Disclaimer: Do I look like Erin Hunter? Any of them? No.
A/N: Ashfur was supposed to be dead, but then I went, 'eh, better not'. I like how this turned out, though.
AshfurxSquirrelflight
Requested by Steve the Icecube
Fire rippled across the wood, dancing and leaping through the air as trees tumbled around them. Smoke billowed high in the air, and the four cats coughed and gagged as the smoke filled their lungs. The ginger she-cat glanced around, her eyes stinging as flames drove her to a few of the remaining trees. The three cats stood next to her, the medicine cat apprentice hollering out cries and demands and curses to StarClan, whereas the other tabby resorted to trying to shove burning trees down but looking in dismay as it only added to the fire and spread across the trunk before they could make it safely across. The last cat, the darkest furred of them all had resorted to searching frantically around to find an escape route.
The ginger pelted warrior gagged on the smoke, heaving in as much air as she could before breaking into a coughing fit again. The crackle of flames overode the voices of her kin and the heat was enough to drive her mad. Suddenly, a yowl sounded through the air and all four cats froze and glanced over in time to see a dead tree tumble across the flames and a lone cat on the other side.
Jayfeather let out a sigh of relief and led the group towards the tree, despite his blindness, and lashed his grey tabby tail a bit as he glanced over his shoulder, scorch marks dancing across his body like stripes. "Hurry up, I'd rather not get roasted!" he grumped, but even his voice was not as loud as it had once been and was strained with the soot that coated the inside of his throat.
The three siblings bounded across the trunk while Squirrelflight trailed behind them, her paw aching and throbbing dully from the burns that had tainted her once-white paw. "Ashfur?" she heard the shadow-pelted she-cat croak and Squirrelflight froze for a moment before blinking blearily through the smoke and sure enough, it was the familiar grey-furred tom from their Clan. "Please, move out of the way!"
"No! Squirrelflight ... you had betrayed me! How could you fail to see the blood? I - I had loved you! And now... you will know what pain will really feel like." He did not move from the trunk and moved to knock a burning branch across their only way out. "You will die with your sons and daughter."
"Ashfur, don't do this," Lionblaze growled, narrowing his amber eyes and lashing his tail as he trudged forward, his once brilliant golden fur was sprayed with soot but looked unharmed, despite his one eye being closed and bleed freely pouring from a massive burn from his ear. "Just let us go and you can talk it over with her."
Jayfeather remained silent, aside from the stray hisses of protest before he whipped around and shoved Squirrelflight forward, nearly chucking her straight into the flames. She staggered then caught her balance, blinking against the heat and coughing. "I - ... They're not Brambleclaw's kits!" She screeched out, before coughing violently and pushing aside her son and daughter who stood on opposite sides of Jayfeather. "They're your's."
Ashfur blinked at her owlishly for a moment, letting go of the branch that he was having troubles removing. "You're ... you're lying," he meowed, backing away a bit, his eyes wide and crazed as he gulped on the clean air on the other side. "You're only trying to save your skin!"
Squirrelflight could feel the stares at the back of her head, but at the moment, she did not care. "Think about it - where would Jayfeather get his grey fur? And Hollyleaf's black fur?" She heard Hollyleaf's cry of disbelief and Lionblaze's meows of protest, and Jayfeather's yowl of 'shut up and talk about this later when we're not burning' as flames leaped across the back of the trunk of where they had come from. "They're your kits, Ashfur; are you so eager to see them die?"
Ashfur stumbled away, staring in disbelief and very briefly, hope, before he lunged away, all too eager to get away now; Squirrelflight did not stop him but instead lead her sons and daughter across the trunk, ignoring their commentary. Her heart ached as she watched the grey dappled warrior race off into the forest where the fire was denser, and she did not complain when he took her heart with him. Now, all that they had to worry about was escaping the remains of the fire, and then with her kin's questions.
