Post by ladyspectral on Sept 18, 2018 22:18:18 GMT
Her frail body ached, entire frame shaking with each raspy cough and wheeze. The small, malnourished kit looked like some sort of creature, cleaned of mud but bony and so tiny. Her two faces and three eyes only set her apart further, and made her stand out even more. Something painfully obvious. But, Hailpaw visited often. The only cat that Kit had been able to call a friend in her life, unlike her mother and siblings that shunned her. The apprentice was the reason Kit hadn't given in, closed her eyes and accepted death.
The trees were suffocating at first, the undergrowth binding and restrictive. Every few steps seemed to yield thorns to stab her paw pads on, a dull pain throbbing up her legs with each paw fall. The birds and squirrels sang a maddening, chaotic song. The mutated she cat felt like she was blind, deaf and lame. A terrible combination that caused agitation to rise in her chest and throat.
If she didn't have Wingedpaw leading her along, the former Mothclan warrior was sure she would have gone mad. Ivyclan was better, the camp felt more like a home than Mothclan's ever did. The only downside was it didn't have Hailstrike, Darkpaw or Bunnypaw. Even Stormwatcher wasn't there, all her friends were on the path behind her. And she kept moving forward, while they became a more and more distant memory by the day.
The pain remained, no matter how she grew. Kit emerged from the medicine den, stronger than when she went in. She had survived, she was surviving. The young kit slept outside the medicine cat's den, among the rocks and twigs that dug into her body. She woke up with the first patrol, sorting prey and cleaning nests as the warriors awoke and began their duties.
She was a ghost, staying in the back of the clan gatherings, staying as silent as a mouse. When she spoke it was never much above a whisper, drowned out by the gentlest of breezes. It worked. Few cats noticed her as she slunk along, head low as if to render herself invisible.
The nights were long, spent restlessly in the warrior's den or at Wingedpaw's side. Badgerheart spent most of her time with the apprentice, the white she cat assigned to get the newcomer adjusted to Ivyclan life. Even with her obvious differences, Ivyclan felt... right. But at night she found herself peering upward to the stars, wondering if her old friends were doing the same. They glittered coldly above, and she wondered if they were truly so indifferent to the cats so far below.
Did Starclan truly care for the lives they had left behind, or did they relish in the peace they had found? She envied them.
The camp grew smaller with each bound, along with the voices within. The cats she had devoted her life to were rapidly growing into memories, some bringing her a bittersweet joy and others only causing the fire in her heart to grow wilder and hotter. Nobody followed her, watching her leave the camp one last time.
The pain in her heart grew as she mourned. The life she left behind, the kithood she never got to have. And even after all she had done, all she had sacrificed she was just a drain. A waste of resources. Nobody said it, but she felt it in every word and glance. Maybe she should have stayed down when she was knocked into the dirt.
Her lungs burned, and Badgerheart wondered if she was burning alive from the inside out. Her breath was visible on the chilling night air, and the she cat wondered if this time it was smoke. She would make them all sorry, regret how they had treated her. Even if it was the last thing she would do, she would be a powerful warrior somewhere. Just not there.
The sun rose slowly over the horizon, and Badgerheart paused to watch it between the branches for a moment. Her fate was in her paws, now. Ivyclan had granted her another chance, something she needed desperately. A new start, a chance to make her mark on this world.
It still hurt, every time she had pushed herself for Mothclan had been a mistake. Every effort she had made meant nothing, all she had done was waste her youth. But she regretted leaving, letting Hailstrike and her dearest friends fall into the past. She wondered if they missed her, or if the warriors had realized who had been cleaning their nests by now.
It was clear, though. She had been burning as she ran, but something new had risen from the ashes she left behind. This was her beginning.
