DOW || Loss

    No, it couldn’t be happening.

    The ghost of his smile, those twinkling amber eyes she had grown to trust more than StarClan itself were burnt into her memory, the sound of his voice, the scent that had once wrapped around her, soothed her worries and lifted her heart. They were all layered in her mind, swirling, roiling.

    He was gone…he was…gone.

    She had smiled for him, told him everything would be okay. Kept up a brave face for her kits, stayed strong, stoic as the life faded out of him, her muzzle pressed to his, whispering quiet murmurs of love into his fur even after he had passed to the stars. She had shared stories, reminiscing of back when they were young and had first met, of their love that had transcended boundaries and built a family, a new life. And of how their love had grown ever stronger, how she loved him more than the stars themselves, more than the moon, more than the passing night.

    She had stayed by his side as long as she could, long after the warmth of life had faded from his bones, long after the scent of death had wrapped him in a silent cocoon. It was only after Fleetingbite had pulled her away from her fallen mate’s body, gently whispered for her to return to camp, and only after the moon had risen high in the sky that she let it all out, her body trembling, chest twisted with grief.

    She’d gone to the furthest corner of the camp, hidden behind a boulder and cried. Like a monsoon, the emotion crashed over her, and she was drowning in pure grief, curled up into a tight, agonized ball. A half-silent wail rose from her maw, the sound heart-wrenching, wordless, but told all that needed to be said. She cried for her youngest son, who had disappeared into the night, cried for her lost love, the one who had shown her the world, what it meant to love….cried for the family who had lost their father. She cried for her eldest, Burningdust, who had so much left to live for…mourned for the kits whose father’s face they wouldn’t remember – her grandkits, so young and innocent, whose lives would soon be shattered. Cried for the whole that had torn in her chest, infinite, ever growing, filled with an emptiness that could never be filled.

    She cried for the life that was, the lives that never was.

    The lives cut short.

    The missing, the ill, the wounded.

    The lives that would be turned on their heads, that would never be the same.

    And she cried for the life growing in her womb,  the nameless heartbeats whose father they would never know…not until they, too, transcended to the starry realm far above. Who would only know him from stories, a shadow in the back of their mind.

    He didn’t even know they existed. Didn’t know of the life that had blossomed and was sprouting deep within her, didn’t know of the kittens…their last…that would soon greet the world. She was planning on telling him that night, after she knew for sure.

    A silent, fat tear, glimmering in starlight rolled down her cheek.

    “I-I love you, Shiningwing…I love you…”

    Her sobbing turned into muffled murmurs, her fur, splashed with tabby markings, marred by dark lines rimmed in salt. It was the first time in the long time she had cried. She was falling, falling, deep into a darkness, to a place where no light shined.

    “…Ma?”

    Her little twinkle of light, her third born son. Taking a sharp inhale, the tortoiseshell desperately tried to rub away the tears that tracked down her cheeks, dripped into shadows of puddles beneath her. Scorchfrost’s eyes were hollow. He looked lost, his gaze almost staring right through her. She could tell he was fighting back tears, his teeth clenched, muzzle scrunched upwards and ears pressed tight against his skull. For a moment, he looked like the tiny bundle of fur so much like his father’s cuddled against his belly, the tiny son who had proudly declared that he would be the greatest warrior in the Clan someday.

    She fought back another bout of tears, forcing herself to swallow, and offered him a gentle, sad smile, and almost instantaneously, the larger tom collapsed against her side, his forehead pressed into her thick fur, his sides heaving with silent tears he tried so hard to hide from the world.

    Her heart twisting, the patched she-cat wrapped a paw around her son’s neck, pulling his head gently against her chest, grooming his head in calming strokes like she had done when he was first born, when he had cried to her about a stubbed toe, a snagged claw.

    All those little memories were rolling in her mind, so close and so far at the same time, so important, and so infinitesimal at the same time.  And, pressed into her son’s fur, she quietly murmured him a promise.

    Everything would be okay.

    Their family had been broken, shattered.

    But they would be alright.

    Eventually, they would be alright.

    They had to. For Burningdust, for Nightpaw, for Shiningwing…for eachother.

    And for the new little miracles that would soon know the world. And their father, their siblings, would watch over them, guide them until they too were to climb the sky to Silverpelt.

    For a moment, as her son’s sobs quieted into a fitful sleep, the little queen could have sworn the air grew a little warmer, and that all-too-familiar scent wrapped around them, almost like a whisper on a breeze. “I’m here.”

    Eyes closing with tears as the scent grew stronger, wrapping around her in a silent, comforting gesture, the little cat smiled.