- Feb 7, 2023
- 131
- 13
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"Get up."
Reedstrike's demands were harsh as usual, but it didn't sting Azaleapaw one bit. It only served to stoke the fire of hatred inside, and it was nearing a breaking point. He was cold and cruel to her, as if angry he was even assigned her. It wasn't her fault he was stuck with her. It wasn't her fault she was even here. Every day on this barren moor was a nightmare for her. Surrounded by so much hatred and revilement, it was no wonder she felt nothing but the same for nearly everyone else.
Azaleapaw rose to her feet only to be smacked down again. She looked up at him sharply and he curled a lip.
"Don't look at me like that." He hissed. "Get up and strike me back."
He wanted to be struck? Oh..... She would strike him. She would make him bleed.
She rose to her feet and as she predicted he was moving to strike her down again. So, she bit into his paw, quick as a viper. Hard as she could. His surprised, pained yowl was music to her ears, it lit her up with delight. She wanted to hear it again.
So before he struck out with his other paw, she rose to her hind legs to swipe at his face. She wouldn't take his eyes, but the cuts would bleed and blind him.
Another irritated snarl. Another joyous flutter in her chest.
She bounced back.
"How was that?" She asked, sweetly and venomously.
He wiped the blood from his brow with a paw. "Acceptable." He growled.
She gave him a faint smirk. She often had to pry praise out of him and she wouldn't have it any other way. Suffer.
"Judging from how confident you look, I suppose you're ready for something tougher." Reedstrike said, ire plain on his face. If his kittypet apprentice was going to start getting cocky, then he would have to teach her what happens to kittypets. "This one is a lesson on what happens to kittypets who get too full of themselves." He added before lunging for her and gripping her scruff in his jaws.
Azaleapaw let out a squeak of surprise and she felt a brief wave of terror overtake her as he began to shake her like a dag would its toy. No matter how she lashed out and tried to free herself, his grip was too tight and he was too vigorous in his shaking for her to make contact anyways. He flung her away, sending her tumbling away into the dead grass that covered the moor and leaving her disoriented.
She wanted to cry.
But she couldn't. She wouldn't.
Even as Reedstrike approached and pinned her down with one large paw, she would not show weakness. She glared up at him with nothing but fire and hatred. She was still too small to kill him. To wound him, even. She felt bitterness rising up in her. Why did she have to be found by these cats? why did her mother have to die where she did? She tried to hate her, she did. But she didn't even get to know her mother. There was nothing to hate. Aside from the tom who stood over her now, who's face had a hint of satisfaction on it.
Did he think he had won?
Did he think he had broken her spirit?
That was it. She would be rid of him. He thought himself so high and mighty? The high and mighty had a long fall to take before they hit the ground. And she knew just where to do it, too. Outlook rock was the highest place in the territory. It was leafbare, so it was sure to be slippery up there. All he would need is one little push.
She just needed to wait for the right time.... And she needed to make sure no one was around to see it. She had to make a believable story.
Reedstrike began to speak, but she didn't hear him through her murderous thoughts. This seemed to anger him, and he smacked her with a sheathed paw.
"Listen to me when I talk to you!" He hissed.
"Shut up." She hissed back. "And get off me!"
"Excuse me?" He pressed down harder. "Who do you think you are?"
"Someone who's tired of your senseless beatings!!"
"Those senseless beatings are called training, but I wouldn't expect a maggoty little kittypet to understand." He snapped at her. "We should have left you on the road next to your pathetic mother."
He had said what she already knew to be true, but to hear it.... Oh. Oh, it was like a stake in the heart. She met his gaze with her own that shone with brief shock that turned to anger.
"Then do it."
"Do what?"
"Kill me. Go on, you know you want to. I know you want to." Her words dripped with venom.
"You aren't worth the effort." He hissed, caught off guard by the sudden request. Was she out of her mind? He lifted his paw from her chest and stepped away, letting her get up. After she rose to her paws and shook herself, he noted how she turned her back on him to look away. He stepped forward again and placed his claws on her back, digging them in.
"One last lesson before you go back to camp....." He snarled. "Never turn your back on an enemy."
"And ruin my vision by looking at you more than I have to?"
Oh, she could feel him trembling in anger. So easy to rile up, he was. But he needn't worry.... She would make sure that pitiful wrath was dispersed. Imagine, him arriving in Starclan only to have to admit he had been killed by a kittypet.
Her only regret would be that she couldn't be there to see it.