what if. over time as generations pass the villains are warped into mystical evil creatures by the clans because tall tales grow ever taller
when firepaw enters the forest, he hears from the other apprentices of the One-Eyed. little is ever said about what he looks like, but he is described as a hulking, otherworldly creature, the size of a dog with feet like an owl, with massive teeth and a pelt so matted it had hardened like a tortoise’s shell, and only one eye that never blinked but could see in every direction. the One-Eyed, they say, led an attack on the early clans, the first true outer evil they ever faced.
do you think, said firepaw, he had a family?
i don’t know, said graypaw, biting into the breast of a sparrow. i think they said he was the last of his kind, or something.
they say when he died, five-petaled flowers grew from his grave.
when squirrelpaw is at the right age, dustpelt tells her about the river banshee. it quickly becomes her favorite story of all time, and day after day she tells it to the other apprentices.
a demure molly gave birth to three kittens one day, but ultimately they were cursed- every storyteller has their own variant on what exactly was cursed about them. some say they had unnatural pelts, some said they had two faces, and even some say they were born with fins like a fish. exiled by her clan, she attempted to get the kittens to cross the river, only for them to sink, becoming the smallest stones in sunningrocks.
that was when she changed. in anger, her eyes grew red and her fur grew spiked, like pine needles. her white tail turned into a white, red eyed snake, and she attacked clan members one by one until the smallest cat in the clans ripped her apart in one clear leap.
do you think she’s still watching us? said a nervous leafpaw, a tremor in her voice.
behind squirrelpaw, in the distance, lay two amber eyes in the treetops, glittering.
when bristlekit is small, cloudtail, his memory withering away like november leaves, tells her of the scourge, a beast he encountered when he was young.
he was like a snake, he says. small and smooth. his eyes were so blue and so sharp, that looking at them alone would make your paws feel as if they had been dipped in snow. he had the shape of an adder, the head of a cat, the claws of a leopard, and one paw that was once white but had been colored red with blood.
but the worst part, he says. the worst part were the rows and rows of teeth and claws that rose out of his neck.
when bristlekit next sees squirrelflight, and her one bright paw, she stares for ages at it. what is it? asks thriftkit.
i don’t know, says bristlekit, and before she can remember what she was going to say, she bats at a moss ball, and the topic is never brought up again.
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