What if Mapleshade's kits lived

Chapter 16

Long clouds of oranges, yellows and reds streaked across the sky like claw marks. She couldn't really remember whether it was sunrise or sunset anymore, not that it mattered anyway. There were contrast gashes of wind batters her clamp of bushes as Monsters stormed past, like the world was heavily panting. The constant pain in her legs had slowly turned to numbness, no more blood oozing out, now harder to crust. Staring back with a bitter grudge, she spotted the tips of the pines of Shadowclan in the far distance. Quickly, she shook her head. No, he wasn't her kit anymore. Let him go, suppressing the lost memories. None of them was. None of them would matter anymore once she got a paw on a new one, one that would fulfil the destiny they foolishly rejected.

Then noticing the white and greeny crust buried deep within her flesh, the crushed up herbs still there. Without even commanding her body to do it, her upper lip twisted up, hissing to herself. Only a fool and coward would accept the help of the enemy. Now stressed, that Sloefur had slipped in some kind of dangerous herb. Had he poisoned her? Groaning in pain, her teeth gnawed into the opening, beginning to pluck out the green mush from her raw skin. Like a more disgusting form of grooming, she tore the plant pulp from each wound, dumping into the long grass, covering it up as something to be forgotten. What remained was upturned skin and fur, fading from a pale pink to a raw red. Now flesh blood dripped from the cracks. Not that it mattered. Ever since her exile, she gotten in too many fights to count. From head to tail, her ragged pelt was crisscrossed with a layer of long scars like a spider web. Her other wounds had managed to heal without killing her, those ones would be no different.

Letting off of deep sighing, Mapleshade unsettled from the soft grassy floor. Trying to ignore was getting her nowhere. The deer's body seemed a bit more rotten then before, she swore there were more maggots at least. It was a messy business but it was the only easy source of food around for sky-lengths.

Slowly, Mapleshade crept closer to the deer course, still there, from last time she'd been here. The vile odour suffocating her, forcing her to retreat again. Could she do it again?

Carefully, she selected the piece of raw meat that seemed the least likely to give her food poisoning. The front hoof seemed the least decayed, still recognizable as a foot, rather than a pile of organs. Greedily, her teeth gripped the wrist, feeling the broken bone underneath. With a mighty tug, the foot was torn off with a satisficing rip, coming off with surprising ease. Her mood sunk like a pebble, when she glanced inside of it. It was hollow. With layers upon layers of wriggling insects. Groaning, she violently shook it, pink creatures shattering onto the ground like rain. Their grumose appearance sight ruining the lush surroundings. The skin and fur would have to do, gripping it in her mouth, swallowing it whole like hairless bird chick.

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Honestly, she was rather impressed with herself that she wasn't dead right now, after trying to eat that thing whole. Another wave of bile twinged at the back of the tongue, threatening to puck a few precious foods remains still in her stomach. Luckily, it wasn't worse than last time she'd tried to eat crow-food. Forcing it down, she narrowed her focus to just travelling as she hurried up the Thunderpath, the freshly settled darkness leaving it devoid of Monsters. The odour of fox edging up her the tunnels of her nose, a nasty thing. The tree slowly becomes more and more scarce, until eventually Mapleshade was left with wide-open fields, dotted with the occasional island of woodland. Blue lines and specks burrowed through the land, covered to the dream with deep pounds and swirling rivers. The unwelcome scent of Riverclan greeted her. Yet that wasn't where the fox scent took her, it took her in a long loop around the borders but never daring to venture inside. Then, she froze, bristling.

An overgrown gove stood before her, tightly paced together like one massive plant. There amongst the cluster of thick thorns, brambles, ferns and other various bushes, where the scent trial met its end. Evidence of the firey red creatures that lived here, lay scattered everywhere; old bones, scuffed mud imprinted with large pawprints and shuffled dead leaves, as their long snorts raided through it, searching for Starclan knows what. The scent of fox overpowering her sensitive nose. Yet something lay amongst revolting aroma, the silky scent of milk. Pricking her ears, a soft whisper of newborn paps echoed in the branches far above. A crooked grin grew on her lips like ivy. Perfect.