Does leopard still have 3 lives in her final battle? Or was that changed?
Yep. I think she drowned her once, then Leopardstar lunges up refreshed, and she gets the upper paw on Mistyfoot with 2 lives to go.
(MAYBE tw gore, but I really did try to be tasteful about a head being smashed on a rock.)
On her back, splashing and thrashing furiously against Leopardstar's claws dunking her head under, Mistyfoot glimpses a wave breaking just over the tip of a stone-blue rock. Her only chance.
With a surge of power, her claws sink into her leader's golden shoulder and they tumble and roll to the right. Before the tyrant even realizes what's happening, she's yanked up, and then whipped backwards with a wet CRUNCH
And then again
And again
And again, until Mistyfoot can't even make out what's left of her leader anymore. All she can see is that it's a red, brown, and yellow blur, because her eyes burning with salty tears and her whole body is trembling.
She drops the corpse onto the stone and it slides into the water, lifelessly. After a moment it spasms aimlessly one last time, like an insect does after its head is bitten off, unlike the deliberate, agonized throes of Tigerstar suffering through his doomed lives. And then it's still.
There's only the tranquil sound of bubbling water, and Mistyfoot's frenzied panting. Her pounding heart makes it hard to hear either.
The blood is carried off by the shallow water in scarlet swirls, but the lake runs pale red as if it's washing it away. Some were aware of this prophecy, but Mistyfoot was not.
It isn't closure to her, or a fulfillment of divine decree. It's just blood that should be on her paws, slicked away by the complicit river. She wished it could feel like it's over, but she's smart enough to know the truth. Has been through enough terrible events like this to understand what comes next.
Her body will move foward. Her mind will need to consider her deputy. Her paw will come down on code-defying cats like Blackclaw and Greenflower. But her heart will stay here, next to the remains of Leopardstar, the same way another piece of it remains at Stonefur's side across space and time.
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imagine you were born hungry. imagine you were born with a hole in your gut that can never be filled, that is always writhing.
you are a mirror. you were born a mirror, surrounded by mirrors. the first thing you ever know is that you are not human. the second thing is that you are not him. you are a reflection, with his face and his voice and the people who loved him. you can mimic him, pretend so well that you are not anything else, but you cannot escape the aching hunger in your stomach, in your mouth.
he cared for the other one, the you-but-not-you. you hear that you died in his arms once. you don't know how to feel about that; you don't know him, don't care (because you're not him even though you want).
nevertheless, you are drawn to him. maybe it's the way he looks at you, guilty and frustrated and awe-struck all at once, a complicated mixture of feelings that has you shying away and inching closer, bit by bit. you decide you like the way he looks when he's happy, though you'd never say it to his face.
that's probably why you don't say anything, when the world twists, soft graphite and watercolors. because you like seeing him happy.
this world is good enough. it doesn't matter if it isn't real, it can be good enough. you can be alive. he can love you like he loved him be happier here, without the pressure, without the fear. isn't that good? why can't it be good enough for him?
you know you don't matter to him, not like the real you. you know that when he looks at your face, all he sees is the other one. he doesn't understand. it's not fair. it's not fair. you want something for yourself for once.
he says he'd die, if that's what you wanted. standing on the precipice. his heels slip over the edge, hanging in space. you want. you do not want. you want, but not like this. you imagine his body below the city lights, arranged like he's sleeping, a halo of red seeping into his hair. you wonder what forever looks like with him, what it might look like without him. he would die for you. you have never been so afraid of that.
he pulls you over the edge, hands entangled.
you are the only one who can stop this. you are the only one who can save him.
(part of you doesn't want to. part of you is selfish, and aching, and hungry.)
(what would he have done?)
you catch him. save his life. it feels like the worst thing in the world. you hate yourself, just a little bit, for not wanting it. the hunger coils in your stomach.
you leave for a while (because of the severance). you don't want to talk about it. the far shore has waves that beat endlessly against the sand, and you fell apart and shivered back together- and you don't want to talk about it.
you tell him to take you somewhere. anywhere. somewhere nice.
(a nice place to die, you think. you're too much of a coward, too much of a monster, to say it.)
it's beautiful, and he's smiling, and there's a gaping emptiness in your gut. you feel yourself shaking apart, skin to bones.
you tell him you are hungry, the words ripped from your throat like the awful truth they are. and he just looks at you, the way he always does.
and then he kills for you. not human, not yet (you wonder if he would), but it still screams as it dies.
he holds the heart in his hands. you are hungry. from here, it just looks like meat. it drips, plip-plop-plip, black blood splatting on tile. you are hungry. he offers it to you.
(despite everything, you sort of want to be human. despite everything, you sort of want to be dead.)
you close your teeth around his fingers instead. like a feral dog. like somebody who is not (has never been) human. his blood is red, and you are terribly, painfully hungry.
you tell him you are a lost cause, a monster with a pretty face and nothing behind it. that he should give up, should leave you alone, should let you die (should kill you himself, really).
he cries, salty and miserable, shoulders shaking. he cries. for you. because of you. all you can do is stare.
the heart drips on the floor between you. you are hungry.
(he does not look like an angel, or an icarus, or a savior. he looks like a fourteen year old boy in love with a monster.)
you have always been selfish.
you have always been hungry.
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