A/N: If you recognize what song this was partly inspired by, you get a cookie! Challenge for The Three Tribes forum. Enjoy!
He was running. He felt the long grass around him tug at his tabby brown fur, twist at his paws. He felt the breeze, what was normally an ally that aided him in the hunt, turn on him with a vengeance as its strength forced his ears against his head. Yet, he dug his claws into the earth and continued running through his prairie home. No, Tigerfang was not running for his life, for he was not in any danger. His own mind and heart were bogged down with the confusion and guilt because of what he was running for, no, chasing for. What he was potentially throwing away his future for.
"Silverpaw! Silverpaw!" he practically roared out as he skidded to a stop, his paws feeling too heavy to take another step. His green eyes darted around the endless sea of gold helplessly, trying to locate a sign as to where the cause of his hysterics was.
The cause that never wanted to be in his world in the first place. The cause that most likely returned to her own place in her own, little world.
Silence. Deafening silence was what he was met with. The setting sun bared down on his pelt, and the grass continued to merrily dance in the breeze, as if mocking him. His teeth clenched together as he struggled to find the word that began everything. The name that began everything.
"Silvia!"
Blue eyes. Beautiful, iridescent blue eyes. Eyes that revealed a world to him he did not know of, a world so different than his own. One without a warrior code, one without expectations, one without his ancestors in the sky. A sharp tongue that spoke whenever she wished, however she wished. A silver pelt that flowed in the wind as she matched its pace and picky dance perfectly.
"My name is Silvia, and I'm not one of you."
"Death, or imprisonment in this hell you call a Clan? I'll gladly take death."
"My name is not Silverpaw! You can't take who I am from me!"
"This life you live, what is the point of it if you can't live for yourself in fear of the stars above you?"
"Tigerfang, I don't need nor want your help! Stay away from me!"
"Tigerfang, when will you tell me the truth of how you really feel about this? About your Clan? About me?"
"Tigerfang, I love you."
"Tigerfang, please, I don't want to be here anymore...Come with me. To my world."
"Tigerfang." "Tigerfang!" "Tigerfang..."
"Tigerfang, I'll kill you!"
A weight suddenly pressed down on him, shocking him out of thoughts, as he was pressed down into the soil on his back. He didn't resist, for the scent of lilacs and frost were all to familiar to him.
"You...you...it's all your fault!" his she-cat spat at him, her fur bristling as she towered over him. She was shaking with rage, with her claws on one paw digging into his neck.
He was in a state of complete vulnerability, and he didn't even attempt to stop her.
"I know," he replied simply, looking up at her. "I'm the one that had you captured, in fear that you'd attack because you were a rogue. I know."
"Th-they took my identity! Tried to...mate me off to you! Just for kittens for the good and livelihood of the Clan!"
"I know."
"All those seasons I had to stay in a world that I'll never belong. A world that worships stars as deities!"
He should have felt angry at that comment, but he only felt confusion, and a gaping emptiness. Time and time again they argued over who was right, about how there were ancestors in the sky, about how if they truly existed, then why weren't they helping her? Why they never helped her?
He then spoke up, his green eyes blazing to life. At that moment, they looked like forest home she had described to him in her stories.
"I know. All the apologizing I could do, and have already done, won't fix the past, Silvia. Just...come back. Not to my Clan. Not to my world," he continued as he pushed upward from the ground slightly so their chests were touching, her claws only digging further in so they drew blood. "But to me. I've spent moons looking for what I have lost, and even if you run again, I will find you. I will follow you to the depths of the Dark Forest if I have to."
At the mention of the Dark Forest, the she-cat stiffened and only looked at him with eyes that were draining away of emotion. The next words were equally lifeless. "...Fine. Follow me. If, in your eyes, I'm already subjected to the Dark Forest...then I may as well have company."
The next few moments were a blur of hissing, rolling, clawing, and lost fur as the two cats fought. One fighting to prove his strength of will to the other, that there was more to life than the death she was seeking with him, and the other simply wishing to escape everything.
"Tell me what you want me to say, Silvia!" he hissed out, crouching low to the ground in front of her with his fangs bared. "I'd do anything to have you stay with me, to make things right!" His anger was threatening to wash away all of his rational thoughts, the same anger that ran through his veins like liquid fire when he first learned that she was willing to leave, even without him.
Like when she did leave him.
"You want a revelation? You want to get right?" she growled out mockingly, her claws dug into the ground as she scored it with marks, almost desperately wishing it was his pelt beneath them instead of soil.
Night replaced day as the air around them chilled her to the bone, freezing her already cold heart.
"Well, here's your revelation: you can't choose what stays and what fades away. You can give you excuses, but it's conversation I just can't have tonight," as she finished speaking, her bright blue eyes bared into his green ones. Those blue eyes now filled with darkness. Those eyes that lost their light long ago because of him. "Leave your Clan behind. Leave your StarClan Behind. No more excuses, no more roundabout conversations. Follow me, and I will follow you."
Then, she was gone, leaving Tigerfang alone with the stars looking down on him. He sheathed his claws, got out of his crouch, and looked back up at them.
Finally, he whispered, "What do you want me to say, StarClan? Forgive me, for I have sinned? ...Can you even hear me?"
A few seconds passed, and he got up and left his world. The shackles weighing down his paws broke apart, and he entered her world, and now his, to regain what he lost.
The stars never spoke a word.