Epilogue's ready, people! I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I hope that you guys liked reading it. I'm already hard at work on the sequel- I'll probably call it "Sunset: My Version", btw. Anyway, POV. You'll see...
A lone cat walked the moors of WindClan. Dense fog filled the air around him, and his blackish gray pelt was merely a dark smudge against the horizon. Only his eyes, clear and blue, penetrated the gloom.
He had taken to patrolling by himself lately. He no longer felt comfortable with other cats, not even those of his Clan. He couldn't concentrate on meaningless conversation, and he didn't care about much of anything. His mind wandered so easily, and his heart, which had been shattered so long ago, had failed to repair. It thundered painfully now, but not in any familiar rhythm. No, his heart beat a name, the name of the one that he loved. But she didn't love him back- or she couldn't.
He regretted what he'd said, those moons ago at her camp. He knew it had been too sudden, to surprising. Besides, she stuck rigidly to the codes of honor she had sworn too, and she would never break them. Why did he expect her to, then? Especially when he had already loved another, and when he just been getting used to life grieving her?
But that was before the dreams had started. The dreams about another he had yet to love, the one that he could never identify, but somehow knew so well. The one that completed the half of him that had fallen apart when Feathertail had died.
She said she loved me, thought the gray-black cat. Sort of. She said she felt as I did. But she didn't say it, not exactly.
He wanted to stop thinking about it, but his mind would not obey him. He saw her, running from him at the Gathering. He saw her, springing away from him when he had told her about his dream, when it had registered inside her that they could never be together, and that it was her that was stopping it...
I love her. I would suffer at the paws of the cats of StarClan if it meant I could love her, if I could see her, speak to her freely.
A rustling in nearby undergrowth made him prick his ears and remind himself that he was on patrol. He bared his teeth, remembering the rouges, but then his fur lay flat. He recognized the movement of the cat in the gorse before him. It was strange that he did. He had only spoken to her a few times, only known her for a couple of moons, but already he knew her as well as he did himself.
"What do you want, Leafpool?" he meowed, sitting back as she pushed her way all the way out into the open. She padded towards him unsteadily, and he stayed back, not permitting himself to feel the soft touch of her fur. But she came close, as if to make sure that he was listening to her.
"I have something to tell you, Crowfeather," she meowed. Her voice was feathery and light, as if she was a part of the fog herself. For a moment Crowfeather thought she was, and he was dreaming. But no, this was real. It was real...
"What is it?" he meowed, curiosity and hope laced thickly in his mew.
"I love you, Crowfeather," Leafpool meowed, and there was no regret in her tone, no worry. There was only truth, truth and clear realization that Crowfeather felt so strongly in himself. "I love you, and I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to say it. So sorry."
Crowfeather stayed silent for a couple of heartbeats. Not for any particular reason. Perhaps only to keep her waiting for a moment, to let her see the pain and wonder that had dominated him for so long. Then he answered her. "I love you too, Leafpool."
He brushed past her, his head rubbing against her cheek, her shoulder, her flank. Then he looked at her, into her amber eyes. Leafpool looked back.
Crowfeather's eyes were brimming over, but they held no answers to Leafpool's questions. They didn't tell her how they would manage to lie to their Clans, how they would face the wrath of StarClan as they broke the codes of the medicine cats and warriors. He didn't know what lay ahead, nor how to face it.
And still his eyes were full, like round circles of the morning sky. Leafpool stared into them, and she decided then, on the foggy, dreary moor, that the warmth and the love that she saw there was all that she would ever need.
It's over...sob. Well, I'll get to work on the sequel!