ivypool_by_ivylight-d5v3hda

Lily Level Up – Level 4 to Level 5
Italics – flashback
Regular font – present day

It was cold and it was silent. The only thing that moved in this ethereal world of gray was the blood, the tide of blood that would always keep flowing no matter if it was stopped.
The blood streamed from Lily’s heart, all the broken and empty parts of herself slashed by the claws of those she could not fight. Could not win against. They had finally shown her what she most feared – she was no match for them. Could never defend herself. Could never block herself against their blows and taunts. She was weak. Nothing. And dying.
It gushed from her stomach, the sight of so many blows that had left her defenseless. The place that their insults had blown through, shattered beyond repair. She’d felt so much pain. So much.
And no one could ever hear her cries. They were silent, but their vibrations reverated through all of Bapxer. Just another way she was weak. No one could ever hear her desperate pleas. So desperate.
And it wasn’t like anyone could ever fix her.
It streamed from her head, all the screams about how she was worthless tangled together in one endless, broken song. A song of despair and loss. A song that made every happy emotion, every hope sink into the bottomless gray.
It was a song that no one could hear.
Empty.
Alone.
Lost.
No wonder no one could heal her – this blood was inside. Inside her. It had been bottled up for so long that it formed an endless river, gushing with the tides of all her tears, all her dark emotions. The storm inside her had grown so that not even she could stop when it began to rain down. When the lightning of her self-doubt came crashing down, destroying all her hopes.
The blood, the storm. Her tears. It was all the same. All just parts of the same darkness inside her.
Why was it that when the blood flowed, it never stopped? Not even now. Now, moons and moons after she’d thought she was left for dead.
It never stopped, truthfully.
Ever.
It would just keep coming and coming, until she was a broken shell drained of blood and tears. Nothing left to say. As good as dead.
The bullies hadn’t done this to her. She’d done it to herself. Allowed her to feel hope. Happiness. A lie.
And now the truth has come back to her.
She would never be able to be happy. Because the bullies would always find her. Because the true darkness lied in herself. Her own broken, mangled heart. How ironic that not even her healing powers could fix that. Because it was like she’d thought all those moons ago-
She was unable to be fixed.
And how ironic that it had to end like this. Revanant’s claws piercing her back, tearing through her delicate flesh. Ripe, berry-red blood. Even if she could go on, she’d been unable to for far too long. She was too weak. Too weak to support even herself.
Why shouldn’t she die?
She deserved it.
She didn’t deserve the privilege to live. Any outsider would’ve seen it. The only one who hadn’t seen it was Lily. She’d been so foolish not to see it all along. Because this was what she did. She lied to herself. She lied and cheated and passed the blame onto others bigger and stronger than her. Because she couldn’t face the fact that the truthful owner of the blame was her.
The blood was pounding again. Thousands of shards piercing her all over. It poured from her heart, her lungs, her soul.
Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t survive. Not anymore.
So much blood. Why so much? The lie had gone on too long. It was too pent-up. She should’ve seen how she was unable to live with a paw in both worlds. Have the pain but not. Have wounds but blame them on others. Because how could she blame all those ones inside on the bullies? They may have inflicted that galaxy of scars littering her pelt, but claws didn’t cause a broken heart. Hope did.
Hope and despair.
Death was soon. Death was eminent. What was left for her in this life? Quinn. Willow. Adara. Pepper. Padmé. Friends that she would never leave.
She didn’t deserve them.
She didn’t deserve anyone. Anything.
She let herself crumble. Let her legs give way to solid ground. Put a trembling paw to her heart. If she could inflict pain on others, then it shouldn’t be too hard to do it to herself.
Everything dimmed. Silence. Quiet. No screeches. No yowls. Nothing.
Except…
Something.
Something inside Lily, growing in loudness.
A beating heart.
Her beating heart.
Emerging from the depths of the silence, shedding light on the darkness.
But hope was bad. Happiness was bad. She had to die.
But her heartbeat … her heartbeat allowed her to live. It breathed life itself into her. Its repetitive beat – could she really give it up?
How could she do this? Let Revanant win? Let these cats die?
Thump. Thump.
No matter the sorrow, no matter the pain, her heart kept beating. It was the one thing that never lost hope it her. It believed in her always.
Happiness, filling all the blue spaces of her sorrow…
Lighting the way in nothing but dark.
This was not the end.
No, she would not succumb.
She would live.
Because her heart did.
Her heart beat for her when everything else had given up. When all hope was lost, it still put its faith in a better tomorrow.
She had already given up on everything else. She would not give up on her heart, which would never give up on her.
Lily stood.
She ignored the blood. Ignored the pain.
Stood when all the odds were against her, stood when the only thing believing in her wasn’t even herself.
She stood proud, proud of who she was. She was done wearing her scars and weaknesses and hangups like a cloak of shame. Hiding who she was. Fearing the shadows and fearing herself. Terrified of bigger, crueler cats. Living when the only thing that even believed she could was her heartbeat.
No.
She would wear those scars like a shield of pride. No longer was she scared of who she was. Ashamed of the cat she’d become. Terrified of the future. She was done with that. She was ready.
She stood, and everything began again.
Color rushed back into the gray. The chorus of yowls once again filled her ears. The rock felt solid and cold against her paws.
But one thing was still louder than the rest. One thing rising over everything else, resonating in her ears until they ached. Stronger than the stone. Louder than the yowls. Brighter than the color.
Her heartbeat.
She was still the only one who could hear it. But that didn’t matter anymore. What was once a silent scream was now her silent hope. The shield of pride. Urging her on. Telling her that she could go on. That she was not worthless, weak, or nothing. That she was needed, loved, and strong. She was Lily. Lily with her scars, Lily with her hope. Lily with her pain, Lily with her kindness. Lily with her broken parts, Lily with her strength. Lily with her beating, beating heart. Still beating.
It surged from her heart, not a tide of blood but a river of power. Her electricity powers. They raced through every bone and fiber, gushing through her blood. She was strong. She had worth. She was Lily.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
Not weak. Strong. Not worthless. Able to heal. Not nothing. Everything.
Loud. Louder. Filling her ears. Filling her eyes. Her electric heart.
She was useful. Was loved. She knew it as the electricity tore through her. Rather than feel pain at the intensity, she felt strong. She was healing. Finally. But not because of the blood.
Her heart.
It was the one healing her. Maybe not taking away that pain, but teaching her how to stand proud with it. How to go on when she’d been through so much. How to live. How to love. She would stand. And she would live.
Even when everything seemed bleak and broken, she would go on.
Long ago when she’d gotten her stomach scar, she’d known it. Deep down. Only now did it finally rise. Only now did she realize. But it was clear as crystals.
She would go on.
Through strife and pain, she would live. Through every obstacle, she would thrive. Using the pain as a weapon. It would help her.
Always.
The electricity finally stopped flowing, leaving with it a strengthened power. And she knew why it had stopped.
Because she was healed.
She was so much more than wounds and scars. She was happiness. Kindness. She had hope.
She was more than her pain. She always had been. And she always would be.
She stood facing Revanant. She stood changed. She stood proud.
She stood with hope.
And she was ready.

Willow Level Up – Level 4 to Level 5
(Btw the lyrics aren’t mine :P)

Blue is the color of the planet from the view above
Step. Step. Thud. Thud.
If you looked down on the earth, would you see all the darkness within it? Would you see all the shadows encompassing the emerald green grass, the scarlet blood filling the pure blue oceans?
From above, everything was so minute. So dull. Willow’s petty problems didn’t matter. In the great scheme of things, as an observer, all you saw was a terribly confused dark gray tabby she-cat with a mess of a past. You didn’t see anything beneath. Just the surface.
Maybe that was best.
Maybe it was good that Willow’s problems weren’t spelled out in front of the eyes of outsiders. Maybe it was for the better that you couldn’t open up her heart and see all the murky darkness inside. Cats made their assumptions about her, and what a wreck she was, and maybe that was for the best. Maybe they shouldn’t see all the black under that blue. How she doubted herself. How under those layers of innocence and meekness, there was a monster waiting to be unleashed. Crouched in the shadows. Waiting for reveal.
Because she didn’t know if she could contain it if others knew.
Maybe it was good that they all thought she was confused and anxious and frayed. Maybe it was better they didn’t see the monster underneath.
Maybe then it wouldn’t exist.

Long live our reign, long live our love
Maybe she could just keep living denying the existence of her darker self. Live a lie. Why not? She’d been doing it her whole life. Pretending things were okay. Seeing herself as the one who all the consequences fell to, not the one who’d caused them.
Why should that change?
All her life she’d denied there was something darker under that cowardly exterior. Convinced herself there wasn’t. She was innocent. Innocent, innocent, innocent.
Facing the truth was something she didn’t know how to do. Why couldn’t she just run from it?
She always ran. And she always won.
That didn’t have to change.

Green is the planet from the eyes of a turtle dove
From the observations of outsiders, friends, she was in no control of her life. Her emotions spun wildly out of control and she let them. Constantly forcing others to help her, she was helpless to the complexities of her own mind.
But that was false. She’d killed. She’d killed when it had been wrong. She’d killed when she could have ran. When it would’ve been preferable. But no. She couldn’t because she was afraid.
Sometimes she didn’t know what was worse: running, or standing still and watching others burn.

‘Til it runs red, runs red with blood
She had watched so many others suffer. Many at her own claws. Many from her own doing. Spike and Flower onlooking. They may have given the orders, made her their slave, but in the end, it was Willow who raked her claws through the throat of an innocent, scared cat. A dead cat.
She’d watched as the light left countless eyes. Or worse, hope leave the eyes of a loved one of the deceased. She’d watched like the cold-hearted monster she was. She’d destroyed lives. Torn families apart. Cut off all hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow with her bloody, bloody claws.
She was trying to deny this, but it was no use. She was a glass ball, and she’d just been dropped from carefree hands. Pummeling towards the ground quickly and mercilessly – and when she landed, the fallout would render her unable to be the same. Because that glass ball would never go back together fully. There would be gaps and holes in the places that she so stupidly tried to fix, put back together. It was falling, and she was ceaseless to stop it.
The one at fault but not. In control but helpless. A monster but innocent. When that glass ball shattered, which end of the spectrum would she stand on?
She was afraid of the answer.

We get so tired and we complain
What business did she have associating with cats like Quinn? Cats like Pepper who’d never done a thing wrong in their life. Cats like innocent Padmé, not understanding Willow and not wanting to.
Always wanting a paw in both worlds. The moment of truth was coming, and frankly Willow didn’t know how. Was it because of her? Or some outside factor? Would she be the cause of her own destruction?
Maybe she was the one who’d dropped that glass ball. Left herself to shatter.

‘Bout how it’s hard to live
Maybe she should finally face things instead of cowering in fear and self-pity. Hadn’t she decided that in a stronger moment? Told herself that she would be brave. Face Flower and Spike. But that was just another lie. Another one she could add to the endless list that was just getting longer and longer.
Pressure was building inside that ball. Maybe it wouldn’t have even needed to be dropped at all. Maybe she was so catatonic that she would’ve just burst herself. Cracked up. Finally fallen apart.
Lies could never stay down for long. Eventually they resurfaced, demanding they be fractured back into the truth. Maybe this time Willow would finally meet those demands. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Because she was a coward and a liar and too complex for her own good. She was damaged and dangerous.
Crack, crack, crack.
That glass ball, so precarious, was beginning to break apart.

It’s more than just a video game
Two bodies. Two dead bodies. Willow’s breath hitched as she thought of it. Too caught up in her own problems to even remember. She crumbled to the ground, the scent of earth hitting her nose. But it still couldn’t offset the scent of blood that was forever engraved in her memory. The blood that she constantly smelled and saw. She saw it now, dripping from her limp paws. The paws of a murderer that had killed in cold blood.
She should’ve been there. Should’ve saved those cats. But she wasn’t. She could add those two to her growing list of those she’d murdered, along with that entire camp she’d singlehandedly killed. And she knew she had. It may have been Spike who had ended them, but she was the one to blame.
Whether she was the one executing the killing order or merely watching, it was always her fault. And she would always deny that it was.

But we’re just beautiful people with beautiful problems, yeah
She shoved her face into her paws, tears trickling out of her eyes. Too weak to handle the truth. A cat like her with such a low capacity for the dark had to snap sometime. And maybe she had long ago. Maybe it had been when she’d seen her first dead bodies – her parents and siblings, all refusing the gang. Funny how she’d even been running then – a coward from the start. Desperate to escape. Trapped by circumstances.
She really wasn’t cut out for this life, was she?
She was so wrong for what she’d been meant to do. Her, the weakling with blood on her paws, supposed to stop Spike and Flower. She didn’t even have a full grip on reality, and here she was trying to defeat two skilled assassins.
She was out of time and out of excuses. She couldn’t live this lie anymore – her, the victim but never the cause of the destruction she ensued, the one chosen to take down the evil cats here. The victim, the chosen one, the soft-pelt, the weakling. So many labels.
Were any of them even true?

Beautiful problems, God knows we’ve got them
There was another side to those labels too. The cause of her problems, the useless one, the cold-blooded murderer, the assassin. How was it that she simultaneously entertained both sides of each? How could she be standing in two places at once with a paw in two worlds?
The liar.
If she wasn’t cut out for murdering, and wasn’t cut out to be a soft-pelt, what was she cut out for? A life of lies, pretending she was a princess when really she was a devil?
The traitor.
She’d watched her friends be attacked. She’d watched and said nothing.
The bystander.
She wasn’t meant to take down Spike and Flower. She wasn’t meant to be a peace-making soft-pelt. She wasn’t meant to be anything.
Maybe she was meant to be dead.

But we gotta try (la, la, la)
The outcast.
That’s what she was. She didn’t fit in anywhere. Because of Bapxer, she wore the bloody trademark of a murderer. Because of her friends, she had the soft skin of a weakling. She held the downfall of each – she carried the weakness of each side.
Fitting.
So what could she do? She could cease to do anything, wallowing in self-pity and regret her entire life.
Or she could act.
She wasn’t cut out for what she was supposed to do. She wasn’t the right cat for the role she’d been given. And she probably couldn’t win against her enemies.
But she had to try.

Every day and night (la, la, la)
Maybe she didn’t need to win. Maybe that wasn’t what had to happen. Maybe her role in this game was to be a sacrifice.
Maybe her friends needed a martyr.
She didn’t have to be the one to abolish the evil. She wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t need to be the most important cat, the one who liberated the others of their strife.
And death might be good.
It would bring her peace. She could be with her family again. She could see the cats that had died of the Strike so long ago. Yes, death would be nice.
But what about all her unfinished work here?
She was always the one who lived, surviving against all the odds. She’d never done what she’d set out for – made sure all the death she’d seen wasn’t in vain. Wasn’t for nothing.
But she hadn’t.
Instead she was an emotional wreck who wore things on her sleeve. She hadn’t honored the dead. She’d shamed them.
Death was peaceful. Death was preferable. Death was easy.
But maybe the right choice here was to live.
For the first time in her life, Willow didn’t want to die. She had so much to live for! Her friends, the life she could have here. Could she really throw that all away?
It wasn’t about her, though. She was but a small part in a grand work. She was minuscule in the scheme of things, the bigger picture. Her death could bring about so many more lives.
And she could still honor all those cats she’d watched take their last breath. She could make sure it wasn’t in vain by confronting her fears. Using her powers. And finally accepting who she was.
Her time was almost up. The glass ball was inches from the ground. She had to act.

Blue is the color of the shirt of the man I love
If only she could be like Spike. Fearless, and unapologetic for his actions. Strong and self-confident. And kind under all that exterior. If only she could let all of her doubts and fears go, free her heart of the dark, inky-black fog that had covered it for so long now. Step out of the shadow of all that held her back and be free to walk in the light.
If only she could be like Quinn. Soft and kind, but not afraid to stand up for what he believed in. Not afraid to be himself. But she was meek and kept dark secrets and was too afraid of herself to ever let her true self show. Oh, how wonderful it would be to spread the wings that had been pinned to her sides by chains for so long now. But she couldn’t. She ran from everything. How was flying any different?
If only she could be like Malley. Bold and self-assertive. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to go after it. Wasn’t afraid to show others who she truly was. But Willow couldn’t seem to hang up that skin. That cloak that shielded her innermost demons from others, kept her seeming frivolous and weak. She couldn’t seem to show others who she truly was, because she was still figuring that out herself. At least Malley knew. At least Malley knew she was dangerous and a murderer, and she didn’t try to hide. Didn’t try to live in the light when she really belonged in the dark.
If only she could be like Pepper. Sweet and generous and caring. She’d suffered loss, but she wore that loss with her. She made sure it was accounted for every day. She made sure everyone who had died around her were remembered. And that was someone Willow just couldn’t be. Or chose not to be. She couldn’t honor those losses. She wasn’t strong enough. Wasn’t strong enough to take on that burden. Never was. Never could be.
If only she could be like Padmé. A protector. A defender. Kind and loving. She invited others in and allowed them to be whoever they wanted to be. She wasn’t afraid of the things she might find inside, because she was strong enough to battle any darkness that might come her way. She faced every fear with a confident mind and a willing heart, and Willow envied that. But Willow wasn’t strong. She couldn’t support herself, much less others. And the last thing she would ever do would be face what she so feared head-on. Instead she ran. She ran, and others died in her wake. And somehow she was always the one who lived. All the others perished, and she was the last one standing.
All the cats she’d known were so much more than she could ever hope to be. She envied them all – Adara and Lily, Wraith, Aronia, even Revanant. Because they accepted who they were. They were strong. They supported others even when they couldn’t support themselves.
And they didn’t live in a lie every day. Didn’t try to act innocent when they were anything but.
They were true to their hearts, and that was something the dark, murdering she-cat would never be.

He’s hard at work, hard to the touch
They all tried to be better, even though they already were. They all tried to rise above the tendencies of their natures, and they tried to become more than they could if they just accepted they were unable to change.
But not Willow.
She never changed.
She was never better.
She never worked at fixing herself because she was too overwhelmed by how broken she was. Where would she even begin? And that begged the question of if she could even be fixed.
There was so much dust clouding her vision and choking her lungs that she couldn’t even see where it began.
She blinked slowly, feeling so empty but full at the same time. A heavy, misty grief settled upon every fiber and bone until it was all she felt, dragging her down and down until she reached the earth’s core.
Everyone else tried to better themselves. All she did was make herself worse.

But warm is the body of the girl from the land he loves
She wasn’t one of them. She never could be. They were all like one another, kind and innocent, and she was the black sheep. Except her wool was white. It was her heart that was stained the color of black ink, the shade of a starless night.
She tried to fit in, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t just soft and sweet and loving. She was a killer. The complexities of her own nature cast her out away from the others, an island in an otherwise calm sea. She didn’t belong. She shouldn’t belong. She poisoned them. She brought cats like Spike and Flower after them when they already had so much to deal with.
They may not know she wasn’t the cat she seemed, but Willow knew. It was just another lie. She was dragging everyone else down into her murky waters, and she was leaving them to drown.

My heart is soft, my past is rough
Maybe if she hadn’t lived in Bapxer and been a part of the gangs, things would be different. She wouldn’t have to pretend. Maybe her wool and her heart would be white and pure. She would belong.
But Bapxer had made her a killer. It had made her not belong anywhere. The gangs had outcasted her until she couldn’t be like anyone else. A killer. A weakling. A peacekeeper. A destroyer.
But maybe the gangs didn’t do that to her. Maybe she would’ve turned out the way she did without influence. Nature or nurture?
Maybe it was just in her nature to destroy things.
Maybe she was the one who had put that poison inside her glass ball, that invisible but deadly substance that drove her apart from everyone else, violently separated her from everyone and everything.
She wanted to be who she wasn’t. She said the phrases of a cat she idled, but carried out the actions of one she feared.
She didn’t need any influence at all. She was a wreck any way you spun that thread. And that thread was about to snap.

But when I love him, get a feeling, something close to like a sugar rush
She so desperately wanted to belong. Wanted to strip herself of her past and just be innocent and free. The chains weren’t just on her wings – they were everywhere, choking and strangling her. She couldn’t breathe. It had been so long since she’d felt fresh air in her lungs, and no aches from the tightness of her bondages. She wanted to be free so badly that it brought pain to her heart, but she was stuck. Trapped. Freeing herself would mean more lies. She couldn’t release all that held her down until she rose up herself. All her life she’d been waiting for someone else to release her, take off those chains. But maybe she needed to do it herself.
If there were locks, there was a key. And she would find it. And free herself.

It runs through me
When she was free, could she change? Suck out the toxins in her heart and soul? Finally begin to heal? It was a start. But she still didn’t know where to begin – how could she possibly start repairing when everything was broken?
Well, maybe defeating Spike and Flower could fix one thing. And if even one thing was healed, she could begin.

But is it wasted love?
But even if she overcame all odds and survived, could she ever manage to become like her friends? The chains were inside too, and those were the ones that would never go away. The holds on her heart would forever drag her down, rendering her unredeemable. She would never belong, not in a thousand years.
And would her friends even accept her? For who she truly was? The truth had to come out eventually. Her heart clenched in cold terror as that moment played over and over again in her mind. No longer would they think of her as the cat who was unwilling to hurt prey. They would know her as the cat eager to hurt anyone if it meant her own survival.
So it wouldn’t matter. Wouldn’t matter if she changed. Wouldn’t matter if she won. Wouldn’t matter if she healed. Because she doubted her own friends could ever accept her for the monster she truly was.

(It’s not wasted love)
No one was going to free her. No one even knew she was caged. Because she hid that from even herself, so desperate to belong. She longed to reach out into the sunlight when only one beam struck down into her cell. But when she escaped, the relish of that sunlight would be short-lived. For everyone would run in fear of her. Her heart, black and poisoned for all to see. Her soul, shattered beyond repair.
They would see her, and she would once again not belong anywhere.

But we’re just beautiful people with beautiful problems, yeah
She imagined herself, tendrils of ivy shaking out from her heart. They impaled everything around her, freezing her in place above them, stuck. They were tendrils of pain. Tendrils of her own suffering. She’d lost everything – her family, the gang, her friends, her chance at happiness.
So many petty problems.
Each tendril was a loss, snaking out from the very core of her soul, snaring an unsuspecting victim. Demolishing anything in its path. And Willow, the one at the center of that ivy, always lived.
Always.

Beautiful problems, God knows we’ve got them
If only she could just disappear. Turn to dust, every last remnant of her wiped clean of the earth’s surface and forgotten. Forever abandoned, any trace of her unknown. How it should’ve been.
But she couldn’t disappear. She had to fix what was broken. While there was still time. While she could set it right. She had to. For the cats whose lives she’d made worse.
For them.

But we gotta try (la, la, la)
Time was running out. And she had to act.
Not for herself. No, she was far too much a coward. For Quinn. For Adara. For Pepper. For Padmé. For her friends. They were counting on her. They believed in her. It was the least she could do, considering the thicket of lies she’d driven herself into. Considering how she’d pretended to belong when really she shared the most similarities with cats like Spike. Cold-hearted cats.
It was the least she could do.
Bringing her head out of her paws, she focused. Pushed down the fear. Ignored her pounding heart. Ceased her legs from shaking.
A single water bubble, beautiful and shimmering in the sun’s golden rays. All its imperfections laid out so clearly for others to see, the contents of everything inside it freed. Like she soon would be. Like she longed to be.
For them. She had to think of them. To give her the strength.
She brought the bubble crashing down and picked it back up. Again and again and again.

Every day and night (la, la, la)
Water trickled through the grass, and Willow felt it trickling down her face. She gently raised a paw to the dripping substance, its cool surface refreshing and calming.
She had done it. Used her power. And she hadn’t been afraid.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d been shaking like a leaf. But she’d conquered it. One less obstacle in her way to becoming better. But barely even worth considering, given the amount of problems she had.
She couldn’t just use a single water bubble in her battle, though. She had to use the attacks that they would.
Physical damage. With her claws. Hadn’t she vowed never to hurt a cat with her claws unless she was forced?
Well, she was a liar. She knew that. She spun wild tales that even she couldn’t keep holding onto and believing.
She unsheathed her claws.
She leapt towards a tree, digging her sharp, thornlike weapons into the soft bark.

Oh, oh
She hung her head, shame dripping though her bones. She was really doing it. She was really going to stoop to their level. Was she going to kill them, for Pilate’s sake?
It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before.
She summoned another water bubble and gently pierced it with her claw, watching as some of the crystalline liquid burst out and drizzled onto the ground, gleaming with golden light. For a moment, her chest felt heavy with the pure beauty of it, and she watched it, its light dazzling her eyes. True, you couldn’t see all the wars and death from up above; but you also couldn’t see this. The sun’s dying rays, piercing a bubble of water in front of a terribly misunderstood and confused she-cat who for one single moment in time was regaining a shred of hope.
Maybe you couldn’t see the bad. But you also couldn’t see the good.

Hmm, hmm
She let the water bubble collapse, and it imploded on the emerald grass, a wave rushing out and coating her with its watery fingers. But standing there, dripping wet, with her softened heart, she felt as if it had cleansed her. Weeded out all the negative thoughts and only left the ones of the task she needed to do. At this moment, the only thing that mattered was her mission; not before, not after. Just one single thing.
And if she died, then so be it.

Yeah we’ve gotta try (la, la, la)
Her past, her future, the present, her darkness, her light. It all melted away until it left a dark gray tabby she-cat with a useful power and sharp claws. Morals, ethics, and the like all faded to background noise. Her heart was soft, but her mission was clear. If worst came to worst, she had to.
She was no longer a hollowed-out shell, full of fear and remorse. Now she was filled with the strength of those she’d known – the determination of Quinn, the bravery of Malley, the kindness of Pepper. It all flowed in – but not in a strong way. More as if silk flowed in through the gaps in her hollow heart, making it brim and fluttering around until it laid to rest. It wasn’t as if she possessed these qualities herself – in this moment of need, she was merely taking on the qualities of others. She’d done it before. Been the soft-hearted coward who couldn’t kill prey. But after this, she was over the act. She was done. And that wasn’t just her clear mind speaking.
Wherever she stood, whoever she was, she would be true to it. She owed herself that.

We gotta walk through fire (la, la, la)
Even if it was painful, even if it added another mark to the list of the dead whose demise she’d caused, she would not let herself live a lie any longer. She was coming to terms with herself, whether she found she liked who she was or not.
When the glass ball shattered, it would finally allow the light to spill in.
It would be painful. It would be hard. It would be one of the most difficult things she’d ever had to do.
But you needed night to have a day. Needed rain to summon a rainbow. Needed death to appreciate life.
This was the final and worst chapter of her pain, and hopefully it would lead to far happier days.

Because we’re just
She was a paradox, and she was a network of conflicting statements and actions. She certainly wasn’t easy to understand. But, in the end, she was merely a dark gray tabby she-cat with a painful past. A painful past that would end today. And she could choose how she handled her past. With dignity or with shame.
We cannot control what has happened to us, or what will. We can not control the circumstances under which we partake our terribly, terribly tragic lives. And we cannot control the fact that someday we will be whisked off to a senseless oblivion where no one will care who we are or what we have done. But we can live our now. And we can choose who we are. Not where we are or what we come from. But the substance in our hearts rather than our skin and our brains. The fabric of our thoughts and our words can be spun by us. It is your choice. It is always your choice.
She was no longer controlled by those around her, and she was no longer controlling others. Not a puppetmaster nor the puppet. She was cutting the strings. She was utterly and painfully herself.
She was Willow.

Beautiful people with beautiful problems, yeah (we’re just)
She would be herself. That was the one thing in this world that she had, and the one thing that she could control. Not the color of her fur. Not the darkness of her past. But she could choose not to be a murderer.
This wasn’t her. Not these bloody claws. Not this water bubble. She wasn’t like Spike. She wasn’t like Flower. She had chosen. She had chosen her friends, and she was sticking by that choice. Sure, she’d killed, but that didn’t mean she had to anymore. She wasn’t Willow the killer, Willow the gang member. She was Willow the soft-pelt, Willow the kind-hearted. For better or for worse.
She just now realized it, but in an instant everything clicked. Her choices … she’d chosen her friends. She’d chosen to leave the gang. She’d always ran, and she never truly escaped, but … maybe that was because she’d never found what she was running to.
She was not violent. She was not using her power as leverage. She was the sacrifice. There were greater things in this life than herself, and now she knew that.
Choices, choices, choices. They had led her here. And she knew what to do.

Beautiful problems, God knows we’ve got them (beautiful people)
Whether it was good or whether it was bad, she was not a killer. In her past, perhaps. Every day she made a choice, and today she was choosing to be better. She had been dark in her past. But maybe this didn’t mean she was lying to herself. Maybe it just meant she could become someone new. Maybe she was finally seeing the truth. Circumstances had forced her to be the way she had; perhaps now she could finally be true to her heart. All along she’d been waiting. Waiting for something to change. And now it had. She had. It didn’t matter who she’d been or what she’d done. This was a clean slate. She didn’t need to kill her enemies to start over. All she needed was a choice.
She sheathed her claws. Wiped the water out of her eyes. Today was not the day for anger. It was the day for remorse.

Beautiful people with beautiful problems, yeah (we need to talk)
She had always held some forgiveness in her heart for Flower and Spike. But even if she didn’t feel that forgiveness – it wasn’t her place to judge. They were all victims of circumstance and tragedy, and they were doing what they thought was right. In the end, who was to say where the line between good and evil should be drawn? Or life and death? They were all living and dying, because eventually the claws of death would snare them. These things coexisted, and without one the other could not live. They were forever entangled in one another, and they lived inside the other. Light and dark were just hues. Life and death were just different stages of existence. And good and bad were just words for one to justify their own actions.
Forever irrevocably entangled.

Beautiful problems, God knows we got them
It was time. Time do do what she’d know she had to do all along.

So beautiful (yeah)
Step, step. Thud, thud.
Looking down on the earth, you may not see all the strife and pain and terror. But you also wouldn’t see the happiness of a single moment. The fragile, short-lived joy of foolish hearts who know how to do nothing other than hope. Hope futilely. And you wouldn’t see a changed heart going to do something that was hard – even now, after resolving to be peaceful. A heart ready to be a sacrifice.

Yeah, yeah
This was her chance. And she didn’t need claws or water to do it. All she needed was herself.
She began to walk faster, scents tickling her nose as she picked out a particular one.

Yeah, yeah
She may not live. But that was her choice. And she finally felt grateful to the path that had led her here. Darkness was entangled in light, and she should see the night to fully appreciate the sunrise.
She was here. She was ready.
“Hello, Willow.”