Dark Forest Resident: Redgaze
Aliases / Nicknames: ??
Gender: tom
Sexuality: greysexual-bi, demi-biromantic
Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father, two unnamed sisters, unnamed younger brother
Other Relations: unnamed mentor, unnamed apprentice
Clan: ThunderClan
Rank: warrior
Characteristics: fascinated with eyes, asocial, charming once you get to know him
Murder Motive: to see the eyes
Number of Victims: 9
Number of Murders: 7
Murder Method: various -- poisoning, slitting throat, drowning, snapping necks
Known Victims: several unnamed warriors, several unnamed loners, several unnamed elders, one unnamed queen
Victim Profile: his Clanmates, random cats
Cause of Death: throat slit
Cautionary Tale: ??
Story:
It wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that Redgaze was motivated by bloodlust. Even so, that was the conclusion many cats came to.
It wasn't their fault, they didn't understand. Couldn't. He didn't kill for ambition nor vengeance, he had no contempt for those he had slain. If he had killed enemy warriors it would make sense as a survival tactic, but he hadn't.
It was logical to conclude that he had murdered for the love of killing.
Logical, but false.
He took little pleasure--nor discomfort--in the blood, and the cries were as ineffective as a whistling breeze, not something he enjoyed, but not something he craved either.
No, it was the eyes.
They had always fascinated him, the way that they carried every emotion, every thought, every feeling. It was like looking at the brain itself.
The way they sparked when a cat was happy and proud.
The way they narrowed when a warrior was annoyed or secretive.
The way they shone moments before death, as if every bit of them that wanted to live fired through them like a burst of lightning, or perhaps they saw StarClan awaiting them.
Then the dullness that came when whatever spiritual part of them that carried all those thoughts and feelings and hopes fell away. That was curious as well, how quickly such beauty could fade.
Of course, there was the connected part--the watery leakage of grief.
The tears, too, fascinated Redgaze. A simple bodily function? Or was it the love they had held for the one who died, leaving them just as their spirit had? Or was it too much pain for the brain to handle, so it emptied out its excess sorrows through its only gateway--the eyes?
Whatever it was, it pulled Redgaze. He needed to see it again, and again, and again.
Often, he made sure he was the one to tell the loved one personally, so that he could see the moment it hit them.
But something was missing, a piece of the puzzle he couldn't place.
He didn't just have to tell them.
He had to watch them see.
He wasn't frustrated when his plan had failed and his intended audience launched at him, he was only intrigued by the reaction.
Then he realized the opportunity right before him, the one thing he had yet to see--not the eyes of someone dying, but the eyes of someone taking a life.
Finally, it was perfect!
