The Queen of All Corruption

The Queen of All Courrption is a one-shot created by Winterpaw. It is part of The Living Dead Universe, spanning from before The Living Dead and ending at the of it. This story focuses on a villain in the original story named Goldenleaf, her life in the Dark Forest, and taking Heatherfire and turning her dark. It is around 1700 words and one of the four one-shots in The Living Dead Universe, two written by Winterpaw, two by Cypresswind.

The Queen Of All Corruption
By Winterpaw

(Begins two years and 37 days before  The Living Dead)

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She was born in hay and dust, surrounded by the warmth of love. Her pelt was slick but beautiful, and her nose a glimmering pink. Her eyes were the typical blue, yet held a certain glint that signified uniqueness. She was strong, a born leader.

Tigerstar spotted this in her. His obsession grew in the young amount of time. Less than a moon later, he struck like an enraged snake.

I was one of the four. He lead the group, with Fallenfoot, Lionpounce, Blossomstrike and I. They were the key parts to the heist. She was our target, our reward, and they were one of the many steps.

Fallenfoot: The brains. He calculated the time length of the missions and each precaution. I tried speaking to him, but his mind was just nestled in breaking shadows, like he had seen things in a past lifetime that made him untrustworthy of anyone.

Lionpounce: The brawns. I guess they knew from a kit to name him after his burly body. He was one of the jocks who had a mind, though, and I would never stop being wary of it. His nightly bouts with Blossomstrike behind bushes and trees only got him out of my way–I didn’t want to be involved in their affairs.

I once caught Fallenfoot watching them once. I never tried speaking to him again.

Blossomstrike: The beauty. Easy to guess. She was a light in the darkness here, yet her mind was a thrashing bird caught in Tigerstar’s claws. She had no will. She was his, and is bidding was hers.

And me: The boring. I was just the fourth member because I could be. I didn’t really help them in a special way. I would go on the mission and do as young, brooding Tigerstar said. I didn’t have a choice–I was a criminal. A convict meant to turn the world blacker.

That’s all I had to think about as we snuck down to that world. The moment we appeared, my eyes burned–the light was unnatural and reverberated from each tree, like it was  trying  to scald your skin. We stuck to the shade as we bounded through Clan land. I remember once we returned, watching them start wars and worries over the scents of five different rogues. I wondered how many times someone from this Forest had done that.

The barn was stale and stunk of milk. The mother was asleep with the one kitten–Purr, we heard her name it. Fallenfoot called the kit useless, and said it had a dumb name.

As me and Tigerstar grabbed the other kit, I held my breath. Behind me, I knew they picked up the kit. I held back tears from flashbacks.

I knew they snuck out of the barn to the pothole with a puddle beside it.

I knew they held the kit under the water for countless seconds until it’s gurgled screams weren’t heard in the air anymore.

We grabbed the important kit–the alive one–whose name was some type of pretty flower. Daisy? Lily? Whatever it was, it was nice, fitting for such an adorable being. The perfect baby of all.

We left straight away.

I remember them preparing to travel back to the Forest, and Blossomstirke looked at me with her attractive dimples and demonized eyes.

“Thirsty,” she purred, her paws still dripping.

———–

As Tigerstar and the rest discussed the plans in the main centre, I retreated to the glooming darkness of pines.

The first thing I did as we returned was cry myself down to skin and pain.

The memories flashes in my mind and I let them stab it. I let them make it bleed out the black ink that turned me into a monster and got me here.

Lilackit was small and innocent and worldly. She was a flame you couldn’t contain, but you didn’t even want to. She was the one pink petal in a field of embedded dandelions. She was everything. The flawless kit to behold–and she ended in a brutal way unfit for beauty.

The rogue was a coward and a beatable idiot. If I had seen him during the time, I would have ripped him to flakes and fur. She was too young to be hurt, nonetheless drowned; the river was blue with streaks of scarlet blood. He cut, defiled, drowned her, the worst death of anything.

I fought back. Not against him, against the world, my own rebellion.

Until Violetshade. She was my new friend, who I molded into my anger. She was a prey I would bat around until the pain of Lilackit’s murder was mulled for the night, and my dreams would only have mellow forms of nightmares.

She barely fought back. Our system started. It all turned into a bloody game of bottled up rage and sadness–until it was taken too far. She said it was my fault, that she never wanted it, that I drove her to be a bad cat. She was my codependent victim, and I knew that, but I wanted to hate something.

My hate turned sour, vile, and ended up with her stinking corpse on my claws.

She blamed me for the misery she had caused.

But I did not drive her to cut, defile, and drown another innocent kit. First Lilackit, then Minnowkit…

And now Purr.

The memory ends there. At least for me. I have no more tears to squeeze out–just blood and sorrow. I hit rock bottom–I have to pull myself up. I have before, I can do it again.

I hate myself. I hate this place.

Most of all, I hate Heatherfire, and I want to.

She is the exact same cat as Lilackit, a likely reincarnation, and I never want to see her again.

————

When I came back with red eyes, which I turned to the ground so he couldn’t see them, he piped me up to be ready again.

Tigerstar told me give the kit to Briartumble–she still had milk from when she died giving birth.

I remember, seeing his eyes as he said that. He was shadowy and handsome. He was tall, and scarred, and the perfect tom of a tom. I was young then, I’d only died five moons before. I thought I loved him for ages after that, after he noticed me for one second–he didn’t say my name, or address me personally, but I took whatever that cat meowed and turned it into a love song.

Returning to the Forest, we celebrated with mini battles and future planning. Then was the suggestion from the couple–Blossomstrike and Lionpounce–to give it to a queen. Her name was Dawnfur of ShadowClan, a fragile but dazzling cat.

The next day, the two of them went down to that world again. The fear they installed in the medicine cats and the poor queen was hardened, and I knew they would obey.

I remember learning what Tigerstar said to me. He spoke with thorns and sudden aging in his throat, raspy but demanding.

“Our plan is shaping out to work. We have one more thing to discuss, and we’re ready. Two years will go by quick, I know, and our time will be served. Get ready, Goldenleaf, this is the new era of darkness.”

When he called my name, I inched closer like a pet. I gave him my soul silently, and vowed to be his loyal follower.

Tigerstar had been an incense, and attracting scent, and I let it overcome me. He was a powerful cat nonetheless.

The two years took an eternity, and I forgot them as they went. She came with a greedy and moody demeanour, a cat who hadn’t grown up yet. I could see the shadows in her heart, that filled the upper half. The shadows slowly dripped…dripped…bleeding into the pool an ebony evilness. Her heart would overturn her, soon, and the plan would work. She would be one of us.

She was a cat who didn’t grow up–whether she wanted to or not.

And Tigerstar stopped me one morning–or night, the Forest is everlasting–and told me with a smug grin:

“She’s never going to be a true Clan cat. It’s amusing…watching her wonder why she doesn’t fit in. Why doesn’t she like where she lives? Why is she so different than them all? If only she knew, it would make sense.”

And he continued, speaking always, his obsession only growing. It was getting worse–like a habit, to watch her, think of her, want her….

A spark of jealousy hit me and I scolded myself as he droned.

The day later she came, and he had to hold down his excitement.

The plans grew, our whole StarClan war, everything to go through. We trained her–brutally, hard, and made her only grouchiest. She fought fire with fire, and Tigerstar became her follower.

I started to hate her, and I didn’t know why. I wanted to be against something, to be known as someone. A total snarky hog–was her. A powerful and dark leader–was Tigerstar. The brains, brawns, and beauty.

Silversand, the more recent one. Kind-hearted, a mixed soul. Of course her only true crime was love. I remember Tigerstar desolating a piece of broken prey as he reminisced about an old warrior named Ashfur, who had the same “problem.”

The thousands of other Forest-goers. All dark and unforgiving, like a cloud of invidiousness.

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t sad. I was nothing.

I wanted to be something, but I wasn’t.

And then I figured it out, as the war came around, and she rose to her power. If I hated her, I was a rebel. While I never liked her, for the resemblance to my sister was too hurtful, now I could purely despise her. And the new reasoning came quick as a lighting flash to me:

There are many of us. This Forest is a humongous home for the evil. Tigerstar is our leader. He was cursed by StarClan after getting too violent, an uncontrollable monster who only attracted us.

And while we thought he was almighty, the bringer of goods, we were dead wrong.

Her. It’s her. She doesn’t know now, until the war starts, but she is the ultimate controller. Right now, she is angry and confused and constantly shocked why she’s asking this Forest for help.

But everything we had ever done was for her–the war, the plans, the training.

Tigerstar’s obsession was unavoidable. She played our strings and we went along with it.

Heatherfire was our queen, from the very start of her reign, and that was something to be told. She didn’t know it, but she was.

I mellowed into the background, now the rude, aggressive, bipolar villain to the Queen.

Later, they chanted, “long live the queen! The queen of all corruption!”

Later, I disappeared.

I was something, finally, the hateful ghost.

She was the Queen, the undying host.

We were never truly enemies. Yet drilled down to the bone and tears, the most different cats in the world.

The End