[ july 3rd, the dark forest ] so this is how the world ends. not in a noble sacrifice or drama, but a hush of a wind, spreading embers across the forest. decades of history, gone in a blaze and an ash. moons of tears and futile attempts, gone with the wind. it was a terribly horrible feeling to articulate, perhaps due to the fact that there was no feeling at all. that would be the most awful thing to realize. there was no love for mossclan in the she-cat's heart, nor for it's cats. it was funny, in a dark way. to dedicate your life to a group, to stand as witness to your friend and child dying for them, to repeatedly risk your life for them, and to look at their death with a cold-hearted uncaring, almost resentment. and yet, there was a burning hatred within, burning to eat and gorge out the past leader's heart, whatever pathetic, shriveled, bloody scrap of it was left, a fire than any that could burn the clans, a fire so desperate to reach and touch the heavens, it burned itself and cooled into an numbing ice. well. there was no more use in dwelling on the fire. fire is bright and fire is clean. fire is pure and the butterfly-like flames will consume all life that dares to stop it. it will erase indiscriminately; the greed of history, the life of the world. truth, lies... why care so much, why think so much?! fire is pure and fire is beautiful. it will erase the sins of history, our stories and cultures, and we will take down the old world for no purpose at all, and rebuild a new one from the ashes on sticks and twigs. did my sacrifice mean nothing? did our history mean nothing to you? were the deaths doomed to be meaningless? or were they dead the moment they came to life? long ago, there was this little foolish bird called the phoenix, and every few years he would burn and make a pyre of himself. he must have been the first cousin to man. yet every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. and perhaps we are doing the same thing, over and over, but we have a thing the phoenix never had. we know the silly thing we did. we know all the foolish, silly things we've done for a thousand moons and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we'll stop making the foolish funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. maybe, maybe, maybe. or perhaps we burned the old world for no purpose, rhyme, nor reason, and are building the new one atop mud and stones.