[BlooRey DVD]

TRIGGER WARNING: Mercy killing.

if I told you what I was,
would you turn your back on me?
Would you be scared?

His ears were filled with a sound he could not fathom to describe. The ground beneath his paws shuddered and roared with a ferocity unmatched by even the greatest storm he'd witnessed. Sharp yellow eyes snapped from one side to the other, pupils contracting to pinpricks as his breath shivered in the cavity of his chest. An iciness crept through his veins, an uncomfortable chill he refused to give a name. Even as he felt the earth under his left hind paw shift and threaten to fall out beneath him, his focus remained trained on something else.

"Palescreech!" Her name ripped itself from his throat, attempting to be heard above the bellow of the land.

Flattening his ears against his skull, he shot forward, claws scrapping at whatever he could find purchase in as he forced his aging form to continue. To keep going. Somehow they'd become separated in the chaos. He swore she'd been at his side a moment before, but when he looked back toward her? She'd vanished.

By the time another cat had noticed her disappearance, Nightstep had already began pulling away. "I will find her." He rasped gruffly, not bothering to wait for confirmation nor denial before he vanished into a landscape breaking to pieces.

Jaws parted as he tried to make sense of the flurry of new smells, the ebony and ivory demon beginning to wonder if he'd ever find a trace of her. Despite the never-ceasing cacophony of a crumbling world, his ear caught onto something different. Something alive. Something in agony. Yellow eyes whirled toward their still-unseen target. As he tore around a corner, a part of his heart sank; for caught in the ruins of one of LightningClan's tunnels was the pale fur of his mate, Palescreech.

Closing the remaining distance in a bound, the tuxedo tom swept his gaze over her. "Palescreech. Don't move." White paws began scrabbling at the dirt and stone around her, yellow eyes avoiding looking at the mountain of rubble that had collected overtop of her. All she could manage in response was a whimper, her breathing ragged as the claws on her forepaws curled in a reflection of her agony. Still, he did not stop. Even as he felt his claws catch and tear, he dug at the tomb atop her hindquarters.

It wasn't until she coughed, spattering the tumultuous ground with crimson blood from her jaws that he stilled his paws. Her brilliant eyes, dulled with pain, lazily slid to meet his. And in them, he read a silent plea.

His rump dropped slightly beneath the weight of the request, yellow eyes slipping shut for a brief instant as he pushed his head into hers. He felt her shudder again, though it could have easily been the earth itself.

"L.. Love..." She rasped, any further words sticking in her throat as the pain overwhelmed her. Shifting to drape his neck over hers, he pulled himself closer to her. Gritting his teeth against the lump in his throat, he rasped against her ear.

"Hush, my dear. I love you, too. To the end of the world."

He traced the curve of her neck with his nose as she lay against him, the motion slow, careful despite the chaos of jostling moorland around them. He paused only when he reached her shoulderblades, letting his eyes close for a heartbeat.

And in one swift movement, he closed his jaws around her neck, burying his fangs into her throat. She seized beneath him as the tang of blood filled his senses. Her claws dragged through the ground, her body rebelling against what her mind had asked of him. She struggled against him for another agonizing moment, before her breath escaped her in a sigh that could have been described as relieved.

And her form sagged against him, lifeless. Motionless, save the movement forced upon it by the obstreperous earth.

When his maw released her, laying her gently upon his muddied paws, it remained parted. Crimson blood dripped from between his teeth, his yellow eyes staring at nothing.

Every ragged breath pulled the scent of blood, her blood, into his senses. Yet instead of feeling satisfied, of feeling any rise, he felt... Empty. Not the familiar disregard he felt for the lives he took. No, it was as though something had been snatched from him.

Slowly, he dragged his gaze back to the lifeless form of what had once been the center of his world. Forcing his jaw closed, he moved stiffly, mechanically, to lay his chin upon the crown of her head. And as the world around him fell to pieces in giant swathes of land, for the first genuine time in his life…

He grieved.

nightstep

senior warrior of lightningclan

~790 words @tag And thus, his life comes to a close. RIP, Nightstep.