How the Stars Came to Be {WIP}

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A long, long time ago, so long ago that the term "time" had not yet been given meaning--when the land was vast and wide and so green that the forests and streams were bursting with prey, there existed a clan of warriors so fearsome that even the earth quaked under their great paws. They were a volatile species, but as beautiful as they were cruel. And they were very vain.

They adorned their coats with morning dew to make their beautiful bodies shimmer and shine. They weaved vines into their silver fur and twisted the stems of young saplings along the length of their long, plumed tails, and encouraged the plants to grow on them. Whenever the plants of one of their young flowered, they would hold a ceremony, and then he would be accepted as an adult.

They were a queer race, but when you think about it carefully, they were not quite so different from us.

They had cup-shaped ears perched on each side of their beautiful heads, and bodies that can be described as both graceful and powerful; imagine them, if you will, as giant versions of ourselves--gargantuan cats that were set loose on the world, to roam the land as they chose. Their eyes were of all different colours: red, blue, yellow, green, yes, all the colours of the rainbow--the whole spectrum, but their pelts were always a pale silver and their noses a dark amber.

The males had thick rings of red-tinged fur that sprouted from their necks like unruly bushes, and they continually stroked their manes until the hair grew smooth and silky. The females had nothing as beautiful as the manes, but they were stronger, and even bigger than the males, and they made do with keeping themselves in excellent shape. Extra plumpness anywhere on the body was seen as inferior and ugly, and the crippled were immediately extinguished by the whole of the Tribe on sight, so their bloodlines continued to run pure and devoid of defect and disease.

Every day, the Lyons, for that was what the other animals had named these robust creatures, rolled in wildflowers so that they would always smell good. They made sure not to tread on patches of mud or dirt, for fear of making their paws filthy, and the marsh, with its foul swamps and murky waters, was so grotesque to them that it was by an unsaid, mutual agreement that they never traveled into it. It was in the marsh that all the animals that were too small, and thus bullied by the Lyons, fled to live free from their oppression.

Now, the world was not yet old, or even middle-aged, for that matter, and it had just matured past the end of the Era of Creation. Magic, although faint, still pulsed through the earth's molten vains, and was not so dormant as it is today. Magic carried on the air, floated in the waters, grew on the trees like ripening fruit, and it was magic that the Lyons were trying to master.

They had not yet succeeded with it, for magic is an abstract and mysterious thing. Ah, don't shake your head at me like that. Listen for a minute. If Starclan can speak to us through dreams, is that not a sort of magic? See, don't give up on me yet, this old cat still knows what he is talking about.

So where were we? Oh, yes, the Lyons and their magic. You see, they wanted to use magic to make them even more beautiful, and the one thing they abhorred the most was their dull silver pelts. Did you ever hear the term "freedom of expression"? Yes? Well, that is what they wanted, and demanded from their magic. They already knew how to change their eye color on a whim--even how to assimilate their eye color with their mood, but they always were stuck with their same, boring old pelts.

All the animals, including those secluded in the marsh, knew that the Lyons hated their pelt color and wanted more than anything to be able to change it. Remember when I mentioned earlier how the animals in the marsh were all victims of the Lyons' wickedness? The mice were caught and tossed about in the air, then let back onto the ground. When they tried to run away, the Lyons would slam their giant paws onto the mice's little tails and watch them dig up the earth with their little paws, until, in desperation to escape, they would cut off the end of their tails to get free. Then, the Lyons would catch up to the mice and pin their tails again, and the same process would repeat until the mice were left with bloody stubs, half delirious with frustration. Even the dogs could not escape from the Lyons' cruelty. They were picked up by their scruffs into the Lyons' huge mouths, and dropped into a clearing enclosed by thick bushes that seemed to reach the sky. The dogs would be told that for freedom, they would have to fight to the death for the Lyons' entertainment, and dogs, loyal as they are, would rip and tear at each other in hopes to end the other's misery quickly, yelping and crying.

You see, no animal, except those bigger and even more stronger than themselves, which were very few in number, was safe from the Lyons. They all huddled in the farthest reaches of the marsh, shrouded in wetness and gloom. Their lives were dismal. The marsh barely ever saw any sun, and the vegetation was coarse and unappetizing. The animals were slowly starving, and if not for one brave little rabbit called Starbuck, all of the animals would have gone extinct, and we would not have the mice and the grouses to enjoy today.

Now, Starbuck was an exceptionally handsome young thing, with soft snow white fur and large, velvety ears. His cottonball tail resembled more a miniature cloud than a rabbit's tail, and more than anything, his face was chiseled of marble than of flesh. He was so pretty that the dogs dared not eat him, and the birds of prey dared not peck at him. Even the wolves, cousins with the dogs, tried not to stare at him too long out of politeness, although they salivated whenever they happened to catch his sweet scent. And you are right, his scent was delectable. Just imagine the juiciest rabbit you have ever seen, and the most pretty, and combine them together. Do you have the picture laid out in your head? Well, he was a hundred times juicier and better looking than what you are thinking of right now. He would have put all of our scrawny rabbits to shame.

One more thing you should know before I continue on: rabbits were the best with handling magic, especially the ability to illustrate an illusion. Have you ever heard stories of rabbit tricksters? Well, Starbuck was the first of them all, and he used magic to aid him.

He was tired of the swamp and the bog. He was tired of huddling up to complete strangers in the freezing nights to keep warm, and tired of having to retreat underground in the day to avoid the burning sun. It was only at late afternoon that he could risk walking outside to forage, and even then, food was scarce. While he ate his meal of limp swamp grass, one particularly blistering evening, he lets his mind wander back to his home in the fields. By now, they were probably covered with a sea of delicious clovers and dandelions for him to chew on. If it weren't for those pesky Lyons, he would always have a full belly, and would be able to enjoy the sunset without turning to ice.

And as he thought about the Lyons, he was suddenly hit with an idea. Oh, yes! thought he, jumping into the air for joy. He had it! He knew how to get rid of the Lyons! To eradicate them from the face of the earth! What an idea! He would be deemed hero of all animal-kind!

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