Vixen

Vixen is a fanfiction by Willowlight7. It features two Clans, BlizzardClan and SilverClan, where so-called witchcraft is not unheard of.

One
I used to think it was normal.

I grew up in the SilverClan nursery, among the spindly birches that populated our territory. I grew up in a land of peace and plenty, Cloudfire's silver-tipped fur kept my brother and I warm as we laughed and played with Foxkit, Flamekit, and Jaykit, our mewls echoing through the stone walls of the den. Marigoldstar was our leader and every cat under her kind leadership was loyal and strong. Our fresh-kill piles were full and our land peaceful.

Sparrowkit and I were closer than two hairs on a vole's pelt, the both of us climbing all over our mother and tumbling with Cherrybreeze's three kits, the sun filtering through the roof of branches that capped the nursery. I'd pretend to be asleep as he jauntily padded into the den, carrying a mouse almost as big as he was. When he set down the vole and began to eat, satisfied he finally got a meal to himself, I'd jump out when he least expected it and tear my own bites off of the juicy meal.

We'd play a game of moss-ball with Cherrybreeze's litter, and Foxkit and I would compete to see who could get the most points. Vinekit, the former loner a moon older than I was, would join Sparrowkit and my's team, and we'd compete against Flamekit, Jaykit, and Vixenkit fiercely, though they would usually beat us in the end, and Vixenkit would gloat eternally. Then we'd play hunt-the-mouse and I would catch her time after time, joking that the Clan's fresh-kill pile would stay full forever.

It didn't.

I would go up and get a tasty morsel from the fresh-kill pile and be thrown into a vision. Four bony cats dropping a single scrawny vole onto a measly stack of stale prey, one of them a young white she-cat with silver-tipped hair. A large group of cats looking devastated as the heavy rain created a raging river that soiled every last piece in the pile. A foggy feeling of hunger and a flash of an empty dip where the mountain of prey once stood before I was thrown back into reality.

I didn't question it at first and didn't speak of the visions after Sparrowkit looked at me strangely when I asked him about the young cat who looked rather like Cloudfire. It happened in other places too, and I once saw a river of blood and unsheathed claws as I walked past the elders' den. Lightning struck the formerly highest tree in camp and a fire blazed through the whole camp when I looked up at Marigoldstar's announcement branch. A scarred she-cat snatched two kits and ran off into the shadows once as I padded into the nursery.

The visions had plagued me all through my kithood and beyond, turning up when I least expected it. During my apprentice ceremony, a cat soaked in blood had raced into the camp, crying out about invaders from beyond the cliff. I had froze and shrieked, which had caused the entire Clan to stare at me. They had politely pretended not to notice and turned back to Marigoldstar, who had gazed down on me and the newly-made Sparrowkit, while Vixenpaw and her brothers had gazed at us with excitement.

When I became Fawnpaw, the visions didn't fade away. Foxpaw and Sparrowpaw would joke about my random moments of sudden glassy-eyed pause. I had simply ignored them, pretending that I wasn't thrown into an alternate reality a few times a day. I trained with my mentor Fernfire every day and chatted away with the other apprentices in the evenings, but I never told anybody about my visions. During the nights, I trained myself to suppress the flashes of this other world and return to reality.

I would be training with Fernfire early in the morning, my mind vulnerable from exhaustion, and a vision would snatch me away from the hunting practice. Maybe a group of cats battling with four foxes, blood splattering the ground. The screeches would seem so real and the scent of blood so strong that sometimes I was convinced it was reality. Fernfire would fall to the ground, throat torn out by the largest vixen, and I'd screech in grief, and then the real Fernfire would shake me out of these waking dreams.

The visions only became more frequents as I got older, though I became more skilled at suppressing them. I once asked Fawnstorm, an elder, about the most frequent one, a time of great starvation. I recognized a few cats from the Clan, including my mother, Cloudfire. She had told me that two seasons before my birth, SilverClan's prey had all but disappeared. Another one, an invasion of oddly-scented cats, had apparently happened seven seasons ago, when rogues attacked our camp. Some of the scenes I saw didn't seem like the past, though. I saw an older Sparrowpaw struck to the ground by a golden tabby paw, his blood soaking the ground. Seven cats died in a fox attack that none of the older cats knew of. I had stopped trying to identify the cats when rumors began to spread around the camp about my odd stories, but the whispers eventually faded.

Four moons later, Fernfire led a large patrol out to check the borders. None of them returned.

The remains of their bodies were discovered a few moons later, torn apart by foxes.

Marigoldstar simply sacrificed that patch of territory, stating that it was too dangerous to defend. My fear only intensified. The visions became harder to control. Few of them were joyful. I saw every cat in the Clan die at least once, struck to the ground by foxes, pushed off a huge cliff, thrown to the bottom of a deep pit full of sharp rocks. Everywhere I went, death followed. A massacre in the warriors' den. Dozens of cats dying of greencough when I walked into the medicine den to get a scratch treated. The last remains of the fresh-kill pile rotting away.

Death. Destruction. Everywhere.