Author's note: I blame the Erins for breaking my heart and feels with Bluestar's Prophecy, as well as inspiring the muse. As this is my first attempt at Warriors fic, I hope I do it justice.
Timeline note: Consider this a missing scene between the end of chapter 41 of Bluestar's Prophecy and the prologue of Forest of Secrets.
Legal B.S.: Kits, cats, Clans and (nine) lives—the Warriors series, canon cats and all book elements are property of Erin Hunter and HarperCollins Publishers. I can only claim this little piece of angst.
Many thanks to: Brambleshadow for being my beta eyes and sounding board!
Sorrow is Blue
Please take care of them.
Bluefur's parting words rang in Oakheart's head, a bitter echo to the plaintive cries of Mistykit and Stonekit as they cried in vain for their mother not to leave them. He wanted to cry too, to howl the unfairness and pain of his loss to the clear night sky, howl so loud that the whole forest would hear him. The wind suddenly picked up in a frigid blast, catching snow in its grip and forming a swirling cloud of white. It soon swallowed up Bluefur's distant form; when it cleared, she had disappeared. It was as if she'd never been there.
A small part of Oakheart wanted to dig a hole in the drifts and hide from the world, but he couldn't allow himself to be so mouse-brained. He had the kits to care for. His kits. They had both fallen silent, shivering violently as their sad eyes still stared into the distance where their mother had vanished.
"Come on," he meowed encouragingly. Nudging their small forms with his nose, he began to plow back through the snow the way he had come.
Please take care of them.
He would keep that promise. But to speak of her again, he could not do. To allow himself to remember their stolen moments would be an even bigger mistake. Yet the very thought made the memories flood his mind: how the moonlight made her eyes gleam, her teasing purr when she'd enticed him to climb one of the great oaks of Fourtrees, the softness of her fur against his own...
Shaking his head with an inward growl, he chased them away. He would have to put her out of his mind for good. When he saw her at future Gatherings, he would never again be able to look at her as the cat he had once loved. He would have to treat her like a stranger—just another ThunderClan cat.
And Mistykit and Stonekit would have to grow up seeing their mother as the enemy.
*fin*