You're Not My Kind [Aether]

"We might be family by blood, but up until a few days ago you were nothing more than a stranger to me. Another time and place, maybe things would be different." For a moment there was regret in her voice. It wasn't this kit's fault that he was born into this mess. It wasn't his fault that he was in this situation. She knew that, rationally. "I haven't considered my littermate family in a long time, and while he called me sister I doubt he considered me family either. It's something to use when it's convenient for him, when he thinks it'll do the most damage." Beechfang shrugged. "He's always been a monster. Fine, maybe I do need to elaborate. He was a young warrior when he killed Featherkit in front of Smokefeather and I, then nearly skinned me alive for trying to step in. And that was after he brought a whole group of violent rogues to overwhelm and take over the clan. You think what he did to our father Bloodstar now was bad? He had those rogues nearly kill him, then drag him away from the clan while he was unconscious. They held him captive for moons in the dead of leafbare, starved him, kept him unconscious, and by the time our warriors got him out of there he'd lash out every time his name was called." She'd stopped walking, claws digging into the earth. That prison had killed her father, mentally, emotionally. "He maimed his own mother in cold blood. My father is laying dead on that branch in the middle of camp because of him. That is your father. Always has been and always will be. You can't deny what he's done forever." Sometimes she wondered if being dead was a kinder fate for Bloodstar and Smokefeather. At least they weren't here to witness this horror, this mockery that clan life had become.

"You are right though, we don't exactly have a choice, do we? If it was just him on his own I'd fight, I wouldn't care. But there's no fighting those, no matter how much anyone else wants to." Her tail flicked toward the dark shadows that lingered around them, a snarl crossing her expression, bitterness coating every word. "It's perfectly okay though, we can at least eat our fresh kill in peace unlike those who resist, right?"