User blog:WildloughRhulain/Legend Of The Green Arrow

A/N: Any characters not Brian Jacques' in this fic are mine. A/N two: The opening poem's still in progress.


 * The pearls are gone, Mad Eyes is dead; a snake can't live without its head.
 * I thought that marten's legacy would go away and leave me be.
 * My paws would never raise my bow to kill again. But it's not so.
 * The armored mouse has led me here, joined by the one I hold most dear.
 * My husband yearns to live in peace. And so did I. I craved release.
 * Release from war, release from hate. I almost crossed Dark Forest's gate
 * To join my kin the day they died.

Prologue
You can put the past behind you, but sometimes it comes back.

I can still hear the screams from my family of agony, of grief, of rage. I hear the sound of laughter, horrible vermin laughter as my loved ones are ripped to shreds. My mother and my sisters beg for mercy, mercy they'll never get. My father, Lutra, and my brothers try to fight and defend them, falling themselves under an onslaught of spears and blades. The cause of their death? Six rose-colored pearls in a scallop-shell case. The Tears of all Oceans. Aptly named, for all they brought to anybeast was despair and death. My family never knew that until it was too late. We never considered ourselves rich because of the Tears or the other physical 'treasure' we had; we were 'rich' because we had a family that loved each other. That's where the real treasure in our holt lay. Greed, particularly the greed of a pine marten and corsairs, changed my life forever. It took their lives and set me on a path to becoming a merciless killer.

I jolted awake and looked around Holt Rudderwake, shivering violently. There was no danger that I could see; the cave was quiet except for the crackle of twigs on the fire and the snoring of sleeping otters. Now that I was awake, I knew where I was and that I was safe here, nevertheless, the memory refused to fade. Every night, it seemed, I relived the murders of my kin in my dreams. Drawing a quilt around my shoulders, I rose from my mat, picked up my weapons from where they lay beside me and moved to sit near the fire, holding my bow and quiver of arrows close to me like a frightened otterkit would hold a security blanket. I huddled around them in a near-fetal position, gazing into the flames as though watching the fire flicker and dance would banish the horror of my past.