Title: It Might Kill Me
Summary: Misty/Silver. Mistyfoot wants something she can't have.
Warnings: Femslash. Don't like, don't read. (:
Disclaimer: Warriors is (c) Erin Hunter. Lyrics from If It Kills Me (c) Jason Mraz.
A/N: First Warriors fanfic I've written in years. Misty/Silver is a viable pairing, actually, they were really close.
Well, all I really wanna do is to love you
A kind much closer than friends use
But I still can't say it after all we've been through.
--
It began when they were apprentices.
They had always been close, even as kits, which was not surprising. Silverkit was an only kit and lonely; Mistykit was the she-kit closest to her in age, and, with two brothers, eager for female companionship. So they grew up like sisters.
Silverkit was very lovely, even as a kit; delicate-boned and with a graceful arch to her neck and cool eyes the colour of ice - she carried an air of regal confidence that probably came from her being the leader Crookedstar's daughter and which somehow suited her. Nevertheless she had a kind heart and was romantic, dreamy and trusting - perhaps too much so. Mistykit was pretty, if not breathtakingly beautiful, with a glossy dark pelt and wide blue eyes. She was affectionate, sweet and intensely loyal to her best friend.
The moons passed; before they knew it they became Mistypaw and Silverpaw.
It was exciting being apprentices. Hunting, fishing, battle training; they threw themselves into these activities with the boundless energy of the young. Their mentors - Silverpaw had the large but gentle Heavystep and Mistypaw the jovial, clownish Loudbelly - were close friends and often trained their apprentices together. The two young she-cats were inseparable.
Mistypaw was as close to Silverpaw as she was to her brother Stonepaw. In fact, as apprentices, she and Stonepaw drifted apart - he had the strict, fierce Leopardfur for a mentor and she kept him busy from sunrise to sundown. They didn't spend much time together.
Mistypaw loved Silverpaw. She loved her with all her heart and would have trusted her with her life. Undeniably, Silverpaw loved her back too.
However, loving someone is not the same as being in love with someone. And Mistypaw soon realised that she was deeply and passionately in love with Silverpaw.
To start with, there was the little tingle that went through her everytime they touched. As close friends, this happened a lot - pelts touching as they shared a magpie, or curled up cosily in the same nest at night. And everytime they did, Mistypaw felt herself melt a little inside.
Then there was the staring. She often caught herself watching Silverpaw, admiring her graceful strokes as she swam, the intensity in her blue eyes as she stalked a squirrel or a leaf, the bunching of muscles under her smooth gleaming silvery fur. Everytime she caught herself she would feel her pelt grow hot with embarrassment and shame, and ducking her head, pretend she hadn't noticed. But she couldn't lie to herself.
StarClan believe her, she tried. She didn't want to be in love with her best friend. She knew Silverpaw felt nothing of the sort towards her. She wondered if it was wrong and unnatural to feel this way about another she-cat, if the warrior ancestors in the sky would hate her (or, at least, punish her) for it. She told herself they were just friends.
When that failed, she tried to make herself fall out of love. She avoided her friend for a long time, until Silverpaw cornered her, eyes narrowed.
"You've been avoiding me, haven't you. Why?" she demanded.
The dark grey she-cat trembled, overcome by their closeness. She dropped her eyes, unable to meet her friend's perplexed gaze, and lied for all she was worth.
"I - I've just been rather tired and busy. Sorry."
Silverpaw's blue eyes softened with concern and she licked Mistypaw's ear gently. "Take care of yourself, honey. You work too hard."
Mistypaw longed to turn and run. She couldn't face her friend. She lived each day in an anguish of terror, fearing Silverpaw would see the infatuation in her eyes, fearing she never would.
It hurt. It hurt so much that sometimes she could feel a physical pain clawing at her heart, because she knew she could never have Silverpaw. It hurt knowing that she cared about Silverpaw more intensely and painfully than Silverpaw would ever care about her.
So she tried her very best to let go, even though she knew it wouldn't work.
Somehow, Silverpaw didn't notice - a blessing and a curse. Lying in their nest at night with her head on her paws, Mistypaw wondered how Silverpaw might react if she found out. Would she spit at Mistypaw? Look at her with shock and disgust? Break off their friendship? She imagined and she cringed inside. It was good that Silverpaw didn't realise, but it was bad too, because it meant that the lovely she-cat continued to be affectionate to her friend - licks on the cheek, the gentle sharing of tongues that all close friends gave to each other - and everytime she was, Mistyfoot was tormented by the knowledge that she could never have more than that.
Six moons passed somehow very quickly and very slowly at the same time. They finished their apprenticeship and were made warriors - Mistyfoot and her brother Stonefur, and Silverstream. (Silverstream, thought Mistyfoot, letting the name echo in her head, thinking it sounded so swift and graceful and so, so right for her beautiful friend.)
Silverstream and Mistyfoot, the inseperable pair. But if only they were more than that.
They were hunting beside the river one day when the terrified yowl of a cat in danger sounded from up ahead. They glanced at each other, then bounded towards the sound. The unfamiliar scent hit them like a falling tree, and Mistyfoot hesitated when she saw that the cat who had fallen in the river was from ThunderClan. Silverstream never paused, leaping into the river and swimming like a graceful shining fish to pull the ThunderClan warrior out of the water.
The tom coughed up water while his friend, a fluffy ginger tom - Fireheart, she remembered vaguely, the one who had been a kittypet, wasn't it? - scurried anxiously around his prone form. And Mistyfoot, she padded a little closer and then stopped, shuddering as sorrow sank like a stone into her heart, because she had seen the expression on Silverstream's face and realised that she had immediately fallen hopelessly in love with the currently sodding wet but nevertheless rather handsome specimen of a tom that she had dragged out of the river.
His name was Graystripe of ThunderClan, a young, overenthusiastic warrior much like themselves, and for the next few moons she would be hearing a lot about him.
Silverstream met him often, slipping away from her warrior duties whenever she could. Mistyfoot, in the middle of stalking a mouse, would suddenly think of her with him and be forced to shut her eyes tight to keep the sudden welling emotion from spilling out. Yes, she could just imagine them, the powerful grey tabby tom with his perpetual goofy smile and her, her precious, delicate Silverstream, curled neatly up next to him in the glade. His laugh must be good-natured and free, hers would be silvery and musical like the moonlight.
Mistyfoot often lay at night in an agony of frustrated hopelessness and thought about the reasons why she wouldn't - or couldn't - tell Crookedstar of his daughter's forbidden love. First. of course, it was because Silverstream would never forgive her, and she couldn't bear that. Second...the second reason was more complicated. She decided, her heart wrenching bitterly, that maybe it was because she understood how it felt to love and crave someone you knew you weren't supposed to have. She would never be able to fulfill the aching desire in her own heart, but she couldn't deny the cat she loved the same fulfillment, nor would she have wished upon Silverstream the same pain that Mistyfoot herself went through every day.
It was kind of ironic, in a way, she thought with grim humour.
Then came a day when Silverstream didn't return. They didn't search for a day, sure that she would return on her own. Finally, overcome with anxiety, Mistyfoot went seeking her.
At the border, next to the river, she met Fireheart. His fur was matted and there was grief and some indescribable emotion in his eyes. He looked at her, and, sounding choked, mewed, "Mistyfoot, it's bad news. I'm so sorry..."
The world seemed to spin around her, dread thudding like crows' wings in her ears.
"...Silverstream is dead."
Stunned blue eyes. "Dead? She can't be!"
He explained, and then she believed. Helplessly, Mistyfoot threw back her head and keened, her anguished wails rending the air. Dimly, she felt Fireheart press comfortingly against her, his green eyes huge with worry.
When her wailing died away, she swallowed, then murmured with weary sadness, "I knew no good would come of it."
So very ironic, in the end; they had both wanted something they shouldn't have. Silverstream had taken it, and paid with her life. Mistyfoot hadn't, and she thought she might die from the pain.
"I told her not to meet Graystripe, but would she listen? And now...I can't believe I'll never see her again."
She hadn't thought her heart capable of breaking any further, but right there and then it had.
--
And all I really want from you is to feel me
As the feeling inside keeps building
And I will find a way to you if it kills me, if it kills me
I think it might kill me