#lichenpool

Lichenpool 🌿⭐

Aliases / Nicknames: Momma

Gender: she-cat

Sexuality: bisexual-demi

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father, unnamed sister, two unnamed brothers, Parsleykit (son)

Other Relations: unnamed mentor, unnamed apprentice

Clan: Windclan

Rank: warrior

Characteristics: kills to avenge her son

Number of Victims: 6

Number of Murders: 6

Murder Method: poisoning

Known Victims: Antkit, Cinderkit, Hootkit, Lavenderkit, Smallkit, Flarekit

Victim Profile: those who caused her son’s death, her son’s bullies, kits

Cause of Death: broken jaw, crushed by a tractor

Cautionary Tale: N/A

Story:

Spoiler warning: this story is based on the subplot of The Orphanage

--

The second Parsleykit entered the world, Dappleflint felt an overpowering love that could have had her bouncing on her feet seconds after his birth. Her purrs practically shook the nursery, and she would do nothing but stare as he nursed and slept.

So overwhelmed with love for her kit, it hadn’t registered that her son looked different, and she didn’t understand why cats who came to visit would give him strange looks. 

They were being dramatic, she knew. Sure, the right side of his face was underdeveloped, his eye hidden beneath a layer of skin, and his ear shriveled and sunken in, but it was just a face! If they heard his voice, listened to his adorable snores or the way he told her that he loved her, they would never think about his peculiar face again.

The adults were smart enough to whisper out of Dappleflint’s earshot, but kits weren’t so kind. There were two litters born close to Parsleykit, one only a moon older than him, and the other half a moon younger. 

They refused to play with Parsleykit, and when they were pressured to, they would use games to tease him. 

Dappleflint learned to never take her eyes off of her son, as she had to protect him from the other kits many times. Once, in the few times she had rested her eyes, he ran from the camp. Following his trail, she found him by the stream in a abandoned rabbit burrow, hiding from the others.

Upset over his face, he begged her to help him cover it. Dappleflint hated that her son wanted to hide his face, but she couldn’t stand to see him suffering. Maybe if they couldn’t see the deformed part of him, they wouldn’t tease him. So she wrapped the right side of his face with leaves. 

It seemed to have worked, the kits were nicer. Exhausted from watching Parsleykit for practically every second of everyday for three moons, she felt she could finally rest.

She would regret that choice until her very last moon and beyond. Awakened by thunder, she woke and found her son missing. Panicking, she searched all around the camp until one of the guilty kits told her what had happened.

They wanted to play a prank on Parsleykit, and took him out of the camp with them to ‘explore.’ In reality, it was a trick to get him alone so that Dappleflint couldn’t punish them when they forcibly took off his leaves.

Embarrassed, Parsleykit had run away to hide. Furious and worried, Dappleflint darted from the camp, racing across the moor so quickly, she practically flew across the grass. She knew where to look, her heart flipping in her chest. 

Of course she was afraid a fox or other predator would get him, but her main worry was the rain. It had been raining non-stop for the quarter-moon, and if Parsleykit hid away by the stream....

Her worst nightmare was confirmed. 

With his face uncovered, Parsleykit hid away in the abandoned rabbit’s burrow, which quickly flooded with water. Parsleykit, her son, her light, had drowned.

They had killed him.

Finding out he had died, they were distraught, but whether or not they felt guilty didn’t matter. They killed her son!

They never treated him as an equal, always picking on him figuratively and literally. Not only did they ruin his life, but they had to take it as well! He died alone, away from camp and his mother, probably crying and terrified! 

He might have lived if they had spoken up the second he ran away, but they kept silent for fear of getting in trouble. One kit of the six spoke up, just one!

Dappleflint couldn’t let it go. She would kill them. She would make them suffer, as he did, afraid and away from their mothers. 

She took them out of the camp to ‘explore,’ the same trick they had used on Parsleykit. It was an adventure, traveling over the hills and across tussocks. When they were all tired, she gave them a rabbit as a gift for doing such a good job, keeping up along the land with a warrior.

She watched with dark satisfaction as they writhed and coughed. There was no joy as she buried their bodies, only the feeling of a mission accomplished. 

Her secret lasted well into her senior days. 

One day, the bodies were uncovered. Dappleflint wasn’t sure how, but once they were, the warrior who uncovered them, Lichenpool, knew Dappleflint’s secret. Enraged by the horrible act, she chased Dappleflint across the border, and onto the farm where the she-cat was caught beneath the paws of a field monster.

Additional Information:

--I HIGHLY recommend watching The Orphanage (2007). Like it says above, this is only the subplot. The main plot is so good, especially if you don’t know the twist (which I sadly did before going in) (really the twist is so good and so heart-wrenching). It’s in another language (Spanish), but I’m sure you can watch it with subtitles somewhere.

--Hootkit and Cinderkit were in the oldest litter, while Antkit and Flarekit just behind them, and Lavenderkit, and Smallkit were the younger one.

--I’m thinking maybe the kits were lost spirits or something (or just wanted justice) and lead to their bodies. That’s why Lichenpool knew who had killed them even though the bodies themselves would have little to no evidence. Maybe she had a vision.