✂ "The Mirror is Shattered, You Broke It." ✂ Rabbitquill's beginning.

Instructions

✂ " Please don't make me look, don't make me look at my reflection " If you were to ask Rabbitquill what his first memory was, he would tell you about leaving the nursery for the first time and seeing the sun. But Rabbitquill is a liar. His real first memory is of cold blue eyes staring down at him. The eyes of his father. The reason he refused to look into ponds or puddles, for fear of those eyes being reflected back at him. Because his father's eyes were as cruel as his tongue, and as a member of the council he was always there to discipline his wayward son. Rabbitquill often wondered if things would be different, if he'd been better behaved. If he'd learned to obey, to fall into line alongside everyone else...But no matter how hard he tried, he never could. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut, couldn't look at the cats around him and see anything but hurt. He took after his mother in that way, he supposed. His mother who held him tight while the other kits floated between caretakers, his mother who was so full of life and /hope/, who dug her claws into his skin and snarled at him to behave as she roughly cleaned his spiky fur, who took him stargazing and hugged him close while whispering of freedom and escape from GraveClan in the night. Often he wondered how she could ever have ended up with a cat like his father. Had they truly loved each other once, or had the only purpose of their pairing been to produce an heir? It must have been the latter, because when his mother fled one night, Rabbitkit grasped tightly in her jaws, his father's ice-chip eyes had been filled with only hatred as he moved to strike her down. It was a miracle that she dodged. That she fought viciously, pushing back against his father in a desperate need for escape. But she dropped him. She dropped Rabbitkit and she slipped away. Rabbitkit hadn't even gotten the chance to cry out for her, because his father was already dragging him back, blood from the failed attack still dripping from his jaws. He could only watch as his mother and his chance at freedom disappeared from view. Life got significantly worse for Rabbitkit after that. He couldn't be punished since he was only a kit, but his father became a constant presence breathing down his neck, constantly watching, making sure that all he did was for the benefit of the Clan and only the Clan, and never for himself. That Rabbitkit wouldn't be a stain on his father's image, just like his mother. And so he learned to hide, and to lie. Clever stories and alibis wove themselves around him with the ease of breathing, and he learned to watch, to listen, to pretend. One day while Rabbitpaw was out hunting, his father confronted him, with his too blue eyes and his stalking, angry frame. Too close to the cliff's edge, they fought, and who could say how Rabbitpaw's father ended up dangling over the side? He did remember the way his father looked, broken and vulnerable and so very /afraid/, and he remembered the single scared, whispered "help" that left his jaws. For all anyone knew, it could have been the wind. Because Rabbitpaw let him fall. Down, and down, and down. Rabbitquill knows he is not truly free. Because his father wasn't the only one. He was the product of something sinister and corrupted and terrifyingly /alive/. There's not a day that goes by where Rabbitquill doesn't consider slipping away and running and running, crossing the border and finishing the journey his mother had started with him. It would certainly be easy. And yet. He knows that /he's/ not the only one either. All across the Clan, right under his nose, he knows there are others who, just like him, lay awake in their nests at night, dreaming of escape. Too afraid to take it. Rabbitquill would not, /could/ not leave them behind. So he would bide his time, watching, waiting, gathering information and allies until he knew he had reached everyone. He was going to get them all out... or die trying. ✂ " Because I'm afraid I'll find you staring right back. "