Is it time? "More or less," Kier grinned back, soft and lazy, unable to look away from how Eris looked in the morning. Everything about her was mesmerising to him. "When we get back tonight I'll be one step closer to a god - isn't that mad? Maybe we can find a Clan for you to take over and we can be more than royalty." His grin grew, leaning in as he said it until he finally gave her a kiss on the forehead and stood up, slow and sore.

Dawn was when the Clan should just have been getting ready for bed. But as Kier slipped out into the main cavern, everything was silent and still. Until they could be trusted not to revolt - or until they got all their energy out revolting, whichever came first, he didn't mind - the vast majority were confined to camp, and now they peered out at him from the shadowy recesses of their dens with hate, with fear, with scorn. It was like alcohol to him, but still he ignored them. Almost more than the big displays of brute force and terror, these quiet little moments - the fact he held power to ignore them, to make them fear his lack of attention, his disinterest - were his favourites. So, leaving Eris to get ready, he padded past them with perfect, pleasant calmness, had a brief word with one of the hunters he'd brought over from the League to guard them, and waited by the entrance to the camp with a tranquil smile. When Eris joined him, he gave her a grin and purred, "you say tear their throats out, my dear, they tear their throats out." Still grinning at her for a moment longer, he finally turned away and led the way up to the surface above.

Outside in the pine forest, it was just becoming dark grey, the sort of grey that was so faint and the darkness still so stark that you felt like you were imagining it; the air was damp and cold and so fresh smelling, the night sounds of crickets and frogs just beginning to give way to the first birds. The needles beneath his paws were spongey with dew. "I think we really ought to get you an extra life or two at some point," he said idly as he waited, continuing to his earlier topic, looking up at the black trees and the aching light that seemed like the moon itself was dying. The air filled him with purpose, with imagination, that piled on top of the feeling of indestructibility, the feeling that he could afford to slow down, to wait, now that he had won. He had all the time in the world. "It isn't fair if it's just me." Turning his head, he grinned at her, lovingly taunting, and leaned in with a mocking little shake of his head. "You she-cats like equality, don't you?" Even if she was utterly exempt from his misogyny, her freedom and power intoxicating to him, he still teased her about it, like some silly thing, some inside joke, that didn't apply to her.

When Eris joined him, looking as beautiful as she ever had — as beautiful as she had been covered in blood on the wild moors; as beautiful as she was the first day they met, scruffy and unkempt, sneering snide jibes at him in the rainy half-light; as beautiful as she was now, shining and elegant like her pelt stood in for a crown — he smiled, watching her profile as she twined her tail with his. “You look stunning,” he purred in her ear, taken with her all over again; everything she did was spellbinding. As they ascended into the pre-dawn forest, he set a steady but unhurried pace, their sides bumping as they walked. Practically crawling like maggots drawn to a corpse. Kier snorted a genuine laugh through his nose, grinning at her lovingly. “Well, you’d know all about that.” That would be nice, but I’m not sure what I’d do with it. “Dying is what I’m most looking forward to,” he replied with a toothy, grinning little laugh. “Dying with a safety net — imagine that. You lie there, and your heart stops and your blood begins to congeal and you grow cold and stiff and dead, in every way dead — and then you come back. And all the congealment, all the coldness, where does it go?” He glanced at her with a grin. “I expect you to study my temporary corpse with the utmost astuteness, Mousey Mine. Crass as you like. Cut off a claw and see if I bleed. Full permission to use me as you will.”

By the time they left NightClan’s territory, heading south-west to avoid MoonClan’s borders, not out of respect or deference but just because Kier found them irritatingly devout and didn’t want to get sucked into some droning conversation about their deity that politeness would force him to stay in and that Eris might want to murder their way out of, the dark grey world had given way to a chilly, misty morning, dove grey and near-silent. Only the occasional bird call from the pines disappearing behind them disturbed it. Frost crunched beneath their paws as they walked, and before long, as the world opened up around them, they were crunching through crisp white grass that grew up to their ears. Everything smelled cold and fresh and new, like the late winter dew itself were cleansing the path before them. Snowblister would just be wrapping up her sermon; he heard her commanding voice echoing from one of the far-off tunnels when they’d left, met by the silence of her pupils.

This quiet between him and his mate was special to him; there was no discomfort, just a contentment to be silent, to think their own thoughts in each other’s presence. Everything about her was special to him. But, finally, as they neared the Moon Creek, he broke it. “Last time I came here, it was with my mother,” he told her in a strangely quiet voice, sounding as honest and laid bare as he ever did. His breath fogged in the crisp air, eyes on the ground in front of him as he padded along. Unused to the light, however grey and pallid, after NightClan’s darkness, he constantly blinked his left eye, his enlarged pupil uncomfortable. “On one of her vain quests for eternal life. I was stupid, worthless, useless, a burden, a curse — all her words.” He smiled and raised his head slightly, and as much as it was bitter, it was also freedom. “And now I’m going to do something she could only dream of. Little Kier.” He sneered the words, but they, too, felt like freedom, like letting go of the hold she had over him. As they came within sight of the Moon Creek, on the other end of a barren field, he turned his head to look at his mate. “And instead I’m here with you,” he breathed gently, offering a smile that said all the thanks he could never voice aloud. His eyes were soft with emotion. He hadn’t yet told her he loved her, though she surely saw it in everything he did, but that look, that vulnerability, was a quiet confession of its own.

Just as it was the most romantic thing in the world to Eris, it was the most romantic thing in the world to Kier. Someone else might have been horrified — betrayed, even — by the thought that their mate would be delighted by their temporary death; but to Kier, who would willingly use up eight of his lives just to give her eight minutes of research, it was just another act of devotion. He loved her for her sickness, and she loved him for his.

I say forget her, let her rot back in the League, she’s not going anywhere. He wanted to feel comforted by the words, but instead he just felt that black pit of bitterness in his chest; he hoped she didn’t go anywhere, hoped she died unfulfilled and unaccomplished, hoped all her dreams turned to ash in her mouth as she grew older and older and her son got everything she had ever wanted. Most of all, he hated that he still felt a tiny, treacherous quiver of guilt, of a loyal son’s wishing that she would succeed. Maybe he’d say all of this to Eris later, when he had his lives and they were curled up beyond the cold and the mist in the quiet of their den. But for now, he just smiled at her, loving and gentle, and replied quietly, “good advice, Mousey.”

As she walked ahead, he stopped to glance around at the pale blue morning, breathing in with a feeling akin to strange melancholy, to foreboding, before shaking himself off and following after her. He hated his mother for casting a cloud over what should have been such a joyful occasion, hated that even when she wasn’t here she still had power over him. But then, as they descended into the blue-glowing hollow, all of that was forgotten. The arrogant, wondrous joy fell back over him and a grin spread across his face. This was magic; little more than a trainee, he was a leader; he was getting his lives. He was going to enjoy this, not ruin his own ceremony with boyhood thoughts over someone who didn’t matter, who would never matter. He was a king now; she was just the king’s mother.

Speeding up, Kier fell into place beside Eris, bumping her with a radiant grin on his face. He’d never felt so powerful, so confident, so in love with himself and his own destiny. Two little self-made children, seizing gods by the throat. “What a splendid occasion,” he purred to Eris around the grin like he’d just fully registered what they were there for, making no effort to keep his voice quiet now; this place was his, this crown was his, these lives were his — these gods were here to do his bidding, to serve him. Of course he’d have to lie, but deceiving omnipotent beings would be the most gleeful game yet. Still grinning, he brushed past her and, barely bothering to take in their surroundings, immediately flopped down beside the glowing blue stream, pointedly making himself at home. Luminescent mushrooms grew from the stone wall above it. He’d already explored it with Rhiannon; though Kier’s superstition and deep, personal love for the far north’s paganism meant soaking in new experiences was a special, sacred thing of silence and awe and wide eyes, now his forced disinterest was his ultimate show of conquest. Inside, his soul cared greatly, was wonderstruck, reverent, innocent, wanted to slowly pad along beside the walls and run his paws down them; on the outside, he was defiantly above it. His soul and mind were at odds, and beneath it all, it ached like he was being torn apart.

Lying on his side, he looked up at his mate. “Any last words in case I don’t make it back?” He grinned, blasé and cocky, but he half-meant it. His eyes were slightly worried. He was doing his best to tell himself it would all go to plan, but they were messing with magic and immortality and deities fixated on morality; it could very well fall to pieces. They had no way to know whether this would be the last time they would see each other. Kier’s grin softened into a small, crooked smile and he tilted his head, reaching out to brush his paw down Eris’ cheek in the blue light of the hollow. “You’re the best part of my life, Eris. Being your mate has been the most wonderful thing I’ve ever known.” It was the most fitting thing in the world that she should be beside him while he consorted with gods and monsters.

"Touchingly eager to send me off to possible death," Kier purred around a little grin, but he meant it with nothing but love. Eris was the cat who really would eat her owners if they died at home, who really would dissect her mate if he didn't wake up, and he found her scientific coldness endlessly endearing. Touching his forehead to her cheek one last time and briefly closing his eyes, he rearranged himself on the stone, straightening slightly for business, and, after a brief hesitation of holding his breath and gazing down at the stream with an expression that was both wary and entitled, finally lowered his head to the water. He believed in magic, believed it had to be treated with deference until you could outflank it and trap it in a bottle for your own ends, and the magic in this cavern was dangerously potent. It felt almost dark. Almost wrong. But he ignored his gut instinct of foreboding and, lapping up a few drops of the icily cold water, leaned back and lay down on his side. For a moment, lying there on the cold stone, blinking slowly at the opposite wall as he waited, heart fluttering nervously in his chest, nothing happened. And then, like death or drowning, darkness seeped in at the edge of his vision and he was gone.

When he woke up, it was nothing that he had been expecting. In everything that he’d heard about StarClan, it was light and gentle and glowing. This was certainly not that. Everything was dark and empty — there was a faint, hazy pool of pale light where he was standing, and then beyond that, reaching out god knows how far, was nothing but blackness. It was silent and cold and echoing. Somewhere close by, water dripped. It reminded him of NightClan. So, immediately, and with no real surprise, Kier accepted that he was not in StarClan. He was adaptable; he didn’t get hysterical; really, this was all quite funny. He had known he would have to lie to get his lives from StarClan; he had been planning to put on one of his little acts, bow his head and shuffle his paws and thank them, thank them, thank them for rewarding little old him in that soft, anxious voice he did so well — and however many lives he got before they worked out his little charade would be how many he got, running away with a cackle before they could take them back. Stealing immortality from the gods with a game of morality, snatching, five, six, seven lives before they wisened up. You’re so deserving, Kier, StarClan would have said; I know, I know, he would have replied, head bowed so humbly. This, though — maybe he wouldn’t have to lie. He was both relieved and disappointed.

“So,” he called into the darkness, and there was laughter in his voice, “I suppose I’m not getting lives from StarClan today.”

There was no answer. Still not very afraid at all, Kier grinned to himself and, after a brief wander around the pool of light and a peer into the surrounding darkness, sat down to wait, tail curled around his paws and tapping patiently at the unnaturally smooth ground. Finally, a rumble sounded in the earth and a cold mist began to seep from the darkness and spread across the pool of light. Kier looked up, smiling as if in blasé, teasing welcome. The mist began to take shape, until at last, a great, towering shape was standing before him; glowing white antlers sprouted from its head, the vague idea of ivy grew where there should have been fur and trailed from the antlers, and its eyes were green, impossibly green.

“Wow,” Kier greeted with a laugh, because if there was one being he wasn’t going to be respectful to, it was a god. This one owed him; he was the centre of attention right now. He was also faintly annoyed, because this hadn’t been his plan and today, his plan was the only one that mattered. “I love deer!”

The creature didn’t reply; Kier didn’t know if it could. But its eyes were narrowed and hateful. Kier just smiled back. Silently, the god moved closer; he let it. When it was looming over him, it finally lowered its head and touched its cold, misty nose to his forehead. Immediately, Kier sucked in a breath — and, a heartbeat later, he was below the surface of a thick, foul-smelling surge; he fought his way up and realised it was blood, a flood of it.

Just as he came back to himself, standing before the creature in the pool of light, gasping in a breath and starting to blurt out “wait—“, the burning cold swallowed him again. This happened six times: a howling, windswept moor, his mother’s screaming rage directed at him from over the wind, baby blue eyes — he looked down, there was blood on his shaking paws; fire tearing through a pine forest, him standing on a rise in the centre of it — he didn’t feel like himself, didn’t feel anything but a snapped mind, insanity, hate and glee, his teeth were sharp and he was screeching with laughter; his own voice, so trustworthy and promising, the only thing he could hear, the only other real thing past the power swelling inside his chest, the invincibility; a crown, shattering to ruin; three kits mewling in a barn, so innocent, so blameless— it was peaceful, quiet, he crept closer to look, his heartbeat slowing, his head tilting so gently— he felt something coating his paws and looked down— seeping from the black kit was a stream of blood— he sucked in a breath and fumbled backwards— he looked up and Eris’ amber eyes were staring back at him. They were hurt and empty. Fear, grief, flooded through him— he opened his mouth, to ask if she was alright, to offer comfort, went to move closer—

His eyes snapped open. He was trembling. He realised his was crying. Every sense was amplified by terrible fear, his ears ringing and his heart hammering. He blinked; he could feel his pupils were blown but he couldn’t see anything past the film of cold tears. Finally, Kier looked up. The creature was gone. He wanted to snap something, something funny and casual like, “well, that was unpleasant”, just to brush it off and show he was unbothered by the melodramatics. But the lingering feeling of fear, of crushing grief, like loss wasn’t a thing but a predator that had caught his scent in the blackness beyond this light and would be prowling after him for the rest of his life, kept him silent. For a long time, all he did was stand there, then sit, gazing emptily at the pale ground until the blackness at the edges of the pool of light began to quiver and shift. He felt so heavy. Everything was silent. His head was silent. He wasn’t ready to wake up yet. Not until this grief had been stored away. Not until he was alright again. Not until he could function again. Not until he could lie again. Not until he had put together a story, one he could begin with “oh, yes, it was wonderful!” Not until the numbness could give way to a plastered smile that wouldn’t split. This was one thing he couldn't tell Eris. To have received lives from so hateful an entity, to not know what strings were attached — he couldn't tell anyone. If NightClan found out, they would tear him down, out of fear, out of being proved right that he was never ordained, that he was never meant to be their lord. His heart beat with grief, with the certainty that it would all come crumbling down no matter how hard he tried to stop it, no matter how much he tore himself apart trying, no matter how far his mind snapped. The silent certainty, the fact he would have to carry it alone, crushed his chest from the inside.

Finally, head down and paws heavy and thoughts still thick with confused, unknowable fear, he turned to go back.

You still have three lives remaining. Or however many you like. Why should we stop at nine?

Kier stopped. The creature had spoken from behind him. Opening his eyes, he let out a breath. He had a choice to make. Was immortality worth it? Was he worth all of this pain, all of this fear — worth a throne if the only way it would ever end was in the loss of it? In blood? In a kingdom for a year, for two, and then... what? Nothing. Minutes passed.

He turned back. The god was waiting. Kier exhaled a shaky breath, head tilted back to holds its gaze.

He blinked; time seemed to slow.

Let us continue.

achromatic

Kier had been so engrossed, so mesmerised — by the whisper of eternal power, of greatness, of dark, dark, magic — that he physically started at the unexpected voice. No one else was supposed to be here. Whipping around, he just stared at her for a moment, too thrown by her presence to be angry at the intrusion in something so deeply personal to him, something so sacred. “Rhiannon?” he blurted out at last, leaning forward with a squinting, disbelieving frown, like he’d only just managed to put a name to the face, or like he’d only just managed to get the word out past his bewilderment. He didn’t say Mother; they were well past that. “What the hell are you doing here?”

And yet, even as he said it, fear began to flood through his veins, cold and slow as drowning. He took an involuntary step backwards — and as he did so, he noticed the creature circling around to draw closer to his mother. Kier’s eyes followed it, raised high to keep it in view, wary and afraid and, beneath all that, fearfully incensed at the fact it was leaving him. “What are you doing?” he demanded, a faint, treacherous tremor in his voice. He felt like all control was slipping through his claws. Like, as it always was with his mother, he was powerless. Just a kit grasping at something more, being laughed in the face of for daring to dream above his birthright. The creature didn’t answer. As it circled around behind Rhiannon, half its body lost to the darkness, Kier got the crushing, unshakeable feeling that it was talking to her — that it was talking to her, not him. That she was taking from him the only thing that had ever truly been his. He realised he had begun to tremble. His eyes flicked down. “What’s it saying?” he demanded, trying Rhiannon this time, his fear making his voice angry, explosive. Desperate.

You can take them from him, the god whispered to Rhiannon, its mouth unmoving. A life for a life; it didn’t matter to it whom the life belonged to. It just sewed seeds of violence. Of strife. They can be yours. These aren’t any lives that you know. These are wretched things. Take them. Take them.

“Rhiannon,” Kier snapped again, trembling where he stood, trying to be defiant in the pool of light but looking like a child out of his depth rooted to the spot instead. He took another uncertain step forward, then forced himself to teeter forwards again. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to run or stay put, whether he could trust the she-cat who had birthed and abandoned him as a god breathed in her ear, or whether he should be fleeing. But more than any of that, he couldn’t let her see him afraid. Her silence, the look that was appearing in her eyes, like a hunter seeing prey — his heart was thudding, fearful adrenaline was beginning to seep into his bloodstream, but still he wouldn’t move. He refused to. “Mother,” he tried, in that same brisk, hateful voice. This time, it sounded more like a beg. To speak. To tell him what was happening. He hated not knowing. Hated feeling again like the only thing she’d ever made him feel: small, and worthless, and unworthy. “What is it saying? Why are you here? How did you get here?” Without meaning to, he once again took a small step back. His voice was becoming more pleading. He risked a look behind him. Nothing but darkness.

The second his mother’s claws splintered across his throat, he gasped awake. Blood was pulsing from the fresh wounds, clogging his fur with dark, glistening red, but she hadn’t hit his jugular — hadn’t had time, or had missed by a breath. He was still alive, and, aside from the blaring pain and the feeling of hot blood seeping down his neck, functional. He felt weak already, but that was more from the horror of the lives — too much adrenaline was pumping through his veins to truly acknowledge the wound yet. As he blinked, pupils still dilated against the dim light of the Moon Creek cavern that he was hardly aware he was in, he felt the sensation of darkness clouding around the edge of his vision; he had escaped too early and the creature was trying to pull him back in. Shaking his head like he was trying to clear his ears of water, blood spattering across the ground, he pushed himself up and for the first time became aware of Eris’ warmth beside him when it receded. “We have to go,” he breathed, forcing himself up despite the shakiness in his legs, despite the way he lurched slightly to the side and had to wait for a moment, half propped up by his forepaws, until the dizziness subsided enough for him to see straight.

At any other time, he might have tried to make light of it, might have said something like change of plans and hurried her up the slope. But now, it was clear he was afraid. Now, he kept glancing over his shoulder like he was going to see some monster push its way through the dark, shadowy ferns, like there was more to this place than eerie silence and the babble of water. Now, there was clearly nothing funny about whatever had sliced his throat open in the black chasm of his dream.

“Come,” he breathed, nosing Eris urgently towards the exit and following along behind her, constantly glancing behind them. The creek trickled, so deceptively serene. But the shadows held monsters, held eyes, held terror, and with a shaky breath, he dragged his gaze away and hurried after Eris out into the open, sunny fields. They were bleached and burned by frost, crackling under their quick pawsteps, and their breath fogged in the still, brittle air. Everything around them was too silent, too empty, too open; the nearest trees were far away, and here there was no cover, nothing but the profound absence of birds. For a moment, Kier hovered at the entrance to the Moon Creek, looking out at the field with hesitant, faltering eyes, blinking repeatedly but still forcing himself to look despite the burning of his pupil in the light; it was too quiet. Too open. Everything in him was telling him not to go; crystal clear foreboding hollowed out his chest. But they had no choice. And so, ignoring every screaming instinct, and with blood beginning to dry and crust at the curve of his throat, he continued on, ushering Eris ahead with a barely audible and utterly humourless, “come on, Mousey”, trying to be softly encouraging and undaunted for her despite his own trembling. As they padded cautiously along — Kier, for some reason, too hesitant to run — the only sounds were of frost crackling beneath them. Their breath clouded. Halfway across the field, he suddenly stopped and sat down, head bowed and eyes squeezing shut against a wave of dizziness. Fresh blood pulsed once from the wound. Kier let out a weak, helpless breath. The only bird in sight, a raven, glided silently through the pale, cold air. Throughout the whole barren, sprawling, ominous field, two small cats were the only ones in it. It seemed impossible to bridge.



Well? The deer creature asked Rhiannon in the black abyss, sounding accusing and furiously disappointed in the ambition — in the failure of the ant before him with blood on her claws. If you want it, little maggot, go get it. If she woke up now, she would find herself not back in the dense forest of the League, but in the glowing blue light of the Moon Creek. A minute away from her son and his lives. Able to run out and chase them — hunt them —down. Your quarry is getting away. And you’re letting it.

replying to this a month late because im a hot boy and i still wanna get this done for the PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT. 'theyre already dead' the audience says, 'shut up' i say. achromatic cuz i dont trust you to see your threads <3 goldcrest <3 snogs you both

By the time Kier saw his mother approaching across the barren, frosty field, it was too late to get away — there was nowhere to hide; he was too lightheaded to stand, let alone flee across the open expanse, and in any case she would catch him. He could imagine the weight of her, the claws of her, catching his hindlegs from his blindspot and dragging him down like a fleeing hare, the terror of that one crashing moment against the splintering grass. She’d always been stronger. He could run from anyone else, but he couldn’t run from the predatory viciousness of his mother. Ordinarily his mind would have turned to talking his way out of it, and yet somehow he knew, even as he sat there with blood leaking from his throat, that this would be one time where words would fail him. They’d never worked on his brother, on his sister. On his mother. Even if there’d been some hope, his mind was too fogged by blood loss to properly put together his usual arguments — he couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t put one word beside another. For the first time in his life, his silver tongue was beaten. Harmless. Muzzled and gagged.

“Mother,” he began as she approached, and his voice wasn’t as it would ordinarily have been — there was no posturing, no pretending he wasn’t afraid, no feigned warmth and blasé amusement. It was just Kier shifting slightly in front of his mate to divert attention away from her, even as his hot blood dripped down his chest and hissed on the icy ground; it was just Kier meeting his mother’s gaze with something like pleading in his eyes; it was just Kier begging. His forelegs felt weak, feeble, and he sank slightly lower; if he didn’t, he would have sagged to the ground entirely. He looked up at her, and he was the kit she’d nursed in the barn. So young; so alone. “Rhiannon,” he tried, eyes entreating. “I’ll give you whatever you want. A life — I’ll give you a life. I have six — that’s enough. I’ll have five. You get to be immortal.” He sank lower. The lives didn’t feel powerful; they felt like a bargaining chip. “There must be some ceremony — we can find one.”

Eris was warm behind him, but there was no comfort there, only distant, cotton wool fear. He wished she were far away. He wanted to tell her to go, wanted to reach behind himself and touch his forepaw to hers, some silent signal to leave him, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from Rhiannon, as hard as it was to keep his vision focused — didn’t dare draw attention to his mate. She only had one life to spare.