End

END

♣

BY DARKSTRIPE

Tigerstar was gone.

At long last, the infamous conqueror of all that is good and pure, the monster of tales that left young and old quivering, the name whose very syllables were woven with evil... was gone. Where his body had fallen, no blood was left. He was dead and dead again, with no means of ever haunting them again, but in memory.

Tigerstar was gone.

Firestar was victorious.

As the orange tabby breathed heavily at the spot where his opponent was demised, a roar of excitement had begun around him, the many nameless and faceless shapes crying out in triumph. Though Firestar, if he squinted hard enough, could percieve a select few of them in the darkness of night, the blood running down between his ears and into his emerald eyes blurred his vision to blindness. Despite the battle having been curtained, with all the opposition either dead or running, Firestar still felt like the heavy weight of another cat was crushing him, as though all his wounds had culminated into a single living entity that was now pressing him into the dirt and blood.

From afar, came an earthy scream of light and rock. Firestar didn't imagine the sound to be close at all until his bleary gaze went white and his fur was scalded. Sparks, flames, fire. A sudden an unimaginable heat that prickled like a wash of thorns into his pelt. He expected the rush of pain to last much longer, but to his surprise, it did not. The fright was quickly soothed as a gentle flow of smoke wafted into his senses, a burning yet calm sensation that enveloped him in warmth.

By the time the rain had arrived to extinquish the threatening inferno, Firestar was far away in what was left of his cognizcant