tw: blood, mild gore, death.
Curled up against Eveningstorm’s back, she awoke to the sound of fighting outside. In an instant, her eyes shot open and she raced out of the leader’s den, ignoring Quiethawk’s shouting for her. She just ran outside into the cold, wintry night. Upon exiting her den, her stomach dropped when she saw that her camp was under attack— but by who? The answer to her question came in the form of something heavy slamming into her, knocking her off balance. The ground felt hard against her bones as she fell forward into the freezing snow, stumbling.
“Sleep well, my dear?” came the taunting voice of Sandadder, a sly grin spreading across his face.
Leaning into her fall, she rolled out of reach and back onto her paws, gritting her teeth in frustration. While it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to see her father here, as he had promised to return one day, she still felt annoyed to see him again so soon. “I would sleep much better if you’d just die already,” she growled, then lunged forward, her head ramming into her father’s chest as she shoved him backwards with all her might.
The force of the blow knocked him off of his feet and stole the breath from his lungs. Desertstar was well trained— exceptionally trained, really —and fast, but she was unfortunately no match for Sandadder’s bloodlust. Unlike her, he no longer followed the warrior code, so he did not have the same moral obligations as she did. As the two rolled on the ground together, he drove his claws into his daughter’s throat, hot blood spilling from the wound and coating his fur.
Desertstar let out a wet gasp, spitting up blood. Her face was a myriad of emotions. Surprise turned to anger, then horror as he realized how much blood was leaving her body.
Sandadder’s eyes glittered with excitement as he watched her convulse beneath him, knowing now that he’d definitely just taken one of her lives. "The only one of us dying will be you, and it looks like I’ll be taking all of your lives one-by-one since you still refuse to cooperate,” he told her, watching as her eyes burned with sudden rage and she tried to speak, spilling blood rather than words as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness.
“But I don’t mind. Killing you this way will be such a pleasure, Desertstar.”
Sandadder
Sitting down now, he stroked his daughter’s face, his paw delicately caressing her cheek. While he could have finished her off right then-and-there by inflicting a wound not even Starclan could heal, he instead chose to wait. After all, there was no satisfaction in killing her while she was unconscious. It was too easy. He wanted to savor killing Desertstar by stripping all her lives away while she was awake. Now that everything was finally going his way, he felt more powerful than he ever had before, and took in a deep, shaky breath in order to contain himself. He couldn’t help but to begin fantasizing about his first new order as leader. That is, until his legs folded beneath him and he was dragged away.
When he picked himself up, his brow arched as he took in the warrior that had gotten passed his guards. “Orion,” he said curtly, his tone thick with irritation. Regret wasn’t something Sandadder often struggled with, but oh, did he regret not killing Desertstar before Orion had so rudely intervened. When Cometchaser lunged at him, he tried to move away, but the warrior was quicker than Sandadder gave him credit for. In a flash of black fur and green eyes, and a hard hit to his shoulder, Sandadder was slammed against the ground. Pain gnawed at his bones, and blood began to trickle down his sides. As much as he wanted to retaliate, he knew that he didn’t have the time or the extra lives to spare, and suddenly became painfully aware of his own mortality. If he were to take on both Orion and Desertstar, he’d more than likely lose, and he couldn’t be so reckless as to bite off more than he could chew. Not when he was so close to victory.
There was a tremor to his limbs that betrayed his fear, but it did not show on his face. ‘I can’t kill Desertstar if I’m having to constantly dodge her warriors. I’ll have to find a way to separate her from her clan,’ he told himself, his heart racing as his desperation grew. Then, like a beacon of hope, he saw one of his grandkits running towards Desertstar’s side and thought of an idea. Thrashing wildly, he turned to one of his warriors. “Get him off me!” he commanded, watching as they barreled into Cometchaser to free himself of his grip. Sandadder quickly scrambled to his paws and ran towards his grandkits, pinning Cactuspaw to the ground. “Grab these two,” he ordered his warriors, gesturing to Desertpaw and Cactuspaw. “We’re taking them with us.”
Within a flash, the pair of apprentices were snatched up and dragged away, and Sandadder stopped to look back at Orion. As the rest of Sandadder’s group disappeared into the night, he flashed the warrior a cheeky grin. “Sorry to disappoint you, Orion,” he apologized in a blisteringly cheerful voice, “Perhaps another time.” Then, with that, he ran off, leaving Orion, Desertstar, and all of Windclan to deal with the aftermath of what had just happened.