points with her tail at Birchfall. "Get me some moss." He runs off. She gets to work.
She bites down hard on one of Tigerstar's front paws and twists until she hears it break. His eyes cloud with pain and he spits blood at her. "Brindleface, what would your precious Bluestar think! That weakling Whitestorm is looking at you like you're lower than prey."
"That's already what every cat thinks! Brindleface: nothing but a soft, trusting queen." Birchfall rushes back with a mouthful of dripping wet moss; she hadn't noticed it was raining. "I was a warrior once, I trained in the same sandy hollow as every other apprentice! Having kits did not make me weak!" She takes the moss angrily and jabs a pawful down Tigerstar's maw. Brindleface washes the blood from his nose carefully, so he doesn't drown on the ground.
Brindleface assesses her work and scores a brutal mark down his side for extra measure. She hopes he can keep his intestines inside better this time.
"Get Amberkit and Dewkit." She snaps at Dovewing.
Leafpool steps forward. "They shouldn't see this… mess."
"I'll get them." Dustpelt bows and touches his nose Ferncloud's ear. "For you."
Sandstorm flicks her ears back, outraged. "Someone stop him!"
Firestar shakes his fur out uncomfortably. "This isn't how warriors behave. You're no better than the dogs." He condemns.
Brindleface huffs and slides a claw gently down Tigerstar's muzzle. "Shut your mouth. I gave you a life and I can take it away. This is your last, isn't it, dear?" She coos. Tigerstar's breathing is getting shallow, where are those kits? She's just scratched him up a bit, he can't ruin this for her.
The cats around her get quiet as Brighheart's kits enter her arena.
"Where's Ferncloud?"
"Who is that?
"What happened to her ear?
"Are you one of the dark warriors?"
Dustpelt shushes them and leads them to Ferncloud's body.
"Brackenfur, come guard Tigerstar." Brindleface orders. She goes to her daughter and wraps a paw around the kits, getting blood on their fluffy kitten fur.
"Is she asleep?" Dewkit whispers.
Amberkit tries to escape Brindleface's grasp. "Someone wake her up!"
Dustpelt's face crumbles and there's a tremble in his mew. "Ferncloud is not asleep. She's dead. I'm sorry."
They start mewling and Brindleface brushes her tail against their mouths. "It's true kits. But I'm going to help make it right." She says vehemently.
"Did you kill her?" Amberkit looks afraid.
Brindleface shakes her head, now distraught. "We're kin, sweets. She's my daughter." She nudges them towards Brackenfur and the captured Tigerstar. "This cat is the reason she's dead. He was friends with the monster that killed her."
They stare disbelieving at his pathetic form. His back legs are splayed limply. Paw bent awkwardly with a missing claw. Blood coating his face where an amber eye should be. Entrails trying to escape his belly. Tail pinned and choking on moss.
"What happened to him?" Dewkit says quietly, shooting Brindleface a look she doesn't feel she deserves. She's a hero, unlike Firestar.
"You're wrong! We got her killed!" Amberkit's shoulders slump. "She died protecting us."
"That's enough, Brindleface." Firestar growls. Thunder booms overhead and Brindleface can't hear what he says next.
"Ferncloud was a true warrior." Cloudtail steps forward, ready to intervene. "She was like a sister to me." He searches her face. "She would want my kits to be protected. Let me take them away, Brindleface. Do whatever you want to that foxheart, but leave them out of it."
Brindleface huffs. "Are they old enough to eat freshkill?"
Cloudtail looks stricken as Brindleface helps by removing some of Tigerstar's fur from his fleshy shoulder. "Amberkit. Dewkit. Come try." She saws some meat off him and extends a clawful to the kits. "You know, I was once eaten alive." She says conversationally.
Brightheart shrieks and springs forward, shoving her kits back to Cloudtail, where a protective ring of warriors forms around them. "I've had enough of this." Firestar advances on her. "You'll kill him now, or I'll just have to ask Starclan for forgiveness."
"He deserves this, and you all know it!" Brindleface yanks a long tendril of ivy from a nearby tree. She can tell it won't be long before Tigerstar's soul dissipates with no hunting ground to run back to. The sky is growing dangerous and the wind is raging in her good ear. Brindleface paws the moss from his mouth and pulls his head into the circlet of ivy she's made. "You'll never escape me. I will search the black night, longing for dawn to come, so that I can sink my teeth into you again." She sings to Tigerstar. "And again." Brindleface secures the ivy around his throat until his eye bulges from its socket. That amber eye, which once gave her no hope to see the next tomorrow. "And again." She hopes her green eyes are as deadly as his were. She hopes his trembling is because he knows it's time for her to finally get what she's owed.
Biting the end of the ivy rope, she claws her way up the birch tree. "I forfeit my place in Starclan!" She snarls. Brindleface leaps over a strong-looking branch and keeps her grip on the ivy as she falls, her head jerking painfully from the force of Tigerstar's weight lifting from the ground.
She keeps running backwards until his body swings from the top branch. She races around the next tree, tying the ivy to its trunk. Brindleface stalks back to Tigerstar's lame form hanging above her. His eye is still cracked open and she sits beneath him on a fallen beech tree until life leaves him. Brindleface begins purring and rolls onto her back, delighted with herself. He's for the crows, now!
The clan is deathly still, they can't seem to tear their eyes from Tigerstar's swinging body. "Oh, Brindleface. What have you done?" Ferncloud's spirit has risen from her body. She shakes her head in disappointment. "What has happened to my mother?"
Brindleface scorns her daughter. "She has just gotten everything she ever wanted."
As she speaks, lightning ignites the sky. Her head snaps up as a bolt of light flings her body far across the forest floor. Her pelt reeks of burnt fur and flesh and she can clearly hear sharp ringing in both her ears now. She reaches a claw out for help from her clanmates. Ferncloud turns her back to her and pads after the rest of the new Starclan warriors.
-
Brindleface opens her eyes to blackness. It's time for a hunt.