Dead bracken crumbled beneath Rainstrike’s paws as she slunk through the forest, devoid of all moisture and making it twice as difficult to sneak around. SkyClan hadn’t been the only territory to be drastically affected by this harsher than usual Greenleaf, but they had been the only ones to burn. The banished she-cat had watched from a safe distance as the fire consumed tree after tree, bush after bush, with every passing second watching, waiting with bated breath to see if the raging inferno would cross over into ThunderClan’s territory.
Oh, what a sight that would have been, to see them rush about in panic, to taste their fear scent on her tongue… to catch one unaware, unprepared… but by some stroke of luck they’d been spared. It had also increased the frequency of patrols through the territory, forcing her to move at odd hours, sleep in abnormal places, but Rainstrike knew this territory like the back of her paw, and thankfully, her scent still read ThunderClan to anyone who stumbled across it. That was another thing she’d taken to doing - following not too far behind patrols, rolling in scent markers and stealing cached prey, heavy with ThunderClan scent. It had helped her thus far from losing that part of her identity - the same part that allowed her to move throughout the territory practically unnoticed. So far, anyway.
The ex-warrior still didn’t quite know what her plan was. Revenge, clearly, was at the top of her list. She’d made a promise to herself that ThunderClan would pay for their ignorance, their weakness, and Rainstrike would make good on that promise. Or she would die trying.
But tonight, Rainstrike’s paws carried her towards the river out of necessity rather than desire or plotting. It was hot, and the chance to drink her fill and relax at the water’s edge was a welcome change from skulking about the territory and constantly looking over her shoulder.She’d have a chance to relax, to plan, to… Rainstrike paused as she broke the treeline.
A lone figure sat silhouetted against the reflection off the river. The cat was facing away from her, sitting on the riverbank and looking down. She heard a soft voice speaking, but couldn’t make out what it was saying from this distance. The she-cat flared her nostrils, bringing its scent in. ThunderClan. Tom. But… the pelt was one she didn’t recognize offhand. Her brow furrowed. It did spark her memory, but… from where?
The breeze shifted.
Rainstrike noticed the cat stiffen as her scent washed over him, and dark blue eyes met her own as he twisted to look over his shoulder. Ah, Jaydream. The tom had been missing for some time now, since a half-moon or so after his mother’s death, which, coincidentally, had happened not far from this spot. Was that why he was here now?
“Rainstrike,” his voice was low, and not exactly warm, but held no hostility as he took in the state of her ruined face. The she-cat forced her claws to sheathe. He didn’t know. He’d been gone so long he didn’t know about the dog attack, or her banishment - at least, not yet.
“Jaydream,” she responded.
He turned back to the river, speaking just above the feeble trickle of the low water.
“Do you come here to remember her, too?” What an odd question, considering she figured that he, like his sisters, would have blamed her for Dacedream’s death. Though… now that she thought about it, the mottled tom hadn’t even spoken when she’d brought the body back to camp. Rainstrike padded forward, falling to her haunches a tail-length away from him.
“Sometimes.” That was a lie, of course… she barely thought about Dacedream, other than when she was being accused of the dappled queen’s murder.
“Where have you been?” “Gone,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t want to be here, where they could see me,” a quick glance upwards told Rainstrike the ‘they’ he spoke of was StarClan - or, rather, the Righteous Few, as she knew and he did not.
“But I realized that what I did wasn’t the right answer. That it just meant they won, if I ran away. This is my home, and I missed it. I miss my sisters, too. I bet they’re so mad at me.” The she-cat nodded in understanding, and an awkward silence crept between them. She could tell, by the subtle sideways glances that he was curious about what had happened to her face, but either too polite or too scared to ask. They spent a while together in the quiet, neither able to bring themselves to conversation. After a while, he rose, cleared his throat, and turned away from her.
“I should get back. Are you… going to stay here, or..?”
“No, I’ll go back with you, lead the way. I’m sure your family will be thrilled to see you.”
Rainstrike’s eye flashed cold and blue in the moonlight as she watched Jaydream move away, and she rose to follow. Her claws slid into the dirt, she estimated the distance between them, and then she struck.
She was on him in an instant, her claws slicing through his mottled pelt, and the tom gave a surprised yelp-snarl, half-turning to try and lash out at her. But she’d had the element of surprise, and she’d also not spent the last two moons without training like he had. Her superior bulk took him to the ground, and her teeth sank deep into the back of Jaydream’s neck.
“Why?” he gasped, writhing beneath her and attempting to get his paws under him. Rainstrike smirked beneath a mouthful of fur, shaking her head back and forth to rip at his flesh like an angry dog. The mottled tom yowled in pain, an earsplitting caterwaul, and Jaydream shoved upwards, finally managing to get to his paws and knock her away. Rainstrike released him and backed off, her tail lashing, blood dripping from her fangs as she hissed furiously at him.
“WHY?” he repeated, panting, stiff-legging his way around her in a half-circle.
“This time, it’s me that needs to make a point,” Rainstrike snarled,
“and you just happen to be in the right place, at the right time. It’s almost poetic,” she continued, her own stance mirroring his, though almost relaxedly,
“that I get to kill you in the same spot your mother died.” She rushed forward, bringing her shoulder down to slam into the malnourished tomcat. He reared on to his hind legs at the last moment, raking claws across her chest, but she bowled into him and took him to the ground. Rainstrike dragged her claws down the right side of his face, snaking her head forward to sink her teeth into his throat.
Jaydream thrashed, wailed, and then went limp as Rainstrike ripped her fangs away to look down at him. Blood bubbled up and around the gaping wound, and his legs twitched feebly for several moments until the light finally left his eyes and Jaydream stilled, never to move again. Rainstrike’s nostrils flared, her tongue swiping across her bloodied lips, and she lowered her head to grab him by the scruff, dragging him through the puddle of his own blood on her way to the ThunderClan camp. She almost wanted to leave him here, but there was a statement to be made, and Rainstrike would ensure that it didn’t go unnoticed.
