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residents-of-the-darkforest · 2 years ago

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Dark Forest Resident: Salviathaw

Aliases / Nicknames: The Kit That Shouldn’t Be, Dark Kit, Half-Darkling, Darkling

Gender: she-cat

Sexuality: homosexual, panromantic-polyromantic

Family: Sorrelmint (mother), Snowfringe (father), Brindlekit (sister), Mothshade (brother), unnamed unborn kits, Ravenberry (mate, formerly)

Other Relations: Needlefrost (mentor), Snowfringe (Dark Forest mentor), Rabbitpaw (apprentice)

Clan: Skyclan

Rank: warrior

Characteristics: half Dark-Kit

Murder Motive: angry that she was robbed of a normal life, believing there was no reason she shouldn’t kill, since she was going to end up in the Dark Forest anyway

Number of Victims: 15 (1 indirectly)

Number of Murders: 15 (1 indirectly)

Murder Method: clawing in a rage, having killed in a battle, throwing/pushing over a height, forced water intoxication, torturing, slitting throat, passing sickness

Known Victims: Sorrelmint, unnamed Shadowclan warrior, Shrewkit, Sandkit, Honeykit, Rabbitpaw, Palepaw, Pigeonpaw, Ravenberry, Cindersong, unborn kits, nameless rogues, the medicine cat

Victim Profile: her mother, her apprentice, her ex mate, cats who got to live the life she should have had, rogues who insulted her, cats suspicious of her, the medicine cat

Cause of Death: bleeding sickness

Cautionary Tale: ??

Story:

The first sign that things would go wrong should have been the complicated birth.

Brindlekit was dead before she was born, and barely looked developed, while Mosskit shrank away from the light outside the den as though it were something to be afraid of. His skin seemed to shrivel away with each passing day, until finally he died.

Salviakit thought that it was from his constricting skin finally strangling him.

But Salviakit didn’t stop seeing him.

Occasionally she would be in the nursery, where queens nursed their own kits and only occasionally watched over another mother’s. There, he was gone.

Occasionally she was in the Daycare, where a kind tom named Fungichomp and some others would collectively watch all of the kits when parents needed a break. That is where she would play with Mothkit.

Perhaps things could be easier if she could distinguish between these two realities, to be in one place and then move to another. Such was not the life she was given.

It wasn’t as easy as going to sleep and visiting her brother in the afterlife. For her, there was no telling when and where she could be. She could walk out of the camp to join her mentor for a training session, and on the other side she would walk into the play space in the Night Forest.

Needlefrost was initially angry at her tendency to, according to him, ‘zone out,’ but quickly grew concerned. Apparently, when she went to the Night Forest, it seemed to everyone that she were moving in a trance.

That is only one way her realities mix.

She could hold a conversation with two cats together, with neither aware the other was also with her.

See would see prey that was not there, which she learned when she bounced on a blackbird, only to have a confused Needlefrost explain that she held nothing.

Her denmate would ask if she wanted to hunt with him. She would respond that she wanted to sleep, and would then be surprised when she was told that in spite of the dark skies, it was day.

She would have to be extra careful with walking, never sure which trees--or anything really--was there and which weren’t.

Her social life took a hit as well.

Cats from her ‘normal life,’ such as her mentor and mother, wanted her to value Clan life above everything else. They were pleased when her fur was neat and well-groomed, when she trained with claws sheathed, when she spoke politely, and when she shared her prey with Clanmates.

Cats from her ‘Night Forest life’ such as Fungichomp, Snowfringe, and a number of others wanted her to value individuality above everything else. They were pleased when her fur was ungroomed, as apparently it meant she was focused on more important things. They encouraged training with unsheathed claws, and because it was usually for cats here to exchange insults as though they were simply sharing tongues, she picked up the habit as well. Never able to have food themselves, they encouraged her to eat as much as she could ‘while she still had the chance.’

Perhaps it would be easy to please both groups of cats if she could tell when she was with who, but alas, it seemed Starclan had condemned her to a life of suffering.

In spite of her many complications, she managed to find love when Ravenberry, a tom she had a crush on since apprenticeship admitted his feelings for her. They tried on numerous times to have kits, and when she finally became expecting, the medicine cat told her only a quarter-moon later that her kits had died in the womb.

Ravenberry put the blame on her, calling her selfish for trying to have kits with her health, and swiftly left her for another she-cat.

Then she found out how truly condemned she was.

Seeing how much she struggled, Sorrelmint pulled her to the side and admitted to the horrible truth--that her father was a warrior of the Place of No Stars.

The forest she always saw wasn’t the ‘Night Forest,’ as she had named it, but the Dark Forest, where murderers and other evil cats go.

It was where she would surely end up. After all, that is where Mossshade ended up, and where he was able to grow up in spite of being dead--Salviathaw had thought that old kits grow after death, something that a grieving mother was quick to yell at her for saying.

She would be sent to the decaying, bloody-aired forest for existing.

Her death, however horrible it may be, will follow her throughout eternity, existence never ending, hunger everlasting.

She was furious at this injustice, enraged at all misery it had caused her and all of the pain it was sure to bring.

It had caused the deaths of her unborn kits, not only robbing her of a normal life, but taking theirs as well.

And if she were going to be sent to the Place of No Stars anyways, well....

why not act on that frustration?

Her mother was first, killed in an outburst after Salviathaw was told the truth. She dragged her body to the border with Shadowclan, which later sparked a battle between them and Skyclan and caused the death of one warrior.

It was a Shadowclan warrior, so the war ended--one of Skyclan died, one of Shadowclan died, so they were even.

During the time of war, a queen gave birth to three beautiful kits, two she-kits and a tom. They were healthy, happy, given the life Salviathaw should have been granted.

So she killed them, tossing them one by one from the highest tree in the territory, and watching with glee as their tiny bodies smacked with hard thuds on each branch.

She was almost won over by their begging after the first was thrown over. “We want to live!” Well, so does she--but what was she given instead? So she threw the other two over with fresh vigor.

A moon later, Salviathaw was given an apprentice. Rabbitpaw.

What was the point in putting the effort of moon after moon training him if she were only going to suffer in the end? She had already spent nine moons in her own apprenticeship, needing it extended with all her complications.

She instructed him to climb down a steep ravine. Of course, he slipped and broke his spine. Salviathaw returned to camp, claiming that he got angry that she wanted him to gather moss instead of battle train, and ran off.

The Clan believed her, but Rabbitpaw’s brothers were confused, as that didn’t seem like Rabbitpaw. When cats were sent out to search, they went with her. They managed to find the cliff, looking over with horror at the twisted sight before them--then were shoved over before their staring could end.

The Clan mourned the deaths of the three, and it was assumed that Palepaw and Pigeonpaw fell trying to rescue their brother, who probably fell as well when not looking where he was going.

While some in the Dark Forest weren’t happy with her murders of those so young, many praised her new tendencies. At last, she knew which cats she wanted to please.

And please them, she would.

Ravenberry was an obvious choice.

“You should make him suffer for what he said to you.”

That, she did.

She listened to their advice, snapping his neck just as they had said so that he couldn’t move. She moved him so that he lay on his back, positioning his head between two rocks so that he couldn’t move that, either.

With a leaf, she gathered water, and poured that down his throat. He swallowed with difficulty, but the water kept coming. Ravenberry began to vomit, which he also had to swallow, being on his back and all. He began to shake violently, a complicated processes with his body’s stuck position. Finally, his suffering ended and he died.

Next came Cindersong, Ravenberry’s cousin, chirping along about how exciting she was to see her kits.

But Salviathaw didn’t get to see hers.

So when a restless Cindersong paced around the camp at night, Salviathaw offered to take her on a walk. When Cindersong was far enough from the camp, Salviathaw attacked. Her goal was to hurt Cindersong enough that her unborn kits died--if Cindersong herself died, they would just meet in Starclan, and she wanted to drag out the suffering.

Unfortunately, Cindersong’s fighting was desparate despite her heavy belly, and Salviathaw had no choice but to tear out her throat.

More moons passed without incidence, and she was growing restless. Then on a patrol, she and her Clanmates ran into a small gang of rogues, who laughed at their threats, claiming Clan cats weak. A few days later, when the urge returned, she went back to where they had met the rogues.

From there, she followed their scent trail, and an amazing sight greeted her--they had all quickly fallen sick! She was expecting a fight, but with them all moaning in pain in a pathetic pile, she could tear all of them apart without so much as a scratch.

She had fun with them. Of course she should take the opportunity to! She yanked on their ears, tore their throat with small slits deeper and deeper until they bled out.

She was so used to the scent of blood, a constant in the Dark Forest, which mingled around her, that she failed to notice that the cats here were already bleeding.

When she woke the next day, her vision was hazy with something red. Her Clanmates were alarmed, claiming that she was bleeding from her eyes as well as her ears, nose, and mouth.

Her last moons were spent writhing in pain in the medicine den and in a nest made for her in the Dark forest. At least she was able to take the medicine cat’s life as well with her illness.

Maybe when she was dead, the confusion of where she was would finally end, and she could start ‘living’ normally.

Additional Information:

--The first Half-Dark Kit!!

--The song you guys ended up choosing is Funhouse by Mothica! It can represent the disorientation of not knowing what is happening as well as the social and internal complications she had.

--Snowfringe was a warrior who died quickly and hated losing everything he should have had, such as a family, so wanted to try having one--a living, proper one. He came to regret that choice pretty soon.

--Fungichomp belongs to @wills-woodland-warriors

--Daycare designed by @ambitiousauthor

--Dark Forest cats typically give unusual (but still Warrior-possible names), which is why Sorrelmint named her ‘Salvia.’

Salvia is a type of plant (it can be blue, possibly representing her eyes, and also very ironically means a long life and good health).

--Now I will proceed to add 1 million tags because I am so so proud of this