gone. [solo]

“Two of my warriors are dead by your clan's filthy paws! Adderdawn and Flutterpetal defended their clan at the cost of their lives…”

The shadows never listened to the birds that flew high above. Never heard the flap of wings, the caws, the croons, the chirps. All of those sounds belonged to the creatures that inhabited a different domain. It was for the light to listen to the feathered beings. To the ones that could soar in an instant, releasing their hold on the earth, the shadows were nothing. They never even spared a glance towards the ground, only ever relishing in the warmth of the light and sky. Egrets, swans, sparrows, grebes, doves and shrikes alike. All beings that bore the gifts of the sky that allowed them to never have to feel chained to the ground. They always could flee in search of that warmth and light. Never were they forced to weather the storms, never did they have to keep themselves cloaked in darkness for any longer than they desired.

So why would the darkness, cold and forever chained to the earth, cast away and scorn, ever bother to listen to them in return?

For the rare times that they fell into their realm.

It had been with a shattering thud that particular little bird had landed in front of the living shadow, his squawking loud enough that it was nigh-impossible to have that curious cat lurking deep within the pitch darkness come forth. She had studied the thing with an unamused gaze, those luminous, flame-kissed orbs seeming to find nothing of interest. For a considerable amount of time, the frigid shade had contemplated a mercy kill. Unsheathing her legendary, lethal claws to slay the disruption that dared disturb the eternal blanket of silence and peace that had always been. After all, it would have been a simple resolution for the both of them. A single slice to end its terror of the night, a well-placed strike that would allow the feline to once more slumber in her ebony nest.

Instead, she listened to its cries. The song that screeched itself out of agony, out of desperation, out of fear. Fear… a funny thing. It was what belonged to the shadows. To the gloom, to the depths that they all ignored. Not a single living being ever found comfort in fear. Everything else regarded it as a foe, while in the shadows? They were a friend. Fear meant information, meant something that happened that was worth paying attention to. Her friend had been the one to catch this particular bird, bringing it into her depths like a trophy. A treat to be presented at her paws for the mistress of the darkness. What an awful shame it was that very treat just so happened to be laced with the deadliest of poisons.

Every ounce of air was sucked out of the sentient shade in that very moment. Bitter, that poison was, causing nothing but a desperate choke as that death song bit into every sinew of the darkness. Tore it apart with its beak, enacting some sort of revenge that would tear every fiber of her being apart and right into the pits of the dark forest alongside it. Over, over, and over, it repeated. An infinite loop that dealt damage each and every time the words were processed. Again, again, and again. Betrayal nagged at the belly of the shadow, threatening to spill the chilling bile that made an attempt to climb free with each shriek that pierced her. Every peck that replaced the familiar cold with that poison, that lethal concoction that stole everything away.

No other sounds would greet the shadow as they flung that bird away. As their claws sunk deep into the shrike, silencing it for eternity. As they looked fear straight in the eyes, having once seen a friend, and spat the blood of the bird right at its paws. Betrayed. What should have been their closest companion had turned into an enemy, driving the sharp spike straight through the center of their being. It shattered the darkness in its entirety, fragments now scrambling in some desperate attempt to piece themselves together. There would be no hope to become whole again, though, as that poison had sealed each and every wounded edge shut. Distanced from one another, a filmy barrier that would force the once cohesive onyx to split apart from itself.

That fracture had allowed more unspeakable brutes to skitter about in the darkness. All at once, a vacuum of predators that seemed to know the perfect moment to unleash their own weapons. Every blow, dealt one after another, all in a rapid succession that only split the ebony fragments further and further apart. Spider webs of fragile glass, crushed to smaller, tinier, frailer pieces that would never be whole again. Instinct was the only thing that had seemed to allow every little sliver to pull away from the barrage, withdrawing all in a singular direction. In the midst of the assault, there was only one refuge. Seeking that refuge had left a victim in its wake, however. That feline that had stirred, the curiosity that had been roused from its eternal slumber… her life had been claimed.

Curiosity’s bloodied remains were left behind in that towering forest. To the shadow, it became nothing more than a prison-cell. Four imposing pillars of oak that had once been the sight of safety morphed into another friend that drove its teeth into her being. It was those oaken beams that had risen from the earth to claim Curiosity for its own, devouring it whole into a mist to which it would never be seen again. A mourning cry had been the only sound to rise from the shattered sea of black, but even that had been stifled by the blighted ichor that had taken everything.

Time had even abandoned the murkiness that darted through the trees as she frantically sought to escape the crime scene that had unfolded behind. Desperate, burning slices begged for sanctuary in any other patch of shadow. It should have been home. Like should have called to like, singing a lullaby of comfort. Instead, what had once been safety had turned into barbed thorns that snagged at the edges of the ripple that weaved throughout the forest. As if the sentry of the night herself had been turned into the traitor, guilty of the highest treason and thus doomed to a death sentence that only the blood of the perpetrator would be allowed to serve the penalty for.

No bail of any degree could even be considered for the crimes. For using poison to wield the friends that had once surrounded the Night Triumphant, for allowing a creature that knew nothing but warmth to instead deal the blow as cold and cruel as death herself. Once, she could have perhaps welcomed its song. Cold had its place in healing. It could have nurtured that sickly shrike back to health, back to where what came from its beak was a sweet song rather than venomous squawks that promised destruction in its path. Even if most birdsong became nothing more than another thread in the infinite web of life and lies, the shadow would have found a way to forgive. Never forget, but perhaps forgive. After all, even the night often possessed a singular thread of mercy, offered as a blade to strike back against the cruelties that had landed the victim to such a lowly place.

In its talons, the true criminal ripped even that away.

Every tiny little shard of the shadow’s soul should have been able to follow the path to the refuge in the midst of the forest. To the place where the earth had been hollowed out and cleaved by some warrior of vicious times past, where the walls of brambles, thorns, and undergrowth promised with angry teeth to hold back any aggressor that threatened the precious life that glowed within. For all of the orbs of sunlight that floated inside of that prickled gate, hardly ever did it allow the darkness past. Even the barriers once understood the place that allowing shadow and light to mingle held. The important lessons that it could pass down from one pulse of warmth to another. It was the vital idea that the shade was not to be feared, that the ebony stillness that tiptoed in to take over the duty of the forest’s permanent sentry to reprieve the glowing warmth was not the enemy.

Now, those brambles failed to allow her to pass. Perhaps it was the manner in which the splitting night moved past that drew alarm instead of greeting. All of it was simply an act to protect those which it held most dear as they lashed out. The thorns stole the weakest of slivers, patches of ebony beauty being trapped behind one by one by the army of guards that had been laid out as traps. Each and every snare stole piece by piece of the being who once moved across the lands with the silent promise of an adder. Her fluidity had been unmatched, nothing but a breeze left in her wake as the signature calling card of her presence.

Yet another “home” recognized her no longer. First, it was the innermost council that had turned against her. Claws that had once been sheathed in her presence now pointed outwards, turning the shadow away as a trespasser and traitor. A wrongly-accused victim, now shackled to serve the sentence that was not meant for her. Such cruelties now extended to the ground she had found comfort in. Ground on which they had been nurtured and raised, finding kinship in few faces. In a single bird, whose song had been mirrored in the purring of her ice, of the chilled breath that rarely pulsed out in an attempt to lull life into sparing just a moment of company.

Straining, for just a moment the shadow hoped to hear that familiar melody. The one that had shared the cradle of which she had been created, had learned that sometimes, the birds sang of a tune worth listening to. A deep-burning shame had taken a piece of the shade moons ago when the forest had taught her the harsh truth that not all were benevolent. In fact, there had been several pieces stolen as the wind promised nothing but the pain of destruction. The past memory pushed the burning of her core to the slivers that reflected the world around them, that had allowed navigation away from the obstacles that simply stole.

As that motif never repeated back, the words of that shrike once more narrowed in. Somehow, that bird had not been properly culled. Instead, it struck once more with a vengeance, no other motive than that of purely despicable origins. The unexpected strike had cleaved through a majority of the shadow, spindles that had been hardly able to keep up with the rest of the shadow now rendered into nothing more than an invisible mist. It had been in the thrush’s call that she would have been able to stitch part of herself together, but it was the wrong winged creature to answer her call. She was left further destroyed in turn.

Embedding themselves within the softened ground beneath, what remained of those fragments pushed off in an attempt to change trajectory. Nothing was left for the shadow to find solace in at the current place that should have been a place of brief respite. All that was left instead was a burning. Burning that slowly took over more and more of the shade, that screamed the pained cry of agony where every little fragment was ripped away, lost into a void that not even the mightiest leaders of the Dark Forest would dare attempt to peer into or conquer.

She was the Night Triumphant. Yet, this was a war she could not win. All that it took to destroy the darkness, to melt the ice for eternity was a well-placed blaze. In the beak of that shrike, in the middle of that clearing, in the trial grounds amid the center of the four oaks, it had carried with it a torch. A torch, whose fire was now singeing that shadow from the inside-out, destroying each onyx fragment piece by piece. Soon enough, there would be no more left, the shadow of royal blood no longer. Every part would be consumed by that blaze and rendered to nothingness.

For such a creature of ice and void, one would have presumed that the idea of warmth would have left it hissing and clawing, recoiling back. In the case of that torch, that was certainly the truth. But once… just once, there had been a time that the forged being of onyx had not. Perhaps it was because that warmth had arrived in a vessel of ebony, wearing a cloak of the night that had roused the long-slumbering feline of Curiosity. Never had that cat peered at such a being. Every sense detected kin, but every action had betrayed those senses, sending the conflicting signal of light.

That had been the one time that she had dared to understand just why the thick bramble walls allowed in a creature such as her. It all was in an attempt to find that song. Without light, there was no shadow, and without shadow, there was no light. An evening needed the dawn, just as the night needed day.

Just as a murky river needed the petals of the flowers that it nurtured.

It was that thought alone that had the hive-minded fragments skid to a stop. More of the shattered night had been stolen away in a desperate attempt to get away. Easily, it could have been presumed that a storm had opened up from the sky, only further executing the attack against the shadow to smolder it into nothingness. To have the water weigh it down, pelting each fragment with a barrage that took out every piece that it struck. Whether or not it truly had, the flickering essence of the night could not tell. The hold that reality had cradled the princess of the night was now far gone, sending the shadow plunging down, down, down into whatever depths lay below.

Familiar, biting cold was what had managed to catch the attention of the remaining pieces. Enough was still present of the shadow to perceive its surroundings, to be able to assess just what terrain it had traveled to. It was aided by the sting of several wounds, whose heat was drowned out by the searing pain of that torch that still burned from the inside out. Destroyed straight from within, acting as a force that was tearing through, piece by piece, all in an attempt to find a way out of the darkness it had been plunged into. Even as she failed to notice her wounds, she noticed one thing.

She noticed the water she now stood in.

Ahead, in that water, was a shadow. One that, this time, did not run from her.

It could not run, even if it wished. After all, it was her own shadow.

Once upon a time, the pool of rippling onyx that currently peered back had been one in the same with the fragments that now desperately attempted to hold themselves together. Now, it seemed even that was keen to leave her. No longer was the Night Triumphant worthy of being the one who lived one in the same with their shadow, lacking any light to tread across the world. Just as the darkness should, it shrieked and sought an escape from the blaze. From the fire that still chipped away.

While the shrike had plunged the poisonous torch deep into the shadow, that was not what currently waged its war. Not even remotely. Instead, what had managed to be the culprit of the warmth that currently sent the entire world away was the buried, long-forgotten spark that had once existed inside of the feline of the night. It had been abandoned long ago, too long to even begin to recount, in favor of a kinship with the ice and darkness. After all, it was the shade that had offered the most respite. Never before had the day ever brought the semblance of peace that the night had.

Until Curiosity had roused for that night-kissed light, for the flower that bloomed against the harshest of conditions.

That was what had re-lit the spark inside of her, a tiny candlelight against an expansive sea of void. Like had called to like. They had both sung the same melody, the same tune that had given the idea that they shared the same fate. It was why the void had never culled that light, instead allowing it to grow, protected by an impenetrable obsidian shell. A shell that had began to cross to the one like itself in an attempt to protect. To nurture the bond between the two.

It had not formed in time.

No, instead, it had created the perfect weakness for that torch to strike.

Pain seized the remnants of the warrior. Of the mighty creature of the night, the one who had once been fearless. While there was a reflection of that warmth in the amber orbs of the water, it was no reflection. The chill of the water siphoned the life each fractured shadow held, calling it away in an attempt to protect it all. To give it away to the river, as it was the night that had forsaken the gift that it had been given. That warmth now belonged to the water, even as it dimmed. Even as it was culled, as flame could not survive in the ripple of the tides. No matter how murky that river was, that flame would never survive.

Grief stole it all from her. Bit by bit. All of her, gone. While the feline that had roused Curiosity from its eternal slumber, had caught the attention of Night Triumphant and ultimately allowed the princess of the night herself to come into full form lived, so did she. But now that he was gone… He had returned to the stars, and left her behind.

That thought hurt more than any. A single, strangled, piercing wail called out into the throes of what remained of the night. Whatever remained of her strength was released in that call, and the body that had held every shard together for so long failed. It faltered, as there was no other choice than for it to sink into the water. For the cold, that should have bit and told her to flee, welcomed her as if it was a mother nurturing and soothing a wailing, hungry kit.

Flutterpetal was dead.

Murkyripple was not.

The light was burned out.

The darkness raged on.

Flutterpetal should have lived.

Murkyripple should have died.

Adderdawn should have lived.

Murkyripple would trade her life for both.

Those were the thoughts that spiraled, the death-tango circling much like a cyclone. Down, down, down. Piece by piece, shattered, shattered, shattered. It kept going. Taking, taking, taking. Leaving the feline with nothing, nothing, nothing. As if, somehow, in giving it all up, there was some way to bring back what was lost. The flower that should have lived, should have stayed to been appreciated. After all, it was warmth that every other living being praised. Even the most venomous of adders basked in the heated rays of the sun.

It was more than well-known that there were no creatures of a kind heart that favored the night. None, except that singular onyx-cloaked tom that had a heart that still shone through the tiniest of cracks in the void, that had sung to the long-buried spark.

Well, that spark was now long dead.

All that was left of the shadow was the energy to send a singular farewell. A message, delivered on the desperate wings of the last remaining fragment of the shadow that had rippled throughout the forest. It climbed beyond the ground in which the cold shadow had once found its home, riding the gift of a final wish before being speared by the dew-claw of warmth. While it had aimed for the stars, the set of words would never arrive.

The final fragment of the living shade had been sliced apart as if it were no more than a flea. No sound, no slight ripple in the current of life was even created as it was snuffed out. The embers that had once provided a minuscule oasis of warmth had been snuffed out, reduced not to mere coals, but invisible ashes. All that was left behind was an empty husk, the shell of the vessel that had once been gifted at birth by the onyx river of night.

All that was left behind was the cadaver of what once was the princess of the night.