Dead Eyes See No Future [SOLO]

Beechfang slowly paced the dark confines of the decrepit twoleg nest. Sleep wasn't going to happen tonight, she had known that from the moment she raced into the den. Her heart beat rapidly in time with her quick pawsteps, tail streaming behind her. Turn, step, step, step... Turn. Step, step, step. Turn.

Her claws scraped against the dusty flat ground, digging small furrows into the surface of it.

The cat bearing the face and memories of her nightmares had fled from her at the great garden, and the sight of him fleeing had made her claws itch to give chase. She'd cowered against that fence at his words, at Flowerthorn's words. So cryptic and yet so very not at the same time. Almost enough to make her miss Falconmoon's next words, a memory long buried and dismissed to be thought about then buried once more.

"It was you! We were fighting... then we stopped and we buried our fur and our blood and we peed on it to kill the smell. Why would we do that?" Because we- you- were stupid kits who didn't know better? Beechfang had wanted to respond, but she couldn't. And it hadn't been Falconmoon who shared that experience. But if it wasn't him, how in the foxing void had he ever found that out? Beechfang had never mentioned it to anyone but her grandfather and Sagelight, in a desperate attempt to make Sagelight see that she wasn't going to make for the apprentice he wanted. See? I fight my own clanmates! Starclan can't possibly want me! Not that it worked, of course.

"I mean... it was just a dream. It was vivid... no, just a dream. It's just a coincidence!" It wasn't a dream, not to Beechfang who still bore the faint scars along her sides from his claws. Not Falconmoon's claws, she tried to reason, but Falconmoon had reopened the scars all the same. Not physically... This time.

If it looked like a duck and walked like a duck and sounded like a duck... But this was Wolfblossom's son. Beechfang's grandson. She watched as Dawnhawk's body vanished before her eyes, watched as Smokefeather followed moments later.

Not that she believed him to be truly gone. The littermate she had borne nothing but hate for had made himself a home in her nightmares. A golden shadow on the edge of her vision. She turned, pelt bristling, gazing at the wall where nobody stood. Just the patterning of light through a hole. Dawn's light, she realized. How long was she lost to her thoughts?

Exhaustion weighed at her, but the she-cat could not seem to keep her paws still, couldn't keep them from trembling as she continued to pace. It was just that she was tired. Not the panic that had bloomed to life in her chest and hadn't left since... Whenever she had last seen the tom who called himself Falconmoon. The previous morning, she thought.

The ex-Skyclanner returned to her pacing. Her silver tabby and white fur stood on end, as if a storm were brewing. Only the bright sky she caught glimpses of through the holes in the wall was clear. No lightning struck, but it may as well have with tightly wound muscles and bushy fur.

"Just a dream. It's just a coincidence!" Falconmoon's words echoed in her mind. Oh, how she wished this was just one of her nightmares. That she would wake in the warrior den of Skyclan's camp, with Dovefrost curled around her. Beechfang closed her eyes, opened them... Nope. She was still in the twoleg nest, still pacing, still feeling like her heart was trying to break through her ribcage.

On trembling paws, she stalked toward the small store of herbs that occupied a corner of the twoleg nest. Whatever twolegs had once inhabited the nest kept lavender in the garden, and she had picked a few of the plants. The scent wasn't particularly soothing to her, but it helped disguise that she lived here, at least. There was some thyme left too, which Beechfang chewed and swallowed. feeling the herbs stick in her throat.

Perhaps a poppy seed-

The thought was dismissed before it fully formed. Even now she did not keep them. The temptation of falling into a sound sleep was there, of course, but after what the Asylum had done to her father Beechfang had no desire to go near the bright-hued plants ever again.

Dawnhawk had found her, either way. She wasn't so sure that sleeping was a good idea. Why else had she stayed up this long? She wanted desperately to believe that 'Falconmoon' was right. That his dreams were just coincidence. But Bloodstrike had wanted to warn her about him, specifically. She was certain, now, that the warning had not just been for the sudden explosion of loud noise accompanying an excitable apprentice, nor that she had grandkits of her own. It had been about Falconmoon, and not just because he bore more than a passing resemblance to family. He sounded like him. The dreams he had... The words he repeated, Flowerthorn's, Starclan's... They had given them all warning, but once again, it was too little too late. He was already here, walking among them.

And seeing him flee had made Beechfang want to give chase, to rip into his fur like her littermate had done to her, so many times in the past. To end him before he could get away, send him back to the dark depths he had managed to escape from.

But he was hardly more than a kit. Wolfblossom's own son. He didn't seem to know or understand what was happening, and maybe that was a blessing for him. Because the only conclusions Beechfang could come to were horrific nightmares. Nightmares that should not have existed, and maybe would not have at all had the past not shaken out the way it had.

Now the tom was probably back in Skyclan, doing... What, exactly? Plotting his vengeance on the clan once more? Plotting his vengeance on her? On their father - his grandfather? She wanted to believe he didn't know everything, that he was just a kit... But her paranoia said otherwise.

Wolfblossom, Birdstar, Plumleaf... The rest of the clan she no longer knew. Most of them had never seen Dawnhawk in action, only knew the nursery horror stories used to scare kits into behaving. Beechfang couldn't decide on if those tales would become reality once more. They had been real enough for her and Bloodstrike, but to the clan's youth? Fantasy. Horrific fantasy.

She wished it would stay that way. For all of them. Some of them, she thought, would deny it until the horror stared them in the face, dug fangs into their flesh. Wolfblossom would never agree that her own flesh and blood - her own kit - would be capable of what had been done in the past. If Falconmoon was capable of it, he would need to be put down, and who in their right mind would listen who hadn't already been alive to experience such violence first-paw?

To suggest such to Wolfblossom... If there was one thing Beechfang regretted as much as her role to play in creating a monster, it was that her own actions had led to her becoming so distant to her own kits, that she was not present in their lives as a mother should be. To label Falconmoon would be to become worse than Smokefeather. Falconmoon, who truly did seem to be his own cat. But why then, was he having these dreams? Was Dawnhawk using him to strike out at the clan who had exiled him? To strike back at her, using her own kin? It sure was convenient for him, that the tom who was her grandson looked so much like him. If Falconmoon was being stalked through his dreams by that beast, he had to become aware that he couldn't turn out like him.

Perhaps it would be kinder to just put him out of his misery. End him before anything got out of hand...

No. Falconmoon, she wanted to believe, was innocent. Dawnhawk had been a monster, but one of Skyclan's own making... Of Beechfang's making, of Smokefeather. But-

Wolfblossom needed to know, but she didn't think Wolfblossom would listen to her. And Falconmoon... He seemed confused for now, but how long would it stay that way? He couldn't figure this out on his own... And Beechfang wasn't sure if she could change the future for the better if he even knew. Would it just set him on the path that Dawnhawk had taken? To be cursed with his likeness and dreams that should not have been the young warrior's? And Flowerthorn's words... Beechfang mulled over them.

Dangers he wouldn't want to face... Starclan wouldn't want a second Dawnhawk on their paws, even less than the clans did. But why warn him and not a medicine cat? Falconmoon had been right that that was certainly strange. He was just a kit, why put that knowledge and confusion on him? Beechfang wanted to believe Flowerthorn's words meant things could turn out different, but...

Starclan... what are you doing? Why? Is this his influence or is it yours? She didn't know, and it scared her.

The scarred silver tabby stared at the wall in front of her, shivering.