Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.
♚ She had neglected her prayers, forgotten the way shadows could move. The influx of new bodies combined with a brief bout of illness sent her into a tailspin of activity, putting renewed effort in making her presence known least they all forgot about her. She went on patrols, added to the communal fresh kill pile despite the fact she still retreated to Luna’s room to feast—But once you became a student of the Dark Forest it did not forget you.
It was up the stairs and across from Luna’s Feast Room that she had made her nest. It was a smaller room, mostly unused. It bore some old dusty bones and scattered pieces of cloth—someone had lived here once but whoever it was had vacated the nest long ago. Over the last few weeks she had done she could to make the place hers—she wasn’t the same-orphaned kitten who turned up on the doorstep looking for family. She was tall now, possessing a haunted skeletal look. Her bones angled and protruded sharply from her dilute torbie fur—the beautiful coloring had darkened in the past moon, the red spotting igniting, grey stripes darkening and contrasting against the creamy basecoat. The dog bite still stood out in a jagged line on either side of her shoulders, but wound had scared completely into a gentle pink. She was an adult now, a Bloodclan Guard, and deserving of her own space.
She had crafted a nest up on the wide windowsill, a combination of ripped cloth, fur and cat bones—picked clean, sun dried, pallid white. She had several more curing on the roof that she intended to add until she had built a tower of bones against the window. The inner circle was fluff with cloth though, and she kneaded the spot for a moment before she curled up in the sunlight filtering through the large window. Then she had closed her burning amber eyes to sleep.
Darkness. She felt it press on every side, a thick tangible quality to it, as if it possessed real weight. Her chest heaved with the effort of drawing breath. She could taste something in the air but description failed her. Her tongue had never flavored such a thing, and it tasted like the night, like the stars, like the light vanishing from sightless eyes. And then, from the shadows a figure formed—black smoke in the form of a cat. He dwarfed her, larger even than the behemoth Caldeon or the late Sheogorath, larger than any cat she had ever seen before. He stood an entire head above her, and as he came into clearer focus, she saw his claws were reinforced with chalk white bones, a broken skull draped over his head, half-obscuring his face, starlight in his eyes and the night in his pelt.
“I am Veles,” he said in a voice like smoke, quiet and coarse as if he were burning a fire in his throat. “You sleep upon an offering carved from your teeth, though I have heard no promises to our name. I am not some lover you tease with gifts and then ignore—.”
Severa cringed beneath the tom’s reproach, a thousand excuses rising to the tip of her tongue but they were nothing—no excuse could justify herself. She had come seeking power, strength, and she had forgotten them.
“Where is the molly who consumed flesh and sang in our name?” he continued, now circling her, slow and imposing, a hurricane in his footsteps. “I do not know this polite feline who has forgotten her ambitions.”
Didn’t she keep meaning to ask Rev if he wanted to train together again? How had she let Nova slip for far from her thoughts—they rose again to the surface and she winced and flattened her ears. “I have forgotten myself,” she whispered, resisting the urge to back away from his as he advanced. “I will not forget again,” she promised and the tom chuckled. She heard the sound vibrate all around her, within her very bones.
“You will not forget again. I will take over your training, and I demand an apology.” He bent his face down to her and she flinched as his nose brushed her right ear. Instinctively she drew away and his lips curled into a sneer. “Now, now, where is your courage? You wish to make things right, don’t you?”
And she did. Oh, she did—there was a nervous bubble of energy in her throat, her limbs shaking with fear at his words and yet the pleasure in following them. “Yes,” she breathed and she forced herself to turn back to him. She felt him smile against her ear.
“Good.”
And then she felt his teeth sink into her skin. She cried whimpered, slamming her eyes shut but desperately trying not to move. She felt blood drip down her ear and she looked up at him, saw the smear of red about the white teeth of the skull on his head. “Don’t leave me hanging, little Darkling,” he purred.
She woke with a start, and touched the edge of her ear. Blood came away from her right ear where he had clipped her, and she swallowed. She would not forget again. She rose shakily to her feet and left the room, heading outside and toward the greenhouse, where she hoped to find something to stem the flow of red dripping down her ear.