The Clan Renaissance

An Alternate Universe Warriors Roleplay

It felt like a bad dream. Though logically she knew that he had just been in a tree—and how odd was it how quickly one forgot the habits of a constant companion once separated, and how quickly those memories returned once reunited?—it was as if he had dropped out of the sky and back into her life, fallen fresh out a nightmare. Her brother, her brother's killer.

"Chester," she repeated, a statement this time rather than a question. He still resembled most of the memories she had of him, save for the very last one. A few more scars, but otherwise much the same. "Are you really—" No, stupid question, She chided herself before he could do it for her. "I thought you were dead," she said instead, surprised by the steadiness of her voice. Her whole body felt tense, on edge in a way it hadn't been since she'd last seen Chester. But she had grown more sure of herself in her time away from him and Merry, tougher in a different kind of way then she'd been when the three of them had still been together. And yet, even with this newfound and hard-earned self-assurance, it was hard not to fall back on learned patterns of survival.

It didn't help that Chester himself seemed less than friendly. An exaggeration—he seemed downright hostile, even without the filter in Hollow's brain that colored any potential threat with an extra shade of aggression. The sunny forest didn't seem nearly so welcoming now.

"I'm glad to see you're okay." Was it true? Hollow wasn't sure, but it never hurt to offer kindness first. Except for when it does. Most of the cats she'd met on her own had shown her that her wariness was often undue, but here was the very origin of that wariness. But if I've changed, maybe he has too. She clung stubbornly to her optimism, even in such unpromising circumstances.

Was she disappointed? Maybe a little bit, honestly. She preferred Chester as a ghost. Although, now that the two were speaking again, Hollow almost found it humorous how accurate her internal voice had been at mimicking her brother in their time apart. So maybe it didn't really make such a big difference.

But it's much harder to get killed by a ghost, thought Hollow, well-aware of Chester's murderous tendencies. Not to mention that his posture wasn't giving her any reason to relax.

His laugh did not offer any reassurances, either. It was grating enough to spark a flinch from Hollow, who immediately berated herself for the show of weakness. Luckily it was a momentary lapse, and she recovered herself quickly. "Not sure what I could've done, Chester," she retorted, reluctantly casting her thoughts back to their parting day. "You and Merry did a number on each other, and it's not like you ever gave me much training on how to heal wounds." What she had learned from him she left conspicuously absent, along with her own speculation on how a potential rescue attempt might have actually gone; If I'd tried to help him, she thought bitterly, He'd probably have snarled at me for interfering and then died anyway.

He hadn't died though, which was the most puzzling part of the whole thing. "How did you survive, anyhow?" she asked. Then, after a moment's thought, "Is Merry alive? Will I find him wandering around the woods, too?"

The insults were almost reassuringly familiar, unpleasant though they were. Hollow felt herself falling back into well-tread manners of interaction, reliving the same conversation with only the slightest of variations. She resisted the pull—she was no longer that meek youngster cowed by her elders. "It's hardly my fault you got hurt in the first place," she scoffed. "And whose choice was it to take me in, again?"

It had always bothered her, that question. Why had Merry and Chester decided to rescue her? It seemed so out of line with everything else about their time together, and even now the thought of having to care for a younger cat—not to mention a litter of her own—filled Hollow with a distant sort of terror. How much of her brothers was there in her? Certainly she had picked up something from them; her snide remarks sounded like a poor imitation, and she wondered if Chester heard the echo of his own words in hers.

His next statement confounded her. Not that someone was kind enough to save Chester; Hollow had met plenty of kind, thoughtful, and considerate cats in her travels, enough to know that compassion beyond what her brothers had shown her did exist. But Chester's smug expression was disconcerting. Had her brother made a friend? Or something more, she wondered, vaguely disgusted. Is there someone out there who loves him?

Well, Merry had loved him, perhaps. Not a good kind of love, considering how things ended, but they had stuck together for all that time. Maybe Merry just felt bad for him? No, Hollow had never thought that pity was what held their family together. Pity for her maybe, but certainly not between her brothers. She huffed. "You can't blame me for preferring Merry. He was the nicer of the two of you, after all." Privately, she thought she would have been happier to meet Merry's ghost than Chester alive, although really she probably would've been better off without seeing either of them again in any capacity.

The thought of Chester's new companion tugged at her, though, and she couldn't help prying. "But what of this savior of yours? Were you able to hold back your temper long enough to fool them into thinking you were worth saving?" Hollow regretted the words as soon as she'd said them, both because of how cruel they seemed to her and because she was wary of Chester's response. Foolish to risk his ire, but I never did learn my lesson there, she thought resignedly.

It had been a rhetorical question, but Hollow had fallen out of the habit of expecting Chester to take any offered swipe at his brother. She rolled her eyes.

"You can't blame Merry for all your problems, Chester."

She wasn't even sure that that's what he was doing, exactly; Merry had been gone for a while now, but Chester still seemed to have a way of redistributing blame.

"And kindness didn't kill him. You did." Hollow felt herself bristling, but it needed to be said. Merry certainly hadn't been being kind to Chester when they'd had that final, fatal argument, though she could see how it would be convenient for Chester to think so. He was never responsible, nothing was ever his fault. It was always Merry's, or Hollow's, or the wind's, or—

Hollow shook her head, trying not to let Chester's words dig into her too deeply. Hearing about his savior didn't help. Though it didn't make her any angrier, per say, it was perplexing. A better cat than me? Hollow had never given much thought to how good or bad she was; she just was. She worried that she might be too meek or too flighty, too suspicious or too trusting. Never good or bad, though. The idea settled unpleasantly in her gut, a guilty weight. Should Hollow be so surprised that someone was willing to help Chester? Was her sense of compassion so atrophied?

Before the spiral of doubt could take firmer hold of her, Chester stepped forward. Hollow's eyes widened, and she retreated hastily, eyes wide. "Again? You want to do this again?" She was frustrated by the note of panic in her voice, terrified by the angry lash of Chester's tail. "Killing one sibling isn't enough?"

She chided herself for provoking him further; she didn't actually want to get into a fight with him, in spite of her sharp words. What will make him stop? Fleeing? Maybe, but he could very well be faster than me...

An idea occurred to her, and she swallowed, hoping the words wouldn't inflame Chester further. "Will you kill them, too? The one who saved you?" The next part was perhaps the riskiest. "They were kind to you. Where will that get them, once you've stopped believing they care about you?"

If Hollow weren't so on edge she might've rolled her eyes. Of course the only reason Merry wasn't the source of Chester's problems was that he was dead. What else?

And here Chester was, ready to solve another problem. Her surprise at his agreement was again overshadowed by her fear. It muted all her other emotions, and she felt as if she were buried, succumbing to memories and the ghost who she'd been under Chester and Merry's care rather than the individual she'd come into on her own.

Luckily, even her hurt was muted. It wasn't really a surprise that Chester hadn't considered her to truly be family, but even so, the comment stung. It was a bittersweet relief that the sting, like everything else, was outweighed by fear. What does it matter if I'm insulted? Better upset than dead. Although with each dark glance and sharp smirk, Hollow felt that death might not be as far from her as she'd hoped.

Hollow noticed with no small amount of relief that her final words seemed to have effected Chester. "Like you've said, you've already killed one. The next one might be me, or it might be them. Merry cared for you, and then you killed him. I cared for you, fool that I was, and you may yet kill me." She scoffed to cover her worry over the truth in her words. "Caring for you doesn't seem to be much in the way protection."

"But what do I know?" she echoed, shrugging. "Maybe blood leads to more blood. You killed Merry, so you'll kill me, then you'll kill them, that other someone. Then someone else after that, I suppose. Or maybe mercy leads to mercy. You spare me, so they are spared, and no one else has to die. I can't make that choice for you, Chester."

The emotions Hollow was feeling were hard to pin down. Was it relief? Vindication? She had never seen Chester at a loss for words before, and although it was satisfying to achieve such a feat, it also left her a little wrong-footed. Now what?

His repeated words seemed more charged, but oddly enough Hollow didn't feel intimidated by them. Chester somehow seemed both more angry and less prone to violence. Had she finally solved the puzzle, figured out how to get through to him? Or maybe it was just more manipulation; even if he attacked her, even if he killed her, she would still have the high ground. He'd be proving her right.

But really, thought Hollow, I can't care too much about getting one over on Chester if I'm dead.

Regardless, she'd definitely struck a chord. The thought of hurting his savior seemed to seriously distress Chester, judging by the force of his response. Hollow had never been under the impression that Chester had felt such strong emotions for herself or Merry, and wondered if her guess had been off-base. The thought did not last long, though; the violence coiled in Chester's body was not easy to contain, and Hollow had little doubt that it was waiting to be unleashed on whoever got in his way—even if it was this someone he was so insistent that he wouldn't kill.

"You can say that all you like, but actions speak louder than words. And I know what you've done. I know who you are." She maintained eye contact with him, in spite of his lashing tail, his burning eyes. She'd come this far, might as well drive the point home.

Chester seemed eager for her to leave, though, and Hollow was honestly quite ready for this reunion to be through with as well. But she'd gone and riled him up, and she didn't want someone innocent taking the brunt of her brother's anger. "I'll go," she conceded. "But before I do, I have one question. Your savior—what is their name?" She didn't expect an easy answer, so she quickly tacked on, "The forest isn't so big, there's a good chance I'll run into them sooner or later. Maybe I'll thank them for saving your life, or maybe I'll curse them. Or maybe they won't be alive either way. But I'd still like to know."