Author Note: Hey there, lovely people! I've been busy with lots of personal projects (including another fic I've been working on for months and months), so you'll be seeing a little less of me from now on. But this story WILL be finished by the end of the year, I promise you that!

Chapter 25: Stoneheart's Soliloquy

Thrushclaw gasped and lowered Sparrowflight to the ground. "It's you, Stoneheart!" he mewed, grimacing at the sight of his former captor. "I knew you wouldn't wait too long. The faithful deputy at his post once more!"

The elderly tabby padded forward with Sparrowflight's scruff in his jaws, only to be forcefully halted by the grim deputy.

"This cat has done no wrong!" growled Thrushclaw. "He needs a medicine cat's care…"

"I warned you I would not give in!" snarled Stoneheart, fixing his icy gaze on the old convict. "I won't be swayed."

"Another hour yet, and then I'm yours!" pleaded Thrushclaw. "And all our debts are paid…"

Stoneheart only thrashed his tail. "The cat of 'mercy' comes again and talks of justice!"

Thrushclaw panicked. "Come, time is running short…look down, Stoneheart! He's lying in his grave! Give way, Stoneheart, there is a life to save!"

The stone-faced deputy took another look at the near-death young tom. "Take him, Thrushclaw…" he finally snapped. "…Before I change my mind. I'll be waiting, 24601!"

Thrushclaw dipped his head respectfully and dragged Sparrowflight through the fern tunnel to the medicine cat's den, all under Stoneheart's watchful eye.

. . .

The gray tabby deputy bolted through the woods in search of an answer.

"Who is this cat?" he yowled, as if expecting a reply from the starry cats in above him. "What sort of foxheart is he…to have me caught in a trap? And choose to let me go free?"

Stoneheart's claws dug into the ground with each angry sprint, tearing up dust and soil in his wake. "It was his chance at last to put a seal on my fate…wipe out the past and watch me clean up the slate! All it would take was a swipe if his claws. Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life!"

The deputy scrambled up a boulder, leaping off with all of the force he could muster. His pads beat the ground, thumping almost as fast as his heart. "Shamed if I live in the debt of a thief! Shamed if I yield at the end of the chase!"

Stoneheart heaved a weary sigh. "I am the deputy and the deputy is not mocked! I'll spit his pity right back in his face!"

The deputy skirted a large tree, nearly colliding with it in his dizzying madness. He had hounded that mangy rogue for seasons upon seasons of fruitless hunting, and every single time Thrushclaw had evaded his iron grip. "There is nothing in the world that we share…" hissed Stoneheart. "It is either Thurshclaw or Stoneheart!"

The deputy lifted his gaze to face StarClan. He had done all he could to please them…and yet they had let this nonsense happen. "How can I allow this cat to hold dominion over me…? This desperate rogue whom I have hunted… He gave me my life. He gave me freedom!"

Stoneheart lowered his head to stare down the task before him. "I should have perished under his claws…it was his right! It was my right to die as well…instead I live, but live in pain!"

The gray tabby deputy thought back to the events of the past days. That wretched Thrushclaw had dared to return to ThunderClan like he wasn't a dangerous rogue, hiding in plain sight where he knew Stoneheart couldn't kill him for fear of breaking the Warrior Code before the very eyes of his own Clanmates. That wretched Thrushclaw.

And then, that day, when Thrushclaw had the chance to kill Stoneheart instead of the other way around, the evil convict had forgiven him and set the deputy free to go! Just like that!

Stoneheart thought hard. There must be a catch to this.

"And my thoughts lie apart…" he breathed. "Can this cat be believed? Shall his wrongs be forgiven? Shall his crimes be…reprieved?"

Stoneheart took a few shaky, wary pawsteps forward. He felt as if his pads burned from the touch of the grass below him. "And must I now begin to...doubt? I've never doubted all these years…" The deputy shuddered and squeezed his long-dormant yellow eyes shut. "My heart is stone and still it trembles! The world I have known is lost in shadow."

Stoneheart shook his head in a frenzy. "Will his spirit walk StarClan or the Dark Forest? And does he know that granting me my life today…"

His eyes quivered. "…this…this cat has killed me even so."

Stoneheart stared straight ahead as he plodded towards the Thunderpath, its horrid stench enclosing the frantic deputy.

The old tabby blinked as a massive monster shot past him. The stone-gray Thunderpath stretched before him, strangely welcoming and gruesomely inviting.

"I am reaching…but…I fall." Stoneheart looked above him. The sky was an unornamented black. For the first time, the many cats of StarClan hid their faces from him.

"And the stars are black…and cold. As I stare into the void…of a world that cannot hold."

Stoneheart thought. Did he…dare?

A pawstep forwards.

"I…escape now…from that world…" The deputy trudged closer. There was nothing left to do. "…from the world of Thrushclaw. There is nowhere I can turn…"

A smaller monster sped past the gray tabby as he clambered onto the edge of the wide black path.

With one last vengeful yowl, Stoneheart hurled himself towards the dead center of the Thunderpath. "There is no way…to go on!"

One last feverish breath.

One last stifled howl.

One last fading thought.

What is there to live for anymore?

Another monster roared down the Thunderpath, and Stoneheart was no more.

Author Note: *Sniffles* If you heard that, it was the sound of my heart shattering into a gazillion pieces. Just sayin'.