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"Why did you do it?"
The night was dark around them, shadowing the silent world they had fallen still in. In front of their paws laid a small mound of disturbed dirt, stamped with two paw prints to represent the life hidden beneath. For a little while there had been five gathered around the grave with their heads bowed in mourning of a cat only one had known. But there was only so much time a cat could spend mourning someone they didn't know. So five had become four, and then three; until only two were left.
Sitting in silence the two stared down at the grave sorrowfully. A family had been torn apart just beyond the tree-line behind them; a family that hadn't done anything wrong, innocent until the moment they crumbled. The question hung in the air, the tom that had asked it gazing expectantly at the she-cat with the shattered life. He had tried to imagine what the long-dead mother might have looked like by observing the she-cat – the daughter – that sat beside him. A warm, motherly gaze, long white fur, brown face and more beauty than any Clan cat; near identical to the she-cat beside him save for the warm, motherly gaze. There was something within Willowclaw that just knew Icepetal would never allow her gaze to warm up to anyone.
Everyone had known Icepetal had not been a full-blooded Clan cat, even Willowclaw had known that when he had first looked upon the SnowClan she-cat during their strained first meeting. No Clan cat could possibly produce something as beautiful as Icepetal, but to discover her half-Clan lineage had been surprising. She must be the spitting image of her mother then, he'd decided.
He mightn't like the SnowClan warrior much but there was no denying how pretty she was.
"Why did I do what?"
Her voice was cracked, showing the emotional strain she was suffering.
"Hide who you are from everyone," he murmured.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, "my siblings and I were ridiculed for supposedly being full rogues. Imagine what the Clan would've had to say if I was to just announce that my siblings and I weren't full rogues and were in fact half-Clan?"
"I see your point but wouldn't it have been nice to at least have one cat that knew what your siblings and you knew? Someone that you could talk to?"
"I did," her voice turned cold. "I told one cat what I really was. He didn't seem to care and that made me feel a little better about perhaps one day telling the Clan. But he actually did care that I was half-Clan, not that I found out until I embarrassed myself in front of him and his soon-to-be mate."
Willowclaw tilted his head to one side. "What'd you do? I didn't think there was anything the great Icepetal could do that would embarrass herself."
He didn't miss the small smirk that played across her lips, and he felt his heart skip a little for some strange reason. "I asked him to be my mate. And he turned me down."
"Because of your lineage?" Willowclaw smothered his surprised with another question. So the SnowClan warrior had once wanted to settle down with a mate? How strange. He couldn't picture the independent, icy warrior wanting to be burdened down by something as small as love. But then again there wasn't much he knew about her, besides who she truly was, which – now that he thought about it – was a lot more than most cats knew.
"Why else would he reject me?" she hissed through gritted teeth. "I was the only she-cat he'd ever gotten close to, I thought he returned that affection, but I was wrong. He picked a ditsy, plain Clan cat over me, one that he'd hardly ever spoken to."
"So you blamed the fact that he rejected you because he knew you were half-Clan? Seems a little far-fetched to me. You're not that much of a catch, you know? Bit jagged around the edges." The lies felt heavy on his tongue as they slipped out of his mouth. Icepetal was more than just a catch, though he didn't know why he thought that. Any tom would be lucky to have such an independent, strong-willed, feisty she-cat as his mate. Her beauty was just an added bonus.
Icepetal turned on him with a snarl. "Every cat is jagged around the edges, fool! Even you with your stuck-up attitude and thick-headedness are jagged. Maybe you'd understand if you actually had a brain to think with," she sneered and stormed off deeper into the forest.
He rolled his eyes and groaned. He'd only been trying to lighten the mood a little with some playful joking! Apparently Icepetal couldn't take a joke. The insult hadn't been necessary either. "Hey!" he shouted angrily. "Get back here! I wasn't done talking to you!"
"Funny, I was done talking to you," Icepetal spat over her shoulder as she reached her forelegs up the trunk of a tree and hauled herself into the branches.
Willowclaw's pursuit came to a sudden stop as he watched her climb gracefully into the tree. She really was amazing. He blinked and shook his head. Such thoughts were useless and unwanted at a time like this; he was angry at her for storming off midway through their conversation and calling him stupid. Besides, he disliked every moral fibre of the SnowClan she-cat. He admired her for the strength she had but he most certainly didn't like her, not one bit.
The tree's rough bark scraped against his paw pads as he place his forepaws on the broad trunk, staring up into the tangle of branches and leaves, spotting Icepetal as she stared down at him with a lashing tail. Her brilliant blue eyes were narrowed with annoyance but still cracked with grief and sadness. He could practically sense her overwhelming sense of loss as she was reminded of her hard past. "Why are you following me!?" she snarled as he scrambled ungracefully onto one of the lower branches.
"Because," he grunted, "we weren't done talking."
"I thought I made it pretty clear that we were."
He shook his head with a small smirk but said nothing as he worked on navigating the branches that were safest to step on. After only a few near misses he reached a branch that was just a little lower than the one Icepetal had remained sitting on. He was surprised to find that she hadn't moved but had apparently waited for him to catch up. "And what else are we supposed to talk about?" she hissed. "You already know one of my darkest secrets. Isn't it your turn to share?"
"You have more dark secrets?" he cocked his head to one side, an interested shine appearing in his amber eyes.
Icepetal sighed loudly and shoved him so that he nearly fell backwards off the branch. "You're not having them, not yet any way."
"Not yet? I can wait. How long are we talking about? A couple of days?"
She couldn't help but smirk a little, "more like a couple of moons."
"Couple of moons!?" he exclaimed. "What's the chance of either of us remembering that you have to share another dark secret with me in a couple of moons?"
"Not a very big chance especially with your tiny brain."
Willowclaw wrinkled his nose. "I'm not stupid you know," he grumbled.
"You sure act like it," she sneered.
He shook his head slightly, leaning back against the trunk to provide himself with some safety from anymore of Icepetal's sudden attacks. "Not all of us can be geniuses. There have to be a few stupid cats to balance it out," he muttered.
The branch above him shifted as Icepetal crept gently across it, careful not to slip off and plummet to the ground below. "Sometimes it's the stupid ones that have the greatest plans."
"What? Rush in without thinking and nearly get killed?" he snorted, indicating to the shoulder he'd injured the last time he'd run blindly into a battle without thinking.
"You got us out of the camp alive didn't you?" Icepetal pointed out. She stretched out along the branch allowing her spine to crack a little.
Before Willowclaw could open his mouth to reply the branch Icepetal was reclining across gave an almighty crack and then gave way. Moving quicker than he'd probably ever moved before, he threw himself forwards managing to sink his teeth into Icepetal's scruff before she fell out of his reach and crashed to the ground beneath them. With surprising ease he lifted Icepetal's rigid body out of thin air, depositing her gently on the bigger branch he had chosen to remain on. As he let go of her scruff he paused to murmur in her ear, "how about we don't get killed falling out of trees today?"
Her eyes softened a fraction when he pulled back and looked at her. "That sounds like a good idea," she chuckled quietly.
"Come closer to the trunk, the branch is thicker here so you won't break another one," he smirked tapping the spot beside him with his tail.
Icepetal nodded slightly before carefully shuffling closer. There wasn't much room between them but the she-cat was shorter than he was so he could still see over her head. Their fur brushed together but Willowclaw did not find it uncomfortable in the slightest. In fact, he almost admitted to himself that he enjoyed the feeling. He could hear her heartbeat in the silence that enveloped them as their conversation died a little, could hear how frantically it beat. A slight smile pulled at the corners of his muzzle but he didn't know why.
"Do you think we'll come home?" Icepetal asked suddenly.
He glanced down his muzzle at her, shrugging his shoulders casually. "I don't know. We might actually beat Crimson and go home, or we might all die."
"How can you act so indifferent about it?"
"I've seen what's going to happen to this world if we lose and I'd rather not be alive if it happens. So, if that means I have to put my life on the line to save the world from Crimson's reign then so be it. I'm prepared to give up my life. Are you?" he replied smoothly.
She ruffled her fur and scratched at the branch absently, "no. I thought I was when I first joined up with Tornheart but…now I'm not so sure. It probably sounds selfish but I don't want to give up my life for a Clan that hates who I am. They exiled me, remember?"
"A stupid decision but a decision they made probably because of something you'd done," he pointed out. "If you aren't prepared to give up your life for your Clan then give it up for your family. You said you still had siblings in your Clan, didn't you? And there's your other sister, the one that left, she might still be alive. Do it for them."
"I suppose," she muttered uneasily. "I'm not ready to give up a life I haven't lived yet. Sure, I was a warrior before I was exiled but I haven't had a mate or kits or a family to call my own. I haven't had the chance to become deputy or prove to SnowClan that I'm more than just some rogue."
"Is falling in love with someone that loves you back really that important to you?" Willowclaw murmured.
She twisted her body to look up at him, showing him the pain in her blue eyes. "I mightn't seem like that kind of she-cat but…but it's really important. So important that I can't really explain it."
"You'll find that somebody when you least expect it. It'll kind of hit you in the face and leave you standing there with a lopsided grin on your face thinking how stupid you were to have ever worried about not finding someone to live the rest of your life with."
"Kinda like the lopsided grin you're giving me now?"
Their eyes met, Willowclaw's heart skipping yet another beat as he quickly changed the lopsided grin into a slight frown. He didn't even like the she-cat and here he was giving her lopsided grins as if he was some immature apprentice! Singe would not be pleased.
"No!" he sputtered. "I was only giving you an idea of what to look out for."
Icepetal snickered as she turned away, staring up through the leaves to the smoke-filled sky above them. "They say the best love is insane."
"They do? First time I've ever heard it," Willowclaw grunted, grateful for the slight change in subject.
"My mother used to tell us all the time. Maybe that's why she and my Clan father fell in love. Maybe they didn't want ordinary love but instead craved an insane love that put them way out of their comfort zone, something that demanded they move mountains for each other," she smiled.
"Would you move mountains for the one you love?"
She returned her eyes to him. His heart sped up, skipping beats. Her breath quickened ever so slightly as her eyes widened. His pelt warmed considerably as the small space between their bodies shrunk rapidly, their bodies leaning into each other. "I'd move the whole world."
"Sounds like a big commitment," he mumbled as their muzzles brushed together.
"Just as big as giving up your life to save the world," she whispered as her eyes slid closed.
When they opened again Willowclaw could see the grief slowly disappearing, replaced by something he had never seen light up the she-cat's eyes before.
No. You don't even like her! You can't stand her! She's an enemy warrior! A cold, rude, haughty, arrogant, stuck up SnowClan warrior!
But as he gazed into her eyes he realised that it was all a lie.
It wasn't love that he was feeling, it most certainly wasn't love. But it was something completely new to him, something that he'd never experienced before. It felt alive and dangerous, like a snake waiting to strike; potent and extremely addictive.
"You've got that lopsided grin again."
"So do you."
AN: Characters from Game of Blood: Chasing the Sun.
This was supposed to be an entirely AU one-shot. Swyfte wanted a 'Wice' (WillowclawXIcepetal) one-shot so I happily obliged and NOW I SHIP THEM GOD DAMMIT SWYFTE. Technically, if this was to happen in Chasing the Sun, it would have occurred either in between chapter 13 and 14 or after chapter 14. Might be able to fit it in. Might not be able to. I have yet to decide.
-нυηтєя