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| - His fur was matted and his eyes were dull. He padded sulkily across the field, his head looking down. He had lost the will to live. I crouched behind a bush, watching the tom try to catch a mouse. He jumped without assuming any sort of position first, and his claws barely scraped the mouse's tail. The mouse scampered and he watched it go, his tail flicking sadly back and forth. "Are you okay?" I asked, pushing my way through the bush. He didn't seem to hear me. I crept forward. "Hello?" I asked. He jumped. "Mouse dung!" he spat. "Can't you tell me before you creep up on me?" I straightened up, and his eyes widened at my generally muscular appearance. "Wha...?" "It's fine," I dismissed. "I'm here to help." When I said that, his eyes narrowed. "I don't need help," he growled. "I deserve all the punishment I can get." "What's your name?" I asked the tom. "What does it matter?" After a pause, he answered, "I was called Quentin by my Twolegs." I nodded. "I'm Gorseclaw," I replied. "Why do you deserve punishment?" Quentin stared at me. "You really want to know?" "Yes," I replied. There was hesitation in Quentin's words at first. "I... I honestly didn't mean to. But... every cat she... fell in love with, I got jealous of." Oh, StarClan, help me, I thought. "Her name was Daisy. And... she was beautiful." "Beautiful," I repeated, thinking of my mate, who was back at camp with the kits. "I can understand that." Quentin nodded wistfully. "I loved her. She didn't love me, you see, but she loved another cat that went by the name of Prince. His Twolegs called him Peel." I nodded, leaning foward. I could already see where this was going. "After a moon of their relationship- and Daisy was pregnant with his kits- I couldn't take it anymore. I killed Prince." Even though I had expected it, I gasped. "You killed Prince?" Quentin nodded. "I was hoping that Daisy would turn to me in desperation of caring for her kits. She didn't. I had forgotten that the toms around us had blamed me for Prince's death." "They had every right to," I told him. "Yes, they did," Quentin agreed fullheartedly. "But at the time, I couldn't deal with the stress." I nodded. "I had to kill three other cats for her to realize what was going on. It took four lives for her to realize that I loved her enough to make her miserable." That didn't sound like love to me, but I nodded to show that I was listening and tried to stay polite. "I was angry," Quentin whispered. "Gorseclaw... I killed her, too." Boiling heat, summer stench 'Neath the black the sky looks dead Call my name through the cream And I'll hear you scream again As I stared into Quentin's sad eyes, I felt a shot of anger shiver through my body. He had killed five cats! I bared my teeth at him. "What were you thinking?" "About her pain," Quentin snapped, seeing my anger. "I was hoping killing her would make her happy." "Well, did it?" I asked him, trying to get my emotions under control. "N-no..." Quentin's voice trailed off. "She's still alive somewhere, but her body is dead. It's weird." "She's a spirit," I explained. "In the Clans, if you die and have lived a good life, you will go to StarClan." Quentin shrugged. "I guess..." I stared him down. "Do you regret killing her?" Quentin shook his head. "I still had her kits." "What?" I asked in alarm. "I stole them and raised them as my own." I hissed. "Are you kidding me?" I barely knew this cat. He had just told me his whole life. I unsheathed my claws. Moments later, Quentin was laying in a pool of blood. My heart was pounding. I stared at Quentin's body. Limp on the damp ground, he looked less vulnerable than he had when he was alive. "Dear StarClan," I whispered. Something horrible had happened. Quentin had died. I had done nothing. I had wanted this cat dead. This cat was still a threat, although he had eliminated any cats that wanted to kill him. One thought occured to me. I looked up. Three cats were standing above me. Their fur blew in the breeze. "Dear StarClan," I whispered. "Daisy is avenged now," said a tom. He stood in the middle. His chest was puffed up, he stared at Quentin with coldless in his eyes. "Our mother can rest in peace." I couldn't believe I was caught in the middle of this. "Was he a good father?" I asked. The three cats exchanged glances. "Yes," a she-cat mewed. "We learned right from wrong, hot from cold, the difference between life and death." "We just learned it the hard way," the first tom explained. I dismissed them. I padded away. My memories became my consiousness. I remembered a beautiful she-cat and two beautiful kits. Both of them were mine. Now it was over. A raid had killed them, all three of them, while I fought to keep them alive... This was not similar at all. I could understand Quentin's longing for her to come to him... Hang my head, drown my fear 'Till you all just disappear Quentin's story stayed with me for the rest of my life. Every day until I joined StarClan, I pictured the scrawny tom hunting and hanging his head. I pictured his body on the ground, and I knew Daisy's life had indeed been avenged...
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