The Nightmares Would End Regardless [Rite of Passage]

Harriertalon
T2 Warrior | ShadowClan | she/her

A lot had happened between her time as a kit to her current position as a battle-ready warrior... All of it filled with love, but a very very small portion of failure was somehow overpowering all of that. The fight with Russetrye, being kidnapped by Twolegs, the badger that attacked her and Burdockroot on the way back from her moonstone, the fight against the dogs that invaded ShadowClan. Each and every one of those events ended badly for her and, where her clanmates were involved, others having to take over from where she failed to be any sort of true help. And that ate at her. Every. Single. Day.

The excuses others would give was that she had only been an apprentice; that she had given all she had. She accepted with a smile, quietly cursing those comments that only fueled her guilt. She could do more. Be more. But how?

That was an easy answer for the black as pitch warrior, as she stood in the path of the prey she'd been hunting down for moons: a one-eyed badger. A failure that ripped into her dreams nightly as the same exact scene played out: Burdockroot ordering her to stay back, Harrierpaw foolishly launching herself forward and directly into its jaws, where it tore into her like she was nothing.

She had made sure to let Leopardsun know where she was going and what she was planning to do, but she wanted to be alone for this. It had to be the two of them with no outside interference. If she died here... So be it. The nightmares would end regardless.

The one-eyed beast snarled at her, and so signaled the start of a very long and hard battle.

At some point, the beast had overpowered her and had her pinned to her back. Her claws were already deep into its belly, the warmth of badger blood soaking into her fur and melding with the blood the beast had already drawn from her.

The badgers head snapped forward, iron jaws clamping around the very same shoulder it had almost destroyed when she was an apprentice. There was no time for yowling this time as her own jaws lunged for its now exposed neck, fangs sinking into its throat with all the energy she had left.

Crunch!

The tension in her shoulder stopped as the one-eyed badger went limp between her teeth. Taking advantage, she pushed it off her and rolled to her paws. Facing it, green eyes stared at its body, unblinking, waiting to see any sort of movement.

After what felt like moons, the badger made no effort to move a single claw or draw in any breath. She collapsed where she stood, exhaustion overcoming her. It was over.

Quiet steps approached her amd yellow eyes met her green ones where she lay, the scent of ShadowClan enveloping her in its familiarity. Maybe she'd taken longer than expected and Leopardsun sent a patrol for her... She smiled. The guilt of not being the victor and being dragged back as a corpse would not plague her soul this night.

Instead, Harriertalon would return home beaten and bruised but her at least one of her demons would not be coming with her alive.

timezone: pst | code (c) kieer